Canadian Standard of Living :: social issues

Canadian Standard of Living Since the day Canada was created the standards of living have been constantly changing. There have been ups and downs in Canadian Standard of Living, but in my opinion, the system we have today is nearly perfect. Although I believe that no one will ever create a perfect system, mainly because of the differences in opinions. Not a single country in the world has the standard of living that in my opinions is ideal. We can look at other countries such as: Russia, Holland, or China. Although these countries have better standards of living then Canadians in some areas like: education, clothing, health system, etc. Each of them has disadvantages like: Russia has poor economy, Holland has high taxes, and China is overpopulated. I believe that current Canadian Standard of living creates a line higher then medium in the World Standard of Living. To create an ideal, and maybe perfect, Canadian Standard of Living, I wish to compose an outline that I believe will take Canadian Standard of Living to the next level. The Standard of Living basically consists of six basic areas: Education, health, housing, food and nutrition, clothing, and rights. I would like to discuss all of these issues separately because that all of them are very ingredients of the creation of the great Canadian Standard of Living. First on my list is education. This factor, in my opinion, is one of the most important ones. I believe that the access to education should be unlimited. I think that you should be able to study as long as you want, and the issues such as money, equipment and facilities shouldn’t stand in your way, but that raises other issues. If we have all geniuses, that will ruin the balance of the whole system. So I think that the best way is to limit and set High school diploma as a standard. Today’s Canadian Health System is not prefect. I believe that Health care is an issue that should be taken care of as soon as possible, because today’s constant budget cuts won’t do any good to anyone. I believe that we all should pay the same fee that will cover any time of injury or operation. It’s don’t think that it all should be about the money; after all we are saving people’s lives. I mean if you have a liver cancer and you simply don’t have money to pay for the surgery, I don’t think that money should that as an issue between life and death.

Internet Music Sharing and the RIAA Essay -- Internet Online Communica

Internet Music Sharing and the RIAA In today’s high-tech computer savvy world, one of the largest controversies brewing on the internet is the downloading and sharing of music using various peer-to-peer programs such as Kazaa, Limewire, Audio Galaxy, and many others. These programs use software that, â€Å"rather than going through a server to request information, can make requests directly to other software. This attribute is what allows users of P2P networks to freely exchange music, movies and other types of files (Friedenberg).† To the everyday user, downloading all of their music from the internet is great. Who wouldn’t want to be able to get the newest Radiohead CD months before it comes out in stores and for free? However, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) doesn’t find sharing music over the internet to be quite as appealing; in fact, according to the RIAA’s official website, they have begun launching their first of what could potentially be thousand’s of civil lawsuits against users of these peer-to-peer programs. (Recording Industry Begins Suing P2P File Sharers Who Illegally Offer Copyrighted Music Online). On Monday, September 10th, the RIAA sued 261 people, one of whom was a 12-year-old girl, Brianna LaHara of New York. This lawsuit was settled for $2,000 on Tuesday, by her mother (Music Piracy Suits Could Bring Backlash ) and was actually paid by P2P United, which is a group who represents major file-sharing websites on the internet (Mello). Mo st likely to appear to the people that are on the edge between the goods and evils of file sharing as the good guy, for helping out a 12-year-old who many believe shouldn’t have been prosicuted. Many people were upset by this particu... ... September 2003. . Mello, John P. â€Å"RIAA Settles First Lawsuit Against 12-Year-Old Brianna LaHara.† Tech News World. 11 September 2003. Tech News World. 23 September 2003. . â€Å"Music Piracy Suits Could Bring Backlash.† CNN.com. 10 September 2003. CNN. 21 September 2003. < http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/09/10/backlash.music.ap/index.html>. Recording Industry Association of America – About Us. Recording Industry Association of America. 21 September 2003. . â€Å"Recording Industry Begins Suing P2P File Sharers Who Illegally Offer Copyrighted Music Online.† 8 September 2003. Recording Industry Association of America. 21 September 2003 .

What Is the Distinction Between Equal Opportunities and Managing Diversity? How Is It Possible to Justify Either in an Organisation?

What is the distinction between equal opportunities and managing diversity? How is it possible to justify either in an organisation? What are the distinctions between equal opportunities and managing diversity? Equal opportunity ensures that all personnel decisions that relate to recruitment, pay and promotion are only based on an individual’s capability to do their job well. Equal Opportunities: The term used to describe ‘policies and practices that tackle inequalities, aiming to ensure that all staff are treated fairly, and that service users do not experience discrimination’Equal opportunity is concerned with keeping within the law; all organisations are required by law not to discriminate an individual by reasons of their colour, marital status, disability, gender, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins. At the very least organisations should abide by the; Equal Pay Act 1970, Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Race Relations Act 1976 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Diversity however is a more wide-ranging approach to equal opportunity. Diversity focuses on valuing the varying of qualities that employees bring to their job and organisation. Managing diversity therefore is when a manager creates an environment where the employees feel valued for their individual talents and where the employee’s skills and competencies are fully utilised. Taking advantage of all employees’ full potential will benefit the organisation in many ways; such as it will encourage employees to work to the best of their ability and a wide range of experience, creativity and ideas will be brought to the organisation. Managing diversity can be defined as ‘a planned, systematic and comprehensive managerial process for creating an organisational environment in which all employees can contribute to the strategic and competitive advantage of the organisation, and where no one is excluded on the basis of factors unrelated to production. ’ Equal opportunities within the workforce have many advantages; everyone is treated fairly and without prejudice, removing barriers which impact more harshly on individuals of reasons such as gender, disability, and race, focusing on an individuals abilities rather then who they are. Furthermore the concept of equal opportunities also has its disadvantages; positions such as nurses are mostly seen as a ‘women’s job’ therefore a patient might not be comfortable with having a male nurse and a job that requires heavy lifting is seen as a male position therefore a male is more likely to be recruited. If two candidates both have the qualifications needed for the job description, managers may feel that they should recruit the candidate who fits the equal opportunity policies rather then the candidate who they feel is more suitable to cope better with the dedication that the job requires. Diversity within the workforce has many advantages. These advantages include; a greater access to a wider range of individual strengths, experiences and perspectives, a greater understanding of the diverse groups of potential and existing customers represented within the workforce, better communication with these diverse groups of potential and existing customers and an improved legitimacy and organisational image across a wider audience. Diversity within the workforce also has disadvantages as well as advantages. Some of the disadvantages include; an increase in conflict among the workforce as differences in opinion makes it more difficult to agree on solutions, poorer internal communication because levels of knowledge and comprehension differ between employees, an increase in the management costs that arise from dealing with potential conflict and communication problems. Valuing diversity means that organisations recognise that all individuals have complex identities made up of many strands. These can include, but are not limited to, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation physical and mental aptitudes, nationality, socio-economic status, and religious, political or other beliefs. This means we embrace and celebrate our differences in a positive environment, and are committed to engage with the needs of our diverse staff and users to enable us, both individually and corporately, to achieve our aims. From 1971 to 2001 the rate of female participation in the workplace had increased from 56. % to 72%. This increase is due to equal opportunities; all organisations are required by law not to discriminate an individual by their gender, both men and women are equal. The Sex Discrimination Act meant that both men and women are to be treated equally in the recruitment and selection process therefore resulting to an increase of female participation in the workplace which then resulted to a decrease in male participation rate, now at 84% (Equal Opportunities Review). However equal opportunity is not yet completely equal; for instance pay differentials between men and women have only narrowed down a little since initial improvement after implementation of Equal Pay Act 1970, women still earn 18% less. Racial and ethnic groups’ rate of unemployment is still more compared to white population. Also disabled peoples’ rate of employment is 53% compared to 84% for non disabled. Age discrimination often occurs; both being too young and being too old is discriminated against. Coded language in a job description is used to identify the age range in which they managers are looking for. Managers tend to see young applicants as less worthy and less capable of fulfilling the job position. Managers also see old applicants as unreliable and they are not regarded as long term workers so they are less likely to hire an older applicant. Not all discrimination however is direct discrimination. Indirect discrimination can occur; this is when a requirement is applied equally but it affects one group more negatively then the others. Managers are faced with a number of problems when it comes to equal opportunities and diversity. Firstly they are faced with the problem of how to ensure fairness; it is not always possible to comply with the rules, for instance where a job requires heavy lifting it is more practical to seek a male worker as they are known to be the psychically stronger sex however this is not always the case. Another question managers need to face is should they ignore the differences and treat people equally or acknowledge differences and treat people differently? Everyone is an individual and therefore their differences should be taken into account when a manager makes a decision; for instance an employer has to make reasonable adjustments in respect of a disabled employee. Equality and diversity is vital for both the employees and the success of the organisation. Managers have a moral obligation to treat all individual with the same fairness and equality. It is important for managers to make their decisions without prejudice and stereotype. However it could be argued that a manager’s aim is increase profit not morality. Equality and diversity is also important to the success of a business. Equality and diversity would lead to a positive company image; therefore attracting customers and creating customer loyalty. However it is difficult to find a meaningful measure of equality and diversity. How is it possible to justify equal opportunities and managing diversity in an organisation? Tesco is an example of an organisation that tries to provide diversity for all individuals, no matter their differences. For example Tesco has devoted itself to providing more employment opportunities to disabled people by signing agreements with disability employment providers Remploy and the Shaw Trust. This has lead to 400 disabled people getting recruited. â€Å"The local community is very important to Tesco and these vital agreements ensure we help local disabled people to find employment† announced Claire Peters, head of resources. Another example is that Tesco tries to extend its workforce’s working knowledge of religions operating in the UK. Tesco issues employees with religious toolkits to improve their knowledge and understanding of all religions and their corresponding festivals, daily routines and eating habits. Tesco also provide mangers with a support pack at Ramadan which help them understand how to support staff and customers better during this time of fasting for Muslims. ‘Everyone is welcome’ is the name given to Tesco’s diversity work and it is driven by the value ‘look after our staff so they can look after our customers. Everyone is welcome trains managers so that they will feel more confident in encouraging talent from more under represented groups. Tesco takes part in national benchmarking surveys, giving them an independent assessment of how they perform under each area of diversity. This year they were awarded Gold standard in the Opportunity Now benchmarking survey and they were also recognised as an Age Positive Employer Champion by the Department of Work and Pensions. They ha ve recently completed the Employer's Forum on Disability Survey and the Stonewall Diversity Champions Index. In addition another organisation that aims to provide diversity within the workforce is Toys R Us. Toys â€Å"R† Us is a major retailer of toys and children's merchandise and has stores spread across the world. To ensure the employees are comfortable with discussing differences, Toys R Us chose to begin their workforce diversity with one day of LIFO training. LIFO training has gone beyond the successful, turnover-reducing diversity program to take an important part in the management development curriculum and in training line managers to facilitate performance improvement with store personnel. The workforce diversity program aims to encourage employees to discuss their differences and to ensure they feel comfortable and to provide a great source of insight. It is aimed to enable their participants to open up and share with each other their own styles and how their styles had helped or hindered them in the business setting. Including LIFO training in the diversity workforce program has enabled Toys R Us to achieve a number of key program goals and it has helped participants identify behaviours they want to change and what will motivate them to change. In conclusion the distinction between equal opportunities and managing diversity is; equal opportunities are policies that tackle inequality such as race and gender whereas managing diversity focuses on the varying of qualities whereby managers create an environment where the employees feel valued for their individual talents. The equity and diversity policies are designed to develop equal opportunities policies, provide training, review recruitment, selection, promotion and training procedures, consider the organisations image, set an action plan and draw up a clear and reasonable job criteria. References: Managing diversity (Online) Available at: http://www. ncvo-vol. org. uk/askncvo/index. asp? id=178 Accessed on 23/4/08 Tesco diversity (Online) Available at: http://www. tescocorporate. com/page. aspx? pointerid=7CA5D7226B6E40808B3FFC797B2443D7 Accessed on: 24/4/08 Diversity and equal opportunities (Online) Available at: http://www. nationalarchives. gov. uk/jobs/equalopportunities. htm Accessed on: 25/4/08 Toys R Us (Online) Available at: http://www. bcon-lifo. com/doc_library/ToysRUs_turnover. htm Accessed on: 25/4/08

Case Study: Swatch and the Global Watch Industry Essay

Introduction The Swatch Group had many early on successes due to repositioning strategies and a boost from acquisitions. On the surface, the Swatch Group was the world’s leading manufacturer of watches in the late 1990’s. They had 14 percent of the world market share and it appeared that gross sales and net profits were on the rise; however, under the covers, it was a much different story. Swatch was facing a myriad of issues that needed to be resolved in order for success to prevail. Management issues were plaguing Swatch; multiple key figures stepped down from the board in the mid 1990’s citing the CEO’s inability to listen to his staff. In addition to the management issues, Swatch was also facing fierce competition in many market spaces, including the largest consumer base space, the United States. In addition to lack of market penetration in the United States, Swatch had too many products, which equally distracted buyers and sellers. Lastly, manufacturing costs continued to soar in Switzerland, the Swatch Group’s home base. Other competitors were quickly cutting their costs by moving manufacturing overseas. The Swatch Group was at a crossroad; the strategy that had worked so well in the early 1990’s was no longer viable – the question now was what to do about it? Management Issues and Potential Resolutions Although Swatch faced many issues, internal dissension can be the quickest death of a company. Hayek needs to ensure the people chosen to replace the board member’s who stepped down are able to handle his leadership style. Equally as important as selecting a high-performing executive team, Hayek need’s to realize that traditional organizational principles of functional hierarchies will inevitably lead to rifts in management. This is a social issue that Hayek needs to address. If ex-board members continue to bad mouth Swatch it could have an impact on sales. To address this issue, Hayek needs to improve his leadership style and management model to actively involve his staff. As an employee, even an executive employee, being flat out told what you have to do all the time is often the ingredient for an unhealthy work environment, especially when trying to implement change. However, when  employees are involved in making a decision it is often easier to put into action th e decision that was made. There is sometimes a higher acceptance of the decision when it comes from the ground up and there is a higher probability that the decision will be executed efficiently. The outcome of such a change will inevitably be positive. When Hayek has more then one person getting together trying to solve a problem, he will have an increased chance at a better solution then if he were trying to solve it himself. The employees bring a lot to the meeting room with them. For instance, they may have â€Å"inside information† about why production is faltering. By creating a high-performing executive team that works as a cohesive unit versus â€Å"he has to be the big boss alone, and can never share opinions† unit, the Swatch Group should begin to see an improvement in the softer issues, such as employee satisfaction, higher executive employee retention, and a more open communication model. Competitive and Product Mix Issues and Potential Resolutions The Swatch group as a whole had an unparalleled ability to provide consumers with a wide range of products in all market segments. They could provide hi-tech watches that functioned as ski passes, fashion watches such as the Swatch, or an exquisite diamond studded precious metal watch – Swatch provided products at all extremes. However, certain product lines were more successful then others. The Swatch watch in particular was struggling to gain market share in the United States and elsewhere for several reasons including fickle consumer behavior and a product line that was daunting to consumers and resellers. The Swatch product was quickly loosing its competitive edge against other players such as Fossil, Guess, Timex and Seiko. Resellers were dropping like flies and consumers felt like Swatch had saturated the market with too many products. Worse of all, consumer perception was that Swatch was a fad. Swift decisions need to be made to reverse this before the brand becomes part of a MTV or VH1 â€Å"I love the 90’s† television show. Luckily, most of the decisions to be made regarding product mix have very little impact socially and ethically. Omega (part of the Swatch Group portfolio of brands), was facing a similar demise in the early 1990’s and successfully repositioned itself and became a major profit driver for the group. It achieved this by carefully selecting its marketing programs and drastically trimming its product line from 2,500 to 130. This strategy needs to be applied to Swatch, which focuses on the basic and middle-priced market. This is supported by the fact that the number of resellers dropped from 3,000 in the early 1990’s to 1,200 in 1998. Swatch needs to apply a SWOT analysis and determine which product lines are successful in this market space and drop the remaining products. In addition, the Swatch Group needs to look at their consumer base and determine if it would be profitable to launch a new product line that captures past consumers who have now progressed to the next stage of their lives and are desiring a more expensive and sophisticated watch. A marketing campaign needs to be chosen that helps attract new consumers in the basic and middle price market focusing on the smaller number of brands and a separate campaign should be created that focuses on keeping their existing customer base. These campaigns should be replicated to other countries to ensure the Swatch brand remains visible. Neither of these resolutions will be easy to implement; however, if done successfully Swatch will decrease their production costs because there are fewer product lines and increase their sales based on marketing campaigns to two separate groups: new customers and existing customers. Manufacturing Issues and Potential Resolutions Driven by high demand, offshore manufacturing centers are appearing throughout the world. Many of the Swatch Group’s competitors have switched their manufacturing to centers overseas and decreased their fixed costs, which resulted in an increase in profit. The Swatch Group had always remained committed to its home base, partly because their home base possessed centuries of expertise in watch making and partly because a timepiece cannot be stamped with â€Å"Swiss Made† unless at least 50% of Swiss manufactured products by value are present in the  timepiece. Although the mix of factors raising the possibility of outsourcing varies from company to company, there are a few themes that the Swatch Group needs to explore regarding the pressures to outsource. The Swatch Group needs to recognize that general concerns regarding cost and quality are the main drivers for outsourcing. In addition, outsourcing can turn a fixed cost into a variable cost, which will significantly help a company with varying volumes. Although most businesses can benefit hugely through outsourcing or manufacturing in another country, the Swatch Group needs to determine if it will be successful and profitable for them. Outsourcing a portion of their value chain is not a quick-fix response to production costs or performance lags. Additionally, the choices for outsourcing locations are many, they are not all equal, differing in several critical areas. Selecting the right option requires balancing factors such as cultural affinity, geopolitical risk, cost, and resource availability. To help narrow their focus in their analysis, initially, the Swatch Group should look to India for their outsource location. India has a large talent pool of skilled, experienced watch workers. These workers have hands-on experience supporting Titan industries. Titan is continuing to grow as a company and the pace of resource expansion is dramatically improving in keeping up with current as well as future technologies. Additionally, the Swatch Group should center their outsourcing attention to the assembly portion of the value added chain. This will ensure that 50% of the manufactured parts are still completed in Switzerland. The design, marketing, and most of manufacturing of the watches still remain where the expertise is located. The assembly of a watch is an extremely repeatable and easily controllable task, which will increase the success for outsourcing. Outsourcing assembly to India will have many positive effects for the Swatch Group. Cost reduction remains the primary objective of outsourcing; the Swatch Group will have the ability to provide a good at a lower cost and should be able to make the assembly cost more predictable and controlled. Ethically and socially, outsourcing has a caused many individuals and  increase in job insecurity. Lower labor standards in other countries are forcing many companies to outsource much of their manufacturing. This is especially unsettling for individuals who lack the skills to make themselves difficult to replace, such as in manufacturing. If the Swatch Group decides to outsource assembly, there will be no easy way to redeploy the assembly workers. They can setup a redeployment pool for those resources and try to redeploy them elsewhere in the company. However, if this is not possible, a business decision will have to be made to lay those workers off. The utmost sensitivity will be required as it is possible that generations of families have worked for the Swatch Group. The Swatch Group will need to carefully balance the outsourcing cost reduction possibilities with the social ramifications that may exist. Conclusion There are many issues facing the Swatch Group and there is no right way to solve any of the issues. Each issue comes laden with ethical and social consequences that will also impact the company. The Swatch Group will need to take steps to ensure that international integration does not cause domestic social disintegration. Regardless of how the issues are resolve, the greatest challenge is going to be finding the right balance between markets and societies. References Swatch and the Global Watch Industry

The Time Is Ticking Away: an Analysis of “the Tell-Tale Heart”

The Time is Ticking Away: An Analysis of â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† People in society today are no different from those of previous generations in that they have always possessed basic principles of fear, paranoia, and anxiety that have carried on, and are clearly evident throughout history. In the 18th century, Edgar Allen Poe, a major author of the time based one of his more famous works on those basic principles of fear, paranoia, and anxiety. â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† takes a normal human being that anyone can relate to, and shows just how dark and corrupt the human mind can act under certain everyday circumstances.Poe reveals the process the human mind goes through when put under stress and the fear of being discovered, the reader is able to relate and put them self in the same position, Culminating with the narrator breaking down, afflicted by the basic principles, showing the reader just what the human mind is capable of doing. Poe starts his story with the narr ator talking to himself, justifying that he’s not insane, and that the story he’s about to tell you is completely rational. Much like you and I, the narrator lives a normal life with all the issues of stress and annoyances present.One annoyance the narrator has to deal with is the eye of the old man he lives with; the eye bothers him so much and slowly eats away at him, until eventually it causes him to take action. The narrator finally can’t take it anymore and stands outside the old mans room door waiting for several days for the perfect time to strike in order to rid his mind of the odious eye. Poe paints an image in our heads as we read this example in the text that the narrator is very meticulous. In order to show this throughout the story, Poe uses several literary devices.Often within the story, Poe uses a grouping of small sentences that create a rhythm like that of a heartbeat. â€Å"Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. H e had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this. † In Charles E. Mays article, â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart: Overview,† he explains, To understand the ingenious way Poe develops this story about a split in the self, one must examine the nature of the narrator's obsession.He insists that he loves the old man, has no personal animosity toward him, does not want his money, and has not been injured by him. Instead, he says he wishes to kill the old man because of his eye. By showing that the narrator is so precise and over thinks just about everything, Poe unravels how the narrator is insane, but thinks of himself as a rational human being. Poe constantly alludes to a major ideal of the story, which is time. As the narrator becomes close to finally killing the old man and being discovered, time is constantly emphasized and very evident.At first, the narrator is cool, calm, and collective, but slowly a fter he has done the deed paranoia kicks in and a sense of false security and the fear of being revealed. Although there is no way to understand this kind of motivation except to declare the narrator mad, the reader must try to determine the method and meaning of the madness. For Poe, there is no such thing as meaningless madness in fiction. As the tension and anxiety pick up in the story, Poe asks us to put ourselves in that situation and feel the pressure and paranoia the narrator is going through due to his actions.The narrator struggles so much with what he has done and if he is going to be discovered, he hides the body of the old man so meticulously that no one should be able to find it and ever know what has taken place. As the narrators paranoia sets in that is one of the basic principle’s evident in every human being the narrator starts to question himself and whether or not he did a good enough job at hiding the body that he eventually breaks down. â€Å"They heard! — they suspected! — they KNEW! — they were making a mockery of my horror! — this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony!Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! — and now — again — hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER! — â€Å"Villains! † I shrieked, â€Å"dissemble no more! I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart† (Poe). Within each of us are the basic principles of fear, paranoia, and anxiety, Poe wanted to show us that by giving a prime example of someone just like you or I that you can relate to and witness the effects one goes through under each principle.Poe might have gained this dark outlook due to all the neglect he had from his family, and all the substance abuse he went through to try and cope with all his pr oblems and step away from reality. He wanted to show exactly what people are capable of and what they do under the affects of fear, anxiety, and paranoia in order to prove that being insane is really a matter of opinion based on personal experiences and events rather than a textbox example. Poe faced his own fear about madness daily throughout his life.At a very young age he was orphaned, and his foster parents rarely saw him. He was scared of change and rarely did anything that wasn’t second nature to him. Constantly plagued by stressful events in his life such as closely related deaths, Poe lived a very miserable depressing life that eventually attributed to his demise. In almost every piece he produced there is a character that can be related to him and the difficulties he has to go through. Even after Poe’s death his form of writing lives on along with his ideals, which we encounter and relate to on a daily basis.

Ihrm, Describe the Main Challenges of International Staffing

IHRM Describe the mains challenges of international staffing. These years, international staffing has become a common setting for MNEs. Over the last decade, globalization and internationalization of marketplaces had brought companies to expatriate their resources on target countries and sectors. It naturally means that they will face lot of new challenges to succeed in their process. Expanding business operations beyond national boundaries while trying to stay effective on the domestic market requires complex and balanced strategies. The most critical determinants stay to keep an effective international esource management. So we will try to summarize the different challenges of international staffing. In a first part I will focus on the different international staffing issues to understand well the challenge dimension. In a second part I will highlight the different challenges raised by the central notion of expatriation. International staffing is the way that companies manage inter national resources, facing different limits like geographic distance or day- ­? to- ­? day relations with headquarters for example. The first challenge could be express through the possibilities for MNEs to choose a certain source f employees. First, the company can send employees and manager from its home country, more known as Parent Country Nationals (PCNs) or expatriates. Second, they can recruit directly Host Country National (HCNs) native from there. Third choice, they can hire Third Country National (TCNs) who is native from another country than the host or the home country. Companies use also different stages of internationalization and staffing strategies. We can observe that companies generally recruit the three types of employees and make them work together. We commonly call that a cross cultural management, illustrated y the idea to take good skills of each culture to bring them to global mind set with added value, in a aim to create efficiency. The success of cross cultural management seems to be a big challenge in international staffing in the way that it comes from the real difficulty to recruit top talents able to be efficient abroad, added to multiple legal issues. It seems also important to describe the four principal international staffing issues that seem to be a numerous challenge in the sense that it will condition your whole international management strategy. The MNEs can choose to use an ethnocentric staffing olicy that refers to the strategy of employ key positions managers from the parent headquarters instead of employing local staff. They will be use to transfer corporate culture to the foreign entity and insure an effective communication with headquarters. Limits are the adaptation of expatriates and relations with HCNs. Second option is the polycentric policy that describes an approach of recruiting HCNs to manage subsidiaries in their own country. So there are no language and cultural barriers and it’s far less expansiv e. But it results a less effective communication with headquarters and then difficulties o coordinate activities. In the geocentric issue the best people are sought for key jobs throughout the organization, regardless of nationality. It enables a multinational firm to develop a pool of senior international managers but it is the most expansive option. To finish, in the regiocentric staffing policy, employees are transferred to positions in subsidiaries in other countries, but stay within the same region (Mayrhofer and Brewster â€Å"In Praise of Ethnocentricity†). It permit to install a regional competition to success but it can also lead to identification and put global objectives on a second cene. Today, most of the international companies choose to expatriate top managers in foreign subsidiaries to control them. But expatriation seems to be the biggest challenge that they have to deal with for the simple reason that it the first reason of failure. The principal value of ex patriation is the quality of communication between PCNs and headquarters. PCNs don’t have any problem of language barrier with home country and actually know the home country top management. They understand their ideas, strategies and goals and by consequences can implement them faster. They also play a rule of knowledge ransfer and actually maintain a knowledge base (laws, politics, cultures, languages†¦) about the complexities of international operations (Downes and Thomas: â€Å"Knowledge Transfer†). Close to this knowledge transfer they serve a mission of corporate culture transmission. So they will implement the company’s culture, its values, believes, mission and follow a certain management style. One big challenge of international staffing is also to overcome the lack of qualified host country nationals because knowledge in special areas is needed and not directly available in some host countries. Erten- ­? Buch and Mattl ave studied the issue in 1 999 and they highlighted the idea of emphasis of expatriation as a means to overcome the lack of qualified host country nationals lies in compensating a long- ­? term lack of a skilled workforce. Expatriation has to deal with lot of difficulties that turn it out in a big challenge for international staffing. It is a big point to insure the well understanding of local business environment. It is also a big challenge to anchor the company in the local country by developing contacts and adjustment to local places, a kind of local emphasis. International staffing needs to face big ultural shocks. Expatriate managers arrive in a complete unknown environment; it creates confusion, disorientation and a certain emotional upheaval. It is a big challenge to cross it fast and with success. Staffing abroad means also deal with costs issues. The most obvious problem for a company when sending an expat abroad to be considered is the extremely high costs involved. The challenge is to measure the interest between insure this cost or insure the less effectiveness you will get by reducing your cost and employ a HCN. Employing an expat in a developed country for a certain period of time can cost p to four times as much as recruiting local staff and eight times as much in developing regions such as Asia Pacific. Failure rates are also a big challenge and a very important issue. Manager’s inability to adept, family related matters, lack of motivation are examples of failures. The rate of those being recalled to the headquarters is between 20 and 50% (Brewster 1991’s report). The major challenge of multinational and often missed by International Human Resources Management is the repatriation (Harvey, 1989). The professional transition into the home office cause a lot of difficulties that are most f the time neglected. It seems to be an unmeasured stage of internationalization. In conclusion we could say that the biggest challenge is to choose an adapted strategy of internationalisation and find out the correspondent staffing issue. Expatriates seem to represent an extremely expansive but not always necessary investment. Telecommunications and travel have made the human resources function of matching up employers and employees much easier over the years. The hiring of top talents will it be enough to cover good headquarters relations and eliminate geographic distance challenges in the future? 2

Everyman-a Medieval Play Review Essay

Summary Everyman is a play which was written to express the importance of morality, to whoever read it or experienced it being performed on stage. Some scholars say that it was written sometime in the late 1400’s, while others insist that it is a translation of a Flemish work called â€Å"Elckerlijc†, which was written by Peter van Diest in 1495. Everyman is an allegory play which is heavily based upon Christian religious perspectives; also it is resoundingly similar to the Christian belief of the resurrection of Christ, and his ascension into Heaven, after the crucifixion. The first act of Everyman, opens with a prologue which takes on the form of a messenger, telling the audience about the fate which is to come to Everyman. The messenger goes on to tell the audience that eventually God will call upon all of humanity to stand before him, and give account of their works which they had wrought in life. The next part of the play is God calling upon Death, to go and bring Everyman to stand before him. God commands Death to go and bring Everyman before him, so that he may give account of his own misdeeds that he has wrought in life. So Death goes and finds Everyman, and tells him that his time has come. Everyman then attempts to bribe Death with a thousand pounds, but Death refuses. However, he states that he will allow Everyman to bring someone with him, so that he does not have to face his judgment alone. Everyman first goes to Fellowship, whom represents friends and companions; and asks him to accompany him to go and stand before the judgment God. Fellowship, whom had promised to stand besides Everyman through whatever may come; tells Everyman that he will not go with him to the grave, because he fears Death and the judgment of God. Everyman is heartbroken, but then goes on to the next in line. Everyman then goes to Kindred and Cousin, which are supposed to represent family and kin; but they too tell him that they will not accompany him on his way to the grave. Thirdly, Everyman turns to Goods, which represents material possessions; nonetheless she also states that she will not go with Everyman to his final judgment. Everyman is very concerned by this point, and so he turns to Good Deeds for companionship. Good Deeds states that she will go with Everyman to face his judgment with him; but unfortunately she lacks the strength for such a journey, because Everyman  has neglected her throughout his life. Good Deeds tells Everyman that he must then go before her sister, Knowledge; for she will know the way in which Good Deeds may regain strength. Upon meeting Knowledge, she tells Everyman that he must go before Confession; and there Everyman confesses his sins. Afterward, Confession gives Everyman a â€Å"jewel† called Penance; which cleanses Everyman of his sins, so that he may stand before God and not be in jeopardy of damnation. With his confession behind him, Good Deeds regains his strength, and is ready to accompany Everyman to the grave. Knowledge then tells Everyman to gather together his attributes of life: Beauty, Strength, Discretion, and Five Wits; so that they too may accompany him to his reckoning with God. But when Everyman gathers them together, they tell him that they will not go with him to the grave; essentially because they are all characteristics of youth, which are all now fleeting from him, as he has the end of life. With that, Knowledge, and Good Deeds accompany Everyman to his final reckoning with God. There enters the character Angel; Knowledge then attests to Angel that Everyman was a good and just person, and in the end, he confessed his sins before God. Then Everyman and Good Deeds go down into the grave, and thus make their way to stand before God in the final judgment of Everyman. Fundamentally, this play ends with the character, Doctor, stating that all accept Good Deeds and Knowledge will all flee from a person, when they go before God for their final judgment. *** Issues in Raised in Key Resources There are several key issues which were raised by the scholars that wrote the major resources which I used to write this report. This play has received a moderate amount of popularity over the past near 500 years; and now today there are some scholars and researchers whom are exceptionally critical, both positively and negatively, of the details as to how it was written. One criticism of note would have to be one which was voiced by Thomas F van Laan. In referring to the general premise of Everyman, he contends of the writer that â€Å"His speech is essentially negative; he focuses solely on the inevitability of death and the destructiveness of sin†. Simply put, Mr. van Laan is stating that at first, the sole purpose of this work appears to emphasize specifically on death and how mankind should feel only sorrow for anything that they do, which goes against the teachings of Christianity. Another criticism of this work which Mr. van Laan refers to is the point in the beginning when God first speaks. Mr. Van Laan states: â€Å"Gods words are wholly negative in force, implying only the difficulty to come, omitting any indication of hope for mankind†. Mr.  van Laan is voicing this criticism on the opening section of the play, fundamentally about how he considers Gods words to be too negative in their approach. In expressing this condemnation, Mr. van Laan is adamant about his beliefs that God would probably not be so disconcerting in his approach to dealing with mankind. However not all that Mr. van Laan has to say about Everyman is negative in nature. He goes on to shed light on the allegory nature of the play, and how this lends credence to its being a unique, legitimate work of theater. He contends that â€Å"The first movement, is a falling action, which traces Everyman’s’ decline in fortune. This shatters the apparent serenity of his life, to the depth of his despair†¦fallowed by the second movement, a rising action, which carries him from this nadir unto his final salvation†¦which is symbolized by the words of the welcoming Angel†. It is my belief, that essentially what Mr. van Laan is stating, is that by using actual characters to personify the specific aspects of human nature; the persona of the play becomes a two-fold endeavor. Firstly, by the characters being literal representations of human qualities; they achieve a form of realism, which is normally only conveyed through the use of spoken dialog. Secondly, the movement’s themselves-transpiring from a state of utter despair, to a state of harmonious bliss; is not only characteristic of all great works of drama, but also of life itself. Throughout Mr. van Laan’s review of Everyman, he states his opinion that by the author using characters to represent the individual aspects of human identity; the play conveys a form of realism, which is distinctly unique. Next brings us to the arguments made by the researcher Roger A. Ladd. His belief is that this play was not written for the everyday person, but was in fact written to be a work which would have been performed for the â€Å"bourgeoisie†. His reasoning stems from research which had been done by scholar Dorothy Wertz; the same scholar who also believes that Everyman was probably written strictly to be performed for the elite rich. In her research, Mrs. Wertz points to the fact that â€Å"by simply examining the vocabulary and phrases used in the original piece, one can determine whom the play had been written for†. In that, she states that â€Å"the wording itself would have been too formal for ordinary citizens of the time period to ascertain†. However, unlike Mrs. Wertz, who believes that Everyman is specifically nothing more than a direct translation of Elckerlijc; Mr. Ladd assumes that it is an amalgamation of Elckerlijc and other English literary customs of the era. Mr. Ladd’s purported theory was reached in part, by investigating the traits of the character â€Å"Goods†, and comparing them with the English anti-mercantile satire traditions which were popular in the late-medieval period. An example of which being, that in the Germanic-Dutch based Elckerlijc, Goods is described as appearing as â€Å"Neglected, rusty. . . heaped up, filthy†. However in Everyman as Mr. Ladd purports, Goods appears in a more English anti-mercantile manner as being â€Å"trussed and piled so high, and in chest I am locked so fast, also sacked in bags†. The Everyman description, falls in line with the late-medieval literary tradition of anti-mercantilism; which according to Mr. Ladd, comes as proof that Everyman could not have been strictly just an English translation of Elckerlijc. Another scholar whom is acquiescent in his research of Everyman is Lawrence V. Ryan. Mr. Ryan takes an approach, which seems to be more about discerning the religious implications of the play Everyman. The first point that Mr. Ryan makes is that †Without theology, the artistic merit may not be fully appreciated†¦that the theology involved is indispensable, not indefensible, and furthermore, that it gives the play its characters, structure, significance, and even its dramatic impressiveness†. One of the main points which all three scholars agree upon is that by being deserted by all those whom Everyman turns to for help; the audience develops a strong sense of pathos, for the plight of Everyman. Mr. Ryan suggests that the emergence of these false-friend characters â€Å"all appear in a climactic order, according to the increased danger of each as a distraction from one’s Maker†. Finally, Mr. Ryan gives his opinion about the reason why all the characters that abandon Everyman, as well as Everyman himself, are all men; and why the only characters that accompany him are women. In essence, the logic behind this as Mr. Ryan contends is that â€Å"All men are born into a state of sin†¦and that for dramatic suspense; the author chose to have the only redeeming characters be women†¦to show that women can counteract this dogma†. Personal Reaction to â€Å"Everyman† My personal opinion of this particular play is one of high appreciation. Unlike some of the reviews of scholars which I have read, which did not display too much positive reception for this work; I personally enjoyed reading it, and doing my report on this play. When I first tried to read the Old-English original version of this play, I found it incredibly hard to ascertain what exactly the meaning was behind what the author had written. Understandably it was difficult for me when trying to use the un-translated Everyman, as Old-English is a version of our language, which has been out-of-date for centuries. When I found the translated version of Everyman on the Fordham University website and began reading it, I almost instantly thought that it had been a work which had been written by either someone whom was a priest, or had been another member of the Christian church in some capacity. Another notion which I had was that if the play had not been written by someone who was a church member, then it obviously had to have been written by someone whom had some form of agenda for getting people involved with the Christian church in some form or another. Perhaps the author had a legitimate reason for wanting people to become more involved with the church or to become closer to god in some fashion. On the other hand, perhaps there was a more sinister motive; like getting more people into the flock of the church, in order to acquire more money flowing into their coffers. Personally, I think that it was a combination of both motives, and that whoever had wrote this play, also had a genuine interest in using a popular mode of expression. Or perhaps the author wanted to show that by turning away from the sins of the flesh; that a person could attain a state of consciousness, which could bring them closer to a higher form of enlightenment. No matter what the personal objectives were for its creation, one thing remains clear; this was that the author of this particular piece was incredibly ahead of his time. From what I have examined in doing research for this report project; in reading other plays that date from the late medieval age, I can honestly say with a certainty, that I have not read anything that dates from this period, which is as unique as this. The usage of human emotions and possessions being personified into literal characters is uniquely a modern notion; and from what I have found, does not appear to have been done in a theatrical piece until sometime around 18th or 19th century. This plot construction is something which I have seen in movies and television shows; which are much more recent, than something that dates from the late medieval period. One example that immediately comes to mind is Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol; although not entirely the same in primary foundation, the underlying principle is similar. Some of the scholars that I read about, that reviewed this work; were quick to dismiss it as being either frivolity, or simply nothing more than an act of religious propaganda. I have to disagree with both sides; I feel that this is a excellent illustration of late medieval/early modern era theatrical work, which will more than likely see its relevance come again. Summary of key scholarship on this play The first article which I used to review for this report on the play Everyman was a modern-English translation, of the late medieval original version of the play. This particular article didn’t offer any insight into it, as in scholar reviews; but it was extremely helpful in writing my summary of the play. Without this article, I am not sure if I would have been able to do this research project on this particular play, as I would not have been able to even ascertain what it was about. The next article which I used to write this report was written by Roger Ladd. Mr. Ladd took a definitively scholarly approach to conducting his research. Some of the main issues which he decided to confront were how the play Everyman deals with the religious implications of how material wealth corrupts the good intentions of mankind. Ladd went into detail, comparing the details of Everyman, to other plays of similar genera that date from the period. He explains about how most everyday citizens of the late medieval period, looked at the assemblage of material wealth, as the path to avarice, which puts their immortal souls in jeopardy. Like many other scholars whom have written journals about the â€Å"morality plays†, Ladd believes that in order to find out whom the plays written for, one has to look into the wording of the work; by doing this, he states that it becomes apparent who the target was. For example Everyman, when the main character is forced to give up his worldly possessions; it is written to appear as if this could have been the most dastardly thing which could have occurred in his life. Other key scholarship reviews of this play, comes from the scholarly works of Lawrence V. Ryan. Ryan takes an approach to his research, which is concerned with how organized religion is suspect in this play. One of his main thesis’ is about how in the play, Everyman attains salvation through his own works, and not by the salvation which comes from God. He talks about how many religious figures were quick to label Everyman as a work of unholy declarations; and that how many of these religious leaders informed members of their churches that they would be in danger of hell by going to watch a performance of Everyman. Ryan is perhaps the most non-forgiving of the three scholars that I chose to use. Mostly, he tries to make it known that he is of the opinion that Everyman was only an English translation of the Dutch work Elckerlijc. He does not make use of very much authentic information to make this claim, he simply relies on paraphrasing works which had been written by other scholars. Next, I used the research from the scholar Thomas F. vanLaan. VanLaan goes into detail describing the individual characters of Everyman. Noteworthy, is how he explains the nature of these characters, and how they relate to the human experience. Differing from the other scholars whom I referenced in this report, Mr.vanLaan gives a very logical accounting of why the author chose to incorporate inanimate human natures, as the title characters for this play. The choices for the human failings and material wealth, was carefully used to make the play appeal to nearly everyone whom would have watched its production. An example being, of how Everyman had acquired material goods in his life, which would have appealed to the rich; while on the other hand, Everyman losing his material possessions would have gained the approval of the poor which might have been in the audience. However, I never found one scholarly review, which did not offer at least one compliment about this great play. Endnotes *** Paul Halsall, Internet Medieval Sourcebook, â€Å"Medieval Handbook: Everyman, 15th Century†, Fordham University (August 1998) (Accessed on October 20th, 2010) http://www. fordham. edu/halsall/basis/everyman. html —The entire summary which I wrote was based upon the modern-English translation of Everyman, which was available online at the Fordham University site.