Human Resource Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 4

Human Resource Management - Essay Example As Schaufeli, Bakker and Salonova (2006) stated employee Engagement can be defined as a positive, fulfilling work related state of mind in an organization that is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption, which positively impacts employees. Apple Inc, headquartered in California, is known for producing best known hardware products like Mac line of computers, iPod music players and the iPhone smart phone. In the recent years, there is a remarkable growth in number of employees in Apple. â€Å"Apple's employee headcount grew to 80,300 full-time equivalents, up from 72,800 at the  end of fiscal 2012† (Silva 2013).Thus, this company becomes an apt model for discussing HRM challenges in Employee engagement. In this content, let us analyze the theories related to this HRM challenge, using Apple Inc, as an example. Employee, being the lifeline of an organization, must be assigned challenging assignments as per their interests and expectations, so that they devote their max imum potential to attain maximum production and also achieve customer satisfaction. To engage employee’s hearts and minds, there are ten C’s namely connect, career, clarity, convey, congratulate, control, contribute, collaborate, credibility, confidence. (Zinger). All these aspects has to fall in place for the employee to become engaged to his/her allocated tasks. Employee engagement is also driven by lot of factors such as communication, performance, rewards and recognition, relationship with managers and peers, knowledge of company’s goals, vision and career development opportunities. (Das and Vijayalakshmi 2012). Again, when all these aspects are positively managed by the organization and its managers, the employees will become engaged and will be ready to put maximum effort for the betterment of the company. The employee’s intrinsic interests are personal growth, being part of a larger process and their extrinsic interests are pays and rewards. Employ ees should be able to find a profound connection to the company, so that their interests correspond to the goals of the company. Employees are the first and foremost customers to the company and organization’s policies should be framed in such a way, that it satisfies their primary customers. Employee engagement is also the prime factor in employee retention. It is very essential because of the expensive employee replacement costs. â€Å"A study conducted by SHRM (society for human resources management) that estimated that it cost $3,500 to replace just one $8 per hour employee† (Burns 2011). Thus in order to eliminate unnecessary wastages of company’s capital, employee engagement plays a pivotal role. In our employee engagement study, the retail sector of Apple can be taken for deeper study. Employee engagement should commence from the moment of recruitment or employment. In that direction, Apple follows a unique method by employing Apple brand lovers. â€Å"A pple recruits people who love the Apple brand and provides them with a vision for their work that goes beyond selling products to enriching people’s lives†Ã‚  (Temkin 2011). In their induction program, employees keep on hearing the chanting of

Depend on the information that will given Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Depend on the information that will given - Essay Example A lot of different countries all over the world tried school uniform but later on were forced to abolish it due to the liberalization of the society. In the United States, the policy of mandatory school uniform started in the end of 1980s and it was aimed at decreasing gang formation and bullying (Han 1). Hence, according to Guerino et al., national reports indicate significant negative tendency in behavior of students that are prone to display violence and abuse (2). Currently, facing the question of imposing uniform on their children, many parents have rather polysemantic opinion about it despite the fact that they used to wear uniform themselves in early school years. Majority of parents do not prefer the idea of egalitarianism, some people do not like the design or comfort of the concrete uniform, and others on the contrary view the uniform as a solution to financial problem. Analyzing all advantages and disadvantages of uniform policy, it is fair to state that there are number o f reasons for approval of mandatory unified cloths in educational institutions. Firstly, uniform eliminates social conflicts because children are not encouraged to amaze each other with new trendy cloths and stand out of the crowd. There is no opportunity to judge classmates by their cloth and organize social groups according to the financial status of a child. Secondly, uniform creates conducive school environment and maintains discipline as it is supposed that looking formal helps students feel and behave more professionally. Thirdly, with the help of mandatory uniform policy, it is less complicated to ensure safety within a campus. When everyone is wearing the same attire, any intruder to the territory of a school can be easily identified. In addition to the decrease of social tension, egalitarianism diminishes economic barriers between learners, whose decision-making process regarding what they should wear in the morning is simplified considerably. Moreover, general uniform does not affect family budget in the same rate as diversified wardrobe of the child that is supposed to take place in case there is no mandatory uniform. It is quite obvious that one complete set of uniform costs much cheaper than several attires for a child to alternate with each other. Furthermore, no matter whether uniform is obligatory or not, school’s administration still must control outward appearance of the students and set limitations and basic rules of dress code for not letting children to cross the line of permissibility and decorum. However, in case all students are forced to wear unified cloths, the need to keep an eye on children’s look and provide further restrictions and punishments for not following the rules languishes. Also, a lot of experts consider that wearing uniform develops team building and strengthens school spirit. All these educe pride for educational institution and enhance fellowship between students, who get the same conditions, opportuniti es and treatment. Looking more as integrity than varicolored mass helps unite the collective and foster so-called corporate ethics. Analyzing aesthetics, it should be stressed that not all parents have a good taste therefore frequently children may look inelegantly and even preposterous meanwhile properly sewed uniform is able to liquidate some flaws in person’s appearance. Finally, the most important argument that convinces to stick to the uniform policy is

Poverty And Hunger Around The World

Poverty And Hunger Around The World Introduction In our world, there is enough food to feed the whole population. However, according to FAOs recent report, one out of every six or seven people is hungry and it is a possibility that one out of three children is underweight. Today a massive number of people are living under poverty and many are dying of hunger each day. According to a report, 40% of the worlds population is living under poverty (www.thp.org). The World Bank states in India, the worlds second most populated nation, has 34% living on less than $1 a day and 80% living on less than $2. The situation is the same in Sub- Saharan Africa. The same source indicated above claims that 41% of the population in Sub- Saharan Africa live on less than $1 a day which is considered as the international poverty line. What are the causes and effects of poverty and hunger and how are they spread out around the world? What does Poverty and Hunger Mean? Poverty and hunger are defined in different ways by different individuals. Poverty is defined as people living in household below 60 percent of median income ( Raffo et al 5). Encarta Dictionary also states poverty as the state of not having enough money to take care of basic needs such as food, clothing and housing. Encyclopedia Britannica defines poverty as the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. All the definitions assert that poverty is a state in which one cannot afford to achieve a basic living standard such as food and clothing. Poverty may be considered as the condition of being extremely poor. Poverty is classified into two categories according to World Bank. These are income poverty and human poverty. Income poverty is related with only financial income whereas human poverty includes lack of proper diet, clothing, shelter and work. So far, weve defined poverty but what is hunger? In many sources including Encyclopedia Britannica, hunger is viewed as a feeling we have when we need something to eat. Both poverty and hunger are spread all over the world but the degree varies from country to country. The less developed countries suffer from it strongly whereas the developed countries are affected to a much lesser degree. Poverty and Hunger Facts Do you know how many people are living in poverty and how many are diying of hunger each day worldwide? There are a number of people who are poor and hungry in the world. The United Nations bulletin on the Eradication of Poverty claims that 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 a day which is viewed as the absolute poverty level. It is very shocking to know that so many people are living under poverty. According to the bulletin, 24,000 people die of hunger each day, 16,000 of whom are children under five years of age. In addition to this, 800 million people, or one in every six people, are malnourished, 200 million of whom are children. As a result, the average life expectancy where hunger is serious, is low. There are 19 million hungry people in developed countries and 53 million people are hungry in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Sub- Saharan Africa, 239 million people are also hungry (www.stwr.org). World Hunger Project further states the issue as follows: As of 2008, the World Bank has estimated that there were an estimated 1,345 million poor people in developing countries who live on $1.25 a day or less. This compares to the later FAO estimate of 1.02 billion undernourished people. Extreme poverty remains an alarming problem in the worlds developing regions, despite some progress that reduced dollarnow $1.25 a day poverty from 1900 million people in 1981, a reduction of 29 percent over the period. Progress in poverty reduction has been concentrated in Asia, and especially, East Asia, with the major improvement occurring in China. Hunger around the world There are many factors that are assumed to be root causes for the existence of poverty in the world. Lack of resources, an unequal income distribution, conflict, drought, famine and climate change, for example, are some of the causes of poverty and hunger in many countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people in extreme poverty has increased. The economic systems of a nation may also be the principal cause of poverty and hunger. A number of international organizations which are working with poverty and hunger believe that the principal underlying cause of poverty and hunger is the ordinary operation of the economic and political systems in the world. In the developing countries especially in African, control over resources and income is based on military power. Therefore, everything is in the hand of people who are leading a comfortable life whereas the poor are the victim of the system. One of the causes of poverty and hunger according to FAO is conflict. FAO strongly believes that large number of people are poor and hungry due to conflict either inside their nation or outside. Moreover, UNHCR strenghens this fact in the following way: At the end of 2005, the global number of refugees was at its lowest level in almost a quarter of a century. Despite some large-scale repatriation movements, the last three years have witnessed a significant increase in refugee numbers, due primarily to the violence taking place in Iraq and Somalia. By the end of 2008, the total number of refugees under UNHCRs mandate exceeded 10 million. The number of conflict-induced internally displaced persons (IDPs) reached some 26 million worldwide at the end of the year . Providing exact figures on the number of stateless people is extremely difficult. But, important, visible though it is, and anguishing for those involved conflict is less important as poverty as a cause of hunger. Using the statistics above 1.02 billion people suffer from chronic hunger while 36 million people are displaced (UNHCR 2008). Hunger can be viewed as the cause of poverty in a such a way that it causes poor health, low levels of energy, and even mental impairment. Due to this fact, hunger can lead to even greater poverty by reducing peoples ability to work and learn. Therefore, we may conclude that hunger is one of the causes of poverty. Climate change is another serious cause of hunger and poverty as global warming is increasing rapidly. As the result of change in climate, drought in the world is increasing day by day. Flooding and farming practices are other key issues regarding poverty and hunger. As it is mentioned earlier, factors such as land rights and ownership, land for non-productive use (such as tobaco industries and floriculture) increasing of export of food when the countrys people dont have enough to eat, poor methods of farming, war, drought, and many more are causes of poverty and hunger . How does poverty affect hunger? Poverty and hunger are almost inseparable. Poverty is the main cause of hunger, when people do not have money they can not afford to buy food and support themselves. Hence,world hunger is a symptom of world poverty. Although hunger is caused by many factors, the most dominant reason is linked with poverty. Conclusion The world community has the material and all that is needed to prevent and fight hunger and poverty. Yet, people are hungry even when there is enough food because it is not equally distributed and due to political unrests. Providing aid food for the hungry is not an ever lasting solution to tackle poverty and hunger. We need to find a sustainable solution to eradicate hunger and poverty. We need to address the issues such as poor farming practices, deforestation, overcropping and overgrazing that are exhausting land fertility and cause hunger. Wars are another underlying issue to poverty and hunger that need to be addressed as millions of people get displaced every from their homes leading to hunger and poverty.We need to find better ways of fighting hunger and poverty by addressing the issue at a prevention stage.

Censorship Online :: essays research papers

Censorship Online There is a section of the American populace that is slowly slithering into the spotlight after nearly two decades in clandestine. Armed with their odd netspeak, mouses, glowing monitors, and immediate access to a world of information, both serious and amateur Hackers alike have at last come out of the computer lab and into mainstream pop culture. Since I despise pleading ignorant about anything, I chose to read Mr. McDonalds article because of its minutia concerning the future of the more amusing aspect of computing: the game. This article is relevant because whether we like it or not, the PC (personal computer) is only going to grow in popularity and use, and the best weapon against the abuse of this new gee-whiz technology is to be educated about it. It is simply amazing how far gaming has come in the past decade. We have gone from stick figures on a blank screen to interactive movies. The PC is the newest way to play because it has the capability to process and display much more complex games than anything by Nintendo or Sega. Some problems with this, however, are the enormous cost of s descent system and software and the technology that moves at lightning speed. The computer you buy tomorrow will not be able to handle any of the new software two years from now. Owners must not only keep up with the new trends but must also be well aware of what their own system can sustain so that they do not overload it and cause it to crash. This article focuses on interactive video, which is a relatively new field in the gaming industry. The games that have been on the market have not lived up to the bombardment of advertising gamers have been subjected to. The video itself is often choppy and blurry, it rarely enhances the plot of the game, and has yet to be truely interactive. This is because it is not part of a movies nature to mingle with the audience. New software consumers should be aware of this before shelling out $60-$80 for an over-hyped game.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This article offers the titles of the few good interactive games that have hit the shelves this year as well as a list of ones to avoid. It also describes several of the video cards (special flat chips that can be inserted into the back of your machine to help it process data) that you would have to

American Pie. Coercive Sexuality

Coercive Sexuality By Diep Chu FS 337 March 2013 Coercive Sexuality Coercive sexuality is an important factor in American Pie movie. In this movie, audiences can see different pictures of teenagers trying to experiences sexual intercourse for the first time in their lives (Zide, Perry, and Weitz, 1999). And the more aggressive they are, people can see coercive sexuality involved in different scenes. Coercive sexual behavior among students has been an area of concern to society.At the time when human sexuality topic becomes so popular in teenagers’ world, those students in the movies let people understand more about their points of views about sexuality. The question that I want to address in this paper is: Do we as a society treat some coercive sexuality as acceptable, or even desirable? In what way do the attitudes towards these mirrors the attitudes of our society in general? It would shocked some people how teens think about sex so openly and wrongfully, which against many basic human morality. Do we as a society treat some coercive sexuality as acceptable, or even desirable?We as a society don’t treat coercive sexuality as acceptable. We live in a society in which individuals form intimate relationships and shape their roles within authentic needs and desires rather than as a result of pressures to conform to any model. In this society, people are educated and empowered to make sexual decisions based on the safety, consent, and desire of all parties involved rather than based on an externally imposed morality. As youths in the movie do not have prepared much knowledge with technique in relationships, they had some sexual actions to force the girls have sex with them. Zide, Perry, and Weitz, 1999). In return, the girls reject it. When Oz asks the college girl: â€Å"Suck me, beautiful†, she was laughing and told him the he had to pay attention to pay attention to the girl and be sensitive to her feeling. Kevin’s first motivation i s to get laid with his girlfriend, Vicky. She refuses him few times until she feels totally ready. Jim did not aware that he broadcast Natalie’s sexual image to whole school. But on her side, she sure will not be happy to have him do that without her consent (Zide, Perry, and Weitz, 1999).In what way do the attitudes towards these mirrors the attitudes of our society in general? For many years society tried to control sexual behavior in youth by citing the traditional negative consequences of sexual experiences and community disapproval. Television, being the highly influential, has been both part of the solution and part of the problem in the area of sex and youth. At the beginning, Jim was watching porn and his parents notice it (Zide, Perry, and Weitz, 1999). This would happen to many families in our society today when kids are in puberty. Those entertainments affect teen’s sexual behavior heavily.They will copy those disapproval contents in it. At almost the end of the movie, those youth figured out they want to experience sex only because of peer pressure. They finally understand sex had no meaning without love or the girls’ willingness (Zide, Perry, and Weitz, 1999). Public education has had some major problems in this area and few schools have any real programs in sex education. Many parents do not want their children to learn about sex early. But the more they avoid it, the more kids want to learn about it. This movie indicates good pictures of how teens nowadays think about sex.The sexual values are much different in them nowadays. Male youths try to have the girls get laid with them just to show off with friends. Those aggressive attitudes sometime lead to unwanted sexual situations with their girlfriends. And society will determine it as coercive sexuality. These raise high concern to society today. In fact, schools should teach them more about human relationship and right technique in sexuality. References Zide, W. and Perry, C . (Producer), & Weitz, P. (Director). (1999). American Pie (Universal Picture). United States.

Prostitution: Sexual Intercourse and Strong Religion Conviction

Prostitution is the business or practice of going for sexual relations in a promiscuous way, it includes transaction in money or other valuable things. A woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money or a man who sells one’s abilities, talent or name for an worthy purpose are included in prostitute. People who work for prostitute is a kind of sex worker and it is one of the section in the sex industry. Different countries have different legal status in prostitution.It can be permissible and unregulated, it also can be enforce or unenforced crime to a regulated profession. Reflecting differing opinions on exploitation and victimhood, gender roles, gender equality, inequality, ethics and morality and freedom of choice. According to the Prostitution law and Prostitution by country, here is the statistics of legalization worldwide. We can see that prostitution in most of the countries is illegal. It can be considered a form of exploitation, such as in Norway and Sweden it is i llegal buying the sexual services, but not include to sell it.So in Norway and Sweden if people bought the sexual services it will be commit a crime, however the prostitute will not be commit as a crime. On another hand, in Germany and Netherlands it is a legitimate occupation, prostitution is regulated as a profession, everyone selling the sexual services on the street will not be commit as a crime. In some of the countries with strong religion conviction for example Muslim countries, prostitution is a crime, the prostitutes who serve sexual services will face severe penalties even death penalty.

Lucas teams with ILM essays

Lucas teams with ILM essays Many people know that the movie industry has been revolutionized since the use of computers has been added. Computers allow viewers to see images and places from the imaginations of the writers and directors that were never before possible to create. A recent and very popular film to utilize this new technology is Jurassic Park by director and producer Steven Spielberg. The special effects team for the movie had originally planned to use full size and quarter size models, or puppets, of dinosaurs to create the effect. After weeks of intensive efforts and unsatisfactory results the team needed a new approach to creating such difficult special effects. Their answer would come from the developers at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) corporation in California. The ILM team has been using computers to create images and video effects in television advertisements for over twenty years. Spielberg and his special effects team had shown ILM their progress so far with the models. ILM was interested in using computers to digitally scan the models into a 3D-computer environment. Spielbergs team was happy to hear that their efforts in the models wasnt a complete waste, and would be delighted to work with ILM in producing realistic images for their computers to scan. ILM and Spielbergs team collaborated on making sure the models and scanned images would produce a believable dinosaur, something no one else had ever attempted. Their results were breath taking and had Spielberg convinced that computers could produce a believable three-dimensional dinosaur that would captivate audiences. ILM began to scan the models into their computers and within minutes produced great results. Their computers would send laser beams over the body of the model from all angles receiving information about its shape in the same manner a police radar gun reads laser signals bounced back to it. The three- ...

Gr6 Essay- Human activity and endangered species B Essays

Gr6 Essay- Human activity and endangered species B Essays Gr6 Essay- Human activity and endangered species By Emilia Quinlan "An endangered species is a species of wild animal or plant that is in danger of extinction through out all or a significant portion of its range" (About Education) http://endangeredspecies.about.com/od/endangeredspecies101/a/What-Does-Endangered-Mean.htm In this Essay I will be choosing two endangered species. I will choose one endangered animal and one endangered plant. The endangered animal that I will be talking about is a Cross river gorilla (gorilla gorilla dielhi). The endangered plant that I will be talking about is a Rafflesia flower (Rafflesia arnoldii). Cross River Gorilla A cross river gorilla was very hard to study until the past decade or so. Because they were thought to be extinct by many scientists. "Cross river gorillas are scattered in at least 11 groups across the lowland montane forests and rainforests of Cameroon and Nigeria, an area of 3,000 square miles, or about twice the size of Rhode island." (WWF) Physical Description: "The Cross River gorilla is a subspecies of the western gorilla." It also comes from the other subspecies, Western lowland gorilla, it has a similar skull and tooth dimensions.(WWF) Food chain; Sun - flowers - cross river gorilla - leopard Another food chain; Sun - leaves - cross river gorilla - humans Last food chain; Sun - fruit - cross river gorilla- crocodile Population: 200 to 300 individuals. (WWF) Habitats: Forest habitat(WWF) Status: Critically endangered The cross river gorilla's scientific name is Gorilla gorilla diehli .(WWF) Main Threats: Habitat loss- The cross river gorilla group, manly live in unprotected forests and face the threat of habitat loss through logging and as local people treat their habitat bad and clear the land for agriculture and cattle grazing.(WWF) Hunting- The cross river gorilla's are being hunted due to hunters moving in. (illegally) (WWF) Low reproduction- The cross river gorilla has very low reproduction due to hunters and habitat loss. This means that there is a very low population and is very hard to reproduce therefore they will become more endangered and eventually extinct. Conclusion My conclusion for the cross river gorilla is help them by leaving there habitat alone and going somewhere else to log and agriculture. Another point is to stop hunting so they can not become extinct and they can have more cross river gorillas across Africa and the world. Rafflesia flower The Rafflesia flower does not have leaves, a steam, a root and is the biggest flower on earth. It is very rare and critically endangered. It is indeed the most magnificent and largest flower in the world. It was discovered in 1818 by Sir Stamford Raffles and "was mostly named after him self and his companion, surgeon-naturalist Dr James Arnold."( Rafflesia , the worlds largest bloom) " Raflesia ." Rafflesia , The World's Largest Bloom, www.rafflesiaflower.com/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2017. (bibliography for worlds largest bloom) This jungle flower of south-east Asia holds the all time record-breaking bloom of 106.7 centimeters (3ft 6 inches) diameter and in fact 11 kg (24 lb ) weight and the petals are an inch thick. ( Rafflesia , the worlds largest bloom) The Rafflesia flower is one of the rarest flowers in the world and is critically endangered therefore on its way to extinction.( Rafflesia , the worlds largest bloom) The scientific name for the Rafflesia flower is Rafflesia arnoldii after a man called Dr James Arnold discovered it and called it that in 1818. ( Rafflesia , the worlds largest bloom) A common name that people call it is the corpse flower because apparently it smells like rotten flesh.(Kew Royal botanic gardens ) Main Threats A main threat is that people are building a highway for more human access and is killing the Rafflesia flower habitat also humans are clearing out land to plant banana trees therefore the Rafflesia flower is losing their habitat and the population continues to decrease so they are in danger. (Red list) Another threat is that the Rafflesia flower has an extremally unbalanced sex ratio and there is more males then females so when it comes to reproduction it is very hard to find another male flower close by and if not the petals eventually die and decreases the population. (

Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography Essay pic What was the significance of the French Revolution? pic Prashant Sabapathi World History II Mrs. Boyle What was the significance of the French Revolution? Atkinson, Phillip. The French Revolution The Start of the Decline of Western Civilization. French Revolution January 25, 2004. http://www. ourcivilisations.com (accessed October 27, 2004). I used this source as my internet source. The information in the source seems to be written in a scholarly way; however, there is nothing on this article that can lead me to think that all the information that the author gives is credible. The website has a .com ending rather than a . org or .edu ending, which leads me to think that it did not come from a scholarly university. This website is just a website that I found using a regular search engine. I did not get it from an encyclopedia search engine, so the source does not have a well-known or scholarly author. A valid reason to question the credibility of this source is the author. The author is not well known, which means I couldnt trust all the information that he provided. The content of the article seemed to be pretty good, and the article had more than three pages of information. Most of this information pertained to my hypothesis. However, it was unclear to me whether or not the information provided in this article was credible or not. Overall, I think that this article had a lot of information, but I would not use it because I question its credibility. Bentley, Jerry H., and Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions and Encounters. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Boston, Massachusetts: McGraw Hill 2003. I used this textbook as my source. This book is filled with information on World History. I found a section that was about six pages long on the French Revolution. We use it in history class, so I know it is highly credible. This source was good because it not only had a lot of information about the French Revolution, but it also had maps and pictures to compliment the information. Both authors, Jerry H. Bentley and Herbert F. Ziegler are well-known authors. I know this because I typed each of their names in a search engine and both of them came up with many results that relate to different World History books. Overall, I thought this was an extremely good source because of the amount of information and pictures it contained. Bentley, Jerry H., and Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions and Encounters. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Boston, Massachusetts: McGraw Hill 2003 pic This is a great picture that I found in the Bentley Ziegler textbook. I am using this map as my visual. This map indicates the different territories that were owned by different countries during the time of the French Revolution. This somewhat relates to my thesis because it shows which colonies had more land. Having more land led to be a better fighting force. Both authors from this book are very credible because they are very well known. I found this out by searching for each of them on the internet. I found each of their names on websites about World History books. Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1972. I used this book as one of my primary sources. I used it as one of my primary sources because this book had a letter written by Edmund Burke in it. I found this book at Howard Community College. I asked a librarian if Anchor Press was a credible source, and she said that it was. This book contained the events and experiences that occurred to Edmund Burke during the French Revolution. In this book, Burke is reflecting on what happened during the Revolution. This book was about one hundred pages in length. I thought this book was a great source, because it was full of information about what it was like to participate in such an event. an Irish born political thinker who played a prominent part in political issues for approximately thirty years, from 1765 to 1795. He passed away in 1797. Jules, Michelet. History of the French Revolution. Edited by Gordan Wright Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. I used this book as one of my general sources. I found this book in the reference section of the Howard Community College Library. This book was published within the last twenty years, and it was published at a well- known University. This led me to believe that this source was extremely credible. .

Employee Discipline Policy (human Resource) Employee Labor and Assignment

Employee Discipline Policy (human Resource) Employee Labor and Relations Class - Assignment Example The employers should develop the policy with one attorney or with trade bodies in order to ensure that it does not violate any laws (What can you do about employee absenteeism?, n.d.). The employers should also make the policy known to the employees before fully implementing it (What can you do about employee absenteeism, n.d.). It is necessary that the employers are able to check if the policy is fully implemented. The attendance records help the employers to check which of the employees are regular and who are making frequent leaves (Controlling Employees’ Absenteeism, 2011). Thus analysis of attendance records should be done after the implementation of the policy. Though there are challenges in managing absenteeism, the company must make sure that all employees are treated the well and there is no discrimination when implementing the policy. The company should maintain to be consistent, persistent and fair to all. And lastly, when implementing policy, it is better to implem ent the programs and policies in a facultative manner rather than punitive because majority of the employees will appreciate this kind of approach (Yorges, n.d.). Sources: Controlling Employees’ Absenteeism, (2011).

Science tells us the truth about reality (or not) Essay

Science tells us the truth about reality (or not) - Essay Example Science is victorious in the curing of doubt because it helps in tracking the real world state. It however cannot tell us the truth about reality. Many people have the belief that science is purely objective (Science and Reality, 1984). That it can be likened to a machine for churning out facts and converting ignorance to knowledge. Scientists are also seen like they are a special breed of truth-discoverers. Their pronouncements are viewed like the gospel. However, in reality, the practice of science deserves a more cynical look. Scientists are human too. They have insecurities to navigate, reputations to defend and careers to progress. They also do not abandon their years-long research programs or theories the minute something bad happens (Thind, 1939). Studies that did not work are run again, equipment is repaired or replaced and assistants of research get fired. It can be a messy job. A person’s best bet might be to appeal to some account of ideal form, citing a privileged relationship to truth if they wanted to mount a defense of science. And so long as it is done right, science deserves our commitment since it exceeds subjective belief and common sense and manages to latch on to ultimate reality in some systematic way. We would be compelled by science if we are committed to reason (Latour, 1999). However, this is where the founder of the school of thought known as pragmatism, Charles Peirce would disagree. In an essay he wrote in 1877, the fixation of belief (Peirce, 1997), he tries to forward the method of science without appeal to rationality, objective truth or reason. He instead argues that science if more like a good trick that happens to trump all other prescriptions. This is what pragmatism is all about. Anyone has uncertainty? Try science. Not for any metaphysical or theoretic reason but on the rounds of pragmatism instead. It just works. That explanation may however be too easy. First we may want to ask

How To Reduce Hospital Infections Related To Invasive Devices Essay

How To Reduce Hospital Infections Related To Invasive Devices - Essay Example A very common example would be the performance of invasive procedures that use invasive devices such as urinary catheterization, naso-gastric tube insertion, and intravenous catheterization. Key words: invasive devices, invasive procedures, hospital infections, How to Reduce Hospital Infections Related to Invasive Devices Every year more lives are compromised or worst lost due to the increasing number of incidences of hospital related infections. It is very frightening to think that the hospitals and health care facilities which are supposed to save lives are the least places people would think that their health will be compromised and yet some studies point fingers on these health havens and say failure can be from the hands of the health care providers especially in handling invasive devices. Invasive devices such as catheters of different kinds are being utilized by the health care team for patients needing it—such patients needing hydration or infusion of antibiotic therap y are given IV catheter insertions. And such use of invasive devices for such procedures has been reported to have complications that put patient’s life at risk. ... terature in the use of invasive devices, the standard policies and procedures, as well as the solutions and better outcomes deemed and reviewed from published works and studies. Change Plan I. Over the years the increasing number of hospital related infections due to invasive devices increased. The use of these devices has been established to incur and help improve patient outcome by allowing better access to patients in terms of medication, nutrition, hydration and even drainage. But the increasing prevalence of complications from the use of such devices somehow places the credibility of such procedures at risk as well as doubting the ability of the nurse in performing procedures without causing further complications. The standard of safe practice in performing such procedures needs to be reevaluated and reinforced to be able to strengthen the chain of procedures without breaking the barrier to prevent infections. II. The prevalence of hospital infections due to invasive devices nee ds to be addressed. By reviewing the standard practice in the use of invasive devices, healthcare providers will be able to come up with the analysis and evaluation regarding the effectiveness of such practice in ensuring safety to patients and preventing further and additional complications. By performing such evaluation techniques the rate of prevalence of infections will be decreased and eventually totally avoided. Furthermore the review evaluation will increase the nurses’ and patients’ knowledge regarding proper procedure and care of invasive devices that will lead to better patient outcome and preventable related infections. III. Intravenous therapy is a crucial and indispensable aspect of nursing practice in acute settings, and is expanding into community care (Lavery & Smith,

Globalization and its Discontents paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Globalization and its Discontents paper - Essay Example The policies devised by them are a result of prolonged discussions between the economists. The policies that have been devised by the International Monetary Fund have helped many countries to overcome the problem of financial crisis. In order to avoid a financial drought the country has to avoid all sorts of financial problems that may come up. The country has to control the flow of money internally otherwise the financial crisis cannot be avoided (IMF). If the international capital flow is not maintained properly, economic stability in a country cannot be achieved. The price in the country cannot be stabilized and hence the financial policies designed to overcome the crisis cannot be implemented properly. This shows that if a country has to prosper in terms of finance and economics it has to improve its structure internally and then ask for help from the outside sources. Hence if a country is in the developing stage and is not practicing its economic policies properly, the Internati onal Monetary Fund also cannot be of much help. One example of such a country is Botswana which improved itself internally and prospered than any other country in Africa. When Botswana got independence it was suffering from a severe financial crisis. And it was of utmost importance to address the issue properly. Botswana was rich of agriculture and diamonds but lacked the resources to make use of both these assets. The assets in the country did not prove to be lethal for them as they were used in the right way. This was quite beneficial for the country to achieve stable economy. The political leaders of Botswana believed in national integrity and worked towards the betterment of the state. And thus Botswana did not approach the International Monetary Funds for any kind of aid. But they received advices and suggestions from the outsiders who belonged to public or private institutions. These advisories helped in devising a future plan for the country. They laid out plans which involved the whole structure of the country and not only one department. The advisors selected by the state were properly interviewed and then hired. This showed that the state w as being controlled properly and each and every individual in the state had the spirit to move the country towards prosperity. For e.g. the deputy governor who was referred to by the IMF was only hired by the state when he was interviewed. This clearly illustrated that the state was internally stable and was working towards the betterment of the state. The state of Botswana maintained a good relationship with the International Monetary Funds through out its history. The advisories of International Monetary Funds helped the state of Botswana in tackling the problems of economics in the state. And these advisories were highly honored by the state of Botswana. Botswana was not helped properly by the IMF when it faced the problem of liquidity. But this was because of the requirements of the IMF. An economic policy should be devised before asking for any financial help from the IMF. This generally is a correct way of handling the situation as the IMF provides support so that the state ca n prosper further. However even then the state of Botswana was strong enough to pass through these problems. The reserves which the state of Botswana had from the income generated from its natural assets

What happens in the Big Bang Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

What happens in the Big Bang - Research Paper Example A normal misconception about the theory is that it depicts the root of the universe. That is not exactly right. The big bang is an effort to illustrate how the universe was created from an exceptionally minor, thick state into what it is today. It does not try to illustrate what started the production of the universe, or what preceded the big bang or even what lies outside the universe. An alternate confusion is that the big bang was a sort of eruption. That is not correct either. The big bang depicts the development of the universe. While a few forms of the theory allude to a incredibly quick expansion (potentially faster than the speed of light), it’s still not a blast in the actual sense. (Gefter, 2012) Summing up the big bang theory is a test. It includes ideas that contradict the way we observe the world. The earliest phases of the big bang concentrate on a moment in which all the individual forces of the universe were a part of a united force. The laws of science start to crush down the further back we look. Inevitably, we are unable to make any deductive speculations about what is going on, since science itself doesnt apply in this situation. What is the big bang theory? Well. It is one of the most important theories in astronomy. The ideas of the theory are quite simple. All of the present and past matter in the universe came in to existence at the same time. At one particular point in time, around 13.7 billion years ago all matter was compacted into a very little ball with infinite thickness, and extremely hot called a singularity. All of a sudden, that singularity started to grow and expand and the universe came into existence. That is the essential thought of the big bang theory which will be continued further in order to make it easier for us to understand. (Chown, 2012) To start with, we might as well address the idea of what a singularity is. As per

How To Reduce Hospital Infections Related To Invasive Devices Essay

How To Reduce Hospital Infections Related To Invasive Devices - Essay Example A very common example would be the performance of invasive procedures that use invasive devices such as urinary catheterization, naso-gastric tube insertion, and intravenous catheterization. Key words: invasive devices, invasive procedures, hospital infections, How to Reduce Hospital Infections Related to Invasive Devices Every year more lives are compromised or worst lost due to the increasing number of incidences of hospital related infections. It is very frightening to think that the hospitals and health care facilities which are supposed to save lives are the least places people would think that their health will be compromised and yet some studies point fingers on these health havens and say failure can be from the hands of the health care providers especially in handling invasive devices. Invasive devices such as catheters of different kinds are being utilized by the health care team for patients needing it—such patients needing hydration or infusion of antibiotic therap y are given IV catheter insertions. And such use of invasive devices for such procedures has been reported to have complications that put patient’s life at risk. ... terature in the use of invasive devices, the standard policies and procedures, as well as the solutions and better outcomes deemed and reviewed from published works and studies. Change Plan I. Over the years the increasing number of hospital related infections due to invasive devices increased. The use of these devices has been established to incur and help improve patient outcome by allowing better access to patients in terms of medication, nutrition, hydration and even drainage. But the increasing prevalence of complications from the use of such devices somehow places the credibility of such procedures at risk as well as doubting the ability of the nurse in performing procedures without causing further complications. The standard of safe practice in performing such procedures needs to be reevaluated and reinforced to be able to strengthen the chain of procedures without breaking the barrier to prevent infections. II. The prevalence of hospital infections due to invasive devices nee ds to be addressed. By reviewing the standard practice in the use of invasive devices, healthcare providers will be able to come up with the analysis and evaluation regarding the effectiveness of such practice in ensuring safety to patients and preventing further and additional complications. By performing such evaluation techniques the rate of prevalence of infections will be decreased and eventually totally avoided. Furthermore the review evaluation will increase the nurses’ and patients’ knowledge regarding proper procedure and care of invasive devices that will lead to better patient outcome and preventable related infections. III. Intravenous therapy is a crucial and indispensable aspect of nursing practice in acute settings, and is expanding into community care (Lavery & Smith,

What happens in the Big Bang Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

What happens in the Big Bang - Research Paper Example A normal misconception about the theory is that it depicts the root of the universe. That is not exactly right. The big bang is an effort to illustrate how the universe was created from an exceptionally minor, thick state into what it is today. It does not try to illustrate what started the production of the universe, or what preceded the big bang or even what lies outside the universe. An alternate confusion is that the big bang was a sort of eruption. That is not correct either. The big bang depicts the development of the universe. While a few forms of the theory allude to a incredibly quick expansion (potentially faster than the speed of light), it’s still not a blast in the actual sense. (Gefter, 2012) Summing up the big bang theory is a test. It includes ideas that contradict the way we observe the world. The earliest phases of the big bang concentrate on a moment in which all the individual forces of the universe were a part of a united force. The laws of science start to crush down the further back we look. Inevitably, we are unable to make any deductive speculations about what is going on, since science itself doesnt apply in this situation. What is the big bang theory? Well. It is one of the most important theories in astronomy. The ideas of the theory are quite simple. All of the present and past matter in the universe came in to existence at the same time. At one particular point in time, around 13.7 billion years ago all matter was compacted into a very little ball with infinite thickness, and extremely hot called a singularity. All of a sudden, that singularity started to grow and expand and the universe came into existence. That is the essential thought of the big bang theory which will be continued further in order to make it easier for us to understand. (Chown, 2012) To start with, we might as well address the idea of what a singularity is. As per

Personal Learning and Capacity Essay Example for Free

Personal Learning and Capacity Essay Reading through the following pages you are able to see my weekly entries of the text I read. My interpretations and questions that occurred towards reading, my initial reactions or developments after reading and some conclusions about text and literacy. As a person I never really enjoy literature. I am not the kind of person who enjoy reading big books or long articles because is difficult for me just to know that I had to read a very long article and remember it. When I saw a big one-coloured cover book I connecting it with small letters, no space between the lines that is hard to read it and remembers me an encyclopaedia. I was always prefer reading numbers due to that I like very much maths and science. There is no long theory to remember. So as you can see on the following journal, my reading collection is very limited on books and long text except whenever is needed. Regarding the way, where and how I read, depends on what I am reading. (see Appendix 4, p.17). When the reading had to do with study I have to be very concentrate and I prefer to sit straight on a chair and open all the books and papers on a big desk. This helping me to underline or write down useful key words. On the other hand reading as a hobby, I prefer to read when is dark, lying in my bed and holding my book. In addition I find it excellent trick to listen to the music when I am reading in both ways. I like to put smooth, chill out music, because it eliminates all the rest noises and distractions and help me to get clear mind from other things I might thinking. According to first’s week directed task I had to write everything that I read for a week. The following are reflections of the most important kinds of texts I read, and those that made me reconsidered the way I looked them before. A list of other kinds of texts I gathered and a short reflection, are available in Appendix 1, p.14. As well, on the following pages you can find, my reflections towards next weeks directed activities. Entry: Even though that cooking instructions are in written form are also available to read in the form of small representing pictures. Doing this activity I notice that when I am looking for the cooking instructions my eyes always focus on that tiny pictures and can’t see the written form of the instructions. Is the first think I looked for and I realized that my eyes used to focus there first. Then I had to explore those pictures in my mind to understand the preparation for cooking the product. â€Å" Image can be used to reinforce the meaning of what is said, what is written and so on† (Jewitt, 2005 p.316). In addition I notice that after seen the pictures I look for the written form too, to make sure that I read and understand the pictures right. Entry: It just came into my mind a funny situation I had with cooking instructions, when I first came to England. Now I am not really sure if it is good idea to put it in the log but is shows the difference of reading a text, expectations, and differences between cultures, ideologies and perspectives. You can see the above funny incident by reading Appendix 2 p.15. Entry: Text messages and e-mails, that I send to my friends back to Cyprus contained a lot of information in just few sentences. I have so many to say and is a bit expensive to send messages. Due to that I limited my words by putting symbols, write only the first letter or just the half word. (instead â€Å"and† I use the symbol +). After I read again those messages I send, I realized that if someone else was reading them couldn’t be able to understand them. This is because of the â€Å"code† of the written form and the long background and ideologies that are connecting me and my friends. For example in my first message I wrote â€Å"how is c.† , but only she is able to understand the name of the person I asked about. I also recognized that in just five sentences -that represent a whole message- I wrote so many things, that if I was writing them to a paper and to someone else it would take me probably 10 sentence to write them all. Though I prefer e-mails more than the messages, because is free, and I can  write as many sentence I want in just one e-mail and send it when I feel like. â€Å"With e-mail you just write your message and send it.. Even during the early hours of the morning† (Lyle, 2005).E-mail offers fast receipt and enables the recipient to reply immediately. In addition I can write it more easier and quicker using the keyboard and looking through a bigger and more clear screen. Furthermore I can add emotions in the style of J and use from a large list of font style and size and even colour. Even though I use more Msn to communicate with my friends due to the fact that it has the same advantages as e-mailing and in addition I can send those things I write and take reply back at the same time. Is like speaking by the phone but in written form. Also I can send and take files and connect a web camera to see each other. Entry: Considering second week’s directed activity on session 2, I choose â€Å"Vampires Breath† (Greek Version) of â€Å"Goosebumps† collection to cope with the activity for identifying the ideological assumptions within its text. (see Appendix 3 p.16 for a short summary) â€Å"Vampires breath† put me in the action part from the first pages and all the action happened in only one day (in the story). Stine is very illustrative within the story because is putting many descriptions to the story’s persons and places that it seems like you can imagine them as real, as you can see them now, in reality. The motivation theory proposed by Glenberg and Langston (1992) also suggest that â€Å"illustrations may make a book more appealing and engage the reader better† (Cited in Andrews, Scharff and Moses, 2002). There is a lot of conversation and I had the feeling that I was taking part in the story and this make me curious to read more and see what happens after to the main characters. Also the double identity of the â€Å"bad† characters, who could transformed their appearance from human into buds and the tricks they were doing to trapped the 2 heroes, just made me to want to finish it. The main characters are small children that get trapped from their curiosity and naivety of searching places and things that not supposed to do. The â€Å"happy ending† though is show up at the very last pages and I like it because it gives hope that things are going to be happy again  but also leaves a hind that things are going to repeat again from the same mistake. A weird and peculiar ending that allocates a twist in the tail. Even that it was a kind of low level to me, reading the book it make me wondered, what can be happened again to those two kids. Children that the book refers to (9-12) by reading it can find themselves into the heroes situations and bad positions that might have. Reading this book I remembered mine childhood phobias and related with those in the story, and this what makes the story more interesting. Children can encountered within the story’s heroes and happenings because they can feel the same in their life as the heroes and have the simila r phobias. Moreover I notice that the good and nice language and vocabulary is approaching with the children’s age ability to read and also can reflect positive to improve their language and reading skills. With the use of big letters and large space between the lines it helps me to read it more easily and quick. For children will be very appealing and smooth to read. The soft cover, full of bright colours, is the first thing I notice to choose to read the certain book, its cover’s appearance is something that make you wonder what is the story about. Genette (1997) comes to agree by saying that â€Å"a book’s cover is a threshold that a reader is invited to interpret and step across if induced to read on† (Cited in Harris and McKenzie, 2005 p.32) Additionally I enjoyed read this book because I like scary horror books like this collection, and also I can get very afraid sometimes and at the same time so excited. Entry: In view of directed activities of session 3 you can refer to Appendix 4, p.17-24 which include detailed answers, information and reflections regarding both online texts and my personal appreciations on ways of reading, my fears, and my imagination journey. The following are short reflections from the activities as whole, based on the following two main questions: What are the essential differences between reading on line and the more traditional way How these books (texts) tell us about the nature of childhood The Secret Garden as well as The Journey to the Centre of the Earth were easy to cope with by reading online. The vocabulary and language were easy to read and comprehend, apart from 3-4 words I didn’t know (and I had to look for their meaning in a dictionary). I find harder to understand The Secret Garden because of the conversation that was held between the interact persons of the story. It was very complicated to understand them due to there were missing some letters. I had to read all the dialogues again and again for 5-6 times until I understand what actually was written on the lines. I realize then that this was the dialect of the story’s heroes. Although reading onscreen those text was much easier for me because I am a big fun of technology and especially of computers. I find it more relax and quick due to the fact that just by pressing one button you can transfer from the top of the page and through the lines until the bottom of the page and also to turn on to the next page. Letters and generally the whole view was more clear to read and easily could copy and paste the unknown words in my pc’s dictionary. Even if technology is developing more each day to help us, I can outline some disadvantages towards the traditional way of reading a text, ex from books. Through my online reading there were missing colourful covers of the books, and as I mentioned in a previous entry book’s covers are very important as a first impression of the text. And this is because covers are the first thing you see and considered when you are going to buy or read a book. The illustrations of pictures which help you to empathize better the story’s happening didn’t included on screen. Although Jewitt (2005, p329) argues about online book’s illustrations by saying that â€Å"The multimode character of the screen does not indicate a single entry point, beginning or end. This offers the reader new potentials for reading a text. Reading a written text on pages is usually a linear event in which the author and illustrator guide the eye in particular direction connected to the reading of the text† Another thing is that the lines are too long and sometimes, people that don’t used to it can get bored and tired only by looking them. In addition another disadvantage is that you can’t save this texts to your library collection except if you keep your pc’s library with books and text from internet. Although is much nicer to collect the original  books in your house library and have them for a life. The Secret Garden and The Journey to the Centre of the Earth are showing the writers’ thoughts and appreciations about the world and the aspect of child, considering the matter of friendship and cultural perspectives on children behaviours. In my opinion, the matter of friendship appeared more clear in the Secret Garden, than in the Journey in the Centre of the Earth. In the first text, the Heroine is a young children that was neglected during her life. Although Mary finds someone to socialised with, in Dickon’s personality, even if he is from lower social class. The matter of friendship also reflect on me and make me bring in mind my own appreciations of friendship. Is showing that it doesn’t matter how rich you are in money or goods, but how rich you are in sole. Also that children supposed to be free from ideologies and believes of their environment and social background. As a children, Mary is more free and innocent than adults to do things and she is not afraid to be friend with â€Å"a common moor boy†. (See Appendix 4, p.19-20). I find secret garden revealing my perceptions because I believe that friends are very important, especially in childhood but in adolescence too. Making friends we have someone to socialize talk, laugh and do things together. Furthermore is showing the author’s perspective towards the child, to be free, good innocent, and free from taboos and in one word to be perfect as Dickon. Although Dickon’s description make me feel that he is not a real person maybe because no one can be perfect in everything. Mary in the other hand appears to be more natural person in contrast with the â€Å"magical† description of Dickon. Mary feels free inside the garden which becomes her new home. The secret garden is a place of adventure and everything inside it is perfect and this is one of the reason that Mary shares her secret with the magic, and good child, Dickon. All this also showing what readers expect to see about the child. How readers interpret and expect childhood years to be and that children supposed to be good and innocent . Although reading the second text make me engage with it more because as a children I had almost the same feelings and phobias as Alex (See Appendix 4, p.22-23).â€Å"Readers interstitial backgrounds provide resources for engaging with text, even  amongst young children† (Crawford and Hade, 2000, Cited in Harris and McKenzie, 2005, p. 32) Another thing that can be reveal from the texts is adults’ role in children lives even that is more evident in the second text. Adults are the persons who are expected to be responsible and take decisions about children’s future. In the Secret Garden Mary forced to go and live in another house because she didn’t have the power not to. That’s why Mary keeps the garden as a secret place. The author wants to express that when adults are in a situation they like to control and force things and that’s why the magic perfect secret garden is only for innocent, good children. This is more obvious in â€Å"The journey in the Centre of the Earth† when the hero, Alex, who is a young children and nephew of an eccentric scientist feel very terrify and scared about, both him and his uncle lives, during their experimental purposed journey. In front of the exhaustion, thirst and hunger Alex is fainted and his uncle giving him the last drops of water, to bring him back. The Professor do not considered his thirsty because, as an adult had to take care Alex first. After Alex is terrified and express by crying his fears about the uncertain and unknown remained of the journey, his uncle take the control and the responsibility for Alex and decide to send him back to earth with the servant‘s help, to be safe. The professor still insist to stay and continue his journey, because as a scientist was so curious and determined and nothing could stop him not even the fear of death. After all, Alex do not agree with his uncle and choose to travel along with him because he didn’t want to give up or letting down his uncle. This appeared as a conflict with the first text when Mary couldn’t choose the place to move, although Alex took his decision because he might was afraid to leave without his uncle. Here, Alex is having the change to do what he wants but he refused it. and he choose to stay knowing that his uncle will do anything to protect him. Entry: First time listen to the song â€Å"I aint mad at cha† by Tupac Shakur, I have to admit that I didn’t understand a lot of what Tupac was saying apart from the chorus. Although I don’t really listen to rap music I find it very nice and  different from other songs. It sound like a smooth, sweet melody into my ears, considering the background melody of a piano. I couldn’t believe the combination of rap music with piano, although it was something that attract me. Before seeing the video clip of the song I thought that 2puc was talking to a friend that lay him down and Tupac wanted him know that he has no harm feeling for him. First time I watch the song’s video clip I was very amazing. Surprising, the clip was a expressing a very different believes of what I first encountered. The video shows Tupac being punctured with bullets on his way, coming out of a restaurant with a friend. He is dying in the ambulance vehicle and he is attend into heaven who meets some people , probably some famous legends or relatives. The film was something like Tupac knew that he was going to be killed and seeing his life in Heaven. It seems a kind of prefigured his death. Watching the film make me feel sad and miserable about his tragic end. It was very pessimistic film for someone to make and for others to see, especially after his actual death, hence he is appearing laughing, smoking, and be in Heaven in the clip. Also I saw his thoughts about how he considered the life after death and the image of Heaven and make me somehow confident about my thoughts and appreciations of the life after death in Heaven. Somehow my thoughts were revealing in the film illustrations. Despite the brutal language and street words Tupac is expressing, through the song lyrics an optimistic and hopeful massage towards his friends and relatives and then to the rest audience. ABT indicates some of the music video characteristics by claim that: They must gain and hold the viewers attention †¦ help establish, visualize, or maintain the artists image†¦ and perhaps, carry one or several direct or indirect messages . . .† (Cited in Rybacki and Rybacki) Through the lyrics, Tupac conveys that the change of getting out from the ghetto life, is not something bad or to be ashamed of. He has no harm feelings, he is not mad with friends that been a lot of time to talk, friends that change and get out of the streets, friends that get married, find a religion and get matured. Tupac is not mad with them for not doing the â€Å"bad† things and habits they used to do together, because they change.  He has nothing but love for them. Analysing the song I realize that a large amount of life’s values and ethical ideals were encountered in it, by just few words. The matter of religion, friendship, love, the role of the mother, and the value of God. Also the lyrics are expressing the stereotype of rap music containing offensive language between the â€Å"brothers†, a nice contribution of conflict words between the bad and good, the male and female, material world and God. An optimistic ending that he is praying for the good fortune of all. The very last sentence showing that in Tupac’s efforts to display a meaning to his family, friends and enemies that he is not mad with them and don’t want them to be sad for his lost, the song meanings refers also, to those that lost their loved ones! The song script is available in Appendix 6 p.27 Entry: I was watching an episode from The Coffee shop series and it really make me reconsidered it from a whole different aspect during this activity.  The â€Å"Coffee Shop† (or â€Å"Kafeneio†* see Appendix 5, p.25 and p.25-26 for a summary of the film) is one of the most known comic series in Cyprus. All episodes are take place in the Kafeneio and showing in a funny way, some special aspects of Cypriot people’s characters. When I am in Cyprus I never watching it because there are some other new series which catch my interest. Although this day I was very miserable and sad, with nothing to do so I decide to watch Kafeneio through internet from the satellite channel of Cyprus. The episode title was â€Å"The Fiancà ©Ã¢â‚¬ . Andreas who always trying to find cheating ways to earn money decide to married his just few days girlfriend who was a rich old women reaching death. Saying that he is truly in love with her. Although they never rich marriage because the old women dies after the party. At the end Andreas ends up with no money and owns the funeral’s costs. Watching Kafeneio made me crying from laugh because of the story’s reversed happenings and the good ability of the actresses to play with in the hilarious situation. Even though laugh its all you can expect from this type of series, I also felt like home watching it. The traditional coffee, the language, the very strong Cypriot dialect, the place of Kafeneio, and the whole scene make me feel for a moment that I was back in Cyprus. Although Kafeneio is considered only for entertainment for those who  watching it, I realised that many cultural, ethical and moral issues can express from it. Good friends are always there to help you in difficult times and also the traditions of wearing black clothes for grieving death. Another thing is that money you never work hard for, can easily lost as quick as you earned them. You have to earn your money by working hard and not trying to earn them by deceitful and cheating innocent people. Entry†¦ During the module’s assessment of online presentation, as a group we choose to based our research on Cinderella story. And this, because, all group members could related with the text as it was present in our childhoods even though my group was representing 3 different cultures, countries and age groups. Doing the actual online presentation things became very complicate considering the way to present it. We wanted to make it very attractive to the audience and easy to reflect in and understand. At the beginning the presentation was going to held in Power point accompanied with animations, pictures and music. As I said in previous entry, pictures are helping the reader to comprehend better the written part, and show better some key-issues. This was going to help audience to concentrate on the themes we wanted to express more. The animations will make it more attractive to the audience and the music was going to drift and drawn them into the story itself smoothly and easier. Although we realized that doing it in power point it might produced a probability of confusion towards the audience and make a mess during their efforts to follow it. So we change our mind and decided to do it in movie maker as a video. With the movie film we wanted to make it easier to follow by the reader, without being confused or distracted from the importance of the written text, by clicking buttons. We also considered that it was going to be even more easier and relaxed for the reader to enhanced more, accompanied with music. (Much alike as watching a short video or movie, by sitting back and enjoy it.) In addition we thought that if we were using a Cinderella’s song from only one version of the Cinderella story (Disney’s song) it would be so unfair  and narrow-minded because the four versions that we analysed in the presentation are all of the same importance with their own special characteristics. So we choose a chill out instrumental music without speaking words for avoiding the readers’ thoughts to concentrate on music words and do not follow what we expressing throughout the presentation. Although it was hard to find that special song because we wanted one that its effects to go along with the page transactions and pictures and also focused on the most important information we include within the text. Another thing that was with vary importance was the time we supposed to give to our audience to read the written part of the presentation. We wanted to make sure that it was enough time to read them before the next slide show up. So we double-check the time providing for each written text by using a third slow-reader person, whose English is his second language. With this we make sure that the providing time was enough for all of our audience potentials to read. Bibliography Andrews, J., Scharff, L., Moses, L., (2002), â€Å"The influence of illustrations in Children’s Storybooks†, AERA, Reading Psychology, Vol. 23(4), pp. 323-339.[Last viewed December 2005] Burnett, H.F., â€Å"The Secret Garden-Dickon† [www]http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Frances_Hodgson_Burnett/The_Secret_Garden/Dickon_p1.html [Last viewed October 2005] Harris, P. McKenzie, B., (2005), â€Å"Networking around the Waterhole and other tales: the importance of relationships among texts for reading and related instruction†, UKLA, Literacy.[Last viewed December 2005] Jewitt, C., (2005), â€Å"Multimodality ‘Reading’ and ‘Writing’ for the 21st Century†, University of London, UK, Vol26, No. 3, pp. 315-331.[Last viewed December 2005] Lyle D., â€Å"E-mail Versus the telephone†, Last update 2005. Available from: URL: http://writing.colostate.edu/references/documents/email/pop5d.cfm [Last viewed December 2005] Lyrics and songs, â€Å"Tupac- I’ aint mad at cha† (Remix) [www]http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/135052.html Rybacki,C. K., and Rybacki, J. D., (1999),â€Å"Cultural approaches to the rhetorical analysis of selected music videos† Northern Michigan UniversityAvailable from:URL:http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/trans4/rybacki.htm[Last viewed November 2005] Stine, R.L., (1996), â€Å"Goosebumps: Vampire Breath†, Parachute Press Inc, New York USA Greek version: copyright by Kerdos 1998 SySat, RIK Chanel, (2005), CoffeShop: The Fiance [www]http://www.tv4all.com/portal.htm?http://www.tv4all.com/television/index.html?http://www.tv4all.com/television/55.htm[Last viewed November 2005] Verne, J., â€Å"Journey to the Centre of the Earth- The wrong road† [www]http://jv.qilead.org.il/vt/c_earth/18.html[Last viewed October 2005]

Dementia Care Training for Nurses

Dementia Care Training for Nurses Improving Dementia Care Training for Registered General Nurses and Adult Student Nurses: examining the need, efficacy, content and barriers. This Independent Project aims to explore the efficacy of current provision for Dementia care training for Adult branch Student Nurses and Registered General Nurses (RGN’s). A range of audits and research literature on this area of special interest will be examined to obtain a better picture of the situation with an aim to discover a recommendation for whether more training in this area is needed. The content and provision needs of training will also be explored with barriers to effective care and training critically analysed. Introduction Dementia is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of symptoms caused by certain diseases or conditions associated with decline in a person’s cognitive abilities such as memory, personality changes, impaired reasoning and use of verbal language, which are severe enough to reduce a person’s ability to perform every-day activities (Chater and Hughes 2012). The most common of these diseases is Alzheimer’s reference. Dementia is progressive and incurable, therefore it is vital these people are supported and cared for by nurses who have been trained with the skills and knowledge needed to deliver high quality evidence based care. ADD IN STRONG REFERENCE THAT TRAINING IMPROVES QUALITY EVIDENCE-BASED CARE. There are currently 800,000 people with dementia living in the UK, with these figures expected to rise by 40% over the next 12 years and by 156% over the next 38 years due to an ageing population. Evidence from the Department of Health (2012) shows that 95% of these people are over the age of 65 and are therefore more likely to have complex medical needs. As a result; they spend increased time in acute hospital wards under the care of RGN’s, making training in this area for this group of health professionals a contemporary issue which needs exploration (Department of Health 2012) . The rising number of patients with dementia presents a challenge for all acute hospital trusts and many different health professionals. Such patients experience higher mortality rates and are more likely to have longer lengths of stay than others, they are also more at risk of falls and other incidents whilst in hospital (Cornwell et al 2012). Aside from the cost implications to the NHS when trusts do not get to grips with this challenge, the patients are not getting appropriate care – they are not ‘living well with dementia’ (Department of Health 2009). The National Dementia Strategy set a clear vision that people with dementia and their carers should be helped to live well with dementia, no matter what the stage of their condition or where they are in the health and care system. Through examination of Dementia training efficacy, it is hoped a recommendation will be made to improve the lives of those living with Dementia through changes in Dementia Care training for RGN’s. Following initial exploration of evidence available surrounding Dementia care training, the following issues will be addressed and critically analysed: Why is Dementia Training for RGN’s needed? How can the efficacy of training on Dementia care for RGN’s be improved? What content should be used in Dementia care training? What are the barriers to implementation of Dementia care training? Why is Dementia Training for RGN’s needed? Patients admitted to acute hospital wards with dementia have comparatively poorer outcomes regarding length of stay, mortality and further institutionalism (DH 2009, Alzheimer’s Society 2012). In addition, this group of patients place higher demands for nursing care, are more likely to functionally decline during admission and suffer increased rates of delayed discharge. This can result in permanent decline in health and added costs to NHS trusts (Mukadam and Sampson 2011). Though thought by many to be due to their complex health needs (REFERENCE), The Health Foundation (2011) has suggested a significant reason for these poorer outcomes is lack of professional understanding by RGN’s in providing appropriate care. Improvement in Dementia care is currently a nationwide health initiative reference. National audits over the last 5 years have recommended implementation of dementia services such as dementia lead nurses, standardised assessment and care protocols and compulsory staff training (DH 2009, Harwood et al. 2010, Thompson and Heath 2013, RCP 2013). Yet there are many recent reports of poor and sometimes negligent care suggesting these recommendations have not yet been followed or implemented (Leung and Todd 2010, Francis 2013, RCP 2013). Results from the National Audit of Dementia Care in general hospitals indicated that nurses working on acute wards rated significantly lower adequacy of training than nurses working on care of elderly wards. Other audits such as Counting the Cost report (Alzheimer’s Society 2009) indicated that more than half of nurses had not received any pre or post registered dementia training. Elliot and Adams (2011) further identify the lack of understanding around Dementia, meaning the needs of older people with Dementia are not addressed in many acute hospital settings. As can be seen, the need for specific training in Dementia care for RGN’s is strong. There is evidence to support positive influence on effective care with training. The National Audit of Dementia Care in General Hospitals (NAD 2012) was commissioned by Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership to address the concerns of care for people with dementia (Tadd et al. 2011). These audits aimed to identify hospital’s provision of assessment, care models and staff training. Following the 1st round of audits in 2011 a report by Thompson and Heath concluded that the main barriers to providing good care were lack of understanding of the condition, not enough time to care and failing to communicate with patients. Improvements are not as forthcoming in dementia assessment on admission to acute wards. Results from the 2nd round audit of NAD acknowledge that there had been improvement in implementation of staff training frameworks in hospitals since the 1st round audit and represented an improvement in care as a result (Royal College of Psychiatrists 2013). The 2nd round report highlighted that approximately 75% of hospitals now provide dementia awareness training to nurses, although almost 50% are still failing to provide dementia awareness training as part of induction programmes. The report suggests that further improvement is required in providing better and more consistent staff training, as despite some progress, there appears to be a gap between actual training and written reports (RCP 2013). As a result, the recommendations outlined and analysed in this Independent project may be of some use in raising positive statistics. How can the efficacy of training on Dementia care for RGN’s be improved? It is the evaluation of this evidence which aims to generate key recommendations for provision of Dementia care training. Elliot and Adams (2011) were able to show improvements in needs met where specific education for RGN’s is provided by a Dementia Nurse Specialist (recommendation number 1). This shows the role of the Dementia Nurse Specialist to be vital in improving the efficacy of Dementia training and infiltrating best possible evidence-based care into clinical practice. However, despite this, the minimal numbers of Dementia Nurse Specialists currently practicing has to be identified as a limiting factor. In many trusts and academic institutions, there is no availability for a Dementia Nurse Specialist to provide training, therefore limiting efficacy even when extensive training is to be provided (Knifton et al. 2014). In terms of training content, it is well documented that evidence used should be reliable and credibly underpin clinical practice as this promotes evidence –based practice and better health outcomes (Jeffs et al. 2013). Evidence based practice is vital in all nurses’ roles (REFERENCE NMC CODE). REFERENCE suggests up to date qualitative and quantitative research is the only knowledge and information base which should be used to allow best care to be provided, hence placing important value of increased use of evidence based research in training sessions. Currently, Moyle et al. (2008) suggests the lack of research used to underpin Dementia training for RGN’s is limiting ability to not only provide best care but also identify those living with Dementia (Chang et al. 2009) RECOMMENDATION 2. However, barriers to evidence based care remain even when high quality evidence is used to support training. Smith-Strom and Nortvedt (2008) have identified that RGN’s ofte n find evidence difficult to interpret and evaluate while Oermann (2009) suggests very little of the content is retained to be implemented into practice. This suggests RGN’s may also need training on evidence based practice and processing research (REFERENCE). Gerrish (2008) suggested the knowledge and skill of the individual nurse prior to receiving specific training heavily influenced their ability to improve their practice following. This suggests multiple training sessions on Dementia may be needed before practice can be changed and improved (REFERENCE). RECOMMENDATION 3. What content should be used in Dementia care training? Tadd et al. (2011) explain that one reason for increased functional decline is that care of patients on acute wards is prioritised from the perspective of the medical condition for which they have been admitted, often overlooking their mental health condition. Most acute wards follow rigid, task driven routines such as drug rounds, meal times and washing, while staff lack the necessary skills required to provide proficient dignified care. This form of nursing can cause increased anxiety and delirium resulting in poorer outcomes for individuals (Tadd et al. 2011, Calnan et al. 2013). Alzheimer’s Society (2009) report that patients admitted to acute hospital wards for longer periods are more likely to suffer from permanent worsened effects of dementia and physical health. They are more likely to receive prescribed antipsychotic drugs and to be discharged to residential care rather than their home (Thompson and Heath 2013). Leung and Todd (2010) acknowledge that specialist services do exist in some trusts and that training in managing behaviour, using life stories and implementing dementia care mapping are all good techniques that can help nurses to improve quality care. Dementia care mapping is an observational method of recording interactions that take place between individuals and nurses over a period of time (Ervin and Koschel 2012). This enables evaluation of what works and doesn’t work for patients, it is a useful way of tailoring person-centred care to help staff understand the experience of dementia from the patient’s perspective while rating quality of care given (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and Social Institute for Care Excellence 2007) (NICE-SCIE). Alzheimer’s Society (2013) suggest that nurses must challenge their task driven ward environment and provide a more flexible approach providing care from the patient’s perspective as this is achievable and beneficial to patients. Leung and Todd (2010) reported that most nurses have received little or no training and are ill equipped to deal with the many challenges that face both patients and nurses. Additionally NICE (2013) state that nurses suggest dementia education programmes should include identifying signs and symptoms, communication and person-centred care methods, treatment to include medicine administration and how to monitor side effects, particular emphasis was placed on requirement to assess pan. Nurses also suggested that learning about the impact of dementia on the individual and managing challenging behaviour would be useful. Dementia training is not a compulsory element of the pre-registered nursing curriculum although this has been recommended to the Nu rsing and Midwifery Council (NMC) by several national organisations. (NICE-SCIE 2007, Alzheimer’s Association 2009, All-party Parliamentary Group on Dementia 2012, Higher Education for Dementia Network 2014 (HEDN)). The NHS Confederation (2010) recognise that providing dementia training to staff could benefit hospital trusts in several ways. These include nurses being equipped to identify those with dementia, therefore being able to implement care pathways appropriate to patients. Effective management of patients with dementia helps avoid disorientation and anxiousness which could reduce the amount of time spent attending to challenging behaviour and allow staff more time to care for all patients on an acute ward. What are the barriers to implementation of Dementia care training? Even when effective dementia training has been provided, barriers to good quality evidence-based care remain and it is important these do not go unnoticed. Identification and knowledge of these barriers alone can minimise their limiting factor (reference). Acute hospital settings pose many challenges to both patients with dementia and the nurses caring for them. Yet Harwood et al. (2011) report that there is little evidence of research aimed at investigating these challenges and the provision of detailed policies on how to deal with them. Patients with dementia are more likely to find an unfamiliar environment unsettling, frightening and confusing due to the nature of impaired cognitive ability (Moyle et al. 2008). This accounts for literature suggesting that an acute ward environment comprised of identical doorways and bed spaces causes added confusion to patients (Reference). This often creates increased disorientation, aggression or withdrawal (Leung and Todd, Thompson and Heath 2 013). This further challenges the nurse’s role in maintaining nutritional, personal hygiene and drug administration tasks as individuals can no longer respond to familiar faces, environment and daily routines (Tadd et al. 2011). Barriers Overcoming the barriers The government accepts improvements are needed and is pinning hopes on the  £3.8 billion Better Care Fund, which will was launched in April 2015. The pot has been earmarked for joint projects between the NHS and local government to encourage more integrated care. STUDENT NURSES 2015 report: Dementia education to bestandardised at degree level some nursing degrees offer only three hours of dementia education throughout the whole three-year course. How this should change following the dementia core skills framework, but it doesn’t state how many hours students will be required to undertake. Student nurse attitudes towards working with the elderly Future plans for RGN’s HEE 2013 Mandate targets. – ensure that tools and training opportunities in dementia are available to all staff by the end of 2018. Current training requierments of RGN’s in relation to Dementia training References Department of Health (2009) Living well with dementia: a national dementia strategy. The Stationery Office, London. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence/Social Care Institute for Excellence guideline (2006) Dementia: supporting people with dementia and their carers in health and social care. NICE/SCIE, London.

Costa Rica Essay -- South America Culture Research Papers

Costa Rica   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Costa Rica is a Central American republic located north of Panama and possessing two seacoasts (Pacific-west, Caribbean east). The capital and largest city, San Jose, is located in the central mountain valley. Costa Rica is notable among many Latin American countries for its long-standing democratic form of government. Costa Rica is well known for their hydroelectric plants and agricultural goods. I.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Government: 1)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Capital: San Jose 2)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Country: Costa Rica 3)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are presidential elections every 4 years. 4)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Costa Rica has a Democratic Republic. a. The president of the Republic of Costa Rica is Miguel Angel Rodriguez. Which is part of the Christian Unity Party b. Costa Rica is constantly growing and so is their economic system. 5)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Their constitution was written November 9, 1949. 6)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Costa Rica is divided into 7 provinces. a.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  San Jose its capital city, b.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Alajuela, c.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cartago, d.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Heredia, e.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Guanacaste, f.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  puntarenas g.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  and Limo’n. 7)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Costa Rica boarders Panama and Nicaragua 8)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The voting age in Costa Rica is 18 years old male/female II.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Historical Background 1) Costa Rica was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1502, on his fourth trip to the Americas. He founded Port Limo’n, on the Caribbean coast. Because he was so impressed by the vegetation and the gold/jewelry the natives wore he called it Costa Rica (Coast of Plenty). In 1821 Costa Rica declared independence from Spain. Costa Rica celebrated its 100th anniversary of democracy in 1989. The army was abolished in 1948 by means of a new constitution promoted by Mr. Jose Figueres Ferrer, which was looked upon as a national hero. Ever since there has bean no army and the headquarters was made into a National Museum.Costa Rica has also bean nominated for the Nobel Peace prize 12 times 2)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The president at the time is Miguel Angel Rodriguez 3)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are three main political parties: a.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  National Liberation Party b.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Reformist Organization c.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Social Christian Unity Party 4)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After WW2 Costa Rica did much like many of the other Latin countries, later causing its economy to start an imbalance and the price compared to one dollar dropped. 5)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The flags seven stars represent the seven provinces, the three volcanoes represent Costa Rica’s three mountain ranges, III.... ...up to 5 or 6 years if you get technical classes) c.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  University 8)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  President Jose Maria Figueres implied the training of 500 teachers. VII.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Sports and Leisure 1)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The chief sport in Costa Rica like most of South America is soccer (foot ball) 2)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Water sports like sailing and rafting are also very popular. 3)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Costa Rica has a wide range of entertaining activities like scuba diving, sailing, water skiing etc. 4)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Costa Rica was has not been in any of the recent World Cup matches. 5)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Some sports heroes in Costa Rica are Claudia Poll which placed first in the 200m freestyle, and Fredrico Ramirez which was the winner of the cycling tournament in the 1996 Olympic games. Costa Rica’s culture and education are rapidly spreading throughout South America. Costa Rica’s language schools are known to be some of the best in the world. Their economy is also getting better and is expected to keep rising in oncoming years. Costa Rica has a good president and is expected to lead them to a new height by the year 2002 when there is the next election. More religions and cultures are influencing Costa Rica because of attractive scenery and good universities.

Social Networking Dos and Donts Essay -- Facebook, Social Network

Social Networking sites and application are an increasingly entwined part of our everyday lives. We use them to communicate with friends and family all over the globe, to chat with friends down the hall to decide where to eat, to network for jobs, and to connect with others with similar interests. However, much like any other part of the internet, social networks can be frought with serious security risks, both for your person, and your data. Many social networks will tell you that the more you put into them (your information), the more you get out of them (connections, recommendations, etc.). However, despite the aura of privacy they try to engender, one must keep in mind that social network takes place in essentially public space, with only the barest of mechanisms providing any semblance of privacy. Even seemingly innocuous data shared with the world can be dangerous in the wrong hands. The best attitude to take in order to enjoy the benefits of social networking, while minimizing the inherent risks, is to remain SKEPTICAL and CAUTIOUS. SKEPTICAL of any requests for...

Management Processes of Nintendo Co. Ltd.

Contemporary Trends and Developing and Organizing Management Assignment MANAGEMENT PROCESSES OF NINTENDO CO. LTD. [pic] TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. History of management and achivements3 1. 1Introduction3 1. 2History of management and achivements3 2. Corporate culture and social responsobility programs8 2. 1Corporate culture8 2. 2Social responsobility programs8 3. External and internal environment of organization9 3. 1External environment9 3. 2Internal environment9 4. Strategic planning and competetive advantages10 4. 1Strategic planning10 4. 2Competetive advantages12 5. Organizational structure and design 12 6. Motivation and HR principles12 6. 1Motivation12 6. 2HR principles12 7. Control process and quality management 13 8. Communications and decision making 13 9. Conclusion 13 10. References 16 History of management and achievements 1. Introduction The history of Nintendo is a way of little firm seeking its niche on service and entertainments market who became a giant corporation, affected and affects on life of few generations and determinant of modern fashion on virtual scene. The history of Nintendo it’s a well learned lessons of market and talented employees. The history of Nintendo it’s a history of Mario, Pokemons, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, Kid Icarus and many other personages who transforms into popular trade marks. 1. 2 History of management and achievements It is funny, but Nintendo Koppai primordial works in entertainment field. The corporation was founded in 1889 by manufacturer Fusajiro Yamauchi and foundation of business for long years was production of playing cards. Singular popularity was had the Hanafuda card game, which is a distance relative of Chinese mahjong game. The deck consists from hieroglyphs, images and symbols and the principles of the game were to find the second pair of cards. From competitors production the products of Nintendo was different by its quality – all gaming cards was hand made painted and covered with varnish. In recognition of card-playing roots, the name â€Å"Nintendo† (Nin ten do means â€Å"leave luck to heaven†). In 1902 Nintendo became very lucky – Fusajiro Yamauchi was the first in Japan who receive a license to produce playing cards in western style. It brings very successful business for that time. The company swiftly grows, builds new manufacturers, creates its own distribution net using tobacco shops and salt benches and strictly watched over quality. Until 1949 the name of company changed twice: in 1933 – to Yamauchi Nintendo & Company and in 1949 – to Nintendo Playing Card Company. In 1953, Nintendo became the first company in Japan who produce playing cards from plastic. This was a huge hit and allowed Nintendo to dominate the card market. Starting point of formation the main philosophy of now days â€Å"big N† was 1956. Exactly then 3rd president of Nintendo and grandson of Nintendo founder Hiroshi Yamauchi arrived to USA to establish business relations with Southern America’s first-rate playing cards firm – United States Playing Card Company. Japanese was amazed not by business acumen, not by swing of enterprise and not by perspective for his own business, but by little office which has lower than a dozen employees. This was a turning point for Yamauchi, who then realized the limitations of the playing card business. In 1959, Nintendo struck a deal with Disney to have them allow Nintendo to use Disney's characters on Nintendo's playing cards. By tying playing cards to Disney and selling books explaining the different games one could play with the cards, Nintendo could sell the product to Japanese households. The tie-in was a success and the company sold at least 600,000 card packs in a single year. Due to this success, in 1962, Yamauchi took Nintendo public, listing the company in Osaka Stock Exchange Second division. A little state of managers and an army of heroes, representing the market, was the main strategy of Nintendo over the years. Following the aforementioned success, in 1963 Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited was renamed to Nintendo Company, Limited by Hiroshi. Nintendo now began to experiment in other areas of business using the newly injected capital. During the period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxi company, a â€Å"love hotel† chain, a food company (trying to sell instant rice, similar to instant noodles), and several other things. All these ventures failed, except toy making, where they had some earlier experience from selling playing cards. Then the bottom dropped out. In 1964, while Japan was experiencing an economic boom due to the Tokyo Olympics, the playing card business reached its saturation point. Japanese households stopped buying playing cards, and the price of Nintendo stock fell down. All undertaking awaits shameful bankruptcy and company predicted the final devastation. The rescue came from little experimental division – Nintendo Games. Modest engineer Gunpei Yokoi offers to sale some of his inventions as baby toys. Along with experimental models were the future bestsellers – mechanic hand The Ultra Hand (one of Nintendo's earliest toy blockbusters, selling over a million units), electronic toy for sweethearts The Love Tester and a slot-machine for baseball balls Ultra Machine. Yokoi was soon moved from maintenance duty to product development. Toys rescued the company from bankruptcy but don’t make bygone profits. Per se every season customers wait from Nintendo something new, no ordinary. Jointly with Sharp, Nintendo Games develops successful enough light shooting-range – Beam Gun and undertake development of high growth sector of entertainment – electronic games. This was the beginning of a major new era for Nintendo. In 1977, Nintendo saw the hiring of Shigeru Miyamoto, the man who (along with Yokoi) become a living legend in the world of gaming, the father of hundreds ersonages, genius of virtual worlds and the secret to Nintendo's longevity; his creative vision was instrumental in determining the path Nintendo's future (and indeed, the industry's as a whole) would follow. Yokoi began to mentor Miyamoto during this period of time in R&D, teaching him all that he knew. The company cope the new market in Japan. Approach on customers g uides by three directions: arcade automatic machines, home and pocket game systems. In 1977 Nintendo released its first â€Å"Color TV Game 6†³ and â€Å"Color TV Game 15† (6 and 15 indicates the number of games) which offers a few games: tennis, rally and arcanoid. One year later in western markets announced Computer Othello (analogue of reversi game). First releases doesn’t has a big success, unless the console sold by million copies. In 1980 Gunpei Yokoi releases the real bomb of free time annihilation – pocket game platform Game & Watch. Each console came with one game with two different level difficulties. Simple game mechanic changes lightly: the gamer must press the right button on the right time. Environment and decoration of games were different: that were Mickey Mouse who catches the eggs, was firemen who catches the survivors from houses and so on. Copies of those games were released even in Soviet â€Å"Electronica† pocket games were not Mickey Mouse, but the Wolf and the Hare became main heroes. 59 games of Nintendo sold all over the world more than 10 million copies. In 1981 along with Shigeru Miyamoto Nintendo launched Radar Scope – modest and plain scroll shooter, which dedicated to be a star within arcade automated machines but it fails. Thanks to Shigeru Miyamoto, who completely change the game and automated machines hardware to work with new game, the Radar Scope launched with different name and game – under the name of Donkey Kong. The game has fantastic success and it became one of the most popular games of all time. In 1981 along with giant monkey, in Donkey Kong game, first time debut two small pieces of red and pink pixels, which soon find their names – Mario and princess Pitch. Total sales of games with little sanitary technician Mario on cover, step the barrier over 250 million copies in 2008. After great success of Donkey Kong, Shigeru Miyamoto begins his tight collaboration with Gunpei Yokoi. This friendship helps to born almost all future hits of Nintendo: from Super Mario to Metroid. The success of arcade slot machines with games from Shigeru Miyamoto allows engineer Masayuki Uemura to finish his development of second gaming system from Nintendo: in 1983 in Japan launched Famicom (Family Computer), which has selling over 500,000 units within two months. The console was also a technical insulation and inexpensive when compared to its competitors, priced at about 100 dollars. By 1985, the Famicom had proven to be a huge continued success in Japan. However, Nintendo also encountered a problem with the sudden popularity of the Famicom — they did not have the resources to manufacture games at the same pace they were selling them. To combat this, Yamauchi decided to divide his employees into three groups, the groups being Research & Development 1 (R&D 1), Research & Development 2 (R&D 2) and Research & Development 3 (R&D 3). R&D 1 was headed by Gunpei Yokoi, R&D 2 was headed by Masayuki Uemura, and R&D 3 was headed by Genyo Takeda. Using these groups, Yamauchi hoped Nintendo would produce a small number of high quality games rather than a large number of average quality games. During this period of time, Nintendo rekindled their desire to release the Famicom in the USA. But the launch slows down. The reason was not in production and not in localization – but the company seeks reliable partner in USA. Since the company had very little experience with the United States market, they had previously attempted to contract with Atari for the system's distribution in 1983. However, a fiasco involving Coleco and Donkey Kong soured the relationship between the two during the negotiations, and Atari refused to back Nintendo's console. The video game crash of 1983 soon took out not only Atari, but the vast majority of the American market itself. Nintendo was on its own. Nintendo was determined not to make the same mistakes in the US that Atari had. Because of massive influxes of games that were regarded as some of the worst ever created, gaming had almost completely died out in America. Nintendo decided that to avoid facing the same problems, they would only allow games that received their â€Å"Seal of Quality† to be sold for the Famicom, using a chip called 10NES to â€Å"lockout† or prevent unlicensed games from working. In 1985, Nintendo announced that they were releasing the Famicom worldwide — except under a different name — the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) — and with a different design. It is one of the most popular consoles of all time. In Japan the NES console sold by 100 dollars without additional accessories. From US market the price was expensive almost twice – for 199 dollars the gamers receive the console and the new megahit – Super Mario Bros. Total sales from Japan and US was approximately the same – in Japan – a little more than 32 million, and in US – almost 30 million. There are a few reasons of popularity. First, both for Japanese and US gamers, games from new producer was a draught of fresh air, which forever changes conceptions about genres and games. Second, the lucky concatenation of circumstances – the only competitor was distressed Atari and that fact allows Nintendo to control over 90% of console market. Third, the cheaper prime cost of console – for self-repayment and profit earning it is enough to sell the console for silly 75 dollars. Not the last role keeps the cartridge – holder of information, which works up a market with its simplicity and reliability. Interval of three years, during which the company seeks for reliable partner in USA to launch NES, allows developing percussive army of hits. On console scrapes first melodies of Mario (1983, 1985, 1988, 1990, Link twice goes to his mystic adventures (The Legend of Zelda – 1986 and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link – 1988) and Samus Aran goes for her first mission given by Galactic Federation (1986). Final Fantasy (1987) and Metal Gear (1988) achieves phenomenal success. The family of Belmonts three times goes to quilt Dracula by family whip in Castelvania (Castelvania – 1986, Castelvania II: Simon’s Quest – 1987, Castelvania III: Dracula’s Curse – 1989). The ninja Ru also three times goes versus demons and monsters (Ninja Gaiden – 1989; Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos – 1990; Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom – 1991). Almost all games sold with fantastic numbers of copies. Absolute record has Mario (recognized as one of the best games in all times) – trilogy Super Mario Bros sold over 68 million copies (total Mario series sales from 1983 up to 2008 are over 250 million copies). Next came The Legend of Zelda (the 5th series, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, released in 1998, recognized as the best game ever created in gaming industry) – 20 million copies (total sales of The Legend of Zelda (12 series) from 1986 up to 2008 are over 220 million copies). Rest of Nintendo games against a background of such achievement achieves only â€Å"modest† few million copies. The last major blockbuster game for the NES, Super Mario Bros. 3, was released in early 1990. The game went on to sell over 18 million units. In 1988, Nintendo of America unveiled Nintendo Power, a monthly news and strategy magazine from Nintendo that served to advertise new games. The first issue published was the July/August edition, which spotlighted the NES game Super Mario Bros. 2. Nintendo Power is still published today with its two hundredth issue released in February 2006. Phenomenal success of its ancestors repeats the new pocket console. In 1989 Nintendo launched Game Boy (created by Gunpei Yokoi), which easily sends to nowhere the last argument from Atari – the Lynx console with color screen. Twice, in 1998 and 2001, Nintendo launched new modifications of Game Boy and confidently defends its niche from any invaders. Sales of 200 million Game Boy consoles – and superiority of big N in 21st century is inaccessible to competitors. It eventually became the best selling portable game system of all time. Later, Super Mario Land was also released for the Game Boy, which sold 14 million copies worldwide. The games don’t remain behind as well. Very successfully was vested interests on Tetris – the Russian casual game of all times and nations easy sold over 33 million copies. However, soon the tastes of auditorium changed – the tamagochies and pokemons gather fantastic popularity, but Nintendo was on time to buy license from owners. Games with silly small animals-gladiators easy beats Tetris sales – over 35 million copies sold on the first two models of Game Boy and another 32 millions – on Game Boy Advance (GBA). Since then Mario and The Legend of Zelda was created, the Pokemon trademark was 3rd amazing success of Nintendo Corporation. Total sales of game exceeded the barrier of 180 million copies (up to 2008). Even the legendary The Legend of Zelda 2 was unable to beat Pokemons with its â€Å"only† 17 million copies. The Super Famicom was released in Japan on November 21, 1990. The system's launch was widely successful, and the Super Famicom was sold out across Japan within three days. In August 1991, the Super Famicom was launched in the US under the name â€Å"Super Nintendo Entertainment System† (SNES). The SNES was released in Europe in 1992. In Japan, the Super Famicom easily took control of the gaming market. In the US, due to a late start and an aggressive marketing campaign by Sega. Nintendo has serious competitor as Sega Mega Drive and Sega Genesis which pass ahead Nintendo by 3 years, when Nintendo seeks for a partner in US, and have time to take lead position in 16 bit systems market. Nintendo saw its market share take a precipitous plunge from 90-95% with the NES to a low of approximately 35% against the Sega Genesis. Over the course of several years, the SNES in North America eventually overtook the Sega Genesis, thanks to franchise titles such as Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Street Fighter II, and the Final Fantasy series. Total worldwide sales of the SNES were higher than the Genesis. With essential loses the combat wins the big N – over 60 million sales against 29 from Sega. In 1992 Gunpei Yokoi and the rest of R 1 began planning on a new virtual reality console to be called the Virtual Boy. Hiroshi Yamauchi also bought majority shares of the Seattle Mariners in 1992. Alas, but Virtual Boy with helmet instead of screen had a fiasco in 1995. Also in 1995, Nintendo again found themselves in a competitive situation. Competitor Sega introduced their 32-bit Saturn, while newcomer Sony introduced the 32-bit PlayStation. Sony's fierce marketing campaigns ensued, and it started to cut into Nintendo and Sega's market share. On June 23 1996, the Nintendo 64 (N64) was released in Japan and became a huge hit, selling over 500,000 units on the first day of its release. On September 29 1996, Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 in North America, and it too was a success. Many feel that the advertising onslaught by Sony at this time did not truly begin to take effect until many of the consumers who held out for the N64 became frustrated at the lack of software following the first few months after the system's release. What also greatly contributed to the extremely competitive climate that Nintendo was entrenched in was the fact that many third-party companies immediately began developing and releasing many of their leading games for Nintendo's competing consoles. Many of those third party companies cited cheaper development and manufacturing costs for the CD format, versus the cartridge format. In 1996, Pocket Monsters (known internationally as â€Å"Pokemon†) was released in Japan to a huge following. The Pokemon franchise, created by Satoshi Tajiri, was proving so popular in America, Europe, and Japan, that for a brief time, Nintendo took back their place as the supreme power in the games industry. In 1997, Gunpei Yokoi died in a car accident at the age of 57. On October 13 1998, the Game Boy Color was released in Japan, with releases in North America and Europe a month later. Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance in Japan on March 21 2001. This was followed by the North American launch on June 11 and the European launch on June 22. Nintendo released the GameCube home video game console on September 14 2001 in Japan. It was released in North America on November 18 2001, Europe on May 3 2002 and Australia on May 17 2002. In 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down as the president of Nintendo and named Satoru Iwata his successor. Nintendo and Chinese-American scientist Dr Wei Yen co-founded iQue to manufacture and distribute official Nintendo consoles and games for the mainland Chinese market under the iQue brand. During the same year, Nintendo's aggressive business tactics in Europe would catch up to them. The European Commission determined that Nintendo had engaged in anticompetitive price-fixing business practices dating at least as far back as the early 90s. This resulted in a heavy fine being laid against the company- â‚ ¬149 million, one of the largest antitrust fines applied in the history of the commission. In May 2004, Nintendo announced plans to release a new brand of handheld, unrelated to the Game Boy, featuring two screens, one of which was touch-sensitive. The Nintendo DS, released on November 21 2004, received over three million pre-orders. In addition to the touch screen, the DS can also create three-dimensional graphics, similar to those of the Nintendo 64, although its lack of hardware support for texture filtering results in more pixilated graphics than on the Nintendo 64. At E3 in May 2005, Nintendo displayed the first prototype for their â€Å"next-generation† system, codenamed the Nintendo Revolution (now known as the Wii), its controller revealed at the Tokyo Game Show later that year. On January 26 2006, Nintendo announced a new version of their Nintendo DS handheld, the Nintendo DS Lite, designed to be smaller and lighter, with a brighter screen. It was launched in Japan on March 2 2006. On June 11 2006, Nintendo released their update to the Nintendo DS, the Nintendo DS Lite, in North America, also on this day Nintendo opened its official US press site to the public which continued until June 17 2006. On June 23 2006, Nintendo released the Nintendo DS Lite in Europe. On July 7 2006, Nintendo officially established a South Korean subsidiary, Nintendo Korea, in the country's capital, Seoul, which replaced Daewon Media as the official distributor of Nintendo products in South Korea. In early August 2006, it was revealed that the Nintendo corporation (along with Microsoft) was the target of a patent-infringement lawsuit. Leveled by the Anascape Corporation, the suit claims that Nintendo's use of analog technology in their remote game controllers constitutes a violation of their patents. Microsoft is also named in the lawsuit, for the same reasons. The lawsuit seeks to bring damages to both corporations and possibly force them to stop selling controllers with the violating technology. Corporate culture and social responsobility programs 2. 1 Corporate culture Men/ Women There is a majority of women in the many headquarters. An estimated 70% of the employees are women. However, the top positions in the company, for example management positions, are still mainly occupied by men. This might have something to do with the fact that the Japanese headquarters are in charge and that they much rather work with men than women. Nationalities There are about 25 different nationalities working in each Nintendo branch. They come from all different branches all over the world. This causes little difficulties. Of course there are always some minor issues but nothing really worth mentioning. The biggest problems occur when doing business with the Japanese because their culture is so very different. Due to all these different nationalities the company language is English. Innovation What is a huge and important part of Nintendo culture is innovation. They have always done this and they always will. They realize that innovation piques the human intellect and allows them to develop a constant stream of new entertainment ideas. Heroes and beliefs There are heroes and beliefs in Nintendo Corporation. One of the heroes is Gunpei Yokoi, which has incredible creativity, talent and modesty. He is a bright example to imitate and follow. Another one is Shigeru Miyamoto. With his name concerned a belief that brilliant creations can be easy as technician Mario and that the excellent things is a simple things. Events They took on an American habit called â€Å"Casual Friday†. This means that on Friday no one wears ties or suits, everyone comes to work in a casual, comfortable outfit. As there are a lot of young people in the company this initiative is very appreciated among the employees. Team building events are organized every now and then to strengthen the bond between the employees. There are several parties during the year, they have a Christmas party and a summer party. They are very important for the staff and whenever the management tries to move one of these to a later date the employees are not very happy. Events like these are very important to maintain a positive atmosphere within the company. 2. 2 Social responsibility programs One of the Nintendo Wii’s social responsibilities: We see a responsibility to have our players up and moving around, because sitting in place can cause health problems – every body needs to move to be healthy. That’s how Wii Sports was born, and the next idea in pushing that forward is Wii Fit. It even more than a game – creating an experience that gives back to the player in ways that are physically beneficial and emotionally beneficial. It’s something that Nintendo is passionate about as a company. External and internal environment of organization 3. 1 External environment Competitors Nintendo has some competitors, these are: ? Playstation, Playstation2, Playstation3 â€Å"Sony computer entertainment Inc. â€Å" ? XBox â€Å"Microsoft Corporation† Market share Nintendo is a Japan’s third most valuable listed company with a market value of more than 85 billion US dollars. Company earnings in 2007 year is 966,5 billion yen ($8,19 billion), net profit — 174,3 billion yen ($1,48 billion). According to NPD data, Nintendo was responsible for 69% of US game industry growth in the first five months of 2007. In Wii households 66% of those aged 25 – 49 play the console regularly. And about 50% of men 50 or older have tried the Wii. 70% of US spending on video games in 2002 were for console hardware and games, 30% for portables. In 2006, it was a 50/50 split. Traditionally a bastion for young gamers, sales for Nintendo products in North and South America in 2005 was 28% by those 25 or older. In 2007, it increased to 32%. For those 18 – 24, the share increased from 15 to 21 % over the same period. The DS passed 40 mln sold worldwide in the first half of 2007. In the US currently, there are 60 Wii games and 300 DS games available. By the end of 2007, there will be 100 Wii titles and 140 more DS titles. 3. 2 Internal environment Number of headquarters employees: 3,768 Board of directors Satoru Iwata: President & CEO Reggie Fils-Aime: President & COO of NOA Conrad Abbott: President of NOC Rose Lappin: President of Nintendo Australia Hiroshi Yamauchi: Former President & Chairman Minoru Arakawa & Howard Lincoln: Former heads of NOA Satoru Shibata: President of NOE Masaharu Matsumoto:Managing Director and Director Eiichi Suzuki:Managing Director and Director– Yoshihiro Mori: Senior Managing Director, General Manager – Corporate Analysis & Administration Division and Representative Director Shinji Hatano: Senior Managing Director – Licensing Division, General Manager – Licensing Division and Representative Director Shigeru Miyamoto: Senior Managing Director – Entertainment Analysis & Development Division, General Manager – Entertainment Analysis & Development Division and Representative Director Nobuo Nagai: Senior Managing Director and Representative Director Genyo Takeda: Senior Managing Director of Integrated Research & Development Division, General Manager – Integrated Research & Development Division and Representative Director Strategic planning and competetive advanteges Much of Nintendo’s success can likely be attributed to their focus on younger and casual gamers that have not recently been the focus of Microsoft and Sony. Nintendo’s main strategy is to peoduce less games qith superiour quality than to produce more games but without superiour quality. 4. Strategic planning Corporate mission and philosophy At Nintendo we are proud to be working for the leading company in our industry. We are strongly committed to producing and marketing the best products and support services available. We believe it is essential not only to provide products of the highest quality, but to treat every customer with attention, consideration an d respect. By listening closely to our customers, we constantly improve our products and services. We feel an equal commitment toward our employees. We want to maintain an atmosphere in which talented individuals can work together as a team. Commitment and enthusiasm are crucial to the high quality of our products and support services. We believe in treating our employees with the same consideration and respect that we, as a company, show our customers. SWOT analysis Strengths: Nintendo has four main strengths: a strong brand name, high returns, high employee efficiency, and debt free status. Nintendo’s strong brand name comes from about twenty-five years experience in the video gaming business. Not only do they have a strong presence in the console market but they are the leader in the handheld console market. They pioneered this market in 1989 with the original Game Boy. Since then, they have upgraded to create Game Boy Advanced and Nintendo DS, which sold 79. 5 million units and 40. 3 million units, respectively, in fiscal 2007. The Nintendo Wii, which is their most updated console, sold 5. 84 million units in the first five months in its launch alone. This system consists of motion sensors attached to the end of the controllers as well as the console, which makes the games more interactive. A high percentage of the people that play video games in today’s day are college students. Being part of that percentage, I know that I think highly of Nintendo based mainly on the fact that they created regular Nintendo. If I could choose today between playing the most technologically advanced gaming console and the original Legend of Zelda, I would play Legend of Zelda for hours. Nintendo has also been very successful in investing their resources in profitable companies and ideas. This would include their ownership in the Seattle Mariners and the Atlanta Hawks. It also refers to their high return on assets and equity when compared with other companies in the same industry. Nintendo also has high employee efficiency. According to Datamonitor, â€Å"revenue per employee was about $206,960 in fiscal year 2007, significantly higher compared to the industry average of about $3,684 during the same period. † Nintendo’s biggest strength in my opinion is their ability to stay debt free. Their most recent debt to equity ratio was zero compared to the industry’s average of 11. 9%. This not only shows that they are able to efficiently finance its’ operations but also enjoys a lot of financial flexibility. Weaknesses: Nintendo’s two biggest weaknesses are having a dependence on contract manufacturers as well as having low earnings per share. In regards to the dependence on contract manufacturers, Nintendo reaches out to companies to produce the key components of their consoles as well as assembling the finished products. The problem is, the new Nintendo Wii console is under such high demand that the manufacturers are not able to supply the key components or assemble the products fast enough creating a lack of finished products to be sold. It is assumed that this shortage will have a sizeable affect on the company’s overall revenue. Low earnings per share is calculated by dividing profit by the weighted average common shares. Nintendo recorded a 12. 6% decline in its earnings per share for five year period, from 2003 to 2007, significantly lower compared to the corresponding industry average of 43. 9%. † This is important to note because it may affect the investors in the company negatively by lowering their confidence. A third weakness is the lack of games produced for Nintendo consoles. In my personal opini on, I have steered away from recent Nintendo products such as Gamecube and Wii because of the lack of games so far. Regular Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Gameboy, and Nintendo 64 all had a wide variety of games. Gamecube and Wii, however, have been overshadowed by other systems with many more games such as Playstation 2, Xbox, and Xbox360. It seems as if Nintendo is always so anxious to get their gaming systems out that they never wait to have enough games to satisfy their customers. Opportunities: Nintendo has a few different opportunities. For starters, the United States game software market is soaring right now. Video games and consoles are some of the most sold items, especially during the holiday season. Because of their reasonable prices, games can be given as gifts by pretty much anyone. The video game market is also soaring as is evident by the $8 billion dollars in revenues in 2006 in addition to the consoles market generating $6. 6 billion dollars in revenues during the same year. These figures are expected to increase as well over the next couple years to reach up to $10. 3 billion dollars at the end of 2011. Another grand opportunity that Nintendo is planning on attacking is the Indian console market. Although the revenues are not nearly as much as the American market, the Indian market for consoles is expected to skyrocket to $120 million by 2010 from just $13. 3 million in 2006. Because of Nintendo’s great brand image, as discussed under strengths, Nintendo will succeed in these new markets. The greatest opportunity, however, is in the online gaming market. The world is continuing to become more computer oriented in such that computers are now about as normal household item as a television set. Because of this, and the generation of children growing up in this kind of environment, the market of online gaming is become increasingly large. In 2006, only 46 million people were using broadband connections to play video games online. That number is expected to jump up to 413 million users by the year 2010. Nintendo has taken steps to attract this audience by setting up their Wii system to be internet accessible and have the ability to update content, including up to date weather services and news feeds. Threats: There are a handful of threats that go along with all of these opportunities and strengths, however. For one, Nintendo products are often very pricey. This allows other products with similar or slightly lesser quality to steal customers by pricing their respective consoles and games to make them more affordable. Another knock on the Nintendo products is their short lifecycle. In the video game industry, products â€Å"lose their flavor† after approximately nine months, at which point a different product will come out that seems to be more updated and technologically advanced. Because of this, Nintendo will have to make sure to release all products on time and be able to meet the demand of their products with their supply. Leaving stores sold out of products will result in loss of sales in the long run due to the short lifecycle that each product will enjoy. The last threat to Nintendo products is their poor durability. The Nintendo Wii controllers have had the most significant problems when it comes to this. In many circumstances, the Wii controllers have not been properly designed resulting in the controller flying from the user’s hands and into televisions sets. Having problems such as these results in recalls, which is a very lengthy and expensive process. To prevent this, Nintendo must confirm that all products are being properly designed and manufactured prior to release. 4. 2 Competitive advantages The advantages to Nintendo are firstly that it makes their console cheaper to manufacture. This means that they can sell the base console at a profit whilst their competitors have to subsidise the retail price. It also gives Nintendo far more room to manoevre when it comes to using the price mechanism to take on that competition. The second advantage is that games are a lot easier, quicker and cheaper to develop. In fact they are more comparable with PS2 games in this area. This, obviously, has a massive effect on what appears on the game shop shelf and when it appears. Quite simply, it should be far easier for a publisher to make a profit on Wii, which explains why so much development resource has been directed at it. Organizational structure and design Branches Nintendo has branches all over the world: America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Their headquarters are located in Japan and the European headquarters â€Å"Nintendo of Europe GmbHâ€Å"is located in Germany, Gro? ostheim. Hierarchy The headquarters in Japan are at the top of the hierarchy, they give direct orders to Nintendono of Europe GmbH, which is under the supervision of a president. The company in Germany consists of many different parts: Legal services, administration and marketing and sales. In charge of those are senior managers who report directly to the president. Those senior managers are in charge of a team of directors, to whom the employees must report to. Motivation and HR principles 6. 1 Motivation High salaries and great bonuses. – Health and other insurances. – Creative multinational environment. – Career grows opportunities. 6. 2 HR principles Trainings and seminars Nintendo organize English classes for their employees, as well as seminars in order to educate their employees on different subjects so that they can functi on better within the company. Recruitment Nintendo is constantly recruiting people. There are different possibilities to recruit employees, depending on the position. For important positions such as management, they tend to use headhunters. There is also an online application form, where people can apply for a job. Quite often they put advertisements in newspapers and magazines. Another common way of filling in vacancies is recruiting within the company or you can find the person you need through connections such as friends or former colleagues etc. Requirements The requirements are very different, depending on the job. When it comes to finding warehouse workers training is of course the most important. In higher positions however, a good combination of training and social skills is inevitable. Naturally, the importance of the latter is higher in positions where there is a lot of interaction with other people, for example customer services and sales. When it comes to appearances we could say that there is no real formal dress code, mainly because there are a lot of young people in the company. Controll porcess and quality management Nintendo has it own quality standards: Nintendo Seal of Quality. Originally, for NTSC countries, the seal was a large, black and gold circular starburst. The seal read as follows: â€Å"This seal is your assurance that NINTENDO has approved and guaranteed the quality of this product. † This seal was later altered in 1988; â€Å"approved and guaranteed† was changed to â€Å"evaluated and approved†. In 1989, the seal became gold and white, like it currently appears, with a shortened phrase, â€Å"Official NINTENDO Seal of Quality†. The symbol remained unchanged until 2003 when â€Å"of Quality† was removed. 1. Communications and decision making Nintendo of Europe GmbH does not experience many problems within Europe or with the USA, but due to enormous cultural differences there are quite a few problems when it comes to dealing with Japan. The Japanese headquarters want to be in control at all times. They are not trusting towards the Europeans and want them to do everything like it is done in Japan. Their way of doing business is very dominating. For instance in Japan the Human Resource department is situated above the company entrance, so they can check the exact times when the employees arrive and leave again. They try to make the Europeans do the same and of course this is not possible because in most companies we fill in our timesheets manually and in general, bosses and employees are happy with that way of working, which is very hard to understand for the Japanese. When it comes to dealing with problem situations, and there are meetings with Europeans and Japanese, everyone can sense that the Japanese are not really taking the European opinions into account. At the end of the day, they feel it is their decision and they solve the problems their way. Conclusion In conclusion, Nintendo has done a great job at creating a good brand image within the video game industry. With the disappointing failure of the Playstation 3, a console expected to rival the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo has been able to enjoy much success with their Wii. Interesting enough, the high prices did not steer consumers away from the console. Instead, during the holiday season, many retail stores were sold out. For the time being it seems as if the Wii will continue to enjoy success by introducing new games to the system. Having a unique system with controls that actually have sensors in which you have to move around to control game has captured everyone’s interest. For the future, I would like to say that Nintendo should begin the planning and preparing process for the release of systems and games sooner so that there is not a higher demand than the supply. However, for some reason or another, Nintendo has done this with most of their products, and with the word-of-mouth marketing, and high product quality, Nintendo has been able to keep their â€Å"flavor of the month† status for longer than most other companies. It can be comparable to the Tickle-Me-Elmo dolls. When they were hard to get, everyone wanted one and would pay thousands of dollars on Ebay just to get one. As soon as they filled the stores though, nobody had any interest anymore. The main managerial issue of the company is that Japanese wants to control all the processes whole time and they never taking into consideration opinion and ideas of them colleagues, which reduced brand loyalty and trust and makes efficiency and effectiveness go down. And if there no trust, there is no wiliness to work effectively and the motivation can decrease dramatically. Japanese must understand, that controlling over the quality doesn’t mean to control over all processes and it doesn’t mean, that they must not taking into consideration their colleagues ideas and opinion. They even don’t want to understand that there are many factors, such as local culture, which they can force to follow by their culture. Moreover it makes limitation to other headquarters managers and top managers’ ideas and decisions, which can be very creative and useful and can solve many problems and make new ideas. And the fact that Japanese don’t take into consideration of their foreign colleague’s opinion is decreasing overall management process of whole company. Japanese needs to change their point of views, otherwise they company will lose their position in the market. This managerial issue is a part of internal environment as well, so it is important to change managerial style and give some creative and decision making freedom to the rest of colleagues. The situation in external environment of organization is much better, than internal. There are not many comments to say, because company’s business is great in the market. For statistic it will be useful to bring the following information: As December 2008 came to a close, one thing was very clear. Nintendo was blowing away the competition in console sales. The company sold 485,000 DS units and 335,000 Wii consoles for the month. During the same period Microsoft's Xbox360 sold 228,000 units and Sony's PlayStation 3 lagged behind with 127,000 units sold. By using some simple math, we can see that Nintendo's latest console, the Wii, almost outsold it main competitors' combined sales for the month. Why are the Nintendo consoles selling so well? We can give a simple answer: â€Å"Keeping it simple, stupid, is winning†¦ Both Wii and the DS don't require big instruction books and that's expanded the audience†¦ Sony and Microsoft took a different path, producing consoles of stunning power and complexity †¦ and price. † â€Å"They've gotten complicated and both companies are following a core gamer audience †¦ whereas Wii and DS are working for both young and old (newcomers to gaming)†¦ the DS has games that go down to pre-school level and the Wii has games where you don't even need to crack the instruction manual at all to play. As future strategic plan, I strongly recommend Nintendo to think about realising gaming mobile phone that will be able to play high quality games as well. Today mobile communications market is one of the biggest in the world and now it is more than communication – it is global thing, combining with internet technologies, photo and video cameras, games, complex prog rams and much more – it’s a new communication of 21st century. And Nintendo can easily and profitable combine one product to do all that thinks perfect. Practice shows that Game Boy was the best pocket gaming console in the world. And if they combine Game Boy with mobile device, it will be amazing and it will be a new super hit of the market. And if they combine their new technologies in a mobile device, like movement sensor in Wii, it will beat the market for sure and will be even successful than the iPhone. But they must be hurry until their main competitors – Microsoft or Sony hit upon it. In that case, they will have competitors in mobile market as well. Along with that, Nintendo must think about on-line internet gaming. Not enhancing a Wii, but making new servers, in which players for example, can directly play with each other by Wii or by PC. In case of PC they can produce additional hardware that will works fine with internet gaming by Nintendo. Using that strategy, Nintendo can create the new virtual gaming world in internet and it will work excellent. Now days fashion in game world is a virtual on-line gaming. And if Nintendo implements new ideas and creates new on-line games using both new and old characters, it will be great advantage in this sphere and will attract more and more gamers to buy Nintendo products. The next steep of strategy is strong advertising. Many peoples, especially the old generation, doesn’t even know that Nintendo exist now days and that it’s as before is a leader of gaming industry. Strong advertising will remind those people, that Nintendo exist and will be attract more and more customers. People, especially children like advertising. They like to watch advertising and say to each other â€Å"See, I already have this device that is on TV – it is great!! † Strong advertising will bring more potential customers. The next major steep will be promotions nd enhancements of social responsibility. It means to actively collaborate in sponsorship programs, like education, social aid, be a sponsor of some huge TV projects, make promotions and seminars for students, who can be potential employee tomorrow. The next would be producing more games. There are not many games on Nintendo, but competitors have a lot of games. Of course, it is not necessary t o make 10000 games to get against Nintendo’s main strategy, but they just can make 50 more quality games and it will works. And it’s time for thinking about new megahit personages. There is already many games and ideas, but they are not mega popular – they need to think about popular ones. Of course, it is interesting to play Castelvania or The Legend of Zelda, but the fans, who played Castelvania 25 years ago are now a little old for that and the new generation doesn’t appreciate so much old personages, because they not grow in that period and they are not fans and they will never buy Wii only for Castelvania like fans. I think Nintendo can easily generate new ideas and new personages, whose can be the next generation’s new mega hits and the new words in fashion. I believe Nintendo will succeed in the new digital media environment because they seem to be a company that can adjust to the market. Thus, for example, analytics consider that Nintendo can control a piece of 85 billion dollars on the entertainment market! Really, it’s not bad for the company who started with two little shops, is it not? References 1. David Sheff â€Å"Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered The Worldâ€Å", 1993 2. www. nintendo. com 3. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Nintendo 4. http://boomson. blogspot. com/2008/02/nintendo-swot-analysis. html