Ethics and the Canadian Wheat Board Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Ethics and the Canadian Wheat Board - Essay Example The Canadian Wheat Board has faced the incorporation of CSR theories since its conception on the early prairies; today the Board still operates as a dynamic organisation focused on trading high quality produce while giving farmers the best money for their efforts. Fisher and Lovell believe that Corporate Social Responsibility is something that every business, great and small, should be keeping in mind throughout the daily transactions and trade (Fisher and Lovell, 2006). They know that every country is built not directly on its government structure, but instead on its internal business structures, including those smaller organisations that make up a basic business infrastructure at the community level. According to these authors, CSR can incorporate any of three major ideologies into its structure: libertinism, universalism and utilitarianism. Each of these encompasses a different perspective of social justice and therefore will have a different method of identifying and dealing with perceived issues within a corporate structure. Libertinism theory will put the emphasis on the right of the researcher to try any new methods within farming, regardless of the criticisms of other individuals or government bodies. It is, Libertarians will argue, the right of the individual to pursue his or her own theories and try out new methods of seed manufacturing if these theories are basically positive. Scientists and other researchers who promote genetic modification are not singularly focused on the destruction of agriculture, after all; they simply believe that their methods will prove the most viable in the near future. Although at its core, libertinism in CSR aims to free the developer from government restriction for the good of technological advancement, in terms of real social responsibility it is better to use past successes and failures as a guideline when creating new corporate theories (Otsuka, 2003). Universal theory has a different approach to CSR. Promoters of this school of thought believe that the best way for corporations to better serve their customers and communities is for them all to adopt a universally accepted set of rules and laws for operation. This would mean that corporations of any size in the UK, Canada, the United States or in Africa would all have to meet the same guidelines as set out by an intermediary and international governing body. Because of a universal set of rules, corporations would not be able to argue that they can't compete with other similar bodies because of national restrictions; this lets each business come to terms with the same human rights and environmental guidelines within its own organisation and as such, there can be no question whether one business is morally better than another. In contrast to Libertinism and Universalism, Utilitarianism promotes yet another approach to Corporate Social Responsibility. Primarily, this ideology holds that the most crucial aspect of any business endeavour is to bring in new ideas and equipment as they are

Change and Culture Case Study II Part TWO Essay

Change and Culture Case Study II Part TWO - Essay Example As shown in the organizational chart in the previous assignment, departmental heads have been appointed in such a way that representation from both the merged organizations is equally distributed. In order to avoid any ego problems; the CEO of ABC Healthcare was an efficient and an outside person who was previously employed as a vice-president of a well-known health service provider in the country. Six months after the merger, it was seen necessary by the management to implement some major changes within the organization in order to be more competitive in terms of cost of service. One of the features of this organizational change was reduction in the number of employees and the introduction of the concept of ‘universal workers’ who will be trained to perform multiple tasks. This concept will involve major changes in job design across several classes of employees especially among the nursing and administrative staff. Apart from the above, it was decided to implement the concept of organizational learning within the organization as a part of its strategy. The strategy involves the concept of ‘learning organization’s conceptualized by Peter Senge which was first published (and widely accepted) in his bestselling book The Fifth Discipline. This paper reviews the implementation of the concepts of universal worker and organizational change in ABC Healthcare in order to remain efficient in terms of costs, resources, service, and management. Employees are an integral part of any organization and are often referred to as one of its most important assets. The management of any organization has to have a balance between employee efficiency and employee satisfaction. In a sense, there is an inherent contradiction between the aims of employees and the management. Employees are concerned with concepts like job security, and adequate compensation while the management is concerned with maximization of efficiency and profits. This contrast needs

Tax Year End Procedure Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Tax Year End Procedure - Essay Example Inland Revenue and HM Revenue and Customs legislation. The company payroll is one of the largest expenses a company may have and as such it is important that accurate and complete records should be kept on a daily basis to ensure that the year-end procedures can be carried out with the minimum of stress or inconvenience to payroll staff. This report addresses five different areas where payroll procedures need to be explained so that during the end of year cut-off and rollover procedures there is a minimum of adjustment that might need to be made to existing daily records. The five areas contained in this report include the reconciliation process, the clear-down process, submission requirements and deadlines, a general checklist and a review of procedures. The most helpful source of information on day-to-day payroll procedures is an Employer's Help Book (E13, 2005) that is published by the Inland Revenue Department. This booklet explains how to work out and record PAYE and NIC's (form P11); The procedures necessary when a new person is employed; what procedures should take place when an employee leaves the company; the correct procedure for changing an employee's tax code within a tax year as well as information on other different changes that might occur within a tax year such as changes in employees circumstances (reaching the age of 16, pension schemes, what to do if an employee dies and changes to insurance schemes) as well as comprehensive information on how to apply the Working Tax Credit to wages and how a company can take out Student Loan Deductions from an employee's weekly wage entitlement. One of the most important payroll procedures is the allocation of a new employees tax code, as this code will determine how much tax this person should be paying in accordance with his or her personal circumstances. There are a variety of codes that can be used which are generally noted with a letter (L, P, T, or Y) and one or more numbers. The Inland Revenue Department has more detailed information on how these codes should be allocated and they advise that a tax code for an employee should never be changed within a financial year without approval from the department. There are a number of different wage figures that have to be accumulated throughout any financial year. These include individual PAYE and gross earning figures for each employee, plus the amount of money that has been added to or deducted from individual pay entitlements for insurance and pension schemes, clothing allowances, travel allowances, working tax credit and other benefits and allowances. It is the company's responsibility to ensure that the calculations of weekly pay amounts and the recording of accumulative pay figures throughout the year are accurate especially in terms of PAYE as it is this amount that the company will need to pay to the Inland Revenue department at the end of the financial year. Most payrolls are now completed using a payroll software program. These programs have inbuilt processes in them that ensure that the necessary total figures are accumulated on a monthly and yearly basis. Supervisory checks at this stage of payroll processing should include checking weekly wage totals on a weekly basis before payments are made to employees, reconciling the weekly pay figure totals with those

Lego Branding Community Essay Example for Free

Lego Branding Community Essay Online communities are becoming â€Å"places† of belonging, information, and emotional support that people cannot do without. These social groups have a real existence for their participants, and thus have consequential effects on many aspects of behaviour. This article examines collective value creation and empowerment in an online brand community. It presents the main features of an online brand community, the process of value co-creation, and motivators for participating in online brand communities. These key factors jointly characterize collective value creation and empowerment. This netnographic study focuses on an online brand community called BrickBuilders, which is a meeting place for LEGO builders in Finland. BrickBuilders’ members feel a sense of belonging, they share similar motivations, and they create value together. Introduction A brand community can be formed by any group of people who share a common interest in a specific brand and who create a parallel social universe rife with its own myths, values, rituals, vocabulary, and hierarchy (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001; Cova and Pace, 2006). Brand communities become more than a place. They become a common understanding of a shared identity, which can be found in both face-to-face interactions and in cyberspace (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001). Analysts no longer question whether the concept of community should have a place in the domain of marketing (Cova and Pace, 2006). However, the concepts of brand community and online brand community are relatively new and have yet to find their place in the academic world. Traditionally, companies produced products relatively independently. Today, consumers and other stakeholders can create value more collectively. The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze collective value creation and empowerment in an online brand community. Main Features of Online Brand Communities Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) used three constructs to identify the distinguishing features of brand communities. First, a sense of belonging is a connection that members feel toward one another and the collective sense of difference from others outside of the community. The second feature is the presence of shared rituals and traditions that surround the brand. Rituals and traditions perpetuate the community’s shared history, culture, and consciousness. Traditions include certain behavioural norms and values. The third feature is a sense of moral responsibility, which is a felt sense of duty or obligation to the community. The sense of moral responsibility is what produces collective action. Heinonen and Halonen (2007) have identified motivators for online brand community activities. Members want to belong to something, build and strengthen their identities, get feedback from others, and create something new. The Process of Collective Value Creation Schau and colleagues (2009) have identified the process of value co-creation in online brand communities. The process consists of four thematic practices, which are social networking, impression management, community engagement, and brand use. Social networking is a practice that focuses on creating, enhancing, and sustaining ties among brand community members. These include welcoming, empathizing, and governing. These practices operate primarily in the intangible domain of the emotions and reinforce the social or moral bonds within the community. Impression management includes evangelizing and justifying. Online brand community members act as altruistic emissaries and ambassadors of good will. Members devote time and effort to the brand, share the news of the brand, and inspire others to participate in the community. Community-engagement practices are those that reinforce members’ escalating engagement with the brand community. These include staking, milestoning, badging, and documenting. Staking, milestoning, and badging mean that community members bring out brand experiences and proclaim openly that they are fans of a particular brand. Documenting occurs when brand community members construct a narrative of their brand experiences. Brand-use practices are specifically related to improved or enhanced use of the focal brand. These include grooming, customizing, and commoditizing. Grooming means that members share, for example, homemade tools and advice. Customizing means modifying existing ideas and discovering new ideas, which result in customized products. Commoditizing means that members rant or chastise some products, but at the same time, they have new ideas on how those products could be developed. Synthesis of the Theoretical Framework The main features of online brand communities, value co-creation, and motivators for participating in online brand communities (Heinonen and Halonen, 2007; Kozinets, 2010; Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001; Schau et al., 2009) are the key factors that jointly – realized in various combinations – characterize collective value creation and empowerment in an online brand community. The collective value creation and empowerment in the online brand community may occur when its members have a sense of belonging, they create value together, and they have similar motives. The collective value creation and empowerment of the online brand community allows mutual interaction between the online brand community and the company as well as other stakeholders. Companies have an opportunity to communicate with consumers and influence their opinions (Kozinets, 2010) and vice-versa. We have moved away from one-way transactions to a relationship-based interaction model that emphasizes consumers’ and other stakeholders’ roles in networks and communities.

One Hundred Years of Solitude/Cien Anos de Soledad : The Buendía Famil

One Hundred Years of Solitude/Cien Anos de Soledad : The Buendà ­a Family Bibliography w/3 sources The family is at the center of Latin American society. It provides a sense of stability amidst economic and political instability. Blood ties often become business contacts, and keeping in touch with as many relatives as possible is an economic advantage. The male is the dominant figure in Latin American families. He supports the family financially and decides the family's residence. As a result of his authority, he is often distant from his children (Barroa 75). He must prove himself muy macho (very much a man) through the conquest of several women (74). In fact, many Latin American men maintain separate houses from their family with a mistress (74). Poet Octavia Paz comments on machismo, saying that the ideal male "must never give in,' that is, allow the exterior world to penetrate his interior self, his maleness" (74). In Latin America, the female runs the household (74). She educates the children and manages the finances. As a result, the Latin American family is matriarchal. Whereas the father is distant, the mother is "linked with love and proximity" and has a greater influence on the children (75). The Buendà ­as of One Hundred Years of Solitude fit this model in several ways. Family ties are strong within the family. Everyone lives in the same house. One of two family names--Aureliano and Josà © Arcadio-- is passed down to all male Buendà ­as. The men in the novel fit into one of two categories (Bell-Villida 95). The Josà © Arcadios are on one side of the spectrum, exhibiting an extreme form of machismo. When they make a decision, no one... ... strong, and the men are either muy macho or extremely remote from the rest of the family. However, the Buendà ­as digress from this model in several instances. The men are not family leaders, and the women take on the traditional roles of both parents in the family. Another key deviation from the traditional family structure is the Buendà ­as' failure to form relationships with the community. They resort to incest, a digression from the norm which possibly causes the eventual destruction of the Buendà ­a clan. Bibliography Bell-Villada, Gene H. Garcia Marquez: The Man and His Work. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Gonzalez, Anibal. "Translation and genealogy: One Hundred Years of Solitude." In McGuirk and Cardwell, 65-79. James, Regina. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Revolutions in Wonderland. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1981.

Colonialism and Imperialism - A Post-colonial Study of Heart of Darknes

A Post-colonial Study of Heart of Darkness         Ã‚  In this paper, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness will be examined by using a recent movement, Post-colonial Study that mainly focuses on the relationship between the Self and the Other, always intertwined together in considering one’ identity.  Ã‚   The Other is commonly identified with the margin, which has been oppressed or ignored by Eurocentric, male-dominated history.  Ã‚   Conrad is also conscious of the Other's interrelated status with the Self, but his main concern is the Self, not the Other, even though he deals with the natives.  Ã‚   As Edward W. Said indicates in his Orientalism, the Orient (or the Other) has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience.1  Ã‚   For Conrad, the Other becomes meaningful only so far as it gives some insight or information for the construction of Eurocentric self-image.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In Heart of Darkness, the story is set in the Congo, the literal battleground for colonial exploitation.  Ã‚   Marlow perceives natives along stereotyped Western lines, even though he also manifests a sense of sympathy towards suffering natives.  Ã‚   The natives cannot be understood or seen represented from their point of view.  Ã‚   The colonial aspects in Heart of Darkness begin to be explored through Marlow’ perspective of history.  Ã‚   Seeing history as cyclic, Marlow juxtaposes the Roman invasion with that of the present British imperial project.  Ã‚   According to Marlow, when Romans had first come to Britain, they might have felt the same way the British did in Africa: "the Romans first came here . . . darkness was here yesterday . . . savages, precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink " (9-10). ... ...lism, Racism, or Impressionism?† Criticism (Fall, 1985) Burden, Robert. Heart of Darkness. London: Macmillan, 1991. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. ed. Robert Kimbrough. 3rd. edition. New York: Norton, 1988. Lionnet, Francoise. Autobiographical Voices. Cornell UP, 1988. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. ------------ The World, the Text, and the Critic. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983 ------------ Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1966) Shaffer, Brian. â€Å". Rebabarizing Civilization: Conrad’s African Fiction and Spencerian Sociology,† PMLA 108 (1993): 45-58 Thomas, Brook. "Preserving and Keeping Order by Killing Time in Heart of Darkness," in Heart of Darkness, ed. Ross Murfin, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989)

Communication: Analysing and Presenting Complex Communication Essay

Introduction This report is for the second exam of the Communications unit of producing complex written business documents. The aim of this report is to know the customer services in the Renmin University and know whether it could meet the need of the students. The objectives of the report are to introduce different kinds of customer services in the Renmin University and how to offer these services for the students. It includes the facilities of teaching, condition of the education, facilities of living and organization and activities of students. And each of them has its own different parts to define the services. 2.0 Procedure To source this report: a) Information on the customer services was taken from internet websites. b) A number of books on customer services were consulted. c) Information was gathered from the official websites of the Renmin University. 3. Facilities of Teaching 3.1 General Information of the Facilities The Renmin University consists of 23 schools in addition to the Graduate School (the School of Science is in the process of being set up, and a Chemistry Department has been established.), thirteen university-level institutions, fourteen post-doctoral stations, plus one Adult Higher Education College, School of Education Training, and Shenzhen Research Institute. Each of the schools has its own teaching building to meet the daily needs of teaching. And they also have the special facilities for their special subjects, for example, the chemical laboratoriesï ¼Å'the multimedia classrooms and the computer rooms. So the facilities of the teaching of the Renmin University could meet the needs of the customer services of the students. 3.2 Library The library of the Renmin University was founded in 1937. And now, the library has 15 reading rooms in which there are more than 1,800 seats. The responsible for services of the reading rooms are including borrowing, consultation, inter-library loans, help with information requests, searches, binding, audio-visual services, and so on. The university established a new local network that adopts the UNICORN software system of the US SIRSI Company and SUN mainframe equipment at the end of 1999. And this network environment provides all the necessary functions for a convenient and prompt library service. The library has a book collection of 2,500,000 copies, covering all central fields of inquiry such as the humanities, the social sciences, economics, and administration. The holdings are especially strong in economics, law, philosophy, and history. The library also has a rich collection of electronic resources; this includes access to more than 200 data bases and disk-based materials from networks both at home and abroad. To facilitate the use of the collection, the library has established a set of ordered resource bases and data bases. Thus, the library offers convenient access so that readers can effectively use the digital resources of the library. 3.3 Gymnasium The gymnasium of the Renmin University is a multipurpose gymnasium. It is located at the west of the university. It covers over 1,400 square meters and the building area of it is 20,000 square meters. The total cost of it is more than 9,000 million. It includes the basketball courts, tennis courts indoor trackï ¼Å'gymï ¼Å'equipment roomï ¼Å'music room and so on. It is one of the most multipurpose gymnasiums of all the universities. The gymnasium is made of aluminum and Glass curtain wall which is very beautiful and unique. The gymnasium is becoming a landmark of the Renmin University because of its beautiful shape and complex structure. And it also becomes the place which the students could spend the part time to do sports. 4. Condition of the education 4.1 Teachers Now the Renmin University has 1,671 full time teachers, including 499 professors and 636 associate professors. The school has 13 teachers to be the members of the fifth State Council Academic Degrees Committee and has 13 professors to be selected as the members of the Social Science Council of the Ministry of Education. The numbers of these are in the front of the universities. The number of the excellent teachers is also in the front of the universities. In recent years, a large number of young scholars which have consummate education and courageous thinking of innovation become the famous scholars and the academic leaders having the great influence all over the world. All of these make the Renmin University nurture a lot of excellent graduates. 4.2 Quality Education The endeavor of quality education is to improve students’ understanding and awareness of culture and their ability to think by themselves through different kinds of courses. Some of the courses are very popular among students, such as the History of Western Civilization, Selected Readings in Literature and the History of Chinese Civilization. Some science courses are available as well in order to supplement students of humanities with more comprehensive abilities such as biology, physics and chemistry. The lectures on dance, music and art could help to better students’ aesthetic taste and ability to appreciate the accomplishments of those fields. The quality education and campus culture supplement each other at the Renmin University of China. It meets the needs of the students about developing their artistic ability and aesthetic taste. 4.3 Schools & Departments The Renmin University has put the undergraduate education on the base and the graduate education on the important place. And it also uses the continuing education to assist the daily teaching. All of these make the Renmin University form a comprehensive and multi-storey teaching structure. And the university is one of the universities which established the Graduate School. The Renmin University consists of 23 schools in addition to the Graduate School (the School of Science is in the process of being set up, and a Chemistry Department has been established.), thirteen university-level institutions, fourteen post-doctoral stations, plus one Adult Higher Education College, School of Education Training, and Shenzhen Research Institute. The school has 61 departments of professional degree, 8 departments of the second professional degree, ten departments of undergraduate education and so on. These departments could meet the needs of all the students. 5.0 Organization and Activities of Students 5.1 Students’ Organizations The Renmin University has a lot of Student Organizations. It is more than 124. Every year it will hold an assembly to enlist new members of the organizations. This is the most important magnificent ceremony of all the organizations. The organizations which are approbatory have six parts including education, theory, amusement, sports, public welfare and practice. It is beautiful scenery of the cultural life on campus. The Renmin University is famous for the students’ organizations which having lots kinds, large coverage, and great influence. The students of the Renmin University get the fun of youth and the growth of experience with taking part in the varied students’ activities. 5.2 Sports Teams The Renmin University has a lot of sports teams, such as basketball and volleyball teams, table tennis teams, men’s soccer, track and field and martial arts. They do well in women’s basketball, men’s volleyball, martial arts, and track and field at the National University Games and these teams are invariably among the top three in the universities of Beijing. The basketball teams and the men’s soccer are high-level sports teams of it, certified by the Ministry of Education. These two teams have represented Beijing in the National University Games on many occasions. And they have won the championship in Beijing University Sports Games on many years. The titles they have obtained include: the third place at the 2nd CUBA, the fifth place in men’s basketball at the 5th National University Games, the fourth place in men’s soccer in the preliminary rounds of the 6th National University Games, silver medalist at the 7th National University Games and seventh place in the final. 5.3 Social Practice The Renmin University has organized many forms of social activities in order to prepare its students for their future jobs. The Renmin University helps its students find institutions or organizations involved in social activities, and provide the students with the necessary financial support they need for participation. The professors and experts of the Renmin University have been arranged to give their students training and lectures on doing research, including how they can adapt themselves to their future jobs, how they can write their research reports and academic theses and how they should identify a problem and conduct research into it. The Youth Federation could bring students together and they are asked to talk about their experiences from their social activities. Then, other students can learn from them. Excellent reports and theses will be published, outstanding students or groups will be rewarded. And the Renmin University has set up a database to help the students get information and help from the university at any time and any stage necessary as programs for social activities are applied for and managed on the intranet. 6. Conclusion The Renmin University has many kinds of organizations and activities to meet the needs of its students. It takes the customer service of the school as an important part of the construction of the daily work. As a result, the students of it feel that the customer services of the school are good and their needs could be meet. The Renmin University offers the customer services not only on the hand of the material services but also on the other hand of the spiritual services. These make its students be satisfied of the services which offering by the university. The students living at the Renmin University could have good time in the part time. Because of the customer service of it included all kinds of daily lives. 7.0 Bibliography Print Sources: Books: Scottish Qualifications Authority, 2010, Communication: Analysing and Presenting Complex Communication, 3rd ed. Beijing, China Modern Economic Publishing House Scottish Qualifications Authority, 2010, Creating a Culture of Customer Care, 2nd ed. Beijing, China Modern Economic Publishing House Non-Print Sources: Internet Web Sites: The Renmin University of China, â€Å"Living at the RUC.† (Online) 2004, http://english.ruc.edu.cn/en/100374/ The Renmin University of China, â€Å"Schools & Departments.† (Online) 2004, http://english.ruc.edu.cn/en/100378/ The Renmin University of China, â€Å"Sources.† (Online) 2004, http://english.ruc.edu.cn/en/100375/