The Beat Within vs. Mother Jones Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Beat Within vs. Mother Jones - Essay Example The Beat Within is a San Francisco literary magazine that started in 1996 and is published by San Francisco’s Pacific News Service. It comes out weekly and includes essays, poems and art done by young people in prison (Sanders 2004). The staff who act as their support group, and who give them workshops, collect writings and artwork from regional areas including halls in Northern California, Arizona, New York, British Columbia and Virginia and publish them. Readership of The Beat Within is primarily composed of the kids who produce them, and each issue would carry a page called â€Å"The Beat Without,† featuring an essay of a former juvenile hall detainee (Martin 2005). The Beat Within started as a four-page newsletter when a mentor named Tupac died and the impact was so great, the children needed something to express their feelings on. The story goes - â€Å"The 1996 death of Tupac Shakur, an iconic rapper and the militant son of a Black Panther, who himself had been in prison, changed everything. His students mourned his death in such a powerful way that Inocencio [co-founder of Beat] felt their work needed to be shared. ‘I had to put it out there,’ he said. ‘It was urgent.’ Just like that, one man's death initiated a lifeline for others. The premiere of the Beat Within was a thin but powerful eulogy for Tupac.†(Sanders 2004). Now, the magazine runs more than a hundred pages to each issue and circulation has expanded to include interest groups especially those on welfare. Autobiographical in nature, the writings and artwork are believed to give the inmates something to start with (Ibid).

Employment Business Law Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Employment Business Law - Coursework Example w their workers should spend their off hours from duty, the fact that the airline did not act from the previous cases of sexual harassment proves their liability in this case. Other New York torts of negligent hiring, retention and supervision of employees find the employer liable. Though the hotel rooms were not a property of the airline, the fact that they rent the hotel rooms for their employees proves their liability (England, 2012). It is evident that the woman was discriminated against because of her faith. Everyone has a right to worship in a religion of his or her wish and this should not be resulted into discrimination by others who do not believe in that religion. Thus, the court should decide that the company compensates the woman and gives her the job back. The reason is the manager and assistant manager of the store discriminated against her due to her Wiccan faith. They violated the law of religious discrimination and work situations in the title VII of the civil rights act of 1964. It states that under no circumstances should a worker be discriminated against in any aspects of hiring, pay, firing and any other aspects of employment. The manager terminated her job that inconvenienced the woman in question. It is important for an employer to give their employees a reasonable notice of termination. The fact that the store manager never formally disciplined the woman for her wearing the Wiccan medallion s howed that there was nothing wrong with it. However, they had to terminate her for allegedly missing a scheduled day at work that she was not aware of. The action was a way of eliminating the woman from the store due to her Wiccan

Analysing Mcdonalds Essay Example for Free

Analysing Mcdonalds Essay I c) The competitor I choose is Sonic Corp. , their competitors are 1) Burger King, 2) McDonald’s and 3) Whataburger. The first financial ratio calculated was the current ratio. The industry percentage is . 93, McDonald’s current ratio is 1. 14 and Sonic is 1. 72. Both companies have ability to pay back their short-term liabilities with their short-term assets. Debt to Equity: McDonald’s: . 75, Sonic (-172. 3) and the industry: 1. 00. Sonic’s short-term debt has gone up from 22. 9 in 2007 to 57. 5 in 2009 and the long term has gone down from 727. 2 in 2007 to 683. 4 in 2009. Their Owner’s Equity has been in the red; in 2007 it was (-106. ) and slowly has decreasing to (-4. 3). Gross Profit Margin: McDonald’s: 38. 65, Sonic 33. 11, and industry: 31. 74. Both companies are about average. The gross profit margin has been stable for the past three years and had not fluctuated far from the industry median. Net Profit Margin: MCD: 20. 01%, SONC: 10. 29% and industry: 2. 99. McDonald’s is keeping above the industry average on every dollar of sales a company earns. Sonic has been having some trouble keeping above water. For ? in Sales and ? in Net Income Growth the formula I used was (B-A)/A*100 or (new# old #)/old # times 100. ? in Sales: both companies increase sales in the year 2008 but then a slight decrease in the year 2009. ? in Net Income Growth: Where as MCD has double in net income in the last three years, going from 2395. 1 in 2007 to 4551. 0 in 2009, SONC has decline in net income. In year 2007 it was at 64. 2 and now in 2009 it is 49. 4. II a) When I found out that we were going to be studying McDonald’s for this semester, I could only think about hamburgers and coffee. I never gave it a thought that a fast food restaurant would have deal with environmental, social, economic or political responsibilities. In our text book Strategic Management Concept by Fred R. David (2010), strategies is defined as â€Å"the means by which long-term objectives will be achieved. † Well McDonald’s has definitely achieved more than it’s share of objectives in the past years. Even at the beginning of MCD, Ray Kroc, the businessman who bought McDonald’s from the McDonald brothers, had a long-term objective for that restaurant. He wanted MCD to be the most successful fast food operation in the world. And year after year he has achieved this by continuously surpassing its competitors, supporting the local community and â€Å"work to provide sustained profitable growth for our shareholders. † II b1) Economic Forces: Unemployment rate of 9. 5%. While large corporation are downsizing and cutting jobs, MCD is hiring. Breakfast sales are declining due to the unemployment rate. Dollar’s value: on Market Watch (July 17, 2009) with William Spain he wrote that with the economy going the way it is going, people will keep spending more on fast food than at family-style restaurants, often because they also feel they are no longer sacrificing quality to save money as fast food chains add new products that taste better and are seen as healthier and fresher than ever before. † Social, Cultural, Demographic, Natural Environmental Forces: Working Globally on animal’s welfare. Green Restaurant Design, the MCD in Denmark is the first hydroflurocarbon free restaurant. Political, Govt. Legal Forces: In 2001, Eric Schlossers book Fast Food Nation includes criticism of McDonalds business practices and alleges at MCD used its political influence to increase their own profits at the expense of the health of the nation and the social conditions of its workers. Children obesity problem. Technological Forces: Offering free WiFi hotspots. Competitive Forces: New drive-thur layouts to better service time.

The Need For Employee Motivation In Mexico Commerce Essay

The Need For Employee Motivation In Mexico Commerce Essay It is impossible to understand a Mexican worker without understanding the Mexican history and culture in its basic aspects. The Mexican culture is a very traditional, family oriented, religious and also nationalist organisation in corporate identity. This is to the extent of, the only way of knowing the person is by knowing the family and without knowing the person they wont do business with the person. The Mexicans given more importance to the time they spend with their family and do not reduce that time at any cost. The close family concept includes the parents, children, grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins and the weekend recreation includes relatives and friends also in the above said. This kind of extended family gives them a sense of stability. The culture is more of traditional gender egalitarianism with the father as the authority and the decision-maker. The Mexican males believe nothing must be done in such a way that it would tarnish their image as a man. The role of Mexican women has been homemaking and family, regardless of their great position in workplace. Education, title and family background provide social status, as they value title and position as important as money. In organisational structures Mexicans accept a large power distances and emphasize hierarchical relationships. In Mexican culture they are used to work like, company and society as a unit. They avoid uncertainty and respect their authorities, expect them to guide and take decisions. But still personal relationships must be nurtured and maintained carefully to get commitment from the working Mexicans. The personal respect and recognition motivate Mexicans. The Mexican cultural employees are very diplomatic, very courteous and have fixed loyalty towards the organisation they work. The Mexican culture is not task oriented. They are more punctual and optimistic in calculating time. They are warm and gracious and give respect to their sense of time and traditions. It is also imp ortant to give more stress on friendship in Mexican culture. There are staffing practices such as internal recruitment, personal references, succession planning, psychometric tests, and elaborate bio-data associated with these cultural dimensions, e-recruitment and panel interviews are not predominant in Mexican culture. After the basics in the Mexican culture and outline knowledge of how it works in the organisation, now we are going to see on the hurdles that it causes in the implementing an environment with learning strategy focussed on employee involvement and empowerment. On global focus organisational learning is very important in an organisation not only for the progress of the individual but also for the organisation attain a steady growth as the organisations are dependent on individuals. The organisational learning strategy focussed on employee involvement and empowerment gives more focus on the growth of the individual in accordance with the growth of the organisation. But the Mexican culture does not give or very less room in organisational learning or in a strategy of it focussed on employee involvement. The employees in the Mexican work very much dependent on the hierarchical structure in their organisational culture. They dont take any decisions on their own and relay on their immediat e boss for everything they do. If they take also the decisions are very conscious in relevance to their bosss decision making. They listen to the boss very carefully without any intervention and also with full consciousness and do what the boss recommends. This procedure in an organisation will not give any space for organisational learning or individual learning as the decision making process facilitates a lot in it, by which you can learn by mistakes and experiences. There is no way for knowledge diffusion inside the company or organisation. In the western organisation they persuade what they think, listens half to boss and learn a lot in experiences and mistakes. The acceptance of status in the organisation is very much and not demanding for human rights. Next is about communication styles, in the Mexican culture the way of communication to the top management is indirect as they have to communicate through their immediate boss. They have lots of inequality in the organisation and because of that they become very reserve, introvert less expressive of their views to the management of their organisation. In the highly stratified and vertically structured way of organisation promotions are not performance based and are on age and seniority based which does not facilitate any learning. The learning strategies relay heavily on the employee involvement in everyday decisions and experimentation but all the above said factors does not involve employees in anyway resulting in no room for organisational learning. There is lots of importance given to relationships than to the facts and figures within an organisation. Their organisation is more focussed on collectivism than on individualism which is again a hurdle for learning. They also take contracts inside the organisation for renegotiation than taking them as binding with and working on them by learning more new concepts. Moreover to all these Mexican organisational structures are more male dominant making the views of one gender of the society less or non expressive. This also contributes to the hurdles. All these factors make the Mexican culture as a less ideal environment in which to implement a learning strategy focussed on employee involvement and empowerment. EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION TO ENGAGE IN LEARNING: Equipos is a plastics producing company in an industrial city in the Gulf of Mexico. This plant is a technology-driven plant with employee strength of 170. In 1995 the company was bought by the American partner which was initially a joint venture with a Mexican partner. Initially there were Mexican managers heading the plant and the organisation was in the Mexican was of organisational culture. Then the employee empowerment began resulting in implementing self-managed teams. The teams divided functional roles within the team and the role of team leader changed every three months. The plant was down to three managers others becoming the team facilitators and served as team leaders in the absence of team leaders. Then the interviews were conducted asking the managers, facilitators how to reduce the cultural difference and the barriers in implementing learning. The interviewed Mexican managers, facilitators and employees who attended the meeting were asked for the direct feedback reduci ng the communication gap and also making them responsible towards the company. The teams also gave issues inside the plant with the problems they have and the management also believed in the employees and consequently trust built between the employees and the managers. By the way of having both horizontal and vertical way of communication and facilitating the reduction of hierarchical and moving towards flat organisational structure. There are lots of factors that surfaced in the process of doing the interviews and few of the important factors are going to be discussed. Environmental factors are being one of the most important factors in this case. The work stability over the region, the plant had an advantage of permanent work-force due to the family atmosphere in their region while others have high turnover rate due to constant mobility. Education was another factor as there was a low level of education as the average level of education for the manufacturing sector in Mexico is 5 to 6 years. They hired younger age employees who are more open to change and wanted to learn new things. Finally they also came up with powerful unions and Equipos chose to work with unions providing high wages and cooperative relationships, these unions dint have any objection to the use of teams and increased participation. The primary organisational factor they found was the joint venture between an U.S and a Mexican partner. The joint venture gave a Mexican top management team to afford a thorough understanding of the Mexican culture and aide in the implementing if these programs. The other factor is, the top management gave a management philosophy that geared towards the empowerment and learning. This was first initiated by the Mexican top management by approaching the U.S partner for management aide. One of the important factors in this case is the size of the plant with strength of 170 facilitating the implementation such programs. Equipos had basically three sets of H.R practices that facilitated the learning. First set of practices were the standard H.R practices that equipos implemented were self-managed team works, setting up clear goals, open communication, ongoing training, reward system, managers were given new roles. To attract and retain the skilled labour they gave the highest pay in the area. The second set of practices to say on a whole were on setting culture specific H.R practices such as retaining the Mexican managers and the other advantageous environmental factors that aided their implementation. The third set of practices was the most important one as it dealt with the translation of U.S MNCs practices to fit in with the Mexican. These three sets of practices contributed to the human resources practices of equipos. INTEGERATED MODEL: This integrated model of the relationship between organisational, environmental and HR practices on employee behaviour show the important environmental and organisational factors that influence the choice of HR practices to be implemented in these kind of culture adopting processes. These variables are similar to the exogenous and endogenous variables given by the Schuler, Budwar, and Florkowski but still the model is based on a case described in the articles by Negandhi and Prasad-1971, schuler-2002. This model highlights the critical importance of the HR practices that support the theories of IHRM that propose the HR practices that can be used to align the MNE goals and objectives with the host-country affiliate dynamics. This also shos the importance of HRM in the task of implementing practices that strategically deal with the challenges provide by the foreign environment. The model first the organisational factors that are to be taken into consideration, they are method of foundi ng joint venture play an important role in the understanding and getting adopted to the foreign environment. The management philosophy and management attitude towards the culture also plays key role in adopting or implementing new culture into an existing one. In addition to all these the ability to deal with the culture size is also given high priority. The environmental factors like national values, regional values, education also play a vital role. Here the socioeconomic and industrial factors also are added as factors in the environmental factors. Now keeping these organisational and environmental factors as variables important HR practices have been selected, first are the standard practices and then the culture-specific practices as the influence the people and can well understand the locals than anybody else. For this they retained the local managers and given them all the freedom to develop a trust between the employees and management. The final and the most important one is the translation of U.S MNC practices into such practices that can suite into the Mexican environment as the practices implemented as like the same will not be accepted in any foreign environment. All the factors, human resource practices all integrated together give a model that was very helpful in implementing organisational learning. CONCLUSION: From the case study we saw how a foreign organisational culture can be implemented into an existing culture. This is to the extent that the management culture which is not congruent to the countrys culture can be also implemented with the help of HR practices. Even though both the organisational and environmental factor are taken as variables for the deciding of HR practices, the environmental factors have influence on the organisational factors or it can also be said it is highly influenced by the environmental factors. This is also shown in the model as the flow from the environmental factors goes to all the boxes in the model, to HR practices, to organisational factors and also to the organisational employee behaviour and culture. The high light of this study is importance of joint venture in the cross-culture management. But when ever implementing cross-cultures the size and the age of the plant must be taken into account as an important caution factor. Thus we studied about the Equipos case study and how it motivated its employees in becoming engaged to an unfamiliar strategy. Also thus we studied about the different cultures and how to manage changes in cross-culture making us easy to implement any strategies in a management in any culture.

Baldwins Perspective in Notes of a Native Son Essay -- James Baldwin

James Baldwin Born in Harlem in 1924, James Baldwin grew to be a complex man with many aspects. As an avid reader as a child, Baldwin soon developed the skills to become one of the most talented and strong writers of his time. His first novel was written in 1953 and was called â€Å"Go Tell it On the Mountain† and received critical acclaim. More great work from this novelist, essayist, and playwright were to come, one of which was â€Å"Notes of a Native Son,† which was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1955 and was also first known as â€Å"Me and My House.† In â€Å"Notes of a Native Son,† Baldwin exercises his many talents as an essayist in how he manages to weave narratives and arguments throughout the essay. He is also able to use many of his experiences to prove his points. Baldwin effectively interlaces his narratives, arguments, and experiences so as to reach his central idea and to advocate the overall moral that he has learned to his a udience. This is what makes Baldwin so unique in his work: his ability to successfully moralize all people he comes in contact with. â€Å"Notes of a Native Son† is faceted with many ideas and arguments. The essay begins with Baldwin recounting July 29, 1943. The day his father died and his mother bore her last child (63). Baldwin shares his fathers’ past and of the hate and bitterness that filled him and how Baldwin realizes that it may soon fill him also. Baldwin spends the rest of the essay mostly analyzing his experiences and the behavior and mentality of his father, of whom he seemed to dislike. He comes to the conclusion that one must hold true two ideas: â€Å". . . acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is and men as they are: in light of this idea... injustice is... ...w had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair. This intimation made my heart heavy†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (84). Now that his father is gone, he wonders how strong he will remain. How will he maintain his strength? His father gave him what he needed to break free from hatred and to be strong, but now Baldwin desires that his father was still there with him to keep giving him what he needs. To keep giving him all the answers, so as not to lose all of the strength that keeps the rage in his blood from overflowing. To keep him away from the disease that ultimately brought down his father, and if he loses that strength, he will ultimately bring down himself into his own destruction. Works Cited Baldwin, James. â€Å"Notes of a Native Son.† 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.

Do Political Campaign Contributions Impact the Outcome of Elections? :: essays research papers

Do Political Campaign Contributions Impact the Outcome of Elections? In the process of searching for a research question that has the possibility of gaining positive results one must find a dependent variable in addition to several independent variables that might be a direct cause or a factor in the dependent variable. In observing major political elections throughout my life I have noticed a recurring trend. In many elections one candidate outspends their opponent in an attempt to gain victory. I intend to set up a research design to determine whether independent variables concerning campaign contributions have an effect on the outcome of elections.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As campaign finance reform remains a hot topic in congress with legislation such as the McCain-Feinghold Bill, it is important to determine if campaign spending affects the outcome of elections. If the results this question indicate a direct relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable then legislative restrictions might necessary. If campaign spending does not factor in on the outcome of elections, then maybe there is nothing wrong with a candidate outspending their opponent.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Several articles and books have been written on this subject that I have found useful. According to Ruth S. Jones(1981) â€Å"These sentiments are often supplemented by a belief that the only way a minority party can win is by outspending opponents.† Throughout the article Jones focuses in on this trend. If this assumption is true it would indicate that outspending an incumbent is necessary to gain office.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Committee for Economic Development found similar results(1968), â€Å"Candidates with access to vast personal or family fortunes have a substantial advantage in the pursuit of high office.† This means that a wealthy candidate can in essence buy a victory in an election. This committee’s research has provided several facts toward my research plan.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On the contrary, in an article by Gary C. Jacobsen(1978),†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦spending by challengers has a substantial impact on election outcomes, whereas spending by incumbents has relatively little effect.† These findings add another Wrinkle in the process of framing my research design by forcing me to differentiate if spending by incumbents and challengers has a different impact. This article refers to a number of recent studies that found that there is a relationship between how much money is spent and how well a candidate does on election day.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Throughout the twentieth century events have occurred that indicate that campaign spending in some instances factored in on the results of elections. Do Political Campaign Contributions Impact the Outcome of Elections? :: essays research papers Do Political Campaign Contributions Impact the Outcome of Elections? In the process of searching for a research question that has the possibility of gaining positive results one must find a dependent variable in addition to several independent variables that might be a direct cause or a factor in the dependent variable. In observing major political elections throughout my life I have noticed a recurring trend. In many elections one candidate outspends their opponent in an attempt to gain victory. I intend to set up a research design to determine whether independent variables concerning campaign contributions have an effect on the outcome of elections.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As campaign finance reform remains a hot topic in congress with legislation such as the McCain-Feinghold Bill, it is important to determine if campaign spending affects the outcome of elections. If the results this question indicate a direct relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable then legislative restrictions might necessary. If campaign spending does not factor in on the outcome of elections, then maybe there is nothing wrong with a candidate outspending their opponent.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Several articles and books have been written on this subject that I have found useful. According to Ruth S. Jones(1981) â€Å"These sentiments are often supplemented by a belief that the only way a minority party can win is by outspending opponents.† Throughout the article Jones focuses in on this trend. If this assumption is true it would indicate that outspending an incumbent is necessary to gain office.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Committee for Economic Development found similar results(1968), â€Å"Candidates with access to vast personal or family fortunes have a substantial advantage in the pursuit of high office.† This means that a wealthy candidate can in essence buy a victory in an election. This committee’s research has provided several facts toward my research plan.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On the contrary, in an article by Gary C. Jacobsen(1978),†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦spending by challengers has a substantial impact on election outcomes, whereas spending by incumbents has relatively little effect.† These findings add another Wrinkle in the process of framing my research design by forcing me to differentiate if spending by incumbents and challengers has a different impact. This article refers to a number of recent studies that found that there is a relationship between how much money is spent and how well a candidate does on election day.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Throughout the twentieth century events have occurred that indicate that campaign spending in some instances factored in on the results of elections.

Compare and contrast Essay

F. Scott Fitzgerald, a well-known writer of Jazz Age, wrote fictitious stories but most of them were based on his real life experiences. His wild and tragic experiences and struggles of life are clearly reflected in his stories. Even the reader understands the sequence of the story and clearly imagines the time period in which it must have occurred. The border between a real life experience and a fictitious story completely vanishes while reading Fitzgerald’s stories. Fitzgerald tried to use experimental techniques in his fiction through his two stories, ‘May Day’ and ‘The Diamond as Big as he Ritz’ and that helped him in his later works as well. ‘May Day’ is one of the best examples of his realistic stories. The story takes place after World War II and has many artistic visual descriptions that make the reader imagine the whole situation and surroundings. In chapter 1 there is description of Gordon when he enquires about Phillip Dean in Biltmore Hotel. The enquirer was dressed in a well-cut, shabby suit. He was small, slender, and darkly handsome; his eyes were framed above with unusually long eyelashes and below with the lue semicircle of ill health, this latter effect heightened by an unnatural glow which colored his face like a low incessant fever. (Chapter – 1, May Day) Fitzgerald makes the reader view New York City as on May Day in 1919. Here the readers could experience everything like the society dance, scene that includes a disorderly crowd of war veterans and also office of a socialist newspaper. The protagonist in this story of Fitzgerald prefers to suicide rather than marry a lower-class woman who tried to seduce him. In 1922, Fitzgerald wrote another short story ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ which ould be referred more accurately as a fantasy. In this story refined vindictiveness of the Washingtons, who live on the top of a diamond mountain and want to murder their guests to keep up the secret of the place. Fitzgerald, in fact wants to make the reader get aware of the situation in United States at that time along with its capitalism with the help of Washingtons and this story can be best termed as a political metaphor. The time when this story was written, the economy was flourishing and the political system was full of suspicion and sense of isolation. The Washington’s country was depicted as complete in itself with natural resources, political prisoners, own defense system and so on. The writer artistically visualizes the situation and the reader is left spellbound with it. Washingtons even tried to bribe God, which shows that they had taken their isolated country to an extreme, which could be symbolic for United States. This unique style of Fitzgerald of relating present symbolically through his fictions was quite admired by his critics too. The time when he was writing was very sensitive and ny kind of direct attack on politics or prevailing situation would create lot of problems for him. So this was the right and matured style of writing to approach target readers. This is the reason why most of Fitzgerald’s stories are favorites among readers specially ‘May Day’ and ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’. Both the stories are different when plots are considered but the style and artistic visualizations used in both are remarkable. The characters and their feelings shown are quite natural and reader immediately gets into it.