Tess of the Durbervilles and Chocolat

Tess of the Durbervilles and Chocolat The hypocritical and paradoxical standards and values of contexts dictated by Patriarchal societies often condemn women. As shown in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Lasse HallstrÂÆ'Â ¶m's 2000film, Chocolate, these texts act as prime example of challenges faced by women in accordance with the changes, social values and dominant attitudes in their respective time eras. The 19th century paradigms challenged and reflected include the role of women in society in accordance with the patriarchal world and their social levels. This notion is also emphasised in the 20th century time setting of the film.The socio-economic circumstances surrounding a woman determined her level of rights in a patriarchal society as money ultimately equated with power. This notion was prevalent during the 19th century however Tess of the D'Urbervilles presents a stark contrast with this idea. The protagonist Tess is of the lower-working class yet she is also a "lineal descendent of the knightly fa mily of the D'Urbervilles".English: Thomas Hardy Locations, Tess of the d'Urb...The importance placed on social ranking class in England also forces Tess to seek from help from Alec D'Urberville and ultimately brings about her downfall. Alec's addressing of Tess as "my beauty" confirms his sexual nature and the seduction of Tess by him causes Hardy to exclaim, "Why was it that upon this beautiful feminine tissue...there should have been traced such a coarse pattern" Hardy's authorial intrusion forces us to question whether Tess would've incurred this if class hadn't been given such an eminent role in 19th century England. Tess is a victim of this patriarchal society purely through her lack of her power. Thus through socio-economic standings, it is evident that the prejudice towards women of the lower class and bias towards women of the Upper class in inegalitarian societies is directly correlated with the power these two classes hold.In Chocolat,

Crafting and executing a winning strategy Essay

Crafting and executing a winning strategy - Essay Example However, as big corporations are being washed out with the erosion of public/stakeholder trust due to unethical and socially irresponsible behavior, today, corporate strategists realize that a perceptible commitment to ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) has clear implications for the corporate bottom line, and integrating it as a part of corporate strategy would significantly improve business performance. [Hopkins, 2003; Houck and William, 1996] The paper examines the linkage between company's effort to craft and execute a winning strategy and its social responsibility - the company's duties to conduct its activities in an ethical manner and demonstrate socially responsible behavior as a committed corporate citizen, attending to the needs of all the stakeholders. In doing so, it shall attempt to analyze what ethics and social responsibility means in the corporate strategy context, the debates surrounding the relevance of social responsibility, and also examines the significance of ethical and socially responsible behavior by corporations for survival and success. It shall also look at ways to incorporate ethics and social responsibility into corporate strategies for ensuring long-term success of corporations. The environmental movement of the 1980s and 1990s, which exposed many unethical corporate practices by companies such as Nestle, Shell and the rising cases of corporate scandals in the recent years signifying unethical and irresponsible behavior by top officials, such as those at Enron, WorldCom etc., have brought about the significance of ethics and social responsibility as a legitimate topic in the formulation and implementation of business strategy. [Hopkins, 2003] While the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, as management imperatives, business ethics and corporate social responsibility are distinct concepts, though with inevitable overlaps. It may be worthwhile to clearly understand the two precepts before attempting to analyze their significance in creating winning strategies. Ethics in business, an age-old concept, advocates ethically appropriate behavior by businesses to the stakeholders directly concerned with the business enterprise, viz. managers, consumers, investors/owners and employees. [Hopkins, 2003] Ethical behavior in business extends to all segments of business management at the enterprise level including finance and accounting, human resources management, sales and marketing, production and intellectual property. While a consensus on the definition has not been achieved, corporate social responsibility is stated to be "concerned with treating the stakeholders of the firm ethically or in a responsible manner." [Hopkins, 2003; p.1] Corporate social responsibility, a more inclusive concept business ethics, extends beyond the enterprise level to all stakeholders, what Hopkins describes as, "the seven azimuths", within which the enterprises trade and operate viz.: owners/investors (shareholders or stockholders); management; employees; customers; t he natural environment; the wider community (including government); contractors/suppliers. [Hopkins, 2003, p. 3] CSR as a winning business strategy concerns with the responsibility of the company to each of these seven groups; it may include responsibility to competitors as well.

Discuss a particular image pattern or cluster of symbols and show how Essay

Discuss a particular image pattern or cluster of symbols and show how it functions in one or two works on the course - Essay Example The Yellow Wallpaper was not only an intimate autobiographical work but one of the few instances where in text, a real life 19th century woman spoke out. A major theme in å… ¸he Yellow Wallpaperis the medical mistreatment of women which plagued the 1900s which is explored by Gilmans use of symbolism and character development. The Yellow Wallpaperis a short story written by the prolific author Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 and then was forgotten. Fifty years later Gilman and her works were rediscovered and this particular short story has become a quintessential piece of 1800s feminist literature. Married women during this time were freed from the necessity of contributing to society outside the home, presumably because marriage befit her for motherhood and motherhood required all of her energies."(ODonnell). On the surface it was the story of a woman who has a child and suffered from depression. Her husband, who is also her doctor, prescribed the å… ¸he Mitchell Treatment This was a standard treatment for all mental disorders during this time which consisted of isolation and rest. The woman, the main character, was placed in an attic for a month of recovery. Her only companion was the peeling yellow wallpaper. Slowly the unnamed narrator slipped into deep depressive psychosis. It is not until she sh irked off the treatment and the invisible societal chains that she becomes well again. "The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman ... present image[s] of women imprisoned within a labyrinthine underworld that represents the threat of madness; and in each case the myths become metaphors for poesis, hermeneusis, and psychogenesis.(Smith 227). This short story was based on Gilmançâ€" ´ real life experience with depression and the 途esttreatment. The Yellow Wallpaper was not only an intimate autobiographical work but one of the few instances where in text, a real life 19th century woman spoke out. A major theme

Stakeholders Importance And Their Engagement Management Essay

Stakeholders Importance And Their Engagement Management Essay For any project Planning, management and control are always the most important drivers to deliver the desired outcome.In present days there are many different organisations have embraced the concept of projects as a mechanism of delivering change.Regadless of the size and what kind of industry may be due to this they experience unacceptably high rates of failure, which wastes scarce monetary and human resources and the reputation of the project management profession. The Stakeholder engagement offers a mechanism for assesing each key stakeholder and there influence to understand their expectations.It also defines the proper way for engaging stakeholders.The aim of this course work is to define stakeholder engagement and their importance for any project. Stakeholder: Stakeholders are an integral part of a project. They are the end-users or clients, the people from whom requirements will be drawn, the people who will influence the design and, ultimately, the people who will reap the benefits of your completed project. (jenkins, 2006) It is very important to participate stakeholders in every step of the project for reasons like experience shows that their involvement in the project may increase the chances of success by building in a very significant feedback sphere and involving them in the project can be able to fetch confidence in the final product and will greatly ease its acceptance in your target audience. The Stakeholder Circle: There are many researchs regarding the importance of stakeholders roles in enhancing wealth and economical benefits.One research team (Fletcher et al., 2003) defined a process for mapping stakeholder expectation, one that uses value hierarchies and key performance areas (KPA).In this process stakeholders are divided to their respective potential for threat and their potential for cooperation (Blair et al., 1991) or influence of their power basing on their legitimacy of each stakeholder relation with the company as well as the urgency of the stakeholders claim on the company (Mitchell, Agle and Wood, 1997). There are many other methodologies that provide a relevant useful tool for visualising power and influence in social network mapping (Rowley, 1997).It is sort of more holistic process for managing stakeholders, identifying,assessing,influence and support of the stakeholders.This will lead to obtain strategies for assessing stakeholder satisfaction.It culminates in the development of a stakeholder knowledge base that provides knowledge of who is aware or ignorant and whether their attitude is supportive or opposing (Turner, 2002).Another (Briner, Hastings and Geddes, 1996) have influences the Stakeholder Circle. The concepts of power,authenticity and urgency (Mitchell, Agle and Wood, 1997) are valuable for identifying important stakeholders, This idea of providence and centrality(Rowley, 1997) attempted to figure out and show the power and communication importance within the stakeholder community. In the process of developing an proper engagement strategy based on the work of Briner et al. (1996), Turner (2002) and Fetcher et al. (2003).Figure 1 represents the stakeholder circle, which inturn helps project manager and their team in locating the project key stakeholders in relation to specific time within aproject lifecycle. The prototype stakeholder circle consists of two key elements: concentric circles that represents distance between stakeholder and the projrct manageer.The pattern used for each stakeholder represents homogeneity. Figure 1. Prototype Stakeholder Circle. MI_PR_NS_12_05_06_1_fig1.jpg The Stakeholder Circle is done basing on the idea that a project can exist only with the up to date consent of its stakeholder community (Bourne and Weaver, 2002), so the relationship between the community that inturn increases project team chance for achieving desired outcome.The stakeholder community comprises of both individuals and groups with a different possible influence the projects outcomepostively or negatively. Identification Of Stakeholders: Identifying project stakeholders starts with the categories upwards,downwords,inwards,outwards and sidewards.Then it is followed by knowing mutuality (French and Granrose, 1995), as defined in the scales of understanding what each stakeholder requires from the project and also the significance of them to the project.Posing these questions makes the relationhip between the project and the stakeholder and make sure that project manager is aware and understand what what the both group needs.This can be done through a workshop with project team and the persons from the organization those familiar with project deliverables and constraints.The information obtained can be entered and validated.Then next-prioritisation of the stakeholders can be done. Prioritisation Of Stakeholders: Here the rating of each stakeholder can be done from the project team members by validating stakeholders power,proximity and urgency according to the project.And can be put on into the tool.This list with the relavent data on each stakeholder, helps in developing an engagement strategy.This will make easier for project team to understand and ensure the expectations of key stakeholders. Stakeholder Engagement: Stakeholder engagement can be defined as the method of well eliciting the stakeholders views on their association with the organization (Friedman and Miles, 2006). Stakeholder engagement can be implicit as the practice that the organisations usually take to engage stakeholders in a positive way in organizational actions or activities. From the view of accountability and responsibility theories, stakeholder engagement is a method by which organisational accountability and responsibility towards stakeholders can be acquitted, often through the involvement of stakeholders in decision-making and governance (Gary, 2002). In an organisation, stakeholder engagement customs may exist in many areas like public relations, customer service, supplier relations, management accounting and human resource management with the varied set of organisational stakeholder. In such circumstance, stakeholder engagement might be seen as an instrument for consent, control, co-operation and accountability and also as a structure of employee involvement and participation. It is also seen as a practice for enhancing trust and as an alternative for true trust and also as a discourse to enhance fairness. Stakeholders must be appointed to achieve the best through proper planned amalgamation of communication and involvement. This also assists of stakeholder being committed to the organisation. For the companies to execute the operational level of strategic management capability stakeholder engagement may be opted as one approach. In phrase of degree of engagement with their stakeholders, organisations can employee different strategies (Carroll, 2008).  Stakeholder engagement presents the sense of corporate responsibility. If the organisation is working with dedication through suitable policy and practice, it is quite clear that it is acting responsibly towards the stakeholders. The more an organisation engages with its stakeholders, the more accountable and responsible that organisation is towards these stakeholders (Greenwood, 2007). Even though firms take up a wide series of communication to report their stakeholder engagement efforts, customarily, on the whole usually engaged and most wide-ranging method for reporting stakeholders engagement plans is to voluntarily disclosure its annual reports (Boesso, 2009).  By tradition Stakeholder engagement is viewed as a corporate responsibility in action.  The movement behind the use of the term engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the need to emphasize that ,it is no longer sufficient for firms to simply network  with stakeholder but also to have a sufficient interaction with stakeholders is considered as logically necessary activity of business (Noland, 2010).   For developing a new activity or to reconsider current or previous efforts a template of principles should be stressed. For stakeholders engagement to be effective the company hold on to various kinds of principles when engaging them on an issue or proposed action or for general feedback (Blackburn, 2007). Planning, transparency, code of conduct, training, inclusiveness, ongoing commitment, and listening are some of the principles of stakeholders engagement. The strategic principles refer to a higher level of understanding and structuring of the stakeholder engagement and involves identifying the stakeholders, significant issues and expectations. The  Strategic principles of the stakeholder engagement  Ã‚  deals  with the  Ã‚  issues of significance to stakeholders and the agency,  understands the concerns, views, needs and expectations of the stakeholders and responds coherently and appropriately. The operational principles are concerned with the action of dealing with the stakeholders such as the stakeholders engagement plan and consultation. They involve  clear and agreed information with feedback processes. The operational principles of the stakeholder engagement are collaborative and recognize, understand and involve stakeholders in the process. They conduct stakeholder engagement in a manner that fosters mutual respect and trust. When engaging stakeholders on an issue or proposed action or for general feedback, the comp any adheres to various kinds of principles to help endure the stakeholder engagement is effective. Maintaining Engagement: Understanding or defyning relavent responses recquires numerous elements, Like which stakeholders are concerned about project definition and planning process, which stakeholders are in need of more information about the project to ease their opposition and which stakeholders play key and relevant roles.Project managers will be held responsible in converting the resulting strategy of who,what,when and how, of giving the tailored messages which are defined for each stakeholder into action.This helps in integrating the communication plan into the project schedule and reporting the expectations of stakeholders are understood and managed in a very proper way. Analysing and Planning: Often the significance of research to stakeholder engagement is ignored. It allows you to identify strengths and weaknesses and eventually build up strategies to connect efficiently. The stakeholder engagement is a serious component to the success of the project and it may be useful to develop a stakeholder engagement plan. For this, various sources, predictable and unconventional, whether it is media, online, literature or word of mouth. As part of the analysis, it is important to examine existing, current and past relationships, available resources and constraints . Managing Project Communication Using Prince2: PRINCE2 has a best move toward managing project communication across the whole project cycle.   It is important that the project manager maintain controlled and bi-directional in order flow to engage and inform  project stakeholders.Spotlight should be on how to ensure the project remains feasible even with its business case, produces the obligatory products, and make sure that is maintained according to plan.   The PRINCE2 communication management cycle can be done by using these four steps:   Plan-Execute-Monitor-Improve.I The communication planning should be in such a way that all stakeholders are identified and engaged throughout the life cycle of the project.The time and resources required for performing this activities will be part of project and team should plan how it should be carried on. It is very much important to figure out and analyze key project stakeholders to find out their information needs.Identified stakeholders will be the persons or groups who are not part of management team but required to contact and interact regularly or else the project outcome will be disturbed.So, it is very important to have effective communication to get desired results.PRINCE2 recommends a very proper six step process to engage stakeholders: 1. Figure out the stakeholders who are concerned in project or worried about the project outcome. Evaluate and generate profiles of the stakeholders to know their involvement, interest and attitudes relating to the project Define a engagement strategy for stakeholders and make them focus on project communications, approving on the information required by each concerned party basing on their roles. Define a proper communicating proforma, timing of the project communications and decide who the senders and recipients for each specified item. Engaging stakeholders according to the plan. Evaluate the efficiency communication activities for the project. (T.Barnard, L.Haner and Weese, 2010) The Communication Management Strategy: It defines the resources and regularity of communication with both internal and external stakeholders.The project manager will be held responsible to create and manuscript this strategy and try to update with the strategy stage by stage and make sure it still encompasses all key project stakeholders . When the project is into the final stage it is also to review the Communication Management Strategy and make sure it includes all the parties who need to be advised that the project is closing. (prince2 2009, 2009) Conclusion: This work on stakeholder engagement made me to know how to identify key stakeholders and their engagement and relation with the project manager and the team which inturn reduces the project risk through developing and nurturing relationship within project. This task presumes that the act of stakeholder engagement in and of itself delivers help towards stakeholders and is, therefore, an act of conscientiousness towards stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement does not always reflect perfect communication, relations and results from start to finish. Stakeholders may be at first argumentative, during the course of the consultations for both internal and external reasons, the important factor is how you deal with these hurdles.

Engineering disasters :: essays research papers

On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia was lost due to structural failure in the left wing. On take-off, it was reported that a piece of foam insulation surrounding the shuttle fleet's 15-story external fuel tanks fell off of Columbia's tank and struck the shuttle's left wing. Extremely hot gas entered the front of Columbia's left wing just 16 seconds after the orbiter penetrated the hottest part of Earth's atmosphere on re-entry. The shuttle was equipped with hundreds of temperature sensors positioned at strategic locations. The salvaged flight recorded revealed that temperatures started to rise in the left wing leading edge a full minute before any trouble on the shuttle was noted. With a damaged left wing, Columbia started to drag left. The ships' flight control computers fought a losing battle trying to keep Columbia's nose pointed forward.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It’s very hard to say what steps, if any, could have been taken to prevent the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster from occurring. When mankind continues to â€Å"push the envelope† in the interest of bettering humanity, there will always be risks. In the manned spaceflight business, we have always had to live with trade-offs. All programs do not carry equal risk nor do they offer the same benefits. The acceptable risk for a given program or operation should be worth the potential benefits to be gained. The goal should be a management system that puts safety first, but not safety at any price. As of Sept 7th, 2003, NASA has ordered extensive factory inspections of wing panels between flights that could add as much as three months to the time it takes to prepare a space shuttle orbiter for launch. NASA does all it can to safely bring its astronauts back to earth, but as stated earlier, risks are expected.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On August 14th, 2003, a major blackout swept across portions of the northeastern United States and Canada. It was reported that a series of equipment outages in the Midwest led to uncontrolled cascading outages of power transmission lines and generators serving parts of the Northeast, Midwest and Canada. Automatic protective systems operated to open circuits and shut down power plants to prevent further spread of the outages. This is very similar to what happened in The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965. In both situations, the â€Å"grid system† shut down one generator in line at a time to protect a surge from the station before it.

A Risky Decision

Decision making is an important aspect of human life. The success of a person or country remains in how smartly they take decision at the appropriate time. This paper examines a possible risky decision which may be taken by the Indian government to declare war against Pakistan in order to destroy the terrorist camped in Pak territory.IntroductionSome decisions are easy to make while others may be difficult to take and implement. For example, it is easy for the Indian government to take a decision about preventing the Indian cricket team from touring Pakistan because of the recent attack by terrorists against the Sri Lankan cricket team. But it might be a risky decision to declare war against Pakistan on the basis of the recent Mumbai terrorist attack.â€Å"The Mumbai attack is uniquely different from past terror strikes carried out by Islamic terrorists. Instead of one or more bombings at distinct sites, the Mumbai attackers struck throughout the city using military tactics† ( Roggio, 2008)An overview description of the decision to be madeIndian government is under tremendous pressure from the public and the opposition parties’ because of their failure in preventing the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008 which killed around 179 people.Moreover in 2001, the Pak terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed were succeeded in attacking the Indian parliament in which a dozen of people were killed. (Indian parliament attack kills 12) The repeated attack made by Pak terrorist group on India, forced the Indian government to take a decision in how to destroy the terrorist group located in Pakistan.The primary decisionsThe primary decision is whether to conduct an all out war against Pakistan or not. Another option is limited attack on terrorist camps by the Indian forces which may result in a war between these countries.  The primary objectiveThe primary objective of these decisions is to destroy the terrorist group in Pakistan and also to teach Pak istan a lesson that India may not remain calm if their sovereignty is questioned. The uncertain eventThe uncertainty about the event is the possible consequences of the war. Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons in their armory and any war between these countries may be converted into a nuclear war. Moreover the American troops fighting in the Afghan border against the Muslim fundamentalists need the support of Pak troops there. So they will not be much interested in a war between India and Pakistan because it might result the pull out of Pak troops from assisting the American military.

Review of Online Learning Platform Instructure Canvas

Canvas Instructure is an online learning platform that allows students to integrate their accounts with social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. It is one of the top online learning platforms available. Best of all,  students and instructors acting individually (not subscribing  as  an entire school) can use the program for free. Canvas offers some unique  Web 2.0  features. Canvas Instructures best attribute is its ability to convey information intuitively. Canvas Instructure makes it easy for students and instructors to navigate the well-designed site. The platform isnt without its faults, but overall, Canvas Instructure simply feels better to use than most other online learning platforms. Using Canvas Instructure as an Instructor Canvas Instructure solves a lot of problems for instructors. For example, it allows assignments to be quickly created from several places on the website. Information about each assignment is automatically parsed into the course calendar, syllabus, or grade book without any additional action from the instructor. Grading is simple and weighted grades can be created with ease. A speed grader allows instructors to grade more quickly and without the dreaded load time that many other learning platforms require. Using Canvas Instructure as a Student Students can keep track of their progress in the class, complete assignments, and participate in discussions with ease. The grade book allows students to see both their grades for individual assignments and their overall grade. Students can even enter alternative scores for assignments to project how their overall grade would be impacted by a higher or lower score. They can choose to connect their accounts to multiple email addresses, text-receiving phone numbers, and social media pages. Drawbacks fo Canvas Instructure Canvas Instructure does have a few drawbacks. The platform was  known to be a bit buggy and edits sometimes changed back to older versions of a document. Occasionally, the system does something unexpected and leaves instructors worrying about how to fix the problem. Most instructors rely on the dependability of their online learning platform and little issues can end up making a big difference. It would also be helpful if modules could be viewed on stand-alone pages and could be included in the design-your-own front page. Pros and Cons It may be helpful to view a quick guide to the pros and cons of Canvas Instructure Web 2.0, as well as the programs overall features: Basic Information Its an online learning management system.It offers Web 2.0 integration.It is free to use for individuals. Pros It has an intuitive, easy-to-use formatThe design is clean and simple.It makes grading and viewing grades easy.It offers easy social media integration. Cons The site can be a bit buggyThere is no simple way to add one-sentence reading assignments to a calendar.It is not easy to find online information on how to use the platform. Overall, Canvas Instructures Web 2.0 platform allows for real-time collaboration through a variety of social media platforms such as blogs, Google apps (such as Google Docs), and even via smartphones.