10 Compare and Contrast Essay Topics on Cultural Relativism

10 Compare and Contrast Essay Topics on Cultural Relativism Cultural relativism is a complex matter that needs thorough processing. When writing a compare and contrast essay on it you will need a few solid facts. It is for this reason what we’ve prepared the 10 below for you. Please be sure to check them: Cultural relativity is the idea that cultures are responsible for shaping perceived notions, beliefs, and the value systems of their organization. It is also believed that culture is what informs people within a specific group and directs their behavior. In the fields of linguistics and psychology, the theory of cultural relativism is the one which has been explored for economic, sociological, and political gains. It is hoped by some researchers that their findings can contribute to better knowledge about cultures. Cultural relativism is explored typically by ethnographic research, where the scientists are the observers within a culture. Immanuel Kant played a key role in the foundation of cultural relativism, whose ideas were challenged by Johannes Gottfried Herder. Herder helped to inspire better research aside from pure reason, specifically as it related to ethnology and geography. It is here that it was argued that humans will rely upon signs in order to gain comprehension and make decisions, signs which are not necessarily from a god or celestial authority but are handed down within their community. Human communities have their own understanding, their own knowledge, their own meaning, and each person within that community gains specific cultural enlightenment. One area often passed down among cultures is the idea of gender roles and what constitutes a rite of passage. The Catholic faith hinders a sexual rite of passage by regulating sexuality and linking any sexual act outside of a committed marriage to sin. The Catholic Church significantly interferes with the sexual rite of passage associated with the sociocultural transitory phases of sexuality. Whether a lifestyle of complete devotion or a lifestyle of complete sin, both are harmful to the development of a person and contradictory to the sexual development of individual consciousness. The rite of passage is meant as a sociocultural idea, categorized as the liminal period. It is an inter-structural situation which is experienced as the individual but influenced by the culture or society. The successful rite of passage encompasses the full transition from one state to another. In this instance, â€Å"state’ relates to a fixed or at least stable condition, which can include things such as social constancies like a profession or a calling, or can include the physical, mental, and emotional conditions in which a person might be at a unique moment in time. State is culturally recognized as the two ends of a process of becoming, or a transformation. Conflicts between new and old nations are often rooted in a lack of cultural relativism, or one wherein the two cultures refuse to be accommodating or accepting of the other. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the Middle East. The conflict in the Middle East, between Israelis and Palestinians, can be said to have roots in several of these common issues. For one thing, the conflict itself tends to be viewed as a religious one. This is because the Israeli state was created as a haven for the remaining Jewish population at the end of World War II. It is estimated that the Holocaust eliminated 1/3 of all Jewish persons in the world, and the newly-founded United Nations along with many supporters helped to establish Israel. This means that it is a Jewish state in the heart of the Arab world. The Arab world is predominantly Muslim, and this is where the majority of the religious conflict can be identified. Just because one nation is Jewish and other is Muslim, is not the sole reason of the conflict. Political and economic causes are also present. In their rush to establish a reasonable and tenable place for Jewish immigrants to settle, leaders in Europe and the United States have failed to address the dissatisfaction of the existing population in what had been Palestine, and which was divided up to create Israel. Black Liberation Theology is a theological system founded by Reverend James Cone. Its origins begin in 1966 with the National Committee of Negro Churchman. Over the decades, this theological belief system has purported that God is black and that His Word is focused on helping the oppressed and the downtrodden. Within American Christianity the ideas of slavery and race were purportedly supported by the Bible. Southern Baptists supported slavery with the Bible and not until 1995 was a formal Declaration of Repentance adopted which declared all forms of racism as deplorable and lamented, with all historical ties to racism an evil part of history. It was the Southern Baptist Committee who issued a formal apology for having perpetuated racism. And while all branches of Christianity had their racist past ties, Black Liberation theology attests that Christ is the forerunner for pursuing individual sanctuary and opposing racism. As a result, dialogue must be had regarding the implications that historical racism had on the black community. Black liberation theology primarily focuses today on how to make Christianity real for the African American community. It explains that Christianity focuses on liberation in the here and the now, not just in the afterlife. The goal of this theology is not to require special treatment, but to require freedom and justice. Black theologians use scripture as the sanction for these demands. These should make your essay writing firm and greatly improve your narrative. For additional information you may check our 20 topics and 1 sample essay on cultural relativism along with our guide on a compare and contrast essay on this topic. References: Berry, Jack W. Radical Cultural Relativism and the Concept of Intelligence. Culture and  Cognition: Readings in Cross-Cultural Psychology  (1974): 225-229. Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period.  Rites De Passage. Proceedings of the American  Ethnological Society, 1965. 93-111. Print. Brems, Eva. Enemies or allies? Feminism and cultural relativism as dissident voices in  Human Rights Discourse.  Human Rights Quarterly  19.1 (1997): 136-164. Christensen, Harold T. Cultural relativism and premarital sex norms.American Sociological  Review  (1960): 31-39. Cook, John W. Morality and Cultural Differences. (1999). Donnelly, Jack. Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights.  Human Rights  Quarterly  6.4 (1984): 400-419. Gell, Alfred. The Anthropology of Time: Cultural Constructions of Temporal Maps and  Images. (1992). Herskovits, Melville J. Cultural Relativism; Perspectives in Cultural Pluralism. (1972). Joyce, James.  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  New York: Viking, 1964. Print.

U2s Bono and his Worldwide Influence essays

U2s Bono and his Worldwide Influence essays Many countries in todays world are in great debt and overall panic as to the state of their governments financial affairs. Many people in different organizations worldwide are trying to relieve these countries of their debt and help their people with basic necessities. One such person is a well-known entertainer by the name of Paul Hewson, or better known by many U2 fans as Bono. Bono, while best known as a famous entertainer, has been one of the most influential supporters of helping people of Third World countries in the past decade. Bono received his famous nickname of Bono Vox from a close friend, after the name of a local hearing aid store. He despised the name until he was informed that it was Latin for good voice (Bono: Biography). Bono was born in Dublin, Ireland on May 10, 1961. His father, Bobby, was a postal worker and was a very religious Catholic man. Iris, his mother, was a Protestant. They were a typical middle class family. Bono grew up in a Dublin neighborhood commonly known as Ballymun. It was located between the city and the countryside. Bono recalls being raised in a very spiritual environment, but because his parents were of different religions, he was never fully accepted nor felt comfortable with either of the Catholic or Protestant faiths. Tragedy struck in the Hewson family in 1974 when his mother died from a brain hemorrhage. After this horrific event in his life, Bono entered the non-denominational and co-educational Mount Temple Comprehensive School. The years that he spent at this school had an enormous influence on his life (Unforgettable Fire). In 1976, Larry Mullen, U2s current drummer, placed an ad on the school bulletin board in search for people to start a band. A few kids, including Bono, gathered at Mullens house to audition. Bono was as charismatic of a character then as he is today. Mullen describes the initial meeting as...

Women are Still Treated like a Minority in the Workplace Personal Statement

Women are Still Treated like a Minority in the Workplace - Personal Statement Example And progressively higher numbers of women are taking part-time positions which are associated with lower pay rates than men, even after other dynamics have been factored in. Women’s employment opportunities are highly concentrated in traditionally female-dominated careers which are usually the lower paid. Women continue to be under-represented in the better-paid positions within occupations. Qualified women are typically deprived of top-level employment in corporate organizations, but instead of calling it what it is, discrimination and sexism, this form of disproportionate treatment are called the ‘glass ceiling’ effect. Women certainly are expected to have to perform more work a man to maintain the same pay rate and a similar position. Despite greater than ever levels of labor market involvement, women are still not uniformly represented, particularly at senior positions within organizations. This includes those corporations that cater expressly to women consume rs. This plainly observable fact of business has been termed ‘the glass ceiling.’ The phrase refers to the â€Å"invisible, artificial barriers that prevent qualified individuals from advancing within their organization and reaching full potential† (Hewitt & Roche, 2003).

Green criminology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Green criminology - Essay Example These new categories are crimes of air pollution, crimes of deforestation, crimes of species decline and against animal rights, and crimes of water pollution. Crimes of deforestation Our area of consideration will focus on deforestation a category of green crime and we subject it to green criminology test. Deforestation as a crime against environment can be defined as the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non forest use for example conversion of forestland to agriculture or urban use. Deforestation is often misused to include any activity where all trees in an area are removed but in temperate climates, the removal of all trees in an area in conformance with sustainable forestry practices is correctly described as regeneration harvest (Butler, 2009). People engage in deforestation for many reasons but the removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and aridity it also causes ext inction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations. Disregard or ignorance of the value, weak forest management and lack of environmental laws are some of the factors that contribute to deforestation. deforestation has a number of causes, including corruption of government institutions, the inequitable distribution of wealth and power, population growth and overpopulation, and urbanization. Globalization is viewed as another root cause of deforestation. In 2000 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that deforestation can result from "a combination of population pressure and stagnating economic, social and technological conditions. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, the direct cause of deforestation is agriculture. The degradation of forest ecosystems has also been traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conse rvation. Many important forest functions have no markets, and hence, no economic value that is readily apparent to the forests' owners or the communities that rely on forests for their well-being. From the perspective of the developing world, the benefits of forest as carbon sinks or biodiversity reserves go primarily to richer developed nations and there is insufficient compensation for these services. Developing countries feel that some countries in the developed world, such as the United States of America, cut down their forests centuries ago and benefited greatly from this deforestation, and that it is hypocritical to deny developing countries the same opportunities that the poor shouldn't have to bear the cost of preservation when the rich created the problem. This is one of the major problems with green crimes where the developed nations are reluctant in implementing them (Patel-Weynand, 2002). Logging operations, which provide the world’s wood and paper products, also cut countless trees each year. Loggers, some of them acting illegally, also build roads to access more and more remote forests which lead to further deforestation. New crimes and criminals here would include those who deal in the destruction of rainforests and valuable lands; those who exploit natural resources for their own ends; and ‘black markets’ that develop around the sale of many of these valuable commodities. An example of a new kind of environmental crime may be

QUALITIES AND ROLES OF A PRIMARY TEACHER Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

QUALITIES AND ROLES OF A PRIMARY TEACHER - Essay Example ents with a sense of imagination, while ensuring that there is enough discipline maintained in the classroom for the pupils to channel their enthusiasm and ideas productively. The teacher monitors the progress of the pupils, while preparing them for their SATs (Standard Assessment Tasks). Thus, his/her role involves nurturing the students as well challenging them to build upon their learnt skills and acquire newer ones at the same time. This is no mean task and, for the teacher to ensure that s/he is able to fulfil it, the teacher must not only be able to build a repertoire with the pupils, but also with the parents of the pupils. The teacher must, therefore, be patient and understanding with regards to the pupils as well as sympathetic when it comes to the parents of the pupils and their expectations. The teacher should also be organised and disciplined, ensuring that the curriculum objectives are met in his/her lessons. S/he should be flexible enough to allow his/her pupils to develop optimally with regard to their ages, abilities and individual aptitudes. Thus, s/he should be someone who can easily identify the strong as well as the weak points of the pupils, and work so that the strengths of the pupils are enhanced, and the weaknesses strengthened. I find that I am a good candidate for the task; I have been trained as a nursery nurse, having had the experience of working with children of various ages. I have acquired enough skills to be able to deal effectively with children as well as their parents. I have also shadowed primary teachers many times, both previously in my home town and recently as well. Moreover, I have also worked for two weeks in a primary school. All these experiences have taught me a lot, and I feel up to the task of becoming a primary school teacher

HP Introduction

HP Introduction Hewlett Packard popularly called HP is a company that provides technology solutions to consumers, businesses and all forms of institutions worldwide. The company later expands its operations to IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing services. The company is known throughout the world by operating in more than 170 countries around the world. The mission of the company is to facilitate how technology and services can assist individuals and institutions in addressing their problems and challenges so as to realize their dreams. The company applies new thinking and ideas come out with basic and valuable experiences with the technology with her IT corporation headquarter in Palo, Alto, California, USA. The company has been maintaining a lead among her contemporaries due to the effective strategic planning of the company and this has been jealously guided by the company in virtually all her businesses. Background of HP Company The initiators of HP Company are Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard who were classmates at Stanford Universities. They established the company in 1993, seventeen years ago. The first product of the company is called audio oscillators, an electronic testing instrument used by sound engineers. The product is developed in Palo Alto garage. Walt Disney studios were the first HP customers that bought a number of the audio oscillators for testing a new sound system. The company has gained enough popularity in so many countries of the world to have become the No 1 infrastructure support services revenue in 2003 among many world top support services providers. HP as a company always rise to challenges when it comes to IT-related issues, this is manifested in so many ways, the company offers one of the tech worlds most comprehensive portfolios of hardware, software, and services. The products range from personal computers, servers, and sophisticated storage devices, variety of printers and series of networking equipments. Asides this, the service unit of HP still offers series of IT and business outsourcing, software application development, IT consulting, and other IT-related services. The company has produces series of software such as carrier-grade communications applications, information management business intelligence and enterprise IT management among others. The coverage of her business are covered in consumers, business, government agencies and educational organization and such has been spread to more than 170 countries of the world. HP as a company believes so much in working towards achieving her set objectives and that has been the corporate values shared by all the employee within the organization. This is confirmed by the quotation of Dave Packard, co-founder of HP as follow: It is necessary that people work together in unison toward common objectives and avoid working at cross purposes at all levels if the ultimate in efficiency and achievement is to be obtained. Dave Packard The company has always been careful in following the pathways to achieving its set objectives based on the organizational values.Table 1 below summarizes the HPs corporate shared values and corporate objectives. Table 1: HPs Corporate values and objectives HPs Corporate Shared Values HPs Corporate Objectives Passion for customers Customer loyality Trust and respect for individuals Profit Achievement and contribution Growth Results through teamwork Market leadership Speed and agility Commitment to employees Meaningful innovation Leadership capability Uncompromising integrity Global citizenship Information Technology in HP HP company has been maintaining a lead in Information Technology (IT) which is evidenced as contained in the following discussions. To start with, it is revealed from the analyst firms report that HP recorded a tremendous increase in the infrastructure support services revenue from $7.889 billion to $8.028 billion between 2002 and 2003. This accounts for over 6% of the world infrastructure support service market. This marks the second year of the company (HP) leading the IT industry in support service revenue. Among the identified 450 IT service providers which is finally categorized in to the following four categories: Major service (Hardware maintenance and support, software support) Platform (Computing and connectivity) Industry Major geographical region and country HP maintains the lead in all the categories. HP is identified as one of the largest IT companies that operate in nearly every country. HP specializes in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, networking and its hardware infrastructure, software design and rendering support services. The impact of Information Technology (IT) on the achievement of HP is not limited to the technological aspects but also the soft skills and expertise which are unique to HP software crew. Malan, Coleman Letsinger (1995) in their study conducted to explore the current state of object-oriented practice. The findings of the study revealed that the best practice is derived from lesson learnt from HP. This means that HP is maintaining a lead in this regard. Object oriented programming approach is the most competing approach and any organization with required expertise in this area will make its ways in the competitive environment. This part of what strengthens the IT proficiency of HP company . Therefore, the success of HP cannot be a surprise since IT is now considered as the hub of every business. HP as an IT-based company has always been ready to assist serious-minded organizations in solving their IT-relate problems and such has been a plus to the company. A good scenario in this regard is how HP came to the aid of St. Peters Anglican Primary School with 560 students in both the K-6 and pre-kindergarten classes. The leadership of the school so much believe that the creating a computer-assisted learning environment for the children will serve as a good motivation for them to learn, in their quest to achieve this, the school can only afford desktop PCs due to budget constraints. The desktop PCs were found to be very slow in network operation and some were even too old to work which affects the realization of the schools goals. An introduction to HPs channel partner Somerville, and HPs Consolidated Client Infrastructure (CCI), made St Peters to begin a complete overhaul of its IT infrastructure that would bring a new flexibility and efficiency to its entire computing platform. In doing this, HP plays a significant role in addressing this problem. HP implemented a Consolidated Client Infrastructure based on a series of blade PCs for St Peters. This system meant that when a blade PC went down, another would pick up the active session, immediately minimizing disruptions to users. In a Consolidated Client Infrastructure, desktop PCs are replaced by thin client terminals, which are then virtually connected to HP blade PCs stored on a blade rack enclosure in a remote and centralised location. Each blade PC has its own CPU, RAM and hard disk. A HP blade enclosure can contain up to 20 blade PCs in a 3U rack enclosure, allowing up to 280 blade PCs per 42U rack. Blade PCs are then accessed via the Microsoft RDP, Citrix ICA or HP RGS protocols and displayed on thin client devices. Only screen updates, keyboard strokes, mouse actions, audio and peripheral data travel over the network, all the processing happens on the blade PCs. Users are connected to blade PCs either statically or through a broker such as HPs Session Allocation Manager, thus allowing the creation of a concurrent pool of resources and lowering the amount of IT administration required. This among others repositioned HP within organizations in terms of IT support. Information System in HP The company does not limit herself to only the IT aspects but also doing well in information system. A good testimony to this is the HP being announced as the as the support company for the Defense Information System Agency (DISA) with the company tapping from the HPs software for optimizing the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to deliver a reliable kind of interoperability capable of servicing all US defense departments. SOA is a technique of delivering IT services in a secured and manageable manner by using flexible, reusable and standard technology that can easily be adjusted to take care of any unplanned changes that occur in the business plan. The HP systinet SOA (HP business technology) is very good in this regard as it assist business organization in building a kind of information system (record) to manage the services rendered throughout the cycle of that service. This is to explain how far HP as a company has gone in terms of information systems to have provided DISA which is solely used for planning, engineering, acquiring, fielding and supporting IT solutions capable of serving the U.S president, Vice President, Secretary of Defense and all departments of US defense. This has earn HP series of awards from 2005 to date. HP offers SOA services to help customers at any point along the SOA lifecycle, including the design, build, integration, management and evolution of their SOA environment. HP Services also collaborates with technology partners such as BEA Systems, JBoss, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP to offer customers choice and flexibility. Competitive Advantage Introduction about Competitive Advantage First of all, it is important to briefly define what is competitive advantage? Competitive advantage is a feature exhibited at the expense of the firms rivals or competitors. It is a state where a firm sustains profits that is more than the industrial set average profit. Primarily, it is the dream of every business organization to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. According to Michael Porter, cost advantage and differentiation advantage are identified as the two basic types of competitive advantage. Cost competitive advantage A business firm/organization is considered to achieve cost competitive advantage if she is able to offer a better service or products to customers at a relatively reduced cost compared to her competitors. For example, HP has achieved sustainable cost competitive advantage over all her competitors by being able to produce highly quality laptops at a cheaper rate. Differentiation competitive advantage Differentiation competitive advantage is gained or achieved by a firm or an organization if she is able to deliver services or products of better values compared to those offered by her rivals or competitors. With the explanation of the two types of competitive advantage, it can be described as a way of getting more values for the customers and getting more profits for the company. Figure 1 below describes a competitive advantage model. As can be seen from the model combination of the organizational resources (human and material) and capabilities forms the distinctive competencies that makes the organization to be able to make a difference with respect to either cost advantage of differentiation advantage which eventually creates values for both the organization and the customers. This is in line with the resource-based theory that for a firm to attain a sustainable competitive advantage, such a firm must have superior resources and capabilities compared to her competitors. How Competitive Advantage helps HP Company HP Company being one of the world largest IT companies with a quarterly revenue of approximately $97.1 billion is able to maintain such a wonderful record through the sustainable competitive advantage over the competitors. The sustainable competitive advantage has benefited the company in so many ways that she has no other choice other than sustaining such record. The gained competitive advantage has increased the companys revenue tremendously. In year 2006, HP recorded a much better revenue of $91.7 billion against the rival, IBM with $91.4 billion. In year 2007, the annual revenue of the company was jacked up to $104 billion to become the first IT company reported to have a revenue of more than $ 100 billion, it doesnt stop there, acquisition of the EDS in 2008, also jacked up the revenue to $118.4 billion. All these achievements in terms of boosting in the revenue are products of the gained competitive advantage. The competitive advantage gained and sustained ever since by HP can be also attributed to her leadership position in the world technology with groups strategically assigned to drive industry leadership in main technology areas. The Personal Systems group are responsible for the lead in the business and consumer PCs, mobile computing equipments and work station. In the same manner, the imaging and printing group is responsible for the successes recorded in all forms of printing devices (personal and commercial printing), printing supplies and the enterprise business group is in charge of all business products. The performance of each of these groups among others is what makes HP what it is today among her equal. In addition HP became the largest world seller of personal computers as a result of her competitive advantage. In January 2010 a report from Gartner and IDC (Market Research Firms) shows that there is a wide gap between HP and Dell with HP taking 8.3% market share lead at the end of 2009. It was equally reported that HP is the 6th largest world software company. HP Company is equally reported in year 2008, to have retained the global leadership position in Jacket, laser, large format and multifunction printers market and at the same time the second IT service provider throughout the world. All these benefits/achievements do not come by chance it is as a result of being able to maintain some degree of superiority over the competitors. This results in to competitive advantage and the benefits being discusses the created values based on the competitive advantage. Analysis of Competitive Advantage in HP Company HP is able to achieve and sustain competitive advantage with her distinctive competencies. First of all, the company is committed to simplifying technology experiences for all its customers. This is applicable to all the services rendered ranging from printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure. This is very important since it assists in making virtually all the HP products usable by the intended users by putting the customers first. There is no way one can analyze HP competitive advantage without discussing the HP values; HP values is associated with the complete adherence to the ways or paths set out by the founding HP leaders. These unique ways account for the decision-making and the firms advancement since it is just like a roadmap. Also, HP pioneers based the corporate culture on the integration and reinforcement of critical opposites. This is achieved by simultaneously creating an environment that both celebrates individualism and at the same time supports the team work. The beauty of it is that such a practice will allow the company to tap from the benefits of both approaches as the case may be and also to neutralize their associated risks. Another way by which the competitive advantage of HP Company is sought is through her concept of developing cross functional individuals. Unlike other companies that just hire staffs and train them for a specific job requirement to be assigned to such staffs throughout their stay in the organization, HP makes sure that all her employees move more than 4 to six functional areas within the company to allow them to work in more than one departments of the company and thereby effectively managing the organizational knowledge through effective sharing among her staffs. It has been widely agreed that in this knowledge era, effective knowledge management will surely lead to achievement of competitive advantage. The quest for developing employee has always been the strength of HP company in attaining competitive advantage since this makes the company to achieve effective organizational change considering the rampant changes in the business organizations. Miller (2004) revealed that since 1980, HP has been engaged in extensive employee retraining program called Software Job Skills (SJS). Personnel who might ordinarily be laid-off underwent serious retraining the complex set of required skills and techniques. This makes the company to be able to sustain her competitive advantage since the employees always continue to be relevant and compliant with the new trend organizational need and employee are considered important in the performance of every organization. Organizational competitiveness is derived by the implementation of knowledge management and its associated benefits. Knowledge management helps in reducing the production cost as a result of the possibility of reusability. This allows the organization to be able to offer services of the same quality or even better than that of its competitive at a relatively low cost. This is an important way of gaining competitive advantage. In addition, the implementation of knowledge management brought about enhanced employee productivity and coordination which has a resulting positive effect on organizational performance. Another important factor is early delivery or ubiquitous service deliver powered by the real time communication facility. It is a wise saying of HP as quoted as follow If only HP know what HP knows! It means that the required knowledge and skills for solving your problem resides somewhere within the company. This means that the company has achieved a lot through effective communication. All these account for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. There have been series of academic evidences responsible for the early delivery experienced in the company due to regular improvement and enhancement of the supply chain. According to Lava, Feyhl and Kakourus (2005),full optimization of the business supply chain cannot be achieved using only the Operation Research (OR) approach in this demanding fast-paced ubiquitous business environment of the globalized era. Using OR alone will require a lot of time which might result in to delay in the service delivery and thereby negatively affect customer satisfaction. HP strategic planning and modeling (SPaM) came out with a more efficient approach which combines the optimization ability of OR and scenario analysis of the expert knowledge to arrive at an effective supply chain approach capable of solving complex supply chain decision problem for HPs imaging and printing group of company. the earlier the customers can get the required service the more satisfied they are, the efficient supply chain of HP has been of the secretes of the companys sustainable competitive advantage. It ha equally been argued that the risk associated with supply chain are related to product demand, component cost and availability uncertainties and they all affect the companys revenues and profits. According to Ngali, Hwang, Sanghera, Gaskins, Pridgan, Thuvston, Mackenvoth, Branvold, Scholler and Shoemaker (2008), procurement management group is formed in HP and they developed and implemented a mathematical model, business process and software to estimate and manage risks associated with supply chain. This has brought a lot of benefits to the company. To the extent that in year 2006, HP was able to manage $7 billion of her spending by saving only material cost of not less than $128 million. This really maximizes the companys profits and contributes to the sustainable competitive advantage of the company. The products of HP are always better than that of her competitors and such are refined and rebranded from time to time to meet the changing technological needs of the customers. Just in November 2009, HP StorageWorks X9000 was introduced as the new network storage system which is primarily designed to meet the emerging trend of the explosive data growth and to enhance the performance of the file-based applications using scale-out network storage that has the ability to manage information efficiently using a single namespace. This has fetched the company more popularity in the networking society since such an innovation is needed in virtually all organizations that deal with large data. The StorageWorks is very efficient in storing data and it is known for relatively low down time. Conclusion From the discussion so far, it can be seen that organizational success cannot be easily achieved without adequately set certain outstanding objectives with pathways to achieve those objectives. From all the sources it can be deduced that the leading position maintained by HP company can be largely attributed to the aggressive ways of achieving the organizational objectives and that is only possible because of the shared corporate values among all members of the organization. No doubt such shared corporate values will make all members of the organization to have almost equal motivation to contribute to the overall organizational performance. Also, one value must always be guided to avoid being eroded and same holds for organizations. It will be difficult for any organization to beat the HP record as long as the corporate value is maintained.

Snow Falling On Cedars Essay -- essays research papers

Racism is the notion that one’s own ethnic stock is superior to that of someone else’s. Most all racism is as result of ignorance. Racism can range from a simple comment to make another human being feel inferior, to complex actions that make others feel unwelcome in society because of who they are. The theme of racism can be seen throughout literature. In the murder mystery novel, Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson, many examples of wartime racism are evident. The novel is set on San Piedro Island off the coast of Washington in the year 1954. It is a place of â€Å"five thousand damp souls† (5). Kabuo Miyamoto, a member of the island's Japanese-American community, is on trial for the murder of Carl Heine, a fellow fisherman. Heine's boat was found drifting one morning, with his body entangled in a net. While the death initially appeared accidental, bits of circumstantial evidence that seemed to implicate Kabuo Miyamoto accumulated. Etta Heine, Carl’s mother, unjustly cheated Kabuo’s family out of some land during the war while the Miyamotos were incarcerated in a "relocation camp" in California. This provided motive for the apparent murder. Also, Carl’s traumatic head wound appeared suggestive of a Japanese kendo blow. Furthermore, Carl Heine's blood type was found on a wooden gaff on Kabuo Miyamoto's boat. As the trial proceeded, the story of Carl, Kabuo, and what happened that night gradually evolved, as did the tale of Ishmael Chambers, the local newspaper reporter. Ishmael had a love affair with Kabuo's wife when they were both adolescents, just before the Japanese families were sent away in 1942. It was clear, however, that this was more than just a story of one man's guilt or innocence; it is a story of a community's fear and prejudice against the Japanese-Americans in the midst of a war. In fact, Guterson even tells the reader that Japanese people who were not American citizens were not even allowed to own property. â€Å"We gotta take this†¦ All this stuff†¦ There’s a war on and that’s the way it is†¦ Any old country stuff we have to take† (196). Many of the things that the Japanese people were subjected to during the war were as result of ignorance. Ignorance seems to be the clue to almost all of the occurrences of racism in the novel. During Kabuo’s trial, he chose to keep quiet instead of sticking up for himself because in his religion, ... ...veryone who lives in it. At the end of the book, Hatsue tells Ishmael that she does not love him, compared to her husband, whom she met and married in the course of a few short months. The reader is left wondering at this point if Hatsue is really being truthful or if she is merely saying that to honor her mother’s wishes to â€Å"marry a boy of her own kind†. Mrs. Shigemura believed that â€Å"white men carry in their hearts a secret lust for pure young Japanese girls† (84). This effectively shows the stereotype the Japanese had of white people. However, there is one key difference, and that is throughout the novel, no matter how they are treated, the Japanese people are always respectful towards everybody. In the novel, Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson, the exotic sensuality of a Japanese woman, and the frustration of a white man in being prohibited from partaking of her by both his and her societies, are clearly illustrated. The story of a struggle against racism, and an imprisoned culture whose only crime was their face is retold. Yet in the end, one is left to contemplate, â€Å"Why do people who have lived together in a community for years suddenly turn against one another†?