Big love: religious or criminal? Essay

Barbara, Nikki, and Margie are three women from three very different backgrounds whom share one very universal dynamic. Barbara, is an extremely devoted mother of three, elementary school teacher, and wife to her husband named Bill. Although very endearing, Barbara is no stranger to pain and struggle. After only a few years of marriage to Bill, Barbara was diagnosed with breast cancer, a terminal disease which she battled for years. Moreover, Barbara overcame her struggle and has now become a better wife and mother. Nikki, a timid young woman, is a mother of two, relentlessly inflicts her harsh religious beliefs onto others as she was raised on the same polygamous compound as her husband named Bill. Margine, a vibrant liberal young woman and mother of 3, is a housewife who has the spirit of a 16 year old girl. Despite her vivid appeal to people, life, and friendships, she constantly struggles with insecurities that prohibit her from being the woman and mother that she aspires to be and coincidentally, her husband is also named Bill. Although these three women are all married to a man named Bill, the common name sake is no coincidence. Margine, Barbara, and Nikki are all married to the same man, Bill Paxton. Bill, owner of a major retailer is a Polygamist who resides outside of Utah after being banished from the polygamist compound where he once grew up. Despite his excommunication from the ranch, Bill continued to implement the same polygamist fundamentals into this own lifestyle. Bill has 3 wives, Barbara, Nikki, and Margine, whom he married consecutively and currently has 8 children between all three wives. Barbara, the first wife is responsible for maintaining the hierarchy between all the wives, while Margine and Nikki maintain their own individual homes. Whist many outsiders of polygamy consider their relationships immoral and illegal, this family attempts to preserve their bond through the religious upbringings that they are accustomed to. This narrative is that of the HBO series, Big Love, which depicts the lifestyle of a polygamist family outside of a compound, whom consequentially attempts to apply religious beliefs and multi-marital subsistence to their family while simultaneously sheltering the world from their illegitimate existence. Despite the HBO’s depiction of polygamy in the United States, the commonality of polygamy is currently being rationalized, causing more individuals in society to evaluate the internal infrastructure of many polygamist cults as more criminal than religious. Overall, polygamy is not a new concept to the modern world. Many indigenous cultures across the globe still practice polygamy including various tribes in Africa and South America, and yet in other areas such as the United States, Europe, and Asia, monogamy is enforced, thus making polygamy illegal in many parts of these designated Areas. Polygamy in the United States can be dated back to 1929 in its association to the Mormon Church, even though the Book of Mormon was created in the late 1800s. Mormonism is quite different from traditional Christianity. Traditional Roman Catholicism has divisional leaders such as priests and or deacons whist Mormon church officials are deemed prophets. Traditional Mormonism is classified under a branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Under Mormonism, The Book of Mormon is a companion of the traditional holy bible and teaches that as God was man, man can become a god as well. Additionally, Mormons also believe that God was not created on earth, but on another planet under his god. Just as humans must adhere to commandments, God also had to conform to a set of conventions in order to please his god. After complying under god’s rule, God came to earth where he married a goddess with whom he produced children. These children, deemed the spiritual offspring whom later developed as humans on earth, are brothers and sisters of Adam and Eve. Modern Mormonism under the sect of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints should not be confused with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) openly practice and support polygamy within secluded compounds or polygamist epicenters where this practice is legal in portions of the United States such as Texas and small areas within Utah. The official leader and of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Gordon B. Hinckley, has denounced polygamist practices, promising to excommunicate any member whom participates in polygamy activities. Furthermore, Hinckley has stated that there is no such thing as a Mormon Fundamentalist, which refers to the FLDS church, thus regarding the church and its members as complete contradictions (â€Å" ‘Mormon’ Polygamy: Misconceptionsâ€Å"). Nonetheless, Mormon polygamist lifestyles are undergoing unprecedented scrutiny in light of recent media debuts, consequently permanently damaging its already impaired reputation. Although many television portrayals of polygamy such as HBO’s tele-series, Big Love, do not exploit criminal behaviors of neglect and the abuse of children, the current disbursement of hundreds of children from a Mormon based polygamist cult in Texas has begun to provide attentive outlook on illicit violations that have occurred. The situation began in April of this year after police received a frantic 911 call from a girl who claimed that she had been abused, forcefully married, and impregnated by an older man. Investigators, already watchfully suspicious after previous abuse allegations surfaced almost 4 years earlier, had finally acquired enough evidence to disembark upon the compound territory. The call caused a surge of law enforcement and child protective services to recover over 400 children and teenagers from the compound and over 150 adults. Despite America’s unfavorable views towards polygamy, the plural aspect of the polygamist society is not the trigger behind disapproving conjectures, yet the abuse of young women and children remain problematic to accept. Women and children are considered the most feeble members of society, and although polygamists claim that the procreation of children into a whole family as a society is a major basis of their religion, it will always remain a substance of abuse. For instance, in many religions such as Mormonism and the polygamist sect of the Fundamentalist Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), marrying and impregnating girls as young as 12 is permitted regardless of the criminal facets. Andrew Gumble states that â€Å"the police and child protection services knew as soon as the El Dorado ranch was built in 2004 that the fundamentalists were polygamists, with a track record of marrying off girls as young as 14 or 15 to church elders who might be in their 70s or 80s† (6). Under the law, any girl wed under the age of 18 without parental consent to marry is illicit. Marriage is a contract which minors cannot enter without parental consent. Additionally, any adult 18 years or older that engages in a sexual act with anyone under the age of 18 is committing a rape. Ethically speaking, children are vastly inept during developmental stages of adolescence and childhood which inhibits their ability to conduct relationships in respect to marriage and child-rearing. Jodi Grizzle, of the Children’s Service Society of Utah, says most girls that age are already going through the oftentimes rocky and rough years of adolescence. â€Å"Teenagers don’t have the ability to think abstractly. Our brains don’t finish developing until we’re in our 20s. So you have a teenager with a significant life event, and they aren’t necessarily capable of comprehending all of the implications† (â€Å"Over 50 percent). In spite of a common misconception that many young females are willing contestants, hundreds of young girls are not consenting participants. Many of these ostensible leaders of the FLDS often engage in forced marriages and sexual acts with many young women whom are compulsorily admitted into polygamist compounds. In fact, Andrew Gumble also attests that â€Å"their ‘prophet’ and leader Warren Jeffs, now serving prison time for his role in arranging the forced marriage of a teenage girl in Utah, has a reputation as a hardliner and a man who inspired great fear even in his own followers† (6). Warren Jeffs, a former FLDS prophet, is currently awaiting trial for accessory to rape. Warren Jeffs, took over the FLDS empire consisting of over 12,000 members after the death of his father, Rulon Jeffs, in 2002. Warren Jeffs was accused of sexually abusing a nephew for over 10 years in addition to forcefully arranging the polygamous marriage of a 16 year old girl to an older man. Warren Jeffs was on the run for 2 years before he was caught in August of 2006. Not only are young women victims of abuse in these compounds, but children also exert signs of abuse under polygamous governance. Indirect abuse of children has also been corroborated under the recent compound investigations. Many of the children were not properly cared for, as the result of medical examinations confirmed broken bones and lack of vaccinations that are required of school aged children and babies. Although it has not been determined if the children’s broken bones were the result of direct abuse or circuitous negligence, high scrutiny and speculation has already characterized the parents of the children as abusive and incompetent. Despite FDLS religious values, the religious aspect cannot compensate rationale for forced marriages, rapes, and neglect of young women and children unwillingly involved in polygamist existence. Many polygamist agree that the prosecution of their actions are not based upon criminal measures but their religious beliefs. For instance, Rodney Holm, an ex-police officer convicted of bigamy, refutes his conviction on the grounds of violation of the 1st and 14th amendments as the conviction aims to attack those whom are attempting to implement a holy religious based lifestyle (Winslow â€Å"Polygamist appealsâ€Å"). Furthermore, Holm’s lawyer, Rod Parker contests that â€Å"The Utah court’s criminalization of polygamous relationships that do not seek recognition as legal marriages violates the Equal Protection Clause because it discriminates on the basis of religious affiliation† (Winslow â€Å"Polygamist appeals†). However, despite the negative outlook on polygamy for its illegitimacy and immorality to some, the religion is not under question in any way, it is the abuse and violation of laws that coincide with polygamy that is being addressed. Under the law, polygamy is illegal and has been illegal since 1879 which makes bigamy illegal as well. Polygamy is not a religion but a breach of the law. Holm was also charged with committing a sex act with a minor, his 16-year-old wife Ruth Stubbs. Sex with a minor is illegal under the law. Incorporating illegalities into a religion does not make it legal. For instance, if Tom Cruise would like to incorporate snorting cocaine into Scientology, it would still make snorting cocaine illegal because cocaine is illegal in the United States, despite his religious beliefs. Legal issues are being addressed, not religion. Consequentially, sex with minors is illicit and it’s a form of abuse, just as forced marriages and child neglect which are core facets. Although it is difficult to reform individuals from a way of life that is viewed to some as holy and religious, it is better to curb problematic behaviors including domestic violence and child abuse. Domestic violence hubs should be implemented in order to curtail the occurrence of violence within polygamist households. Seminars within polygamist communities should become mandatory. Traditionally, polygamist households could consist of one wife to upward amounts of 30 wives over a man’s lifespan. Each wife could have up to 11 to 15 children during the span of her ability to reproduce. Any mother, young or old, can understand the stress that comes along with raising children. A family of that magnitude could cause any woman to exert nontraditional parenting practices such as yelling or excessive hitting to discipline children. In the eyes of the law, excessive hitting or beating a child is considered child abuse, excluding moderate spankings. This situation was observed in the house of a woman named Heidi Mattingly, a 33-year-old mother of 11 and member of the Kingston Polygamist Clan in Utah. The judge found that Heidi hit her children in the face until they bled, hit babies, and verbally abuses her children, however, the court also founded that Heidi was also abused by her husband and prophet of the clan, John Daniel Kingston and other members of the society as well, which explained why she behaved accordingly towards her children. (Thompson). Heidi was provided with individual and group therapy in order to sustain a healthy disciplinary role for her children. Established organizations that work within polygamous compounds such as The Primer are advocated for domestic violence reforms. Many social workers agree that groups such as The Primer are very helpful because of their insight into polygamist groups. A social worker named Madsen said â€Å"It opened my mind to how many people live the lifestyle,† he said. â€Å"There’s like 50 groups. I had no idea. It told me some of the history that I didn’t know. For example, this group (the Kingstons) doesn’t dress in bonnets and long dresses† (Winslow). Although anti-polygamists discourage The Primer and organizations like it because of its encouragement of polygamy, it has definitely provided a safe haven of resources for victims of abuse. In conclusion, polygamy is not a current phenomena, as many tribes still practice polygamy in portions of Africa and South America. The United States is not a stranger to polygamy as well, as polygamy has existed as far back as 1929, even though the Book of Mormon was created in the late 1800s. Although Mormons believe in one god, they are vastly different than traditional Christians. For example, traditional Roman Catholicism heads each dioceses with a priest, deacon, and or bishop, whist Mormonism believe that prophets should be the head of a sect. A spin-off of traditional Mormonism is the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints also called FLDS. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints should not be confused with FLDS because of different views towards polygamy. In fact, the current prophet of the Church of Latter Day Saints, Gordon B Hinckley, vows to excommunicate any individual involved with polygamy. Additionally, Hinckley says that the Mormon Fundamentalists are a complete contradiction to the Mormon church. This severance from the mainstream religions is not the first portion of negative propaganda that polygamist cults have received. In April of 2008, a frantic 911 call from a 16-year-old girl tipped police off to a polygamous compound in Texas, after years of being under observation. During the raid, over 400 children and 150 adults were taken into police and protective custodies. Signs of abuse, towards children and young women were all implicated in forced marriages, rapes, and neglect. Although there are many participants, many of the young women are forced to marry older men, which is illegal. In fact, marriage to a minor without parental consent is illicit in the eyes of the law. Additionally, if an adult engages in a sexual act with a someone under the age of 18, it is also illicit and considered rape. Many young women from polygamous lifestyles can attest to this behavior, just as the young woman who pressed charges against former FLDS leader, Warren Jeffs. Warren Jeffs headed a polygamist empire consisting of about 12,000 members after the death of his father, Rulon Jeffs in 2002. Warren Jeffs was also accused of molesting his nephew for over 10 years. Furthermore, many of the young women are also mothers at young ages of 12, the beginning of adolescence, which is additionally problematic for teens as well. Many mothers at polygamist compounds are additionally under added stress of being a role model to 11 to 15 children that are conceived throughout their lifetimes. Many women such as Heidi Mattingly resorted to nontraditional parenting methods such as over excessive spankings or brutal beatings, and verbal abuse. Heidi Mattingly, mother of 11 children was found guilty of abusing her children by hitting them in the face, hitting babies, and verbally abusing her children. In order to curtain her behavior, individual and group treatments were granted to Heidi to help her maintain a healthy disciplinary figure towards her children in addition to reversing abuse that she sustained under her husband and â€Å"Prophet†, John Daniel Kingston of the Kingston Polygamist Clan. Groups such as The Primer have become a special aid to social workers involved in polygamist groups for their understanding of the infrastructure in each group. Although anti-polygamist activists disagree with The Primer’s actions, deeming their participation as encouraging polygamy, their presence within the polygamist community draws much needed attention towards the realization of abuse within polygamist communities in tandem with providing resources for victims of abuse. BIBLIOGRAPHY Buncombe, Andrew. â€Å"Cult leader accused of making under aged girls marry adults. † The Independent (London) 1 Sept. 2006: Gumble, Andrew. â€Å"The ranch has not yet revealed all its secrets.. .† The Independent on Sunday 13 Apr. 2008: 6. † ‘Mormon’ Polygamy: Misconceptions. † 2007. . â€Å"Over 50 percent of teen girls on FLDS ranch are mothers. † Narr. Lori Prichard& Carole Mikita. KSL Television and Radio. NBC, Salt Lake City. 28 Apr. 2008. Thompson, Linda. Deseret Morning News â€Å"Polygamist mom guilty of child abuse. † Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Jan 13, 2005. FindArticles. com. 08 May. 2008 Winslow, Ben. Deseret Morning News â€Å"Polygamist appeals conviction to top U. S. court. † Deseret News (Salt Lake City). 17 Oct. 2006. Find Articles. com 08 May 2008 Winslow, Ben. Deseret Morning News â€Å"‘Primer’ details intricacies of polygamist life†. Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Jun 11, 2006. FindArticles. com. 08 May. 2008. .

Fast Food Essay

Do you like to eat fast food Nowdays people’s lives are becoming faster and faster. Because of a tight schedule, many people decide to eat fast food. Fast food is a western food. Fast food refers to any poor nutrition food that is easily prepared. Fast food may include chips, hot pies, sandwiches, burgers, kebabs, pizzas, soups, and salads. It also includes drinks, for instance, milkshakes, and soft drinks. Fast food has advantages and disadvantages. Some of the advantages of fast food are that fast food is cheap, time saving, and quick. Fast Food Saves Time People can order fast food on their way to or from work, without ever leaving their car, which is drive thru. Fast food is also designed to come in small packaging, So that people can consume it while traveling. Light on the Wallet Its means Eating fast food can save a lot of money for large families, students and anyone else looking to eat out without breaking the bank. Many fast food chains offer discount menus with foods costing. Customers also avoid having to leave a tip when they choose a fast food establishment over a typical restaurant. Easy to find place Some of the most popular fast food chains include McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dunkin’ Donuts, and many more. Despite of having many advantages, fast food has many disadvantages including obesity and different kinds of diseases. Obesity Extra calories can lead to being overweight or obese. As we know children nowadays like to eat fast food. So the percentages of obesity among children increase from year to year. With obesity come other problems like high blood pressure, the increasing of cholesterol and other related diseases of the heart that can lead to heart attack and many more serious diseases. Fast food has advantages and disadvantages. Some of the advantages are that it is easy, quick, and inexpensive. On the other hand, some of the disadvantages are that it causes obesity and different kinds of diseases. Eating fast food is like playing with our health and if we lose our health neither the money, nor the time can get it back.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers Finance Department Assignment

Pricewaterhouse Coopers Finance Department - Assignment Example With the diversity of its workforce, challenging tasks, motivating and nurturing environment, the business organization presents a fertile venue for individual growth and development not just in terms of career but especially on social, intellectual, and moral aspects. Through an interview conducted with Richard Baird, the PwC Human Resource Executive, this report assesses the capability of the financial firm in training, motivating, compensating, and developing its workforce. With the main goal of having a thorough understanding of the company's human resource policies, this trip report focuses to put PwC's perspective on its people on spotlight. Throughout the interview, Baird emphasizes that human resources are the essential strategic partners which helps PwC accomplish its goals and reach its specific objectives. When asked how the company values its employees, Baird responded, "It is our people who create the experience of PwC for our clients and ultimately makes us distinctive. The clients of PwC firms all over the world select us and judge the quality of our service by the people they meet and who serve them on a day-to-day basis." Wh What then makes the people of PwC distinctive Baird stated, "The first element that differentiates our people is their individual quality. Each PwC firm is dedicated in recruiting the best people, helping them develop their skills and competencies, and enabling them to realize their full potential. People who join our organization are expected to adopt our shared values, as exemplified in our Global Code of Conduct. As they gain experience and build technical and commercial expertise, we also help them grow as responsible leaders. The second element is connected thinking, which brings our people together throughout our global network and encourages them to collaborate and support each other, using their collective experience, industry knowledge and business understanding to deliver consistent service, which clients truly value." PwC considers its people as one of its core competencies. Thus, it opts to nurture its employees and keep them happy and motivated to excel in their positions: "In any business, a happy team is more likely to be a high performing team. Employees who enjoy their work and are fully engaged with us are also more engaged with our clients, delivering higher quality, and creativity as a result." Recognizing this, PwC focuses on staff retention conduct an Annual Global Survey to help it "understand its people's level of engagement and commitment to PwC." So, how does PwC build people's engagement "One is by encouraging and enabling them to work flexibly to suit their own lifestyle and personal priorities-a commitment that is led from the top and that applies at every level of the organization. To ensure our people benefit from the best possible learning opportunities, we frequently run development programs in partnership with business schools. We also have talent management programs in orde r to develop future leaders in our different firms. We value diversity and are striving capitalize on the various knowledge

With reference to the issues of International Essay

With reference to the issues of International Justice,Torture,Landmines campaign, Lesbian&Gay Rights examine how the UN Charter - Essay Example 324). IGOs engage in treaty-making; encourage international lawmaking to become democratized by including more states in making treaties, not just the civilized states; instigate and enforce international law; and empowering NGOs and other non-state actors to act in advocating for victims of human rights abuses (Alvarez, 2006, pp. 324-335). States rely on IGOs to fulfill their national goals, and are constrained by these organizations. Moreover, state participation in IGOs often transforms the internal structure of the governments involved, such as when they induce states to establish medical authorities to respond to requests by the World Health Organization, and induce states to give effect to its warnings on global warming (Alvarez, 2006, p. 335). Non-governmental organizations are other actors on the global stage. NGOs are organizations that bring out the facts about human rights abuses, as well as contribute to setting standards regarding the implementation, promotion and enforc ement of human rights norms (Steiner & Alston, 1996, p. 456). Because governmental agencies might be hesitant to call out other governmental agencies, for a range of reasons that concern diplomacy, NGOs are considered to be a necessary part of spreading the word about human rights abuses, and advocating for reform.... Among these organizations are labor unions, consumer unions and industrial associations, which advocate for economic concerns; racial, gender and religious groups; groups that are issue-oriented, such as environmental or educational organizations; groups that advocate for the elderly or the young; public interest groups who may be for universal health care or against corruption; etc. (Steiner & Alston, 1996, p. 457). NGOs have a variety of strategies at their disposal, as far as the reformation of human rights abuse. One strategy would be to use the country’s domestic law. This has the advantage of being politically expedient, as using a country’s own law is seen as carrying more politically clout than using an international standard, as using international standards are often seen as intrusive to a country’s people. However, oftentimes countries might not have very progressive domestic laws when it comes to human rights. In that case, a better strategy would be to use international standards to attempt to make that country reform (Steiner & Alston, 1996, p. 458). NGOs must be impartial to be effective – in other words, they must not be affiliated with a certain political party. In other words, the group cannot be beholden to one particular party, or else that group will not investigate abuses perpetrated by that party. This was a concern in Nicaragua, where there were many groups who claimed to speak for human rights, then actually these groups were a shill of one party or the other, and each party was using these groups as a weapon against the other party (Steiner & Alston, 1996, p. 459). Consider the evolution of the notion of INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE and the creation of the ICC as a case study to assess

Strategic Social Challenges of Wal-Mart Article

Strategic Social Challenges of Wal-Mart - Article Example Reducing greenhouse emissions can save money for their consumers. The company also planned to give preference to the suppliers that participate in this program. They have started recycling plastic to eliminate waste and they are also working with their suppliers and educating them. Packaging should be from renewable or recyclable material to save cost and they decided to work with their packaging supplier. Recycling can save on landfill costs. As far as products are concerned, Scott said they would introduce products that are safe and produced in a sustainable way. They are introducing organic products to eliminate toxins in different product categories  such as paper, food, fisheries, and electronics. Apart from the environment, they also decided to focus on product sourcing, health care, wages, community involvement, and diversity. They are trying to ensure that all the workers are treated properly. They also want to bring in insurance for all their Associates and establish basic health care clinics to bring greater access. They would also focus on the wages as this has been the area of criticism but they claim to be abiding by the minimum wages laid down by the Congress.   They believe in diversity and would continue to hire the minorities and the women and also increase business with minorities companies. Wal-Mart was aware of the challenges that the company was facing as they proposed to revise their Associate benefits and the public reputation during their Board Retreat in 2005.

Case Study on McDonalds Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

On McDonalds - Case Study Example The business model implemented has enabled the firm to consistently offer restaurant experiences that are relevant to the local customers and become part of the local communities. A swot analysis of McDonald’s is as below. McDonald has developed a very strong global grand and is highly ranked by Fortune Magazine in its category. It has also successfully portrayed itself as community oriented and socially responsible company that caters for the different cultures it serves. Strong global market presence is another key strength that is barked with the franchise business model that has made it easy to expand and manage the vast locations without much ease. The company’s location strategy also works for its business i.e. most stores are excellently located in parks, airports and Wal-Mart stores as well as other prime places. Its adherence to guidelines on safety of food and provision of nutritional information to its customers also helps in growing customer intimacy. A major weakness of McDonald’s has to do costs of doing business; it has to expend lots of money on training as a result of high staff turnover. It has also concentrated a lot on the fast foods such as burgers instead of the more healthier and organic food types. Its franchise model of operation also faces concerns to with quality as the different franchise owners may not offer the same level of quality. A concern to investors arises from the large variations in the company’s profits while its limited variation of seasonal foods impacts on customer confidence. McDonald’s therefore needs to address these weak points in order to maintain its brand recognition. Due its global position and the franchise business model the company has unique opportunity to further expand to every part of the globe. It can also grow its image by responding fast social changes and customer demands in terms of health. Its Wifi service

How accurate is it to suggest that the Labour goverment promised much Essay

How accurate is it to suggest that the Labour goverment promised much but delivered little in terms of social policy during their period in office from 1964 - 1970 - Essay Example The lack of delivery and the inability to create the necessary changes to those who were interested in social policy was one which led to expected alterations; however, this changed to theoretical alterations instead of practical solutions for the country. The social policy which took place in the 1960s was based specifically on the alterations which were happening in society and the need to alter what was occurring with the economy and political status. The economic and political alterations led to welfare states that needed to be approached, specifically with the social beliefs that were from the lower class. The social constraints which followed the economic and political status were consistent with unequal rights which were taking place in the work region and which were based on the need to change the status of those in society. The movement from industrialization and into the modern era was the main force which caused the social rights to become a part of the economic and governmental association. The shocks which were occurring during this time led to a combination of economic and social changes, all which were meant to redefine the status of individual’s within society while promoting equal rights within the nation (Scha rpf, Schmidt, 2000: 19). The main association with social policies that were created during this time was a bridge to the modern belief systems that are currently a part of the governmental and economic order. From the 1960s to the 1980s there was a third order and second order change which occurred. The policies were based on taking basic human and social rights and moving them into the main institutions, specifically to protect the rights of workers in the region. The change was one which pushed to develop new tools that would enhance the human rights of those in the work space while adding in goals and alterations for the social movement that

Euthanasia and end of life issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Euthanasia and end of life issues - Essay Example Euthanasia, the practice of ending life, is one of the issues that involve ethical dilemmas. This paper explores ethical theories to euthanasia and end of life. Ethics defines a society’s morality in terms of what is approved to be good and what is approved to be bad. Acts, either of omission or of commission, are therefore ethical when they meet a society’s approved behavior and unethical when they are contradictory. Such is the basis of the issue of euthanasia that faces conflicting opinions from different ethical perspectives and affected parties. A person in great pain without hope for improvements and is waiting to die, may for example desire assistance to facilitate his or her death while such an act may not be acceptable to care personnel or the patient’s close relatives. Legal professions that supplement professional ethics and patients’ rights also play a significant role. These factors therefore induces dilemma on care ethics approach that provid es for a positive relationship between caregivers and patients (Bube n.p.). While both parties are supposed to derive utility from the relationship between patients and care personnel, conflicting interest between the parties over application of euthanasia calls for application of other ethical principles. A consideration of third party interest, such as those of relatives and legal provisions, intensifies the dilemma over whose interest should be supreme. Ethical theories of teleology, deontology, and virtue ethics however offer guidelines to determining morality of euthanasia and end of life issues (Bube n.p.). The general teleological approach to ethics involves evaluation of consequences of an action on the society in terms of benefits and harms that are accrued from an act. Acts that lead to net benefits, more benefits than harm, are therefore considered ethical while acts that yield net harm to the largest section of the society are considered unethical. Utilitarian ethics has a dual approach to euthanasia and assisted deaths with some interpretations identifying lack of ethics in the practice while others argue that the act is ethical. Among opinions that argue for utilitarian ethics are three benefits of ending lives of terminal patients who are going through pain as they await their death. One of the beneficial consequences of euthanasia is its recognition of a patient’s autonomy in decisions about his or her last days. This is because prolonging a person’s life against his or her desire breaches the ethical principle of autonomy and may not yield utility to the suffering patient. It therefore allows patients to decide what will benefit them more. The practice also has the benefits of eliminating suffering, in a patient and among relatives, in cases where such sufferings cannot be managed and the patient condition deteriorates towards death. Euthanasia also comforts patients with the hope that it permanently relieves them of their pain ( Bube n.p.). Utilitarian opinions against euthanasia however argue that a patient may make decision to use the process but under duress from either care providers or family and the process would therefore not benefit the patient. A utilitarian approach to euthanasia should therefore consider each isolated case to determine possible benefits and harms to each stakeholder, especially the patient (Bube n.p.). Deontological perspective of euthanasia however involves consideration of established moral rules in practice. In euthanasia, for example, deontological ethics correspond to established ethical codes of conduct in the care profession. The fundamental that guides deontological ethics in euthanasia is protecting patient autonomy. The patient must however be terminally ill, is informed of the

Communicative ethics in the workplace Term Paper

Communicative ethics in the workplace - Term Paper Example Differing environments and diverse job classes cater to a wide variety of mental wavelengths as well as sociological and psychological characteristics each pertaining to an individual area of expertise. When postulating the idea of communicative efforts to breed desired results in any given situation, a careful analysis of the environment is key to success. Discussing the idea of communicative ethics in a precise manner is going to help us understand the underlying factors that make up human interaction in each scenario. Sticking to a very general and concise approach, each branch of communication involving diplomacy, creating credibility, and building trust will be elaborated on by examining ethical relations in varying contexts. Ethics is defined by two categories of thought relating on how to examine human actions within a specific paradigm. The first of these is called categorical ethics, whose main idea is defined primarily by Immanuel Kant as the â€Å"categorical imperativeâ € . The categorical imperative states specifically that actions can be either right or wrong, that they must be categorized in some way or fashion and thrown into a labeled dichotomy. The basis of his idea stems from the humanistic quality of desire. If a human being needs or wants something then inherently the human will seek out a path of attaining what he or she so desires. Determining factors as to the actual motivations behind the desire are what Kant zeroes in on and labels as good or bad. The deeper aspects of the categorical imperative are a syllogism to measure out the morality of the action. By developing the ability to analyze given situations in varying circumstances we gain the ability to determine what action to take will have the most beneficial outcome for us as an individual. The desire for a specific outcome will change the shape of the methodology used to acquire it (Cheney, 2004). Discursive ethics are then bound by whether or not individuals are engaged in di scourse for the basis of self motivation or a common understanding of the ethical dilemma of the other individual. This brings about the idea of subjective ethics, or whether or not when two humans engage in communicative discourse do they in fact consider or perceive each other’s subjectivity. This idea really stems away from the right and wrong dichotomy of Kantian ethics and displays the characteristics of meshing into the gray area. Subjective ethics takes the approach of rationally analyzing different situations and determining a basis of value for an action that may or may not be all good or all bad, sometimes completely being in between. In terms of corporate or social responsibility even imagine the topic of CEO compensation. How much compensation is really able to be classified as good or bad, more or less, enough or too much? Being virtuous and steadfast with decisions in the social world tends to breed positive results, overzealous attitudes and lax performance do not. Edmund Burke stated that each human in themselves carries a â€Å"lamp of experience† (Sherman, 2009). This lamp is a guiding light which illuminates all experiences which shape the subjective reality of an individual, therefore making each human interaction a subjective experience in which no one human can truly understand the subjectivity of another due to the lamps having taken each one on a different path in life. However, the closer two individuals come to understanding the subjective nature in the interactions taking place, the more value that can be placed on the discourse therein (Sherman, 2009). The idea of communication being utilized by any individual for the purpose of developing complex social relationships in the workplace will be analyzed thoroughly by examining what it is to use communicative ethics, understanding the diverse differences between workplace environments and their impact on communicative structure, and finally by grasping the total net profi ts and

The artistic relationship between Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt Essay

The artistic relationship between Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt - Essay Example Conversely, Mary Cassatt emphasized on painting about social as well as the private lives of women in the society. In her works, Mary Cassatt is particular on the intimate bond manifested between the mother and the child2. The two artists that is, Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt had distinct relationships in arts besides their actual relationships. The relationships are attributed by the themes onto which each of them emphasized in their pieces of art. However, the subject has an element of complexity in its demonstration and a critical analysis of the content of the artistic works would perform a fundamental role of exposing the sense of relationship in this scenario. The two artists base their works on main issues occurring in the society. It is obvious that the works displayed by the two artists are related in various perspectives1. Therefore, this research seeks to establish the relationship between Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt artistic works. Throughout this exercise there will be analysis of four different artistic pieces from the two artists. There will be a selection of two paintings of Edgar Degas and two pieces from Mary Cassatt pieces of art. The first pair of artistic pieces to be analyzed for relationship in this scenario are Ballerina and Lady with a Fan by Edgar Degas and At the Opera by Mary Cassatt. In the Ballerina and Lady with a Fan, Edgar Degas portrays a woman sitting in front in a balcony watching dancers perform. This painting exhibits an exceptional proficiency possessed by the artist. The painting manifests three levels of viewing3. In the first instance, the viewers of the painting find themselves fixed in the position of the actual audience in the theatre. The second level now directly concerns the image and there is a woman displayed as one of the audience who is also watching the performance by the dancers. The third level depicts the actual performing dancers in the stage and of whom all the attention is geared. Edgar utilizes differ ent artistic styles in ensuring an effective visualization by the appreciators. There is effective harmonization of the light, color and shadows. All these attributes to the observable quality appreciated in the painting2. There is a distinction between the leader of the dance group who is in a light orange dress and is in front of the other dancers who are in green gowns with red stripes4. In Mary Cassatt’s, At the Opera the image also dominate a significant portion of the painting. The piece exhibits a woman seated alone in the balcony to observe performance in a theatre. The woman has a long black dress that covers her body properly from the lower part of her neck till the feet. The proper woman also has gloves on her hands and a black hat. These leaves only the face and few parts of the hands exposed for the public view. The woman has a pair of binoculars with which she uses to capture the performance explicitly in the hall4. According to the prevailing trends of this per iod, the paintings have a close relationship ranging from the way they are exposed to the actual meanings depicted by the pieces. The two paintings relate specifically in dominance, meaning and spectatorship. In the first painting and that is Ballerina and Lady with a Fan, we can consider the spectatorship and we can endeavor querying the exposure of the woman and her capacity to regulate or dispute the situation5. The woman seated at the balcony is viewed by other spectators most of which are men. The woman

Ethical Issues In The ICU Essay Example for Free

Ethical Issues In The ICU Essay Medical practitioners are faced with the challenge of making decisions on whether to withhold or withdraw a patient’s life sustaining therapy in the intensive care unit. Intensive care units are departments which provide high quality and advanced forms of therapies to very ill patients in the intensive care unit at an increased cost. These patients’ expectations are high with regard to modern medicine, and as a result, have led to the rise of complex ethical issues in the ICU. Clinicians managing patients in the intensive care unit face many ethical problems during the patient’s routine care. This is seen in cases of withholding life sustaining therapy, withdrawing life sustaining therapy, informed consent and making decisions that affect the patients. Introduction Ethical related issues in the intensive care unit are a dilemma facing medical practitioners and nurses. This has affected the quality of care given to the patients in the ICU. Nurses responsible for caring for critically ill patients are faced with many ethical problems in the ICU due to the lack of enough full time critical care personnel and lack of enough funds to facilitate and run the intensive care units. A guideline on ethical issues in the intensive care unit demands that nurses offering critical care to patients apply the care with humanity by showing respect for the emotions and choices of the patients and their families. Nurses in this field are required to provide all necessary information to the patients and the family, counsel them and assist in interpreting the results so they can make well informed decisions. Nurses must consult with all physicians involved in the patients’ management. ethical problems facing nurses in he intensive care unit range from aggressive forms of treatment, following the wishes of the patients families to using extreme forms of reducing pain and assisted suicide and euthanasia.. Care of patients in the intensive care units involves aggressive forms of treatments with high risks associated with them and high-tech modern medicine which has higher risks than improving the patients’ prognosis. Critically ill patients and terminally ill patients who should be left to die in the comfort of their homes like in the earlier days are now made to undergo last minute aggressive treatments which may end up being no significant. In such cases when the treatment fails and the patient dies, the patients’ family blames the nurses and doctors for being insensitive to their wishes. Nurses are faced with the burden of not knowing where to draw the line between extending the natural process of dying by applying aggressive forms of medical care and when to apply life support systems. Ethics require that medical practitioners and nurses put the interests of their patients and their families’ first rather than applying futile medical technology to save the life of the patient or prolong their dying process against the family’s wishes. Nurses in the care of critically ill patients are required to set proper goals and interventions for terminal are of patients. End of life decisions should be made after consensus with all involved physicians. Critically ill patients in the intensive care unit get the most complex forms of treatment even in cases where their prognosis is poor. These patients also die under the most undesirable situations such as comatose conditions or under ventilatory support. Research studies have shown that critically ill patients are put through very aggressive forms of treatment which the clinicians would not want to undergo. The same studies have shown that the majority of patients in the intensive care unit are on a life-limiting care. Only very few patients in the intensive care unit receive full life support treatment and CPR. Most nurses and medical care givers are faced with the burden of choosing whether to resuscitate a patient or not when their prognosis is poor. Categories of ethical problems Cost reduction Critical care of patients in the intensive care unit is the most expensive form of treatment. Critical patients who die are said to accumulate more expenses than those who survive. This is because aggressive modern medicine for sustaining life is very expensive. Due to this the standard of care give in intensive care units has deteriorated as it focuses more on cost reduction rather than provision of quality health care. Medical care providers are often faced with the burden of how to establish when to provide full life support to patients and when to withdraw life sustaining support. These decisions are usually based on the patient’s age, type of illness or their prognosis. In effect the medical care providers are influenced to make biased decisions. Defining the standards of care to be given in the intensive care units is based on reducing the incurred costs. (Lo B. (2005). Quality of care Most health care institutions have developed strategies of limiting life support on critically ill patients. Families of critical patients may wish to write do not Resuscitate orders if their patient’s rate of survival is low. In case this is done, this category of patients receives less attention from medical personnel and less care from nurses. Strategies of limiting life support have been based on the patients’ age, prognosis and the family wishes. Patients who are categorized as old and with a poor prognosis tend to get less attention from the medical care providers and the care given to them is of less quality. Rather that receiving actual medical care these patients are given sedatives and narcotic analgesia. Terminally ill patients receive fewer medical interventions before death and are usually given narcotic analgesics to mitigate pain and sedatives to reduce their suffering. Ethical guidelines urge that all patients be given quality care irrespective of their condition but medical care providers often base their interventions on biased decisions. The concept of futility Medical care providers use the concept of futile therapy to withhold or withdraw life sustaining treatment. In the clinical practice very few things are of absolute certainty and so physicians must avoid making decisions based on the futility of the treatment. The outcome of CPR application cannot be based on whether the patients’ family signed the Do not Resuscitate order. Every other patient in the intensive care unit should be given quality care based on facts rather than assumptions. Decisions on withholding or withdrawing life support should be discussed with the patients or with their family members. This expresses respect for their rights and wishes and helps in avoiding conflicts which may lead to legal litigations. The medical personnel are faced with a dilemma in cases where the patient’s prognosis is poor and extending the natural process of dying through aggressive treatment would be futile. In such cases some family members could insist on sustaining the patients’ life. The medical personnel thus have no option in deciding what is best for the patient. Putting such a patient through aggressive treatment enables the family to understand the realities of the concept on withholding or withdrawing the life support. Autonomy This principle demands that no form of treatment should be administered to patients without their own approval or that of their family members, except in cases of emergency where immediate intervention is required. Patients and their families have the right to disapprove any form of treatment and their wishes should be respected. These wishes should be indicated on a written consent in form of advance directive. However, when writing the directive the patient may not have anticipated his present condition or he may decide to change his mind. Medical personnel are thus faced with burden of making the best decision for the patient by putting the patient’s interests first. In the intensive care unit, medical personnel deciding whether to apply CPR on a patient with a good prognosis or to follow his family wishes to withdraw life support. The reliability of family members to represent the best interests of the patients is questionable because some family members may want to withdraw the patient’s life support for their own selfish interests. As a result, doctors and nurses are required to make the best decision for the patient irrespective of the family’s wishes. (Pozgar G. D (2005). Euthanasia and assisted suicide Euthanasia is whereby a medical care provider administers a lethal dose to the patient while in assisted suicide the killing drug is self administered by the patient with the help of a physician. This practice is no widespread, although physicians all over the world are engaging in the practice. They justify their actions as a form of relieving their patients from pain and suffering. In some cases patients do not give consent for euthanasia but still physicians practice it. Most family members choose terminal sedation whereby patients are put in a comatose condition and then food and water is withdrawn. (Morton P. G (2005) Organ donation Patients in the intensive care unit requiring critical care may require an organ transplant to assist in sustaining their life. Patients and family members might have advance directives which disapprove the idea of organ transplants. Medical care givers have a difficult time determining whether a patient should receive an organ donation or not. Performing an organ transplant without the patients or family’s consent could lead to a legal litigation. (Melia K. M (2004). The principle of beneficence In this situation the medical care provider is faced with a moral dilemma in making the best decision fro the patient with regard to his interests rather than those of the family. The role of a physician to apply his best judgement for the patient’s interest is hindered by the patients’ family which rejects the concept of futility. Such family members impose unreasonable demands on the physician to extend the natural process of dying. This only prolongs the patient’s pain and suffering. Medical personnel should therefore be able to make the best decisions for the patients. Ethical issues in the nursing field hinder the ability of physicians to administer quality medical care to critical patients in the intensive care unit.  Physicians are urged to shoe humanity and compassion when applying intensive care to critical patients. Nurses and doctors should set goals and objectives when giving end of life care to patients with both good and poor prognosis. In regard to ethical issues in the intensive care unit, medical care givers should know that their duties are both directed towards the patients and the families. Before carrying out any medical treatment and procedure, nurses and doctors should obtain written consents form patients or their immediate family members to avoid ethical dilemmas which may lead to legal litigations.

Importance of Effective Staffing Processes

Importance of Effective Staffing Processes Going global was considered to be a great achievement few years ago, but today, it is part of a companys survival strategy and rather an essential element to de-risk the business from a single country shock. Going global has become an increasingly important business strategy because of that most businesses face challenges of localized economic policies and competition. The advances in information technology and telecommunication that scholars consider it as second revolution have caused tremendous changes in global business and increased the volume of trade between nations. Multinational companies have been playing major role in the process of moving goods and services around the globe. When companies go global and operate in different countries, policies relating to employee hiring, training, compensating and maintaining are largely affected and human resource managers are required to have a global perspective of business to effectively formulate and implement human resource policie s. This piece of research paper addresses the importance of effective staffing process for a company when operates in other countries and explains main elements of international human resource management in relation to hiring, training and compensating the employees. This paper explains main modes of global staffing in relation to managing expatriates and analyzes various selection factors for global operation. Need for effective Staffing for Global Operation In recent days, managers of large multinationals have been realizing the significance of human resource practices to ensure the profitability and competitive advantages of their business. Human resource management has become more involved in helping international organizations and these organizations necessarily require to develop global strategies with major focus to hire, manage and retain best employees in order to ensure competitive advantages. As Briscoe, Schuler and Claus (2008) stated that the impact of a companys international activity on human resource varies according to various factors like stages of internationalization, the global nature of the particular industry and specific choice of the firm etc (p. 29). Large companies that have been operating in its home country often suddenly become global and as a result its existing human resources start working in different conditions with no previous experiences in international operation. Likewise, companies need to hire, train maintain and retain talented employees to be able to work in multinational conditions. Stahl and Bjà ¶rkman (2006) stressed that global staffing has become a critical issue in international management for the following reasons:- There has been growing awareness that the success of international business mainly depend on recruiting the qualified senior and other managers. Staffing is more complex in international contexts, The performance of expatriates has become a problem and empirical evidences have shown that poor performance of expatriates in international firms are more costly in both human and financial terms. Global staffing has become important due to the need for MNCs to develop multicultural international workforce (p. 141). Staffing for Global Operation In global staffing, companies need to choose from various types of global staff members and need to have specific approaches and strategies to global staffing. Global staff members are selected from among three different types: expatriates, host-country people and third-country nationals. Expatriate is a person who belongs to the country in which the organization is headquartered and not a citizen of the country in which the company operates. A host-country national is a citizen of the country in which the subsidiary company is located. A third-country national is a citizen of a country, but works in another country and employed by an organization headquartered in a third country (Mondy, 2008, p. 150). As Deresky (2011) pointed, a firms managerial staffing in other countries, depending on its stage of internationalization, and situational factors falls in to one or more of the basic four staffing modes, namely ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and global approaches (p. 329). Each staffing modes present different and unique HR management challenges as well as opportunities. More specifically, when an organization uses citizens of different countries for its staffing, different tax laws and other significant HR-related factors may apply and therefore it highly recommended that HR professionals need to be knowledgeable about the laws and customs of each country that its workforce belong to. The four different modes of international staffing are detailed below: Ethnocentric approach When companies hire expatriates to staff their high-level foreign positions, it uses ethnocentric approach. The company focuses on using home-country nationals to staff most of its senior managerial positions for its global operation. The basic perception of this approach is that home-office perspectives and issues are likely to take precedence over local perspectives and issues and therefore these expatriates will be more effective in representing the views of home-office (Steers and Nardon, 2006, p. 277). Deresky (2011) emphasized that ethnocentric approach is more likely to be used when an organization is at its internationalization stage or at strategic expansion. It is used mainly for filling the key managerial positions with people from headquarters, who are known to be parent-country nationals (p. 329). In the ethnocentric organization, home based policy, practice and even employees are viewed as superior and same time foreigners are often viewed as second class citizens. This approach is very appropriate when the company is in its early stage of setting up foreign subsidiary and there is greater need for control (Scullion, 2006, p. 18). Parent-country nationals are well familiar with companys specific goals, policies, technology and operation and they now the procedures to get things done from the headquarters. It is one of the major advantages of ethnocentric approach. More over, this approach is normally used when a company faces inadequate local-skilled managers. This approach is a strategy to fill this gap and develop international managerial skills (Deresky, 2011, p. 329). This approach requires relatively little effort by headquarters to monitor and recruit home country people for filling higher managerial positions. This approach provides quite broad experience for home country managers in relation to improving their long term career. This approach has many disadvantages as well. It may inhibit the opportunities and development of the talent of local managers as they have less up-ward mobility and this causes decrease to their loyalty to the subsidiary (Deresky, 2011, p. 329). More over, employee commitment to the organization may be negatively impacted as local managers feel they are trapped under a glass ceiling and with less chances of moving to the top of the firms managerial positions (Steers and Nardon, 2006, p. 277). Expatriates in foreign countries have been found to be less effective as well (Deresky, 2011, p. 329). Polycentric Approach A polycentric approach staffing policy and management philosophy oriented toward staffing positions with local talent. A polycentric-oriented firm staffs its foreign subsidiaries with host country nationals and its home office with parent-country nationals (Gary, p. 379). Deresky (2011) noted that polycentric approach, in which local managers from host-country nationals are hired to fill important positions in their own country, is more applicable when implementing a multinational strategy (p. 329). As these managers are normally familiar with local culture, competitive demands of the local market, the major foreign subsidiary is usually some what independent. Local managers are its major advantages. The major advantages of this approach includes a strong familiarity of business operation and management with local social custom and culture, language fluency and costs that are relatively less than in an expatriate assignment. There wont be foreign adjustment problem for an employee or his dependent family members. Though it is a multinational country, the heavy use of host-country nationals throughout the countries it operates from top management to lower positions can significantly win the support and confidence of local government and people because they see that its operation is benefiting its people (Vance, Charles and Paik, 2010, p. 173). This approach is good in those countries that have a policy and legal requirement that a firms employees must be comprised of a specific proportion of its citizens (Deresky, 2011, p. 329). When a firm takes polycentric approach, it is found that the business faces difficulty in coordinating activities and goals between subsidiary and parent company. another disadvantage is that the managers ion headquarters of the multinational companies will not gain necessary overseas experience required for higher positions in the firm (Deresky, 2011, p. 330). Regiocentric Approach With regiocentric approach, a firms recruitment for its international operation is done on a regional basis (Deresky, 2011, p. 331) and the managers are selected on the basis of the best in the region with international transfers that are restricted to regions (Scullion, 2006, p. 23). Bogardus (2004) stressed that regiocentric approach takes a somewhat larger operational view than that of polycentric approach as it covers a trade region like European Union and allowing managers to move between business units in various countries of the same region (p. 235). In this staffing approach, a mix of Parent-country nationals, host-country nationals and third-country nationals can be used depending on the specific needs of the company. The regiocentric approach has recently become more popular as many multinational companies are choosing to organize in regional basis. One of the main advantages of this approach is that it reduces the need for costly duplication of support services (Scullion, 2006, p. 23). Wood (2009) argued that most multinational companies regiocentric rather than truly international and majority of their sales and operations are concentrated on the region (p. 300). When it comes to the corporate level, the regiocentric approach is may be limiting as ethnocentric approach as multinational companies are failing to understand the features of the regions outside of their home-region. The regional structure may also lead to the mergence of silo-mentalities as regional managers will be trying to hold and protect their top talent within the region rather than allowing them to develop outside their region (Wood, 2009, p. 300). Geo-centric Approach- Global Approach The geo-centric or global approach to staffing is method by which the firm seeks to place best-qualified person in to each position regardless of the country they belong to. The business thus focuses on building an international management team and its members are free to move in to the geographic area (Bogardus, 2004, p. 235). As Peng (2008) noted, the geocentric approach can be said to be Color-blind because the color of the passport of the manager doesnt matter. This approach focuses on finding the most appropriate and efficient managers from Parent, or Host or Third country nationals (p. 440). In geocentric approach, the firm requires to consider various important factors like cost, foreign business practice and cultural variations. The global staffing approach considers best managers and they are recruited within or outside of the company. Their nationality is never considered. The main advantages of geocentric approach include its provision of greater pool of qualified managers and this in turn helps develop global executive base. When third-country nationals are staffed, they cause bringing more cultural flexibility and are likely to be skillful in more than one language than parent-country nationals. One of the main advantages is that the company can reduce its expenses by recruiting managers and employees from a country where normal pay is relatively less than some other countries (Deresky, 2011, p. 330). Selection Process for Global Assignments Cultural Adjustments Cultural awareness Cultural adaptability Diversity acceptance Global experiences Personal Characteristics Emotional stability Ambiguity tolerance Risk taking Stress coping Organizational Requirements Organizational knowledge Technical abilities Job-related skills Communication skills Language capabilities Non-verbal awareness Coaching and listening Conflict-resolution skill Personal/family concerns Personal life demands Family considerations Financial economic concerns Career development Selection factors for Global Employees Source: Mathis and Jackson, 2007, p. 250 The selection process for an international operation must provide real pictures of the working conditions to which the employees are to be sent. In international staffing, the HR managers thus require to prepare a comprehensive analysis of the job to be done in relation to the skills and talents of the employees to be recruited and selected. Some of the more significant factors to be considered in analyzing the suitability of an employee for a given task or job are his ability, personal characters, communication, ethical and moral perspectives etc. The multicultural perception of the managers or employees to be selected are also highly important. The figure above depicts main factors to be considered in selecting global staffs. Mathis and Jackson (2007) emphasized that cultural adjustments, personal characteristics, organizational requirements, communication skills and personal or family concerns are key competencies for successful global employees (250). Many companies in recent days focus on pre-employment screening to ensure their knowledge in the specified area and to know their experience in the same field. Training and development for expatriates Expatriation alone may not yield success, but they are to be trained and developed. Employees at all levels and at all field almost require training to improve their knowledge and enhance their work-experiences. When it comes to international staffing, training is more critical element to the organizational success. Expatriates inevitably experience unique cross-cultural encounters that they were probably not prepared by any pre-departure training. Pre-departure training helps expatriates foresee various cross-cultural encounters and prepare accordingly (Kà ¼hlmann, 2001, p. 12). Expatriate-managers and employees are found to have multiple relationships and they require to maintain relationships like family relation, internal relation, relation with host government, relation with headquarter, local and global relation etc. Because of these factors, it is important that expatriates need to be trained with cultural training, language instruction and getting accustomed with every-day life (Deresky, 2011, p. 337). Cross Cultural Training Cross-cultural training is perhaps more complicated than language or instructional training. The cross-cultural training is aimed at helping the expatriates improve their skills and ease adjustments to the new cultures and customs by making them able to reduce culture-shock. Some expatriates experience anxiety and despair about their un-knowingness of behaving to an unfamiliar culture. This culture-shock can be overcome with the help of cross-cultural training. Mead (2005) detailed that a cross-cultural training aims to teach a) what values are important within other culture, b) how that particular culture is being reflected in history, politics and economics and c) how such cultural values can be expressed in behaviour and attitudes (p. 400). The expatriates who attended cross-cultural training will be able to improve their social relationship, management styles, managing structures, strategic planning and management skills, knowledge in newer technology use etc. Conclusion This piece of research work has highlighted the importance of global staffing and analyzed four basic modes of internal staffing, namely ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and geocentric. Advantages and disadvantages of each of these approaches are detailed. This paper has addressed basic factors that can determine how successful are international employees and are required to be considered in selecting international employees. training and development, especially with cross-cultural training are more critical factors when it comes to the employee-development of the expatriates. This paper has highlighted the importance of training and development to the expatriate employees and managers.

The Sarbanes Oxley Act Dealt With Four Major Issues Accounting Essay

The Sarbanes Oxley Act Dealt With Four Major Issues Accounting Essay What responsibilities did David Duncan owe to Arthur Andersen? To Enrons management? To Enrons stockholders? To the accounting profession? David Duncan owed Arthur Anderson the responsibility to do what a reasonable employee would do in any situation to include a duty to work with reasonable care and skill. Not to disrupt business, not to compete in business against Arthur Anderson while still working for them as an employee or conduct acts of corporate espionage, nor to disclose Arthur Anderson?s confidential information. Duncan had the duty and responsibility to be honest, and carry out and follow the orders of Arthur Anderson, so long as they were legal, and if not to disclose the wrongdoing, even if this will incriminate him. As a professional accountant, David Duncan had an obligation to record, provide, and attest to information regarding the economic affairs of Enron. Because investors and creditors place great reliance on financial statements in making their investment and credit decisions, it is imperative that the financial reporting process be truthful and dependable. Thus, the responsibility Duncan owed to Enron?s management and Enron?s Stockholders was to exercise the general duty of performance, skill and care of the ordinarily prudent accountant in the same circumstances and observe a standard of ethical or social responsibility. This duty is not only morally right, but it is required by law, and arises from the law of negligence, contract, and fiduciaries; required by those in professional services, such as accountants. David Duncan owed a responsibility to the accounting profession to uphold and adhere to the ethical code of the profession. These codes of ethics are established throughout the professional associations of accountants such as The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, The Institute of Management Accountants and the Institute of Internal Auditors. These codes provide guidelines for responsible behavior by accounting professionals, and emphasize integrity, objectivity, confidentiality, and competency. Duncan failed in his responsibilities to Arthur Anderson, Enron?s management and stockholders, and the accounting profession. He did not maintain his integrity, objectivity, confidentiality, and competency. He did not properly follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and disclose Enron?s true financial status, resulting in an adverse impact to Arthur Anderson employees and Enron?s stockholders and employees. When he suspected Enron of unethical behavior, he failed to inform management at Enron or Arthur Anderson, his silence was a passive permissiveness to their behavior. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants code of ethics suggests that the best interest of the client is served when accountants fulfill their responsibility to the public, once again Duncan failed. What are the ethical responsibilities of a corporate attorney, such as Nancy Temple, who works for an aggressive client wishing to push the envelope of legality? The professional duties of an attorney, who represents or advises auditors, as was the case with Nancy Temple and Arthur Anderson, must incorporate an awareness of the auditors professional responsibilities. Nancy Temple ultimately owes her duty to Arthur Andersen as in-house counsel and was ethically bound to pursue the interests of her client and in doing so serves the public interest best by representing Arthur Andersen?s interests. As an attorney admitted to the Illinois bar, Nancy Temple was subject to the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct. These rules impose professional obligations of competence, diligence, communication, and confidentiality. Under both the Illinois Rules and the Model Rules, if a lawyer representing an organization knows that an officer, employee, or other person associated with the organization is violating the law in a manner that is likely to result in substantial injury to the organization, the lawyer shall respond by taking reasonably necessary measures that are in the best interest of the organization. Such measures may ultimately result in the lawyers resignation, but shall be designed to minimize the risk of revealing confidential information. Nancy Temple, although not be required to disclose Arthur Andersen?s confidential information, she could have elected to discontinue representation of Arthur Anderson?s due to their involvement in fraud and illegal acts. Under what conditions should an employee such as Sherron Watkins blow the whistle to outside authorities? To whom did she owe loyalty? Although touted as the Enron whistle-blower Sherron Watkins never really blew a whistle. Whistle-blowing is the release of information by a member or past member of an organization who has evidence of illegal or immoral conduct in the organization, or conduct in the organization that is not in the public interest. Whistle-blowing reveals information that would not be ordinarily revealed in everyday context. In almost every case whistle-blowing involves an actual or at least a declared intention to prevent something bad that would otherwise occur (Beauchamp, Bowie, Arnold, 2008; Boatright, 2000). Sharron Watkins, as a whistle-blower should have written the letter to the Houston Chronicle; Watkins wrote it to Ken Lay, stating Were such a crooked company and warned him of potential whistle-blowers lurking among them, and recommended actions to downplay, or minimize the damage (Time Magazine; Beauchamp, Bowie, Arnold, 2008). In the determination and under which conditions an employee should blow the whistle to outside authorities there are two theories, DE Georges? Standard theory and Davis?s Complicity theory. According to DE Georges? Standard Theory, whistle-blowing is permissible when the company will do serious harm, the whistle-blower has reported the threat to her superior but concludes it will not be fixed, and the whistle-blower has exhausted other internal reporting procedures. Furthermore, whistle-blowing is required when there is convincing evidence to an impartial observer, and a good reason to think revealing the threat will prevent the harm at reasonable cost (Beauchamp, Bowie, Arnold, 2008). According to Davis?s Complicity Theory, whistle-blowing is morally required when the information derives from the individuals work at the organization and not obtained through illegal means, such as spying. That the individual is a voluntary member of the organization and are not being held against their will or coerced. The individual believes there is serious moral wrong-doing, not a harm. The individual believes their work will contribute or in some way be supportive to the moral wrong if they do not go public (Beauchamp, Bowie, Arnold, 2008). Sharon Watkins, Vice President and a certified public accountant, knew the information was damaging, both harmful and morally wrong, to investors, stockholders, and employees alike. She did informed her supervisor CEO Ken Lay of perceived irregularities in the accounting practices of Fastow?s Special Purpose entities. Therefore, within the context of both theories, she was justified to alert outside authorizes. To whom did Sharron Watkins owe loyalty? Ronald Duska argues that the employee does not have an obligation of loyalty to a company, and that whistle-blowing is permissible, especially when a company is harming society (Beauchamp, Bowie, Arnold, 2008). Additionally, since Sharron Watkins was a member of a professional organization as a Certified Public Accountant, she was required by their professional code of ethics to report unethical behavior on the part of her fellow professionals in order to regulate their profession, therefore she owed loyalty to the public, her profession and herself. To whom does the board of directors owe their primary responsibility? Can you think of any law or regulations that would help ensure that boards meet their primary responsibilities? In the United States, corporate law dictates that a board of directors must monitor the leadership of the firm to ensure that the corporation is run correctly and effectively in the long-term interest of shareholders. Thus, the board of directors owes their primary responsibility to investors; they owe both the duty of care, or due diligence, and the duty of loyalty, or putting the investors first in their decision-making. Boards of directors are generally recognized as having five key charges. First, and most important, they must select, monitor, evaluate, and when necessary replace the CEO of the firm, with a key underlying duty of engaging in careful, advance succession planning. Second, the board is responsible for ratifying the company?s overarching vision and strategic plan, once it is developed by the CEO and his or her staff. Advising and counseling the CEO and other top managers as needed is a third function of the board, underscoring the importance of a board?s diversity of expertise. The board?s fourth responsibility is to locate and nominate high-quality board members and to evaluate the processes of the board and the performance of both the board and its members. Finally, the board is responsible for ensuring the adequacy of the firm?s internal control systems, a duty that is now reinforced by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 act was designed to protect shareholder value and the general public from corporate wrongdoing. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act dealt with four major issues in corporate governance of public corporations. First, the act created an oversight board to set and enforce auditing standards and discipline public company auditors. Second, the act intended to foster auditor independence. Third, the act increased corporate responsibility, by requiring that CEOs and CFOs certify all periodic reports containing the company?s financial results. Having knowledge of the certification of false statements is subject to criminal liability. Finally, the act enhanced financial disclosure with regard to the off-balance-sheet transactions and obligations with consolidated entities and individuals. These key provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have significantly strengthened the role of the board of directors and have made managements more accountable. What responsibilities do government regulators owe to business? To the market? To the general public? One of the principal responsibilities of government regulators is to ensure that the laws they enforce are regularly reviewed, and occasionally adjusted, to take account of changing conditions in the world.? Federal Trade Commission Government regulators, such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, are responsible for administering laws written to provide protection for investors. The responsibility government regulators owe to businesses is to ensure they are in compliance with the laws in effect. With regard to the market, the responsibility to ensures markets are fair and honest, and if necessary, enforce the laws through the appropriate sanctions. To the public, regulators owe the responsibility of trust, to provide the confidence to the public that the market and business are conducting operations in a fair, and legal manner and to provide for informed investment analysis and decision making by the public investors, principally by ensuring adequate disclosure of material information Are accounting and law professions or businesses? What is the difference? A business is a legally recognized organization designed to provide goods, services, or both to consumers or other business in exchange for money. Whereas a profession is a vocation that is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others for a direct and definite compensation without expectation of other business gains. In that the primary motive of business is to make a profit, and in doing so may fail, a professional is comparatively safe as he earns fees for his services and there cannot be negative fees. In establishing a business, no special educational or technical qualifications are required, other than providing a need, service, or commodity to the market, a professional is required to acquire a particular degree or qualification prescribed by a particular professional body. Most importantly, in a business upon completion of the transaction there is no assumption or implied contract of any sort, but in a profession their actions, deeds, or services do accompany an impli ed contract, a contract which provides that the service or information provided is truthful, complete, and verifiable. A professionals good reputation is one of his or her most important possessions People need to have confidence in the quality of the complex services provided by professionals. Because of these high expectations, professions have adopted codes of ethics, also known as codes of professional conduct. Codes of professional conduct are of utmost importance to professionals and those who rely on their services. These ethical codes call for their members to maintain a level of self-discipline that goes beyond the requirements of laws and regulations. Professionals know that people who use their services, especially decision makers, expect them to be highly competent, reliable, and objective. Those who work in a professional field must not only be well qualified but must also possess a high degree of professional integrity. Both accountants and attorneys are professions, in that they both must supply disinterested counsel for a set fee, they are hired or contracted to perform a service and in doing that service, are to provided an honest assessment or truthful information. Thus they have a professional responsibility to their clients, to the government, and to the public.

The Siberian Work Camp and One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich Essay

The Siberian Work Camp and One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich      Ã‚  Ã‚   In Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn describes in three volumes the Russian prison system known as the gulag.   That work, like Kafka's The Trial, presents a culture and society where there is no justice - in or out of court.   Instead, there is a nameless, faceless, mysterious bureaucracy that imposes its will upon the people, coercing them to submit to the will of the state or face prison or death.   In One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, we are presented with exactly what the titles tells us, one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich.   However, Ivan Denisovich spends his days in the gulag in Siberia, freezing and starving with the other prisoners while he serves the remainder of a ten year sentence.   Ivan is not a hero or extraordinary.   Instead, he is an ordinary example of the type of individual who spent their days in the gulag.   What emerges from these ordinary individuals is the strength and will to survive and at the end of the day, a day that millions of others spent just like Ivan, still find the courage to conclude "Almost a happy day" (Solzhenitsyn 159).   This analysis will focus on the historical significance of the event covered in this work, i.e., the daily life of an ordinary prisoner in a Siberian work camp in communist Russia.   A conclusion will discuss how a novel provides the reader with a different viewpoint of history than that provided by the pundit or historian.    BODY There could be few books written on any level (historical, psychological, social, etc.) that reveal as much significance about the historical period when the Russian gulag was in operation under a communist regime than the fiction of Aleksandr Sol... ...ng and surviving extraordinary conditions much like the victims convicted unfairly to prison work camps across communist Russia in the twentieth century.   Thus, the title of Solzhenitsyn's novella is apropos to the historical event described because while we are only witness to Ivan's day and Ivan is an ordinary inhabitant of the gulag, millions of other human beings endured and survived similar days, day in and day out.   Thus when Ivan concludes at the end of the novella "Almost a happy day", we see the considerable abilities and capacities of ordinary human beings to retain hope and survive against extraordinary circumstances (Solzhenitsyn 159).    WORKS   CITED Solzhenitsyn, A.   One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich.   (Only authorized edition).   Introduction by Marvin L. Kalb.   Foreward by Alexander Tvardovsky.   New York:   E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1963.

Love and War Essay -- Literary Analysis, The English Patient

War has the capacity to foster love while equalizing social status. The novels The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje and A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute substantiate the fact, through fiction, that during war-time men and women who are not of the same station in life can find an incomparable love with one another. Each novel also gives evidence of love igniting during war and surviving the trials of time and distance. Hana and Kip from The English Patient and Jean and Joe both go through these trials and tribulations associated with love and war. Whether that love is doomed for failure or a future together forever†¦it never dies. The love between men and women of different stations during times of war is manifested in The English Patient between Kip and Hana. Kip and Hana have a cultural difference due to race. Their identities are diverse from one another. Kip was born in the Punjab and raised in India while Hana is a white young woman from Canada and that difference in any other environment would have had an impact on the closeness of their relationship. A relationship between the two in a normal environment would have been unusual. Although Kip’s cultural heritage and skin color is different from Hana, Kip see’s himself as more English than Indian after he spends so much time identifying with other Englishmen. Kip finds himself in a very perplexing situation. He begins transforming and accepting English traditions into his life, while still trying to hold on to his own Indian traditions. Racial tensions were high during the 1940’s, and Indians in England were seen as second class cit izens. â€Å"In England he was ignored in the various barracks, and he came to prefer that† (196). Kip’s self-sufficiency, â€Å"†¦was as much a result ... ...ove and devotion to one another. â€Å"‘Dear Joe. Of course I’m in love with you. What do you think I came to Australia for?’† (248). They had found a bond in the war based on need, a need for companionship and understanding, and in that need they later discovered an enduring love that could never die. During times of war love is cultivated and social statuses are eradicated. War wipes away all the concerns with petty things in life while lifting up the values that we hold so strongly to within our hearts and souls. War makes people remember what is truly important in life and gives individuals a sense of purpose. Love and friendship are unbreakable bonds that we as humans cherish. All of the trivial concerns in our civilized world often tend to make us temporarily forget that fact. Love makes us human, especially during times of war when people can seem so inhumane.

Essay --

Children In The Civil War For my project on the Civil War, I researched the children that were around to see it. I think it’s important to know how this war impacted children, or even the involvement of children, because of what kids are like today. Today kids sit around and play video games about shooting people, back then, sometimes kids had to. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, kids from both the Union and the Confederacy said goodbye to some of their family members or even joined the military themselves. In fact, roughly twenty percent of Civil War soldiers were younger than eighteen. For the Union, this was the minimum recruitment age. However in times of war, laws were easily overlooked. The Confederacy, however, had no set age limit. Most youngsters weren’t exactly the fighters, but rather musicians. Technically, their job description didn’t include fighting, but if need be, it wasn’t uncommon for one to arm themselves and defend their lives. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/grant-kids/) I find it interesting to think that teenagers today’s biggest concerns compared to those during the war. Today you’ll find teenagers whose biggest problems in life are getting a five page essay on the Civil War in on time, acne, or those shoes they saw at the mall being ten dollars over the spending limit that their mom gave them. Back then teenagers were running through a hailstorm of bullets, watching as their friends and brothers fell inches away from them. They were thirsty for clean water, hungry for food, yearning for their mothers, or sometimes, even just wishing to be dead so it would end. Some assisted surgeons and sawed off damaged arms and legs. They endured the terrors that were associate... ...ive. (http://www.ducksters.com/history/civil_war/life_during_the_civil_war.php) Slave children were also impacted by this war, however slightly more positively. For many, this war meant freedom. Before the war had quite started, enslaved children had escaped to the North, either with their families or individually. When the war started, many of these families and children would slip into Union territory. Once Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, floods of these families came over. Homes for freed slaves was often no more than a wooden packing crate. Food was treasure, and disease was everywhere. Hope was not lost though. Northerners established schools that would teach blacks of all ages how to read and write. Soon, young African Americans â€Å"pulled a white teenager† and joined the army. They fought for the Union cause and thus experienced the terrors of war.

Nutrition and Obesity Crisis

Why is parental responsibility the basis of each solution? 5. Based on my research, why do I conclude that parental responslblllty Is the best solution for the obesity crlsls? Expanded Research Questions: 1 . What Is obesity and why Is It an Important Issue? (INTRO) a. statistics b. story c. hesis 2. What background Information Is necessary to understand this issue fully? a. brief history of crisis b. brief effects of crisis 3. What solutions have been put forth to help solve the obesity crisis? a. Dietary solutions b. Exercise solutions 4. Why Is parental responslblllty the basis of each solution? 5.Based on my research, why do I conclude that parental responsibility is the best solution for the obesity crisis? These are examples of great questions to ask. America is one of the most obese countries in the world, and the reasons are quite obvious. Just take a look around you. Fast food chains on every block (unhealthy foods re much less expensive than the healthy foods we should be e ating), more and more technology to make our lives easier (and lazier), and high amounts of stress are all factors to weight gain In our country.A recent study In January 2010 shows that obesity rates have reached a constant level and stayed there for the past five years, but still the levels of obesity are still unacceptable. Almost 34 percent of American adults are obese; this number Is more than double the amount of 30 years ago. And the percentage of obese children has nearly tripled in that time, to 17 percent. Are we doing enough to bring these numbers down?

Knowledge Management in Education

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to all who gave their support throughout the process of writing this Seminar paper. I would also like to thank my beloved lovely wife Edith Lisalitsa and my son Macdonald Lisalitsa for giving me humble time to concentrate in preparing this Seminar paper. I would also wish to thank my classmates and session mates for their support. Special thanks, goes to my supervisor Mr. Abanti Cyrus Makori for his underlying support, patience, intellectual support and guidance.Most of all I thank the Almighty God for sustaining me through this process and giving me good health, sound mind and strength to carry on. INTEGRATING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS IN IMPROVING QUALITY OF EDUCATION IN TECHNICAL INSTITUTIONS By:Lisalitsa Fred Ambutsi E-mail: [email  protected] com or [email  protected] com Abstract. The new trends of use of knowledge management system in business organization have incr eased the need to integrate the knowledge management system in higher education sector.The current means used in technical institution in knowledge management is based on the experts in various fields. The creation and transmitting is through face to face interactions, mentoring, organization, and policies, routes and procedures, reports and staff development. This method does not conserve knowledge, does not allow standardization, neither does it allow uniform and maximum sharing of knowledge. Knowledge management system can be integrated in technical education in order to improve management and its utilization.Knowledge management system provides tools for capturing, organization, delivery, tracking and assessment of various types of learning and training. The knowledge management allows improved service capability of lecturers and students improve sharing of internal and external information and improved effectiveness and efficiency. The objectives of the seminar paper are: 1. To apply knowledge management system in teaching at technical institution level. 2. To examine the ways of capturing and sorting knowledge for utilization in technical institution. 3.To investigate IT support of knowledge management system and how it can be used in technical Education. 4. To investigate challenges technical institution are facing Key words Knowledge, Integrating, Systems, learning. TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATIONI DECLARATIONII ACKNOWLEDGMENTIII 1. 1 IMPORTANT DIMENSION OF KNOWLEDGE2 2. CAPTURING AND SORTING KNOWLEDGE2 2. 1 STEPS IN KNOWLEDGE GATHERING3 3. SUPPORTING TECHNOLOGIES6 4. TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE WORKS6 5. TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS7 6. KNOWLEDGE BASED SYSTEMS8 7. BENEFITS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS9 CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS12 9. TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE13 10. INTERNET AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT14 11. CONCLUSION17 REFERENCES18 1. .INTRODUCTION Oz et al (2006) defines knowledge management as the combination of activities involved in gathering, organizing, sharing, analyzing and disseminating knowledge to improve an organization performance. Information that can be gleaned from stored data is knowledge, much knowledge is accumulated through experience is in peoples minds, on paper notes, on discussion transcripts.Knowledge management is the attempt by organizations to put procedures and technologies in place to do the following: a) Transfer individual knowledge into databases b) Filter and separate the most relevant knowledge. c) Organize that knowledge in databases that allow employees easy access to it. Barnes(2002) made the following interesting comparison about knowledge , information and data he says that knowledge as a justified personal belief that increases an individual’s capacity to take effective action.Information is data interpreted in to a meaningful frame, whereas knowledge is information that has been authenticated and thought to be true. Data is raw numbers and facts, information is pr ocessed data and knowledge is information made achievable. According to Rainer et al(2007) The goal of knowledge management is to help organization to make most effective use of knowledge. it has the following benefits are: ? Makes the best practices, which are most effectives and efficient ways of doing things rapidly available to a wide range of employees ?Enhance access to best practices knowledge improves overall organization performance. ? Improved customer service. ? Most efficient product development. ? Improved employee morale and retention. Barnes(2002) says traditionally, knowledge creation and transfer has occurred through various means such as face-to-face interactions (planned or adhoc), mentoring, job rotation and staff development. Barnes(2002) observes that the concept of coding and transmitting knowledge in organization is not new: training and employee development programmes, organization policies routines, procedures, reports and manuals have served this function for years.These traditional means may prove to be too slow, less effective and need of being supplemented by by more efficient electronics methods. 1. 1 IMPORTANT DIMENSION OF KNOWLEDGE Data: is a flow of events or transactions captured by organization’s systems that by itself is useful for transacting but little else. To turn data into information a firm must expend resources to organize data into categories of understanding, such as monthly, daily, regional or stored based reports of the total sales.To transform information ito knowledge the firm must expend additional resources to discover patterns, rules and context where the knowledge works. Finally wisdom is thought to be the collective and individual experiences of applying knowledge to the solutions of problems. Wisdom involves where, when, and how to apply knowledge. Knowledge is both individual attribute and collective attribute of the firm. Knowledge is stored in libraries, and records, shared in lectures and store d by firms in the form of business process and employee know how Laudon and Laudon (2006). . CAPTURING AND SORTING KNOWLEDGE (a) Online questionnaires: According to Oz et al (2006)[3] knowledge can be captured through the use of online questionnaires. Some of the questionnaires provide multiple choice answers, which make the input structured and easy to sort and analyze, but some of the most valuable input is in the form of free text. Knowledge can also be done by use of software such as polygamist to analyze data form (Megaputer intelligence). . A good example is Watson an application created by intellect.It is installed in a PC and embedded in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. It analyses and employees’ document as it is being written, creates an automatic query about the subject, reaches out onto the knowledge management program and pulls information that might be applicable to the task at hand. (b) Software Tools: Oz et al(2006) also describes that Knowledge can als o be captured by use of software tools that search for such information and derive valuable business knowledge form it. For example Online Audience Analysis software that was developed by Accenture Technology Labs.Such tools help organization add to their knowledge base especially in terms of what others say about their product and services. The tools take into account factors such as its industry, context in which an enquiry works to select and deliver the proper information. (c) Knowledge network systems: Laudon and Laudon (2006) say that knowledge network systems also known as expertise location and management systems, provides an online directory of corporate experts in well defined knowledge domains and use communication to find the appropriate expert in the company.Some knowledge network systems go further by systematizing the solutions being developed by experts and then storing the solutions in a knowledge database as best practices or frequently asked questions (FAQ), repos itory e. g. AskMe, inc offers a widely adopted enterprise knowledge net system. (d) Employee Knowledge networks: facilitates knowledge sharing through intranets. Tacit systems activates tool continuously process email, documents and other business communication and automatically ‘discover’ each employee work focus, expertise and business relation ship.This tool ‘mines’ this unstructured data to build a profile of each employee in terms of topics and interests. The goal is to ensure that two people who might benefit from creating a connection in a work place do so, so that one can learn form the expertise of another about issues. According to Oz(2006)some companies have developed software tools that search for such information and derive valuable business knowledge form it. E. g. Accenture Technology labs developed audience analysis such tools helps organization add to their knowledge base especially in terms of what others say about their product and servic es.The tool takes into account factors such as the industry and context in which an enquirer works to select and deliver the proper information. (f) A web portal: also known as a links page, presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. Apart from the standard search engine feature, web portals offer other services such as e-mail, news, stock prices, information, databases and entertainment. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications and databases, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether.Examples of public web portals are MSN, Yahoo! , AOL, iGoogle and Netvibes. 2. 1 STEPS IN KNOWLEDGE GATHERING The first challenge in the knowledge-gathering process is simply deciding what knowledge to gather. For example, while identifying the most frequently asked questions is critical for a self-service web site implementation, call centers will also need to know the m ost frequently escalated questions. Moreover, while management goals may center around ROI issues, the system must be designed with users in mind, or it will not be successful.According to paper published by eGain Communications Corporation [2004] that appeared in the internet and internetworking here is a step-by-step review of the knowledge-gathering process. Step 1: Building the team There are four roles in the knowledge management team:  ¦ Lead expert: The individual (or individuals) who decides how the knowledge base will be organized, which topics will be covered, and to what extent.  ¦ Users: Call center agents who have good performance records and can provide suggestions. Knowledge authors: Individuals who are technically trained in using authoring tools.  ¦ Project manager. The individual who keeps the project on track. Depending on the scope of the project, one person may play several roles. Step 2: Assessing the value of knowledge The best way to determine what know ledge should be gathered is to estimate what the value to your enterprise would be if every agent managed service interactions by effectively using that knowledge Step 3: Setting content boundariesWhen defining the scope of the knowledge base, the most common mistake is to try to include too much. Overly ambitious deployments almost always result in what’s called â€Å"the Swiss cheese problem†Ã¢â‚¬â€a knowledge base that is solid in places, but full of holes. This is a recipe for failure, because if users can’t find the answers they want most of the time, or get the wrong answers, they will quickly stop using the system. It is better to be thorough with a limited area than to cover a broad area superficially.For instance, for an enterprise that sells printers, scanners, fax machines, and copiers, the best approach would be to cover one product line thoroughly, rather than all products at once. Step 4: Prioritizing objectives Establishing the value of knowledge enables prioritization, but this process may involve trade-offs. For example, in a technology subscription environment like cable TV, Internet service provision, or mobile telephony, there are typically three competing goals:  ¦ Speed of problem resolution (the â€Å"right answer† focus): The shorter the average duration of a call, the ower the cost to the enterprise.  ¦ Customer retention: Educating customers about unused features can result in greater customer acceptance and lower churn.  ¦ Up-selling and cross-selling: It may be that the best solution to a customer’s problem is selling that customer a higher tier of service or an add-on product. Enterprises must match their knowledge systems and processes to the service priorities. Step 5: Setting time boundaries In our experience with many deployments, a time-boxed approach to knowledge gathering works best.If the deployment appears to be falling behind schedule, narrowing the scope of the knowledge base (to avoid the Swiss cheese problem) and finishing on schedule is the way to go. The reason has to do with ROI—the main reason for the deployment to begin with. The longer it takes to get the system up and running, the longer it takes to achieve the ROI. If the knowledge scope has been correctly identified and prioritized, the most important questions will be covered. Furthermore, it is always possible to expand the scope later.As a rough guide, a typical enterprise deployment should not take longer than three months (after planning is done), with three or four full-time people engaged. This period includes software installation, knowledge gathering, and testing both the quality of the knowledge base as well as the performance of the system. Step 6: Selecting and managing experts Obviously, the people who contribute to the knowledge base must be technically competent, but it is equally important that they not be too far removed from day-to-day customer contact.Successful knowledg e management depends as much on the questions as the answers, and it is sometimes difficult for subject matter experts to â€Å"stoop† to the level of ordinary customers who may not know complex details like the baud rate of their modem or whether their mutual fund is front-loaded or back-loaded. There is another very important issue with experts: the reluctance to share knowledge and the fear of being â€Å"replaced by a machine. † It is important, therefore, that enterprises plan and communicate how the role of the experts will change once knowledge management has been implemented.Moreover, enterprises should create incentives for domain experts to share their knowledge with the rest of the organization. Step 7: Controlling content Once the knowledge gathering process has been completed, results must be reviewed in light of strategic objectives. It is critical for organizations to set up a review process for approving the final content of the knowledge base. This inc ludes determining who (beyond the experts) should review the content, and who has the authority to make final decisions. There are good reasons for not leaving these decisions to content experts alone.For example, any material an enterprise presents to the public can have legal or safety implications. One good approach to quality control is the use of workflow authoring software where agents (or customers and partners, in the case of self-service) can suggest additions or changes, but only authorized individuals can approve them. 3. SUPPORTING TECHNOLOGIES According Laudon and Laudon (2006) major commercial knowledge management systems vendors has integrated their content and document management capabilities with powerful portal and collaboration technologies.Enterprise knowledge portals can provide access to external sources of information such as news feeds and research as well as to internal knowledge recourses along with capabilities for e-mail, chat, instant, messaging, discuss ion groups and video conferencing . Laudon and Laudon (2006) further states that companies are now staring to use consumer web technologies such as blogs, wikies and social booking marking for internal use to facilitate the exchange of information between individuals and teams. E. g. Intel COE Paul; Otellini has a Blog for conveying his thoughts.Learning management systems provides tools for the management, delivery, tracking, and assessment of various types of employee learning and training. Contemporary leanaing management system support multiple modes including CD-ROM, downloadable video, web based classes live instruction in cases or online and group learning. In online forums and chat sessions. Learning management systems consolidate mixed media training, automatic the selection and administration of courses, assemble and deliver learning content and measure learing effectiveness. (Laudon and Laudon 2006). 4. TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE WORKSOslon(2000) describes the following as types of knowledge works. a) Diagnosis and problem finding These are knowledge work because they depend heavily on knowledge and expertise of the analyst or diagnostician. The work of diagnosis tends to be semi structured and unstructured b) Planning and decision making Many people who engage in knowledge work may contribute to the decision making process. Staff professions such as financials analyst or market researchers are responsible for collecting and analyzing data before results are presented to the person responsible for decision making.Planning and decision making are knowledge work because they depend on expertise of the decision maker and manipulation of data using decision model. Highly structured programmed decision making has less knowledge work content than unstructured decision making. c) Monitoring and control Many monitoring and control activities can be structured and made fairly routine. Analysis of the meaning and of monitoring reports and analysis of variances often require expertise and judgment on the part of the reviewer, these monitoring and control activities are knowledge. ) Organizing and scheduling Organizing is critical component of knowledge work productivityand scheduling is a structuring activity which establishes a time sequence to other activities including personal activities and meetings. e) Authoring and presentation The objective of this class of knowledge to to progress from an idead through multiple media transformation to a final presentation form, whether document, diagram, or a set of visual aids for a presentation. 5. TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS a) Structured knowledge systems: Some knowledge exists already somewhere in the form of structures text documents and reports or presentation, and the central problems organizing this existing structured knowledge into a library and making it accessible throughout the firm. (b) Semi structured knowledge systems: Managers may also need information that exists somewhere i nside the firm in the form of less structured documents, such as e-mail, voice mail, chat room exchangers , video, digital pictures, brochures, bulletins boards.This knowledge can be stored in knowledge repository. Knowledge repository is collection of internal and external knowledge in single location for more efficient management and utilization by the organization. 6. KNOWLEDGE BASED SYSTEMS McLeod Jr(1998) describes artificial Intelligence, Expert systems as knowledge based system. He further expounds as follows (a) Artificial Intelligence: Is the activity of providing such machines as computers with the ability to display behaviour that would be regarded as intelligent if it were observed in humans.A. I represent the most sophisticated form of human reasoning. According to O’Brien(2004) Artificial Intelligence offers the following advantages of knowledge systems. †¢ Reducing training time †¢ Reducing training costs. †¢ Replication valuable expertise †¢ Reducing operation response time. †¢ Presenting valuable knowledge (b) Expert system: Is a computer program that attempts to represent knowledge of human experts in the form of heuristics. Expert system is expected to: †¢ Better performance for the firm:As the managers extend their problem solving abilities through the use of the expert systems the firms control mechanism is improved. The firm is better able to meet its objectives. †¢ To maintain control over the firms: Knowledge expert systems afford the opportunity to make the experiences employees knowledge more available to new, less experiences employees and to keep that knowledge in the firm long even after the employee have left the firm The expert system outputs through: †¢ Explanation of questions: The manager may desire explanation while the expert systems perform its reasoning.Theses is done through questions as the expert system provides the explanation †¢ Explanation of the problem solution af ter the expert systems provides a problem solution, the manager can ask for an explanation of how it ws reached. The expert system will display, each of the reasoning steps leading to the solution (c) Decision Support System: Decision support system provides information and models in aform to facilitate tactical and strategies decision making. They are information system that support management decision making by integrating: †¢ Company performance data Business rules based on decisions tables. †¢ Analytical tools and models for forecast and planning †¢ Easy to use graphical interface Decision support system tends to be used for adhoc queries rather than regular reporting. The technology varies particularly rapidly in this area and the newest development such as data warehouse attests to this Bocij (2009) (d) Executive Support Systems: provides senior management with system to assist them in taking strategic and tactical decision.The purpose is to analyze compare and highlight trends to help govern the strategic direction of accompany. They are commonly integrated with operational systems giving managers the falilitioan â€Å"drill† to find out further information or a problem Bocij(2006) (e) Hypermedia system: Provides computer based storage of documents composed of text, graphs, diagrams, sound, schematics, pictures motion, video and the link. Hyper documents include not only document but also indexes for cross references its materials Kroenke and Hatch(1989). f) Interactive Video: Is atype of knowledge system, video segments integrated via a menu processing application. Interactive video application overcome on of the biggest disadvantages of video media. The requirements of sequential access instead users are presented with video segments that they can control through a menu Kroenke and Hatch(1989). 7. BENEFITS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS a) Improves service for students b) Improves services capability of faculty and staff c) Improve d effectiveness and efficiency of advising efforts. ) Improved ability to identify improvement efforts. e) Improved sharing of internal and external information to minimize redundant efforts and lessen the reporting burden f) Reduce turn around time for research. g) Facilitation of inter-disciplinary research h) Increased competitive and responsiveness for research grants, contracts and commercial opportunities. According to by Jillinda J. etl (2000) the benefit of Knowledge management in the area of research which is the key to learning especially in higher education is as outlined in table 1 below.Table 1: Application and Benefits of KM for the Research Process |Knowledge Management Application |Benefits | |A repository of: |Increased competitiveness and responsiveness for | |Research interests within an institution or at affiliated institutions (potential |research grants, contracts, and commercial | |Subcontractors). |opportunities. |Research results (where possible) and funding organizations (federal agencies, foundations, |Reduced turnaround time for research. | |and corporations) with easy search capabilities to facilitate interdisciplinary |Minimized devotion of research resources to | |opportunities. |administrative tasks. | |Commercial opportunities for research results. |Facilitation of interdisciplinary research. | |A portal for research administration procedures and best practices related to: |Leveraging of previous research and proposal | |Funding opportunities. efforts. | |Pre-populated proposals, budgets, and protocols. |Improved internal and external services and | |Proposal-routing policies and procedures. |effectiveness. | |Award notification, account setup, and negotiation policies and procedures. |Reduced administrative costs. | |Contract and grant management policies and procedures. | | |Technical and financial report templates and policies and procedures. | | |Overview of internal services, resources, and staff. | Jillinda J. etl (2000) also derived the following application and benefits of management as stated in table 2 below. Table 2: Application and Benefits of KM for the Curriculum Development Process |Knowledge Management Application |Benefits | |Repository of curriculum revision efforts that includes research conducted, effectiveness | Enhanced quality of curriculum and programs by | |measures, best practices, lessons learned, and so forth. identifying and leveraging best practices and | |Repository of content modularized and arranged to facilitate interdisciplinary curriculum |monitoring outcomes. | |design and development. |Improved speed of curriculum revision and | |Portal of information related to teaching and learning with technology, including faculty |updating. | |development opportunities, outcomes tracking, lessons learned, best practices, technology |Enhanced faculty development efforts, especially | |overviews, and so forth. for new faculty. | |â€Å"Hubs† of information in each disciplina ry area, including updated materials, recent |Improved administrative services related to | |publications, applicable research, and so forth. |teaching and learning with technology. | |Repository of pedagogy and assessment techniques, including best practices, outcomes |Improved responsiveness by monitoring and | |tracking, faculty development opportunities, and research. incorporating lessons learned from the | |Repository of analyzed student evaluations updated each semester for lessons learned and |experiences of colleagues, student evaluations, | |best practices for all faculty. |and corporate or other constituent input. | |Portal for new faculty with guides for developing curriculum, working with senior faculty, |Interdisciplinary curriculum design and | |establishing effective teaching styles, advising do’s and don’ts, supervising PhD students, |development facilitated by navigating across | |and so forth. |departmental boundaries. |Repository of corporate relati onships to identify curriculum design advisory task forces, | | |guest speakers, adjuncts, case study sites, and so forth. | | 8 CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS According to a document posted on internet by Kristy Annely (2006) Most of the challenges in knowledge management primarily stem from the types of knowledge reuse situations and purposes. Knowledge workers may produce knowledge that they themselves reuse while working.However, each knowledge re-use situation is unique in terms of requirements and context. Whenever these differences between the knowledge re-use situations are ignored, the organization faces various challenges in implementing its knowledge management practices. Some of the common challenges resulting due to this and other factors are listed below. (a) Willingness to share Knowledge: The employees may not be willing to share their personal tacit knowledge:. This call for a scheme to reward employees who add expertise to the knowledgebase . Knowledge base must be continually maintained and updated.New knowledge must be added and old, outdated knowledge must be deleted. (b) Data Accuracy: Valuable raw data generated by a particular group within an organization may need to be validated before being transformed into normalized or consistent content. (c) Data Interpretation: Information derived by one group may need to be mapped to a standard context in order to be meaningful to someone else in the organization. Data Relevancy: The quality and value of knowledge depend on relevance. Knowledge that lacks relevance simply adds complexity, cost, and risk to an organization without any compensating benefits.If the data does not support or truly answer the question being asked by the user, it requires the appropriate meta-data (data about data) to be held in the knowledge management solution. (d) Ability of the data to support/deny hypotheses: Does the information truly support decision-making? Does the knowledge management s olution include a statistical or rule-based model for the workflow within which the question is being asked? Adoption of knowledge management solutions: Do organizational cultures foster and support voluntary usage of knowledge management solutions? e) Knowledge bases tend to be very complex and large: When knowledge databases become very large and complex, it puts the organization in a fix. The organization could cleanse the system of very old files, thus diluting its own knowledge management initiative. Alternatively, it could set up another team to cleanse the database of redundant files, thus increasing its costs substantially. Apart from these, the real challenge for an organization could be to monitor various departments and ensure that they take responsibility for keeping their repositories clean of redundant files. . TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE (i) Tacit and Explicit Knowledge The distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge is critical in appreciating the scope of knowledge mana gement and how it differs from information and data management. Nonaka8 refers to the spiral of knowledge where new knowledge always begins with the personal. For example, a researcher has insights that lead to a new patent. Explicit knowledge deals with more objectives, rational and technical knowledge. Consist of policies, procedures, guides, reports, products strategies, goals, core competencies and it infrastructure.Is the knowledge that has been codified (documented) in a form that can be distributed to others or transformed into a process strategy? Tacit knowledge is a cumulative store of subjective or experimental learning. In organization Tacit knowledge consists of experiences, insights, expertise, know-how, trade secrets, skills sets, understanding and learning. It also includes the organization culture, which reflects the past ans present experiences of the organization peoples and processes as well as prevailing and costly to transfer.It is also highly primal because is unstructured, it is difficult to formalize or codify Rainer etl (2009). Nonaka(1991) identifies four basic patterns for creating knowledge in any organization: (a) From Tacit to Tacit. When one individual shares tacit knowledge with another in face-to-face contact. (b) From Explicit to Explicit. When an individual combines discrete pieces of explicit knowledge into a new whole, such as a finance manager collecting and synthesizing information and opinions from different parts of the organization then putting this into a financial report.. c)From Tacit to Explicit. This extends the organization's knowledge base by codifying experience, insight, or judgment into a form which can be reused by others. (d) From Explicit to Tacit. When staff begin to internalize new or shared explicit knowledge and then use it to broaden, extend, and rethink their own tacit knowledge. 10. INTERNET AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Blogging Himanshu (2009) says blogging is a greatest source to share things on Inter net. Slowly blogging taking place of online media; in fact Blogging is now an example of online media.Many news agencies buy news from blogging companies time to time. There are enormous advantages of Blogging. Some of the advantages of blogging which enhances performance of any blogger are: Blogging brings lots of knowledge. From Word press to blogger, server to host, blogging to make money online, resources to online tutorials, bloggers get aware of all the small to big things present on the internet. Also blogging teach people to use internet resources effectively. Why Blogging is so popular Duermyer (2008) explains that Blogging is very popular today because it llows people to interact with each other. Blogging has also become a popular search engine optimization (SEO) tool because search engines like Google and Yahoo know that a blog is frequently updated with content or visitor comments, so their spiders visit blogs frequently looking for new content to include in their index. Additionally, blog content can be delivered automatically via electronic RSS (Really Simple Syndication) data feeds. Visitors subscribe to a blog's feeds in order to stay up to date with content that's being posted on subjects that interest them.Cassanova(2007) say that blog templates are coded in a way that they're well viewed by the Google's search engines. So we can consider this as an advantage since your blog will get much traffic from google if you're using his templates. He further explains that a blogger is flexible with all kind of entries like the bookmarking tools in footers and RSS subscription like FeedBurner. Blogger also allows for easy comments moderation and posts edition. However they have some Drawbacks e. g The dot blogspot subdomain can affect the image of your blog when it comes to advertisers to choose where to advertise for their products.Actually, it's not only about Blogger but it's the drawback of having a free domain name and Unlike other Blogging templa tes themes, blogspot's aren't really beautiful. You can do a better presentation with WordPress. Moreover, the columns are difficult to manipulate; you can hardly get three columns with blogspot while it's easy with wordpress.. (a) Word Press: Site ground knowledge base defines Word Press as an open source blog publishing application and can be used for basic content management: According to an article presented in the internet it is the most popular web blogging software because it provides   Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Ease of use.WordPress is suitable for just about anybody – from the absolute novice to the advanced programmer. – Feature-rich interface. WordPress has a rich text editor with advanced multimedia support; – Expandable. WordPress's community distributes a large number of modules for almost any popular website feature; – It is Open Source. This means it is free to install, use and distribute WordPress on your site. (b) Face book: According to the web site p age on http://www. vfw. org Face book is a social networking service that lets you connect with friends, o-workers, and others who share similar interests or who have common backgrounds. Facebook enables users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region. The website's name stems from the colloquial name of books given at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students get to know each other better. Agnes(2008)says Clients or users can make groups and conversation or discussion topics. This assemblage or group can cultivate, or be gone alone to pass away, depending on the clients or users and their involvement..Facebook is a one-stop shop or supermarket for imparting blogging, media, calendaring, communicating, sharing ideas or information and others. Facebook can provide â€Å"Cooperative Extension† abilities or capabilities to work together and construct our networks in a single place by giving one pl ace without difficulty, imparting ideas or information and discuss subject or topics of interest. Face book brings jointly more than a few online apparatus. Furthermore to being capable to impart ideas or information and pictures, you can append applications few examples are: Flickr ,   del. cio. us, Twitter, your blog, news feeds to your Facebook home. (c) Youtobe: Geller(2008) defines YouTube as an online public communications site. The site allows for registered users to upload and have available for the public their videos for viewing. Anyone who goes to the site can view the videos that are posted on this site. The videos are anything from beginner videos to more professional videos. McGrath (2008) suggest using the technology (video) to capture knowledge dumps that can be prepared and stored for distribution.Face it, a video capture of someone's thoughts and actions delivered with their passion or emotion of the situation is far better (and a lot quicker) than trying to capt ure the same knowledge in writing. More specifically, he had several great ideas †¢ Use video to capture knowledge and a YouTube-type repository for storage and distribution. †¢ Use Blogs for day-to-day capture of activities and what is being worked on. †¢ Use a Wiki for collaborative projects. †¢ Use a  delicious-style tagging system for classification.McGrath's suggesting the utilization of today's most popular technologies for knowledge management purposes is strong and useful advice. (d) Wiki: According to Tech Terms Computer Dictionary (http://www. techterms. com/ ) A wiki is a Web site that allows users to add and update content on the site using their own Web browser. This is made possible by Wiki software that runs on the Web server. Wikis end up being created mainly by a collaborative effort of the site visitors. A great example of a large wiki is the Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia in many languages that anyone can edit.Wikis can be used for a number o f purposes: †¢ On public Web sites to enable end users to easily contribute information. †¢ In teaching. Wikis can provide an opportunity to learn about team working, trust, etc. A good example is provided by Queen’s University Belfast . †¢ By researchers. Wikis are by Web researchers to make it easier to develop collaborative documents e. g. the FOAF Wiki . †¢ On Intranets, where departmental administrators with minimal HTML experience may be able to manage departmental content. †¢ Wikis can be used at events for note-taking e. g. in discussion groups . ) Flickr : Hendricks (2009) explains that An easy way to share videos and pictures of the people you love has brought about a social media networking site called Flickr. In a society of overwhelming social media networking sites, it is refreshing to find a website like Flickr with a specific purpose. Flickr was designed in February 2004 and has been growing since. It is in more ways than one a media s ite for the people. Members are able to upload their favorite pictures and videos to share. Some of the key features of Flickr not initially present but soon added are the abilities to separate your pictures.You can mark some as favorites, or separate them into groups. Tagging provides to be a helpful addition as well in order to keep the pictures organized and document people and dates. It is also possible to share your pictures with friends only or publicly. 11. CONCLUSION Technical education institutions are in the knowledge business, since they are involved in knowledge creation and dissemination and learning. Knowledge Management can transform technical schools to new levels of effectiveness, efficiency, and scope of operation. Through advancements in technology, data and information are readily available.The technical institutions lecturers and students able to discover and learn new measures, new technologies, and new opportunities, but this requires the ability to gather inf ormation in usable formats and disseminate knowledge to achieve the organization’s objectives. Knowledge Management can continually help discovering what an organization knows—codifying tacit knowledge, Data Mining, and Intelligence; continually increasing what the organization knows—organizational learning and communities of practice, and continually organizing and disseminating knowledge for use by the students and for research. REFERENCES Effy Oz and Andy Jones [2008] . Management Information Systems. Course Technology, Division of language learning, inc ,London. James a. O’Brien (6th Ed). [2004]. Management information system. McGray-Hill New Delhi Kenneth C Laudon and Jane P. Laudon (10th Ed) [2006]. Management Information System Pearson Education, Inc. New Jersey. Margrette H Olson(2nd Ed) [2005] Management information systems , Tata McGraw-Hills, New York.. Nonaka, I. [1991] â€Å"he Knowledge Creating Company, Harvard Business Review, Paul Bocij Dave(3rd Ed) [2006]. Business Information System .Prentice Hall, London Kroenke and Hatch. (3rd Ed) [1989]. 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