Hobby Lobby Contraceptive Case - 910 Words

Hobby Lobby Contraceptive Case In this case, the issue was that through Obama health care it is required that all for-profit corporations provide contraceptive services to all employees. And with this law in place it exempts all religious nonprofit corporations but does not exempt for-profit corporations whether they are religious or not. Hobby Lobby is a for-profit corporation and the owners are very conservative and religious and they feel that they should also be exempt from this health care law because they are against taking a life away. They feel that contraceptives get in the way of a life being born. Hobby lobby founder argues that they are being required to do something that they are against. PUTTING IT ON THE EMPLOYEES One of the main viewpoints discussed in the article was that with the past court cases, they have never discovered a for-profit corporation and/or organization to be religious. And that if they let every company who refuses to abide by this law be exempt because they are a religious company, the government would fall apart. Walter Dellinger, who was a part of the Clinton administration, explained that the employees of hobby lobby shouldn’t have to share the same beliefs as the owners of the company because it’s not like the company is a religious corporation it’s only the owners and they cannot make them feel the same way as them because they are only employees. But Paul Clement, who was a part of the Bush Administration, says that, that is notShow MoreRelatedThe Religious Freedom Restoration Act1309 Words   |  6 Pagesare i.e., religious or secular. Such as in the legal case of Burwell (U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services) vs. Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby argued that they should not have to pay for contraceptives for their employees as part of their healthcare because contraceptives such as the emergency contraception went against their religious beliefs because is an abortifacient. I went into this with an open mind as I really didn’t follow the case at the time and really didn’t know too much about itRead MoreThe Freedom Restoration Act Should Not Be Treated Like People, Let Alone Granted1499 Words   |  6 PagesThe Supreme Court continued the horrible trend of pro-corporation rights. Whether one stands with Hobby Lobby, Inc. and considers this case a success of religious freedom or an intrusion, I see it as the court favored corporation’s rights over personal rights. Female workers should be given the availability to use contraceptives. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Burwell v. Hobby. The case dealt with the free exercise clause under the first amendment and the Religious Freedom RestorationRead MoreApplying The New Framework For Hobby Lobby976 Words   |  4 Pagesof such an assumption, the least restrictive method as a standard can be, but does not need to be applied. Applying the new framework to Hobby Lobby reveals how granting the religious exemption to closely held corporations can not only coexist with the government’s interests of making sure female employees have access to the four controversial contraceptives, but it also best ensures this interest. For the sake of argument, let’s first consider what would happen without the exemption. Closely heldRead MoreHobby Lobby and the Obama Administration964 Words   |  4 PagesThe issue is over Hobby Lobby vs. the Obama Administration. Hobby Lobby has taken a stance against ObamaCare’s contraception coverage. ObamaCare’s affordable health care act, gives employees who are women access to contraceptives such as the morning after pill and IUDs, which the plaintiffs of Hobby Lobby considered to be forms of abortion. The contraceptive coverage in the new Health Care law makes preventative care more accessible and affordable to millions of Americans. This is particularlyRead MoreWe, the Corporations, of the United States of America1442 Words   |  6 Pagesexamining the grasps for corporate power highlighted in the court cases of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, Citizens United v. Federal Election, and United States v. Sourapas and Crest Beverage Company. First, it is imperative to comprehend the case of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby. This court case is still in litigation and pertains to the Fourteenth Amendment, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), religious freedom, and woman’s access to contraceptives. The ACA requires all insurance companies to cover forms of femaleRead MoreAbortion : Women s Private Issues892 Words   |  4 Pagespills are over-the-counter as a back-up plan in case other types of contraception failed, though expensive. III. History of Sexism. The United States, as well as the rest of the world, has had an extensive history of sexism and inequality between men and women. IV. Griswold v. Connecticut. Griswold v. Connecticut is the 1965 landmark case that set the precedent for the right to privacy, specifically for the right to be informed and to use contraceptives between married couples, even though the wordRead MoreGlobal Warming Should Be On Birth Control785 Words   |  4 Pagesby Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (Guttmacher) (Planned Parenthood). In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby in the case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby â€Å"that owners of some for-profit, private corporations can deny coverage of birth control to their staff because of their personal religious beliefs,† (Planned Parenthood). This has implications for employees of the companies who wish to exercise this new right in that they now either must pay out of pocket for pricy contraceptives or simply goRead MoreThe Impact Of Burwell V. Hobby Lobby1796 Words   |  8 PagesImpact of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby In September 2012, Hobby Lobby filed suit against the U.S. government to exempt itself from the contraceptive mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Hobby Lobby’s owners are evangelical Christians who believe that the contraceptive mandate violates their religious beliefs; specifically, that life begins at conception when successful fertilization occurs within a prospective mother. Providing contraceptive measures, in Hobby Lobby’s view, wouldRead MorePublic Trade Companies Shouldn t Be Able For Claim The Same Rights Essay836 Words   |  4 Pagesto certain individual freedoms; we all know that, so it’s nothing new. However, the freedom of religion, along with many other rights, ae things that I see being abused very often and that, to me, is a massive issue. Various corporations, like Hobby Lobby and Chick Fil-A, are using these individual rights or freedoms as reasons to deny services to anyone they see fit. These companies should n’t have the right to deny service to anyone with unjust cause, even if it coincides with their religion. ThisRead MoreThe Universal Declaration Of Human Rights1774 Words   |  8 Pagesbroached, and the associated cases that are centered on both sides of the issue will be discussed. While most health related policies and laws aim to protect the health of women, some serve to impede access to health services and cause harm to women through a lack of access to care. The issue of women s autonomy and ability to make their own reproductive decisions has been a polarizing subject since the dawn of the women s rights movement. One of the landmark cases for reproductive rights is Roe

Analysis Of Edgar Allan Poe s The Imp Of The Perverse

Mariana Falossi Professor O’Brien LTEN 176 November 8 2017 The Imp of the Perverse American writer and critique Edgar Allan Poe is very well known for his gothic tales of mystery, suspense, and horror. While his impressive collection of work carry thrilling themes of fear, death, and tragedy, Poe’s work goes beyond the purpose of literary entertainment and revealing his own inner demons. His writing may be heavily influenced by his own dark and tragic experiences and losses, but it also reveals unique characteristics of the disturbing nature of all people in general. One of these characteristics is explained in his short murderous tale The Imp of the Perverse. This tale explains how a significant part of human nature is driven by†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"In the consideration of the faculties and impulses -- of the prima mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all the moralists who have preceded them† (____) The narrator explains how this is a failure which leaves room for error, and believes that root of impulsive behavior leading people to experience perversion for example is prima mobilia, which is in fact a part of the soul. He defines perversion as the impulse of doing something counterintuitive to to self help. Overall the idea of acting on impulse was not being studied and ignored. The narrator feels strongly that people should study and understand all sides of man, and especially the perverse side. He believes that the way men live should be based on nature rather than how they â€Å"should be living.† This is not to say that men should commit murder, rather simply understand what they are capable of and to explain the natural desire to do so. â€Å"It would have been wiser, it would have been safer, to classify (if classify we must) upon the basis of what man usually or occasionally did, and was always occasionally doin g, rather than upon the basis of what we took it for granted the Deity intended him to do)____) Idealistically people

Analysis Of Edgar Allan Poe s The Imp Of The Perverse

Mariana Falossi Professor O’Brien LTEN 176 November 8 2017 The Imp of the Perverse American writer and critique Edgar Allan Poe is very well known for his gothic tales of mystery, suspense, and horror. While his impressive collection of work carry thrilling themes of fear, death, and tragedy, Poe’s work goes beyond the purpose of literary entertainment and revealing his own inner demons. His writing may be heavily influenced by his own dark and tragic experiences and losses, but it also reveals unique characteristics of the disturbing nature of all people in general. One of these characteristics is explained in his short murderous tale The Imp of the Perverse. This tale explains how a significant part of human nature is driven by†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"In the consideration of the faculties and impulses -- of the prima mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all the moralists who have preceded them† (____) The narrator explains how this is a failure which leaves room for error, and believes that root of impulsive behavior leading people to experience perversion for example is prima mobilia, which is in fact a part of the soul. He defines perversion as the impulse of doing something counterintuitive to to self help. Overall the idea of acting on impulse was not being studied and ignored. The narrator feels strongly that people should study and understand all sides of man, and especially the perverse side. He believes that the way men live should be based on nature rather than how they â€Å"should be living.† This is not to say that men should commit murder, rather simply understand what they are capable of and to explain the natural desire to do so. â€Å"It would have been wiser, it would have been safer, to classify (if classify we must) upon the basis of what man usually or occasionally did, and was always occasionally doin g, rather than upon the basis of what we took it for granted the Deity intended him to do)____) Idealistically people

Analyzing Financial Ratios Free Essays

string(28) " throughout the Terry case\." The Terry Project: Creating and Modifying the Financial Statements Acct 315 Project Instructor: Dr. Jason Porter Introduction Most college courses in accounting focus on teaching the various components of the accounting system. While this is an effective way to learn and master each of the various components, it usually leaves students with only a vague notion of how those components work together. We will write a custom essay sample on Analyzing Financial Ratios or any similar topic only for you Order Now My goal is to bridge that gap using the Review Project and this Terry Project. The goal of the Review Project is to take you through the full accounting cycle, allowing you to practice each step and use it as you move on to the next step. This project, on the other hand, will help you to consider a series of individual situations, how they should be accounted for and what each will do to the company’s bottom line. Basically, this project has three goals: 1) to give you practice with at least one of the important topics we will cover in each chapter; 2) to encourage you to consider the consequences of business decisions on the financial statements; and 3) to provide you with an opportunity to work with a small group or partner to solve accounting problems. To accomplish the first goal, I have provided you with some basic information about the financial accounts already prepared by Terry Co. For most of the chapters we cover, I will give you information about at least one transaction that Terry’s accounting department has not yet recorded. It will be up to you to determine whether any adjustment needs to be made because of this new information. If so, then you will need to make the appropriate journal entries (including any tax effects). To accomplish the second goal, each assignment will require to you create or adjust Terry’s financial statements based on your adjusting entries. In most cases, you will then have the opportunity to look at several commonly used financial ratios to determine what effect your changes will have on investors’ opinion of Terry Co. To accomplish the third goal, you will work with a partner (or partners, depending on the class size) of your choice. Because of the way the system is set up for grading, once you have set up your Terry teams you will have to continue with that team for the rest of the semester. Your choice of partner is due at 5:00pm on the due date given in the course schedule. If necessary, you may use the Terry Groups discussion link in Blackboard to help you find a partner. You will have an opportunity to evaluate your partner at the end of the semester. These evaluations will be an important part of your grade on this assignment, so make sure that you are a team player. For those of you who are accounting majors, this project will provide you with some experience in the types of activities you will be doing throughout your professional careers: making journal entries, fixing financial statements, recognizing the effects of certain decisions of the financial statements, and discussing those effects with others. For those of you who are majoring in other areas, this project will provide you with some perspective on how your business decisions will affect the way investors, creditors, and other outside stakeholders see your company. Remember that most investors see only the financial statements, so you must impress them with those numbers if you are to get the funding you need. Since GAAP is relatively strict on how information must be reported once the transaction has been performed, you will need to know the financial statement effects of your options before you make your decision. This project will help you get a feel for how various decisions will affect the financial statements and the financial ratios. Finally, remember that accounting is not only important, it’s also fun! And this project has been written to give you lots of opportunities for fun. Grading Each part of the project will be worth 25 points. The journal entries, if any are needed, will be worth 10 points, the corrections to the account balances and financial statements will be worth 9 points, and the interpretation of effects (including changes to the financial ratios) will be worth 6 points. In some cases (see the instructions for Problems 1-3), this scale will be adjusted slightly due to the nature of the problem. Partial credit will be awarded on the work you show. I can’t give partial credit if I only see a summary number or if I can’t find or understand your work, so please take the time to show your work and label it clearly. Your files (see below) should be formatted so that they print out clearly and easily on standard portrait pages. Each part of the project should be turned in to the appropriate assignment drop box in Blackboard by 11:00pm on the due date given in the course schedule. Please note that because we will talk about this project in class, NO LATE WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED for this project after noon on the day following the due date. The assignments are cumulative, meaning that you will use the information from part #1 to answer part #2, and the information from part #2 to answer part #3. In order to help eliminate carry through error, I will post the solution to each part after the due date. It will be your responsibility to correct your answers (and your Excel spreadsheet) before moving on to the next part. Since the final part of this project is due during finals week, it is not required. Instead, it will be worth 15 bonus points on the Terry Project. If you choose to complete the final part of the project, you must turn it in by 11:00pm on the due date in the course schedule to get the bonus points. Rounding All journal entries should be rounded to the nearest dollar throughout the Terry case. You read "Analyzing Financial Ratios" in category "Essay examples" If you do not round appropriately, you will soon find that your balance sheet will not completely balance. You will be off by $1 or $2, especially in the later projects. Rounding as you go will ensure that this does not become a problem. EPS should be rounded to the nearest penny ($0. 01) through the case and all other ratios should be rounded to three (3) decimal places (0. 001). Background Information Terry Co. sells backpacks, laptop bags, briefcases, and other bags. The bags are purchased already made, then the Terry branding and finish is added. Because of several exclusive contracts and high quality products, the company has a strong following in its home state of Georgia and the surrounding area. In addition to its own brand, the company also has contracts with many colleges, firms, and local organizations to sell bags with these other groups’ logos. This practice has greatly increased Terry’s sales, especially since the company is usually able to use lower quality inventory to fill these orders (this leads to lower costs for the other groups without damaging Terry’s reputation). Because of its success during the past two (2) years, Terry was able to go public in January of last year. This has given the company additional capital to grow, as well as allowing the original owners to diversify some of their risk. Management’s goal now is to begin marketing in the Northeast and Central regions of the country. If they are successful, they will continue on to the West Coast within a few years. Since much of their advertising is done through personal contacts and word of mouth, their growth will be slow. While that worries some of their new investors, recent economic trouble has left many investors pleased with the management team’s more cautious growth. In their rush to go public, Terry’s management has forgotten one small detail. They have not created a very strong accounting department. While their auditors have been willing to help them clean up their books in the past, the managers are starting to realize that their lack of in-house accounting expertise is a problem. During the past year they engaged in several transactions and decisions that might have important repercussions on their financial statements, and they didn’t know it. In an effort to start cleaning up their accounting system, they have finally hired you and your partner. Your first job will be to go through Terry’s decisions for the year and clean up any mistakes that have been made, and to record any transactions that have been missed. In the future, you will be expected to give management good advice about the accounting consequences of their actions before decisions are made. Based on recommendations from their auditor and SEC regulations, Terry uses an accrual accounting system based on U. S. GAAP. The company’s fiscal year end is December 31st. Since Terry is a relatively small public company with an easy audit, the auditors don’t usually arrive until about January 15th. However, you are expected to have the financial statements ready to go by January 1st so that upper management can issue an earnings announcement to the stockholders. Although an earnings announcement is known to be unaudited, investors are traditionally very harsh with companies that have a final earnings number below the initial earnings announcement. You will need to be as accurate as possible in order to avoid this type of market consequence. Terry Part #1: Chapter 3 Goal: To practice making necessary correcting and adjusting entries and using them to create an adjusted trial balance. (See Topic Guides AC 6, 11, 12, 14). Information: The table on the next page reports Terry’s account balances on December 31st for the current and prior years. The following entries have not yet been made for the current year: * During the year the board declared and paid an $250,000 dividend. * During the year the sales department wrote off $500,000 of accounts receivable (already included in the current account balances). They have now decided that 18% of their ending A/R balance is uncollectible. Terry uses the % of A/R method for recognizing bad debt expense. * On June 1st, a year’s lease on a new warehouse was prepaid for $90,000. The original payment was recorded appropriately, but no other entries have been made for this contract since that time. Terry’s reported income tax expense (see below) includes an estimate for this year’s taxes. Only the three adjustments mentioned above have not yet been included in this tax estimate. Because of this, you will need to record any tax effects from the transactions throughout this case (starting with the tax effects, if any, of these three entries). Since another tax paymen t will not be made until April, these adjustments should be accounted for in Income Tax Expense and Income Tax Payable. Terry’s tax rate is 30%. Assignment: * 1. Make the appropriate journal entries, if any, to account for the adjustments mentioned above (including any necessary changes to income tax expense). 2. Create Terry’s Year 2 adjusted trial balance. Hint: Trial balances need to be in a specific order and they are only for the current year! Terry Co. | Account Balances| As of 12/31/Year 2| | | | | Year 2| Year 1| A/R| $2,250,000| $2,125,000| Accounts Payable| $1,177,263| $1,500,000| Accumulated Depreciation| $3,000,000| $2,500,000| Additional Paid-In Capital| $750,000| $750,000| Advertising Expense| $468,750| $150,000| Allowance for Bad Debts| $125,000| $625,000| Building| $2,000,000| $2,000,000| Cash| $1,500,000| $1,250,000| Common Stock | $1,000,000| $1,000,000| ($1 par, 2,000,000 authorized, 1,000,000 outstanding)| Cost of Goods Sold| $13,683,969| $4,400,000| Current Portion of Loan Payable| $125,000| $125,000| Depreciation Expense| $500,000| $180,000| Equipment| $7,000,000| $3,250,000| Executive Salaries Expense| $1,093,750| $500,000| Expansion Fund| $750,000| $750,000| Income Tax Expense| $1,316,887| $450,000| Income Tax Payable| $437,500| $250,000| Insurance Expense| $37,500| $45,000| Interest Expense| $159,375| $50,000| Inventory| $3,000,000| $3,500,000| Land| $2,750,000| $1,750,000| Loan Payable| $625,000| $750,000| Loans to other businesses| $1,000,000| $1,000,000| Miscellaneous Admin. Expenses| $12,344| $8,000| Miscellaneous Selling Expenses| $121,875| $40,000| Notes Payable| $3,500,000| $2,000,000| Office Supplies Expense| $96,875| $75,000| Patents| $375,000| $375,000| Prepaid Insurance| $187,500| $375,000| Prepaid Rent| $312,500| $250,000| Rent Expense| $90,625| $15,000| Rent Revenue| $78,125| $19,000| Retained Earnings| | $6,437,500| Sales Discounts| $250,000| $50,000| Sales Force Salaries Expense| $343,750| $155,000| Sales Returns| $2,187,500| $500,000| Sales Revenue| $25,000,000| $8,000,000| Selling Commissions Expense| $1,250,000| $40,000| Shipping Expense| $204,688| $100,000| Unearned Revenue| $625,000| $375,000| Utilities Expense| $187,500| $80,000| Wages Payable| $250,000| $312,500| Terry Part #2: Chapter 4 Goal: * To practice creating a multi-step income statement in good form. (See Topic Guides AC 15, 16, 17, 25). Information: * Now that all of the necessary adjusting entries have been made and an adjusted trial balance prepared, management would like you to create Terry’s financial statements. In addition to creating the financial statements, Terry’s management has asked you to calculate the following financial ratios: * * Profit Margin (NI / Net Sales) * Times Interest Earned (Income before Interest and Taxes / Interest Expense) * EPS (NI / Common Stock Shares Outstanding) Assignment: * 1. Create a multi-step income statement in good form for Terry Co. for Year 2. Although Terry uses a perpetual inventory system, the purchasing department has kept track of the following inventory information (for use in creating the multi-step income statement): Purchases| $13,470,313 | Purchase Discounts| $202,031 | Purchase Returns| $112,438 | Purchase Allowances| $175,000 | Shipping Charges (i. e. Freight In)| $203,125 | * * The following information can be used to break down Terry’s operating activities: * * Reported depreciation expense is for administrative, not selling, equipment. * Shipping expense refers to shipping out sales orders. * Insurance, rent, and utilities costs are treated as administrative expenses. * If you have other questions about how the operating activities should be broken down, please ask the instructor! 2. Calculate the three (3) ratios listed above. Please round your ratios to three decimal places on all parts of the Terry Project! 3. If appropriate, include the ratios in the income statement. Terry Part #3: Chapter 5 Goal: * To practice creating a balance sheet in good form. (See Topic Guides AC 17, 22, 25). Information: * Now that all of the necessary adjusting entries have been made, an adjusted trial balance prepared, and a n Income Statement finished, you are ready to create Terry’s last two financial statements: the balance sheet and the statement of cash flows. After you have created the balance sheet, Terry’s management has asked you to calculate the following financial ratios: * * Current Ratio (Current Assets / Current Liabilities) * ROA (Net Income / Average Total Assets) * ROE ([Net Income – Preferred Stock Dividends] / Average Total Equity) Assignment: * 1. Create a balance sheet in good form for Terry Co. for Year 2 (HINT: Follow the U. S. GAAP format we discussed in class). 2. Calculate the three (3) ratios listed. Extra Credit: * Although it is an important skill, I am not requiring you to create Terry’s Statement of Cash Flows. However, if you would like the extra practice in creating this important financial statement, you can earn up to 10 bonus points by giving it a try. The grading for the extra credit will be similar to the grading on the rest of the project. Whether you attempt the bonus or not, the solution to this portion of the project will include the statement of cash flows for use in future assignments. Terry Part #4: Chapter 7 Goal: * To practice factoring accounts receivable, and to observe the effects of factoring on the three main financial statements. (See Topic Guides A 10, 35, 36). Information: * During December, Terry’s management decided to factor part of its accounts receivable in order to get some additional cash and to eliminate the time and effort involved in collecting their delinquent accounts. * After some negotiations, Terry’s CFO made a deal with the First National Collections Bank. First National will buy 70% of Terry’s accounts receivable, with recourse. The bank will only charge a 2% financing charge for the transaction but will hold 8% of the A/R being sold to cover any returns and discounts that may occur after the sale. Upon reviewing the accounts being sold, Terry’s collections officers believe that only 11% of these accounts might default. The deal was completed on December 31st, but has not yet been included in the financial statements. * Terry’s management would like to know the effect of the sale on the following ratios: * * Quick Ratio ([Cash + Cash Equivalents + net A/R] / Current Liabilities) * Accounts Receivable Turnover Ratio (Net Sales / Average net A/R) * Current Ratio * ROA Assignment: * 1. Calculate each of the four (4) ratios before you make any adjustments. . Make the appropriate journal entries, if any, to account for the factoring of A/R (including any necessary changes to income tax expense). 3. Make any necessary changes to the financial statements. 4. Calculate the four (4) ratios after you make any adjustments. 5. What do you think the investors’ reaction will be to management’s decision to factor A/R? In other words, based on your changes to the fi nancial statements and the changes in the ratios, do you think investors will be happy with the decision? Why or why not? Hints: * 1. Don’t try to change Bad Debt Expense. However, you will need to close part of the Allowance for Bad Debts (the same percentage as you are selling! ). 2. If you are using my solutions as your template (available in Module 2), any changes that need to be made to Income Tax Expense will be made automatically, as will many of the changes to the Statement of Cash Flows. 3. The sale of A/R will not affect the cash flow from customers, so you will need to manually readjust the Change in A/R in your statement of cash flows to be the same as it was before the adjustments. 4. Your statement of cash flows will not need to include any new balance sheet ccounts you have created, but you will need to add two (2) line items somewhere in the Statement. 5. It is usually up to the individual analyst to decide whether or not to include the ‘Due from’ account as part of A/R when calculating the financial ratios. In this case, however, the company has decided that you should include ‘Due from’ as part of accounts re ceivable. Terry Part #5: Chapter 8 Goal: * To practice correcting the financial statements for an inventory calculation error. (See Topic Guides A 13, 14, 35, 36). Information: * Terry’s management is afraid that an error was made when calculating COGS. Most of the calculations have already been checked by the auditors, but management still thinks that one inventory item has not been correctly recorded. They would like you to go back through the inventory calculations for that item to correct any possible mistakes. Currently they show that 1,000 units of item TC178, purchased for $22 each, were on hand at the beginning of the year. During the year $630,000 worth of TC178 was purchased, discounts of $6,000 were earned by making early payments on these purchases, and $3,000 worth of returns were made during the year. The records show that all units of TC178 had been sold by the end of the year. * Terry uses the perpetual LIFO system for calculating inventory. Their inventory transactions for item TC178 for the period are as follows: (NOTE that the vendor provides free shipping on all units of TC178) * * At the beginning of the period, 1,000 units of TC178, purchased for $22 each, were on hand. * On Jan 15, an additional 5,000 units were purchased for $27 each * On February 28, 4,500 units were sold. * On March 14, an additional 8,000 units were purchased for $32 each. On March 20, a 3% cash discount was earned by paying for the March 14 purchase early. * On March 30, 5,000 units were sold. * On July 30, 3,200 units were sold. * On August 20, an additional 7,000 units were purchased for $33 each. * On September 2, 4,000 units were sold. * On December 1, 2,700 units were sold. * Terry’s management would like to know the effect of any necessary correction on the following ratios: * * Inventor y Turnover (COGS / average total inventory) * Current Ratio * ROA Assignment: * 1. Calculate each of the three (3) ratios before you make any adjustments. 2. Make the appropriate journal entries, if any, to correct the reported values of item TC178 (including any necessary changes to income tax expense). 3. Make any necessary changes to the financial statements. 4. Calculate the three (3) ratios after you make any adjustments. 5. What do you think the investors’ reaction will be to the adjustment of inventory? In other words, based on your changes to the financial statements and the change in the ratios, do you think investors will be happy with the restatement? Why or why not? Hints: * 1. Start out by calculating Terry’s COGS on TC178. You might want to do this by setting up a formal COGS equation for TC178. The formal equation for one product would look just like the COGS section of the income statement, but it would only include the values for the one product. In this case, you want to use the numbers currently being reported for TC178 (see above). 2. Use the perpetual inventory method to find out what purchases, purchase discounts, and COGS should be for TC178. Set up a new COGS equation for TC178 using the new information. . Compare the new COGS equation to the old equation. The differences between the two equations are the changes that you need to record. 4. Keep in mind that Terry has a perpetual inventory system. This means the company won’t have a ‘purchase returns’ or a ‘purchase discount’ account. Instead, everything will be done using the inventory account. Your final entry, then, should ch ange only three accounts: COGS, Inventory, and A/P. You can get the changes to COGS and Inventory from the differences in your COGS equations (old vs. new). Use A/P as the plug figure. Terry Part #6: Chapter 10 Goal: * To practice recording an exchange of PPE and to determine the effects of the exchange on the financial statements. (See Topic Guides A 19, 35, 36). Information: * On December 15th, Terry’s management decided to trade in one of their machines for a newer model. After long discussions with their auditors, Terry’s management has decided that the increased capacity of the new machine makes this an exchange without substance. The old machine originally cost $450,000 and had been fully depreciated to its $70,000 salvage value. The new machine sold for $600,000, but the vendor offered Terry a $95,000 trade-in on the old machine if the balance is paid in cash. Terry’s management was excited about the deal, since they would have been able to sell the old machine for only $90,000 if they had tried to dispose of it on the open market. * Although the deal was completed on December 29th, no journal entries have yet been recorded. * Terry’s management would like to know the effect of the exchange on the following ratios: * * Asset Turnover (Net Sales / average total assets) * Current Ratio ROA Assignment: * 1. Calculate each of the three (3) ratios before you make any adjustments. 2. Make the appropriate journal entries, if any, to account for the trade-in (including any necessary changes to income tax expense). 3. Make any necessary changes to the financial statements. 4. Calculate the three (3) ratios after you make any adjustments. 5. What do you think investors’ reaction will be to the exc hange? In other words, based on your changes to the financial statements and the change in the ratios, do you think investors will be happy with the exchange? Why or why not? Terry Part #7: Chapter 11 Goal: * To practice accounting for partial-year depreciation, and to determine the effect of switching to partial-year depreciation on the financial statements. (See Topic Guides A 21, 35, 36). Information: * Terry purchased $1,200,000 of new equipment during the year (not including the exchange in Part #6). Most of this equipment was purchased during January; however the last purchase (Machine X7S4) occurred on September 1st for use in the sales department. Machine X7S4 cost the company $300,000. * Originally, Terry recorded depreciation on all of its new equipment for the entire year. Now, however, the CFO is worried that the auditor will insist that they use partial-year depreciation on Machine X7S4. In order to avoid problems with the auditor, he has decided to go ahead and switch to partial-year depreciation now. At the time of the purchase, the sales manager estimated that Machine X7S4 would last six (6) years and would have a $23,000 salvage value. Terry uses the sum-of-the-years digits method of calculating depreciation. * Terry’s management would like to know the effect of the change to partial-year depreciation on the following ratios: * Asset Turnover (Net Sales / average total assets) * Current Ratio * ROA Assignment: * 1. Calculate each of the three (3) ratios before you make any adjustments. 2. Make the appropriate journal entries, if any, to account for the switch to partial-year depreciation (including any necessary changes to income tax expense) on Machine X7S4 only (the rest of the depreciation has been appropriately recorded). 3. Make any n ecessary changes to the financial statements. 4. Calculate the three (3) ratios after you make any adjustments. 5. What do you think investors’ reaction will be to the decision to use partial-year depreciation? In other words, based on your changes to the financial statements and the change in the ratios, do you think investors will be happy with the CFO’s decision to use partial-year depreciation instead of full-year depreciation? Why or why not? Hints: 1. The easiest way to do this problem is to make both entries: full-year depreciation and partial-year depreciation. 2. Once you have both entries, determine what you need to debit and credit to adjust your books from the first entry (full-year depreciation) that was actually made to the second entry (partial-year deprecation) that should have been made. 3. Remember, if you change an income statement account, there WILL be a tax effect! Terry Part #8: Chapter 17 Goal: * To practice accounting for changes in the market value of available for sale securities, and making the corrections to the financial statements. (See Topic Guides A 27, 35, 36). Information: * Terry’s Expansion Fund is made up of available for sale (AfS) securities. The securities were purchased on January 1st of last year (Year 1). At the end of year 1, the CFO made the correct entry to account for the change in value, but the changes were reported as part of Retained Earnings in the balance sheet. No adjustment has yet been made for changes in value in the current year (Year 2). The table below gives the information about the securities that are part of the expansion fund. Terry’s upper management has elected to report the combined value of the AfS Investment account and the market adjustment account as the ‘Expansion Fund’ in the balance sheet. Security| Â  | Purchase Price| End Year 1Price| End Year 2 Price| 10,500 of XYZ Inc. | | $5. 00| $7. 00| $7. 50| 8,000 of Sampson’s Inc. | | $5. 25| $6. 75| $8. 00| 2,000 of Friday’s Foods Inc. | | $7. 00| $8. 75| $6. 00| 55,000 of Arborium Inc. | | $9. 00| $11. 00| $9. 0| * Terry’s management would like to know the effects of the changes in value of the following ratios: * Current Ratio * ROA Assignment: * 1. Calculate each of the two (2) ratios before you make any adjustments. 2. Make the appropriate journal entries, if any, to account for the change in value of the expansion fund securities (including any necessary changes to income tax expense). 3. Make any necessary changes to the financial statements (see Hint #5 below). 4. Calculate the two (2) ratios after you make any adjustments. 5. What do you think investors’ reaction will be to management’s investment decisions? In other words, based on your changes to the financial statements and the change in the ratios, do you think investors will be pleased with the portfolio? Why or why not? * * Hints: 1. Make a table showing the total value of the securities at each of the important dates (purchase, end of Year 1, and end of Year 2). 2. Create t-accounts for the Expansion Fund and the Market Adjustment – AfS. What do you need as the ending balance of the Market Adjustment – AfS account for the net amount of the two accounts to equal the ending value of the portfolio? You will need to do this twice (once for year 1 and once for year 2) in order to get all of the numbers you need. 3. The difference between the ending value in the Market Adjustment – AfS account for year 1 and 0 will be the amount of the adjustment that they made last year. The difference between the ending value needed in the Market Adjustment – AfS account at the end of year 2 and the amount already in the account from year 1 will be the adjustment that you need this year. 4. Make the necessary adjustment to the Financial Statements. Keep in mind that the change in value for AfS securities should be recorded in Unrealized Increase/Decrease in AfS Securities, which should be recorded as part of the Other Comprehensive Income line below RE on the Balance Sheet. 5. Since Other Comprehensive Income has not been reported before, you’ll need to add that line to the balance sheet. When you do, you will need to add a balance for year 1, not just report it as a ‘0’ as we’ve done when with other lines added to the balance sheet. You don’t need to make a journal entry for Year 1, because you were told that Terry’s CFO made the correct adjustment. However, Terry’s Year 1 balance sheet reported the Unrealized Increase/Decrease as part of Retained Earnings instead of reporting it in an Other Comprehensive Income line. Since you are now adding an Other Comprehensive Income line to the balance sheet, you’ll want to make sure that you move last year’s Unrealized Increase/Decrease out of Retained Earnings and include it in the new line item (for both years). Terry Part #9: Chapter 13 Goal: * To practice recording contingent liabilities and reporting them in the financial statements. (See Topic Guides LE 2, 6, 16). Information: At the beginning of November, Year 2, Terry issued 500,000, $5 off coupons. The coupons will expire at the end of February, Year 3. During November and December, 40,000 of the coupons were used. Terry’s advertising experts estimate that next year approximately 22,500 coupons will be used in January and another 10,750 in February. * The accounting department has appropriately account ed for the coupons that have already been honored as part of advertising expense. * Terry’s management would like to know the effects of the adjustment on the following ratios: * Current Ratio * ROA Assignment: 1. Calculate each of the two (2) ratios before you make any adjustments. 2. Make the appropriate journal entries, if any, to account for the coupon liability (including any necessary changes to income tax expense). 3. Make any necessary changes to the financial statements. 4. Calculate the two (2) ratios after you make any adjustments. 5. What do you think investors’ reaction will be to the decision to issue a coupon? In other words, based on your changes to the financial statements and the change in the ratios, do you think investors will be happy with this advertising strategy? Why or why not? Hint: * 1. In some of the earlier parts of the project, we did not include new balance sheet accounts in the Cash Flow from Operations section of Terry’s Statement of Cash Flows. Each of those cases, however, included a definite cash effect that was reported as a specific line item in the Cash Flow from Investing section (such as the sale of A/R in Part #4). In this case, however, there is no definite cash effect, so any new balance sheet accounts will have to be added to the statement of cash flows. Terry Part #10: Chapter 14 Goal: To practice recording long-term liabilities and reporting them in the financial statements. (See Topic Guides LE 8, 10, 16). Information: * On December 1, Terry issued a $1,500,000, semi-annual, 6 year, 9% bond. The market rate for similar bonds on that day was 8%. Terry uses the effective interest method to record the amortization or premiums and discounts. Terry’s management has decided to report net bonds on the balance sh eet, instead of reporting the bond and its premium or discount separately. No entries have yet been made for the bond. Terry’s management would like to know the effects of the new bond on the following ratios: * Debt to Equity Ratio (Total Liabilities / Total Equity) * Current Ratio * ROA Assignment: * 1. Calculate each of the three (3) ratios before you make any adjustments. 2. Make the appropriate journal entries, if any, to account for the new bond and any accrued interest (including any necessary changes to income tax expense). 3. Make any necessary changes to the financial statements. 4. Calculate the three (3) ratios after you make any adjustments. . What do you think investors’ reaction will be to management’s decision to issue a new bond? In other words, based on your changes to the financial statements and the change in the ratios, do you think investors will be happy with the decision to issue the new debt? Why or why not? Hints: 1. Start out by making the journal entry to record the issuance of the bond at its present value. 2. Next calculate the interest expense to be reported and any premium or discount to be amortized at the time of the first interest payment. . Multiply your interest expense and amortization numbers for the first payment by the number of months the bond has been outstanding divided by 6 (for the 6 months in each semi-annual payment period). This will give you two of the three line items you need for the interest entry on the bond this year. 4. You will need to add three line items to your Statement of Cash Flows to make it balance after recognizing the issuance of the bond and the accrued interest. One line item is the cash from the bond issue. One of the others is one of the four non-cash (4) accruals that have to be reversed in your Cash Flows from Operations section. Terry Part #11: Chapter 15 Goal: * To practice accounting for the payment of dividends and the purchase of treasury stock. (See Topic Guides LE 20, 23, 26). Information: * Using the money from their recent bond issue, Terry’s management has decided to declare an additional $715,000 dividend (see Part #1 for information on the first dividend of the year). The date of declaration is December 30, Year 2. The date of record will be January 15, Year 3, and the date of payment will be January 30, Year 3. As an additional signal to the market, Terry’s management repurchased 60,000 shares of Terry’s common stock on December 31st for $24 a share. Terry’s management would like to know the effects of the extra dividend and share repurchase on the following ratios: * Current Ratio * ROA Assignment: * 1. Calculate each of the two (2) ratios be fore you make any adjustments. 2. Make the appropriate journal entries, if any, to account for Terry’s extra dividend and stock repurchase (including any necessary changes to income tax expense). 3. Make any necessary changes to the financial statements. . Calculate the two (2) ratios after you make any adjustments. 5. What do you think investors’ reaction will be to management’s decision to issue a second dividend and to repurchase shares? In other words, based on your changes to the financial statements and the change in the ratios, do you think investors will be happy with the decision to pay out so much cash to investors? Why or why not? Hints: * 1. These transactions will affect EPS, but they will not affect Net Income. 2. As you think about investor reactions, keep in mind that stockholders are not the only investors in a firm! ——————————————- [ 1 ]. 1To under stand why we use A/P for the plug figure, we have to go back to what the journal entry would look like for a purchase. We would debit inventory (since this is a perpetual inventory firm) and credit A/P. Mis-recording the inventory effects of sales would cause errors in our inventory and COGS accounts. Mis-recording the inventory effects of purchases would cause errors in our inventory and A/P accounts. So, in order to correct for all of Terry’s mistakes, we need to adjust inventory, COGS, and A/P. How to cite Analyzing Financial Ratios, Essay examples

Developing an Aged Care Strategy †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Developing an Aged Care Strategy. Answer: Introduction: Aged care in Australia is commonly known as Elderly care which aims at meeting and fulfilling the needs and requirements of older people who lives in Australia. It consists of residential aged care also known as nursing homes and personal care. Care which is provided at home includes domestic assistance, continence management, respite services and nutrition and meal preparation. There are huge number of government programs, community programs and voluntary programs which supports and provides services to the aged (Cameron et al., 2010). Just because aged are capable to access the mainstream support as well as services which are available to the entire population, it is not at all possible to specifically quarantine what exactly is delivered to the aged and what is the cost incurred to do so (Wilson et al., 2011). Most aid and support is delivered to the segment of aged population who are frail and disabled. Those, who are less than 65years, they do not need any special support and care. While those who are above 75-80 years of age, they must be provided special aid and support (Lim et al., 2012). In addition to this, it is further agreed that an individual needs support in the major last two years of his or her life. Low fertility rates and high life expectancy is the major reason behind the population of Australia getting older. According to the national census report in 2016, it was showed that one among six people living in Australia is over 65. And it is predicted that by the end of 2056, 8.7 million older Australians will be found and 128 million by 2096 (Duckett and Willcox, 2015). Later, it was also found according to Australian health care system that a quarter of a million individuals i.e. 249,000 living in Australia were commonly using residential care, home care and transition care . There are majorly three options available for aged care in Australia which are mentioned below. Live at their own house and use in home care and services that will assist them to be independent. Move to an aged care home which will include meals, accommodation and nursing services if needed. Move to a retirement village which provided services and care for free of cost. There are several tools and strategy used to develop aged care and provide them help to lead a better life. Developing a successful strategy refers to creating an option among two or more than two available options. And if a strategy consists of only one good choice, then it mean one has developed an operational plan but not s strategy. It had never been that crucial in the area of aged care to have a thoroughly thought and tested aged support and care strategies. The initial point in order to develop an aged care strategy is a comprehensive understanding of the macro and micro environment along with its internal and external factors. It is very wise to use formal techniques such as SWOT and PESTLE analysis as an initial point for creating a genuine strategy (David, 2011). The outcome of the PESTLE analysis is in table form which summarizes the external impacts on the aged care segments under every heading and their respective consequences that impact on their choices among several available options. It can also be found that many choices might be constrained by the external factors in the environment and they are made quite obvious as well. The analysis notifies the levels of risks and opportunities that are involved in aged care sectors. Pestle analysis can be a method of delivering a sketchpad on which one can easily draw their feasible strategy. In addition to this, besides of understand the external environment, one must also standby the old version of strategy planning i.e. SWOT analysis which include strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Helms and Nixon, 2010). There are large number of generic objectives in aged care services which includes financial value, profitability, image, quality of the aged provided and growth opportunities. The next stage is based in order to determine what kind of strategic platforms are evaluated using PESTLE and SWOT analysis. For this evaluation, a brainstorming session is conducted in every care services that will help to achieve the desired objectives. There must be major key plans allocated with every stage that will strengthen the strategies overlaps. The key plans will help to manage the difficulties and hindrances that take place in the care center and also help in building sensible targets. Two of the strategic areas are mostly Competent people and policies and processes and procedures i.e. 4Ps. Similarly, other strategic areas might include: portfolio management, compliance, customer centricity, quality improvement, financial stability, capacity building, image and brand management and partnerships. At this stage, when identification of tasks and available resources must be done in appropriate way that will ensure that the strategic stages are vigorous over the restricted timeframe in order to encounter the objective of a business. The end outcome can easily be represented on a single page for simplicity of communication (Sincy, 2016). The last duty is to line up the tasks below the different category of strategic platform to easiest link for planning the minimizing the risk factors involved in the failure to execute. The stage of prioritization is accomplished against the influence on every task against the business purposes and the easiness of finishing the task (Edvardsson, Fetherstonhaugh and Nay, 2010). The tasks which are quite easy to do but they have low impact on the objectives of the business must be avoided unless they act as a pioneer to something. It is an opportunity to imitate if the task that are set are really worth doing or not. In any type of organization, 60% of the tasks are not completed and focused on unless those tasks are more urgent or convey the major aim of the organization. The task which are difficult in nature must be focused less and those tasks must not be undertaken (Brownie and Nancarrow, 2013). And if in case they act as a precursor and carry higher impact, these tasks must be br oken into small and easier tasks. The tasks which have high impact must be accomplished as soon as possible and those which are difficult to do but have higher impact must be planned assiduously because they may include high risks and high rewards. Thus, creating and developing an aged care strategy in the given way will permit to link very easily with combined business planning as well as project planning processes. It is comparatively an innovative discipline within the strategic planning and management framework. It is not well established among the healthcare and aged care strategic planning process. Nevertheless, the application of the RBV in case of strategic management is growing rapidly and the main focus is on the competitive advantages which is entirely based on the internal resources of an organization. It also help to implement particular product marketing strategies. RBV is currently applied to healthcare and aged care services for comparing resources and deployment capabilities as well. RBV includes human resource management, information technology and strategic management to work more efficiently and effectively (D'Aveni, Dagnino and Smith, 2010). Thus, as a result it can be summarized that aged care services must be taken into consideration because these sector have highest priority on the elder people. In addition to this, there are several strategic tools which are commonly used to analyze the business. References Brownie, S. and Nancarrow, S., (2013). Effects of person-centered care on residents and staff in aged-care facilities: a systematic review. Clinical interventions in Aging, 8, p.1. Cameron, I.D., Murray, G.R., Gillespie, L.D., Robertson, M.C., Hill, K.D., Cumming, R.G. and Kerse, N., (2010). Interventions for preventing falls in older people in nursing care facilities and hospitals. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 1(1). Change factory, (2018). Developing an Aged Care Strategy (online). Available at: https://www.changefactory.com.au/our-thinking/articles/developing-aged-care-strategy/ (Accessed on 16th April, 2018). D'Aveni, R.A., Dagnino, G.B. and Smith, K.G., (2010). The age of temporary advantage. Strategic management journal, 31(13), pp.1371-1385. David, F.R., (2011). Strategic management: Concepts and cases. Peaeson/Prentice Hall. Duckett, S. and Willcox, S., (2015). The Australian health care system (No. Ed. 5). Oxford University Press. Edvardsson, D., Fetherstonhaugh, D. and Nay, R., (2010). Promoting a continuation of self and normality: person?centered care as described by people with dementia, their family members and aged care staff. Journal of clinical nursing, 19(17?18), pp.2611-2618. Helms, M.M. and Nixon, J., (2010). Exploring SWOT analysiswhere are we now? A review of academic research from the last decade. Journal of strategy and management, 3(3), pp.215-251. Lim, C.J., McLellan, S.C., Cheng, A.C., Culton, J.M. and Parikh, S.N., (2012). Surveillance of infection burden in residential aged care facilities. The Medical Journal of Australia, 196(5), pp.327-331. Sincy, P., (2016). SWOT Analysis in Nursing. International Journal of Nursing Care, 4(1), pp.34-37. Wilson, N.M., Hilmer, S.N., March, L.M., Cameron, I.D., Lord, S.R., Seibel, M.J., Mason, R.S., Chen, J.S., Cumming, R.G. and Sambrook, P.N., (2011). Associations between drug burden index and falls in older people in residential aged care. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 59(5), pp.875-880.

Attitude Persuasion Essay Example Essay Example

Attitude Persuasion Essay Example Paper Attitude Persuasion Essay Introduction Introduction: The word attitudeis an expression of favor or disfavor toward a person, place, thing, or event. Prominent psychologistGordon Allport(1935) once described attitude â€Å"the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporarypsychology†. The wordsattitudeandpersuasionare often found together, as in the phrasepersuasion and attitude change. Persuasion is an attempt to change people’s attitudes. For example, advertisers try to persuade potential customers to buy a product. To do this, they try to create a positive attitude toward the product. Social psychologists have emphasized that an attitude ispreparation for behavior. Otherwise, nobody would care about attitudes. An advertiser would not try to make you feel more â€Å"positive† or â€Å"liking† toward a product unless this was assumed to affect your likelihood of buying the product. Attitude as an inward feeling expressed by outward behavior. People always project on the outside what they feel on the inside. But some people try to mask their attitude. You have developed attitudes about such issues, and these attitudes influence your beliefs as well as your behavior. Attitudes are an important topic of study within the field ofsocial psychology. What exactly is an attitude? How does it develop? Studies show that how psychologists define this concept, how attitudes influence our behavior and things we can do to change attitudes. Definitions i. A settled way of thinking or feeling typically reflected in a person’s behavior. A position of the body proper to or implying an action or mental state: â€Å"the boy was standing in an attitude of despair†. ii. Attitude Persuasion Essay Body Paragraphs Attitude is â€Å"a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols† (Hogg Vaughan 2005, p. 150) iii. â€Å"A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor† (Eagly Chaiken, 1993, p. 1) Explanation An attitude is a cognition (form of thought) that is formed through experience and influences our behavior. The fact that attitudes areformed through experiencemeans that we can, potentially, change them. When a ersuader gives a message to an audience member, that message becomes part of the listener’s experience, and it can affect his or her attitudes. The fact that attitudesinfluence our behaviormeans that we can use persuasion as a means to achieve our goals — when the behavior, or actions, or others can help attain those goals. Attitudes have two basic components: beliefs and values. Beliefs are, roughly, statements of facts. Beliefs are potentially verifiable. We say a belief is true or correct when it seems to reflect the world and false or incorrect when it seems contradicted by the world. Values are judgments of worth, like good or bad, useful or useless, expensive or cheap, efficient or inefficient. Together, these cognitions (thoughts), beliefs and values, form attitudes. (M. Clubertson, 1968)Attitudes are learned from experience and also influence our behavior. A person’s attitude is a composite of all the relevant belief/value pairs, with the more important ones influencing the attitude more. You can change a person’s attitude by changing either the belief or the value (but not both), or by creating new belief/value pairs (or by changing the relative importance of belief/value pairs). Persuasion is, quite simply, the use of messages to influence an audience. The messages that make up persuasive discourse areinstrumental, or means to ends or goals of th e persuader. Companies use persuasion in the form of advertising to convince consumers to buy their products or services. Students use persuasion to convince their parents to increase their allowance, or let them go to see a particular movie, or to let them use the car. Parents can use persuasion to get their children to study or to clean up their rooms. People use persuasion to get their friends to go to see a certain movie, or a band, or to hang out at the mall. Persuasion can convince another person to go out on a date. It can convince a teacher to accept a paper after the due date. Of course, people can also usethreatsto get what they want, but that is not persuasion. In persuasion, we try to convince the audience that they should want to do what we want them to do–not that they should do it â€Å"or else. † One of the most powerful influences on attitude change is the motivation of people. Cognitive dissonance Cognitive dissonanceis a phenomenon in which a person experiences psychological distress due to conflicting thoughts or beliefs. In order to reduce this tension, people may change their attitudes to reflect their other beliefs or actual behaviors. What all the definitions of attitude have in common isevaluation. An attitude is not just a neutral stance; it is a value judgment, favorable or unfavorable, or likely to affect persuasion: characteristics of thecommunicator, thecommunication, and thesituation. People can be inoculated against attempts at persuasion and propaganda by exposing them to weak attacks and teaching them how to respond. (D. Crano, 2005) Cognitive dissonance theory emerged in the 1950s and had a large impact on social psychology. It is based on the assumption that people seek consistency between their behavior and their attitudes. If forced to do something that contradicts their value judgments or opinions, people feeldissonanceand are motivated to change either attitudes or behavior, to bring them into consonance (a greement) with one another. That makes the theory especially interesting and useful. A central question for Dissonance researcher has been the motivational bases for dissonance and the causes of the aversive state of dissonance arousal. In Aronson’s(1992) self concept analysis, dissonance arises from the inconsistent cognitions that threaten consistency, stability, predictability, competence and moral goodness of self concept. In Steele’s(1988) self affirmation Theory, dissonance arises from general self integrity. Stone and cooper(Peety and Wegener 1998) Proposed that dissonance arise when people fail to behave in a manner consistent with some valued self-standard. the specific motivation behind the dissonance supposedly depend on the type of self standard involved. Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) Festinger’s version of balance theory, called cognitive dissonance theory, suggests that when people have in mind two or more inconsistent thoughts or b eliefs, they experience a state ofdissonance. This ‘negative drive state’ is unpleasant, so they are motivated to try to reduce it by altering one or more of the cognitions in order to re-establish a state ofconsonance. Cognitive dissonanceis a term used in modernpsychologyto describe the feeling of discomfort when simultaneously holding two or more conflictingcognitions: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel â€Å"disequilibrium†: frustration, hunger, dread, guilt, anger, embarrassment, anxiety, etc. Cognitive dissonance is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology. The theory of cognitive dissonance insocial psychologyproposes that people have amotivational driveto reduce dissonance by altering existing cognitions, adding new ones to create a consistent belief system, or alternatively by reducing the importance of any one of the dissonant elements. It is the dis tressing mental state that people feel when they â€Å"find themselves doing things that don’t fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold. †A key assumption is that people want their expectations to meet reality, creating a sense of equilibrium. Likewise, another assumption is that a person will avoid situations or information sources that give rise to feelings of uneasiness, or dissonance. Bogardus Social Distance scale For Bogardus â€Å"an attitude is a tendency to act toward or against something in the environment which becomes thereby a positive or negative value. â€Å"Conducted a monumental study on â€Å"social distance â€Å"still used the world over to examine cultural and ethnic attitudes. The Bogardus Social Distance scale measures attitudes about how close or distant people feel towards other people. Early in twentieth century E. S bogardus invented bogardus social distance scale is a technique for scaling attitude to measure social-psychology distance between various ethnic and racial groups Social Distance Scale(Bogardus, 1925) is where attitudes are inferred from the actions of the participant. The participant indicates the degree of intimacy which would be acceptable towards an individual or group, e. g. , ‘Would you live next door to one? ’ Each question has a value assigned it, and the sum of these will indicate the strength of attitude Conclusion Hence we conclude that an attitude can be a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, event, activities, ideas, or just about anything in your environment, but there is debate about precise definitions. Persuasion is a powerful force in daily life and has a major influence on society as a whole. For example Politics, legal decisions, mass media, news and advertising are all influenced by the power of persuasion, and influence us in turn. What all the definitions of attitude have in common isevaluation. An attitu de is not just a neutral stance; it is a value judgment, favorable or unfavorable, for or ikely to affect persuasion: characteristics of thecommunicator, thecommunication, and thesituation. People can be inoculated against attempts at persuasion and propaganda by exposing them to weak attacks and teaching them how to respond. REFERENCES Crano, W. (2005). Attitude and Persuasion. California: Claremont Graduate University. Clubertson, H. (1968). Attitudes. Journal of Cooperative Extension, 79. Murchinson,C. (1985). Handbook of Social Psychology. Clark University Press . We will write a custom essay sample on Attitude Persuasion Essay Example specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Attitude Persuasion Essay Example specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Attitude Persuasion Essay Example specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer

BookBub For Authors The Ultimate Guide (+ Free Submission Calendar)

BookBub For Authors The Ultimate Guide (+ Free Submission Calendar) BookBub for Authors: Everything You Need to Know Whether you’re working on your first book, or have published dozens of them already, my guess is: you’ve probably heard of Bookbub, if not used it yourself as a reader. But I also bet you’re not familiar with all the features and opportunities that the platform offers to authors.In a publishing world increasingly dominated by Amazon, BookBub was able to emerge and establish itself as a company offering a solid marketing alternative to authors and publishers - and has allowed many of them to hit coveted bestseller lists through their Featured Deals.In this post, we’ll run you through everything you need to know, as an author, about BookBub, and how best you can leverage their different tools and services to propel your books in the rankings. In particular, we’ll look at:Featured Deals (and how to maximize your chances of landing one);Self-serve CPM/CPC ads;Bookbub’s â€Å"follow† features.But first, for those of you who’re not y et 100% familiar with their service, let’s start with the obvious question.What is BookBub?BookBub is a free service focused on helping readers discover new books that they'll like. BookBub is mostly known for their daily newsletters promoting a handpicked selection of "deals", i.e. books deeply discounted - or free - for a limited time. As a reader, you can also follow your favorite authors on BookBub and receive notifications when they have a new deal or release.BookBub has over 15 million readers signed up for their newsletters, across as many as 42 fiction and non-fiction genres. Their popularity offers a great opportunity for authors, as most of their â€Å"daily deals† newsletters generate hundreds or even thousands of sales for all the books featured in the newsletter - and tens of thousands of downloads in the case of free books. Learn how to get the most out of BookBub as an indie author. BookBub are highly selective of the books they feature in their newsletters, and being accepted for a Featured Deal has become somewhat of a â€Å"Holy Grail† for independent authors in the past few years. So let’s take a look at how you can achieve just that!How do Bookbub Featured Deals work?For every one of their 42 genre categories, BookBub sends daily and weekly emails to readers (subscribed to that genre) featuring discounted and/or free books. Getting a spot among those discounted/free books is what a Featured Deal is all about. But before we go into what it takes to achieve that, let’s talk money a bit.How much does a Featured Deal cost?First, something quite important: it doesn’t cost you anything to submit your title for a Featured Deal. You only pay if your deal is accepted. Now, when that happens, on top of the cost of the bottle of champagne you’ll open to celebrate it 🠍 ¾, you’ll have to pay BookBub for the feature.The cost of a Featured Deal depends on several factors:The price at which your book will be discounted (the more you discount, the cheaper the Deal);The BookBub genre category you submit your book in (and the expected performance of BookBub newsletters in this genre);Whether you’re getting a US Featured Deal or an International only one (US ones are much more expensive).You can view an updated list of all prices based on these factors here. How can you get your book into a BookBub Featured Deal? BookBub’s criteria for selecting books to featureBookBub’s official criteria to accept Featured Deal submissions are pretty clear. From their own website, your title should be:Free or discounted by at least 50%.The best deal available. The book can’t have been offered at a lower price anywhere in the past 90 days.Error free.A limited-time offer (except for free promotions, where they do accept permafree books).A full-length book, with a minimum number of pages:Novels: 150+ pages;Nonfiction: 100+ pages;Cookbooks: 70+ pagesMiddle Grade: 100+ pagesChildren’s picture books: 20+ pages.No novellas or short stories.Widely available, i.e. at least one major retailer in either the US or the UK. And the more, the merrier.Lastly, BookBub will not feature the same book from an indie author more than once every 6 months. Nor will they feature the same indie author more than once every 30 days. But more on that later†¦Now, these are the minimum requirements for a d eal to be submitted to BookBub. Meeting these requirements certainly doesn’t guarantee your deal will be accepted by their editorial team and featured in a newsletter - far from it. Which brings us to the following, million-dollar question†¦How can I maximize my chances of getting a Featured Deal?In recent years, BookBub Featured Deals have become harder and harder to get for indie authors. Some say that their editorial team favors deals from traditional publishers - though that has been formally denied by the company.One thing is sure: BookBub bases most of its decisions on data. After years of serving deals to millions of readers and watching how these readers react, they have a pretty good idea of what will work (or not) for their audience.BookBub’s selection process for Featured Deals also relies heavily on human curation. They have an editorial team for every genre, that goes through the submissions and handpicks the Deals to feature every day.With that in mind, let’s look at how you can boost your chances of getting that coveted Featured Deal. Here are our top nine tips:Tip #1: Subscribe to BookBub’s newsletters in your genreIf you want to get a Deal in a genre, the first step is to understand what BookBub’s curators in that genre are looking for. And you can get a glimpse of that by simply signing up (as a reader) to their newsletters in that genre. Check out the books they feature and analyze what they have in common (what do the covers look like, what are the price points, how many reviews do the books have, etc.).Tip #2: Make sure your book has an appropriate number of reviewsFrom BookBub’s blog:â€Å"Reader reviews and ratings help our editors get a sense of how readers have responded to your book, and they are a crucial element of the selection process. We recommend browsing through the books we’re featuring in your category to get a sense of what a competitive number of positive reviews is for that genre.†This goes back to our advice above: check out the kind of books they feature and see what their usual number of reviews is. There’s no sense in applying for a Featured Deal until you have a similar number of reviews.Note: for this reason, it’s highly unrealistic (read: a waste of time) to apply for a BookBub Featured Deal for a new release, as you won’t have any reviews to show for it when submitting it. For new releases, BookBub actually has a separate product you could try: Featured New Releases.Tip #3: Polish your product pages on all retailersWhat do BookBub’s curators look at when evaluating a deal? The same thing that readers will: the book’s information on retailer pages. Their goal is the same as yours: selling as many books as possible. So they want to make sure that the books they feature are optimized to drive sales.In particular, this means:The title has a professional cover that matches genre expectations (more on this here);The book’s blurb on retailer pages is optimized to hook and convert readers (more on this here)Optional: The book features editorial reviews or accolades from well-known publications or influencers.Tip #4: Be flexible with your promotion datesWhen applying for a Featured Deal, you can indicate whether you’re flexible with your chosen discount dates or not. Obviously, indicating your flexibility will increase your chances of getting that deal.Do note, however, that BookBub only schedules Featured Deals up to 30 days in advance. So if you apply for a flexible-dates Deal, make sure you’re ready to drop your price across all retailers if you’re accepted.Tip #5: Keep submitting (download our free Bookbub submission calendar)Even if you get all of the above right, and BookBub’s editors think your book would make for a great deal, they might end up declining it just because there are other, even more attractive deals that have been submitted a t the same time.In other words, your chances of getting that coveted Deal also depend on the competition. And the level of competition depends on timing.What’s the solution? Keep submitting! BookBub allows you to re-submit a book every 30 days. So if you have a big list of books, and you really want to get a deal, you can maximize your chances of landing one by continuously submitting every book you have on a 30-day rolling basis.Now, if a Deal is accepted, BookBub won't feature the same indie author for another 30 days, and the same book for another 6 months. So keeping track of when you can and cannot submit each book can quickly become a headache†¦ Which is why we're providing you with a free BookBub submissions calendar - originally created by indie author Nick Thacker - to help you get all your ducks in a row.🠦†ðŸ ¦â€ Ã°Å¸ ¦â€  Sign up here to download our BookBub submissions calendar for free. 🠦†ðŸ ¦â€ Ã°Å¸ ¦â€  Do you regularly submit to BookBub as a #selfpub author? You need to DL this calendar. Tip #6: Try different price points (including free)One of the company's main tips for authors is to keep trying. But of course, receiving constant rejection notifications can become a bit frustrating. So the following three tips will explore what you can change in your re-submissions to augment your chances of getting accepted.The first thing to try is changing the price point. Their’s goal is to offer the best deals possible to their audience. So the lower you can go in terms of price, the higher your chances of being accepted.Furthermore, if you’ve been trying to get a $0.99 Deal for months, without success, try applying for a free one instead!Tip #7: Go wideIf your book is in Kindle Unlimited, I have some bad news for you: it’ll be much, much harder to land a Featured Deal. Here’s why, in BookBub’s own terms:â€Å"When members sign up for BookBub, they opt into the retailers they want to see deals for. So if a book is available on all the major retailers - Amazon, Barnes Noble, Apple iBooks, Google Play, Kobo - more of our readers would be able to snatch it up, which makes the book more appealing to our editors. Between two books with equally competitive platforms and deal prices, the editors will always choose the book available on more retailers.†At Reedsy, we personally know authors who submitted KU books to BookBub over 50 times, without ever getting accepted. One of them, Craig Martelle, finally took one of his books wide, and finally managed to land a Featured Deal with it (albeit an international one). You can read his story on the 20Booksto50k Facebook group (well worth joining!).Tip #8: Submit for international deals firstWhen applying for a Deal, most authors focus on US-only deals. These are the most expensive but also the most rewarding in terms of sales and ranking boosts. But they’re also equally harder to get. So if all your attempts at landing a US deal are failing, try for an international one. Even though they’re less powerful, they can be great for boosting your international reach and presence on non-Amazon retailers.More importantly, there’s anecdotal evidence that once you get a Featured Deal, it’s easier to get another one. So going for free, international Deals is a way to get your foot in the door. And once that door is open, it might lead to paid, US-only Deals.Tip #9: If everything fails†¦ rebrand!If everything above is failing, then there’s probably something wrong with your book. Maybe BookBub editors don’t think it fits into one of their categories. Or maybe they think the cover doesn’t match the genre.This can often be the case for books that were published over 3-4 years ago. Genre expectations regarding covers can change quite drastically, so if you can’t get any Featured Deal for your old books, consider rebranding them. Not only will that boost your chances of getting a Deal, but it’ll also most likely boost your sales, as shown in our case study.How to make the most of a Bookbub Featured DealHurrah! Thanks to our tips, you managed to land a Featured Deal! First off, take a moment to congratulate yourself and celebrate - it’s a big deal. But right after that, start planning your promo period to make the most out of the deal. Here are a few things to consider:#1. Don’t discount your other books in the seriesThis is a common mistake for BookBub Featured Deal first-timers. You want to encourage readers finding your book through the Deal to buy your other books, so you discount those as well†¦But what happens is that BookBub readers are deal seekers. If they see that your other books in the series are at $0.99 as well, they’ll just go ahead and buy them all. Great, right?Well, not really. Because while you might be making a bit more of an instant profit, you’re effectively losing all these full-price sales that would have happened when th ese readers finished reading your discounted book and decided to buy your other ones, full-price. And if you're wondering, yes, BookBub readers do also buy books full-price. Here are the official stats.#2. Run the promo over a longer periodAlmost everyone who ran a Featured Deal is unanimous about this: you’ll get better results if you keep your discount for a longer period than the minimum days required by the service. The reason for that is that Amazon’s algorithms (represented by a friendly emoji below) largely reward plateaus over spikes.If you raise your price right after the BookBub Deal, your sales will abruptly stop. If you keep the discount, they’ll still take a dip, but it won’t be as bad, which will help you maintain a high rank on bestseller lists, and have Amazon take over the marketing for you.If you’re in Kindle Unlimited and manage to get a Featured Deal (congrats, you’re a unicorn 🠦„), then running the discount for lo nger is all the more important to make sure you climb the popularity list and trigger a subsequent wave of page reads - learn how that works in this Reedsy Live with David Gaughran.#3. To stack or not to stack?The practice of â€Å"stacking† ads is that of buying several placements on other book promotion newsletters on top of the BookBub Feature. The goal here is still the same: achieving a plateau, or an upwards trend, rather than a spike.There has been a lot of discussion on ad stacking around Featured Deals in the author community, and the consensus seems to be that:Ad stacking can work for paid Featured Deals;Ad stacking is a waste of money for free Deals.The reason why stacking can be a waste of money for free is that free readers will often sign up to as many promo sites as possible to receive free book alerts. So by advertising your free book on several sites and newsletters, you’re effectively paying more to reach the same readers.#4. Run other ads on the sid eNow, while stacking promo newsletter ads might be a waste of money, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to run ads on your own. Both Facebook and Amazon ads will earn you a lot more sales/downloads if your book is discounted/free.You can learn how to create your first ads on Facebook and Amazon through our free Reedsy Learning courses:Facebook ads for authorsAmazon ads for authorsBut there’s a third self-serve advertising platform that will work even better to move discounted/free copies. And surprise, surprise†¦ it’s BookBub’s!â€Å"Wait, what? Isn’t BookBub what I’ve been reading about for the past 10 minutes?†Yes, but there’s more to it (keep reading)!Bookbub self-serve CPM/CPC adsWhile it’s getting more and more difficult for indie authors to get a BookBub Featured Deal, it’s actually very easy for anyone to get their book in their newsletters. How? Through their self-serve ads. Are BookBub's CPC and CPM ads worth the time and money? How do BookBub self-serve ads work?A few years ago, the company launched â€Å"BookBub Ads,† an advertising platform that lets authors and publishers place image ads in their newsletters (and on their website).To give you a better idea of what that looks like, here’s a typical BookBub newsletter.Notice that â€Å"follow† button? Readers who come across your books (e.g. in Featured Deals) are prompted by BookBub to â€Å"follow† your profile. They’ll also be able to find you in their â€Å"Discover† section:Now, the reason why followers are valuable is that BookBub sends an automatic â€Å"New Release Alert† to all your followers when you release a new book. So if you have 5,000 followers on there, that’s 5,000 release emails that BookBub will send for you, for free. You can learn more about how these alerts work here.And that’s it! If you read this far, you now know pretty much everything you need to know about BookBub an d how to best use their tools to your advantage.If you’ve had a Featured Deal in the past, or used their self-serve ads platform, don’t hesitate to share your advice and experiences in the comments below!

Developmental Disorders Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Developmental Disorders - Essay Example ired non verbal behavior and movements, diminished interest in playing and interaction with peers, lack of spontaneity and emotional reciprocity, delay or total lack in speech, repetitive use of language, behavior patterns or mannerisms and constant preoccupation with certain objects (Lord et al; Brereton and Tonge). Recent research has revealed that the cognitive ability of children with autism ranges from severely disabled to normal. They have low IQ scores and have difficulty in verbal sequencing. However, they have good immediate memory and visuo-spatial skills. The language, speech tone and modulation of these children are quite unusual and they sound mechanical and devoid of any emotions. They might use abnormal words, talk out of context or simply repeat them. They also have difficulty in understanding spoken language. Autistic children also suffer from social impairments such as disinterest in interpersonal relationships, lack of non-verbal communication with people and inability to play with other children. Doctors believe that these may change as the child grows. The genetics of autism has revealed that susceptibility to the disorder may be due to the presence of at least 3 abnormal genes. However, more research should be carried out to determine the genetic and environmental factors, if any, that may cause the disorder. Neurobiology Neurobiological evidence suggests that the brains of people with autism are underdeveloped with abnormalities observed in the brain-stem structures. Current research also points to the involvement of the cerebral cortex for onset of clinical symptoms (Hughes). The heterogeneity of the disorder has made it difficult to study the neural systems involved and hence a detailed study of the neurobiology of autism would require proper categorization of the people with the disorder in order to find out the various brain regions causing the various impairments (Lord et al). The key clinical features include narrowing of the

Business Environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Business Environment - Essay Example This paper approves that the general global market analysis has regarded India as efficient and effective investment location for the United Kingdom. Previously the higher level of the tariffs imposed by the respective governments on the list of the selected imports and exports item was responsible for the drastic reduction in the volume of the bilateral trade, but sooner it was realized that India is to be considered as a versatile land which has different flavors to offer. The nature of the trade relationship maintained between both the countries should focus more upon the non-popular items; the exchange of the common items is expected to severe affect the economy of the each country. This essay makes a conclusion that certain gray areas have been identified, and it is expected that the government of United Kingdom will take favorable measures, in exchange for the timely departure and arrival of goods. Considering the example of the Felixstowe which is considered to be the largest port of the country, the port has been used by more than fifteen shipping companies, unfortunately the heavy congestion and failed traffic system has jeopardized the interests of the traders, who always uncertainty of the timely arrival. It is therefore essential for the United Kingdom to offer regular and efficient mode for communication, and ensure that the rights of the local and foreign traders are protected, the exploration of efficient and effective modes of transport is essential because ‘India is efficient and reliable gateways through which the country conduct a fluid system of trade’.

Responsibility of a Nurse Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Responsibility of a Nurse - Essay Example The level of responsibility of a nurse in advocating a patient with suspicious injury or illness is very high. A nurse needs to make the patient aware of his/her actual injury or disease in order to make the patient mentally prepare for proper treatment. If there is a possibility of substance abuse or domestic violence, the level of responsibility of a nurse becomes even higher. A nurse needs to report any suspicious injury or illness present in the patient to the doctor in order to assist the doctor in suggesting an appropriate treatment for the patient. It is the ethical and legal responsibility of a nurse to provide the patient with physical as well as psychological treatment while advocating a patient with suspicious injuries. Some of the best ways in which nurses can fulfill their ethical and legal responsibilities include taking proper care of the patient, examining all aspects of the injury, making the patient feel relaxed and safe, and reporting complete case to the doctor. N urses face a number of challenges while dealing with patients having suspicious injuries. Some of the major challenges include making the treatment practical for the patient, making the patient mentally strong, making the patient forget the incident, and maintaining openness and honesty while dealing with such patients.

What Has Nationalism Done To Europe?

What Has Nationalism Done To Europe? Nationalism had a great impact on the European countries; I think that the concept of nationalism and liberalism was expanded by Napoleon and French revolution and gained more attention between 1750 and 1914. As states were up-and-coming, natives were having pride in their states and their society. Societies were segregating in various small clusters and they were proud of what they were. In 19th Century, Nationalism played very significant part in the progress of Europe. Because of common national-identity, various small states were united and transformed into a Country, such as Germany and Italy. Whereas, few more countries were emerged on the globe by achieving independence; these countries are Romania, Greece, Poland and Bulgaria. Progress and Development of the concept of modern nation state became easier by French Revolution. All over Europe major think tanks questioned the old monarchial order and expedite the growth of a popular nationalism devoted to re-sketch Europes political map. French Revolution played a vital role in Europes political transformation by demolishing the long-established structures of power and control in France and its territories that were conquered by Napoleon. Slogan and Idea of liberty, equality brotherhood and liberalism national self-determinism (respectively) was carried out by Revolutionary armies. National awakening also grew out of an intellectual reaction to the Enlightenment that emphasized national identity and developed a romantic view of cultural self-expression through nationhood. German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was the key supporter and promoter of the modernized idea of the nation-state. He supported that wisdom of nationality was an adhesive bond that held modern civilization together in the era when dynastic and religious adherence was in slump. Strong powers of Europe attempted to reinstate the old dynastic system, overlooking the codes of nationality in support of legitimism, the declaration of customary claims to royal power, this attempt was made in 1815, when Napoleon ended his wars. With most of Europeans still loyal to their local states, nationalism was limited to small clusters of scholar, philosophers and political radical. Moreover, political domination, represented by the Carlsbad Decrees published in Austria in 1819, pushed nationalist protest underground. Term nationalism can be defined in many ways I think it is a supposed identity of oneself within geographically organized political collectivity is called Nationalism. In other words we can say nationalism is a loyalty or devotion to the wellbeing of ones nation. I belief that in nationalism nation beliefs that they will benefit from acting autonomously rather than collectively and they emphasize more on national goals rather than international goals. In early days of Europe before the growth of nationalism, people were generally faithful (loyal) to a city or to their particular leader rather than to their nation. At the end of 18th century American Revolution and French Revolution were started. Napoleon was the founder of nationalism. He did everything for his country. French nationalism destroyed realm (monarchy system). Johann Gottfried Herder was the first person who coined the word nationalism during the late 1770s. As per my knowledge the term nationalism is normally used to explain two phenomena: (1) the attitude which members of a nation have when they are particular about the national identity (2) the actions taken by the members of a nation when seeking to accomplish self-determination. Nationalism came into the focus of idealistic debate for last two decades. The flow of nationalism usually presents an ethically ambivalent and fascinating picture. Nationalism is different from patriotism .Patriotism is love for mother land. Nationalism is extreme love and pride for a country. Now of course there is no harm of being proud of your country if your country is really good in the world (developed and stabled). But to be proud of your country, only because, it is your country is very foolish. Nazism/Fascism is extreme examples of nationalism. Generally, nationalism is considered as a more negative concept as compare to the more positive ones. Nationalism is linked directly to racism. The nations often see themselves as higher and right when in fact they are not. Nationalism has several negative and positive points which can be explained as: Patriotism and national pride; these two things are opposed to national apathy. People consider the wellbeing of the nation to be important in their lives. People are motivated to fight against enemies. People stay together in every crisis situation such as an invasion or a natural disaster. Definitely, loving your country rather than others is a good attribute. Here I would like to give an example of Japan, Japan became a great nation in terms of technologies not only because they are good but because they really love their country. Nationalism on the other hand is the love of ones nation above everything, even our own humanity, above morality, and sometimes above common sense. Apart from positive points nationalism also has some negative points such as: Narrow-mindedness and intolerance. Nationalism can be a destructive force within as well as outside the country, it leads to fragmentation. Misuse or exploitation of the people by their leaders. The creation of false enemies. Either in the form of actual people or in concepts, nationalism tends to create the existence of opposing forces, those who are a threat to the nation. I think nationalism causes people to analyze anything different from their countrys way of doing things as a bad thing. Nationalism is simply blind hold up (support) of your country no matter what are the circumstances. And blind respect and support is inhuman, foolish, and will ultimately lend you to being controlled by a person with a powerful will. Nationalism goes against the concept of progressivism. History has shown that any attempts to prevent progressivism will do nothing but destroy you. In contradiction nationalism can be ugly due to a common cause people from overseas can be frowned upon and looked as unequal figures. Nationalism was not only in Europe but it was spreading all over the world especially after the World War 1. Another extensive effect of the war was the rise of nationalism in Asia and Africa. In Asia Japan was suffering from aggressive nationalism, the first Eastern country which transformed itself into a modern state. The leader of the Indian National Congress, Mohandas Gandhi, deeply encouraged his people for national independence. The leader of a famous party named the Nationalist Peoples Party in China was also motivated for a successful national revolution. After World War II (1939-1945) many colonial countries became economically weak because of aggressive nationalism and they were influenced by political liberalism. Many countries willingly granted independence to their colonies. After war nationalist movements resulted in many new nation-states, including Israel, Morocco, Libya, the Sudan, Ghana, the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria), and Iraq. In the 1960s and 1970s many once British, French, or Belgian colonies in Africa became independent. During the 1990s Jewish, Arab, and Palestinian nationalist parties continued to generate political instability in the Middle East. In Eastern Europe the decline of Communist rule contributed to the ending of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. In the 19th century, an idea of romantic nationalism moved the continent of Europe changing countries of the continent. Some countries, such as Germany and Italy were created by uniting different smaller states with a common goal which was national interest or national identity. Other countries such as, Greece, Poland came in to being after winning their independence. I think the whole story of nationalism started when the French Revolution tiled the way for the modern state. In 1914 number of multi-national empires was increasing drastically. The French Revolution which was started by Napoleon by conquering number of French territories. This was the time when political transformation of Europe was started. The armys slogan was liberty, equality and brotherhood and their ideas were based on liberalism and national identity. In 1815, when Napoleonic wars were about to end, the major powers of Europe tried to re-establish the old monarchy system. Most of the people of Europe were still faithful to their home city. If we talk about impact of nationalism in Eastern Europe so the major problem was nationalism as well as communism. Communism itself is a very narrow and weak idea. On the other hand when nationalism interacts with communism it creates political problems and it weaken the nation. The nationalism has an impact on communism twice but it depends on circumstances. It can strengthen communism among independent and strong countries just like Soviet Union (which was part of Eastern Europe). Or nationalism can weaken communism in dependent and weak countries. Nationalism clearly has the potential to either strengthen or weaken different nations. When nationalism was spreading in Eastern Europe it started destabilizing different empires such as Hapsburg and Ottoman. Russia was involved in Balkan political system in which they started pretending to be somebody or something just like a champion and they imposed Slavic liberties against the Slavs of Turkey and Austria. This increased tensions be tween Austria, Turkey, and Russia and led the states towards World War I. As per my learning nationalism was everywhere in Europe after World War 1. There were number of nationalistic Socialist parties in Italy, Spain, Romania, France and United Kingdom. But those parties were not as successful as the parties which were in Germany and Italy. Most of the people of socialist party were involved in aggressive crimes and they provided harm to many people. Because of that, the Nazi parties in England, France, and Romania failed. The first nationalistic government was formed in Italy and after that Germany and Spain decided to unite with Italy in the fascism government. Nationalism in Europe was pretty much everywhere in Europe after World War 2. One of the most negative examples of nationalism in this century is of Adolph Hitler in Nazi Germany. Adolph Hitler suffered from aggressive nationalism, which resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent people. I think nationalism has given great harm to the European world especially Western Europe and I would like to support my argument by giving an obvious example of Germany. Germans were famous for their discipline, music, strong army and law and order. It was a rising country. But they were very nationalistic and soon they started suffering from aggressive nationalism. German people felt pride in their nation and in their leader, who was bringing Germany back as a world power. Germany was united in 1860 by Bismarck. It had dozen of German states. Around 1870 Germany defeated France and took over the area called Alsace-Lorraine. They used to think that they are supreme and everyone else is inferior and they will rule the world. They called their country as the greatest country in the world and the rest of the countries are weak and inferior to them. Nationalism was the main reason of world war. Adolf Hitler propagated aggressive nationalism. Hitler was a very brave man, full of aggressive nationalism. He had an extreme love with the Germany. He used to say that Germany is a great country and its the superior of all. At that time World War I, the Allied Powers (France, Great Britain, Russia, the United States, and other smaller counties) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey/Ottoman Empire, along with other smaller country support). When 1st World War took place in 1914 Hitler was a soldier of the German army. He wanted Germany to continuously fight against enemies. Germany was having lust of colonies so they started conquering different colonies of Europe. This was the main reason that Germany lost the war. Germans were treated very badly. Germany lost its population, land, their rivers were internationalized, and they lost Alsace-Lorraine. Germany was forced to disarm. France and Britain forced Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles. This peace treaty was completely against the Germany. It was a harsh treaty. Hitler was completely against this treaty. He was depressed when Germany surrendered on 11th November 1918. After some time he joined a small party and was called to make a speech. His speech was so spectacular that everyone was fascinated by him and then Hitler took over the party and named it as NAZI PARTY (National Socialist German Workers Party). Hitler was anti-communism anti-Semitism, means he was against the Jews. His main goals were to abolish Treaty of Versailles, unite Germany and Austria, remove the Jews from Germany and build a strong central government in Germany. Hitler claimed credit and consolidated his position as a dictator, having succeeded in eliminating challenges from other political parties and government institutions. The German industrial machine was built up in preparation for war. In November 1937, he was comfortable enough to call his top military aides together at the Fuehrer Conference, when he outlined his plans for a war of aggression in Europe. Those who objected to the plan were dismissed. Hitler wanted Germany to rule over the world. He wanted to conquer the whole Europe. Not only Germany but Japan was also suffering from aggressive nationalism. This caused the 2nd World War. I think at the end of World War 2 entire Europe was tired not only by war but also by the internal phobia of two of its major people; Hitlers Germany and Stalins Soviet Union. These two countries went insane, killing their own people and citizens of states which they occupied for reasons that were hardly clear. From my point of view, the anxiety and killing resulted by two world wars on both countries ended up with a mental breakdown. Nationalism was a great worry of that time. I think nationalism had an adverse impact on Europe and it had disturbed entire European community. European nationalism was always deeper than simply love of ones people. Europe is not necessarily unique in this, but it has experienced some of the greatest disaster in history because of it. European ideas of nationalism were repeated everywhere by people who developed their own particular variety of nationalism. But the idea that societies will be organized into nation-states were accepted. COMPANY: KIER GROUP PLC COMPANY: KIER GROUP PLC INTRODUCTION Kier Group plc is a leading company involved in construction, development and services specialising in building and civil engineering, support services, public and private house building, property development and the private finance initiative (PFI). The Groups annual revenue is  £2.4bn and 11000 employees are employed by it worldwide. Kier Group plc deals in four divisions which are Health, Education, Custodial and Retail. Each of the Groups four main divisions is focused on being best in its class. This rare offering of in-house capability, coupled with our strategic alliance business units, presents Kier as one of few organisations able to offer complete solutions for the delivery of a wide range of innovative schemes, frameworks and strategic alliances. Operating from a network of over 50 offices nationwide, all of Kiers locally known and well established business units enjoy particularly high levels of partnered projects and repeat business. The Group also operates overseas, including the Gulf, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe. MISSION STATEMENT By providing our clients with the highest possible quality of service and through the Sustainable and profitable growth, our vision is to be the most highly respected company in the industry. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Be enthusiastic, open and honest à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Be proactive, committed and safe à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Be a team à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢Ã‚  Be KIER By maintaining our core values and remaining focused on improvement and delivery, our vision will become reality. (WWW.KIER.CO.UK) 1.  Understand the impact of projects and project management on strategic objectives. 1.1  Asses the purpose of project planning and management. Planning is actually about thinking ahead. A project is a well-defined set of activities or actions that is completed in order to meet the projects goals usually under taken to add value or bring about a change. Each task or activity has an independent start and end but they must be completed in a given sequence. A project management is a process of planning and managing resources within a time frame in order to achieve the projects goal. Project management is the discipline of defining and achieving targets while optimizing the use of resources like time, money, people, space, etc. the planning engineer coordinates following management resources: People/skill/manpower, Money, Materials/logistics, Machines e.g.: computers Project management constitutes all the activities needed to plan and complete a project like deciding needs, cost estimation, appointing suitable staff, defining responsibilities, scheduling and arranging things for work. Project management knowledge and practices are best described in terms of their component processes. These processes can be placed into five process groups are initiating, planning, executing, controlling, closing. A typical stage project process framework Organization frame work Culture System System structure Process Before starting the project we have to understand the level of the strategic management Project leader Project team member Upper manager Project manager Resources manager Line manager Product manager Product user group Project testers Strategic Leaders Strategic leaders are generally responsible for large organizations and may influence several thousand to hundreds of thousands of people. They establish organizational structure, allocate resources, and communicate strategic vision. Strategic leaders work in an uncertain environment on highly complex problems that affect and are affected by events and organizations outside their own. Strategic leaders apply many of the same leadership skills and actions they mastered as direct and organizational leaders; however, strategic leadership requires others that are more complex and indirectly applied. Perhaps of principal importance because they exert influence primarily through subordinates, strategic leaders must develop strong skills in picking and developing good second-tier leaders.