Ford Pinto Product Liability Case Research Paper - 1

Ford Pinto Product Liability Case - Research Paper Example This was after the Ford Pinto car model by the Ford Company was involved in the death and serious injury of two persons in Indiana State. Consequently, this paper undertakes a review of the product liability that was held against Ford Motor Company. In 1970s, Ford Motor Company introduced a new car model on the market to compete against the Japanese and German imported vehicles that were on a rising popularity in the market. The new car model was known as the Ford Pinto which designed as a viable substitute to the fuel efficient and regularly smaller imported cars in the American market (Leggett, 1999). Indeed, the new model was able to sell over three million units throughout its production period. Unfortunately, the growing demand of Ford Pinto car model was hit hard due to an accident that happened on 1972 May. On this day, Lily Gray and a thirteen years old boy Richard Grimshaw were travelling in a Ford Pinto car when they were hit from the back by another car that was at a speed of 30miles per hour. Unfortunately, the impact caused an ignition of fire that killed Lily and caused serious burns on Richard. Consequently, a legal case was brought before the trial court by the Grimshaw family popularly known as Grimshaw vs. Ford Motor Company civil case to seek for compensation of the death and injuries suffered by Lily and Richard respectively (Leggett, 1999). The California law court found the defendant guilty of the death and injuries suffered by the victims. Thus, the defendant was instructed to award $560,000 and $2.5 million to Gray family and Grimshaw respectively. Furthermore, the court ordered the defendant to pay $125 million for punitive damages. This was arrived at after the court was informed of the design failure of the organization in manufacturing the car. The fuel tank of the Ford Pinto car had the weakness of exploding if it was

'All These Things That Ive Done' by The Killers Essay

'All These Things That Ive Done' by The Killers - Essay Example In the eyes and realm of God everyone is but a child waiting to be rescued, yet asking to be a part of God's work. The song, 'All These Things That I've Done', is really told in the context of one of the last lines of the song that says, "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier". The singer is telling the listener that he is a part of God, and believes in God, but hasn't yet surrendered to him. The singer longs to reach the interdependent state of oneness with God, but has yet to take the leap of faith. This may be a simple fear of the unknown, or may be because he simply does not understand how to surrender. Still, the desire is there to be a part of God, and have God rescue him. It is like the lady that is overwhelmed by life and pleads, "Everybody seemed to be counting on me; depending on me. But I wanted to depend on somebody" (Warren). God is a two way street where man is dependent on God, and God needs man's dedication. In the interdependent world people long to be the responsible, y et they also need someone to lean on. They need to be a soul and a soldier. The singer in the song realizes this shortcoming and is still seeking his identity with God. The singer sets the stage for the song in the opening phrases and points the listener to the religious basis of the material. In addition, he specifies the Christian religion. One of the opening lines, "When there's nowhere else to run, is there room for one more son" is a reference to Jesus as the son of God. This coincides with the Christian belief in Jesus as the Son of God, and illustrates the singer's belief that we are all children of God. He realizes that there is "room for one more son", but hasn't yet accepted the path to God. In addition, the singer is seeking God out of some fear as the line portrays the desperation of "nowhere left to run". The singer has been given the freedom of choice, the free will, and has postponed his becoming a child of God. Wildavsky states that, "Given human fallibility, and temptation to evil, the most the Almighty can do is show the way" (41). God has shown the singer the way, but the singer is still reluctant to take the steps needed to beco me a true child of God. The song further illustrates the singer's insecurity with God, and the ambiguous dedication that vacillates through time with the line "And my affection, well it comes and goes". The singer's soul moves in and out of grace as he searches for his meaning of God, and searches for his individual identity with God. The use of the word "affection" is an important indicator of his love for God and his will to be a part of God, yet is still lukewarm to a total dedication to the cause. The insecurity and unsure nature of his convictions are further shown in the lyric, "You know, you know - no, you don't, you don't". The singer is a soul that is caught in the limbo between intellectual understanding and action. His tepid love for God comes and goes, as his trust in God as all-knowing is there one moment and vanishes the next. The song's lack of trust in God may stem from the lack of trust in God's total knowledge and experience. The line "You know, you know - no, you don't, you don't', brings into question what it is that God does not know. On the one hand the singer contends, "I need direction to perfection", yet is unable to completely believe in God's perfection. Here again, the song exemplifies the

Three Days of Christmas Essay Example for Free

Three Days of Christmas Essay Mum asked me what I want for Christmas this year. A typical 15 year old girl like me would say new phone, clothes, money but no. You know what I want? I want a nice normal Christmas dinner at home with my dad, mum and two brothers. Like the American white Christmas’ you see on TV instead of the 4 days of Christmas down under. Christmas morning always goes to plan. We all wake up, the boys Tom and Max, especially early. The video camera comes out and dad automatically turns into a director. Smile for the camera† â€Å"No, the photo cannot happen there, the lightning is all wrong. † Tom, Max and Dad end up outside like usual testing out the new sports equipment. Mum and I sit at the kitchen window, sipping our coffee and making bets on how long the equipment will be used until thrown into the shed with all the other forgotten Christmas presents. Lunch is usually at Aunty Sue and Uncle Keith’s place with our overly peppy cousins. They live in Uncle Keith’s childhood house and so it’s dated back to the 1940’s. Their house is ancient. No air conditioner or heating and on a 39 degree Christmas day with a turkey cooking in the oven is equivalent to sitting in a sauna for 3 hours. Tea is at home with the people from lunch and some more other friends and relatives. Tea is a lot more fun and relaxed. I’m not sure if it’s because of the fact that I’m in my own house or that we get to go for a swim to cool off. It’s normally a late now with a lot of champagne bottles and hangovers the next morning. Boxing Day for my family is not about cleaning up the wrapping paper and empty packing but opening up more presents. Boxing Day is designated for my Dad’s side of the family and that’s where the family feuds usually start. My Uncle Sid and Nanna don’t get along too well. Both are strongly opinionated and both hate being wrong. First it starts with the food and then the Boxing Day Test and after that it is just anything and everything that they argue about. When the swear words start to come out, Uncle Sid’s wife Aunt Nelly, moves all the kids outside to the BBQ area. The next day we’re up early to take a lovely hour and a half drive to visit my great aunty and uncle, Kay and Frank. They never had kids so they lots of money saved up. They have just built a new house and it is absolutely beautiful with marble benches, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 lounge rooms and a study. I love going to their house, not only to see it but because they spoil us rotten. Actually now that I think back on it, my 3 days of Christmas isn’t all that bad. As much as bouncing around from place to place annoys me, there are some pretty good advantages to it all. Even though I may gain 15 kilos after the 3 days but the food is mouth-watering and I don’t have the will power to stop myself. Of course 3 days of non-stop presents is nothing to complain about and being surrounded by my gorgeous family, my smile never leaves my lips. I might go change my wish list because who knows how long I have left with these wonderful people. I shouldn’t be taking the Christmas holidays for granted because I may be jealous of other families traditional Christmas’s but they may be jealous of my weird yet amazing 3 days of Christmas.

Engaged In The Retail Stores Operation Management Essay

Engaged In The Retail Stores Operation Management Essay In the beginning in 1962, Wal-Mart founder, Sam Walton, who opened the companys first discount store in Rogers, Ark. In October 1969, Wal-Mart officially incorporated its business and operates over 4150 retail facilities globally. At the year of 1962, Wal-Mart has its competitors- KMart and Target. Walton studied his competitors and borrowed liberally. In the United States, Wal-Mart is the largest retail store. It mainly has its retail store in Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. (Walmart Corporate, 2012) Throughout the United States, Wal-Mart is engaged in the retail stores operation. Wal-Mart is most practicing mode of entry which is wholly-owned subsidiary and joint ventures globally currently. In China, Wal-Mart is practicing joint venture and acquisition entry modes (Hornblower, 2004). Wal-Mart needs to be careful in choosing the appropriate strategy in order to develop the future expansion successfully. Wal-Mart operate its business is because it wants to save people money tend to help them live better. It continues to deliver that promise to families around the globe. Therefore, Wal-Mart works harder to do their part in protecting our planet and conserving our natural resources (Walmart Corporate, 2012). Joint Venture is an entry strategy for a single target country in which the partners share ownership of a newly created business entity (Warren Mark, 2011). This means that Wal-Mart joint venture with local partner and local parent earn more than 51 percent share attributed to Chinas government policy. Through joint venture, Wal-Mart may able to share the risk with the local partner and it can limit financial risk as well in 1996 (Wal-Marts Strategies in China, 2005). Wal-Mart joint venture expands their strategy in order to gain successful entry into many of its international markets (Marcus, Jon, Wayne, and Constince, 2007). Wal-Mart may able to gain access, increase profitability, enhance global market share and explore into more global market (Gary and Ryan, n.d.). However, Wal-Mart may enter the new market quickly, avoiding costs and risks of new product development, gaining market share and acquiring new knowledge and capabilities. In 2007, Wal-Mart successfully acquired Trust-Mart. Wal-Mart has been established the brand name of Trust-Mart (David, 2007). Current Expansion Strategy Joint Ventures and Acquisition in China Today, Wal-Mart is one of the leading international retailers in China. It is also one of the largest international retailers in China. It is estimated that the firm will have 150,000 employees in its stores and warehouses in China alone by 2010. China is the largest emerging market, and Wal-Mart could expand their business rapidly. Wal-Mart has followed much of this expansion in China through joint ventures because of government restricted foreign retailer not to own a store. Therefore, Wal-Mart followed government policy strictly (DePamphilis, 2009). Learning about a market through a joint venture is a particularly powerful motivator when a firm seeks to enter an emerging or developing market. When Wal-Mart entered China, partnered with local firms in the new cities, tend to enter to learn about their challenging environment and distribution system (Jim, 2004). The nature of China is that the culture and political power can vary widely from one major city to another. Hence, joint ventures in such situations allow Wal-Mart to learn about the local system, such as legal standards, consumer characteristics, labor markets, and building relationships with the government and local distributors (Hornblower, 2004). China is the cheapest workshop and emerging market in Asia, so it would like to attract Wal-Mart to invest in its country. Wal-Mart tend to enter the emerging market is because it operates on a smaller scale in new market before making a more significant investment. Apart from that, Wal-Mart divides the responsibilities and liabilities with others to keep a minimum cost. It also combines assets and skill-sets with other companies. (Wal-Mart Store Inc., 2010 Annual Report) China could offer the opportunity to foreign firm operated with no taxes on foreign business for the first few years of operation. Therefore, Wal-Mart caught a chance and tends to expand their business into China. (Hornblower, 2004) One of the reason Wal-Mart expand their business to China because the impact of competition and the restriction and lowered the market trade barrier caused U.S operation could not control attributable to the faster growth of Wal-Mart. Moreover, due to China has the strong economic growth and it has 1.3 billion population of people and also cheap labor they could provide. It would compete with Carrefour, Tesco and Metro more easily because China removed all limits on business location, amount and share structure. Therefore, Wal-Mart endeavors to gain a better marker share in Chinas $240 billion retail market. (Wal-Mart Bulks up China Expansion Strategy, 2005) Wal-Mart entered China through this entry mode is successfully. China could offer a way of getting around high Chinese tariffs, allowing a company to gain a competitive price advantage over imports. (Philip, Mary and John, 2009) China government has provided Wal-Mart the benefits of synergy which the local partner providing the access to the Government officials and market information besides sharing the risk. Acording to (Gerald and Edwin, 2008), sales and profits of the joint venture may be greater than those of a subsidiary, because the operation is looked upon with more favor by nationalist-oriented consumers than would be the case if it were considered a foreign operation. Therefore, Wal-Mart could be sustained its growth and sales will be increased through this joint venture. Stern and Stalk (1998) found that the expansion in China has been proven Wal-Mart could reduce stock-carrying and transportation costs and increase profitability by 2.5 percent compared with their competitors. However, through the joint venture with local partners, Wal-Mart is able to gain valuable knowledge on Chinese market, economic and political conditions. Joint Ventures are really a good option for their expansion since Chinas government regulated the foreign retailers enters China market should use joint venture strategy. This could allow Wal-Mart apply the valuable resource to improve market, economic as well as political condition (Clem, 2009). There is also an acquisition Trust-Mart in China which bought 35 percent of its shares. Trust-Mart is one of the leading retailers in Chinese market. Wal-Mart is willing to acquire and invest huge amount of capital because Trust-Mart has several number of stores. In addition, Trust-Mart also is leading position in China. This could enable Wal-Mart to capture much more competitive advantages in China. (Lee, 2011) Indeed, Wal-Marts retail footprint could become doubled where taking full control of Trust-Mart. At the same time, China tends to develop its economy sustainably in promoting the domestic consumption (David, 2007). This acquisition helped Trust-Mart expand on the Chinese mainland. Nowaday, it had more than 100 retail outlets in 34 cities on the mainland and employed more than 30,000 employees (Li, 2011). Wal-Mart planned to acquire the rest of the Trust-Mart, but the plan has been delayed because of several top executive resigned in 2010. This caused to Wal-Mart unable to acquire Trust-Mart the rest of the share (Li, 2011). Through this acquisition, Wal-Marts sale is less than 3 percent of its sales in America (Walmart v Wumart, 2011). Future Expansion Strategy According to Bishop (2006), a firms entry mode is how to enter the foreign market, and how to make its goods or services available to foreign customers. Basically, there are six different modes for a multinational firm to choose, such as licensing, exporting, turnkey project, joint venture, franchising and wholly-owned subsidiary (Hill, 2004). The current entry mode of Wal-Mart in China is through joint venture with Shenzhen International Trust Investment Co., Ltd, China due to the government restriction on foreign ownership. But joint venture benefits Wal-Mart from knowledge of the host countrys competitive conditions, political systems, language, culture, and business system. However, joint venture could bring negative effect to Wal-Mart because it has a risk of giving control its technology to its partner when it entry into a joint venture and it would also caused to conflict happen when the shared ownership arrangement is different and the goals and objectives is change. Hence, it is important for Wal-Mart to convert its entire joint venture stores into wholly-owned subsidiary. In order to completely convert into wholly-owned firm, the very first step that Wal-Mart should take into consideration is acquiring its partner Trust-mart. By acquisition, Wal-Mart is able to reduce risk over losing control and tighten control over operation in country and by the way maximize the profits. It is possible for Wal-Mart to acquire Trust-mart because China had lighten the limitations towards foreign company after joining WTO in year 2001 and after so many years operation in China, Wal-Mart is know well about the cultures and customer preferences in that country. At the same time, the large number of stores and leading position of Trust-mart in China makes the strong attraction for Wal-Mart to acquire. Undoubtedly, this acquisition would help Wal-Mart to capture more competitive advantage in China. The successful role models of acquisition that can be benchmark by Wal-Mart were the acquisition done by it in Canada and European countries. The company entering Canada by acquiring 122 Woolco stores in 1994. Due to continuously suffering a loss in Canadian operation, Wal-Mart quickly restructured the operation by applying the practices that had been successful in United States and the action taken was profitable. And the acquisition made in Germany and United Kingdom in year 1998 and 1999 also proved to be successful where it allowed Wal-Mart to build market share quickly within the highly developed and competitive European market. (Source: Wal-Mart takes on the world) Besides that, Wal-Mart should also build up a partnership or joint venture with local supplier in near future to ensure the flexibility, freshness of the foods and understand more about customers needs and tastes. It is because the strategy adopted in United States may not be fitted in China. The Chinese consumers are more prefer to consume fresh food rather than frozen food. A good example can be follow is Carrefour; it did a great job on building partnership and direct sourcing agreement with local suppliers. It focuses on locally sourced products, especially regarding fresh food. It also rely them to distribute goods directly to stores. A greater emphasis on partnerships with farmers enables Carrefour to have better control over food quality, and to reduce buying costs.   Finally, it proved to be more flexible to customers than any others do. Additionally, joint venture with local suppliers and purchase locally not only create flexible to customers, at the same time also reduce the costs in development than having joint venture with Investment Company. As deeply understand of the customers around, local suppliers have more experiences about the customers which are more accurately than foreign companies. Lastly, another future expansion that would recommend to Wal-Mart is through mergers. According to Valentine (n.d.), successful mergers businesses are reaping benefits and gain more profits. Therefore, a merger with Trust-mart and any other giant company in China may help Wal-Mart to obtain quality staffs and knowledge or additional skills to cope with different in culture and customer preference. Apart from this, merging also provide Wal-Mart the opportunity to increase market share and expand to new geographical areas and sectors. The best evidence to illustrate was Carrefour making its first merging with NextMart Shanghai store after entering the China retail market for more than ten years. This movement had marked a basic change in their expansion strategy and indicated the second climax of Carrefour expansion in China. (Sources ¼Ã… ¡www.China-cbn.com, 2007) Wholly-owned subsidiary in Philippine We would like to recommend Wal-Mart to expand their operation in Philippine. Philippine is one of the richest and developing countries in Asia. We suggest Wal-Mart using wholly owned subsidiary. This is because under the Retail Trade liberalization Act (RA 8762), this law indicates that foreigners may own up to 100 percent of a store with pad-in capital of the Peso equivalent of USD $7.5 million. This mean that Wal-Mart could paid up capitalization of USD $7.5, wholly own a firm in Philippine (Abigail, 2011). It is more suitable using wholly-owned subsidiary which is acquired a Philippines local firm. According to Philip et al. (2009), wholly-owned subsidiary could develop its operation with a greater control and higher profit compare with other entry mode strategy. However, this strategy has a higher risk. In another word, higher risk will get high return. Besides that, through the wholly-owned subsidiary, Wal-Mart could also state-of-the art technology hence resulting in increased operational efficiency. Wal-Mart could offer control over the local firm. In addition, Wal-Mart has its wholly-owned operations in Canada, Brazil and Argentina, there are extremely successful since Wal-Mart has past experience operate in these Country. For instance, Wal-Mart successfully became a wholly owned subsidiary in Japan, Seiyu recent year. (Walmart Corporate, 2012). Wal-Mart could learn the strategy same as in Japan because Wal-Mart has its experience and knowledge to use this entry mode into Japan. Wal-Mart can form a new firm or find a local company to do the business. By doing this way, Wal-Mart could earn a valuable knowledge from local partner since they operated in Philippine several years because they know the economic, government policy, consumer buying pattern and consumer purchasing power (Gerald and Edwin, 2008). For instance, David and Gary (2010) found that Wal-Mart often acquires ongoing firm as they move into a new market. Wal-Marts 2005 acquisition of controlling interest in the Central American Retail Holding Company helped Wal-Mart acquire valuable knowledge about this important market. Retail trade in Philippine is very vital and essential in order to boom the economy. Thus, Philippines government encourage foreign retail to invest in their country. In view of the fact that Wal-Mart is giving the low price of the retail grocery service for Pilipino, this would more satisfy them to buy Wal-Marts products (Retailing in the Philippines, 2002). The reason we recommend for Wal-Mart to expand in Philippine due to Philippine is an open economy which is freely and business-friendly economy. Government also gives multinational company some incentives such as tax exemptions and tax and duty-free importation of particular materials and equipment. Aside from tax and government incentive, Philippine has a strategic business location which suitable for European and American businesses to operate their business there (Why do business in the Philippines, n.d.). Joint venture in Malaysia Furthermore, as many foreign retailers looked forward to invest in Malaysia because of the purchasing power of local consumers, we recommend that Wal-Mart can expand their business in Malaysia in the future. However, Malaysia has restricted and controlled the foreign hypermarkets to expand and enter to the local market in order to protect smaller local businesses over recent years. But some of the major foreign retailers such as Carrefour, Tesco, Giant, and Isetan have operated and doing well in Malaysia. Wal-Mart can try to enter Malaysias market because the entry of foreign giant retailer would bring benefit for both parties including the profit for Wal-Mart itself, and at the same time create job opportunities for the local workers. Furthermore, other than create job opportunities; the entry of Wal-Mart will also make the retail market more competitive and simultaneously benefit consumers by providing additional place to shop. Moreover, we recommend Wal-Mart to apply joint venture as the entry mode into Malaysia retail market. Wal-Mart can try to joint venture with the local giant enterprise such as Berjaya Group, YTL, and IOI Corporation. However, Wal-Mart normally applies acquisition to enter into the countries. Unfortunately, Malaysia government has restricted and tightly controlled the entry of foreign retailers. Before that, Wal-Mart has tried to enter into Malaysia but have been rejected because the government realizes that the entry of Wal-Mart into Malaysia will greatly affect the local retailers. Moreover, Wal-Mart is able to provide the goods to the customers at a very low price because its business model is very efficient, but the low price of Wal-Mart has threaten the small local retailers as they may not able to fight the lower price with Wal-Mart and their business will be greatly affected, at the same time unable to survive. The reason we recommend Wal-Mart to expand by using joint venture in Malaysia is because the minister of Malaysia stressed that Wal-Mart is not allowed to operate new retail stores or hypermarkets at their own discretion. However, according to Vivian (2007), Malaysian authority was planning to loosen the limitations on foreign hypermarket so as to attract foreign direct investment in Malaysia retail market. Therefore, Wal-mart might have an opportunity to expand into Malaysia. In order to successfully enter into Malaysia, Wal-Mart should joint venture with Berjaya Group to open a new store named as Berjaya-Mart as Berjaya Group is one of the successful companies. Through joint venture, Berjaya-Mart is able to access larger markets because Berjaya Group provides larger geographical markets and customer bases. Furthermore, Berjaya-Mart is new to the market and may need to spend a lot and the process is complicated. Through joint venture can helps to overcome some of the problems such a s government regulation, direct financial losses, operating complexity, and reduce the cost of entry. Moreover, start a business in a new country might confront with political factors and the strict rules and regulations by the national government. Joint venture will help Berjaya-Mart to penetrate into the local market in Malaysia. Conclusion In conclusion, China is always an attractive market among countries for foreign investment. Although the retail market in China has a great potential, but the competition is very fierce from both local Chinese retailers and foreign retailers. However, Wal-Mart was a well-known company which with high reputation in global. Wal-Mart will continue to success in the future in China is mostly depend on the future expansion and their market strategy. As mentioned above, other than joint venture, we were recommended that Wal-Mart can try to use wholly-owned subsidiaries, partnerships, and merger. The wholly-owned subsidiaries from both acquisition and Greenfield investment will create advantage and help to expand in the future. Acquisition helps Wal-Mart to access and enter foreign market quickly and a way to achieve greater market power. Wal-Mart applies acquisition to achieve the larger market power to consent to exercise of a core competency and capture competitive advantage in global ma rket. Although it is high risk due the potential high cost, but it is the most probable to provide above average return. However, for partnerships is somewhat easy to establish, Wal-Mart able to get fresh products much more easily through partnership with the local suppliers. Partnerships can help Wal-Mart to save cost as each partner specializes in certain aspects of their business. Undoubtedly, more and more foreign investment including Wal-Mart has come into China, and they usually bring advanced technologies and also management knowledge. Moreover, some of these foreign entrants are successful in the worldwide. Expansion of Wal-Mart in China is one of the successful examples of foreign investment and can be learned by other firms. However, some business models which successful in other countries may not be successful in China. In order to success in China, both internal resources and external environment are critically important for Wal-Mart. Moreover, Wal-Mart can be so successful today in worldwide, there must a reason behind, which is Wal-Mart able to implement monitoring measures consistently in their operations and performances of their employees and managers that sent to China. Furthermore, Americans culture and Chineses culture is greatly different, but Wal-Mart is able to adapt speedily to the Chinese culture, fulfill requirements while carrying out their responsibilities, and get appreciation of the exclusive processes of doing business in China. However, there is also a lot space for further improvement of Wal-Marts strategies and future expansion.

Key Industry Trends regarding H & R Block :: essays research papers

Key Industry Trends Economics   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many factors of the economy help to indicate certain trends in the tax industry. The Gross Domestic Product has been calculated at an increase of 3.9% the first quarter of 2004. Consumer spending has also increased .4% from the last year. Both of these statistics may indicate an upward trend in the nation’s economy. A consumer may have more disposable income therefore, they may be more apt to spend their extra money on a tax preparation service. This would reveal a positive effect for H&R Block. The unemployment rate has increased nationally while the employment rate is decreasing. This may result in a decrease of the amount of tax returns that H&R Block files annually, due to the amount of taxpayers that have become unemployed. Either these people may have no taxes to file due to their job loss, or they may not have the extra money to pay for a tax preparation service. If a person is out of work then they may have the extra time to file their taxes in thei r own time. Demographics   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are many trends in national population characteristics that indicate both opportunities and threats to H&R Block. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that the U.S. will experience a large increase of the Hispanic, Asian, and many other ethnic populations. This will create a large demand for employees that are at least bi-lingual. H&R Block also has an opportunity to open temporary offices in parts of the country that would benefit consumers requiring an employee to speak their native language.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The U.S. Census Bureau has also indicated an increase in the percentage of the nation’s population that is college educated. This may pose a threat to the tax preparation industry. A person that has received at least a 4-year college degree may obtain the knowledge to prepare their own taxes, thus eliminating their demand for a tax preparation service. On the other hand, their college education may indicate an ability to earn a better income, so they would require the services of an organization like H&R Block.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  With the baby boomers now entering their fifties, birthrates indicate fewer births and more deaths among the population. This would obviously result in less people needing to file taxes, therefore less demand for a tax preparation service. It is important for an organization to analyze the appropriate economic factors and respond with the correct actions so that they may maintain a competitive advantage within their industry.

Information Age :: essays research papers

Discussion Board Activity Question Activity Based Costing in the Information Age Activity based costing systems provide a much more accurate picture of product costs than do traditional product costing systems. This exercise focuses on an article presented on the Web site of the ACA Group, an alliance of highly trained and experienced consultants and instructors. The ACA Group provides in-house training, management consulting, and systems installation. You may recognize the names of some of the Group's clients including General Motors, Nissan Motor Company, Hughes Aircraft Company, Dole Packaged Foods, Gillette, Xerox, Gateway, and Anheiser Busch. The title of the article used for this exercise is entitled "Activity based Costing in the Information Age." (http://www.theacagroup.com/activitybasedcosting.htm). It was written by Jim Tarr, president of J.D. Tarr Associates. Mr. Tarr has over 25 years experience in consulting, senior management, and in industrial and manufacturing engineering. You have been asked by your manager to read the article and prepa re a brief for other managers in the organization. The brief must answer the following questions. 1. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of traditional product costing systems? There are many advantages and disadvantages, in traditional product costing systems. As, listed in Mr. Tarr ¡Ã‚ ¦s article you can see first that the advantages are apparent and clear. The purpose for this system is what is was intended for. And that is standard cost accounting, Companies where designed to do the following for success.1) homogeneous products, 2) large direct costs compared to indirect costs, 3) limited ability to collect data and 4) low "below the line" costs. (Tarr, James D. N.d.) So, with changing time ¡Ã‚ ¦s and the system being build over 70years ago. This has been cause for change because of the disadvantages the system brings to the table due in part to the  ¡Ã‚ §advent of certified financial statements, accounting systems became more structured to comply with the demands of external stakeholders ¡Ã‚ ¨ (Tarr, James D. N.d.) So, the primary purpose and focus of cost accounting today is to value inventory for financial statements. The negative t rend continues due in part to the floes that the "leveraging effect" of direct labor overhead application as cause as many other applications have given cost accounting negative effects as well. 2. For what type of business case were traditional costing systems designed? Why isn't a traditional costing system appropriate for today's companies? Traditional costing systems were designed for a company with large direct costs in comparison to indirect costs, a limited ability to collect data, homogeneous products and low  ¡Ã‚ §below the line ¡Ã‚ ¨ costs.

History of Education Essay

This essay attempts to discuss the area of childhood through the ages. The concept of childhood was firstly found by a French historian called Aries. Aries studied childhood through the ages but it was argued that â€Å"his thesis under-estimated the nature of childhood within changing household structures of family forms†(Gelis,1986: Stone1974). Aries believed that during medieval society children were no more than little adults. There was no realisation of childhood. They were treat as little adults as soon as they could walk and talk. Between the 15th and 18th Century children became more a sense of amusement for adults, there was no regard for childhood and no understanding of the development of children. The only educational dimension of childhood at this stage was by ‘churchmen or gentlemen of the robe. ‘ This secured control over children’s ‘depravity’ with emphasis on discipline and knowledge of theology, humanities and sciences. This was initially only accessed by the upper classes. During the first decades of the 19th Century Children were used as cheap labour, the period of time was called the industrial revolution. The state at this time could not offer any form of state education, as the huge amount of finance for such a venture was not available. Vain attempts were made to set up parish schools but they came to nothing. Education was not at this point seen as important. Children were forced to worked in poor conditions and work very long hours. They were widely employed in textiles, mining, agriculture and domestic service. The work was traditional, universal and inescapable. The nation needed children to work to keep up with the demands of industry. To have spent public money or enforced children to attend school would have at this time been regarded as an infringements of liberty. It would have been impossible during the early decades of the industrial revolution to keep the economy going and release children for schooling. As industry grew so did the fact that children were not needed as much and adults that could read and write were indispensable. Quote from Robert Lowe ‘it will be absolutely necessary to compel our future masters to learn their letters. ‘ The 1833 Factories Act limited the conditions under which children could be employed. Unfortunately restrictions on employment led to high child vagrancy and unemployment. Many children had nowhere to go and no means of income. Children from the poorer families were often abandoned by their parents, as they were bringing in no income and parents were unable to support them. Children were forced into petty crime or to begging. Effectively the factory children were replaced by delinquent children. (Hendrick,1990,1994) So many children were roaming the streets with no protection and no kind of welfare. They would sleep rough and steal to survive. They led the life of an adult with no authority or guidelines. The number of delinquent children with no home and no care caused an increase to crime and caused panic for authorities. Due to this panic The CHILD RESCUE MOVEMENT was formed, by a lady called Mary Carpenter. Acts were passed by parliament in 1854/1857 to set up reformatories and industrial schools. The need to help the child vagrants was seen as urgent. Reformatories were introduced to provide a type of education for these children. They would have been sixteen years of age or under. These children would have been convicted of a punishable offence and would have been imprisoned had it not been for the emergence of reformatories. The reformatories tried to teach the children of their wrongdoing and educate them to be law-abiding citizens. Industrial schools were provided for the poor children who had taken to begging on the streets and had no home. Many of these children would have been forced to leave home. Their parents could not support them any more because household income was reduced without children’s wages. Reformatories taught of moral correctness. These schools reconstructed the role of childhood and slowly put an end to child labour. Through these two types of schools children were cared for and deprived children were separated from depraved. This would have prevented deprived children from mixing with young criminals and learning new skills from them. Hill, in 1855 wrote that the delinquent ‘is a little stunted man already – he knows much and a great deal too much of what is called life – he can take care of his own immediate interests. He is self-reliant, he has so long directed or mis-directed his own actions and has so little trust in those about him, that he submits to no control and asks for no protection. He has consequently much to unlearn – he has to be turned again into a child’ (in Hendrick, 1990) Both these schools emerge as a response to delinquency and destitution. The re-educating of children helped to re-socialise and teach moral correctness. Schooling has always involved more than just gaining knowledge. A child is socially constructed through school. As the economy grew more money was available and the need to educate more readily acceptable to keep up the growing Empire. The Education Act in 1870 was a major step forward in education as the state took responsibility for educating all able-bodied children from the age of 4 until 11. The school leaving age increased three times between 1870 and 1940. Many rural area’s ignored this age because children were needed in the home or out at work to bring in a wage. Further to the 1870 Education Act and the 1833 Factory Act many more acts were introduced limiting ages for working and making provision for schooling, each Factory Act was an Education Act and vice versa. Schools in this era tended to copy the layout of factories, they would have a vast hall with tiered seating and galleries for the classes. The 1918 Childrens Act increased the leaving age to 14. Again this was ignored and authorities were forced to employ school attendance officers. Parents would be sent warnings and if the children repeatedly were absent from school after the warnings summons were sent and fines issued. In London in the year ending March 1900 28,836 summons were sent out. This dramatically dropped in following years. Many children wanted to work as they were accepted as adults when they earned a wage and their opinions counted. Some children would be made fun of by older working children for going to school. Ref Children, childhood and English Society 1880-1999 – Harry Hendrick. The concept of ‘national childhood emerged’. Children were given back their childhood, child labour was stopped and all were children were entitled to an education. Hendrick noted: ‘There is no doubt that in the last quarter of the nineteenth century the school played a pivotal role in the construction of a new kind of childhood – this construction directly involved all children – and was intended to be inescapable. (Hendrick 1990) During the later 19th century Britain had widening markets, industry was increasing. The state was growing and the importance of the Empire was realised. Children were seen as vital to keep up with the running of the Empire. Children were the ‘Bricks for Empire Building’ (Bean and Melville, 1989) By 1900 ordinary people were given some political power by being given the right to vote.