Is Booking Travel over the Internet Causing the Decline of High Street Travel Agents? Essay

Is booking travel over the internet causing the decline of high street travel agents? During the decade leading up to 2007, ways of buying tourism products as changed a lot. Ten years ago people choosing a holiday more often than not a package holiday, by going to the travel agent and choosing one from a number of brochures and after chatting with the travel agent. Many people still chose this method but a lot more people are buying packing holidays, more people now buy online, or over the telephone, through teletext. People tended to find it cheaper to and more flexible to buy their flights from one internet site, their accommodation from another and book a hire car with another site, rather than buying a package holiday out of a tour operator’s brochure. They are not always financially, protected when booking travel separately. Holidaymakers are â€Å"turning their backs on the traditional high-street travel agent in favour of booking trips online†, reports sundayherald. com. Between 2000 and 2004 there was an 11% drop in the number of bookings made at travel agents, with only 47% of overseas holidays now being reserved through a high street travel agency, according to figures from market researchers Mintel. Many people book breaks by phone, and just 31% of overseas trips were booked in person in 2004,† says the report. â€Å"The research shows that traditional sun, sand and sangria package holidays are the main type of trip booked on the high street, with just one in five d omestic trips booked at travel agencies. Richard Cope, international travel analyst at Mintel, reportedly said consumer confidence in the internet was driving people away from booking in person. â€Å"Mintel’s research shows that almost one in five UK holidays are now booked online, with consumers becoming increasingly confident about making their own travel arrangements. † Mintel figures also indicated that, overall, more holidays are being taken. In 2004 65% of British people went on holiday, compared to 62% in 2000. Some 44% of holidaymakers now take more than one holiday a year, up 14% since 2000. Altogether, Britons took 43 million holidays abroad in 2004. http://www. m-travel. com/news/2005/10/number_of_booki. html Technological changes within tourism surround several different factors from medical advances to the innovative space tourism. Similar to tourism, technology is an ever changing and sometimes unstable business. Better communication, transport and safety have encouraged new consumers to the industry. Improvements in water supply, medicine and knowledge have meant areas are opened up which were not possible before technological advances. In today’s society in which a consumer wants easier, quicker and cheaper service only technology has helped tourism fulfil the customers demand. Another massive effect on tourism is the rapid increase in online booking that has given consumers more opportunity to make a holiday. Through technological advances, online booking has been one of the biggest factors in affecting tourism, leisure and recreation in today’s world. There were 37,600,000 Internet users in the United Kingdom (representing 62. % of the population) in March 2007, according to Internet World Stats. This was up by 144. 2% compared to 2000. (Internet World Stats, March 2007) and a new Google Survey has shown that surfing the web has topped watching television as Britain’s favourite past time. On average residents in the UK spend 164 minutes online every day compared to 148 minutes watching television (Daily Mail, Friday 10th March 2006). This shows how much the internet is now an integral part of life and has had an effect on other aspects influencing the tourism business. More and more people are now booking their holiday on the internet, as many people are looking for a better priced deal than they’re being offered by their travel agent. Both holiday and airline bookings have not dramatically rose in sales from the travel slump of 2001-02 due to the massive consequences of September 11th and the threat of terrorism which has increased (it saw similar slumps although smaller after the Madrid bombings and 7/7 terrorist attacks). The Iraq war, the SARS/bird flu epidemics and very consistent hot European summers have persuaded the usual long haul travellers to stay at home. This has seen a loss in sales and therefore profits causing one of the hardest aviation crises of the industry. The number of job cuts that were announced in 2003/04 was well over 100,000 according to BBC News, November 2005. Routes had been slashed and several European carriers were barely clinging to life. The turmoil in the industry went from Aer Lingus to XL Airways, but times were changing and the industry needed something new. Survival tactics started to emerge and online travel started to show evidence of bucking this gloomy trend. The Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), as cited in a May 21, 2002, Financial Times article had cited for many years that online spending was increasing and predicted it to triple at the end of the decade. Looking at e-commerce data overall, the firm counted travel as the biggest online sector, followed by electronic products and apparel. IMRG also said British shoppers were buying larger and more expensive goods online, such as furniture and kitchen appliances. This showed a large gap in the sub-market that needed to be exploited. Online Travel Spend ($bn) Europe N. AmericaU. K 20002. 4 6. 4 0. 20015. 8 11. 00 1. 8 200212. 7 18. 7 3. 7 Source: Datamonitor At the start of the boom these were seen as survival tactics by the airlines and the government also pushed for more progress in online booking to make the travel industry more prosperous. The economic realities forced travel companies to be more efficient in running their business. Websites, for example were able to promote the latest ticket prices, particularly at a time when they were being slashed on a day-to-day basis which was used to tempt travelers back into the air. Similarly travel sites e-mailed a wide ustomer base with relative ease to promote special deals. It is seen as the cheapest method of booking a holiday, the LogicaCMG (a marketing body) has said that phone bookings typically cost about ? 30 to service. By contrast net bookings cost around 75p. One of the biggest online travel sites Expedia, took an initial knock from 11 September, but then saw its transaction volumes recover by 80-85% during October. â€Å"Like every travel company, we experienced a downturn, but we then recovered a lot more quickly than the traditional industry† said James Vaile, managing director of Expedia in the UK. Online travel sites are also well positioned to exploit the recent procrastination by consumers in booking holidays. People are booking later than usual in recent years and the internet is seen as the obvious and natural place to hunt down last-minute bargains. As this bar chart shows travel sales online rose rapidly from 2006-2007 and it is expected to continue to rise to over $30 billion. The consumers weren’t only using the internet to book their holidays but also to research and gain knowledge of the destinations they wanted to go to. The search engines were flooded with searches over cheap flights, accommodation and new destinations (as shown in the rankings). From the bar chart below it shows that web-search is the preferred method of obtaining travel information with it being preferred nearly twice as much as personal recommendation, the second most preferred method. This is then followed by TV programmes, but the travel agents became the fourth option of consumers to collect travel information. Web-searches are high due to people liking to make their own decisions at their own pace and this can’t be done in travel agents where they are pushed, poked and pressured. This is unpleasant for the consumer and has changed the trend in which consumers went to travel agents for advice, whereas now they would rather use the internet. As this pie chart to the left shows the internet has had a huge impact on the booking of a holiday, with 79% of all booked holidays using the internet in the process. Also, the internet has seen a large increase in the number of â€Å"last minute† business as many tourists feel it is better-placed and they can search for the best priced, most suitable holidays or excursions. Furthermore, since the growth of the internet, online advertising has been used as a huge marketing tool, where holiday and travel providers can target large quantities of potential customers and keep advertising costs low. This has also been used to great effect as they appear to be a successful method and an efficient way of gaining business from the wallet-conscious consumers, whereas high street advertising receives less notice. Moreover, the internet has caused the high street travel agencies to close, therefore creating job losses within the businesses. This is mainly due to the fact that more people are booking direct with the holiday providers, thus cutting out the middle man and saving money by doing the research and booking themselves. This is usually done by using the internet or telephone booking where the overhead costs are much lower as an outlet has to be staffed and incur running costs such as electricity bills and also because of the larger volumes of people that are able to access the service. A recent example of this is was in 2001, when Airtours, the UK’s largest tour operator had to cut one-in-seven of its high street branches in an effort to return to profitability. According to finance director David Jardine, around 120 shops going under the name â€Å"Going Places† were closed as the business stated that they were finding there was an â€Å"increasing trend in customers wishing to book direct†. On the other hand, online companies such as Expedia. com have seen their profits on the rise over the past few years as would be expected, although they had not anticipated such a large growth. For the last three months of 2001, Expedia saw its net income surge to $19m according to BBC News, compared with a loss of $2. 6m in the same quarter of 2000 and also the firms evenues were in excess of $80 million for 2001, over double that for 2000, showing how quickly it has established itself as an efficient internet booking service. So in conclusion online booking for travel has dramatically changed tourism in the world. It has provided a less time consuming, cost effective and an overall efficient/productive method in organising tourism which has seen triggered a rapid rise in sales. Airlines are now recovering after effects that were unforeseen. BAA Limited, formerly the British Airport Association said seven UK Airports handled a total of 11. m passengers in August 2006 making it a record summer with the highest number of passengers ever recorded over a two month period. BAA also revealed here was a 6. 8% increase in passenger traffic for the 12 months to August 31st 2006. Bigger discounts and better security could tempt more people to book holidays online, a LogicaCMG survey (http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/technology/3939035. stm) found. However, the future of online booking although seen as prosperous can also turn, but due to the recovery in airline business they are starting to hit back. Prices are starting to rise and now you must book early to get the best price. The same survey revealed that online discounts were still not high enough to tempt potential customers onto travel websites and that the process was still too complicated for some consumers. A serious issue with online booking is the fear of fraud. Consumers are not convinced that any personal and financial information they hand over would be kept secure by online travel shops and this is slowing the potential growth that could occur otherwise. The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) sees the online travel market having a long way to go before it replaces high street travel agents. ABTA estimates that by the end of 2007 online travel will be 17% of the UK’s ? 28bn travel market but this growth will only occur if trends continue as it relies on steadily growing numbers of people happy to book holidays online and as well as improvements in technology and the creation of better websites by travel firms. Issues over security, faults and complications need to be solved if this method of booking is to prosper.

Summary and Response to “A Story of an Hour”

Summary and Response The desire of freedom definitely comes with an immense price. In â€Å"The Story of an Hour,† Kate Chopin describes her main character, Louise Mallard, as a freedom seeking housewife, trapped in an unwanted marriage with her husband Brently Mallard. She soon after gets granted the gift of freedom when she finds out her husband had been in a train accident, which ironically Kate Chopin’s father died of the same tragic death. With Kate Chopin’s unique writing style, she has been a major influence in literature for decades.According to Feminist Writers, â€Å"she opened her 19th-century female readers’ eyes to a familiar world [they] had never know. † Authors S. Selina Jamil and Daniel P. Deneau both analyzed the story and gave their opinions on how the emotions of Louise affected internally and externally. With two different viewpoints on the short story, both authors provide valid points when scrutinizing the direct variation whe n it came to Louise’s motives. When reading â€Å"The Story of an Hour,† one is drawn into the troubling tale of Louise Ballard and how she reacts to her trying times as a thought to be widow.The ending throws the reader for a loop and is completely unexpected, but that’s Kate Chopin’s writing style. The story is unpredictable, enjoyable, and controversial, and definitely leaves the reader satisfied. S. Selina Jamil responds to the piece of work, â€Å"The Story of an Hour,† completely different than Daniel P. Deneau. Deneau describes the story as a sensual experiences internally occurring within Louise in his critical essay called â€Å"Chopin’s The Story of an Hour. † Deneau places much emphasis on the passage that concludes that Louise has become â€Å"free† (Chopin 247).Then he concludes that she forms a sexual unity with the supernatural. â€Å"With no male aggressor-partner named in the text, only a â€Å"something,â₠¬  readers naturally will speculate. For me, two possibilities exist—both supernatural†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Deneau). From then on Daniel P. Deneau infers that when Chopin uses phrases like â€Å"Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body† (Chopin 247), â€Å"slightly parted lips†, and â€Å"keen and bright eyes†(Chopin 247) that she was hinting at a sexual innuendo.Seeing that Chopin does have a background that consists of stories that consist of controversial sexual topics, I can see how someone would mistakenly think â€Å"The Story of an Hour† would be yet another provocative piece. Contemporary Authors Online said that â€Å"She is best known for her 1899 novel, The Awakening, a once-scandalous account of one woman’s growing sexuality in the American South during the Victorian Era. † Kate Chopin mainly wrote about compelling stories, with a dose of sexual controversy.Yes, what Louise went thr ough was a life altering, pivotal time, but a sexual experience seems far-fetched. She begins mourning over her deceased husband, but soon after she begins to grasp that she is no longer oppressed by the male dominant figure in her life. Deneau states that â€Å"In a limited space, and without the assistance of a psychological vocabulary, Chopin may have been forced to rely on the indefinite, the unidentified, which, as best we can judge, is some powerful force, something supernatural, something beyond the realm of mundane experience or the rule of logic. I oppose his views on the â€Å"supernatural† force compelling Louise to prosper in her feelings and begin to move forward in her life. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, the â€Å"supernatural† is relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially: of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil. All Louise did was begin to pay attention and react joy ously to the new season that had begun to blossom. The views of S. Selina Jamil are polar opposite.Providing valid structure and content, Jamil begins her critical essay â€Å"Emotion in The Story of an Hour,† with strong overview of the emotions that Louise seems to be going through. A weak mind and meek hearted woman by the name Louise Mallard begins to fall prey of society’s cookie cutter views on how men and woman are treated. In her feminist studies, Norma Basch clearly concludes that women have the right to prosper just as men do, but during the time in which the short story occurred; woman became more complacent in their everyday roles as just a housewife.Norma describes a marriage that is male dominant is somewhat a â€Å"form of slavery† (Basch 355). Trapped and suffocating in her daily routines as a silenced housewife, Louise receives the news about her husband. Emotions overwhelmed the blushing bride, and she soon found herself to be a widow. †U ntil her moment of illumination, Mrs. Mallard’s emotions have been stifled and suppressed to fit into the mold of hollow social conventions,† say Jamil in her critical essay.Emotional pain hits Louise and all she could do is bask in her sorrow, but soon enough an overwhelming feeling of â€Å"freedom† washes over her as the new life of the old Louise Mallard was beginning to unravel. Feminist Writers states that in The Awakening â€Å"Edna commits suicide by walking out, naked, into the ocean†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and then proceeds to say that â€Å"The act of suicide is a positive embracing of freedom, and act of re-birth. Kate Chopin shows in her writings that empowerment of being free is so strong that it can lead to death. In the hour that Louise sits and collects her thoughts she becomes more self-aware than many do in a lifetime. Completely agreeing with Jamil, she states that â€Å"For one hour of emotion, Louise does glimpse meaning and fulfillment. † Th e irony of the story is that her success of actually becoming a free woman was not long lived but cut short all because of heart trouble. The growth of emotional awareness informs mechanisms that that underwrite the emergence of self-identity and social competence,† (Dolan 1194) Dolan describes that once someone becomes confident in their self-awareness that they will have reached the peak of satisfaction. What does it actually mean to be happy? Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary state that it can be defined as enjoying or characterized by well-being and contentment. Clearly Mrs. Mallard got her dying wish of happiness and even though it was short lived, the feeling to her could last a lifetime.Between â€Å"Emotions in The Story of an Hour† and â€Å"Chopin’s The Story of an Hour,† S. Selina Jamil was the powerhouse when it came to providing and incorporating importance of the entire story, instead of just a section Daniel P. Deneau did. Jamil bro ke down â€Å"The Story of an Hour† into the perfect guideline in following how Mrs. Mallard emotions played out throughout the hour she experienced a mix of emotions. Jamil gave more examples that used the whole story instead of just a cluster of the short story, making it harder to follow.The context of â€Å"Chopin’s the Story of an Hour,† by Daniel P. Deneau was completely off set compared to S. Selina Jamil. All in all each essay from both of the authors were good; one surpassed the other by using certain specifics. Mixing both emotions and surrounding features, S. Selina Jamil got the upper advantage of the group because of how much information she covered, and how she described Mrs. Mallard’s ever changing emotions. Works Cited Basch, Norma. â€Å"Invisible Women: The Legal Fiction of Martial Unity in Nineteenth-Century America. † Feminist Studies 5. (1979): 346-66. JSTOR. Web. 15 March 2012. Chopin, Kate. â€Å"The Story of an Hour†. Literature and the Writing Process. Ed Elizabeth McMahan et al. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2011. 246-247. Print. Deneau, Daniel P. â€Å"Chopin’s The Story of an Hour. † The Explicator 61. 4 (2003): 210+. Academic OneFile. Web. 14 March 2012. Dolan, R. J. â€Å"Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior. † Science 298. 5596 (2002): 1191-94. JSTOR. Web. 15 March 2012 Jamil, S. Selina. â€Å"Emotions in The Story of an Hour. † The Explicator 67. 3(2009): 215+. Academic OneFile. Web. 14 March 2012.

Strategy Evaluation for the Lloyd bank organisation Assignment

Strategy Evaluation for the Lloyd bank organisation - Assignment Example Lloyds heavily relies on its brand to achieve success, but also combines this with an excellent grasp of consumer needs (Bicker 2013: 51). As such, the company has formulated corporate objectives that are aimed at providing relevant, customised, and superior services to consumers in all categories. Over the years, the bank has realised that although its brand is strong enough to fuel its success, that alone is not enough to ensure sustainable growth in a rapidly developing banking sector. In lieu of this, the company has developed and implemented a customer satisfaction blueprint that is aimed at providing the best banking services to current and potential customers (Wilson 2013: 36). This blueprint is guided by efficiency, good ambience, excellent customer support, cordial customer relations, and a consumer engagement mechanism that is based on feedback and interaction. Lloyds’ customer satisfaction strategy has been instrumental in its current success, particularly due to th e bank’s ability to develop new, innovative services that improve service delivery. As the banking sector becomes more competitive, financial institutions realise that their service portfolios are becoming increasingly similar. This has prompted a shift to excellence in service, something that Lloyds has embraced as part of its corporate strategy. The UK and global banking sectors are experiencing numerous changes that are driven by innovation and technology. The rise in mobile and online banking is an example of a shift in focus that is driving growth in the sector. However, it is also becoming obvious that banks have fundamentally similar offerings and procedures. This also applies to the technological and innovation aspects of banking, which are now common in almost all banks (Casson & Rose 2014:35). For example, almost all banks in the United Kingdom have mobile and online banking services

Trademark Act Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Trademark Act - Essay Example An example of a trademark is the Nike tick, which allows the consumer know they are buying Nike products; whilst if one buys a similar product with a picture of a puma on then the individual knows that it is a Puma product. Therefore if another producer started to sell products that had a Nike tick on then it would be a breach of the TA and this producer would be liable for this breach. The concept of trademark law is straightforward when one is dealing with two autonomous producers; however is the case of there being a breach of trademark protections in the case of parallel importing The first question to ask is what is parallel importing Parallel importing is the situation when goods originate from the same producer or set of manufacturing licensees but are sold and produced in different countries. This may lead to a disparity in price, because in say Eastern European Countries the production and sale is a lot cheaper than that of the producer's counterpart in Western Europe. Therefore one has to consider whether the domestic producer can use trademark protections to stop middlemen from buying products from the cheaper nations and import them to sell in competition against the more expensive domestic producer1. Therefore can Trademark law as Cornish argues can be used to protect trademarks in parallel exportation issues; however with much difficulty in an open market: Any intellectual property right may be used at the frontier of the higher-priced country to close off the entry of goods bought by a parallel importer in the lower-priced country, if those rights extend to the distributor's importation and are not regarded as ""exhausted" by the initial marketing abroad, i.e. by so-called ""international exhaustion". Whether the particular intellectual property law, or some other dictate of commercial policy (such as free movement of goods within the E.U.), calls for international exhaustion is a matter which legislative bodies everywhere find extraordinarily difficult to answer, and it is more often left to courts to arrive at a solution.2 Therefore introducing the question whether allowing their to be importation by a middle man who was correctly sold a product, in a country where a product has a cheaper price that that of the destination country, is in fact a breach of trademark law. This is a very difficult point of law because one could argue that yes it is because it is devaluing the product and its reputation in the country of destination, because the market values is devalued by the importation of a cheaper version of the product.3 Yet, on the other hand, on has to consider whether in fact there is a case of a trademark breach because the sale of the product was correctly done through a legitimate manufacturer of the product. If the product was bought legitimately, i.e. the product was made by an approved plant or licensee, then how could it be a breach of trademark law The following section will consider the case law in this area. In the early case of Colgate Palmolive Ltd v Markwell Finance Ltd [1989] RPC 497 it was successfully proven that parallel imports are in fact a breach of trademark law, because it devalues the product, which breaches trademark law. The way that this case argued that parallel imp

Analysis of an International Organization Research Paper

Analysis of an International Organization - Research Paper Example For airlines, it is necessary to have a strong team of professional enthusiastic individuals to make the business a success. Like every business in the service sector, airlines too require their workforce to be internally satisfied so that this behavior of theirs is reflected in their behavior with the customers. If one looks up ‘HR challenges faced by United Airlines’ online, every search engine gives an array of links that discuss the failing, almost embarrassing, situation of the airlines. Since its merger, it has faced a number of problems that range from operational inefficiency to lack of HR training. In the world of today, where options at hand are plenty and the organizations need to stand out through effective strategies and customer orientation, this is not a good business scenario. For every service business, the customer touch point is an essential deal maker or breaker. The moment a customer interacts with an employee representing the service organization, he gets a taste of the organizational culture and sets a service expectation standard. Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of such organizations. The major HR problems faced by United Airlines are as follows: -Lack of a strong organizational culture after the merger: After United Airlines made the acquisition of Continental Airlines, there was a lack of effort on the management’s side to unify the workforce so that there is a uniform sense of dedication towards the ‘United’ brand (Busmanagement.com). Even though efforts were made to gather the best talents from both the sides of the merger, the company still faces issues with bringing all its employees to term with their merger. -Lack of employee training programs: the employees are not trained to be customer oriented which reflects in their service levels. Their focus is on getting their work done and not making sure that the customers are made to feel genuinely valued and cared for. This is

Logistics Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Logistics Management - Essay Example Alcoa serves the aerospace, automotive, packaging, building and construction, commercial transportation, and industrial markets, bringing design, engineering, production, and other capabilities of Alcoa's businesses as a single solution to customers. The company has 116,000 employees in 44 countries. In 2006 it was 10 times safer to work for Alcoa than it was in 1991. Alcoa makes a very sustainable product: almost 70% of the aluminum ever produced is still in use, equal to 480 million metric tons (529 million tons) of a total 690 million metric tons (761 million tons) manufactured since 1886. Every day, worldwide, Alcoa: A logistics manager is a person who manages the processes involved in a supply chain and is responsible for it. He is in relation to many work groups for example retailers, customers and manufactures. All the work is expected from a logistics manager is to order all the production processes so that customer finally gain enough satisfaction with the product or service purchased. The role of a distribution manager coordinated with logistics management skills is controlling the stock and market, control on warehousing and transportation affairs and having control on the structures and making sure that everything is in place and works in order. One important key that plays a vital role in logistics management is Information Technology. Logistics managers make the most of Information Technology to forecast too complicated behaviours of system as complex as stocks or project completion times. They also take the advantage of information industry in predicting the costs and evaluation or pr ocesses inside the structure of large companies.3 A person in this position may be assigned to any of the following tasks according to the need of the company which is hiring a Distribution/Logistics Manager. Here are some of the roles of a Distribution/Logistics Manager: "monitoring the quality, cost and efficiency of the movement and storage of goods; coordinating and controlling the order cycle and associated information systems; analyzing data to monitor performance and plan improvements; allocating and managing staff resources according to changing needs; liaising and negotiating with customers and suppliers; Developing business by gaining new contracts, analyzing logistical problems and producing new solutions. When managing warehouse or transport staff, the role may also include: implementing health and safety procedures; managing staff training issues; motivating other members of the team; project

Sears Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Sears - Case Study Example The accusations brought against the company were considered to be quite grave and fatal owing to its impact on the reputation and business of the company. The request for reviving the case of Francis Latanowich prompted a review of the case by Judge Carol Kenner which revealed few facts that proved to act against the actions of the company. It was found from the further evaluation that the company mailed the security guard an offer according to which a payment of $28 each month made by the individual would prevent the company from reclaiming the goods that were purchased by Francis Latanowich before turning bankrupt. The act of influencing the debtors to enter into such agreements was known as reaffirmations and is considered to be lawful. Such kinds of agreements are considered to be quite common in the business of retail credit, however, it is perceived to be an unethical behavior by numerous judges. In addition to this, it was made mandatory for credit companies to file those reaf firmations with their respective courts for the reason of evaluating the potency of the debtor by the judge with regard to the fresh payment. The affirmation of Francis Latanowich was not found to be filed by the court and an explanation for such a conduct was demanded from the company by Judge Kenner. This proved to be the other breach that was made by the company. The company was also found to pay no heed to the law in quite a few similar cases that were considered to be illegal. Such grave accusations against the company and the violations of law made by the company called for huge losses as well as adverse reputation for it which would hamper its business operations in the future. The company was already stated to be suffering from huge losses owing to the increasing cases of personal bankruptcies that occurred from 1994 to 1998. In accumulation of the already existing losses, the fresh losses or charges incurred by the company due to violations and unethical practices would pro ve devastating for the survival of the company (Eugene D. Fanning Center For Business Communication, 2010). Recommendations The company should send out a letter of apology to its existing customers through electronic mails as well as through print media entailing newspapers. The company should also make an apology to the public and accept its responsibility regarding the unfortunate event through a press conference. It is

Computer Networks Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

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Developing a Philosophy, Goals, and Objectives Term Paper

Developing a Philosophy, Goals, and Objectives - Term Paper Example tatement and it points out the principles and attitudes that guide decision making, then the health centers philosophy should read: We recognize the needs of our poor and diverse community and offer care reverential of our clients traditions, culture, economic status, and religious conviction. According to Kenny (2012, p. 43), "In practice, organizational objectives are what the organization wants from its key stakeholders". The major stakeholders of Mountain View Health Center include patients, the community, and community based organizations (Laureate Education, 2013b). In this respect, the objective should read: To create a health care delivery system that encourages and supports high quality and affordable care to the community and migrant workers. On the basis of the needs of the community and migrant workers, the goal should read: To recognize electronic medical records as a fundamental factor that could improve health care quality at lower costs. In terms of insights, I have learnt that achieving projected outcomes is dependent on the way goals and objectives are formulated and implemented. This is due to the fact philosophy, goals, and objectives of an organization provides direction (Lorenzi, 2011). In other words, the organization is able to identify areas to direct resources as well as attention in order to achieve the intended results. In a nutshell, organizational philosophies, goals, and objectives guides the decision making process as it helps the organization identify where to direct

The Us-Versus-Them Mentality In 2008’s Presidential Campaign Essay Example for Free

The Us-Versus-Them Mentality In 2008’s Presidential Campaign Essay The graphic novel, Maus, by Art Spiegelman, tells the story of a Polish Jew’s memories of his experience during the Holocaust. Drawn as mice, the Jews have faced a variety of psychological warfare, including xenophobia, scapegoating, dehumanization, and us-vs. -them dichotomy where the terrible events of the Holocaust were justified. The Holocaust was one of the most terrible events in human history, and decades later, scholars from many branches of academia still strive to understand such a dark historical event. Unfortunately, aspects leading up to the Holocaust still exist in the world today. While few current issues compare in magnitude to that of the Holocaust, such activities such as xenophobia, scapegoating, dehumanization, and divisive, dichotomous thought pervade populations everywhere. Although such negative sentiments always threaten negative results, in the US in the year 2008, one major historical movement and event occurred that promises a possible relief from such a divisive past. This historic movement and event is Barack Obama’s campaign, in which an African American ran for President of the United States and was the victor, becoming the first ever African American president of the country. But the campaign was not free of strife. This paper argues that while dichotomous, â€Å"us vs. them† elements in the year 2008’s presidential campaign were not systematically acted out as they were in the Holocaust, there existed similar instances of that mentality during the campaign timeframe. In the past decade, partisanship has set two major groups of Americans at odds with each other in the form of Democrat vs. Republicans. However, this past presidential campaign, or even in the past decade, the fever pitch of â€Å"us vs. them† has not escaped many people, and â€Å"Democrat† or â€Å"Republican† began to be expressed in layers of differences. Chuck Raasch of USAToday reports that: Americans fought a terrible civil war on all three fronts. A century later, Northerners saw Southerners as oppressors during struggles over civil rights, and Southerners viewed Northerners as meddlers. Even the Inside the Beltway label continues a deeply rooted, us-versus-them mentality of the nations capital. Despite the elevation of a black man and a white woman to the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets, respectively, the election of 2008 has played often to those divides. In her article Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post describes the crowd’s response, [who were] â€Å"waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, Sit down, boy (p. A03). † While divisive expressions such as these seem far away from the Holocaust, one must consider Peter Suedfeld’s words regarding the genesis of anti-Semitism in the time before the Holocaust: Sherif et al. (1961/1988) demonstrated how leaders, by framing situations in terms of intergroup competition, can produce hostility and aggressive behaviour between component groups. We can see the workings of an ingrained us-vs-them mentality in experimental minimal groups (Tajfel et al. , 1971), which are composed in a completely arbitrary way and whose members never even meet each other (3). This explanation could very well describe the actions of leaders in political parties as well as group behaviors in response to leaders. Sarah Palin could be seen to â€Å"frame situations† such that â€Å"intergroup competition† occurs, as it does in the Republican furor over the Democrate presidential candidate. Partisanship was not the only exhibition of us-versus-them behavior during the past year. Dedication to one’s country came into question in which the concepts of American versus anti-American were introduced. According to Bob Lonsberry in his article â€Å"What’s Wrong With a Marxist? †, a person who is American is one who sees two irreconcilable extremes between Karl Marx and John Locke, and if a person takes into regard the writings of Karl Marx, then he or she is â€Å"anti-American. † If an American is to be truly American, they must adopt similar ways of thinking in which Marxism, communist, and other similar ontological principles must be absolutely shunned because they repudiate everything America stands for. These sentiments before the Holocaust were similar. In place of anti-Americans were the Jews. Andre Minaeu writes: To the Nazis, all things seriously afflicting Germany and the Aryan race were ultimately Jewish or Jewish-inspired. In this sense, the Jewish people were the quintessential enemy of Nazi totalitarianism. The latter elevated Jewry, so to speak, to the rank of an evil ontological principle against which struggle was to be universal (17). In this sense, anti-Americans are philosophically against everything Americans stand for and should be beaten politically, while Jews represented everything the Nazis stood for, which caused them to become an evil philosophical principle. No other dichotomy is more apparent in both Holocaust and the 2008 presidential campaign than ethnicity. The question of race—and one’s ethnicity—became a large factor due to the mixed-race heritage of Barack Obama. Historically, part of Obama’s ethnicity had been under the awful yoke of slavery and then the struggle of civil rights. One can see this in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr: I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama†¦ little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers (60). The question of Jewsishness—both an ethnicity as well as a belief system—was subject of life and death for six million people during World War II. Historically, Jews have also been slaves, and their ethnicity and religion have played a large role in their struggles in past centuries. Paul Johnson explains this in his book The History of the Jews by quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an ex-prisoner of the Nazis: We have learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of those who are excluded, under suspicion, ill-treated, powerless, oppressed, and scorned, in short those who suffer (2). It is not a subtle expression in either of these two statements that the writers and speakers felt that their world was divided in groups, and they were the â€Å"them† in the phrase â€Å"us-versus-them. † While the us-versus-them mentality might seem as if it would haunt human interaction for all time, there have always been historical figures who have sought to overcome the divisiveness by seeking common ground. Perhaps the most famous of those is Abraham Lincoln, who spoke these words: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved I do not expect the house to fall but I do expect it will cease to be divided (Lincoln). Martin Luther King, Jr. is another figure who sought to overcome injustice and inequality through nonviolent means. Current scholars are improving and applying techniques for nonviolent conflict resolution (Suedfeld 2006, p. 7). In regards to the Holocaust, there are many studies about the tragedy in many areas of study, from psychology to politics to sociology, as evidenced by the books The Making of the Holocaust: Ideology and Ethics in the Systems Perspective by Andre Mineau and Canadian Psychology addressing Holocaust reverberations fifty years later. Lastly, the end of the 2008 campaign year drew to a close, and Barack Obama has been elected President. While he emerged from one of the two major political parties in the US, his own sentiments in his book The Audacity of Hope strive for a bipartisan rather than a divided approach: Maybe there’s no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport†¦ We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side†¦ But I don’t think so. They are out there†¦ those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way†¦ to make peace with their neighbors, and themselves (pp. 50-51). Violence stemmed from rabid divisiveness is what made the Holocaust so terrible. Therefore, any attempts to heal the us-versus-them mentality would have to be the opposite: peaceful actions that strive to bring humans together. Fortunately, if one could take lessons from Mahatma Ghandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Barack Obama, then the possibility that discordant sentiments in the human populace may never take seed. WORKS CITED Johnson, Paul. A History of the Jews. HarperPerennial (1988). King, Jr. , Martin Luther. â€Å"The Dream†. Speech. Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC. 28 August 1963. Lincoln, Abraham. House Divided Speech. Speech. Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858. Milbank, Dana. â€Å"Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame. † Washington Post. October 7, 2008: A03. Minaeu, Andre. The Making of the Holocaust: Ideology and Ethics in the Systems Perspective. Amsterdam; Atlanta, Georgea: Rodopi, 1999.

Concepts of Retribution and Revenge

Concepts of Retribution and Revenge Question Retribution and revenge are, and must be, strictly distinguished one from the other. Discuss Introduction It is not necessarily ideal to begin a discussion paper with a direct challenge to the veracity of the statement under review, but that is exactly what is demanded here. The first step in this analysis is easy to take: Retribution: noun recompense, usually for evil; vengeance.[1] Revenge: noun 1. (act of) retaliation 2. desire for this. verb ((-ging) 1. Avenge 2. revenge oneself or in passive; often + on, upon) inflict retaliation.[2] The statement for discussion concretes itself in absolute terms, but that, it is submitted, is no more than a faà §ade. It is confidently submitted that retribution and revenge are far from â€Å"strictly distinguished one from the other† in 21st century Britain. The average man or woman on the street on whose behalf the law is maintained and enforced would struggle to put clear blue sky between the two concepts, even in the abstract.[3] Once a factual scenario is added to the mix for context, once flesh and blood and sentiment are brought into the equation, the edges of these respective notions blur yet further. Indeed, the words retribution and revenge are so closely associated in the mind of the ordinary man that they are practically interchangeable. In the glossary to Oxford University Press’s Criminology textbook[4], retribution is defined as: the act of taking revenge upon a criminal perpetrator. Given the mutuality of this definition it would seem difficult to divide the two concepts quite as sharply as the statement under review suggests. From a cynical perspective, it could be argued that retribution is merely revenge with slightly better P.R. In the auspicious words of Sir Francis Bacon in Of Revenge[5] the issues seem to be distinguished by the notion that, while revenge is essentially a private affair, retribution has more public, and perhaps publicly acceptable, application and connotations. Whereas retribution may be seen to exercise a positive social function, revenge is forbidden fruit a sin perhaps if not, a luxury dressed in vice. ‘Revenge is a kind of wild justice which, the more mans nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office†¦ Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a princes part to pardon. And Salomon, I am sure, saith, It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh. This is more generous, for the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt as in making the party repent. But base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.’[6] Contextual Analysis It is submitted therefore, that retribution and revenge are in fact closely related concepts. Together they probably comprise the most basic, most deeply engrained and most pervasive elements of human social justice reactions and drivers. That said however, at least one mode of distinction should be clear in the mind. While academic comment on revenge and retribution has in the past tended to revolve around the issue of criminal justice,[7] it is a trite observation that retribution is of prime significance in steering the justification and rationale of other legal matters. For example, beyond the criminal arena, discrimination, medical negligence and malpractice, and a veritable constellation of other species of civil litigation can hinge around and be fostered by a base desire for retribution and retributive justice.[8] Retributive motivation can also burn at the heart of intractable personal, family or business disputes. Retribution is a fascinating psychological and social phenomenon. It can be analysed from a variety of legal, philosophical and other social science perspectives. Discussion of the topic should address the full range of psychological, societal and sociological functions that punishment serves, embracing the cognitive, behavioural and emotional dynamics of retribution in context.[9] Almost all of the world’s cultures operate an organised system of social regulation and conflict resolution. Among them, legal systems predominate as the most popular and widespread. Law is retribution and conflict resolution by public administration under the unchallengeable authority of the state. Retributive justice is that which is state sponsored.[10] It is possible to distinguish the concept from other forms of retribution and conflict resolution on several grounds. First, law can be said to be retribution or conflict resolution that is managed by a centralised authority or federal structure. Under this model, retribution for wrongdoing and conflict resolution should not be in jeopardy of escalation into a deleterious cycle of mutual and personal revenge. There is of course always the danger of complimentary retribution: if I penalise you for hitting me, youll penalise me for punishing you theoretically an unending cycle of reciprocal and ultimately destructive violence. A legal system, under the administration of a central body, removes responsibility for retribution from the hands of individuals and puts it at the discretion of the state. Given that it is vast, impersonal and all-powerful, it is unlikely that those convicted and punished would attempt to revenge themselves in any direct or specific fashion against the state. The seductive revenge element of the law is manifest in notorious crimes including for example the killing of Polly Klaas in California and the popular revulsion and controversy inspired as a consequence.[11] That case can be compared with the United Kingdom public reaction to the sentencing of the Jamie Bulger killers, themselves children.[12] One essential point of observation is that the respective families of the victims, no matter what punishment they aspired to visit on the killers, are not the ones who decide on the penalty and they are not the ones who administer the punishment. Because most law is written and long established it can be argued that it assumes an independent and distinguished persona beyond the emanation of the state that is charged with its administration. This matrix conspires to derive a collective sociological fiction that it is the inalienable Law that governs those who implement the law, and that it is somehow the law that exacts retribution, not individual human beings or the servants of the state. This neat trick ensures that the law stands above and apart from the real world as something conceptually flawless in essence if not reality, something truly independent of human frailty, vicissitudes, fallibility and instability.[13] There is a simple and thus cogent argument that Law is, at its beating heart, no more than a mechanism for revenge. This should not come as a surprise. It is submitted that the fundamental response, the base socio-cultural mechanism for addressing unacceptable activity and behaviour, is to exact revenge. Incompatible activities that fell outwith the sphere of revenge were not initially embraced within the world’s legal systems. Generally speaking it was only later hundreds of years later in many cases that retribution-neutral disputes were encompassed within legal regimes.[14] The earliest-dated code of laws available for scrutiny is the Code of Hammurabi,[15] which sees it origins around 1780 BC. Significantly, the Babylonian King’s rules were obsessed with mechanisms for retribution. This early legal system assumes the form of a lex talionis the law of retaliation providing for exact retribution. The biblical mantra is: â€Å"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an arm for an arm, a life for a life.†[16] Mankind’s very earliest systems of law were almost exclusively species of lex talionis. As can be seen from the aforementioned quote, in the tone of Hebrew Scripture the lex talionis is a law of equal and direct retribution. Revenge, in this context is arguably surplus to requirements. King Hammurabis legal code and the nascent Syro-Roman and Mahommedan systems that followed,[17] almost wholly founded on the explicit principle of equal and direct retribution. In so doing it reveals the origins of law and justice per se in the gore of retributive violence. Concluding Comments In light of the fact that something similar to the lex talionis is typically the foundation stone of every legal system, it is argued that we can deduce that the basic functions of law are those of revenge and retribution†¦ and in no particular order. However, unlike systems of direct retribution (which are in one sense the fast food of societal sin), legal systems are implemented and enforced by the state and its human embodiment in dislocated fashion. The individuals responsible are normally insulated from the threat of reciprocal revenge in return. While revenge and retribution may jeopardise less well regulated societies as protagonists attempt to inflict reciprocal revenge on one another, retribution as it is embodied in established legal orders and controlled by the state entity in theory strives to prevent a deleterious circle of mutual revenge from undermining the fabrics and glues of society. In a perfect world the concepts of revenge and retribution would indeed be distinguished uniquely and precisely, one from the other. Alas, this is far from a perfect world and the legal matrix in which these terms sit is an organic hotch-potch of socio-political compromise. Thus, both in respect of their common and legal meanings, it is likely these concepts will be employed interchangeably by journalists, judges and the world at large. In closing, it is pertinent to note that, with a few notable exceptions, most countries, including the U.K., have abolished the death sentence. International war crime tribunals now award only life sentences for the most appalling crimes against humanity. It is submitted that this global shift in emphasis away from revenge-based sanctions has been driven by the emerging philosophy among criminologists that punishment in the form of revenge and retribution sits incongruously in a modern civilised society.[18] The Bible has a great deal to say on the subject of revenge and retribution. Much of the sentiment expressed therein has coloured the legal systems of the Christian and Western worlds for hundreds of years, in the interpretation and application. It is a matter of regret and stifled consternation that even in that highest of resources contradiction, ambiguity and confusion is rife. Two quotes end this commentary, leaving objectivity in the eye, and at the disposal, of the reader. If the person strikes another and kills him, he must be put to death. Whoever strikes an animal and kills it is to make restitution, life for life. If anyone injures and disfigures a fellow countryman it must be done to him as he has done. Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Book of Leviticus, Chapter 24:17-20 You have heard that it was said, `Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Matthew, Chapter 5:38-41 END WORD COUNT 2122 (exclusive of footnotes) This is the sole intellectual and creative work of the author. Bibliography English Legal System, Elliot, C. and Quinn, F., 3rd edition, Longman (2000) Criminology, Hale et al., Oxford University Press, (2005). Smith and Keenan’s English Law, Keenan, D., 13th edition, Pitman Publishing, (2001) Sir Francis Bacon: The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, Kiernan M, (editor), Oxford University Press, (2000). Clint Eastwood and Equity: The virtues of revenge and the Shortcomings of Law in Popular Culture, Miller, W. I., Law in the Domains of Culture, University of Michigan Press, (1998). Perceptions of Neighborhood Safety and Support for the Reintroduction of Capital Punishment, Keil T.J., et al, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 43, No. 4, 514-534 (1999) The Practice of Punishment: Towards a Theory of Restorative Justice, Cragg W, Routledge, New York (1992). Restorative Justice and Civil Society, Braithwaite J, and Strang H, (editors), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (2001). You can kill a burglar if you have to, but not if you want to, Gibb F, The Times, February 2 2005. Babylonian Law The Code of Hammurabi, Johns CHW, Encyclopaedia Britannica, (11th ed). Restorative Justice: An Overview. Home Office, United Kingdom. Available at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/occ-resjus.pdf Restorative Justice: When Justice and Healing Go Together, Zehr H, http://ccrweb.ccr.uct.ac.za/archive/two/6_34/p20_restorative.html Empowerment and Retribution in Criminal and Restorative Justice, Barton C, Victim Offender Mediation Program. (1999): http://www.voma.org/docs/barton_empre.pdf 1 Footnotes [1] The Oxford Paperback Dictionary and Thesaurus, Oxford University Press (1997) [2] Ibid. [3] See, inter alia, Perceptions of Neighborhood Safety and Support for the Reintroduction of Capital Punishment, Keil T.J., et al, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 43, No. 4, 514-534 (1999) at pp.522. [4] Criminology, Hale et al., Oxford University Press, (2005). [5] See, Sir Francis Bacon: The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, Kiernan M, (editor), Oxford University Press, (2000). [6] Ibid, and see http://www.ardue.org.uk/library/book3/revenge.htm. [7] For broad-based comment see Smith and Keenan’s English Law, Keenan, D., 13th edition, Pitman Publishing, (2001), chapter 25. [8] The Practice of Punishment: Towards a Theory of Restorative Justice, Cragg W, Routledge, New York (1992). [9] Clint Eastwood and Equity: The virtues of revenge and the Shortcomings of Law inPopular Culture, Miller, W. I., Law in the Domains of Culture, University of Michigan Press, (1998). [10] See for insightful comment: Restorative Justice and Civil Society, Braithwaite J, and Strang H, (editors), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (2001). [11] See for comment: http://pollyklaas.ga0.org/law/law_enforcement.html [12] Justice? This is insanity : http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/jamie.htm. [13] For supporting analysis and a uniquely positive perspective see Empowerment and Retribution in Criminal and Restorative Justice, Barton C, Victim Offender Mediation Program. (1999): http://www.voma.org/docs/barton_empre.pdf [14] You can kill a burglar if you have to, but not if you want to, Gibb F, The Times, February 2 2005. [15] Ancient History Sourcebook: Code of Hammurabi, c. 1780 BCE: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.html [16] Babylonian Law The Code of Hammurabi, Johns CHW, Encyclopaedia Britannica, (11th ed). [17] See for background: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM. [18] Tamilnation.org, 10 December 1999: http://www.tamilnation.org/intframe/india/rajiv/99unfairtrial.htm.