Benefit of information system for business Essay

After several years of turbulence of internet stocks and the resulting failure of many companies, it is easy to understand the impact of information system in daily life. Yet, everyday we read article about IT technology helping the growth of the business. They are many advantages that most people agreed: they create value largely or exclusively through the gathering, synthesizing and distribution of information, they formulate strategy in ways that make management of enterprise and they use technology-mediated channels which are subject to measurement and tracking in unprecedented and granular ways. With those advantages, the company can gain a better position in the furious competition. Among the main advantages of the information system been used in the business are its ability to facilitate business activities with huge amount of information and organized resource and the ease of transaction in terms of speed and cost. In this report which is presented to Mr. Oracle, the manager of Basket Company, I am going to exam the three vital roles that information system can benefit for the business: Support of its business processes and operation, Support of decision making by its employees and manager Support of its strategies for competitive advantage In the traditional business environment, business operating is a manual, time-consuming and labor-intensive process involving requests for quotation, purchase order submissions, order approval and confirmation, shipping, invoicing and payment. But with the help of information systems, business can gather information more quickly at a relatively low cost. For example, 1800-flower Company provides a broad range of give products. The company’s information system collects and stores data on birthday and invitations, as well as a record of gifts send to specific recipients. It maintains a customer information file holding all such data which alerts them of  forthcoming events. At the appropriate times the company sends customized message to the customers with suggestion for flowers and presents. The company gains a world-wide reputation. Therefore, good management information systems fast the business operation and use resource more effective. Basket Company also involves similar business actives we discussed above, by equipping the management information system, will greatly support business operation. Now the competition of basket market is very furious, it is not enough to improve only the product, we should impress the customers as a person who cares them more than their selves. To achieve the goal, we have to identify the trend of customer needs. Like large office goods supplier—Staples. The company system maintains lists of previously ordered items. Over time, Staples learned a great deal about its customers’ preferences and use that information to offer new items. We value our employees as they play an important role in company success, but only with the helps of those tools, our employees and managers can easily make the decision on buy from supplier and predicate the profits. Thus, the good management information system plays a more important role in the competition. One of the outcomes of information system is the strategies for competitive advantages. The three basic strategies for competitive advantages are cost leadership, differentiation and focus. Management information system can have a considerable part to play in a competitive strategy, cutting the labor and administration cost during business operation, the business can sell goods or provide services at a price that is lower than the competitors. Surveys and feedback sessions will be conducted from detailed transaction records and various data to access the ongoing project. To sum up, management information system is necessary to meet the extensive and diverse market competition. It supports business operation, support decision making and gain strategies for competitive advantage. If we use information system in our business, the company will have higher chances to success. Leppert, P. A., 1996. Doing Business with new technology. Fremont, California: Jain Publishing. David whiteley 2000 introduction to e-business McGraw-hill international UK

Company Represantative Resume Example Essay

This letter is to express my interest in bringing my expertise as an Educator and Counselor to your institution.   I possess strong communication skills and have a passion promoting a positive school environment. As you can gather from my attached resume, I have contributed to the personal and academic growth of Elementary students while working for the New York Department of Education.   I earned my Masters Degree in English as a Second Language and am currently pursuing my Masters Degree in School Counseling.   I believe in maintaining a professional demeanor and resolving conflicts in a diplomatic and courteous manner.   I am committed to helping students with disciplinary problems through utilizing effective classroom management techniques in cooperation with parents and school administrators. In addition to the skills noted on my attached resume, I can also offer your organization: An ability to analyze a complex problem and implement a practical solution. Superior presentation and interpersonal communication skills with effective writing skills. Self-motivated professional with experience in helping students attain their academic goals. Excellent analytical skills with an ability to develop comprehensive reports. It is my hope that my education and professional experience will convey to you that I have the qualifications to make a valuable contribution as a School Counselor at any institution.   Should you have any questions, I can be reached at the number listed above.

STRATEGIC OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT(EBUs602) ASSIGNMENT Essay - 2

STRATEGIC OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT(EBUs602) ASSIGNMENT - Essay Example Those products are sold under different brand names across the globe. The supply chain managers at P&G discovered a prevalent bullwhip for its several brands especially pampers diapers. Initiation of â€Å"vendor-managed inventory system† for the supply chain of diaper to ensure harmonization of the supply chain (Arai & Kimura, 2005, P.67). This approach resulted to in market share of P&G and a reduction of the Wall-Marts operating cost. P&G should utilize a policy of replenishing the stock of the suppliers more frequently by adopting â€Å"just-in-time† system in order to smooth flow of products and avoid building up excess stock at one point while risking running out of stock at other times (Koch, 2008. P.127). P&G should ensure the prices of the products are stable at all times irrespective of quantity demanded by suppliers in order to ensure that suppliers order the exact products they demand rather than order large quantities to enjoy huge discounts (Bettley, David, & Tarek, 2005, p.173). P&G should allocate products to the suppliers according to previous demands rather instead of basing relying on clients’ demands that could otherwise be based on speculation of price changes or shortage in supply. Cisco is a manufacturer of electronic products. Initially, the company relied on Xilinx Company based at San Jose, California which supplied it with electronic components. However, Xilinx relied on intermediary distributors such as Avnet. At some points, this association resulted to significant variance involving the quantity of the electronic components demanded by Cisco company and the amount produced and distributed by Xilinx through it distributors. These variations forced Cisco make a bargain with Xilinx in order to streamline the supply chain system and harmonize the products demanded with the product supplied. This requirement resulted to change in strategies used by Xilinx and as a result

Choose 1 of 9 religious topics in the details Coursework

Choose 1 of 9 religious topics in the details - Coursework Example Sarah was the official wife who bore Isaac. Isaac was the father of Israelites and Hagar was a servant lady who gave birth to Ishmael, the father of Arabs. The two books also talk about Mary giving birth to Jesus Christ without having consummated with any man. However the biggest difference between the two holy books is on Jesus’ divinity, and on the son Abraham intended to sacrifice. Was it Isaac or Ishmael? Also on the lady who took care of Moses when he was picked up from the river. While the bible states that Jesus was the son of God who descended to earth in order to save mankind from sins, and that Jesus died on the cross and resurrected on the third day, the Quran refutes all these claims. The following is the comparison of the holy bible and the Quran with regard to: Moses, Abraham, Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary. In both the Bible and the Quran, the story of Moses begins by his birth, where by his mother puts him in the river, he is picked up from the river-according to the bible by pharaoh’s daughter and the Quran by pharaoh’s wife while newly born (â€Å"Bible & Koran† Web). The two books also state that when Moses grows up, he kills according to the bible, an Egyptian and the Quran, a man and then flees to Egypt. In both books, God’s voice from a burning bush gives Moses the inspiration to plead with the Pharaoh to let Israelites go to the Promised Land. Furthermore, both books tell of Moses’ hesitation to take on this divine mission until his brother Aaron was called to help him (â€Å"Bible & Koran† Web). In the bible and the Quran, Moses and Aaron goes to preach to pharaoh about releasing the children of Israel. Aft er so much tussling, pharaoh releases them. Furthermore both books state that Moses goes to Israel via red sea. On reaching the red sea, he strikes it with his stick and it separates in to two. Pharaoh meets his death in the red sea while pursuing the

Medieval gargoyles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Medieval gargoyles - Essay Example representing animal faces, or anthropomorphic, i.e. representing human form. The term â€Å"gargoyle† is extensively used with any grotesque carving of buildings of medieval times. They are a fascinating element of medieval architecture and are not only related to medieval churches and cathedrals, but also associated with English gothic castles. Gargoyles are ideal resemblance of great lords, who in order to crush and make natives do what they want, built such intricate fortresses and castles (Stratis Demon). Although the word â€Å"gargoyles† in plumbing sense appear to be followed since Ancient Greek times or even before that but they became popular in medieval times during the Victorian era. During Elizabethan period, channels or troughs used had no carved shapes on them (Stratis Demon). Initially most of the gargoyles used were usually made of wood and were generally undecorated. Along the progress in time, gargoyles were made with stone and lead and were made in the form of carvings of or absurd representations of animals and people. Those carvings were the creation of imaginative and proficient hands, often so ingenious as to carry a little or no resemblance to normal creature. During the first appearance of gargoyles in 1200 century, the people of other faiths were so much influenced by Roman Catholic Church that they converted to Catholic. An argument for attractive looking gargoyles at that time appeared, since most people were not literate at that time and therefore the images of gargoyles were of great importance then. In addition, many non-believers of Christianity were used to with the religious images like of animals or of those that included both humans and animals (e.g. unicorn, horned God). They were greatly encouraged to join the Christianity by putting similar images on churches and cathedrals as they felt more complacent about it. It is important to mention that some other accommodations like gargoyles were made by churches at

Apple should move to a bazaar, or open source, model of development Essay

Apple should move to a bazaar, or open source, model of development similar to Android because this model promotes innovat - Essay Example Prior to the conversion, it was the â€Å"bazaar† system which was commonly adopted by companies all around the world. Raymond (2001) unambiguously specifies regarding the advantages to implement an open source business model towards obtaining greater competitive advantages and scope for continuous development through innovation. One of the most prominent examples to identify the virtues of an â€Å"open source† business model can be regarded with reference to the case of Android software. Notably, it was the open source development model which promoted commercial business of software that further augmented the variables for competition, motivating the major market players to actively participate in product innovation. Hence, from a long term perspective, it becomes apparent that open-source models are likely to be beneficial with regard to industry development and customer satisfaction (Olaleye, â€Å"Open Source Business Model for Mobile Computing: Android Open Sourc e Pt. 1†). However, there are a few companies which yet focus on implementing closed business model emphasizing on strict licensing policies such as Apple Incorporation. Thesis Statement Concentrating on the virtues of an open source business model, this essay will intend to evaluate the appropriateness of adopting an open source business model over a â€Å"bazaar† system to promote product innovation and quality enhancement in case of Apple. Thus, the discussion will attempt to justify whether Apple should move towards adopting an open source model similar to Android. Discussion In the context of present mobile market, Apple Incorporation is often regarded as a leading brand in the IT industry maintaining a particular brand reputation in the minds of the customer. In its business process, Apple had been marketing its software products with copyright licensing which meant that people would have to buy the product code before downloading or installing the software in the ir PC or Mac book. On the other hand, another technology industry giant, Google incorporation has been offering its most demanded software Android, uses an open source model which is based on Linux operating system. In this open source Model, customers are allowed to directly download applications or software in their devices in exchange of minimum or zero monetary value. Certainly, owing to their differing business models, the two software companies have gained dissimilar results in terms of product demand, customer satisfaction and competitive advantages. For instance, customers of Apple products (such as Mac book or iPhone) need to purchase the license before installing the software on their devices in exchange of a specified amount. Even though purchasing license tends to boost customer confidence in terms of quality concerns, it has also been observed to hamper their satisfaction level owing to the complex transaction process and limited choices. On the contrary, the software p ackages of Android is available at a much simpler process along with choices which in turn tends to increase customer satisfaction level; however, it also tends to inhibit customer confidence concerning their quality demanded. Therefore, from a short run perspective, the open-source business model can be termed as advantageous, but from a long-run perspective, t

Managing Organisational Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Managing Organisational Change - Essay Example ge in the organization that there are change management models and dynamics of change theories to serve as guides in the cases of change in the organization. The major cause of the problem in the case study is approach. The approach with which the industrial engineer went about his change is to blame for the problems that were encountered. This argument is made against two of eight dynamics of change lessons suggested by Fullan (1993) and quoted in North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. According to Fullan (1993), â€Å"You cant mandate what matters. The more complex the change, the less you can force it.† In fact, the change desired by the engineer was a very major change that should have gone through a series of step-by-step processes in implementing. The engineer seemed to be in a hurry to make the change and perhaps his glory shine. He was therefore eager to force the change (forgoing how his team leader felt about it). The second point raised by Fullan (1993), which is closely related to the first is that â€Å"individualism and collectivism must have equal power. There are no one-sided solutions to isolation and gro up think.† For this reason, the engineer should have worked more on convincing all stakeholders in the department to fully understand him before implementing the change and in implementing the change he should have factored in the views and ideas of each and every stakeholder to the latter. Looking at the kind of change that the industrial engineer wanted to undertake, it is the kind that can be described as individual change. For this reason, ADKAR model for individual change developed by Prosci is recommended for future changes of that nature. â€Å"Proscis model of individual change is called ADKAR - an acronym for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement† (Prosci, 2010). From the ADKAR model, the industrial engineer should have sensitized an Awareness of the need for change among all stakeholders in the team, sort the

How were European captives treated by Americans Essay

How were European captives treated by Americans - Essay Example Long before the Europeans started the ritual of slavery, Native Americans showed some cases of slavery where captives were enslaved. However, the enslavement practices of Native Americans were quite different from the European practices. The Native Americans did not treat their slaves as inferior creatures. The Native American culture allowed the slaves to acquire freedom through various options. As already mentioned they could either get adopted in the family or else they could free themselves through marriage, in cases of death of their masters or by performing any particular service that provided them freedom from the captor. 2 Not all captives were taken into enslavement; they were also tortured under different conditions. There was also a culture of killing the captives or selling them to the enemies for personal benefits by the Native Americans. A sect of Native Americans had beliefs that captives should be treated according to their bravery and courage in the war. If the capti ve was brave then he earned the respect of the captors. Some captives were sold in exchange for new weapons, food, clothing and other needed items when the Native Americans were in dire need of new weapons and goods at that

Assessment Event Documentation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Assessment Event Documentation - Essay Example The event is titled â€Å"An Investor-Consumers Forum for a Cancer-free Abu Dhabi’’ and will be hosted in Zayeed cricket stadium in Abu Dhabi owing to its large parking area on the west and east side of the stadium and athletic lane. The event is supposed to portray Abu Dhabi especially, western region as an investment hub while increasing awareness about breast cancer by running for cancer awareness. The previous year’s occasion for Abu Dhabi Investor Consumers Forum/Exhibition drew in more than 500 investors both internationally and locally. The event was welcome by the stakeholders and the sponsors which included the Fairmont Hotel, and Abu Dhabi distribution company (ADDC). Marketing of the event was done as an exhibition for entrepreneurial abilities and a forum for networking professionals, businesspersons and consumers alike. The event yielded much income from the purchase of wares by attendees. We therefore extend our special invitation to Baynounah Institute to be exclusive sponsor of this year’s event that will include women marathon to increase cancer awareness. It will represent free investment workshop and women marathon for breast cancer awareness. This will come with additional rights to the sponsors like being included in the advertisements both print, oral and view as the main sponsor. It will also give Baynounah Institute a chance to strategically position its tent and get mentioned in by every usher during the event to any new visitor. We are already working on increasing our social media presence as a way of doing publicity of the event. We have also designed banners bearing this year’s theme together with a portion we are locating to the name of the sponsor. Once we get a confirmation of the sponsorship, we will just place the institute’s name and print them in bulk. The same also applies to the print and television advertisements, which we have set aside

Buddhism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 1

Buddhism - Essay Example This essay examines the main aspects of the South Asian Buddhism and the author reviews the following books, â€Å"The experience of Buddhism,† by John strong and â€Å"The South Asian Buddhism,† by Berkwitz. The work concentrates not only on the logical Buddhism thinking but also the South Asian cultural history. Berkwitz tries to spread some light on the Buddhist restoration in South Asia and the socio-cultural history of South Asian Buddhism of the modern and past. The first chapter re-examines the development of asceticism in prehistoric India and Buddhist monasticism. The third chapter surveys the origins and development of Mahayana Buddhism and commemorates Mahayana legendary and literary accomplishment. A Berkwitz note on the enduring struggle in Buddhist study is to reach a distinct conclusion regarding the origins of Mahayana Buddhism. The fourth chapter looks at the sequential or chronological development of Buddhist reflection and the later integration of Buddhist scholasticism, whereby the heritage of Santideva, DharmakÄ «rti, Buddhaghosa and Vasubandhu, and their relevant works are briefly described. The chapter also describes the development of Buddhist Tantra and VajrayÄ na. In chapter five and six, Berkwitz surveys the recurrent Buddhism developments in South Asia. This review entails Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan Buddhism, as well as the monastic organizations, local Buddhist literatures and ritualism, in those particular countries (Stephen 165).

Macbeth Essay Example for Free

Macbeth Essay The first recurrent image is the dark or darkness. Dark represents evil and hell. All of our fears rise in the dark. We can see that most of the mains scenes happen in a dark place or during the night. In fact, all the murders and treasons are done in darkness as if the dark could cover and hide the horrible deeds. For example, in act I scene V l. 53 to 56, Lady Macbeth says: â€Å"Come thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, Hold! Hold! In this passage, Lady Macbeth is thinking about Duncan’s murder, and she wants to act in darkness so she will not see the murder. In that way darkness blinds out all of the terrible things that could be done. Then, the scene of Macbeth’s vision of the dagger happens in the complete darkness so the vision of his future murder comes to Macbeth only at night when no light can bring him back to goodness. Banquo’s murder also happens in the dark. Such evil deeds could only be done in the dark. Then during Lady Macbeth’s sleep walking, the only source of light comes from the candle that she keeps by her at night. In fact, Lady Macbeth is very afraid of darkness because it makes her remember of all the deeds that happened during the night. (Here, light has a positive reassuring role. ) In this scene, she reveals all the crimes that her husband committed with her support. In conclusion, darkness intensifies the horrible deeds and murders and brings a very fearful ambiance to the play. The second image is the one of the sleep that is kind of related to the one of the dark because dark and sleep comes together. Firstly, we can see that Duncan is killed during his sleep. This fact is even mentioned by Lady Macbeth in act II scene 2 l. 15 to 16: â€Å"Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t. † Then, in the same scene, Macbeth says l. 46 to 47: â€Å"Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep! † Ironically, he’s going to lose his sleep as well as Lady Macbeth who will become a sleep walker. Then, Lady Macbeth relates sleep with death, when she says in act II scene 2 l. 67 to 70: â€Å"The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures: ‘tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted evil. † The second reference to sleep in relation to death is present in act II scene 3 l. 9 to 80: â€Å"Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeilt, And look on death itself! † The third image that appears in the book is the image of the light. Light in opposite of the theme of darkness is representative of purity, God, goodness, heaven etc. Light is for Macbeth a disadvantage because all his actions consist on killing people, committing deeds and crimes and he doesn’t want any light to lighten his awful actions. For example, in act I, he says: â€Å"Stars, hide your fires; Let not loight see my black and deep desires: The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, Which the eye fears, when it done, to see. Here, we understand that his desires are so terrible that he can’t even stand the thin light of the stars that shine on them; he doesn’t even want to look at them himself probably because he feels ashamed. We can also say that through his words, Macbeth constructs a bridge between light and morality. Within the whole drama, the sun seems to shine only twice. First, in the beautiful but ironical passage in which Duncan sees the swallows flirting around the castle of death (it’s Macbeth’s ca stle when he’s going to be murdered). The second time, when at the close of the army (who wants to take revenge) gathers to rid the earth of its shame. Therefore, the reader can conclude that Shakespeare portrays darkness to establish the evil parts of the play, we can say that he employs daylight to define victory or goodness (as it said before) in the play. The fourth and last theme is the animal. We found a lot of comparaison between the characters and the animals in this play, for example: â€Å"Raven himself is hoarse† said by Lady Macbeth in act I scene V. Raven represents death. Looks like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it. † Also said by Lady Macbeth in act I scene V. She says that his husband must look nice and calm on the outside but evil inside. â€Å"We have scorched the snake not killed it. † Said by Macbeth in act III scene II, this quote means that snake represents everything that prevents Macbeth from enjoying his kingship. â€Å"And Duncan’s horses, beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, contending ‘gainst obedience, as they would make war with mankind† said by Ross in act II scene IV. Here, Ross says that Duncan’s horses were acting strange. They broke out of their stalls and started to attack anyone who came in their way. Another image appear in act III scene IV, said by Macbeth : â€Å"Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear. † Here, Macbeth is describing how the ghost of Banquo is hauting him by coming closer to him like a bear. These imageries of animals which symbolizes the different character of the play, helps to make the play’s atmosphere from supernatural nature. Shakespeare uses animal imagery to characterize, to show emotions and also to foreshadow.

The Technological Change Of Frito Lay Information Technology Essay

The Technological Change Of Frito Lay Information Technology Essay The aim of this report is to perform a knowledge audit of Frito Lay, by gathering data, analyzing the findings and making suggestions for the best possibility of knowledge to be utilized in an organization. This report mainly highlights the main external factors that affect the organization, internal knowledge culture which builds an organization structure, technological change and some important points on knowledge workers and leaders. The major finding in this report is that the knowledge management is a key to achieving both scalability and business optimization. Knowledge management is an attractive concept to many organizations. It helps in understanding the needs and gaps in knowledge by simple analysis and helps in coping up with the globalization. Moreover, the knowledge leaders and workers will help to put the theories and ideas from papers to real world. FRITO LAY Intoduction Scope This report mainly focuses on knowledge audit about the external influences on the organization and how knowledge culture enhances the organization structure. Moreover, this report mainly highlights about the technology and how it will revolutionize the companys culture. Background Frito Lay sales force is facing an issue with finding and integration of organization data and customer sales account information. Mike Marino, vice president of customer development, stated that knowledge is trapped in files everywhere. Many sales people would ask the companys marketing and operation staff the same information over and over. And the staff has to perform the same task for endless times. For this reason Mike Marino, integrated a Knowledge portal in corporate intranet. This portal opens gates to all sales staff with same information. This information can be shared and updated at the same time moreover it will be available to any one for any location. This portal was tested with a sales pilot team and passed with flying colors. This report does knowledge audit on the knowledge needs and gap in Frito Lay organization. Identified and provided few knowledge audit tools used to gather present knowledge from an organization. Even tools have been mentioned which could be helpful for the case study. Purpose The purpose of this report is to generate a knowledge report by studying the important external factors that influence the organization, internal knowledge culture in an organization, technology change in an organization and some highlights on knowledge workers and leaders. Current Knowledge position of the Frito Lay In current knowledge position of Frito Lay has no centralized system and its sales team is not able to merge data of the corporate and the customer account information. Purpose of the organization Frito Lay falls under a private sector enterprise. A private sector company mainly looks for profits for their stakeholders while long lasting sustainability in the commercial market. Their main aim is to take advantage of their opportunities and consider profits as the most important result. The main funding is done by the stakeholders, to enhance the development and growth of the company. The key goal for Private Sectors Company is to make a balance among long term sustainability and short term profits. The CEO of the company is mainly responsible for creating a vision to the organization; generally he/she would be a highly experienced person in field and is responsible in the success of the business (Debowski 2006). The purpose of the Frito Lay is to focus on one single mission; to become worlds leading products company for the consumer who focus on convenient foods. They try to offer better opportunities for growth and improvement to their employees, business and the in communities where they work. Moreover, whatever they do, they struggle for honesty and integrity. Frito lays main vision is to improve all their features in which they operate- environment, social and economic. They try to implement this vision by programs and concentrate on environmental stewardship, steps that benefit society and building a good relationship among stakeholders. Moreover, they not only focus on financial success of the company but also in reducing environmental footprint by protecting natural resources and using renewable energy in order to reduce toxic emissions. The knowledge environment in which the organization exists external context When organizations are exposed to external environment, it will go through many changes. There are many factors like technological changes and globalization have brought many opportunities and caused threats in the marketplace (Debowski 2006). Globalization has provided an opportunity for businesses like Frito Lay to gain access all over the world but also brought international organizations to the home market which poses a threat to other companies. Globalization allows customers to check prices, services and reviews of the product from many providers before selecting their suppliers. Even if the supplier is at another end of the world could be located and contacted through telecommunications to meet customer requirements (Debowski 2006). Like discussed before, Globalization provides both opportunity and threat. The threat could be an increase number of competitions means customer are exposed to a wide range of products and services. Then we can assume that customer wont stick to one supplier as there are many, so customer loyalty cannot be trusted. Since costumer is exposed to many varieties of products, it will in turn increase the stress on organizations like Frito Lay to be more creative plus more responsive to the costs set by the competitors (Debowski 2006). The other external factor that affects organization is the pressure from the stakeholder. Since the investment become global, there will be continuous demands from stakeholders to improve market shares, cost reductions and increase in profits. Even technological change is a main factor that effects on business and also helps developing quickly. In case of Frito lay, the Globalization is forcing business to update their technology in order to compete in the market (Wimmer 2004). Technology has become a foundation to many organizations and work tasks, and allows effective communication and management (Debowski 2006). The organizational structure including the internal knowledge culture According to the Oliver Kandadi (2006 p.6) knowledge culture is A way of organizational life that enables and motivates people to create, share and utilize knowledge for the benefit and enduring success of the organization. This culture was seen in Frito Lay organization which was implemented by Mike Marino, vice president of customer development. The company bought a tool called Autonomy from navigator systems, a search engine that allows users to search information and explore new ideas through intranet sites. By the help of navigator system, new innovative ideas and solutions were developed through combined efforts. Once the system was centralized, knowledge sharing became top activity between staff members with the help of supervisor and leaders. After the implementation, employees are kept up to date about the issues, events and innovations. This internal culture has encouraged a regular communications all over the organization which helped openness, honesty and concerned for o thers is promoted. Knowledge culture allows employees to work together by sharing and learning from their peers and supervisors (Oliver Kandadi 2006). Organizational structure is an influencing element in creation and development of knowledge culture. It defines the way power and responsibility is performed in an organization and also distributes knowledge in a way that it will be easily adopted by the firm. Organizational structure allows employees to be grouped according to their functions or division or both. In Frito Lay, the company grouped sales team as a pilot team for the portal, which helped the firm to understand the new system (Debowski 2006). Knowledge workers According to Debowski (2006, p.31) knowledge workers use their heads more than their hands to produce value. Knowledge workers mainly work with their own knowledge to resolve issues or problematic situations. They try to learn new information to reshape their existing knowledge, by doing so they can apply these skills in a variety of areas to resolve issues, generate ideas, or develop new services and products (Prince, 2010). Their job mainly deals on the mental rather than muscle power and is characterized by non respective tasks. They use different methods to solve issues and they also have authority to decide which technique to use in order to achieve the success (Prince 2010). In the case study, Frito Lays vice president of customer development, Mike Marino and Price had many types of organizational knowledge (Debowski 2006). Knowledge that may possess many features, characteristics and value of different sources or systems that may be found in the Frito Lay organization. Knowledge that can identify people, groups and organization and techniques to link them. Understand how to carry out difficult task which require analytical skills such as researching, testing and innovating. An ability to observe, estimate and access correct knowledge sources. The sales pilot team was dispersed all over the country to collect information from the customers and analyze it with correct resources and then fed back it to the sales people in the organization. This flow of knowledge from knowledge workers to the organization will empower them with superior customer knowledge and competitive intelligence. Knowledge leaders Knowledge leaders are the pillars to the organization and support of knowledge management in a firm. These people provide the encouragement, set goals and vision to transform the knowledge concept in to a reality. By the circumstances of the organization, the knowledge leaders roles and responsibilities are designed. Knowledge leaders help to build an effective knowledge community. Their roles require them to understand the complex framework of the knowledge operations and ways communication and teamwork is built and strengthened (Debowski 2006). The generic attributes of knowledge leader were they contribute some important attributes which depend on understanding of process, systems and people The main concepts identified within the case study are disciplines of knowledge leadership, like willingness to share knowledge because it is seen as a power and also collaboration of their work with other organizations. Mike Marino acted as a Change Agent as he identified that knowledge was dispersed in various systems across their organization which created complexity for employees to retrieve data freely and there was inconsistency in data too. They solved this problem by sharing the knowledge all over the organization by developing a centralized system (KM portal) for all of their business processes (Debowski 2006). Another model that is clear in case study is generic attributes of the knowledge leader, for instance selecting an appropriate sales pilot team and sending them with knowledge management portal support across 10 different cites to by measuring up their performance with the normal teams which displays the qualities of strategic visionary and knowledge executor attribute of the knowledge leader (Debowski 2006). Technology Technology is a main factor that brings out a huge positive difference in an organization and also helps developing it growth rapidly. In case of Frito lay, due to no integration between business process for finding and merging data of cooperate and customer account information. After the implementation of Knowledge management system (KMS) it become a basic foundation to the organizations and work tasks by providing an effective communication and management (Debowski 2006). KMS provides a unified and functional platform in an organization on which many other knowledge activities flow and interconnect. It offers knowledge capture and sharing freely, readily and openly to all the stakeholders across the organization. Moreover, it also offers a channel to an individual user to acquire a document, send, share and create knowledge to meet the priorities of the organization. Basically there are four components in KMS; Business process management, Content management, Web content management and Knowledge application management. In case of Frito Lay, they have built knowledge management portal on the corporate intranet. It acts a centre point of access to various sources of information and offers individual access too. This type of system falls under content and business process management (Debowski 2006). The content management system is an intellectual content in KMS. It allows users to retrieve knowledge on particular theme and topic from the KM portal. It allows a wide range of strategies of indexing, storing and organizing the knowledge that are linked in KMS. Business process management defines the processes that are needed for an organization. Like in Frito Lay, these systems are linked to a knowledge management practices so that employees of the company have the access of accurate and up to date data to build up their knowledge (Debowski 2006). Knowledge resources and knowledge-sharing practices One of the core practices in knowledge management is knowledge repositories and knowledge sharing (Debowski 2006). Typically, knowledge repository outlook is like another web-based index. It provides many options to the users to explore with the main menu that offers wide range of access to the recognized knowledge resources from internal and external to the organization. Repositories act as a connection between the user and the core knowledge, working as a single point of entry to support users finding required information across the organization and also other organizations (Annunziata Levant 2002). Through repositories knowledge is shared among users, sharing knowledge has become institutionalized and ends up becoming a part of the routine daily life (Barnes 2002). The repository system used by the Frito Lay sales force was Autonomy. This system was acquired from a consultancy, Navigator systems from Dallas. This tool enables users to search all the way through various repositories like internet sites, spreadsheets and power point presentation (Huysman Writ 2002). It supports many salespeople to get all significant information from a variety of sources which allow them to achieve all the different data sets through one picture. Furthermore other features that we can see in this tool are; it links the organization data with internal sources and outside too, it is a search service that helps people to find data that is required and it also help to record solutions and best practices of other so that it can be shared with others (Barnes 2002). Knowledge needs The main goal of knowledge needs is to identify accurately about the knowledge the organization, its team and its people need at the moment and the knowledge they might need in the feature to achieve their goals and objective. The future strategy of an organization is enhanced due to knowledge needs analysis. This analysis can also find out the staff skills and capability of improvement needs and opportunities for training and developing, team spirit and relationship with staff, subordinated and peers (Ovio Komi-Sirvià ¶ 2002). Knowledge gaps A gap between the ideal world and the existing knowledge world is known as knowledge gap. Gaps may obstruct innovations, opportunities for organization improvement or impede technology implementation Often, the first task is to review the about the existing knowledge in the organization and then analyze who has it, where it is and which jobs the knowledge is used in. Moreover, when knowledge gaps are visible then it gives a confidence in decision making. It is important to identify knowledge gaps of two forms of knowledge, explicit and tacit knowledge (Debowski 2006). According to Lin, Yeh Tseng (2005 p.3) knowledge gaps can be viewed in four different aspects: strategic aspect, planning aspect, perception aspect and implementation aspect. Strategic aspect: This type of knowledge is necessary for the improvement of the organization competitiveness. Implementation aspect: Implementation of knowledge management. Plan aspect: The plan of knowledge management Perception aspect: To improve the organizations competitiveness as perceived by the top managers and employees. Questions What categories of knowledge do you use in your organization? How do you use each of that knowledge? From how many sources can you acquire the knowledge? Apart from yourself, who else use this knowledge? Is a specific knowledge is restricted to specific users? Justification For the first question, it was important to know how knowledge was divided into the firm and how many categories are present for the employees and teams in an organization. For the second question, how organization utilized that knowledge, for instance whether there are any restrictions or no restrictions. For the third question, how does the organization acquire knowledge, like internal and externally. For the fourth question, apart for the organization and its people, is that knowledge is utilized by other organization? Or it is used by the suppliers or other external factors. For the final question, are there any security constraints in the company, if there are then why those constraints. Knowledge audit Tools According to Ramalingam (2006 p.13) knowledge Audit offers a framework for gathering data, synthesising findings and making suggestions about the best way forward for knowledge and learning initiatives against a background of the broader structural and policy factors affecting an organization. In Frito Lay, the sales team has been given access to portal with different content as well as research abstracts, which was called as a performance scorecard (Chowdhury 2006). It is to evaluate the performance of the account. This tool comes under the balanced scorecard approach for measuring the performance on the four key aspects; financial investment, internal process, customer/stakeholders expectation and focus on learning and growth. This tool will help in measuring the performance of the employees and help in providing results on how effective the company is operating. The tools of knowledge audit are Knowledge Gap analysis: This tool shows the gaps that hold back technology implementations and hamper opportunities and block innovations. SWOT analysis: It is a strategic planning technique that is applied to calculate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats included in a project or an organization. Knowledge Taxonomy: it regulates a construction of knowledge map by describing an organizational knowledge and relationship. Exit Interviews: When an employee is leaving a company forever, then he/she will be taking knowledge along with them. So this tool will help to document that knowledge so that it can be utilised by other employees. Questionnaire: A research in conducted with a series of questions for the purpose of gathering data from large number of respondents. Recommendations Knowledge portal has made a huge difference to Frito Lays sales team. The portal acted as a central point for the whole organization by providing multiple resources as it provides an essential way to capture information. The implementation of portal has brought a lot of profits and made their work easy. However, this is the beginning stage of the progression and still a lot to come. Since the portal is implemented in only to team it is recommended to add its functional to other employees across the 3 divisions. Moreover, it would be better if this is added to their customers like supermarkets as it would help them to synching their knowledge with the organization for co promoting and co merchandising of products together. In future, the organization might implement other knowledge management systems like Web Content Management and Knowledge Application Management. Web content mainly deals with building an effective website structure through which users may access to the KMS Frito Lay can have advantage with this system as it will provide a direct communication with the client side. It will provide an easy user interface and it would even benefit the consumers too. Knowledge application management system would provide users with applications like word processing and emails. These applications will help the staff creating knowledge. Conclusion In conclusion, knowledge management is the key to every organization for opening a door full of opportunities and possibilities. KM portal has become a PepsiCo project as it has helped in improving employee retention rates and the efficiency of the companys operation too. Frito Lays sales team is able to capture the specific information of the corporate and customer sales account information from any location. It has reduced inconsistency and duplication of data which reduced the performing of same tasks over and over. Knowledge management is an attractive concept to many industries. It helps understanding the needs and gaps in knowledge by simple analysis and helps in coping up with the globalization. Moreover, the knowledge leaders and workers will help to put the theories and ideas from papers to real world.

Literature Review on Pakistans Food Security

Literature Review on Pakistans Food Security ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK Food security is elucidated by the IFAD/FAO as the year-round access to the amount and variety of safe foods required by all household members in order to lead active and healthy lives, without undue risk of losing such access. No country anywhere in the world is food secure on this definition. It represents therefore an ideal. To make the definition operational, four dimensions are considered namely Food Availability, Food Access, Food Utilisation and Stability of Access. These are briefly explained as follows: 1. Food Availability: The availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate qualities, supplied through domestic production or imports (including food aid). This is often confused with food security but should properly be seen as only a part, albeit an important part of food security. The question is not only whether food is available in a country but whether it is available in the right place at the right time and there must be a mechanism for ensuring that food of the right quality is made available. 2. Food Access: Access by individuals to adequate resources (entitlements) to acquire appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. These resources need not be exclusively monetary but may also include traditional rights e.g. to a share of common resources. Entitlements are defined as the set of all those commodity bundles over which a person can establish command given the legal, political, economic and social arrangements of the community in which he or she lives. 3. Food Utilization: Utilization of food through adequate diet, clean water, sanitation, and health care. This brings out the importance of non-food inputs in food security. It is not enough that someone is getting what appears to be an adequate quantity of food if that person is unable to make use of the food because he or she is always falling sick. 4. Stability of Access: Are individuals at high risk of losing their access to food? An example of this situation would be a landless agricultural laborer who was almost wholly dependent on agricultural wages in a region of erratic rainfall. Such a person is at high risk of not being able to find work in a situation of general crop failure and thus going hungry, i.e. is vulnerable. The objective of the thesis would be to analyze the institutional, production, market and policy aspects of the aforementioned four specific factors underlying food insecurity in Pakistan. This shall be gauged by analyzing secure access, production and utilization of three key staples; wheat, rice and sugar. There is considerable evidence that indicates the need to route policy focus to take the shape of revisionary responses to institutional framework, production, market dynamics and existing policy framework; all geared towards actualizing yield potentials and enhancing food security in the context of factors outlined above. What makes it even more pertinent is the impending food crisis keeping in view the increasing population and various institutional constraints underlying the retarded growth in production e.g water shortages, soil degradation, absence of proper agriculture research, improper agricultural practices etc. The four key aspects defined above i.e. Food availability, Food Access, Food Utilisation and Stability of Access shall be analyzed in terms of their current standing as well as the potential areas of improvement to realize the stipulated objectives. The stated framework is illustrated in the table as under: FOOD AVAILABILITY Review of Land holdings Cropping Patterns and relative prices for each crop. Profits and Losses per acre for each crop for each size class of farm Total area of cultivable land including land currently being utilized and cultivable waste. Water Utilisation Seeds, Fertilisers and GM food technology as a yield enhancement technique Productivity Enhancement of major crops Availability of credit for farmers for investments geared towards productivity enhancement FOOD ACCESS Identification and Targeting of the Food Insecure People Enhancing Productivity of small farmers for poverty alleviation and foster agricultural growth Diversification of On-farm and Off-farm income generation activities Stabilization of input and output process Encouragement of small scale enterprises STABILITY Inter-regional Inequality Urban Rural Disparity Distribution of land and Access to inputs and resources Skill Development for broad based development UTILISATION Improving nutritional aspects of food Balanced dietary consumption Promotion of household food production e.g. vegetables and pulses production, poultry and rearing of small ruminants POLICIES AND INSTITUTIONAL IMPERATIVES Removing Policy Distortions Provision and enhancement of rural infrastructure Institutional Structure for accelerated agricultural growth with equity. Credit and Rural Finance Human Resource Development Research and Extension Support Services In addition, the modus operandi for addressing the questions specified above would be through: †¢ A review and research the production, availability and consumption of essential food commodities †¢ A review of existing food procurement and storage facilities and identify areas of potential improvement †¢ Identification of the constraints in production, yield as well as the prices of essential food commodities e.g. wheat, sugar and rice. †¢ Identifying areas and scope of improved physical inputs geared towards improving the state of agriculture. †¢ Appraising the effectiveness of the Social Safety nets like BISP, Punjab Food Support Scheme in improving food security and how modifications in these programs towards targeting can be brought about to reduce fiscal and economic costs and losses for non target beneficiaries. †¢ Institutional and policy imperatives for enhanced and sustainable agricultural growth through a normative analysis of the following: o Agriculture and Crop Research Facilities o Social Mobilization o Vertical Integrations and Marketing systems o Enforcement Mechanisms in place to keep track of the regulatory endeavors. LITERATURE REVIEW Agriculture is considered the mainstay of Pakistans economy. According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2008-09, there are major hindrances in the GDP growth rate in case of Pakistan, which the report asserts could not hold at 2007-2008 level. Agriculture, the major source of employment and income in the rural areas is expected to grow at 4.7 percent as against Services sector growing at the rate of 3.6 percent during 2008-2009. About 70% per cent of the countrys rural population is directly or indirectly linked with agriculture for their livelihood. Whatever happens to agriculture is bound to affect the livelihood and consequently food security of the poor rural people. Decline of agriculture and shrinking livelihood opportunities have resulted in rising poverty in rural areas while also compounding the food insecurity in both rural and urban areas. Agriculture, thus assumes a critical role in the national economy, providing food to the fast growing population of the country. Pakistan is a country where food security situation in recent years has not been very encouraging. The demand for food in recent years, especially key staples like wheat and sugar have started to exceed the supply. This gap can be attributed to many possible causes. According to Ahmed and Siddiqui (1994), even when the supply situation is better, there are problems with the distribution amongst different segments of the society thus adversely affecting the nutrition. On the demand side, the food security problem has been complicated by an unprecedented increase in population. Since the existing rate of population growth of over 3 percent per annum is expected to continue for a reasonable period of time, the total fertility rate also remaining well above the so-called â€Å"replacement level†, improvement in health-care facilities, which have already resulted in a remarkable decline in infant and child mortality rates has also contributed towards the high population rate in Pak istan. Transitory and chronic food insecurity is caused mainly by poverty. (Tweeten, 1999) People with adequate buying power overcome the frictions of time (e.g., unpredictable, unstable harvests from year to year) and space (e.g., local food short- ages) to be food-secure. The conclusions of the aforementioned study further suggested a food security policy synthesis for poor, developing countries like Pakistan which are outlined as follows; Poverty is best alleviated through broad-based, sustainable economic development. The most effective and efficient means to economic development is to follow the standard model, illustrated by the figure as under, which assures an economic pie to divide among people and among functions, such as human resource development, infrastructure, family planning, a food safety net, and environmental protection. The standard model is not merely an ideal; it is applicable to any culture and provides a workable prescription for economic progress, ensuring buying power for self-reliance and food security. Eventually, in conjunction with family planning, it brings decreased population growth. Although no country has adopted every component, many countries have adopted enough components of the standard model to demonstrate its capacity for economic success. The central puzzle of why food-insecure countries like Pakistan, eschew the standard model when it can bring food security is explained by political failure. Terminating even the worst policies creates losers. If the losers are in positions of power and authority, they resist reform. Economic distortions provide economic rents for those in authority who bestow licenses and enforce regulations. Parastatals provide employment for friends and relatives of power brokers; hence, unfortunate public policy carries powerful momentum. Political failur e is inseparable from broader institutional failure. Food insecurity and economic stagnation are not the result of limited natural resources, environmental degradation, or ignorant people. Rather, they are the result of misguided public policies, which in turn are the product of weak institutions and corrupt governments serving special interests. Institutional change is required to adopt the standard model. Poorly structured, inadequate institutions often trace to cultural factors such as tolerance of the public for unrepresentative, corrupt, incompetent government. Government leaders often view their position as an opportunity for personal aggrandizement rather than to be a servant of the public interest. Socio-institutional changes, and hence standard model adoption, are blocked by cultural characteristics such as caste and ethnic animosities, which provide a fertile climate for governments not representing the public interest to play one group against another. Thus, the challenge of food security for our time, as argued by Tweeten (1999), is socio-institutional change. A study was conducted by the IFPRI in 1977 that emphasized on the intensity of the problem facing the Developing Market Economies (DMEs) in countering food deficits in the wake of increasing populations. The options to grapple this challenge were outlined as increasing domestic production, commercial imports, reducing the food consumption levels through pricing adjustments or rationing, and food aid. For a country like Pakistan, easily branded as a low income country, policy choices are limited. Much of the population is already below the minimum dietary and nutritional requirements. Commercial imports to cover up the food deficit may not be a plausible option because it deems imperative a huge foreign exchange outlay coupled with various alternative development expenditures seeking priority. The study concluded that in order to narrow the food gap, development efforts in such low income countries must emphasize on policies to increase and enhance production performance. Large increa ses in agricultural investments coupled with appropriate policies and effective programs will be central. The third critical dimension of food security, utilization, refers to actual metabolization of food by the body. Food that is available and accessible does not alleviate food insecurity if people do not utilize food properly because of inadequate nutrition education and food preparation, bad habits, eating disorders, or poor health, such as intestinal parasites from unsanitary water. Thus, food security is appropriately defined not just as access but as utilization by all people at all times of sufficient nutrients for a productive and healthy life. It follows that sanitation, education, and health care are important instruments for food security. Despite per capita world food supplies being more than adequate to provide food security to all, food or income transfers among nations cannot be the principal instrument to end food insecurity. One reason is because altruism is too limited and fickle to provide sufficient, reliable transfers. Heavy dependence on transfers could discourage local production and create an unhealthy dependency of poor nations and individuals on rich nations, agencies, and individuals. Massive food transfers would destroy incentives for local food producers. A nation must have a pie of purchasing power to divide and share among its food-insecure people. Because it is the poor who lack access to food, alleviating food insecurity means alleviating poverty. Most of the worlds poor, the 1.3 billion people with incomes of less than $1 per day (updated from World Bank 1990, p. 29), will have to escape poverty and food insecurity through economic growth. Economic growth largely was responsible for the 158 million reduction in numbers of undernourished people in East, South, and Southeast Asia from 1979-1981 to 1990-1992. In the mixed and underdeveloped economies of the Third World, the maintenance of minimum consumption levels for large segments of the population is a critical problem. Even in developing countries with a reasonably well-developed industrial base, such as India, glaring nutrition gaps exist (Knudsen and Scandizzo 1979) and critical shortages can and do arise in basic consumption areas such as food, fuel, and clothing (Sharma and Roy 1979). Such shortfalls have serious economic, social, and political consequences (Burki and Haq 1981). Therefore, governments in developing countries usually attempt a macro management of selected consumption items. A fairly complex set of direct and indirect policies are used to influence the production, distribution, and prices of such items (Ahmed 1979, Dholakia and Khorana 1979, Kaynak 1980, Sorensen 1978). The formulation and implementation of such policies can be viewed as a macro-marketing management process [Zif 1980]. For essential consumption ite ms, this process entails: i. Identification of key consumption items (products) and target groups (markets), ii. Development and evaluation of intervention methods (macro marketing strategies), iii. Creation of delivery or communication systems (channels) to reach the target groups or other intervention points, and iv. Monitoring and control of the consumption- oriented programs (macromarketing control system). In discussing the rationale for Macromanagement System for Essential Consumption Items (referred herein as MSECI), two interrelated questions arise i.e. why do these systems come into existence and what are the goals of these systems. In analyzing why the government intervenes in the distributive trade for essential consumption items, Sorenson (1978) cites four reasons, which are presented below in an elaborated version: i. Under conditions of scarcity (a typical feature in underdeveloped countries), the unfettered operation of the market mechanism is politically unacceptable. Price increases and shortages resulting from unfettered private trade would be politically too risky for the government in power. ii. Distributive trade typically has a poor reach in the rural areas. In periods of shortages, rural distribution deteriorates even further, making government intervention a necessity. iii. The market mechanism is imperfect in terms of prices, information, and market clearing. During periods of shortages, these imperfections become magnified, inviting government regulation. iv. Profits and surpluses from private trade in developing countries usually do not flow into productive investments. Instead, they flow into private consumption and investment such as clothing, jewelry, gold, houses, dowries, and so on. Hence, profits from shortages do not help alleviate the major cause of shortages, i.e. low le vels of production. In fact, some of the surpluses may even accentuate shortages by becoming working capital for increased hoarding of goods. Government often intervenes to reduce the profits going into such unproductive uses. The experience of India as put forth by Dholakia and Khurana (1979) and other Third World countries points out a few other reasons for the emergence and growth of macro management systems in the distributive trade sector. Some of these are: i. Distributive trades absorb a lot of people and provide a low-cost employment outlet in developing countries. Governments often intervene to further some employment goals in addition to the distributional goals. In India, for example, the government often preferentially awards licenses to operate Fair Price Shops to those groups considered to be politically important unemployed college graduates, retired army personnel, widows of servicemen, etc. ii. Government intervention in distributive trades is often a consequence of agricultural price support programs. Once the government becomes a procurer and storer of large quantities of farm products, it needs a distribution method for these products. An MSECI is created as a result. Once an MSECI is created, the reverse logic often takes over. For example, to support an extensive public distribution system in a southern state of India, the state government resorts to mandatory procurement of some percentage of farms output [George 1979]. iii. In a manner similar to agricultural policy, the industrial policy of developing countries also leads to governmental intervention in distributive trade. To support small-scale, infant, or weak industries, the government sometimes assists in the marketing of the products of such industries by procuring their products and distributing them through state-controlled or subsidized channels [Bhandari 1979]. In Morocco, for example, the government subsidized the introductory advertising efforts of a baby food considered to be important in meeting that countrys nutritional goals [Vitale and Cavusgil 1981]. These last three points illustrate how consumption- and distribution- oriented policies get intertwined with policies related to employment, agriculture, industry, and other sectors. The rationale and rationality of MSECIs must therefore be studied in the context of other related sectoral policies [Gustafsson and Richardson 1979]. While the above discussion throws some light on why MSECIs come into existence, it does not fully illustrate the range of goals that MSECIs may serve. According to Gustafsson and Richardson (1979), where there is a complex polity, not only are there multiple actors in the policymaking process but each actor sometimes has multiple goals. Politicians, for example, are interested in: a) Solving problems, where it is feasible to do so and ideologically acceptable to the politician b) Agenda management, that is, getting problematic and intractable items off the political agenda, often by formulating do-nothing placebo policies, and c) Creating consensus, especially when the issue is frankly fractious. In the context of an MSECI, purely placebo or consensus-making policies are unlikely to exist. This is because breadbasket issues are involved and simply managing the agenda or creating a consensus (without solving the problem) is politically too risky. As a part of the problem-solving strategy, however, policymakers may make some efforts to manage agendas or create consensus. Policies geared towards essential consumption items are therefore likely to have some symbolic, rhetorical, or bargaining content (Lapps, Collins, and Kinley 1980). With reference to the rationale and goals of MSECIs, the following conclusions can be made: a) MSECIs usually emerge in developing countries to serve short-term, volatile political problems caused by scarcity. Later, these systems may be further developed to embrace other economic goals. In fact, appropriately used, MSECIs could play an important role in balanced development (United Nations 1977). b) As the complexity of an MSECI increases, consumption and distribution-related policies become entwined with several other sectoral policies in developing countries. c) Analysis of MSECIs should be conducted with sensitivity to the goals stated and implicit of the different actors in the consumptive and distributive policy process. According to Hussain et al, the production instability and food insecurity in are interrelated. Most of the rain-fed agriculture of the country is experiencing erratic production. The production instability index (coefficient of variation) is 29% in the Pakistan (Anonymous). Most variation is attributed to crop yields. The productivity per unit of resource especially water, is low. The declining resource productivity is due to increased water logging and salinity, nutrient depletion, deforestation and devegetation and increased pest complex. Looming water scarcity and competition for the same water from non agricultural sectors necessitates improving crop productivity to ensure adequate food for the nation with the equivalent or less water than is presently available for agriculture. This can be obtained because available information shows that there is a wide gap between actual and attainable crop water productivity, especially in the arid and semi-arid environments. Quantifying cro p water output reveals gaps in information regarding pre-eminent ways to increase crop water productivity. Cropping systems need to be inherently flexible to take advantage of economic opportunities and/or adapt to environmental realities. A dynamic cropping systems concept characterized by a management approach whereby crop sequencing decisions are made on an annual basis has been proposed to improve the adaptability of cropping practices to externalities. STATE OF AGRICULTURE IN PAKISTAN Despite a structural shift towards industrialization, agriculture continues to be the biggest sector of the economy. It contributes 21.8% of the GDP, employs 44.7 % of the workforce and is a major source of foreign exchange earnings . About 68% of the population lives in rural Pakistan and depends upon agriculture for their sustenance. Given its wide-spanning forward and backward linkages, in particular with the Industrial sector, agriculture has assumed an added significance especially in the context of the prevalent global food crunch and food security. According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2008-09, no economic reforms will be successful in the absence of a sustained and broad based agricultural development which is critical for raising living standards, alleviating poverty assuring food security, generating a buoyant market for industrial expansion an making a substantial contribution to the national economic growth. The utilization of agricultural land in Pakistan is illustrated by the table as under. The total area reported in the table includes the total physical area of the villages. Forest area refers to the area of any land administered as forest under any legal enactment dealing with forests. Any cultivated area which may exist within such a forest is shown under the heading of cultivated area. Culturable waste is that uncultivated farm area which, although fit for cultivation, has been left uncropped during the year under consideration as well as the one preceding. Cultivated area is the area which was sown at least during the year under reference or during the preceding year. This includes the net sown area as well as the current fallow. The current fallow is the area that is ploughed but not cropped. With these definitions in context, a review of the agricultural land holdings of Pakistan is presented as under: (Million hectares) Table: (Source: MINFAL) An analysis of the land utilization statistics indicate that the total area under cultivation has registered a gradual increase during the period specified i.e. 1990-2008. The uncultivable land is being brought under cultivation and the total cropped area has also been increasing, though not very significantly. Given the importance of agriculture in the national economy, the policy focus has essentially been on agriculture even though the need for a structural shift towards industries and manufacturing gained importance post 1990s. If we look at the historical statistics of the Pakistan economy, we can see how the performance of agriculture coincided with the GDP growth. Table below illustrates the performance and average annual growth rates of the Agriculture and the GDP for the period 1960-2009. AVERAGE ANNUAL GROWTH RATES 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000-2009 GDP 6.8 4.8 6.5 4.6 5 Agriculture 5.1 2.4 5.4 4.4 3.0 Table Broadly speaking the growth rate of agriculture across the periods specified in Table 1 was fairly good but the yearly growth rates during the same periods were erratic. The growth of agriculture was particularly low in the periods of 1998-99 at 1.9%, 2000-01 at -2.2%, 2001-02 at 0.1% and 2007-08 at 1.1%. Considering the current decade, agriculture has grown at an average rate of 3.32% per annum. Of this, the growth performance over the last seven years has been of a volatile nature ranging from 1.1% to 6.5% at the highest. See table below, AGRICULTURE GROWTH (%) Year Agriculture Major Crops Minor Crops 2002-3 4.1 6.8 1.9 2003-4 2.4 1.7 3.9 2004-5 6.5 17.7 1.5 2005-6 6.3 -3.9 0.4 2006-7 4.1 7.7 -1.3 2007-8 1.1 -6.4 10.9 2008-9 4.7 7.7 3.6 Table 2 Federal Board of Statistics, Government of Pakistan(2009) This volatility can be primarily attributed to the crop sector which has been a subject of various pest attacks, irregular raining patterns, adulterated pesticides etc. There are two principal crop seasons in Pakistan, Kharif and Rabi. The sowing season of the former begins in April-June and the harvesting occurs in October/ December while the latters begins in October/December and ends in April/ May. Major crops of the Kharif season include Sugarcane, rice, cotton and maize and those of the Rabi season include wheat, gram and lentils. As per the statistics of the MINFAL , the major crops such as wheat, rice, cotton and sugarcane amount to about 89.1% of the value added in the major crops, and this amounts to about 33.4% of value added in the overall agriculture. The production statistics of the major crops of both the seasons are given in the table as under: PRODUCTION OF MAJOR CROPS (000 TONS) YEAR COTTON (000 BALES) SUGARCANE RICE MAIZE WHEAT 2003-4 10048 53419 4848 1897 19500 2004-5 14265 47244 5025 2797 21612 2005-6 13019 44666 5547 3110 21277 2006-7 12856 54742 5438 3088 23295 2007-8 11655 63920 5563 3605 20959 2008-9 11819 50045 6852 4036 23421 MINFAL Pakistans agricultural production is closely linked with the supply of irrigation water. The supply of irrigation water has been strained as indicated by Table 3 as under: Actual Surface Water Availability (Million Acre Feet) Period Kharif Rabi Total % Change over Average Average System Usage 67.1 36.4 103.5 2002-3 62.8 25 87.8 -15.2 2003-4 65.9 31.5 97.4 -5.9 2004-5 59.1 23.1 82.2 -20.6 2005-6 70.8 30.1 100.9 -2.5 2006-7 63.1 31.2 94.3 -8.9 2007-8 70.8 27.9 98.7 -46 2008-9 66.9 24.9 91.8 -11.3 Table 3: (IRSA) As shown in the table, against the normal surface water availability at canal heads of 103.5 MAF, the overall water availability for both the crop seasons has been less in the range of -2.5% to 20.6%. If the water availability for the respective seasons is analyzed one can conclude that the Rabi season faced a greater dearth of the water supply as compared to the Kharif season.

Vicky Green Case Essay example -- Ethics Theory

The Vicky Green Case Right to be Informed:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Since key personnel of other companies are certainly going to face the risk of losing their jobs if they decide to accept the K.I., Koke International, 50 percent raise, then Vicky must consider the key personnel’s right to be informed about the aftermath of such a decision. Wendy McGee, Vicky’s boss, has made it clear to her senior staff members that key personnel of the other five player companies will be fired once they finish training K.I. employees. Vicky must consider the fact that those key personnel have the right to be informed about K.I.’s future plan, which will affect their careers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It was not clear whether the orders that Wendy passed to her senior staff members will be mentioned to the top corporate people or not. Vicky must acknowledge the right of those top people to be informed of what Wendy has in mind. It is her job to make sure that these corporate people are aware of all consequences since K.I. could face antitrust issues by going forward with such a plan. Vicky must not let such orders pass without informing these corporate people. Do No Harm   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Vicky must avoid harming the powerless versus harming the powerful. The powerless in this case are the other stores that are going to compete with K.I. in the New England states region. Vicky is in charge of coming up with a unique pricing strategy that will run the competitors out of business within an 18-month period. The other competitors’ stores are considered powerless when compared to the gigantic and powerful Koke International. Vicky must consider the harm that is going to affect the powerless stores, which will lead them to bankruptcy according to Wendy’s plan.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Vicky must also consider harming many versus harming few. The many in this case would be employees of the other five major players in the region and the few are K.I.’s employees. If the plan is successful then K.I. becomes a monopoly in the region while the competitors go out of business leaving their staff unemployed. Therefore Vicky must be concerned about the harm that is going to affect the many left unemployed versus the harm that is going to affect the few at K.I. Duty:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Even though Vicky is considered a new employee at K.I., that should not stop her from striving to amend the company whenever there is an opportunity. Vicky must acknowledge the du... ...fusal to continue on with the plan will cost the company extra time and effort. The company will be required to come up with a new pricing analysis, which might discourage the company from continuing with the plan since it will cost them time and effort. Therefore K.I. might lose its share from New England’s market. However, K.I.’s loss is a gain to the other stores in the New England states region. With K.I. out of the way the stores in the region will continue to operate in a healthy competitive market. If K.I. chooses not to dominate the New England market, which will eventually lead to dismissing Wendy’s plan, then such a decision would be beneficial because K.I. will avoid antitrust issues. However, Vicky’s reaction may vary. Vicky may oppose the plan and challenge her boss right after the meeting by persuasion and convincing. If this action doesn’t work, then Vicky may take it to the next level, which is to inform the top corporate people of what unpleasant consequence might they face from the federal government if they accept the Wendy’s plan. If this action also doesn’t work, then finally Vicky must report the plan to the federal government, so the law will take action.

Essays --

A human right is defined as any right that belongs justifiably to every person. If you were to take a poll and ask the question, â€Å"What are human rights?† you would receive a variety of answers. However it is very likely all the answers would have the word â€Å"freedom.† Human rights are based upon the ethic of respect for an individual. This concept is called human rights because it is usually universal. Whereas nations or specialized groups enjoy specific rights that apply only to them, human rights are the rights to which everyone is entitled, no matter who they are or where they live; simply because they are living. These ethical rules have been bent over the coarse of history. One specific violation was on the day of February 19, 1942 when United States President Roosevelt signed executive order 9066. This order stated that all that all people if the Japanese decent that was residing in the United States must be removed from their homes and be placed in inte rnment camps. The US Government justified their actions by claiming that people of the Japanese decent were spying for the en...

Government and Politics - Promoting Global and Regional Security in the Post-Cold War World :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Essay is 1507 Words  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The post-cold War world presents an interesting paradox. Conflicts are becoming increasingly local while the world is becoming increasingly interconnected: although conflicts are on a smaller scale, their ramifications affect all nations. In addition, better technology means that the American public is better informed and more eager to intervene, yet at the same time, foreign aid is being drastically cut. The United States does not have the resources to intervene in every conflict or to solve all the problems in the conflicts it does intervene in. Therefore, the U.S. must set priorities, finding a balance between its national security interests and other concerns. In two cases, the drug-fueled civil war of Colombia and the withdrawal of North Korea from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the U.S. correctly intervened to promote regional and global security. However, in both cases, the U.S. mistakenly limited the effects of its efforts by put ting humanitarian concerns before security.    Prioritizing foreign policy objectives can be difficult because there are many to choose from. Many believe that the U.S. should act as the world's policeman, seek to stop human rights abuses, provide humanitarian aid, or work to build democracies. While these are certainly admirable goals, the truth is that the U.S. can often do little good, and sometimes aggravates the problem with intervention.1 The U.S. should instead work to promote both global and regional security. In the long run, this is the only way to achieve the goals mentioned above. It is the best way to promote U.S. interests. Although other domestic concerns, such as building democracies or promoting human rights, should be considered in every situation (and are often integral to the problem), when these concerns conflict with the promotion of global or regional security promoting security must come first. The U.S. must be careful not to jeopardize its attempts to promote global and regional security because of differ ing domestic concerns.    There is much policy overlap between pursuing regional and global security. This makes sense; in order for there to be a stabilized world, there must be stability at all levels, and regional instability can quickly lead to global instability in the increasingly globalized world.2 The overlap can be most clearly seen in the objectives behind U.S. intervention in Colombia and North Korea, the fight against drugs and the fight to stop nuclear proliferation, respectively. No one doubts that drugs have negative effects on society, and when one country, such as Colombia, produces eighty percent of the world's cocaine, drugs are very destabilizing globally.

Structures and Maximizing Profits

Market structures play an important role in the economy today. The strategic and profit maximizing concepts are determined by the type of market structure. â€Å"Market structure is best defined as the organizational and other characteristics of a market. † (Riley, 2006) Competitive markets, monopolies, and oligopolies three of the four market structures in the economy. A competitive market or perfect competitive market is a market that has many buyers and sellers that do not influence prices. An example of a competitive market would be the street vendors selling bottled water along the sidewalk of a tourist attracted city.There are likely to be many vendors and buyers alike. Most notably the influence of each vendors input on price is low. The opposite of a competitive market is a monopoly. Monopolies affect the economy with considerable control over supply and price. The definition of monopoly is when the single seller of a product controls its market and does not allow comp etition. Local telephone, cable, and water, which are a natural monopoly, are examples of monopolies. Each of the companies has complete control for the distribution of their products or services in regards to supply and prices.Oligopolies are types of imperfect competition in the market structure. An oligopoly is where only a few sellers offer similar or identical products. Consider watching a basketball game at any level of competition. The athletic wear, footwear, and accessories worn by players are more than likely Nike, Addidas, or Reebok. These companies sell products that are similar and are for the same purpose, yet they are not identical. This type of market structure is also known as monopolistic competition. Oligopolies have considerable control over some of the prices of the products they sell.The characteristic of each market structure are important to understand the role of each structure. The determination of price in terms of maximizing profits is best understood by following the rules of production in a given market. Profit maximizing for a company or firm is utilized by using the company’s profit maximizing output level. This is when the marginal cost is the same as the product price. When a company offers products in new locations the marginal cost of the products of the new locations is a part of the marginal cost. That would be an example of a company opting to profit maximizes their production ased on change of total cost to accomplish more profit. Another consideration of a profit maximizing rule is when marginal cost equals price. A company attempting to profit will manage this rule closely to determine profitability. The average total cost of a good is the deciding factor in profit maximizing where marginal cost equals price and marginal cost increases. Monopolist market companies maximize profits by following the rule marginal revenue equals marginal cost. Marginal revenue is the change in total revenue that results from a chan ge in output.Companies that are the single producer of a product will want to maximize their total revenue. Costs of production are low therefore marginal revenue will equal cost. Competitive markets, monopolies, and oligopolies have profit maximizing rules that compare price to marginal revenue, marginal cost, and average total cost to determine profit gain. Each market consists of barriers of entry. One of the reasons for entry is the encouragement of successful gain of profits from other companies. Consider the local and national fast food hamburger restaurants.McDonalds began as one of the first restaurants of its type followed by chains such as Wendy’s and Burger King. That is an example of monopolist competition at its best. A discouragement or barrier for entry into certain market structures is through law and regulations. Creating anti-trust laws are detrimental to the formation of monopolies and their continued growth. There are three examples of business practices t hat present a dilemma for business entry. Resale price maintenance is the setting of a product price is contracted by the wholesaler for the retailer to sell at that given price.If the price is set from the wholesaler competition is suspended because of the price being uncontrolled by the retailer. The next business practice involves market power. A company that possesses market power has control of setting and changing prices without losing customers or altering the entire market. These companies are also referred to as price setters. â€Å"Firms with market power normally use that power to raise prices above the competition level. † (Mankiw) Predatory pricing is a debatable topic in terms of entry into a market and regulated policies. The third type of a business entry barrier is tying.Tying forces smaller businesses to strategize products based on the market power and price discrimination practices of manufacturers. There are four other barrier entry provisions for various markets. First, there is the denial of entry into a market or the lack of possible competition. Next, a company may own a key resource that provides exclusive rights to that market. Another point is when the government allows a single seller the right to produce or provide certain goods. Finally, the cost of production equals a single producer being more efficient versus the cost of production via a large number of producers.The characteristics, price determinations, and barriers of entry into competitive markets play essential roles in the economy. The characteristic of each market provides buyers and sellers to understand and make business decisions for the success of the economy. The economy as a whole benefits from how market structures abide by the rules and regulations of profit maximizing. References Mankiw, N. G. (2007). Principles of economics (4th Ed. ) Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Riley, Geoff. September. 2006. A2 markets & Market systems. Market structures . Retrieved on January 22nd, 2012 from http://tutor2u. net/economics

Modern Audience Essay

It is unrealizable for a youthful audience to feel cozy with the Taming of The termagant with close reference to Shakespe bes intro of Katharina, nonsensical conventions and having the above question in mind, write about your response to the close discomfit of the flowIn my opinion, The Taming of The Shrew tells the fiction of an inglorious marriage and I would admit with the view that it is out(predicate) for a young audience to feel comfortable with the play, strangely the conclusion of the story. Shakespe bes presentation of Katharina at the finish of the play try outms to me to be match slight of a broken person she is intimately robotic in her obedience and without spirit, except for when sing the praises of wifely submission. Thy husband is thy Lord, thy life, thy keeper, thy head, thy s overeign is a prime example of the disturbing brainwash Petruchio has carried out on her. This humbled Kate is a far cry from the feisty Katharina we ar first greeted by in telephvirtuoso number 2, where she ex reassigns a vicious battle of address with Petruchio Asses atomic number 18 made to bear and so argon you.This devise in itself shows that she is fearless, and defies her unions conventions, cursing at str tempers a sad contrast to the plays stoping, where she has tot totallyy conformed to whats expected of her. The ending of the play too contains truly little buffo onery, with the exception of the melodic phrase as to who is the real Vincentio, and the fight in the midst of Kate and the Widow. This is beca uptake the Taming of the shrew defies around Shakespearian comedy conventions, as the marriage takes place halfway the play, rather than at hence end as was traditional. I believe that this adds to the vexation of the advanced audience, as after the vatical happy ending we are approach with the harsh reality of Petruchios intercession of Kate.Shakespeare presents Katharina as completely changed by the end of the play. At first she is wild and ostensibly untameable we get together her tie up her child and argue violently with both Petruchio and her fetch. So may you lose you mail, if you strike me, you are no gentleman, and if no gentleman, why so no arms Here, Shakespeare presents Katharina as super skilled with word manipulation, generating humour with her haughty play on words with arms as she brands Petruchio only when a common if he would strike her.This is in staring(a) contrast to the ending of the play where she seems to go through no free will. She is practically enslaved to Petruchio, agreeing with his all(prenominal) thought and whim. An example of this is make a motion 4, survey 5, Petruchio and Kate see Vincentio and Petruchio refers to him as a pleasure ground and lambly maid, instructing Kate to stuff her for her mantraps sake. Shakespeares use of a command word clear shows Petruchios major power and utter understand in their relationship. Vincentio is obviously a man, but despite this, and despite a model from Hortensio that this pretence will anger Vincentio, a will authorise the man mad, to make a woman of him, Kate does indeed embrace him for his beautys sake green budding virgin, fair fresh and enjoyable.This elaborate language with its piling up of adjectives is an example of hyperbole used for comic effect. It is perhaps also, on a less humorous none, an instance of what many feminists would see as the darker side of The Taming of the Shrew, and the destruction of Katherinas personality this is a strong rendition as she could be seen to be using this elaborate language payable to her desperation to please Petruchio or her fear of punishment. Petruchio encourage exerts his power over Kate by then changing his mind and accusing Kate of madness.I hope thou art not mad, this is a man she readily agrees, ignoring the feature that Petruchio has undermined and humiliated her, and begs for his pardon over her stupidity. This word picture is a prime example of the change Petruchio has caused from Katharina to Kate. She is not the character we met in act upon 2, and this transformation could be said to be self-conscious for a advanced(a) audience to watch. It is unpleasant to see one tender being so completely at the hands of another, and whether this total obedience is due to love, fear or desperation is down to the audience to decide. I think this adds a more disquieting edge to the play as Shakespeare seems to condone Petruchios taming, or what more or less modern audiences would see as abuse.However, both(prenominal) critics, for instance Lucy Bailey, director for the RSC, bring stated that the play is a curiously misunderstood love story, not the abusive tale of misogyny some modern audiences would see it as Bailey says that Petruchio and Kates loss leader is instant, and that what follows after their first meeting is simply fore-play. Nonetheless, this interpretation is hard to digest in the fac e of the cruelty Petruchio inflicts on Kate, why would a man in love treat the object of his affections corresponding one of his farm animals? This treatment is particularly shown during Act 4 where Petruchio begins his taming, he attempts to train Kate as one would train a dog. EXAMPLE. gauge language. Other critics deport explained this treatment by saying that Petruchio is driven mad by grief after the death of his father he takes out his disaffection and anger on other people closely as an experiment. (Director David Farr)The best example of Shakespeares changing presentation of Katharina to Kate privy be seen in the final scene, in her speech. She has not spoken for several pages, but then, on Petruchios command, launches into the longest speech in the entire play, expelling the virtues of being a good wife. The first reason that most modern audiences would find this scene uncomfortable to watch is the way that Petruchio instructs Kate to Tell these determined women what duty they do owe to their Lords and husbands.This phrase itself could be seen to be problematic for modern audiences to digest. In the 21st century, men and women are equal, so the way that Petruchio refers to men as Lords, implies a power and control over women that is uncomfortable for most modern audiences to hear. Shakespeare modishly prioritises the word Lord over economize in this line emphasising the debt Petruchio feels women owe their husbands, like peasants owe their Lords. In this statement, Petruchio also uses wilful as an insult, whereas in modern Britain, although it can have negative connotations, headstrong is a good deal a positive personality attribute, implying one knows ones own mind.The ending of The Taming of the Shrew contains very little comic elements, m akin(predicate)g it all the more uncomfortable. There is the scene in which Vincentio encounters the pedant impersonating himself .The audience has not seen Kate as impassioned during her speech since sh e was Katharina we see some of her old spark when she refers to Bianca and The Widow as froward and unable worms. However, this insult could be seen as a sad chiding of how Petruchio has twisted her feisty nature to movement his own needs. Most modern spectators would see the entire speech as improbably anti-feminist, and I believe that due to this it is impossible for most modern audiences to feel comfortable with The Taming of The Shrew. Kate suggests women should kneel for peace and place your hands below your husbands pedestal. These phrases evoke feelings of servitude and to most modern audiences are difficult to hear. Kates realisation that women are weak, their lances nothing but straws contrasts to her physical military unit at the start of the play where she attacks Petruchio. That Ill try (she strikes him).Shakespeare uses regal imagery in this speech to show the total crushed leather and obedience Kate feels towards Petruchio. She refers to husbands and Lords, Sover eigns, Heads and Princes, and these words show the power Petruchio has over Kate and the power she believes all husbands should have over their wives one of absolute control, akin to the monarch. Shakespeares effective listing of these nouns emphasises Kates uncanny passion towards Petruchio and wifely obedience. Similes are also widely used in Kates final speech for example, to scare away a scornful glance at ones husband blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads. Kate now believes that obedience is beauty, and for most modern audiences who live in a society where independence is valued and celebrated, it is impossible to feel comfortable with these ideas.