Godfather Death and Rappaccini's Daughter Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Godfather Death and Rappaccini's Daughter - Essay Example According to him, Death was the best choice because it did not discriminate on any person. Similarly, in ‘Rappaccini's Daughter’, there Giovanni is fascinated about nature’s flowers and them that he gets wing of Beatrice â€Å"Rappaccini's Daughter†. Therefore, the two works above shows or portrays the elements that are found within nature and how they would be handled. â€Å"Godfather Death" makes death as its evidence while whereas â€Å"Rappaccini's Daughter† makes use of the beautiful flowers. The two evidences used are a representative of nature (Smith). This article gives an account of two men who are determined to change the wrong things that are within their society. They feel that some people are being mistreated and that this needs change. This is shown by their actions that serve to facilitate administration of fairness and elimination of mistreatments. Part two The selected works look at a natural aspect that is found within the two sett ings. In finding a godfather for his son, the father has three choices form which he must come up with one. This is in relation to the knowledge of father on the three aspects that are found within nature. Similarly, in â€Å"Rappaccini's Daughter† the flowers and the garden represent nature and the flowers that are found with it. Therefore, this is a reflection of nature and the views of two men about nature aspects. Giovanni marvels at the garden and all its vegetation and as he goes on further into the garden, he notices that doctor Rappaccini is focusing on some flowers. He finds out that Beatrice is watching over the flowers, and he decides to change this aspect. According to him, Beatrice had been blessed with beauty and needed to be treated with care (Smith). Giovanni compared Beatrice with a flower that needed care in regard to treatment. For instance, she needed glove and a mask when being handled. Contrary, to this, her father made her watch over the flowers that he adored so much within the garden. He goes to her and leads her to the house. On the other hand, the father of the son had three aspects that qualified to be candidates for the position of a godfather for the son. The father goes on to look at all the three aspects in details by looking at their negative sides. On the aspect of God, the father says that God cannot be chosen as a Godfather because he brought poverty to the world. God created poverty for the world, and as a result, many people are suffering. The other aspect that was looked at was the acts of the devil on earth. Likewise, the devil did not qualify because of the evil things and actions that were associated with him. Finally, the father settles for death because it did not discriminate people in its actions. Death would befall the poor and even the rich without considering their status in the society. The son follows all that death required him to do until when he felt that something was not going right, and because of that, he decided to go against those requirements of Godfather Death. This is in relation to the sickness that he saw within people. According to him, this was unacceptable, and that is the reason that made him disobey orders given out by death. The paragraphs above gives an account of two men who go against forces of nature because they feel that their actions are unfair to people. In the case of Beatrice, Rappaccini's Daughter, it was not right to keep her outside to watch over flowers as her father made h

Sustainable Enterprise Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Sustainable Enterprise - Assignment Example There are important reasons why this could be substantially true. Monsanto was able to make a strong point that agriculture is a remarkable sustainability driver in the 21st century. The reasons are simple. There are continuing problems about decreasing yield in agriculture, population and income growth, urbanization and even the environment in general which face the society in reality. In the case of environment for instance, as a chemical company, Monsanto has considerable ideas regarding on how chemicals could create diversified environmental pollutions. Applying the concept of sustainability, Monsanto was finally able to create genetically engineered plants which have resistance to pests and diseases, which would make application of chemicals in farming obsolete in the future. In general, Monsanto created a need out of the ongoing reality in the world and from that a significant business surfaced which was in a form of life science strategy of food, health and hope. For some Europeans, genetically modified foods or plants are not actually integral components of exact science. In other words, they are quite hesitant about the issue of safety and control regarding on foods or plants that have undergone the process of genetic engineering in the field of biotechnology. Europeans are not actually oblivious about the significant promises of genetic engineering and biotechnology. However, European backlash is just a reminder that people should also consider the issue of safety and control. After all, integrating genetic materials with the original plant is not the usual or natural process of food production, so probable issues of safety are what the Europeans would like to emphasize, prior to acceptance of Monsanto’s life science strategy of food, health and hope. However, in developing world, concerns were on feeding a hungry stomach, ensuring high production or yield and advancement in agriculture. In other words, compared to safety

Strategic Management Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Strategic Management - Research Paper Example Thus, according to Balanced Scorecard Institute (2014), strategic planning refers to the organizational management activities which set priorities, focus resources and energy and ensure that stakeholders work towards attaining the organizational goals. On the other hand, strategic management is described as a comprehensive set of continuous activities and processes which an organization uses for systematic coordination and alignment of resources and actions to the vision, mission and values of the organization. Thus, planning typically describes a time-bound practice while strategic management is an ongoing engagement. Furthermore, the institute observes that strategic management would be used to define the procedures, policies and themes of an organization as opposed to planning which entails the organization of how resources would be allocated to various business operations so as to achieve its objectives. Thus, strategic management is different from planning. Evaluating the process of strategic management gives further insights into how better to define strategic management. Thus, Dess, Lumpkin and Taylor (2005) define it as both an art and science of formulation, implementation, and evaluation of functional decisions that make an organization achieve its objectives. With this regard, Clayton (n.d.) gives the 5-step strategic management process in organizations. Goal setting involves clarifying the organizational vision eventually leading to the development of a mission statement which succinctly communicates goals to employees and shareholders. The second stage is analysis where the organization gathers relevant information and data for accomplishing the vision. It involves conducting the SWOT (strengthens, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of the organization. This would then be followed by strategic formulation which involves the determination of strategy, reflecting upon and making decisions to design plans and strategi es to address the

Research Methodology for Director Elections Analysis

Research Methodology for Director Elections Analysis The director and board performance from the perspectives of voting shareholders, the implementation of majority-approved shareholder proposals provide a more specific and tighter measure for the actions boards take to do their jobs. For this comprehensive exam paper, I will focus on votes withheld for director elections because implementation of majority-approved shareholder proposals requires non-trivial hand collection and might decrease the sample size significantly. This measure has several important merits in multiple directorships setting compared with commonly used measures. First, it has been well documented that reputational concerns from the director labor market, the increasing prevalence of vote-no campaigns, and increased prevalence of corporates voluntary adoption of Majority Voting standards makes votes withheld from director elections a good proxy for shareholder general evaluation of director, committee, and board performance. (Georgeson 2000-2016). Second, while uncontested shareholder voting rarely remove specific directors, the voting outcomes of director elections are associated with subsequent board conduct, governance changes and firm performance (Del Guercio, Seery, and Woidtke [2008], Cai, Garner, and Walkling [2009], Fischer, Gramlich, Miller, and White [2009], Ertimur, Ferri, and Muslu [2011], Ertimur, et al. [2015]). Third, academics and practitioners have consensus that the threshold of 20% of votes withheld represents s ubstantial shareholder dissatisfaction. (Del Guercio et al. [2008], Cai et al. [2009], Fischer et al. [2009], Ertimur, et al. [2011], Ertimur et al. [2015]). Fourth, data for this measure on individual director level is directly available, and can be easily aggregated to get measures on committee level and board level. For the aggregate level, I can use either the average percentage of votes withheld per director, or the percentage of directors with substantial shareholder dissatisfaction (at least 20 % votes withheld) of committees, or boards. In sum, to better measure the effort exerted by directors and the value added by boards, I use a comprehensive list of complementary performance metrics: voting outcome of director election, serving on committees and attendance rate at board meetings on individual director level; voting outcome, CEO turnover sensitivity to performance, excessive CEO pay, and financial reporting misstatement on committee level, and voting outcome, market-to-book ratio (M/B) and return on sales (ROS) on firm level. 3. Sample, data, empirical results, and additional analyses 3.1. Sample and data To answer these questions, I study the multiple directorships policies for SP 1500 firms for the period from 2000 to 2016. First, I construct a dataset of director-level data for SP 1500 firms from the Institutional Shareholder Services ((formerly MSI, IRRC, and RiskMetrics) Directors Database from 2000-2016. I restrict my sample to SP 1500 firms to make the data collection manageable. This dataset contains information on director attendance and a range of other director characteristics (e.g., name, age, tenure, gender, committee memberships, independence classification, primary employer and title, number of other public company boards serving on, shares owned, etc.) which are collected by ISS from company proxy statements, annual reports or company websites. My first multiple directorships measure, Multiple Directorships_traditional, are retrieved from this database directly.ÂÂ   Based on the directors total number of meetings required to attend and whether they attended fewer than 75%, I also construct a measure, Current Distraction, to better capture the time demand and the distraction effect of multiple directorships. To test H1 and H2, we need to know director attendance immediately before and immediately after firms adopt overboarding rules. However, only annual attendance data is publicly available. In addition, many overboarding policies set grace periods explicitly or implicitly. Therefore, I use the director attendance the year before adoption year to test H1, and the director attendance the year after adoption year to test H2. Next, I require these firms to have accounting data from Compustat, stock return and pricing data from CRSP, corporate-governance provisions data from ISS Governance database, director elections voting data from ISS Voting Analytics (VA) database, and financial reporting restatement data from AuditAnalytics database. (access?) For firm performance, I measure the market-to-book ratio (M/B) and return on sales (ROS), measured at the lagged fiscal year-end, to compare with previous literature (Fich and Shivdasani [2006], Field, et al. [2013]). Then I use BoardEx database, which includes profiles of executives and directors (demographics, education and career history, compensation, board and committee memberships, etc.) and the connections among them, to construct my second sets of measures of multiple directorships, Multiple Directorships_public, Multiple Directorships_private, and Multiple Directorships_total. Using BoardEx database, I also construct two measures of director qualification, Accumulated Directorships Experience and General Qualification, which reflect director qualification but are not necessarily associated with their current busyness. BoardExs coverage of U.S. public companies is extremely limited prior to 2000, causing serious survivorship bias (see, Fracassi and Tate [2012], Engelberg, Gao, and Parsons, [2013]). Similar to previous literature which also uses the BoardEx database, I focus on the period after 2000 to mitigate these concerns. It needs to be noted that while BoardEx database suffers survivo rship bias and some other issues, using BoardEx provides several important merits for my research. First, it provides information about directors seats on significant private firms and gives a better measure of directors total workload. Second, it allows me to test directors seats choices between public firms and private firms. Third, it provides information to construct a measure of directors resources/talent which is not necessarily connect with their current busyness. Finally, I hand-collect information on firms overboarding policies for this sample. Normally, firms overboarding policies are disclosed in their governance principles/governance guidelines. I retrieve firms current overboarding policies from their websites, and their historical overboarding policies from the Internet Archive library, which archives over hundreds of billion historical web pages on the Internet. ( https://archive.org/web/)

Leaning Pine Arboretum Essays -- Place Essays

Leaning Pine Arboretum The Leaning Pine Arboretum, named for a tree which blew down during a storm several years ago, is a tranquil horticultural display garden on the outskirts of the Cal Poly campus. The main purpose of the five-acre arboretum is to educate students about different species of plants in their natural settings. This arboretum emphasizes Cal Poly’s motto of â€Å"Learn by doing.† Students in the Horticulture and Crop Science Department are the force behind the garden and keep it functioning year-round. The horticulture unit was built in the 1970’s when it only included a lawn and some trees. Two decades later, work was underway to create an arboretum showcasing plants from the five mediterranean regions of the world. These regions are: the Mediterranean basin, southwestern Australia, southwestern South Africa, much of California, and much of Chile. A mediterranean region is defined as a region with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. Only two percent of the world’s landform can be characterized as mediterranean. The plants at the arboretum flourish in California’s central coast weather. The Leaning Pine Arboretum is entirely student-managed. Six student workers work at the arboretum ten hours per week and there is one garden manager. Each of the six students has their own garden to maintain. They water, weed, and plant in their garden as well as make decisions on what plants will be planted there next. This gives the students a sense of pride and ownership in the arboretum. The arboretum is located at the north end of campus, past the beef unit and across the street from the equine unit on Via Carta Road. It may be difficult to locate since a visitor needs... ...use the arboretum as their classroom. Several students choose to conduct their senior projects at the arboretum as well. Rock walls and benches, wooden decks, and the gazebo were all created by senior students. The Leaning Pine Arboretum remains one of Cal Poly’s best-keep secrets. It is an isolated, unique, and diverse oasis far away from the commotion of the main campus. It is an excellent place to learn about flora, conduct a school-sponsored activity, or simply to relax and stroll through the gardens admiring nature’s beauty. The horticulture and crop science students feel a huge sense of pride and accomplishment when they see others enjoying their student-run sanctuary. While the arboretum is just one distinctive element of Cal Poly land, it is one that can be enjoyed by every member of the community and it helps make Cal Poly a superb institution.

Transition of the Bulgarian Economy: 1990-1997 :: Essays Papers

Transition of the Bulgarian Economy: 1990-1997 The immense political and economic changes in Central and Eastern Europe have created a variety of unique transition economies. Each country controlling its own development without fully understanding the implications of the monetary and fiscal macroeconomic policies it yields. Bulgaria in particular has had mixed results. A 1992 OECD Economic Assessment of Bulgaria described â€Å"shock therapeitic† reform programs that included the abolition of central planning, the liberalization of most prices, and opening more markets to foreign trade. While the survey concluded that â€Å"much has been achieved in extremely difficult circumstances,† by 1997, economic stability had not been realized. Since 1989, several governments have presided, the banking system has virtually collapsed, GDP has significantly declined along with the lev, inflation is rampant, and economic policies fail to generate confidence. However, Bulgaria’s economic performance is decidedly â€Å"middle of the road† when compared to other transitioning economies. Declines in output and average real income are much greater and unemployment and inflation much higher than the Visegrad group and Baltic Republics though often better than Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian Republics. Many of Bulgaria’s current economic problems can be traced to economic conditions at the start of its transition. Heavy reliance on CMEA markets devastated the country , more so than any other country. Compared to GDP, over 60% of its imports and exports were orientated to the CMEA market. COMECON’s collapsed devastated Bulgaria, causing large initial declines in GDP and increases in unemployment. This event necessitated the complete restructuring of the modes of production. The complete upheaval of the Bulgarian economy forced a suspension of payments to foreign debts making it practically impossible to attract foreign/western investment to restructure the economy. Current economic instability is due to the lack of decisive economic policy from the seven successive governments following the fall of Todor Zhivkiv the former Communist Party leader in 1989. While each succeeding government has remained committed to economic transition, their policies have lacked cohesion over important controversies such as privatization, subsidies, co-operation with IFIs, and foreign investment. The result of the different policies have resulted in much change but little progress with measures dealing with â€Å"soft budget† enterprises and banks, privitisation of state assets, and attraction of foreign investment. Ripples from the discontinuity of Bulgarian economic policy are evident in the rapidly accumulating domestic debt, payment arrears, and the continual refinancing of inefficiently run commercial banks.

Sterling Marking Products Case Study

I recommend that Sterling should consider a fully owned subsidiary as an entry mode into the U. K. market. However, we need to ensure U. K. laws permits 100 percent ownership and understand tax incentives applicability. In addition, as an organization we would need to internally develop a strategic road map in terms of our approach to international markets. The objective of the roadmap is to provide Sterling with some guidance and a broad approach to how we conduct business on a global scale, considering recent interest in our product from firms in other countries and possibility of pursuing those opportunities.As an organization, this is much needed to prevent some of the issues we experienced domestically while establishing our branches in Toronto and Windsor, as well as our recent challenges in the U. S. market with Julius Blumberg Inc.My recommendation for a fully owned subsidiary in the U. K. is based on the following: In Europe, U. K. is the only European country where seals ar e legally required for corporations, and the most populous country in that region (exhibit 1), this continues to make U. K.  the most attractive market in Europe for sales, regardless of whether seals might no longer be required in the future. Also, establishing a presence in the U. K. will place Sterling in a position to easily penetrate other European market for future expansion. Based on a qualitative cost & benefit analysis (exhibit 2), a wholly owned subsidiary provides the most advantage to Sterling. Although this requires the most capital and management commitment, the benefits it offers offsets such costs including full profitability as opposed to a shared profit in case of a joint venture (exhibit 3).Also, in terms of the goals, strategy, resources and organizational structure of Sterling, a subsidiary best enables the firm to reach its objectives (exhibit 4). Options open to Sterling with a subsidiary is either to purchase a U. K. seal producer (Jordan) or build a branch as a Greenfield project. Buying out a local producer will allow a speedy market entry and access to local workers. This will also give Sterling access to current customers of the local seal producer. For this reasons, a â€Å"buy-out’’ subsidiary will be preferred over building a new branch.The U.S. market is also one that is in need of a ‘turn around’ in terms of sales and profitability. Once our seven-month contract with Julius Blumberg Inc. is completed, I will suggest we change our method of entry into the U. S. Market. Our trial with Bloomberg sales force shows that a direct sales approach dramatically increases sales in this market, therefore we should continue to export and invest in a sales and distribution team locally in the U. S. to drive sales. This will also allow us to penetrate the market faster and minimize any additional capital cost.In terms of interest shown in our product by other countries, I will suggest we research into sales oppor tunities in Japan for the reasons that Japan has a high population and number of lawyers compared to most of the other countries, geographically Japan also allows us to establish a hub in Asia so that we can establish a footprint in this region. However, deciding on a method of entry into this market will require gathering special information and understanding the Japan market. This research will need to be done prior to deciding a similar method of entry as was suggested for the U. K. market.