Freedom and Human Rights in Orwells 1984 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Freedom and Human Rights in Orwells 1984 - Essay Example The issues of freedom and human rights are discussed further on. A process of individual’s degradation in the face of oppression and intimidation is shown by Orwell. It is interesting to trace individual’s transformation from an independent citizen to a dependant person oppressed by a perverted socialism. A novel’s background Socialism by itself is not destructive. It is more relevant to look at its rulers and discuss their history. In accordance with Marx, a great philosopher of socialism: â€Å"revolutionary violence was inevitable since those in power will never voluntarily relinquish their position, and he viewed the future communist society as the redemption of that nightmare of history that we have had hitherto† (Scaliger, 2007). Another position is expressed by Orwell. Socialists showed violence to fight against violence; an example of the Soviet Union shows to us that the society based on violence would lead to freedom opposition. Therefore, it is necessary to develop human rights protection laws and take control over freedom achievement in the society. A political form of Socialism is not bad in its essence. It is better to reach socialism by democratic means and not through violence. Orwell shows that working people have their own ethical concerns creating a bridge for decency development under socialism (Deery, 2005). Consequently, Orwell is positioned as an ethical socialist, who is focused on the basic moral values of working people and he does not want that people would lose them. Social justice for Orwell can be reached in case liberty, equality and fraternity are preserved. It is interesting to discuss external factors influencing on conceptual representation of freedom by Orwell (Deery, 2005). In accordance with Marx and Engels, freedom is an integrative part of self-determination. In reality, freedom has a broader meaning; it should be clarified that freedom â€Å"means being in charge for one’s own life and being able to reveal the highest potential of an individual† (Scaliger, 2007). In this utopian novel, Orwell created a satire of an ideal type of socialism. Stalinist practices and Trotsky’s practices provided Orwell with fruitful information about the cruel and violent regime, degrading human souls. The world order reinvented by Orw ell is an interesting fantasy of a writer: â€Å"His narrative gifts having flowered during the ugliest days of Stalinism and soared at a time when such ideas were in the air, he thereupon extrapolated Stalin's system and Burnham's schemes--worldwide and into eternity† (Deery, 2005). Freedom in the novel An interesting vision of freedom provided by Orwell is appealing for contemporaries as well: â€Å"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four" (Orwell, p. 69). The Party is intimidated by the emergence of extra-linguistic reality and by the fact that some global issues may be intimidating for the whole society. It is easier and more convenient for the Big Brother to reshape the minds of his people, take away a hope from them and transform their skills into a motive force for socialism. For Winston, the Party is bad, because â€Å"its infallibility, or freedom from the strictures of falsifiability, is buttressed by its ability to impose, through Foucauldian di sciplinary techniques, a radically groundless regime of purely local and discontinuous epistemes† (Orwell, p. 45). We can see that there is an internal and external fight for freedom among the main characters of Orwell’

Globalization and Neoliberalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Globalization and Neoliberalism - Essay Example Neoliberalism refers to a number of factors that have occurred in today’s modern society such as deregulation, free trade, open markets and economic liberalism that have led to a more active role of the private sector in economic and business matters.2 Globalization refers to the process whereby societies of the world integrate with one another through a number of various processes such as communication and interaction leading to the exchange of ideas, cultures and views as a result. 3From the definition of both terms, it is clear to see that globalization and neoliberalism have similar aspects that relate to one another and thus it can be said that one would not exist without the other. However, to prove this fact one can use aspects of one to determine if they have a relation. In this case a few aspects of neoliberalism, namely open markets, free trade and economic liberalism will be used to determine whether these issues have a relation with globalization. Open Markets An o pen market is an economic term referring to a type of market that is accessible by all economic players as they are not tied down by various factors such as monopolization or a set of requirements that have been put in place for those who would like to enter in the form of legalities such as policies by the government. This means that in an open market, anyone who is able and has the means to, is able to enter into the market without the worry of any sort of constraints interfering in their business. The open market is an aspect of neoliberalism which supports less involvement of outside factors in matters involving business and trade.4 However, it can be said that the open market is only made possible through the existence of globalization otherwise it would have no reason to exist. This is because the open market has been created in order to allow investors from across the borders to enter a market unencumbered and without the worry of interference as most of the regulations that would be put in place to bring about the demise of this type of market would be related to would-be external investors and not local business men who do not face a lot of opposition except maybe in the case of monopolization of an industry.5 If globalization did not exist, they would be no need for an open market but on the other hand it should also be considered that if the open market did not exist without the open market, it would make it harder for globalization to take place as investors would remain within the realms of their countries and thus there would be less global interaction taking place in the business sense. Free Trade Free trade has to do with the imports and exports of a country in reference to the interference of the government in these activities. According to free trade, a government is not allowed to play a role in affecting the amount of goods that are imported or exported out of a country through their various methods such as placing tariffs or subsidies on t he above mentioned and thus as a result allows the partners involved in the trade to both benefit from the transaction without one having it easier than the other. 6There are a number of reasons that the government may want to interfere in such activities such as boosting their number of imports which would lead to an economic benefit for the country but in the view of

Analysis of Emergency Healthcare in Nigeria

Analysis of Emergency Healthcare in Nigeria 1.1 Background of Study USAID reported in 2009 that in Nigeria out surveyed 107 healthcare centre, 20% health care givers washed their hand before and after giving injection, 63% receive vaccination, 43% have no training or information on how to dispose waste, 32% use an off-site disposal method, 20% burn waste of theirs in the open hole which burn freely to the air, this shows that we have a long way to go in achieving a stable and good health care environment to start with and making sure our emergency are safe and secured for the patients to come. Also from the report release by the Economic Global Forum, life expectancy rate of the people in Nigeria is on the average as 47% for the female, 46% for the male, this gives an insight to the level of their survival at the emergency unit. In order to improve the chances of survival, there’s need for improvement on the performance level of the emergency for quality of life for both adult and children; the emergency unit of the hospitals is responsible to provide initial urgent treatments for patients with severe form of illness and injuries. Emergency unit was first introduced in the 20th century in response to the need to manage critical illness and acute health emergency situations, it has been observed in Nigeria that most patients about 54 percent end up at the hospital emergency as a last resort after seeking help elsewhere, like from healthcare traditional givers, praying houses, dealers in drugs and so on, due to self acclaimed knowledge, belief and lacking of enlighten and ignorance and sometimes because they cannot afford the bill of the modern healthcare centre as they belief their other options are cheaper. However some of the healthcare centre has their own challenges like inadequate facility and man agement staff which falls the expectation of the patients, because the expectation of an emergency unit is to increase survival chances for accident victims or patients that need urgent attention with acute critical situations, and through the emergency unit, one can have an insight of the equipments, organization and level of man human resources of the healthcare institution, as some emergency department have poor electricity supply nor do they have a standby power supply which has decrease the survival chances of the patients. In Nigeria most of the emergency situations are road accidents usually motor cycle bikes and automobiles cars, heart attack also known as cardiovascular attack, asthmatic challenge, domestically accidents, riot violence and occupational hazards and others in which from this research we will find out seasonal trends and projection to provide the hospital management with a good information and how to improve on their future budget and funding. Observing that road traffic accidents are on the increase and the major cases at the hospital emergency as seen that in Nigeria hospital emergency unit, one of three persons dies and these have claimed more lives since the civil war ( from Time Series Analysis of Emergency Unit ) The emergency management team of the emergency unit exists so as to address issues concerning the healthcare management of the unit which over sees the maintenance and development of the emergency procedures, coordination of staff, ensuring they are qualified and have professional knowledge of the field, adequate supply and maintenance of new age equipments and facilities, proper human resources training and on time attention to patients on arrival at the hospital emergency. It has been observed that time pressure continually increase at the emergency, therefore effectiveness, efficiency and speed have become very important and highly demanded at the emergency unit of the hospitals to eliminate complains of long wait by patients and avoid them leaving before being attended to making them unsatisfied and risk of being expose to more dangers, volume of patients have been lost to about 10 percent because threshold for left before exam (LBE) of 1 percent shows that for every nine patients who LBE due to long wait lines or long time wait and left for another hospitals. Patients dissatisfaction is not all that suffers here but the risk of their survival at critical emergency situations and can be expressed through angry family members over waiting for long, in the case of accidents, patients are not being attended to immediately unless there is a police report about the situation, these situation have result to some patient’s death and eliminated their chances of survival. Fifty percent of the issue of efficiency here is system issue while the other fifty percent is management issues, the five sub-unit of the emergency unit include: Staffing of qualified doctors and nurses Clerical unit staff of cleaners and attendants X-ray and lab unit Chart flow system Patients admission unit The efficiency and speed from this units and there turnaround time determines the performance rating to be high, moderate or low, hence a need to put in place strategies for doing thing better and faster (Clinical practice management 2004) Another task is to include emergency medicine physician who is someone who intervenes to resuscitate and stabilize acute patients that need urgent attention, this person is physician who practice basically at the emergency unit trained to take care of adult and children patients with serious injuries or illness that requires an immediate attention medically, although he/she does not provide a long term care to continual care he/she makes sure emergency patients are stable and at a safe state before referring them to other units of the hospital and sometimes the intensive-care unit. Also the emergency medicine aside general medicine attention include surgery which include surgical sub-specialties, they see a lot of patients, giving them immediate attention and making sure they get continuous medical attention after them at the hospital or discharging them from the hospital if they do not need any further medical observations, then the professional emergency medicine physician, who is believed to have broad knowledge in very important fields like, resuscitation of trauma, cardiac arrest, life support, procedure for surgical situations and managing advance airway problems, amidst other skills needed is the ability to stabilize and resuscitate a patient from a critical situation, manage a difficult anesthesia i.e. difficult airways, attending to dislocated joint and fractured bones, treating a heart attack, ability to stop a nose bleed, vagina bleeding from pregnant patients, conduct, read and interpret x-rays from the radiology (World Health Organization). It is also important to improve on pain management at the emergency because this is one common thing present at the emergency yet it might be difficult to identify pain in some patients and unfortunately there is no test that can prove or disprove a patient’s pain level, more than 60 percent of patients at the emergency have pains symptoms, due to the fact that there is no vivid signs, but can easily be read from the expression of the face, body reactions or language and instinct and guts understanding of the healthcare giver can be useful to validate a patient’s rate of pain, many studies have shown that there is inadequacy to which pain is treated, in most cases it can only be suppress with analgesic after which survey feedback shows about 43 percent of the patients were still in severe or moderate pain and 50 percent of patients show that their post-operative management of pain has proven to be inadequate unfortunately one of the barriers to effective pain management is proper training, even in the medical schools few hours only are dedicating to the study of analgesia while the healthcare givers are expected to pick up these knowledge at the clinical locations during rotations. With the new pain management standards set with some guidelines by the American Pain Society (APS), World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), these have been applied to emergency medicine where healthcare practitioners are asked to ask screening questions to assist in easily identification of patients in pain, these should be assessed and documented, staff with relevant link to the emergency unit should be adequately trained and importantly the patience be involved in decision making of their pain managing situation not forgetting to put in place policies and procedures for effective pain management at the emergency unit (practical pain management) 1.2 Problem Discussion The major challenge of the emergency unit is inadequate implementation of the management emergency system, not adequately or fully manned, making it to lack in complete resources, under qualified or unqualified healthcare staff with improper training and development of their skills. It has been observed that most emergency unit of the hospitals in Nigeria do not have an emergency medicine physician so is professional in the field of emergency, someone that is always readily available to give urgent attention to an acute critical situation, resuscitating the emergency patients and bring them to a point of stability, the presence of an emergency medicine physician eliminate any time wastage in getting the hospital doctors or nurses to attend to the emergency patients. Secondly, just like a need to include an emergency medicine physician, a police protocol officer should be included in the management emergency team (MET) system, because in Nigeria, when there is an accident especially a traffic road accident, the victims are rushed to the hospital emergency unit by witnesses and just kind hearted people and in most cases they are not allowed to sign a consent form to secure the urgent commencement of treatment, and sometimes due to delay to reach out to the victims, a police officer is required to give a police report to guarantee the commencement of treatment, most times the patients die in the process of delay in signing of the consent form for their treatment as most of them are unconscious in the situation, therefore including a police protocol officer means putting a police officer their standby to meet this need and eliminating any time wastage, hence increasing the survival rate of accident victims in the emergency unit. Thirdly inadequate facilities and equipment at the emergency department, most of the equipments are either outdated or faulty and most times absence of the needed equipments. It is very important for an hospital emergency to be well equip with recent high technology machines to meet up with the new age change and demand, so that time wasting can be eliminated and proper healthcare attention given to increase the survival level of the patients, presence of oxygen at all times cannot be over emphasize, but most hospitals in Nigeria do not have this on standby and has become a major challenge and have cause the lost of lives. Lastly, the level of power supply is a challenge and big issue in my country Nigeria, the absence of adequate and uninterrupted power supply to the hospitals has been a big challenge, some patients have lost their lives due to this problem, either in the middle of medical attention the light goes off or there is no light at all to start a treatment, especially those that need presence of light before treatment commencement, the only alternative in this situation is to get a standby generator that can also supply electricity but this is not fully guarantee because it might just break down in the middle of an operation, and have caused the hospital management to increase the medical bills so that they can maintain the extra expense, this can leave the patients with inability to make up for the bill and increase the level of LBE (leave before exam) patients. 1.3 Research Purpose From the above discussed problem, there is need to urgently address the problems associated in Plateau state hospital, as they are faced with all this challenges, and eliminating this challenges means improving a high performing emergency for the hospital emergency management team, increasing the survival rate and decreasing the mortality rate for patients brought to the emergency. The essence of this research to help improve health care performances at the hospital emergencies, in terms of quality healthcare service rendering, adequate and proper emergency equipments, with adequate and well trained health care givers (man power), protocol observations, security presence and general presence of emergency team and it’s necessity, which summarizes the improvement for the MET (Medical Emergency Team) systems of the hospitals, therefore reducing the mortality rates which has been observed to be on a high rate at the emergencies and increasing the survival level of emergency victim s. Most times when accident victims are rushed to the hospital, the medical personnel cannot attend to these patients immediately due to absence of protocol officers to give in their consent or due to the immediate absence of the medical personnel at the emergency because they are attending to some patients within the same hospital, amidst attending to other challenges. The delays to give prompt attention in the process have caused the death rate at the emergency to increase. To attain this, some important questions need to be asked and clarified: What is healthcare givers qualification in Nigeria focusing on the Plateau State hospital? What knowledge, attitude and skills do the healthcare givers have towards emergency situations of the hospital Do the hospital have a first aid box Are the emergency management team staff trained on how to use the first aid box What is the status of the equipments available at the emergency 1.4 Objectives of the Study To have the enlightenment knowledge of the situation currently for the healthcare emergency unit of the plateau state hospital To efficiently know those qualified to be healthcare personnel and their specializations. To understand what and who makes up for the emergency management team and how to improve on the system To identify the modes of practices and how the patients are attended to at the Plateau state hospital emergency. To add knowledge to the operations of the emergency unit of the hospital 1.4 Research Hypotheses The patients are the most vulnerable in the situation of emergency; therefore it is very important to access the knowledge, practice, behaviors and attitudes of the healthcare givers towards making the emergency high performing, for effectiveness and efficiencies of the outcome. Formulating the hypothesis includes: Improving the MET system by including an emergency medicine physician and a police protocol officer, this will strengthen the MET and eliminate a lot of time wastage Training and development of the MET members so that they can improve on there skills Improving on the right attitude for the job for the personnel Putting in the right ethical practices for the emergency unit Improving the equipment of the emergency unit Proper training on how to use this equipments, especially the on new high technology machines Basic first aid training on use of the first aid box at the emergency unit Questionnaires will be distributed to get a surveyed feedback from the patients, their relatives and the healthcare givers (Nurses, doctors and attendant) 1.6 Delimitations My focus here is at the emergency unit of the hospital only; therefore other patients in the hospitals are my delimitations as I will not investigate the performance level nor measures or controls of any other patient survival at the hospital except those at the emergency. 1.7 Outline of Study This research study is divided into five chapters, where chapter one is the general introduction where all the content are discussed, then chapter two which involves the general review of related literature, generally know as literature review, base on the works and research other authors have done in their books, journals and articles on improving the MET system for a high performing emergency unit, chapter three provides an in-depth methodology on the study, by extracting the feedback gotten through the questionnaires shared and reviewed, chapter four where the result gotten from the previous chapter will be analyzed and result be presented from the data followed by discussing the findings. The last chapter is five, showing conclusion base on the findings from the research, through the study, research and questionnaires for further recommendations. 1.8 Operational Definition of Terms Emergency Department: is a department of the hospital responsible for providing urgent medical treatment and specializing in acute care for patients arriving to the hospital due to injuries, attacks, accidents or any casualty requiring an urgent attention Management Emergency Team (MET) System: they are made up of a group of hospital personnel who are responsible to give acute care to patients arriving at the hospital in a capacity of a emergency manager, doctor, nurses, emergency medicine physician, attendants and sub-staff like the cleaners and waste management team. Healthcare Personnel: is someone who has been trained to give healthcare services to the patients, who need them, they can involve professionals Sub-staff: are the supporting staff to the emergency unit, they include the cleaners and waste management team.

Emily Pragers Our Barbies, Ourselves Essay -- Analysis Prager Barbie

Emily Prager's "Our Barbies, Ourselves?" In the essay 'Our Barbies, Ourselves,' Emily Prager explores the history of the Barbie doll and talks about the Barbie doll itself. Prager seems convinced that the Barbie doll was an object created by a man and that Barbie reeks of sexuality, sexual innuendo and serves as the anti-feminist embodiment of every man's fantasy. In her own expressive and persuasive modes to fashion an essay designed to persuade the reader that the Barbie doll is a twisted and corrupt tool designed by men to combat the feminist revolution. Though her attempts at persuasion are commendable, I was not swayed in my opinions on Barbie. If anything, I just found fault with this writer's point of view, and I found her accusations to be outrageous and her 'facts' to be completely wrong.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Prager uses both expressive and persuasive modes in her essay. Her own flavors to this essay express her own frustrations with the ?men? that created Barbie dolls. In truth, Barbie was not created by Jack Ryan. Barbie was created by Ruth Handler. Handler sensed that it was just as important for girls to imagine what they themselves might grow up to become as adult women. In paragraph 2, Prager suggests in her essay that Barbie was fashioned after a man?s dream date with her tiny waist, large bust and feet made for stiletto heels.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In paragraph 6, Prager changes tones and suggests that perhaps Barbie was also an icon that could be embraced by feminists. Barbie i... Emily Prager's Our Barbies, Ourselves Essay -- Analysis Prager Barbie Emily Prager's "Our Barbies, Ourselves?" In the essay 'Our Barbies, Ourselves,' Emily Prager explores the history of the Barbie doll and talks about the Barbie doll itself. Prager seems convinced that the Barbie doll was an object created by a man and that Barbie reeks of sexuality, sexual innuendo and serves as the anti-feminist embodiment of every man's fantasy. In her own expressive and persuasive modes to fashion an essay designed to persuade the reader that the Barbie doll is a twisted and corrupt tool designed by men to combat the feminist revolution. Though her attempts at persuasion are commendable, I was not swayed in my opinions on Barbie. If anything, I just found fault with this writer's point of view, and I found her accusations to be outrageous and her 'facts' to be completely wrong.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Prager uses both expressive and persuasive modes in her essay. Her own flavors to this essay express her own frustrations with the ?men? that created Barbie dolls. In truth, Barbie was not created by Jack Ryan. Barbie was created by Ruth Handler. Handler sensed that it was just as important for girls to imagine what they themselves might grow up to become as adult women. In paragraph 2, Prager suggests in her essay that Barbie was fashioned after a man?s dream date with her tiny waist, large bust and feet made for stiletto heels.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In paragraph 6, Prager changes tones and suggests that perhaps Barbie was also an icon that could be embraced by feminists. Barbie i...

Competition Bikes Inc. Storyline Essay

To: Vice President The following is a summary report to recommend whether Competition Bikes should change its traditional costing method to activity based costing, and an analysis of the breakeven point with regards to sales units and dollars for both CarbonLite and Titanium bikes. It also discusses the impacts to the breakeven point. The cost-volume-profit evaluation and the traditional vs activity based costing method overhead analysis were used for the review and analysis. Traditional Based Costing vs Activity Based Costing Traditional Based Costing Method (TBC). TBC uses one rate, the overall cost of production, to estimate costs based on the revenue production created. Unlike ABC, manufacturing costs in TBC are only assigned to sold merchandises and do not account for nonmanufacturing costs such as administrative costs. This method is general not as accurate as ABC as it does not account for costs specifics to the level of products. For Competition Bikes, the company can see its manufacturing overhead is $239,020 for the Titanium bikes, and $232,380 for the CarbonLite bikes for a total of $471,400 in overhead costs. This means the unit cost for each is $713 for Titanium bikes, and $1359 for the CarbonLite bikes. Activity Based Costing Method (ABC). ABC determines and allocates cost by activities a company executes. This generally happens in four steps: identify each activity and its associated costs, both total and indirect; estimated cost driver and quantity; allocation computation; and cost allocation to the respective activity. ABC refines the way indirect costs are allocated to production and focuses on the costs of each individual activity. Costs are also further assigned to each product within the activities and each activity has its own cost driver. Because of the  specificity, active based costing provides a more accurate picture of the true costs. Direct material (DM), and direct labor (DL) are the same for each bike in using TBC or ABC. However, in using ABC, the company can break out the manufacturing overhead into factory setups, quality control, engineering services, product movements, utilities and services, and depreciation. The total for each bike using the ABC method is $590,715 for Titanium bikes, and $729,985 for CarbonLite bikes. Although the total is still the same $471,400 in overhead costs, the ABC method allows Competition Bikes to see that the Titanium bikes depreciate much faster than the CarbonLite and that it takes more utilities and services to make those bikes. Factory setups and quality control are much higher for CarbonLite bikes than those for Titanium ones. Per unit, the Titanium Bikes cost $656 each and the CarbonLite bikes cost $1460. Recommendation. It is recommended to use ABC to determine true costs associated with activities and products. This will give the company more knowledge of its finances and spending and in return by seeing a clearer picture of costs, make better decisions on funding and budget, and gain cost savings. Activity based management in Competition Bikes can use ABC to make decisions that increase profits while still meeting customer needs. Understanding where costs are going will help Competition Bikes to remove unnecessary costs and set fair price for the products. Overpricing products causes a lost in market sharing while underpricing products diminishes revenue. Better prices for consumers means more business for the company. With activity based costing, Competition Bikes will be able to determine the optimum sales units required with the sales mix of 9 Titanium bicycles produced for every 5 CarbonLite bicycles that will produce the bikes at San Diego at breakeven. The company will also be able to reevaluate activities on a regular basis to reduce future costs as well. Evaluating activities and setting sales prices are part of value engineering. Currently the company thinks it costs $1359 to make a CarbonLite bike and have set the selling price accordingly. In reality, the bikes cost $1460 to make. With a $101 difference, the company may want to adjust their selling price in future months. Using ABC also allows the company to use the Just in Time (JIT) system. This system allows ensures materials are purchased just in time to produce the products, and products are completed just in time for delivery. JIT uses the demand-pull system to receive the order, schedule production, delivered materials, and finished product delivered to the customer. This lessens the amount of excess parts and inventory saving the company money as well. Breakeven Point This analysis will evaluate the breakeven point for Competition Bikes Inc. Sales units and sales dollars will be identified for the breakeven point. These sales units and dollars will be broken down between CarbonLite and Titanium bikes. The breakeven point is used my companies to prevent loss. The Cost Volume Profit (CVP) is the tool in which to capture the breakeven point. Sometimes it is referred to as the breakeven analysis. The CVP assists the company in identifying future operation need, production costs, and expansion possibilities based on estimating costs, prices, and volumes. This profit response can help Competition Bikes determine the amount of needed sales, what products to manufacture, pricing policies, marketing strategies, and how much profit is actually needed. In this analysis we will assume that the fixed and variable costs remain constant, and that the number of units produced equals the number of units the company sells. CVP is defined by the equation Total Revenues – Total Costs = Profit. The breakeven point is the point in which the CVP equals zero or, Revenues – Expenses = 0. Meaning, the revenues cover all the costs, fixed and variable. Therefore, the CVP can be further broken down into Total Revenue – Total Fixed Costs – Total Variable Costs = Total Profit. The contribution margin is then identified by Total Revenue – Total Variable Costs (leaving out the fixed costs). Contribution Margin is important to identify the differences in each product’s profits. For Competition Bikes, the contribution margin for the Titanium bikes is $900-$679=$221. The  CarbonLite Bikes yield $1495-$1384=$111 each. Using the 450 Titanium bikes and 250 CarbonLite bikes sold, the total combined contribution margin for Competition Bikes is $127,000. That’s broken down like this: Titanium Bikes contribution margin of $221 per unit, 450 units equals $221*450, or $99,450. CarbonLite bikes contribution margin of $111 per unit, 250 units equals $27,750. Contribution margins $99,450 + $27,750 = $127,200 Total Contribution Margin. To determine the profits in more detail, we use the equation (Selling Price (per unit) * Quantity Sold) – (Variable Costs (per unit) * Quantity Sold) – Fixed Expenses = Breakeven Point (Zero). The fixed costs are the units sold * the weighted average contribution margin. The weighted average contribution margin is used to find the breakeven point and is essentially the average of contribution margin amounts per unit. The equation is Total Contribution Margin / Total Quantity Sold. For Competition Bikes, our combined weighted average contribution is $181.71. That’s $127,200/ 700 units sold (450 Titanium and 250 CarbonLite bikes) = $181.71. To establish the breakeven point, we also need to know the combined revenue and costs as well. So we calculate total revenue as the following. Titanium bikes are $900 each and 400 units sold, equals $405,000. The CarbonLite bikes are $1495 each and 250 sold which equals $373,750. Combine the $405,000 + $373,750 = $778,750 Total Combined Revenue. The variable costs for each are Titanium bikes: $679 in costs, 450 sold, which equals $305,550 or $679*450 = $305,550. CarbonLite bikes: $1384 in costs, 250 sold, which equals $346,000, or $1384*250= $346,000. The two together, $305,550 + $346,000 = $651,550 Total Combined Variable Costs. The total combined margin can also be calculated by taking $778,750 subtracting the $651,550 and it equals the same $127,200 Total Combined Margin we calculated earlier. We use this as a check and balance system here. To determine the breakeven units, we look at the fixed costs and weighted average contribution margin discussed earlier. The fixed cost for the company is $400,000. Divided by the weighted average contribution margin  181.71, we get the breakeven units for the product sales mix of 2201. The contribution margin ratio is the percentage of contribution margin to revenue. To find the contribution margin ratio, we divide the total combined margin by the total revenue. This tells us by how much the price per unit exceeds the variable cost per unit. In this scenario, Total Combined Margin $127,000 divided by Total Revenue $778,750 which is .163, or $127,000 / $778,750 = .163 Contribution Margin Ratio. Since the bikes are not equal, we must calculate a product mix in addition to the weighted average. Using the weighted average, we can calculate the breakeven point in a proportionate way using sales units and sales dollars. For sales units, we take the breakeven units for the product sales mix and multiply it by the ratio of units sold divided by the total number of unit sold. So for Titanium, the sales units at the breakeven point is [450 / 700] * 2201, or 1415 units. For CarbonLite, [250 / 700] * 2201 = 786 units. To calculate the sales dollars, we multiply the sales units by the sales price. In this instance, Titanium is 1415 units multiplied by $900 cost for each unit or, 1415 * $900 = $1,276,500. CarbonLite is 786 units multiplied by $1495 price for each unit, or 786 * $1495 = $1,175,070. The combined total sales dollars is $2,451,570 To break even, the profit must be zero. Gains and losses are equal. For Competition Bikes, the breakeven point is 1415, or $1,276,500 in Titanium bikes, and 786 CarbonLite bikes, or $1,175,070. Impacts of the Breakeven Point A2b. Based on an evaluation of cost-volume-profit, Prepare a summary report that describes the impacts to the breakeven point if company management needed to increase the cost of direct materials by 10% cost increase and needed to add $50,000 in fixed costs to the production facility. Company management has asked for a report on the impacts of increasing the  cost of direct materials by 10% and fixed costs by $50,000 in relation to the breakeven point. The contribution margin and weighted average are based in part on direct materials, or variable costs. Raising the costs by 10% is significant and will have a great impact on the company. Total Revenue is $778,750 and variable costs now $681,800. This increase is broken down by variable cost per unit to $709 for Titanium bikes, and $1551 for CarbonLite. The Contribution Margin per unit is now 191 and 44 respectively lowering the total combined contribution margin to $96,950. CarbonLite bikes contribution margin decreased from $111 to $44 per unit, over a 60% decrease. Calculated by dividing the Total Combined Contribution Margin $96,950 by the Total Units of 700, the 138.50 weighted average contribution margin per unit also dropped by 24% from 181.71. This shows how significant a 10% can be to the contribution margin. Ten percent in one area can mean much larger impact in other areas. With an increase in fixed costs to $450,000 that now brings the breakeven units for the product sales mix to 3249. We calculate this by $450,000 fixed costs divided by the lower weighed average contribution margin 138.50. This continues to affect numbers as we calculate sales units and sales dollars. Titanium bikes sales units are 450 units divided by 700 total units, multiplied by the weighted average 3249 for 2089 units. CarbonLite bike sales units are 250 units divided by the 700 total units, multiplied by the weighted average 3249, totaling 1160 sales. Sales dollars are calculated as Titanium bikes 2089 units * $900 = $1,880,100 and CarbonLite bikes as 1160 units * $1495 = $1,734,200 for a total $3,614,300. The breakeven point is now increased. Sales for Titanium bikes is now up to 2089 units, or $1,880,100 and CarbonLite bikes up to 1160 units, or $1,734,200. By raising direct costs 10% and fixed costs 13%, Competition Bikes now has to sell 674 more Titanium bikes, and 374 CarbonLite bikes to break even. That’s a 48% increase. Based on this analysis, it would be in Competition Bikes best interest to try to keep costs low. Variable and fixed costs show that a small increase can significantly impact the company’s breakeven point. Variable costs have a higher impact than fixed costs. Direct costs per unit should be specifically addressed in reducing costs as well as increasing sales.

Forced distribution system

Though many researchers have pointed out several drawbacks in FADS, due to the absence of any suitable alternative, it has been (and continues to be) adopted by many industries over a long period of time. The purpose of this paper Is to point out some serious limitations of this system and propose a simple modification to overcome these limitations. Design/ methodology/approach – FADS determines the relative positions of the employees involved in similar work by comparing them against one another, and based on their performance, the employees receive different grades.Here the authors use the Likelier scaling method to convert these grades into numerical scores, then these scores are used to estimate the average performance of each group of employees, which Is referred to as the group Index. Taking these group Indices Into consideration, the authors propose a modeled performance score of each employee for their final evaluation. Efficiencies of the existing FADS and the propose d modified version are compared using a simple measure of rank correlation known as the Sandal's taut-statistic.Findings – Extensive simulation studies show that the modified algorithm is uniformly better than the existing one over different schemes for allocations of employees to deferent projects, and depending on the allocation scheme, It can lead to substantial Improvement. Relationally/value – This paper can be appraisal system based on a forced distribution and the first that provides a simple but effective solution which can be adopted by the organizations using FADS for performance appraisal.Keywords Performance appraisal, Statistical methods, Human resource management Paper type Research paper 1 Introduction Performance evaluation is regarded as one of the most powerful human resource raciest (Judges and Ferris, 1993; Murphy and Cleveland, 1995, p. 4). It provides a justification for human resource decision such as rewards, career planning, transfers, training , counseling, mentoring, termination, etc.Performance appraisal provides the employer an opportunity to communicate with the employees about the mission, strategy, vision, values and objectives of the organization, and it personalizes organizational strategy into individual performance criteria. It has been observed that employee motivations to perform, to develop capabilities and to improve future reference are influenced by the performance appraisal system (Land et al. , 1978; The authors thank the anonymous reviewer for providing several helpful comments and suggestions that led to substantial improvement of the article.Despite the importance of a performance evaluation system, extensive studies in this field have identified significant shortcomings in its applications that include different types of biases stemming from rating errors, sources of performance information and individual differences (Arrive and Murphy, 1998). Among these various shortcomings, rating bias is the most predominant area of research, which indicates the tendency of the raters to provide lenient or stringent rating (Beret et al. 992; Runes et al. , 2002). This systematic bias leads to lack of discrimination between high and low performance and automatically disrupts the whole essence of performance decades, several researchers have explored different methods to overcome the rating bias and to improve the accuracy of performance evaluation system (Goff et al. , 1996). Studies on performance evaluation are mainly focused on two types of appraisal systems – absolute and relative.In an absolute rating system, individual performance is evaluated against a pre-determined standard, whereas a relative evaluation yester determines the relative positions of different employees by comparing them against one another (Duffy and Webber, 1974). Though there are advantages and disadvantages in both of these systems, some studies have pointed out the superiority of the relative grading system over the absolute one (He-man, 1986; Nathan and Alexander, 1988; Wander and Goofing, 1997).Many renowned organizations including General Electric (GE), Hen, Microsoft, American Express and Goldman Cash have used and some still use relative grading system for performance evaluation in the form of a forced distribution system (FADS) (Grotto, 2005). FADS was developed in an attempt to directly deal with the problems of rater leniency and lack of discrimination while measuring an individual's performance (McCarty, 1988).This system forces the managers to discriminate between high and low performers either by sorting the employees into some pre-determined performance categories based on a pre-defined distribution or by ranking them on the basis of their relative performance (Gurgling et al. , 2004). The first process is also known as the criterion-reference rating, while the second one is known as the norm- reference rating (Visionary and Ones, 2000; Visionary, 2001).The wide use of FAD S as an objective measure of employee performance was mostly popularized by Jack Welch at the beginning of his tenure at GE under the name of â€Å"vitality curve† (Bossily and Charka, 2002; Itchy and Sherman, 2001). Welch introduced this system to develop an objective measure to discriminate between high and low performer so that the culture of â€Å"rewarding doers† can be established, which in turn can be helpful for â€Å"building muscle† of the organization. In GE and many other organizations, FADS is considered as a developmental instrument for achieving a performance-oriented culture.Though FADS has several advantages, many organizations have been observed to perceive this system negatively (Rock et al. , 2007). Many researchers and practitioners have also pointed out that a forced distribution in performance evaluation leads to extreme level of Job dissatisfaction among the employees with high potential to perform (Gray, 2002; Madman, 2006; Prefer and Su tton, 2006). In practice, a relatively low-performing member in a high- performing team can often be better than the best performer in an average performing team.The FADS is used to evaluate the members working in different roofs or teams separately, and the rigidity of this system forces the companies to reprimand all low performers of each and every group. As a result, some high-potential performers may be asked to leave the Job or they may leave the organization voluntarily due to dissatisfaction. The negative consequences of this performance evaluation system have been observed in many organizations. For instance, Ford had a well-publicized unsuccessful experience with a forced ranking support this ranking system at all.Many employees, who had received positive feedback for years, were suddenly categorized as under performers. As a result, dozens of Ford employees and ex-employees sued the company because of this system of evaluation. Vishnu et al. (2006) studied the long-term e ffect of the â€Å"bell curve†, which is a form of forced distribution, on organizational dynamics. According to their views, pressure of the bell curve can facilitate the performance to a certain level, but constant pressure demoralizes the employees. As the company shrinks, the rigid distribution of the bell curve forces the manager to categorize a high performer as a mediocre one.Also, it is often assumed that the employees identified as low reformers, on account of their unsatisfactory performance, are usually replaced every year by fresh talent, who can add up to the output of the organization. Here we may argue that the likelihood of the presence of poor performers amongst these new additions is another possibility, which can adversely affect the system. Moreover, from the financial point of view, replacement of the employees with the fresh talent is also a costly affair. Blame et al. 2009) conducted a study on a student population to understand their reactions towards different types of FADS, and pointed out that â€Å"less trending consequences for low performer† is the most powerful variable in determining the attractions towards different types of FADS. On the basis of this study, we may assume that the organization, where stringency is higher for the low performers, has less chance to get higher number of Job applicants. In order to overcome these limitations of the forced ranking appraisal system and to protect the employees with high potential, Vishnu et al. 2006) proposed to use an evaluation system based on the semi-bell curve, where instead of putting fixed proportions of employees into different groups of performance levels, an organization adjusts these proportions depending on the set of employees it is dealing with. However, the adjustment scheme they proposed was subjective and somewhat ad hoc. Instead of using the semi-bell curve, an organization can use any other curves as well, or it can even use different curves for diffe rent set of workers involved in different projects. It depends entirely on the company policy, and we have no prerogative to decide that.So, in this paper, we do not recommend the use of any particular curve. Here, we repose a modified algorithm for forced ranking performance appraisal that can be used irrespective of the nature of the curve(s) used by the companies for the evaluation of their employees. In the following sections, we assume the bell curve appraisal system for the demonstration of our method. However, the description of our method will make it clear that our modification is not limited to the bell curve system, and it can even be used when a company adopts different types of curves or distributions for evaluation of its employees involved in different projects. . Objectives of the study The main objectives of our study are given below: evaluation of the present appraisal system under different schemes of allocation of workers and identifying the limitations of the fo rced ranking appraisal system; propose a new method for performance appraisal to overcome these limitations; and extensive comparison between the proposed and the existing method of performance appraisal to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method. The next three sections address each of these objectives in turn. . Evaluation of the forced ranking performance appraisal system First, we carry out emulation studies to evaluate the performance of the existing forced ranking appraisal system. Let us consider an organization with 3,000 employees. Suppose that there are 30 projects run by the organization, and 100 employees are involved in each of these projects. For the time being, we assume that the potentials of these employees are known and they perform according to their potentials.We generate 3,000 observations from a normal distribution with mean 50 and standard deviation 10 (so that almost observation lie in the (O, 100) range) and consider them as true potentials of diff erent employees. Here we consider two different allocation schemes for assigning the employees to different projects, and we will refer to them as random allocation and extreme allocation, respectively. In random allocation, the employees are randomly assigned to different projects. In extreme allocation, employees having similar potentials are assigned to the same project.For instance, the 100 employees having the highest potentials are assigned to one project, the next 100 employees to another project and so on. In each of these two cases, we evaluate the performance of the employees involved in each project, and the grades are located to them following the bell curve system. Assume that the organization uses six different Grades A (best)-F (worst) for its employees, and in the bell curve system, the proportions of employees to receive these grades are PA h if h 1?F(2), BP h PEP h F(2)?F(1) and PC h PDP h F(1)?O. , where ? ) is the cumulative distribution function of a standard no rmal variant ( Johnson et al. , 1995). Now, one may be curious to know how FADS perform in such situations. In order to investigate this, we compute the correlation coefficient between the potentials of the employees and the grades obtained by them and use it as a measure of efficiency of the appraisal system. Same grade, we use the Sandal's t-statistic (Kendall, 1938) as an appropriate measure of correlation.Note that unlike the product moment correlation coefficient, this statistic is invariant under any monotonically increasing transformation. So, instead of normal distribution, if we generate 3,000 observations from any other distribution, the efficiency measure based on the Sandal's t-statistic will remain the same. In the case of random allocation, the existing method performed quite well, and it led to a rank correlation of 0. 716. But in the case of extreme allocation, it had drastically poor performance.The rank correlation turned out to be 0. 024. So, essentially there was no correlation between the potentials of the employees and the grades obtained by them, and the forced ranking system was as bad as random grading. Note that random allocation of workers to different projects is presumed rare in practice. Usually the employees are assigned to different projects based on their expertise, and also depending on the difficulty level of the project.Therefore, it is not so rare that the employees having higher potentials are assigned to high-end projects, and hose having relatively lower potentials are assigned to low-end projects. In such cases, the existing performance appraisal system will perform poorly, and as a result some of the high (low) potential workers will get lower (higher) grades. Being unsatisfied with the grading, some of these high-potential workers may lose motivation to work hard and some of them may leave the organization for a new Job.This is quite harmful for organizational functioning. In practice, in many cases, the allocation of the workers in an organization is somewhere between the totally random allocation and the extreme allocation. From the above discussion, it is quite transparent that in such cases, the existing appraisal system may only have a moderate performance depending on the extremity of the allocation scheme. This clearly shows the necessity to develop a new method for performance appraisal, which can have satisfactory performance even in the case of extreme allocation.We develop one such method in the next section. 4. Modification to the forced ranking performance appraisal system: a new method for performance appraisal The existing method of performance appraisal simply considers the present year's elating performance of the employees involved in the same project, and the grades are allocated to them only based on their present performance. Because of this relative grading, an employee in a high-performing team can get poor grades in spite of performing better than all other members in an average performing team.In order to overcome this limitation, here we take the previous year's grades of the employees into consideration. Suppose that there are n employees working in a particular project, and Gig is the grade obtained by the tit employee (I h 1, 2, y, n) in the previous year's appraisal. In order to develop a modified appraisal system, we assume that the individual performance of the employees may vary from their previous year's performance, but the average performance of these n employees remains almost the same. For computing this average performance, we follow the Likelier, (1932) scaling method.It is a statistical tool that converts the Grades Gig into numerical scores s(Gig) and makes it possible to calculate the mean score I h for this group of employees. Though here we assume that the performance evaluation is done once in a year, this method can be used when the evaluation cycle has shorter or larger eroticism or even when it is periodic. Let us assume tha t a company uses a total of K Grades AAA, AAA, y, AK in the appraisal system, where AAA and AK denote the highest and the lowest grades, respectively.Also assume that it puts the best performing Pl proportion of employees in AAA, the next up proportion in AAA and so on. Therefore, the worst performing PC proportion (here Pl up pep PC h 1) of employees receive the Grade AK. So, if we assume that the performance of the employees are normally distributed (this is the assumption the companies made when they adopt the bell curve system), the mean of a truncated tankard normal distribution with truncation at and above the (1 ?up)the quintile of the standard normal distribution can be used as the score function for AAA .

Free Essays on Scientology As A Deviant Group

The Church of Scientology is a progressive religious philosophy that was founded in the 1950’s by L. Ron Hubbard. Unlike most other religions of the world, Scientology is not faith-based. It does not expect its members to believe anything that they do not have empirical evidence for. They do believe, that matters of religion are just as scientific as matters of biology. According to the mission statement on their website, the purpose of the religion is to get man back in touch with his spiritual side. Man has advanced a great deal in its knowledge of the physical world around it, but has failed to advance in its knowledge of the self and the spirit. Scientology is supposed to help individuals regain knowledge of themselves. It also proposed to rid man of his earthly troubles – â€Å"to replace ignorance with knowledge, doubts with certainty, and misery with happiness.† There are many testimonies about the effectiveness of the church’s program, incl uding from celebrities like Kirstie Alley and Kelly Preston. The website is very vague about specifics of practices and rituals, although there is continuous mention of a â€Å"purifying† program that is supposed to detoxify one’s body before starting the spiritual journey. Aside from small snippets of information about the philosophy of the church, there is little theoretical content on the website. It is rumored that this cult-like religion won’t reveal anything to outside sources. People must become members in order to learn about the actual philosophy of the church. Probably the aspect of the Church of Scientology that sticks out the most is its disregard for the role of faith in religion and the image of a god as a supreme being. All major world religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Hindu, Islam, and Buddhism acknowledge the existence of a god, a creator. On its website, Scientology boasts to have â€Å"millions of members,† a figure that is not only vague,... Free Essays on Scientology As A Deviant Group Free Essays on Scientology As A Deviant Group The Church of Scientology is a progressive religious philosophy that was founded in the 1950’s by L. Ron Hubbard. Unlike most other religions of the world, Scientology is not faith-based. It does not expect its members to believe anything that they do not have empirical evidence for. They do believe, that matters of religion are just as scientific as matters of biology. According to the mission statement on their website, the purpose of the religion is to get man back in touch with his spiritual side. Man has advanced a great deal in its knowledge of the physical world around it, but has failed to advance in its knowledge of the self and the spirit. Scientology is supposed to help individuals regain knowledge of themselves. It also proposed to rid man of his earthly troubles – â€Å"to replace ignorance with knowledge, doubts with certainty, and misery with happiness.† There are many testimonies about the effectiveness of the church’s program, incl uding from celebrities like Kirstie Alley and Kelly Preston. The website is very vague about specifics of practices and rituals, although there is continuous mention of a â€Å"purifying† program that is supposed to detoxify one’s body before starting the spiritual journey. Aside from small snippets of information about the philosophy of the church, there is little theoretical content on the website. It is rumored that this cult-like religion won’t reveal anything to outside sources. People must become members in order to learn about the actual philosophy of the church. Probably the aspect of the Church of Scientology that sticks out the most is its disregard for the role of faith in religion and the image of a god as a supreme being. All major world religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Hindu, Islam, and Buddhism acknowledge the existence of a god, a creator. On its website, Scientology boasts to have â€Å"millions of members,† a figure that is not only vague,...