Corporate strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Corporate strategy - Essay Example This analysis assumes that the pending merger of BA and Iberia occurs pursuant to a November 2010 vote by Iberia shareholders. Combining the U.K.’s and Spain’s largest airlines is expected to build two major strengths. Combined, the two firms carry more than 61 million passengers (Airwise, 2010), which will rank the new firm among the world’s ten largest airlines, and provide greater customer visibility, economies in operating costs, and greater purchasing power/lower capital costs for aircraft and other equipment. BA and Iberia combine two major airport â€Å"hubs†, the customer (passengers and cargo) transit locations that facilitate direct customer access and operating economies. BA’s hub at London Heathrow ranks number two in world passenger traffic and number 16 in cargo tonnage, and Iberia’s hub at Madrid airport ranks number eleven in passenger traffic. Each firm also operates secondary airports of Gatwick and Barcelona that rank 31st and 42nd, respectively, in world passenger traffic. (Airports Council International, 2010) Moreover, one key projection is that the UK and Spain will be among the top four international markets for passenger traffic in 2014. (International Air Transport Association, 2010) A third BA strength is its membership in, and leadership of, oneworld ®, a global alliance of 11 world airlines founded in 1999. Within the consolidating worldwide airline industry, oneworld was named â€Å"Worlds Best Airline Alliance† (oneworld, 2010). BA’s strategic weaknesses include those common to other airlines, including dependence on, and difficult relationships with, employee unions; sustained lack of profitability; and damaged brand names due to union and operational difficulties. But BA’s major unique competitive weakness is that it is primarily a long haul, hub-centric carrier. As described by The Economist in May of this year, â€Å"the low-cost airlines Ryanair and easyJet are snapping at [BA’s]

Essay about two related chapters from David Sloan Wilsons Evolution

About two related chapters from David Sloan Wilsons Evolution for Everyone - Essay Example Besides attempting to provide a plausible explanation for the origin of life, evolution also heavily impacts the behavior of species. Evolution holds the key to understanding the behavior of all species including the bizarre infanticide tendencies of particular species. The third chapter of Wilson’s Evolution for Everyone lays foundation for â€Å"the power of natural selection thinking† (Wilson 19). To demonstrate the power of this line of thinking, Wilson dwells on the socially undesirable practice of infanticide. Since the concept of natural selection is driven by the need to have off springs, then killing the off springs is automatically out of question (Wilson 19). However Wilson reveals that there exist certain environmental situations which make infanticide to be desirable. According to Wilson such possibilities like uncertain parentage, poor offspring and lack of sufficient resources create justification for infanticide among some species. In the fourth chapter of the text, Wilson proceeds to justify what he termed as the â€Å"third way of thinking† in the previous chapter. The third way of thinking is just but a simple phrase that Wilson uses to urge the reader to be flexible enough in their thinking to accommodate even the most remote of thoughts that indeed natural selection is responsible for the formation of the world as it currently is through contributing to all the behavioral outcomes of all the species in the universe. While still pursuing possible reasons that make infanticide to be a rational outcome, Wilson eventually derive his proof from the behavior of burying beetles. The Prove It chapter explains the possible reasons behind the actions of infanticide by a species – the burying beetles. Wilson reveals that this specie opts to regulate its brood size purely based on the food resources that are available. The parent beetle opts to kill some of its young ones so as to ensure that the rest c an comfortably thrive. This is one of

Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Education - Essay Example In addition, US government supports education to reduce illiteracy, criminal activities, and drug abuse behaviours that are prevalent with the uneducated. This paper discusses education in the US as a social issue. The two theories quoted in literature trying to explain or predict student’s performance include needs theory and expectancy theory. According to Geiger and Coopers, â€Å"expectancy theory suggests that motivation to act is a combination of the perceived attractiveness of future outcomes and the likelihood one’s actions will lead to these outcomes† (Geiger and Coopers 1995). This means that to motivate a student to work hard depends on their perceptions of the academic performance and in their beliefs that after hard work they will yield great results. The second traditional that attempt to explain academic success suggests that motivating students to perform depends on their intrinsic individual needs. Individual student’s motivational behavio ur is influenced by their desire to achieve, to dominate, to belong to a certain affiliation, or autonomy. The two theories differ in that motivation from students may come from some needs in the subconscious mind or by a conscious choice. A concern on whether educational opportunities are equal to all lingers many minds. According to Collins, â€Å"Social reproduction theory argues that schools are not institutions of equal opportunity but mechanisms for perpetuating social inequalities† (Collins 2009). Researchers have associated three perspectives in the analysis of the emergence and development of social reproduction, which include economic, cultural, and linguistic. Despite different analysis to understand how social inequality results from the interplay of schools, classrooms, and the wider society, no solution exists yet (Collins 2009). Conflict theory believes that the society is full of a community with different values and social rewards. It views relations in socie ty as based on exploitation, oppression, domination, and subordination. Teachers equally behave in the same manner whereby they use traditional teaching curriculum and expect students to get some support from their parents in the evenings but this is not normally the case. The state gauge knowledge passed to its students via the curriculum, which in most cases does not make sense to the students. Structural functionalism views institutions of education as gateways that keep order and meaning to a society. Through socialization, the society produces citizens after equipping them with knowledge, attitudes and values the need. These theories together with political arithmetic helps one understand the structural mechanism in educational inequalities. Implicitly, schools have central role of assisting immigrants in adapting to the new lives they find themselves. This is where immigrant students start their integration with working life as they share the same skills with the native studen ts. However, this is not the case in America since equality in schooling inputs is no longer enough to assess equity in education. After accounting for the social-economic factors of the parents of the students, PISA mathematical scale discovered that immigrants still rage behind by 30 score points to their native counterparts (Schleicher 2006). Researchers shows that immigrant students attend schools with poor learning conditions such as student-teacher ratio and that they lack in other

Plato's View of Democracy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Plato's View of Democracy - Essay Example Many people were wondering how the ideal state could come about. It was argued that it could be a democracy, and this 'idealized world,' could, in name exist. Plato doubted this however. Other people caught onto Plato's ideas about the Greek state quickly. They even adopted them for their own philosophies about the world. In fact, "Jews used Plato's myth [about the demiurge in Timaeus] to imagine how the world could have gotten so out of shape when it was God's wisdom that had planned it." (Mack, 1995) Plato was talking not only about democracy, but about the creation of a polis: "Well, then, said I, is not the city you are founding to be a Greek city" (Hamilton, 2005) Plato insisted that Greeks would run a democratic city in a better fashion than barbarians or non-Greeks, and insisted upon this point with some alacrity. "They will not, being Greeks, ravage Greek territory nor burn habitations, and they will not admit that in any city all the population are their enemies, men, women, and children, but will say that only a few at any time are their foes, those, namely, who are to blame for the quarrel." (Hamilton, 2005) Plato insisted that Greeks would not harm their own land if they were to fight for it and, would indeed not pillage the land. "And on all these considerations they will not be willing to lay waste the soil, since the majority are their friends, nor to destroy the houses, but will carry the conflict only to the point of compelling the guilty to do justice by the pressure of the suffering of the innocent." (Hamilton, 2005) Plato considered that it would be an injustice towards Greek countrymen if Greeks were to commit their own savage acts of war on their own country in pursuit of democracy, saying, "if either party... The Plato's View on Democracy The problems Plato had with democracy were that: there was a fake quality about this notion, and that in fact in Greece not all men were equipped to become faciliators of the state; men needed an oligarchic state because no man was an island capable of helping himself; and that a society in which there is a hierarchy avoids justice, and includes a state which would dissolve into a tyranny because people would not know what would be the right thing to do. "While Plato and Aristotle founded their schools, the Academy and the Lyceum, before the beginning of the Hellenistic period, the Epicureans and the Stoics first appeared in the early decades of that period." (Koester, 1995) Plato does have a way of describing events, but he does so in a mentally rigorous process. "When Plato describes the universe [and how ordered a democracy should be], "he does so in almost entirely mythological terms; so too in his many discussions of the nature and destiny of the soul (Phaedo, Gorgias, Phaedrus, Republic, Laws)." (Tarnas, 1991) In that period, not every man was deemed equal in Plato's eyes. "In the middle period dialogues (Phaedo, Symposium, Republic), Plato set out the character of the ideal society and speculated on the nature of true reality as such. Plato had a very narrow view on democracy, and he can’t be blamed for that seeing as how the people of his time were at times unreliable.

Traditional And Citizen-Based Forms Of Journalism Essay

Traditional And Citizen-Based Forms Of Journalism - Essay Example The professional media draw their organizational authority and charge from their production of their work within the journalism norms. This means that traditional journalism entails professionally paid staff, officially recognized by the press (Reese et al., 2007). Such members of staff are trained and proficient in the journalistic dexterity and often have formal or ceremonial training. Advertising and subscriber support provides traditional journalism with the means to extensively distribute their listed product such as news, shows, and events. On the contrary, citizen journalism has its emergence from individuals and citizenry interest factions seeking to articulate thoughts or position within the civic discourse. Participants in the citizen journalism need not hold traditional journalistic code as a prerequisite for participation. By designation, these citizenry media command less financial feasibility and may be based on a subsidy, non-profit, or no revenue model at all (Reese e t al., 2007). Contributors only require motivation and willingness to have a word with the public. Unlike traditional journalism, citizen journalism creates lively and interactive conversations on personal sites, NGO) websites, chain emails, social media platforms, and message boards. Apparently, as shown above, the two models of journalism though having the same objective- informing the public of trends and news, they have distinct structures and approaches in operations for efficient service delivery.  

Data & Access Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Data & Access Management - Essay Example How should the company react, if all? How can the company increase Information Technology transparency? The only problem about the question is that they are reactive and not proactive and therefore never curb the breach. Therefore, data access and management as presently constitute digs deep into asking questions as, what transpires inside a company’s firewall, and especially the connection between identity access management (IAM) and data security. The identity of a company users and the respective users’ scope permission followers immediately after the company starts to raise questions about whatever transpires inside the firewall. It is a common phenomenon to find inappropriate resource access permission in a number of the organization. The worse, however, is the lack of counteractive measures to thwart misuse. The reason is that employees are already trusted. Therefore, the employee has the access to the data centers and other assets inside the firewall. The majority of threats to data access and management, therefore, arise the notion of trusting everyone on the inside. Consequently, the organization suffers severely as a single misuse mistake may culminate into leaked intellectual property, lawsuits, regulatory probing, fines as well as audit failures. Therefore, the sole solution is to control the identity access through a systematic management despite being a complex task. The IAM is the high stake and therefore balancing act between senior management, IT, and Legal stakeholders. The management must understand that IT has implemented and is imposing rigorous IAM systems and protocols. The measures must integrate the stratification of privileges amongst the users and checks and balances on the approach IT itself uses passwords. Data access and management requires an effective framework that answers the question aforementioned. The Information Technology

Language and ethnicity -Ethnic related speech mitigation and PDI Essay

Language and ethnicity -Ethnic related speech mitigation and PDI effect - Essay Example This paper will also examine the concept of Power Distance Index, and how it affects speech. In addition to this, this paper will explain the difference between high PDI and low PDI countries. This paper will further analyze the success rate based on the PDI of the community. The idea of speech code came about as a result of the coding principle by Basil Bernstein and the programmatic approach that Hymes adopted to communication. The combination of the two concepts saw to the development of the concept that speech code is. Basil Bernstein, a British psychologist, noted that different social classes or social differences can exist within one society. While these differences include language features, they also entail coding principles, which dictate communicative conduct. Coding principle, according to Bernstein, refers to the rule that governs what to say, and depending on the context, how to say it (Sadovnik, 2001). Method According to Bernstein’s theory on coding principle, speakers are directed to rely on shared context of communication, other than only the verbal communication. When this happens, the speaker can communicate more effectively since they are aware that in addition to their words, the signals, and non-verbal cues they use also dictate the meaning they send forth. The coding principles used vary according to the socioeconomic differences of the people involved. Even though, a community shares a similar language, different socioeconomic groups value different ways of communicating; in other words, the coding principle. In his theory, Bernstein claimed that the use, and value placed on the coding of language, is influenced by the socioeconomic conditions (Philipsen, 2007). Three coding principles are usually used in linguistics, and these are informativity, rigidity, and attenuation. Using these three principles, the same set of words may have different meanings to different groups of persons. The structure and interaction patterns that cha racterize a family influence the way the members in focus express themselves. The use of language, and the way it is coded is also sensitive to the social organization of the society, and the correlative differences in the family (Sharifian, 2007). Judith Orasanu and Ute Fischer carried out a study on â€Å"Cultural Diversity and Crew Communication.† This study carried out in 1999 involved dialogue between an aircraft officer, and his first officer. In their study, they established that nationality played an important role in influencing communication. This is evident when the modes of communication of different communities are put into consideration. Communication in Korean and Japanese communities is accentuated with symbols, facial expressions, and other gestures. These are aspects of receiver oriented speech. The main focus is on getting information across to the recipient of the information. In contrast to this, there is transmitter oriented speech. Here, the speaker aim s to get out his point without being overly concerned with whether or not the recipient gets the intended information. This is characteristic with Danish, or Swedish communication. The source of information basically uses communication aspects he feels will get his message out in the best way possible. Focus is on getting the message out, and not across. Performance Distance Index (PDI) A society that records a