St. Thomas Aquinas On God And The Laws Of Nature - 964 Words

The world does not function in absolutes, therefore, I find myself aligning with St. Thomas Aquinas over Immanuel Kant. Aquinas’ Natural Law is based on God and the laws of nature. Aquinas identifies five primary precepts: reproduction, life, education, justice and worship. The primary precepts, then break down into secondary precepts that are flexible and realistic. Aquinas views the laws that affect man as coming from one of four areas. Eternal law is the mind of God and what he was thinking when he made us. Divine law is found in the Bible and acts as a guide for life. Natural law is our conscience and helps guide our daily actions. The final law is the human law which incorporates the laws written by man. Secondly, Aquinas allows for flexibility and the reality of the world which in turn makes his Natural Law easier to follow. An example is the primary precept of reproduction, which at its core says any action that prevents the increase of our population is wrong . This is the basis for the Catholic Church’s stance against homosexuality, abortions, and contraception. However, if a woman with cancer is pregnant and opts to take chemotherapy and the result is the death of the fetus that is acceptable. Aquinas reasons it is acceptable because the death of the fetus was an unintended consequence of saving the life of the mother. Aquinas says that first the action must be good, in this case saving the life of the mother. The next part is the evil must beShow MoreRelatedThe Natural Law Theory Essay examples1037 Words   |  5 Pagesthe natural law theory is the only true and moral way to live life; especially a life lived in God’s image. God’s presence is a guiding factor to obtaining a moral and virtuous life, which can only be obtained by following the natural law theory. God created a set of laws as a supreme guide for humans to live life, like any law these laws were created to ensure wellbeing for everyone. The laws he created are the civil law, the natural law and the divine law God created them from a law much superiorRead MoreNichomachean Ethics And Thomas Aquinas986 Words   |  4 PagesAristotle’s â€Å"Nichomachean Ethics† and Thomas Aquinas’ â€Å"On the Nature of Law.† And by examining these texts I wish to argue that even though they lived nearly 1000 years apart, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas share the same overall view of justice, but they each follow different paths to reach that justice. Both Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas believe in the pursuit of happiness as a measure of justice and a desirable chief end of life. So in this view, all laws that are made in order to maintain justiceRead MoreSt. Thomas Aquinas Of The Personalist / Natural Law Ethics888 Words   |  4 Pagesmost is St. Thomas Aquinas of the personalist /natural law ethics. St. Thomas Aquinas natural laws theory developed from a non-Christian that was Aristotle. Despite many of many Catholic theologian did not agree with St. Thomas Aquinas due to his agreement with Aristotle, but St. Aquinas would become one of the most influential theologian in Christianity history. His theory on natural law started to first defining law in general. For example, the key aspect of his definition is that, â€Å"law is somethingRead MoreThe Five Ways By St. Thomas Aquinas996 Words   |  4 PagesFor centuries The Five Ways, drawn from St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica have been studied, scrutinized, and at the epicenter of heated debate. When St. Thomas wrote this section of his ground breaking essay what he ultimately was claiming, was that through philosophy and observation, there is a way to see how the natural world points to there in fact being a God. Although to some it may seem absurd, modern day science based upon observation and experimentation, does not completely discreditRead MoreCapital Punishment : Light Of The Natural Law898 Words   |  4 PagesNatural Law The practice of the death penalty and capital punishment is a contemporary political issue that is widely debated throughout the United States. It is my opinion that capital punishment should either be discontinued or only reserved for the rarest of the rare case. In this essay, I will attempt to resolve the issue of whether the United States should continue or discontinue the practice of capital punishment by using the natural law theory set forth by Saint Thomas Aquinas and hisRead More Natural Law Theory Essay661 Words   |  3 Pages Natural Law Theory The natural law theory is a theory that dates back to the time of the Greeks and great thinkers like Plato and Aristotle. Defined as the law which states that human are inborn with certain laws preordained into them which let them determine what is right and what is wrong.(Bainton 174) This theory was them adapted by religious philosophers to fit the Christian religion.(Berkhof 114) This, however was not exactly the same as the original. The classical thinkers were the firstRead MoreAristotle s Five Ways Of The Existence Of God1354 Words   |  6 Pages The existence of God, or a divine being, has been a metaphysical subject that has been contemplated since thousands of years by ancient philosophers such as Thales, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and many more. Medieval philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, who is most famously known for combining principles of faith and reason into a philosophy known as Thomism. The â€Å"five ways† of proofing the existence of God, which is Article three, of Question 2, of part I, of his â€Å"Summa Theologià ¦Ã¢â‚¬ , gives five differentRead MoreSt. Thomas Aquinas And The Theological Principles Of Faith1831 Words   |  8 Pagesthan merely to contemplate† is a famous quote by St. Thomas Aquinas. It mentions how giving others the full truth about what they believe in is the best way for others to be willing members of a particular group. St. Thomas Aquinas always believed that there is nothing more sincere than the truth. It was always important to him to make sure everything he said was hon est, especially speaking about the Lord so it wouldn’t be considered heresy. As Aquinas grew older and older, he started to learn moreRead MoreThomas Aquinas And The King Of The City Of God1520 Words   |  7 PagesThomas Aquinas, much like Aristotle, composed that nature is sorted out for good purposes. Not at all like Aristotle, then again, Aquinas happened to say that God made nature and standards the world by perfect reason. Aquinas portrayed four sorts of law. Endless law was God s ideal arrangement, not completely comprehensible to people. It decided the way things, for example, creatures and planets carried on and how individuals ought to carry on. Divine law, fundamentally from the Bible, guidedRead MoreSt. Thomas Aquinas Essay898 Words   |  4 PagesOwen Zimmermann 11-20-11 Mrs.Donofree Rel. Pd. B St. Thomas Aquinas Saint Thomas Aquinas was a philosopher, theologian, Doctor of the Catholic Church, and is the patron saint of Catholic Universities, colleges, and schools. He was born in Rocca Secca, Italy, in 1225 and was born into a wealthy family. He even was related to the kings of Aragon, Castile, and France. His journey into Catholic beliefs seemed predestined, for he was told when he was a young child that he would become

Westye Free Essays

The first part of the process of selection of an applications software package was to determine what Westye needed. Under this process, they sought to develop criteria for how business solutions companies would address their specific needs. Here, they outlined these through the creation of 160 issues related to Westye’s business processes. We will write a custom essay sample on Westye or any similar topic only for you Order Now The second step included determining the specific small midmarket business solutions that can address Westye’s needs. In here, considerable attention was given by the company towards finding competent providers and was equally reduced to 27 companies who shall then be subjected interview and questioning. The third process that the company took was the selection process. Here, Westye based their choice in the capacity of small midmarket business solutions to address their needs. Given the specific criteria, the company was able to consolidate effective responses coming from Microsoft Business Solutions – Navisione and became the primary choice. The last part involved finding the necessary partner that can help address the issues and problems of Westye. Here, the choice of ICS Advantage revolved around the ability of the company to facilitate better means of integrating a collaborative long term strategy and relationship with Westye. Likewise, the company also sought a committed and driven partners who can fulfill the company’s needs accordingly. Analyzing the specific strategy employed by Westye, it could have improved its selection process if it had tried (1) to set specific standards for choices above the 160 criteria, (2) provided inputs on how the old MAPICS system can be integrated towards the recommended changes, and (3) considering long term strategies and options for employees. Seeing this, the value then of the first input corresponds to the capacity to examine further not only the technical and operational business schemes influencing Westye but also try to integrate it in the way people do business. By setting up these standards, vendors can then align their proposals to meet these realities accordingly. The second part corresponds to allowing Westye proper transition from its old system and incorporating them into the new one. This can help new participants to have a grasp of what the new system is and leverage increased costs in education and training of people. The last part corresponds to outlining how these new strategies impact the workforce in both education and application. By inducing opportunities to include feedback and reaction, it can help facilitate better means of transcending competency and ability to harness effective skills for operation and diversification of tasks by employees within Westye. (2) Analyzing the specific advantages of utilizing a package development, it revolves around (1) revamping the old MAPICS system, (2) effective support mechanism, (3) allows standardization of Westye’s processes and (4) infusing simple means to increase efficiency of production. Here, the first process takes into consideration deriving valuable opportunities for Westeye to address the loopholes and inefficiencies of the old MAPCIS system. By incorporating packaged software, it can veer away from the old system and incorporate new ones that can be synchronized with the companies needs. The second advantage is that technicians can effectively carry out repairs and updates of a packaged system compared to a customized one. Such directions also provides standardization of processes as the new software then incorporates actions by the workforce and takes into account key trends in a more facilitative and effective manner. Lastly, using the tools of a packaged software, it can help Westye align these to infuse efficiency in production and consolidate these with the goals of the company. On the other hand, specific disadvantages of a packaged system revolves around (1) associated costs, (2) lack of innovation, (3) issue of control, and (4) the issue of customization. In the first part, it considers the value of costs related to training employees once again with new processes and how to operate such packaged system. Another hurdle that packaged system can contribute is the lack of innovation wherein companies have the last say in the design and applications included in the design of the software package. The same can be seen with the issue of control. Though ICS provides Westye control over data and inputs, it limits the capacity of businesses to take into consideration establishing a user-interface that is efficient for their use or responsive to their needs. The last one revolves around the process of customization. Here, additional costs can be incurred if new changes and amendments may be undertaken by Westye in expanding its business processes and integrating new means for gathering data necessary for production. Seeing this, the idea of using a Navision package is more suited to the needs of the Westye group. Such analysis revolves around the need to revamp and change the old MAPICS system and consolidate better means of acquiring information in a more effective and efficient manner. By using a packaged solution, the company can cater towards creating better means to address the problem in a faster manner and take advantage of its comparative advantage over its competitors. Similarly, this decision can also align the company’s processes to what is essential to the needs of the company both in its short and long term strategies. (3) Responding to the advantages of Navision compared to ERP, they include (1) filtering inefficient processes, (2) consolidating data effectively, (3) incorporating new technological features, and (4) new structure to cater for the needs of Westye. The value of the first advantage corresponds to taking into consideration changing the loopholes and boundaries within the old MAPICS system and generating better means for analysis and acquisition of data. In the second part, Navision gives better means of consolidating data with its new framework and platform different from that of the old system. Alongside this is the associated new features wherein employees can take advantage of. By using these new technologies, it has developed effective means to cater the needs of Westye in terms of determining inputs and data necessary to transact and establish partnerships with clients. On the other hand, there are also associated disadvantages that Navision has over adding ERP modules which include (1) costs, (2) employee integration and education, (3) adjustments, and (4) value of time. One essential setback by the Navision involves the corresponding costs. Since the overall system shall be revamped, it takes into account changing the business processes. Alongside this are the new means of training personnel and employees of proper procedures and mechanisms necessary. Such then brings about adjustments and puts into the table the question of time in achieving specific goals and objectives. These then create necessary implications for the company especially in the short term as it may affect the overall productivity of the company during these times of adjustment and changes. Though there are indeed associated setbacks with the application of the Navision package, it can be seen that it has consolidated better means for Westye to expand and develop its business processes. By utilizing specific strategies related to determining loopholes in the previous system, it was able to create a new framework that supports the interests and goals of Westye. At the same time, by infusing these directions, the company can then legitimize its opportunities to create competitive advantage and standardize the dynamics related to finding the means to diversify business processes and generate increased productivity. (4) Analyzing the advantages of the customization scheme created by Navsion, they correspond to (1) wider company control, (2) taking into consideration competitive advantage, (3) access to real time data, and (4) consolidating to the needs of employees. In the first one, it caters to the formalization of how employees control the system. The customization process furthered this by giving opportunities for personnel to make important decisions concerning specific business processes. Such dynamic then provided the ability to establish competitive advantage as it opened up means to establish efficiency in decision making and harness the skills in responding to such. Alongside this direction, Westye was also able to provide effective access to trends and data necessary. Since they are heavily reliant in these, the customization process help employees fulfill their roles without having to sort and tabulate trends, hence easier transmission of data to clients. On the other hand, there are also associated negative reactions to such customization. These revolve around (1) re-training of employees, (2) hampering of production, (3) difficulty in establishing technical support, and (4) complexity in administering changes. In here, the customization process hampers employee’s responsibilities because they are given new training about the system and what they do. Such actions then hamper time and capacity to work at their optimal level and in turn hamper production. Another setback is that it creates difficulty in pointing out problems particularly if these processes remain intertwined and correlated with one another. The same can be seen with the application of changes within the system. Since it is designed to fit Westye’s needs, Navision may find it difficult to correlate including new features as it may need to be synchronized with other related processes. 5) Analyzing the point established by the case that Westye’s system provides ‘real-time data access’, it can be argued that it is the same with the term ‘online input’ plus ‘online processing’. Here the idea of real time corresponds to the actual input of data provided by a specific program or software wherein it analyzes specific trends and issues inputted by the user. Seeing this, such process then corresponds to ‘online input ’ plus ‘online processing’ for it utilizes specific measures in generating effective patterns of analysis and justifying its scope and value to whatever purpose it may seek to serve. Seeing this, the company indeed has ‘online input’ plus ‘online processing’. This can be seen in the manner of how the company adheres to its business processes. In here, the derivation and analysis of information remains crucial for the company to remain competitive. That is why it needs up-to-date information to give its clients so as to harness effective means in making crucial business decisions and Westye provides such information to them. How to cite Westye, Papers

Sustainable Development And Responsibility -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Sustainable Development And Responsibility? Answer: Introducation The chosen company for this particular report is BHP billion Ltd. It is an Australian Company which has the headquarters in Melbourne. The basic reason of choosing this company in this particular project is it is regarded as the worlds largest mining company and apart from this it is referred as the fourth largest company in Australia (BHP Billiton 2017). There are many aspects in the company that can be explored and the large profile of the company made it easier to choose the company for writing this assignment. The operations of the company are extended to the mining of minerals beside oil and production of gas. It has a global impact. The process of operation is carried in over 25 countries. The company owns the subsidiaries in the field of logistics and transport. It does not end here, the company reportedly made significant donation towards the society. It works in the sector of mining and therefore it uses green energy in order to minimize the emissions (BHP Billiton 2017). Th ese are the main reasons for choosing this company. However the most important factor for choosing this particular company is the controversy that it faced in the recent times. It was in the news for the poor performance according to the stock exchange in Australia. The transition from being a good company to a bad company is something that can be witnessed in the report. This was an exciting area to work upon. Board characteristics Approach Did the Company comply with the code? Explain/Provide Evidence Implications Separated roles of CEO/Chairman Yes the company complied with the code of Corporate Governance. According to the code of Corporate governance every company should be headed by an effective board which is collectively responsible for the long-term success of the company. There should be a clear distinction between running of the board and the executive responsibility for the smooth running of the business of the company. The Chairman and the CEO should be responsible for leadership of the entire board and to ensure the effectiveness on all the aspects of the role (Keay 2014). The company complies with the above mentioned factors and it maintains the code. The Chairman and the CEO directs the entire board and they are the ultimate decision makers of the company. Therefore they serve a great responsibility (Filatotchev, Jackson and Nakajima 2013). The company functions properly under the leadership of the Chairman and CEO. The code of governance help the company to maintain the decorum of the company and it keeps pedagogy in the company. Role of Executive Leadership team Under the code of governance the ELT should be responsible for the daily management of the group and for the leading the delivery of the objectives related to the strategy. This is maintained by the Executive Leadership Team and they are efficient in it (Dignam and Galanis 2016). This helps to maintain the proper track of the delivery of the products. The objectives of the strategy direct the organization in the right path. This is the major implication of this code of corporate governance. Role of operations management committee The code of corporate governance opines the fact that the responsibility of the operations management committee is to plan and direct and control the activities of the company (Khan, Muttakin and Siddiqui 2013). The company complies by all the codes of corporate governance. The operations management committee directs all the key group strategies, decisions related to investment and operations and it provides recommendations to the board. They disclose the financial and other performance primarily by commodity (Daily and Dalton 2015). This has a major implication in the company. The disclosure of the financial and other performance of the commodity provides the most meaningful insight into the nature and the financial outcomes of the activities of the business and the facilities greater comparability against the industry peers. Board characteristics Approach Did the Company comply with the code? Explain/Provide Evidence Implications Gender diversification (percentage of female to male) The organization does not have a balanced workforce in relation to the gender diversity as they are operating in the mining industry and in extracting minerals and ores the management recruits male individuals mostly. The management of BHP Billiton aims to attain a gender balance in their organization by the year of 2025 and they are currently working on the issue (Adhariani, Sciulli and Clift 2017). Skills and Board knowledge and (Skills, Current and previous board experiences) The management board of BHP Billiton has sustained a matrix of skills for a few years and the matrix can impact the industry along with the external environment in general. The board members of BHP Billiton are experienced enough while working for other concerns and while working for BHP Billiton. The majority of the board members have of more than 10 years working as a manager or advisor. The highly experienced and effective board members of BHP Billiton are seen to increase the productivity of the business organization like never before and under their supervision, the organization can aim to capture the majority of the global market within a few years. Age (Average Age of the Board) The average age of the board is 60. As the average age of the board members is 60, then it is likely that they have more experiences than any other individual working in the same sector (Olivier and Wright 2014). Thus it can be considered as an advantage of the business organization. Independence (Number of Independent board members to executives) Currently BHP Billiton has 10 independent board executives working for them who are experienced enough to run the business successfully. Having 10 independent board members is one of the strongest points of the business organization and the management can use it to increase the productivity and profitability of the organization. Accountability components Approach Did the Company comply with the code? Explain/Provide Evidence Implications Structure of audit committee (nb of independent board members) Currently in the audit team of BHP Billiton there are 10 members with experiences of more than 20 years in the finance sector and that helps the organization to face no issues in relation to financial matters. Having a well structured audit team the management of BHP Billiton experience advantage in the financial sector and that directly help the organization to eradicate any financial and legal issues. External Auditors (who are the auditor of the firm, what is the time scale of their contract) At the time of merging, the management of BHP Billiton stated that they would put the external audit to tender and they appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG along with Anderson as the external auditors. By appointing big reputed organizations as external auditors BHP Billiton continued to show their class and that projected why they are different from any other organizations working in the same sector. Board evaluation (when was the last time the firm took and external perspective to this) The board will evaluate the effectiveness of the chairman, committees, and individual directors along with the process of governance. The board will evaluate the level of performance of the directors. All the evaluations will be on the basis of the balance of skills, tasks performed by the board and the experience and independence of the company on the board. The evaluation of the board of BHP Billiton will immensely help the management of the organization to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the governance body and that can effectively improve the productivity along with the profitability of the business organization. Remuneration characteristics Approach Did the Company comply with the code? Explain/Provide Evidence Implications Structure of Remuneration (Components of Pay/ Clawback/ Long-term targets) The structure of remuneration of BHP Billiton is directly linked with the performance of the groups during the financial year. The remuneration policies of BHP Billiton shall be put in front of the stakeholders and the AGM for three yearly approvals (Salvioni and Astori 2015). In the structure of the remuneration committee of BHP Billiton, the field supervisors evaluate and gather the reports regarding the level of performance and involvement of the general employees and then send them to the senior managers. The senior managers consult with the HR managers regarding this issue and then send the file to the board of directors. After getting approved from the directors, the HR managers fix the remuneration structure of the employees. The improved structure of remuneration will help the general workforce of the business organization to get further motivation and loyalty towards the organization and this will positively impact on the productivity and profitability of the business corporation. CSR characteristics Approach Did the Company comply with the code? Explain/Provide Evidence Implications AGM reporting (nb of meetings/ disclosure of voting) The management of BHP Billiton ensures that they will assess their CSR performance in relation with the Global Compact principles set by UN. The board of BHP Billiton will arrange an annual forum regarding CSR that will bring all the senior executives and the major private business organizations together to discuss on the environmental and social matters (Fonseca, McAllister and Fitzpatrick 2014). By investing in the projects favoring the communities will ensure a persistent framework to measure the tangible progress. If the CSR activities of the business organization get enhanced, eventually it will increase the reputation of the organization in global market and that can effectively improve the level of productivity and profitability of the business corporation. As the organization BHP Billiton abides by all the regulations set by UN, the organization does not have any threats in this regard at least. Communications with shareholders (what tools are used) The management of BHP Billiton maintains a good communication with their shareholders. After conducting the general meetings or summits they provide all the necessary information to their shareholders to maintain a basic transparency. This is a good initiative taken by the management of the organization as this improves the relation between the governance body and the shareholders of the organization. By maintaining a strong communication with the shareholders the management of BHP Billiton can experience a transparency and loyalty of the shareholders of the organization (Pottenger and Leigh 2016). This can effectively improve the financial issue of the organization and lets the organization to generate more capital by the selling of the shares in the global market. There are many shareholders of -the company and they are consistent. The biggest shareholder of the company is Bank of America corp. With the market capitalization of 147 billion pounds it can be ranked in one of the four major money-center banks in the United States. This provides a full range of financial services, investment-banking services and commercial services. The company has been found to be operated through five business divisions. The five divisions are the consumer banking, the investment management, Legacy and servicing, Global Markets and Global wealth (Tricker and Tricker 2015). The other important stakeholder of the company is Dimensional Fund Advisors LP. It is a private investment-management firm that has its headquarters situated in Austin. It launches and manages equity and fixed-income mutual funds and investment portfolios for the clients. It also looks after the investment in real estates. This firm has many offices in many areas like in U.S, Canada, the Unite d Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Singapore and Japan. The third most important shareholder is Earnest Partners LLC. The company is a privately owned investment-advisory and management firm. The headquarters of the company is in Atlanta. It deals with equity and fixed-income investments (Mason and Simmons 2014). Apart from this the firm also deals in alternative investments and other assets. The other prominent shareholder is CL Investment Inc. This company is a Toronto-based subsidiary of CI Financial Corporation. The company offers investment management and advisory services to a wide range of clients. This looks after fixed-income mutual funds and it manages the portfolios of the clients. Apart from these shareholders there are other shareholders are Neuberger Berman Group LLC (Clarke 2014). The company is found to cooperate well with the shareholders. The employees of the company make effort in reporting about the progress of their annual general report to the shareholders (Salvioni and Bosetti 2015). They inform about their annul business and about their annual progress to the shareholders. The shareholders are provided with detailed information. The company is found to disclose the shareholder voting. These are important as the shareholders invest money in the company (Idowu, Capaldi and Zu 2013). At the end of the year they expect some amount of cooperation and some amount of profit from the company. This keeps their relationship healthy. This is the reason these factors are important. This is a large organization where the shareholders have kept their trust on the company. The decision of the company can bring the stakeholders to risky situation and therefore they are supposed to be informed about all the situations that are faced by the company (Bushee, Carter and Gerakos 2013). The company is found to comply with all the codes of the corporate governance. The company is not found to miss any major code and this is the reason the company is placed in a good place and it is rated as one of the biggest and largest growing company. The only pitfall that is there in the company is on the part of the duties of the directors. According to the code of governance in relation to the duties of the directors, they should use their abilities towards the best possible interest of the organization (BHP Billiton. 2017). However in this case as the directors are not able to channelize their skills towards the companys best interest they are not complying with the directors duty. It can also be stated in this case that as their no diversity in the board with respect to educational background they do not have the ability to bring the company out of the adverse situation. Apart from this the company is found to abide by all the code of corporate governance and there is no chan ce to find a fault in the company regarding this (ArAs 2016). Critical reflection The difficulty that I faced while doing this assignment was to find the relevant information of the company and to study the exact code of corporate governance. The functions and the role of the shareholders was a huge thing to find and a difficult one. However from the assignment I learned the policies and the norms of the code of corporate governance. By analyzing the pitfalls in the system I realized the ways by which it could be improved. I realized some problems that were there in the company and I came up with some way on how to improve those. In the first place the responsibility of the managing director of the company must be separated from that of the chairman. Both of them should manage their affairs separately without interfering with each other responsibilities. The company should seriously address the need of sub committees. The committees must consist of the non-executive directors who are independent. The subcommittees must be made with respect to areas like nomination , audit, appraisal and remuneration. I realized that it is extremely necessary to have an efficient and independent board of directors within the company and the company maintains a good relation with the shareholders as this is the first and foremost ethics that the company must follow. I could extract about the necessity of the code of corporate governance and the function of the same in any company. This was my understanding of the work. References Adhariani, D., Sciulli, N. and Clift, R., 2017. Qualitative Content Analysis: Results and Discussion. InFinancial Management and Corporate Governance from the Feminist Ethics of Care Perspective(pp. 119-208). Springer International Publishing. ArAs, G., 2016.A handbook of corporate governance and social responsibility. CRC Press. Bain, N. and Band, D., 2016.Winning ways through corporate governance. Springer. BHP Billiton. (2017). BHP Billiton | A leading global resources company. [online] Available at: https://www.bhpbilliton.com/ [Accessed 24 Feb. 2017]. BHP Billiton. (2017). BHP Billiton | About us. [online] Available at: https://www.bhpbilliton.com/our-approach/our-company/about-us [Accessed 24 Feb. 2017]. BHP Billiton. (2017). BHP Billiton | Our history. [online] Available at: https://www.bhpbilliton.com/our-approach/our-history [Accessed 24 Feb. 2017]. Bushee, B.J., Carter, M.E. and Gerakos, J., 2013. Institutional investor preferences for corporate governance mechanisms.Journal of Management Accounting Research,26(2), pp.123-149. Caumon, G., Jessell, M., De Kemp, E., Nemeth, B., Peron, G. and Schetselaar, E., 2016. Introduction to special section: Building complex and realistic geological models from sparse data. Clarke, T., 2014. The impact of financialisation on international corporate governance: the role of agency theory and maximising shareholder value.Law and Financial Markets Review,8(1), pp.39-51. Daily, C.M. and Dalton, D.R., 2015. Corporate governance in the small firm: Prescriptions for CEOs and directors.Journal of Small Business Strategy,5(1), pp.57-68. Dignam, A. and Galanis, M., 2016.The globalization of corporate governance. Routledge. Filatotchev, I., Jackson, G. and Nakajima, C., 2013. Corporate governance and national institutions: A review and emerging research agenda.Asia Pacific Journal of Management,30(4), pp.965-986.. Fonseca, A., McAllister, M.L. and Fitzpatrick, P., 2014. Sustainability reporting among mining corporations: a constructive critique of the GRI approach.Journal of Cleaner Production,84, pp.70-83. Idowu, S.O., Capaldi, N. and Zu, L., 2013.Encyclopedia of corporate social responsibility. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Iliev, P., Lins, K.V., Miller, D.P. and Roth, L., 2015. Shareholder voting and corporate governance around the world.Review of Financial Studies,28(8), pp.2167-2202. Keay, A.R., 2014.Directors' duties. Khan, A., Muttakin, M.B. and Siddiqui, J., 2013. Corporate governance and corporate social responsibility disclosures: Evidence from an emerging economy.Journal of business ethics,114(2), pp.207-223. Klettner, A., Clarke, T. and Boersma, M., 2014. The governance of corporate sustainability: Empirical insights into the development, leadership and implementation of responsible business strategy.Journal of Business Ethics,122(1), pp.145-165. Knepper, W.E., Bailey, D.A., Bowman, K.B., Eblin, R.L. and Lane, R.S., 2016.Duty of Loyalty(Vol. 1). Liability of Corporate Officers and Directors. Larcker, D. and Tayan, B., 2015.Corporate governance matters: A closer look at organizational choices and their consequences. Pearson Education. Mason, C. and Simmons, J., 2014. Embedding corporate social responsibility in corporate governance: A stakeholder systems approach.Journal of Business Ethics,119(1), pp.77-86. Olivier, A. and Wright, M., 2014. Developing the talent gene pool.Company Director,30(4), p.38. Pepper*, A., McIntosh, P., Fitzsimmons, R., Gebhardt, T. and Dillenbeck, E., 2015, September. The Unconventional Global Endowment: Results of BHP Billiton's Global Assessment. InInternational Conference and Exhibition, Melbourne, Australia 13-16 September 2015(pp. 283-283). Society of Exploration Geophysicists and American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Pottenger, M. and Leigh, A., 2016. Long?Run Trends in Australian Executive Remuneration: BHP, 18872012.Australian Economic History Review,56(1), pp.2-20. Salvioni, D.M. and Astori, R., 2015. Sustainable development and global responsibility in corporate governance. Salvioni, D.M. and Bosetti, L., 2015. Corporate governance report and stakeholder view. Swan, P., 2016. Mandated divorce company boards,'independence'and performance.Policy: A Journal of Public Policy and Ideas,32(2), p.3. Tricker, R.B. and Tricker, R.I., 2015.Corporate governance: Principles, policies, and practices. Oxford University Press, USA.

Three Major Concept of Drawing Essay Example For Students

Three Major Concept of Drawing Essay According to dictionary, Drawing is a form of visual expression and is one of the major forms within the visual arts. There are a number of subcategories of drawing such as cartoons, monochromatic, color pencil drawing, and other types of drawings. More interesting fact about drawing through reading this book was that it did not come actually part of term art. Drawing was exist for the long time of the period and used as communication, but as times o by, all the people founded Old drawing, or the painting and started to invent the term drawing. Dodson was pointed out the drawing as the three major concept as Structures. First he pointed out that Looking, holding, and drawing a line is very important. And absolutely agree the way that he describes the basic ideas was totally the lesson that learned during drawing class. The way that look at the objects and the way that holding (or controlling you r pencil or charcoal) and the way that use different style of lines to shade or draw shape as absolutely good point. Second point is about the tones, layout, perspective and artistry. We will write a custom essay on Three Major Concept of Drawing specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Reading his work and see his example of drawing was absolutely including different types of shading tones, and layout. For my case I am still struggle with the way that control the tone of the pencil. It is really hard for me to deal with it before first semester started, but after I took drawing class I started to understand the value and the layout (such as the negative perspective and he positive perspective,) also the way that present composition was another big idea that learned. It is very important for the drawing especially to show clear presentation with illustration of the purpose, Lastly, he pointed about the media. Drawing is not just about using pencil to draw. Its true that all the art works foundation is drawing, but not the media. Especially we see a lot of different art styles, and drawing categories. They are all using different tools, papers and the technique. One thing was not very happy about Dodson was that he did not clearly pointed out about why drawing is so important, and how much important drawing is. But same time did understand, even though he did not point out all the people knows that art is based on drawing. Again through this book I realized that drawing is was not just simple art term. It makes me think that drawing is the father other all different types of art work. Because it is definitely foundation of every artwork as what learned and what Dodson pointed out.

Its Greeking to Me

Its Greeking to Me It’s Greeking to Me It’s Greeking to Me By Maeve Maddox In the play Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius question Casca about the occasion on which Caesar reluctantly refused a crown offered him by Mark Antony. Casca is portrayed as a gruff, plain-speaking sort of man. CASSIUS. †¨Did Cicero say any thing? CASCA. †¨Ay, he spoke Greek. CASSIUS. †¨To what effect? CASCA. †¨Nay, an I tell you that, Ill neer look you i the face †¨again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but for mine own part, it was Greek to me. Like so many quotations from Shakespeare, â€Å"it’s Greek to me† has entered everyday speech. To say that something is â€Å"Greek to you† means that something written or spoken is incomprehensible, either because you lack the information to understand, or because the speaker or writer has failed to express the idea clearly. A spin-off of Shakespeare’s quotation is the graphic design term greeking. †¨ Greeking, from a typographic point of view, is the use of nonsense or dummy text, instead of the real body copy. This is done by designers to give the page an overall grey, or flat appearance, so as not to distract from the design layout. Design: Talkboard An example of greeking known to anyone who has ever browsed WordPress themes or looked through a computer manual is lorem ipsum. This block of nonsense Latin derives from an essay byappropriately enoughCicero. Designers have good reason to use greeking. Comprehensible copy used to illustrate graphic design is distracting. A client will start reading the copy and be annoyed if it stops mid-sentence. The use of a greeking text ensures that attention remains focused on the design. Messed-up Latin seems to be the most usual form of greeking, but other languages, including Greek, are used. If you would like to generate your own passage of greeking, there’s a site for it. Your choices include Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Russian, Esperanto and Morse Code. Here’s that last paragraph greekedboth figuratively and literally: ΔÎ µ χÎ ±Ã ÃŽ ¬ ÏÆ'Ï…Î ½ÃŽ ¬ÃŽ ´ÃŽ µÃŽ »Ãâ€ ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€š ÃŽ µÃâ‚¬ÃŽ ¹Ãâ€¡ÃŽ µÃŽ ¹Ã ÃŽ ·ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ ±Ãâ€žÃŽ ¯ÃŽ µÃâ€š ÃŽ ´Ã ÃŽ ¿, ÃŽ µÃŽ »ÃŽ ­ÃŽ ³Ãâ€¡ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€¦ πΠµÃ ÃŽ ¯Ãâ‚¬ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€¦ ÃŽ ½ÃŽ ¹Ã ÃŽ ²ÃŽ ¬ÃŽ ½ÃŽ ± ÏÆ'ÃŽ µ ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ ±Ãâ€š. ΈτÏÆ'ÃŽ ¹ ÃŽ µÃŽ ¯Ãâ€¡ÃŽ ±ÃŽ ½ ÏÆ'φÎ ±ÃŽ »ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ ¬Ãâ€žÃâ€°ÃŽ ½ ως ÃŽ ½ÃŽ ­ÃŽ ±, ÃŽ ½ÃŽ ±ÃŽ ¯ ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ · ÃŽ µÃŽ »ÃŽ ­ÃŽ ³Ãâ€¡ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€¦ ÃŽ ³ÃŽ ½Ãâ€°Ã ÃŽ ¯ÃŽ ¶ÃŽ µÃŽ ¹ ÃŽ µÃŽ ¹ÃÆ'ÃŽ ±ÃŽ ³Ãâ€°ÃŽ ³ÃŽ ®. ÃŽ ÃŽ ­ÃŽ ± ÃŽ ­Ã ÃŽ ³Ãâ€°ÃŽ ½ Ï„Î µÃŽ »ÃŽ ¹ÃŽ ºÃŽ ¬ πΠµÃ ÃŽ ¹ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ ­ÃŽ ½ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€¦ÃŽ ½ ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ µ, ÃŽ ­ÃŽ ºÃŽ ´ÃŽ ¿ÃÆ'ÃŽ · ÃŽ »ÃŽ ¿ÃŽ ¹Ãâ‚¬ÃÅ'ÃŽ ½ ÏÆ'ÃŽ ¯ÃŽ ³ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€¦Ã ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€š ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ ¹ÃŽ ± ÃŽ ¿ÃŽ ¹, ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ µÃŽ ¹ÃÅ½ÃÆ'ÃŽ µÃŽ ¹ ÃŽ µÃŽ ºÃâ€žÃŽ µÃŽ »ÃŽ ­ÃÆ'ÃŽ µÃŽ ¹Ãâ€š ÃŽ ´ÃŽ ·ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ ¹ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€¦Ã ÃŽ ³ÃŽ ®ÃÆ'ÃŽ µÃŽ ¹Ãâ€š ÏÆ'ÃŽ ±ÃŽ ½ ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ µ. ÃŽ £ÃŽ ¯ÃŽ ³ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€¦Ã ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€š ÃŽ »ÃŽ ¹ÃŽ ³ÃÅ'Ï„Î µÃ ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€¦Ãâ€š Ï„Î ·Ãâ€š Ï„Î ¹, ÃŽ ¿ÃŽ ¹ φÏ ÃŽ ¬ÃÆ'ÃŽ · Ï„Î µÃŽ »ÃŽ ¹ÃŽ ºÃÅ½ÃŽ ½ Ï€Ï ÃŽ ¿ÃÆ'πΠ¬ÃŽ ¸ÃŽ µÃŽ ¹ÃŽ ± ÏÅ'ÃŽ »ÃŽ ·. Everything about lorem ipsum Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Inquire vs EnquireDo you "orient" yourself, or "orientate" yourself?Dissatisfied vs. Unsatisfied

How To Make Colorful Soap Bubbles

How To Make Colorful Soap Bubbles Were you one of those kids who tried to add food coloring to ordinary bubble solution to make colored bubbles? Food coloring wont give you bright bubbles, and even if it did, they would cause stains. Heres a recipe for pink or blue colored bubbles, based on disappearing ink, so the bubbles wont stain surfaces when they land. Safety First Please dont drink the bubble solution! Unused bubble solution may be stored for later in a sealed container or disposed of by pouring it down the drain.These are bubbles intended for blowing bubbles, not for bathing.Sodium hydroxide is a  strong base. Avoid direct contact with this ingredient. If you do get some on your hands, rinse them immediately with water. Ingredients Liquid dishwashing detergent  (or another detergent)Water or commercial bubble solutionSodium hydroxidePhenolphthaleinThymolphthaleinClub soda (optional) Heres How If you are making your own bubble solution, mix the detergent and water.Add the sodium hydroxide and indicator to the bubble solution. You want enough indicator so that the bubbles will be deeply colored. For each liter of bubble solution (4 cups), this is about 1-1/2 to 2 teaspoons of phenolphthalein (red) or thymolphthalein (blue).Add sodium hydroxide until you get the indicator to change from colorless to colored (about half a teaspoon should do the trick). A little more sodium hydroxide will result in a bubble that keeps its color longer. If you add too much, the color of the bubble wont disappear when exposed to air or rubbed, though you can still react it with club soda.You may find it necessary to dissolve the indicator in a small amount of alcohol before mixing it with the bubble solution. You can use pre-made indicator solution, adding the sodium hydroxide to the indicator rather than diluting with water.Youve essentially made disappearing ink bubbles. When the bubble lands, you can make the color vanish by either rubbing the spot (reacting the liquid with air) or by adding a little club soda. Fun! If you have disappearing ink, you could mix it with bubble solution to make disappearing ink bubbles.

The American Family Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The American Family - Essay Example The woman became a working being who viewed the nuclear family as an oppressive institution. The development of modern technology, contraceptives and abortion allowed women to have active sexual lives without worrying about pregnancy and childbearing. Boden (2005) testifies that more women have joined the working class and single parenthood is on the rise. As a result, parents have little free time with their children, which is unhealthy. Earlier on, the men worked while women stayed at home as full time house wives, and marriage focused more on companionship and reproduction rather than romance and sex (Popenoe, 2003). Popenoe (2003) further argues that there is a call to revive the American nuclear family by emphasizing the importance of monogamy. This can be achieved through countering the sexual revolution, promoting marriage and renewing a cultural focus on children. On the contrary, Coontz (2003) believes that many American families are better off today than in the past where women were not allowed to work, infant mortality was high and few children graduated from school. Today, both men and women have more choices than in the past. For instance, since the woman spends more hours at work than in the house, families have fewer children. This means that children get individualized attention from the parents. This was not so in the past. Moreover, people not only have the freedom to marry from the same or opposite sex or even remain unmarried, but also no one is under pressure to stay in an unhappy marriage. Men are no longer the main breadwinners in their families unless by choice. Furthermore, according to Coontz (2003), parents have learnt to balance between family needs and industrialization. After a thorough study of the two articles, the modern structure of the nuclear family is more appealing. Although marriage is indispensable, it is no longer the foundation of a good family. A healthy family is made up of a parent or parents and

Prostitution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Prostitution - Essay Example Geishas, hetaeras, and nowadays escort boys and girls remain true to their profession. Reasons for different people are various: at first, there is a certain type of power and connections a prostitute may receive while â€Å"communicating† with people; according to words of madam - girls in sex industry are correlated to success, treated very well and receive a generous compensation for their time. Clients could have remained friends with some of them and would send them money for bills or education. So-called girls could make over $10,000 per week for a couple of nights (Davis). â€Å"The most Ive ever made is  £30,000 in a month† - tells a host, Josh Brandon, from London. The other reason is a decent payment and acceptable schedule, of which not so many other works can boast, "Working in a bar was just no good - too much work and not enough money," - Tommy says (Magazine). Also, it is clear, that legal prostitutes take their job seriously and cautiously in both fina ncial and health issues. It is stated, that prostitutes are often more aware of safe sex than average people, and their work is scheduled, has a rate and is bound with solving legal financial and social issues - as any other job. Government also can receive profit from prostitution, under the condition it’s being legal. â€Å"Germany legalized prostitution in 2002, creating an industry now thought to be worth 16bn euros a year† (Reed). Although prostitution is illegal everywhere in America except Nevada, old figures put its value at $14 billion annually nationwide; surely an underestimate. More recent calculations in Britain, where prostitution is legal but pimping and brothels are not, suggest that including it would boost GDP figures by at least  £5.3 billion ($8.9 billion) ("A personal choice"). Actual profit is received not only in financial, but also in

Research question vs. Hypothesis Essay Example for Free

Research question vs. Hypothesis Essay Does your study take an experimental approach to answer questions? Are you making a prediction about the phenomenon being studied? If your answer to these questions is yes, then you will need a hypothesis, but if it is no then you will need a research question. This is because a hypothesis is a statement that is tested by experiment(s) to confirm or deny the phenomenon Turning now to a research question, if you are incorporating a research question rather than a hypothesis, then remember that some of the important features of a good question are that the question or problem should be: about one issue; clear and concise; addresses an important, controversial and/or an unresolved issue; feasible to undertake within a specified timeframe; adequately resourced. Hypothesis (plural = hypotheses) A hypothesis is not a question, but rather it is a statement about the relationship between two or more variables. So, for example, the first question above could become a hypothesis by making this a statement rather than a question, namely: The perceived needs of the patient and users of South Bedfordshires palliative care services are being met. To be complete a hypothesis must include three components: The variables The population The relationship between the variables As you can see, the hypothesis translates the research question into a prediction of expected outcomes. A hypothesis is the tool of quantitative studies, and is only found in such  studies. In fact, a hypothesis is usually only found in experimental quantitative research studies. You will be able to find out more about hypothesese when we look at them in more detail later in the session. Research question. A research question is the question that the research project sets out to answer. In actual fact, a research study may set out to answer several questions. The methodology used for that study, and the tools used to conduct the research, all depend upon the research questions being asked. For example, in the example of a qualitative research study, the following two research questions that underpin the study, and also needed to be answered by the study, are shown in the box below. There are two research questions that will need to be answered by this phase of the research. These are:  · Are the perceived needs of the patients and users of South Bedfordshires palliative care services bei ng met?  · If not, what needs to be done if these needs are to be met in the future? The first question can be answered by a quantitative study, whereas the second one may require a qualitative study to answer it. Research questions can therefore be used in quantitative and qualitative research studies.

Chief Justice Earl Warren Essay -- essays research papers fc

Chief Justice Earl Warren Earl Warren was born March 19, 1891 in Los Angeles, California. Earl’s father was a Norwegian immigrant, which left him dealing with prejudice and equal rights at a very young age (Grace, 1). This lead to early indications that law would be Earl’s profession. Even before entering High School, he listened to criminal cases at the Kern County courthouse. Attending the University of California at Berkeley, Warren worked his way through college. He majored in political science for three years before entering the law school at UC. â€Å"He received his B.L. degree in 1912 and his J.D. degree in 1914. On May 14, 1915, he was admitted to the California bar. After graduation Warren worked in law offices in San Francisco and Oakland, the only time in his career when he was engaged in private practice† (White, 61). The young lawyer became a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, and eventually became district attorney in 1925 when is opponent decided to resign from th e race (Weaver, 40). He would go on to win the next four elections. â€Å"During his fourteen years as district attorney, Warren developed a reputation as a crime fighter. As a prosecutor Warren was sometimes accused of high-handedness in his methods, but in thirteen years and in thousands of cases ranging from murder to window-breaking, he never had a conviction reversed by a higher court† (Ely, 964). Warren served as attorney general from 1939-1943, enjoying the image of an effective foe of racketeers. In 1948, Warren was the Republican Party's nominee for vice-president of the United States. He and fellow republican Thomas Dewey would end up losing the race, the only election Warren ever lost, to Democratic candidate Harry S. Truman. In 1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren the fourteenth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (Compston, 101). This new job would prove to be the most important and difficult job Warren had ever taken. â€Å"He inherited a court that was deeply divided between those justices who advocated a more active role for the court and those who supported judicial restraint† (Compston, 133). Among the Warren Court's most important decisions was the ruling that made racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The Brown vs. The Board of Education case dealt with the segregation of public schools. Although all the schools in a ... ... Brown vs. the Board of Ed. Case from this source. In addition, this book contain a lot of criticism that Warren faced because of his ruling. Weaver, John D. Warren: The Man, the Court, the Era. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1967. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This book provided information about Warrens career early on, most importantly his becoming District Attorney of California. White, Edward G. Earl Warren: A Public Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. - This source had information about Warren’s accomplishments in school and his job right out of school. Internet Sources: Cray, Ed. â€Å"Landmark case Biography: Earl Warren†. Earl Warren/Brown vs. Board of Ed. Information page. 1997. 5 March 2005 < http://www. landmarkcases.org/brown/warren.html>   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  - This website contained a great deal of information about the Brown vs. Board of Ed. case. Grace, Roger M. â€Å"Earl Warren, Norwegian American†. Earl Warren Information Page. June 1998. 4 March, 2005 < http://www.mnc.net/norway/warren.htm> -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This website provided me with information about the end of Warren’s career and his retirement.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker Summary, Main Idea, Conflict, Point of View, Setting and Tone

â€Å"The Color Purple† by Alice Walker is a series a letters by and to the main character, Celie. The book begins with fourteen year old Celie writing to God about her father raping her and taking away her children. After Celie's mother dies, Celie focuses on protecting her sister, Nettie, from her father's sexual advances and encourages her to run away. A widower called â€Å"Mr. __† wants to marry Nettie, but their father rejects him. Eventually Celie marries Mr. __, who later is called Albert, and her living conditions do not improve at all.Celie becomes infatuated with Shug Avery, a blues singer who is her husband's mistress. Years later, Celie helps nurse Shug back to health. Eventually, they fall in love with each other. Meanwhile, Nettie has become a missionary in Africa and has written many letters to Celie, all of which Albert has hidden from her. Celie acquires the letters and discovers that her own two children are alive and living with a missionary couple w ith whom Nettie works. She also discovers that her father is actually her stepfather and not a blood relative. Nettie's letters help Celie grow stronger and more self-assured.That confidence soon turns to fury and discontent with God over the abuse she has endured throughout her life. Celie begins writing to Nettie instead of God, when she starts becoming â€Å"blasphemous† (192). Eventually, Celie leaves Albert and moves to Memphis with Shug. There, Celie starts a business making pants. After inheriting the house from her mother and real father, Celie returns home. She visits Albert, who is a very changed man, and they develop a relationship of respect. Nettie, still in Africa, marries the now-widowed Reverend who had adopted her sister's children.At the novel's end, the two sisters are reunited. The main idea of the novel suggests that the struggle of finding one’s voice, self-discovery and relationship with God is a complicated journey that can take a lifetime. Thro ughout the Novel, the main character, Celie goes through a complete transformation. At the beginning Celie is timid, submissive and passive. Celie does or says nothing to fight back against her stepfather’s abuse. Later in life, when her husband abuses her, she reacts in a similarly passive manner. She works all day and night while he does nothing.Celie can also be described as voiceless. So much so, that she can’t bring herself to pray out loud, so she writes to God instead. Celie’s letters to God are her only outlet and means of self-expression. As a young girl, Celie is constantly subjected to abuse and told she is ugly. The only way to ensure her survival is by making herself silent and invisible. As the novel progresses, Celie morphs into a strong, independent, outspoken woman. She leaves her abusive husband, confronts her abusive father and comes to terms with her relationship with God and herself.She begins to wear and make pants, and eventually starts he r own business. The main conflict of the novel is and internal conflict between Celie’s thoughts and beliefs and the â€Å"God-fearing† teachings of life and gender-based roles she lived by. This conflict is resolved towards the end of the story, when she returns home, alone, but happy and content with her life. Celie gained the ability to synthesize her thoughts and feeling into a voice that is fully her own. She forged her own life as an independent business woman despite a male-dominated and racially prejudiced society.She fought her way through life, and questioned everything she had been taught. Celie and Shug's deep conversations and reading her sister’s stories about African religion and belief help Celie evolve her views on God. For example, she was taught God to be an old, white, bearded male, everything she is not. She learns to believe God is one who encompasses everything on Earth, creates thing for us to enjoy and lives within her. â€Å"The Color Purple† is written in the first person narrative. The reader enters Celie’s mind and hears Celie's voice in a diary or letter format.Even when reading Nettie’s letters, it is through Celie’s eyes. First person narrator is when we enter the mind of one speaker or narrator who tells about things that he or she has seen, done, spoke, heard, thought and also learned about in other ways. The first example of this narrative, â€Å"You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill you mammy† (1). This statement was obviously only spoken between the narrator and her abuser. â€Å"I am fourteen years old. I have always been a good girl† (1), is a second example of the novel’s point of view.This type of narrative brings the reader close to the quality and rhythm of life that Celie experiences. It allows the reader to intimately get to know Celie. Through Celie’s dialect and poor grammar, the reader becomes personally engaged in C elie’s experiences and struggles. Almost like reading the unedited thoughts that go through a person’s mind. Though The Color Purple is a historical novel, it never refers to any factual events. Because of this, we presumably follow Celie through thirty or forty years of her life, from the age of fourteen up until her hair is gray.The setting of the novel is primarily rural Georgia in the early twentieth century. As a poor black woman in the rural south, Celie’s bad treatment is largely ignored which was the norm in this time period. Celie leaves Georgia to live in Memphis with Shug. There, Celie lives a life of luxury and empowerment. Living a poor, downtrodden life in the South, Celie had never stopped to consider her African heritage until Nettie sends letters describing the West African village she’s living in. Nettie describes her first experiences in Africa as â€Å"magical. Celie returns to Georgia, taking with her what she has learned from Memphi s and Africa. Celie now has her own house. A big beautiful house specially built by an architect from Atlanta, with tiles transported from New York, in which she can live life as she chooses. Celie lives most of her life very isolated and ignorant, until she starts to learn more about herself and the world from people who enter into her life from very different settings than her own. There are many language devices exhibited in Walker’s novel.The color purple for example, is symbolized to represent all the good things in the world that God creates for men and women to enjoy. Celie associates the color with royalty and longs for a purple dress. Shug says that she believes that it â€Å"pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. † (196). As Celie does learn to love life, she decorates her bedroom in her own home as all purple and red. Secondly, the use of a deep Southern dialect is highly essential in understanding the novel. The author’s use of non-standard dialect allows the reader a feel for the story’s cultural and geographical location. â€Å"Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool. Next to any scrub of a brush in my yard, Mr. __’s evil sort of shrink†¦Shug say, you have to get man off your eyeball, before you can see anything a’tall† (197). This gives each letter confessional feel to it. Irony is exhibited when Sofia is imprisoned for â€Å"sassing the mayor’s wife† (84) after she asked Sofia to be her maid. Eventually she is released from prison only to become the one thing she absolutely refused to become, the mayor’s maid.The overall tone of Alice Walker’s novel is serious and honest. The author conveys an honest portrayal of the utter hardship and tragedy. The author allows the reader to take a serious look at life through letters to God. The conflict between Celie and her religious and political views aids in establishin g the novel’s tone. It is an internal conflict and because it deals with being honest with oneself, the tone is honest as well. The tone also coincides with the central idea in which the struggle of finding one’s voice, self-discovery and relationship with God is a complicated and serious journey.

Woolf & Baym

Virginia Woolf takes into consideration the necessary conditions required for the creation of a literary work. She considers the schooling as the first pre-requisite for this purpose. Shakespeare’s sister is a manifestation of that aggravation that women writers felt over the passage of time over the issue of lack of equal opportunities for women in the literary domain. In this way she contemplates over the socio-historical reason for the inability of female writers to create a high quality work.She looks at the female historical experience and relates it with her thesis. She poses a historical questions why great women writers were absent from the literary realm in the early history of English literature and why there no Shakespeare and/or Chaucer; â€Å"Why no woman wrote a word of that extraordinary literature when every other man, it seemed, was capable of song or sonnet. † (p. 363) Her dismay over the absence of any female literary giant turns into anger and gloomi ness when she learns about the pathos and miseries of female life.Although she tries to search for any available evidence on Shakespeare’s sister but lack of substantiation compel her employ her imaginary and fictional faculties in relating the predicaments of Shakespeare's sister. Woolf's theory postulates that â€Å"For genius like Shakespeare's is not born among labouring, uneducated, servile people† because she is of the view that literary genius is a production leisure class activity. She further thinks that financial independence nurtures freedom of thought and action and this elevated flight of imagination can only produce a work of the calibre of Shakespeare.Women of that time were not free from these obstacles, so were unable to produce a great literary piece. There was female talent and genius but they wasted their talent in making money. â€Å"Hundreds of women began as the eighteenth century drew on to add to their pin money, or to come to the rescue of th eir families by making translations or writing the innumerable bad novels†(366) That is the reason that â€Å"She died young – alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. † (367)Baym has evaluated the American literary landscape and has tried to search for the reasons for â€Å"the critical invisibility of the many active women authors in America. † Nina Baym considers the similar question about the plight of women writers in American history as Woolf described. But her attitude toward the topic is not literary but rather feminist. She says that women writer â€Å"has entered the literary history as the enemy. † (593). Even the serious critics cast doubt about the female writings. She further elaborated her point of view and questioned the female presentation in the American literature by the male writer.She described three form of male suppression that is manifested subtly in literat ure. Firstly, a woman is equalized with nature or landscape instead of her real life-like portrayal. She considers it a form of subjugation done by the conscious omission of real female characters. Secondly, she is of the view that women has been presented as an epitome of â€Å"entrappers† or â€Å"domesticators†. She considers this misrepresentation and distortion of female character as a manifestation of male suppression. She draws upon various literary sources and texts to support her arguments and to arrive at her conclusions.

Culture of Bangladesh Essays

Culture of Bangladesh Essays Culture of Bangladesh Essay Culture of Bangladesh Essay Culture of Bangladesh Bangladesh might be known as one of the poorest countries in the world but this country is also one of culture and traditions. Most people know that the Bangladesh poverty rate is one of the highest in the world and yet although many visitors would expects to see only poverty in this country the truth is that there is much more to Bangladesh than it may seem. Not only for those who care Bangladesh is still a developing nation but it is also a country that managed to combine the past rich in traditions and its own culture with the present, a world in which globalization is everywhere and everything. Read more about the Bangladesh culture and something else than the economy of Bangladesh. The Bangladesh culture is rich and it is thought to be so thanks to the long and troubled history of the country. There is much to learn about the literature, entertainment and cuisine in this country and here you can read about these. It is said that the earliest piece of literature produced in Bangladesh was written in the 8th century and the main language used to pass on the culture and traditions through literature is Bengali. Experts claim that the Bangladesh literature was able to reach its full potential in the 19th century after surpassing a period in which it was dominated by religious literature or ‘imported’ literature, meaning literature simply translated from other languages. Entertainment also plays an important role in the Bangladesh culture. The music involves mostly lyrics and little instrumental accompaniment, especially if one talks about the traditional music. Some traditional musical instruments include the ektara, dotara, dhol, flute and table. When it comes to movies, it is estimated that the country produces about 80 movies in a year, of which the mainstream Hindi movies tend to be the most acclaimed and popular among the different categories of viewers, in the country and outside its borders.

Artificial Intelligence System

Artificial Intelligence is an area of computer science that emphasizes in creating intelligent machines that behave and react like human being. The technology has become an important part of today’s industry. Research related with artificial intelligence is highly technical and specialized. Computers are designed with artificial intelligence in order to provide services like research, learning, planning and problem solving etc. (Hoffart et al., 2013). The main aim of AI is to understand the principle that helps in making the behavior intelligent through natural or artificial systems. This is possible through Natural and artificial agent analysis, Hypothesis that helps in constructing intelligent agents and through Computational systems. The researcher had used highly technical and specialized data in order to discuss the topic. Literature survey, applications of artificial intelligence, its future trends have been discussed in this report by the researcher According to Nilsson (2014), AI systems are used by engineers in order solve a large range of intractable problems. The level of AI increases with the level of competency in order to deal with difficult and with even more dangerous tasks which are done by humans in the form of artificial intelligence. The main advantage of the technology is that they are real time automated system but they support various types of techniques and methodologies including control theory. Whenever new and undiscovered lands like planets are explored, AI systems can be used because they work like a machine which does not have emotions. The main architecture, techniques, algorithm that is used for distributed AI systems includes control and decision support system. Figure 1: Artificial Intelligence for Gaming (Source: Millington & Funge, 2016, 527) On the other hand Millington and Funge (2016) discussed that there is no doubt that the technology can perform the entire task in a better way than humans, but the use of AI systems can cause harm. With the use of AI systems, unemployment is increasing at a faster rate. People are becoming jobless and as a result the technology has become the cause of mental illness and obesity for many human beings. The technology can cause massive destruction if it is used by wrong hands. As stated by Nastase and Strube (2013), AI machines can be able to do everything that is essentially required. One most important advantage of using artificial intelligence is that they do fewer mistakes as compared to human beings. They can act as 24/7 for children’s who are actually suffering from disabilities. Artificial intelligence helps in learning and teaching. It can be used as a fire alarming system in order to avoid crime. Figure 2: Type of Machine Learning (Artificial Intelligence) (Source: Nastase & Strube, 2013, pp- 81) On the other hand Millington and Funge (2016) stated that the organizations are fully dependent on AI systems. As a result if any problem occurs in the system then the system will create a huge problem as there is no backup technology in store of the organization, which they can use in need. The machine lacks the feeling of togetherness and sympathy, as they are a form of machine which works as human beings but they are actually not humans. There are many application of artificial intelligence. The applications are: An AI technique is used in natural language understanding:   The AI technology is used in image processing. The main aim of image processing is to identify the relation between different parts of an image. This is done by attaching a camera to a computer, so a computer can easily access visual images (Milne & Witten, 2013). This facility is given to the computers so that they can easily access and understand their surroundings. An AI technique is used in Network Intrusion Detection: Intrusion Detection System (IDS) technology uses various types of Artificial Intelligence technique in order to protect the computer and communication system from intrude (Nilsson, 2014). The system mainly helps in monitoring the events that mainly occurs in network and it also helps in designing and detecting the signs of intrusion. An AI technique is used in medical area: AI systems have the potential to be applied in any field of medical science. It is used in medical area as: An AI technique is used in Accounting Database: The problem in accounting database can be mitigated by using artificial technology. The main problem that is with accounting database is that humans cannot understand the process of computerized database. Integrating AI systems with the databases helps in assisting in investigation. The investigation includes large volumes data with or without the help of any decision maker (Hoffart et al., 2013). Thus, the system helps in analyzing and assisting the data for the users understanding and interpretation. By using artificial intelligence, information can be stored and retrieved in natural language. There are various techniques that are present in the system for assisting broader understanding of the events that are captured by the accounting systems (Hovy et al. 2013). The AI technology and the expert system works together helps in building the intelligence into the database for assisting the users. An AI technique is used in the Computer Games: A Computer game generally uses three dimensional games and complex worlds (Nastase & Strube (2013). When AI technology is put together with graphics rendering, then an expected worthwhile computer games can be produced. AI technology is one of the main parts of computer games. With the use of artificial intelligence computer games have became interesting (Charniak et al., 2014).   The AI system is mainly used in order to solve some of the problems that are related with computer games. Unit movement, analysis of the situation, learning, spatial reasoning, coordination with the group, allocation of resource and target selection are some of the units were AI mainly contributes. An AI technique is used in Natural language Understanding: AI technology is used for understanding different natural languages. In this system an effective programming is used in the computer. The program sets commands and accordingly the system works (Hoffart et al., 2013).   The main aim of the system is to enable people and language rather doing the same with the help of a programming language. An AI technique is used in Aviation: The technology is used in aviation in order to collect data from different flights. The technology uses programs for collecting and distributing information (Milne & Witten, 2013). The main aim of the system is to measure the performance of the system which is a type of fault analysis. In the next 10 years, AI will be able to communicate with human being in unstructured English which can be a text or voice. The other future trends of AI include: Information processing will be parallel: The system is aided with the help of chips custom for designing AI application in order to process large amount of data (Millington & Funge, 2016) Smarter gets redefined: This occurs with the advances in sensor, cloud and learning technology (Baarslag et al., 2013). Deep Learning: It includes processing of data that are raw. The raw data includes pictures, speech, natural language etc. It is concluded from the report that with the help of the artificial intelligence, information can be stored and retrieved. It is discussed that the different set of techniques that are present in the system for assisting broader understanding of the events. With the use of artificial intelligence computer games have became interesting. The analyzer concludes that the AI system is mainly used in order to solve some of the problems that are related with computer games.   In IDS technology uses various types of Artificial Intelligence technique for protecting the computer and communication system from intrusion. The system mainly helps in monitoring the events that mainly occurs in network and it also helps in designing and detecting the signs of intrusion. Baarslag, T., Fujita, K., Gerding, E. H., Hindriks, K., Ito, T., Jennings, N. R., ... & Williams, C. R. (2013). Evaluating practical negotiating agents: Results and analysis of the 2011 international competition.  Artificial Intelligence,  198, 73-103. Charniak, E., Riesbeck, C. K., McDermott, D. V., & Meehan, J. R. (2014).Artificial intelligence programming. Psychology Press Hoffart, J., Suchanek, F. M., Berberich, K., & Weikum, G. (2013). YAGO2: A spatially and temporally enhanced knowledge base from Wikipedia.  Artificial Intelligence,  194, 28-61. Hoffart, J., Suchanek, F. M., Berberich, K., & Weikum, G. (2013). YAGO2: A spatially and temporally enhanced knowledge base from Wikipedia.  Artificial Intelligence,  194, 28-61. Hovy, E., Navigli, R., & Ponzetto, S. P. (2013). Collaboratively built semi-structured content and Artificial Intelligence: The story so far.  Artificial Intelligence,  194, 2-27. Michalski, R. S., Carbonell, J. G., & Mitchell, T. M. (Eds.). (2013).  Machine learning: An artificial intelligence approach. Springer Science & Business Media. Millington, I., & Funge, J. (2016).  Artificial intelligence for games. CRC Press. Millington, I., & Funge, J. (2016).  Artificial intelligence for games. CRC Press. Milne, D., & Witten, I. H. (2013). An open-source toolkit for mining Wikipedia.Artificial Intelligence,  194, 222-239. Nastase, V., & Strube, M. (2013). Transforming Wikipedia into a large scale multilingual concept network.  Artificial Intelligence,  194, 62-85. Nilsson, N. J. (2014).  Principles of artificial intelligence. Morgan Kaufmann

What did Gorbachev mean by the new political thinking in foreign Essay

What did Gorbachev mean by the new political thinking in foreign policy Was it compatible with Marxism-Leninism - Essay Example The new political thinking initiated by the Gorbachev regime in the former Soviet Union brought in tremendous changes in the foreign policy of the country. Perestroika was considered as the opening of the Russia to world and in turn the world to the Russia. Gorbachev’s new foreign policy was characterised by the ‘free will’ to put an end to arms race, which was materialised as the freezing of nuclear tests in august 1985, the general disarmament plan in January 1986, agreement on the elimination of medium range nuclear missiles in 1987, large scale military cuts and pulling out from Afghanistan in 1989. However, Gorbachev miserably failed not only in democratising the regime but also in preserving it. The compatibility of Gorbachev’s policies with Marxism could only be determined with relations to what we consider as the central tenets of Marxism. Still, along the Gramscian lines, it is possible to argue that the Soviet Russia undergone a phase of passive r evolutions under the (non)leadership of Gorbachev. From a Marxist perspective, the Soviet Foreign policy had de-ideologised by the 1960s itself. The Gorbachevian reforms at the realm of foreign policy tried to get the foreign policy out of the irrational fears of cold war era. Gorbachevian Reforms and the New Political Thinking Many people think that the structural reforms undertook by Gorbachev was a response to the growing economic crisis Soviet Union faced in the 1980s. However, such a viewpoint does not consider the fact that many countries that are substantially poorer than Soviet Union have not undergone any systemic changes. Certainly, Gorbachev tried to modernise the economy and introduced new management techniques which are capitalistic in essence to unfetter production. However, perestroika needs to be understood as more about political reforms than economic reforms. Ironically, Gorbachevian reforms have many similarities with the austerity programmes usually adopted in ca pitalist countries. Gorbachev’s new political thinking was basically defined in terms of the need for an integrated world wherein both the Soviet Union and the West must try for the de-militarisation of the planet. Tsygankov argues that â€Å"by aiming for the West’s support and recognition, it inserted itself into the arena of the Western modernity of nation-states, making it increasingly difficult to discourage the Soviet ethnic republics from embarking on nationalist projects† (2006, p. 47). Here, the point is that the ideals of new political thinking such as world integration, enhanced cooperation with the West, greater autonomy for the ethnic nationalities were not compatible with the reality of an aggressively imperialist-capitalist West, especially under conservatives such as Regan and Thatcher. Remarkably, Gorbachev as a Soviet leader â€Å"found his main base of support not in the party, military, or industry, but in the liberal intelligentsia† ( English, 2000, p.195). As an ambitious leader, Gorbachev actively sought Russia’s broad shift towards the West in general and the Europe in particular. The goal of perestroika was â€Å"to modify the relations of production and prevent social upheaval† but it ended up in â€Å"opening the door to the influence of capitalism, fragmenting the heterogeneous Soviet elite, and enabled an opposition linked to global neoliberalism to emerge which utilised the nascent Russian state as a mechanism for advancing systemic transformation† (Simon, 2010, p. 431). In brief, Gorbachev’s so-called reform policies necessarily ended up in the consolidation of the Russian ruling elites and the transfer of state powers to itself. Importantly, Gorbachev did not have a concrete policy of either economic regeneration or political transformation. Kenez is of the view that â€Å"Gorbachev believed in the possibility of reforming communism in

The concept of peak oil has been devised to reflect scarcity Essay

The concept of peak oil has been devised to reflect scarcity associated with oil supplies. But surely the price of oil would be a more efficient indication of its scarcity - Essay Example In contrast to the peak oil concept, global oil production showed a decline from its peak point at 74 mb/d in 2005; however, after a short decline the figures rebounded, and in 2011 there were higher production of oil than 2005 (US energy information and administration, 2011). Peak oil is ascertained by taking into account extraction rates from each oil well, the predicted oil reserves, and total extraction rate of an oil field comprising of associated oil wells (Berdellà ©, 2011). Here the core contentious issue is that the concept of ‘peak oil,’ which had been devised to reflect oil scarcity, is an ambiguous indicator of scarcity. Instead, some economists content that oil prices prove to be a more efficient indication of the scarcity of oil. Various experts contend that oil scarcity is dependent on the rate of consumption, where constraints placed on supply side are based on product demands. James L. Smith in his research papers, using benchmark scenario, high growth scenario and low growth scenario graphs, proved that peak timing is inconsistent as an indicator of oil scarcity (2011, pp. 8-13). Observations revealed that during 2007-08 economic crisis, despite oil supplies not increasing, there was loosening in the oil scarcity factor, owing to low demand. The equation for supply-demand graph can be plotted effectively through the factor of pricing, hence making oil prices a better indicator for its scarcity. Natural oil does not have any uniform or any standardised quality, and tends to vary significantly, which range from medium quality oil, to oil with high API gravity (high quality) from Saudi Arabian fields, to low API gravity (poor quality) heavy oil from fields in South America and Canada. Despite reports of fall in high quality oil levels, as far as supply of heavy oil is concerned, there is no scarcity, and many oil fields in deep-water areas remain unexplored (Stier, 2008). The Saudi Arabian high API oils are relatively easy to extract and oil

Writer is free to pursue any field of inquiry Research Paper

Writer is free to pursue any field of inquiry - Research Paper Example This is arguably the greatest difference and point that makes the beloved better since unlike the summer’s day the beloved is eternal. Moreover, the final lines of the piece explains how the beloved shall live forever in the words of the poem. Additionally, the couplet cements this by arguing that the beloved shall live eternally as long as men breathe and eyes see. Nevertheless, to clearly understand the sonnet there it is important to focus more on the overriding theme and also the general feeling prevalent in the sonnet. Determination of the overriding theme requires a critical evaluation and analysis of the main emergent idea in the sonnet. Theme are important since they give a clearer and better understanding of the main argument in a poem. For this particular sonnet, the overriding theme can be considered to be love. This is because the greatest part of the sonnet mainly focuses on praises directed towards the beloved. Unlike the summer’s day that seems to lack in so many respects such as too short, too hot, and too rough among others, the beloved carries all the desirable aspects of a perfect summer day. For example, the second line states â€Å"Thou art more lovely and more temperate†. Inclusion of such praise towards the beloved shows the speaker’s view and in totality love is the most prevalent theme in the sonnet. Incorporation of emotions in poetry is considered to be of great importance. This is because presence of emotions in a poem creates a platform for readers to interact with the main idea of the poem. Since most poems are written in a seemingly hidden meaning technique, there is need to incorporate an aspect that can act as an intermediary between the persona and the reader hence enhancing understandability. Shakespeare has managed to invoke readers’ emotions through the comparison tactic. There is a general feeling of tenderness as the reader goes through

Synergies of Product Diversification Strategy

Synergies of Product Diversification Strategy Introduction Nowadays large firms have to survive in the face of economic competition. They have to keep an eye on the competitors performance. Managers try to progress and run their businesses well in order to grow and be competitive. When a large firm has reached a mature life-cycle stage it often has to explore the possibility of how to still grow. Ansoff (cited by Johnson, Scholes and Whittington, 1998) presents four basic growth alternatives: a) increased market penetration, b) market development, c) product development and d) diversification. Choosing the right path is major decision for managers. Finding out if there are reasons which may lead a large firm to prefer diversification, more specific, product diversification as the growth alternative strategy instead of other strategies is a main question. Firms who spread their activities and businesses across different product markets that are more or less related between each other are said to follow a product diversification strategy. (Pils, 2009, p.10) Product diversification strategy definition has evolved during the last decades. Some definitions are evolutional and complementary but some others contradict each other (Goold and Luchs, 1993). Therefore, it is important for managers to have a clear definition. The benefits of product diversification have been divided into two categories depending on the type of diversification: related or unrelated. Related product diversification refers to entries into new products or service businesses that have a connection to the firms existing markets (Peng, 2008). Researches (Hoskisson, 2007) and business experiences (such as Mondi AG, Procter Gamble, CHR plc., etc.) have proven that some of the benefits of this type of diversification are: Operational synergy: economies of scale Utilizing excess productive capacity Reinvesting earnings Unrelated product diversification refers to the development of products or services beyond the current capabilities and value network (Johnson et al. 2008). Some of the benefits and reasons for this type of diversification are: Financial synergy: economies of scope Increasing market power Spreading risk across a range of businesses The challenge for any large firm, once product diversification is chosen as the growth path, is to decide which type of diversification is most appropriate and what strategic plan to follow. Product diversification gives also other challenges to managers such as the need of new skills to manage a wider group of businesses, new techniques, sometimes new facilities, large capital to test the viability of the new product, produce it and market the product, hire and train new employees, etc. Therefore, diversification has some inconveniences as it involves taking a step into a territory where the parameters are unknown to the firm (Peng, 2008). Product diversification can be achieved by acquiring an existing firm in the business it wants to enter, starting up a new business subsidiary or entering into joint ventures. For large firms knowing the different growth strategies including its benefits and inconveniences is fundamental to giving managers practical recommendations. For a better understanding of these fundamental issues this research will analyze whether related or unrelated product diversification strategy leads large firms to exploit more synergies and creates more value for the firm. Based on this research question, the following sub-questions are going to be addressed in this research: Should large firms, such as Mondi AG, aim to focus on related or unrelated businesses to exploit operational synergies? How is Mondis life cycle related to the right time of diversifying? Which recommendations on product diversification strategy can be given to large firms regarding financial synergy? To answer the above questions, I will present a detailed and methodical literature review on product diversification strategy concept, categories, synergies, its relation with large firms life cycle and explore the effects of a financial crisis on large firms who have chosen this type of diversification to identify the appropriate strategy for the research goal. This research is based on the hypothesis that related product diversification is the right strategy to be chosen if operational synergies are to be achieved while for financial synergies, unrelated product diversification strategies are more appropriate. The strength of this hypothesis is tested through a case study of a large firm: The Mondi Group. The Mondi Group has been chosen as the large firm to be explored in this research because it is an international firm with one of its largest teams and headquarters in Austria. Trend, an Austrian financial magazine, ranked Mondi as the 13th top Austrian large firm out of 500 firms in 2008 having 5.159,00 Mio. Euro net sales and 26.425 employees worldwide. Product Diversification In the 20th century many researchers have written about product diversification strategy (PDS). This research will analyse how PDS is seen by managers because of the larger experience there is nowadays. Diversification has been specially growing after the whole post-war period. Whereas in 1950 only around one third of large firms in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom were diversified, by the 1990s it increased to two thirds or more (Whittington and Mayer 2003). Size and Product diversification strategy This research is focused on how large firms have reacted to the different paths of growth. The firm size: small, medium or large is an important parameter while analysing a firm strategy. In the financial and economical studies and researches the relation between size and firm variables remains a controversial subject. Some argue that size is the primary factor that determines structure whether others say that size is irrelevant (Jackson and Morgan, 1978). In my opinion, it is true that product diversification can be applied both by small and large firms, but I believe that a small firm has more limitations and can not fully develop this strategy in its organization due to limited resources: human, financial and technological. I also believe that as a consequence a firm applying product diversification strategy will increase its size. With larger number of products, the complexity of processes and production is greater. Therefore the craft needed is greater. As mentioned before, some researchers agree with this point of view like the study realized by Dewar and Hage (n.d., cited by Jackson and Morgan, 1978) which suggests that large firms facilitate changes in structure in a way that small firms can not afford. On the other hand, Woodward, Zwerman and Harvey (n.d., cited by Jackson and Morgan, 1978) concluded that instead of size, the production systems used by the firms are more connected and explain better the firm structure and feature. In other words, an efficient production system can explain the success of one large or small firm and therefore the relationship between size and differentiation is not linear. Diversification and Product Diversification Strategy Terminology Diversification The root of the word is, obviously, diverse. Pitts and Hopkins (1982) define it as literally meaning different, unlike, distinct, and separate (p.620). Therefore, if this definition is applied to the context of product diversification, we can say that it means firms having their products in various and different lines. Pils (2009) also confirms this definition as he points out that product diversified firms are understood to be active in multiple, distinct product-markets (p.10). The various definitions, forms and ways of managing diversification are the main topics of this research. Product diversification strategy There is a common denominator in the way product diversification is defined in the literature. For instance, Pils (2009) defines it as firms spreading their activities and products across different product-markets that are more or less related between each other. He also affirms that product diversification strategy determines which businesses a corporation should be in, defining the scope of the firms activities and being of high relevance for creating value for the firm. Berry (1971, p.380) defines product diversification as an increase in the number of industries in which firms are active. However, he does not point out that it can be also increasing the number of products in the current industry. Pitts and Hopkins (1982, p.620) consider firms product diversification if operating multiple different businesses at the same time. Hoskisson (2007), on the other hand, says that the firms level of diversification is a function of decisions about the number and type of businesses in whic h it will compete as well as how it will manage the business. These definitions have surely been influenced by the work of Ansoff (1957) in which he presented diversification as a possible growth strategy as mentioned in the introduction. Ansoff presented two ways of diversification: market diversification and product diversification. Although this research only focuses on the product diversification side, few lines are dedicated to explain the difference and characteristics of these two strategies. Market diversification is a strategy that takes the firm from its existing market to new ones. It exploits the current products and capabilities in new markets looking for geographical spread. This strategy is more and more used in the current times where globalization is facilitating the firms internationalisation. It also presents some challenges like cultural barriers, adding management costs and government restrictions among others. Product diversification is about adding new product to the firms portfolio whereas market diversification is about entering in new markets offering the firms current products. Reasons and Challenges Reasons and Motivations for Diversification: Any firm has a start. Normally starting as a small business it focuses on a single product. This is known as a single business strategy. The natural reasons are commonly due to a lack of cash, experience and know-how. Over time, the resources, capabilities and core competences are rooted and stabilized. At that point, firms may choose product diversified strategy, with two broad categories (related or unrelated). Large firms use product diversification strategy for a variety of reasons. Pearce and Robinson, (2005) and Hoskisson ( 2007) mention among others, the following reasons: To increase the growth rate of the firm For a better use of the companies funds than investing them into internal growth To balance the product line Diversifying the product line when the firm has reached its mature life cycle To increase efficiency and profitability, especially, if there is operational or financial synergy To increase the firms value by improving its overall performance To increase revenues or reduce costs To match and neutralize competitors market power To reduce managerial risk To increase the firms size and thus managerial compensation Product diversification challenges The above mentioned reasons and motivations for PDS can also bring along challenges and costs. One could say that PDS needs new facilities, technologies, skills, know-how, employee and managerial training, etc. It is important to know that it can have a great negative impact on the firms current products if a new product is launched with the firms brand name and the product is not well accepted in the market. The reasons for the market rejection can be e.g. lower quality than expected from the firm, high price, poor distribution, etc. At that point, the whole company will be negatively affected by a bad move. This argument is also supported by various authors such as Hoskisson, (2007); Grant, Jammine, and Thomas (1998); Goold and Luchs (1993), (cited by Pils, 2009). They state that some of the challenges are information processing, coordination, and control problems due to increase of information asymmetries difficult for a single business to deal with. In case of applying a PDS a fi rm has to change its structure and adopt new systems. Moreover Hoskisson (2007) elaborates that the data and information a firm using PDS requires is substantially greater. Furthermore increasing portfolio diversity may involve inefficiencies due to growing conflict on top management and a lack of adaptability to environmental change. Product Diversification Strategy Categories: Related Unrelated Product Diversification Strategy As mentioned before, there are two broad categories of PDS: Related and Unrelated. Some authors such as Richard Rumel (cited by Lovallo and Mendoca, 2007), Peng (2008) also categorize PDS as: focused, moderately and highly diversified. These three categories are not deeply explored in this research. But to dedicate some words, it should be mentioned that Richard Rumelt, in 1972, was the first person to statistically prove the linkage between corporate strategy and profitability. He concluded that moderately diversified firms outperform more diversified ones. Lovallo and Mendoca (2007) sustain that this finding has been valid more than 30 years of research. Moreover, a contemporary author, Peng (2008), also points out that some moderate level of diversification is the most optimal. The main focus of this research is whether a related or unrelated strategy is more suitable for large firms while diversifying. Therefore, in the following lines a definition and a detailed explanation of both is presented. Related product diversification can be defined as a strategy that firms can choose as a growing path. As the word related signals, this diversification strategy is focused on products that have a correlation between each other and are related in some way, especially in their core competences. Normally, firms that choose related product diversification as a strategy are sharing a common factor such as the raw material, the technology or the know-how needed to produce different products. Moreover, the products offered by the firm do not necessarily need to be similar. For instance, a firm running a cinema complex and also offering soft-drinks to be sold at the movie theatres is using a related PDS. Even if their products may not be related, they must share some common ground on their value or supply chain. In this case, the customers targeted are the same. Pearce and Robinson,(2005) confirm this by defining related businesses as those relying on same or similar capabilities in order to have success and achieve competitive advantage in their product markets. Major advantages of related PDS are: concentration of strength, exploitation of a market niche, and the development of synergies. A good example, of a firm applying this strategy is CRH, an Irish company who operates in 35 countries with more than 93.500 employees. The CRH Corporate Social Responsibility Report (2007) states that the firm is a diversified building materials group which manufactures and distributes building material products from the fundamentals of heavy materials and elements to construct the frame, through value added products that complete the building envelope, to distribution channels which service construction fit-out and renewal. CRH has three closely related core businesses: primary materials (aggregates, cement, asphalt and ready mixed concrete); value-added building products (pre-cast, architectural, construction accessories, clay, gas, insulation, building envelope products); and specialist building materials (CRH, 2009). CRH initially decided to diversify to gain economies of scope and also to stretch the corporate parenting capabilities. While CRH diversified its market its power i ncreased and consequently it could afford to cross-subsidise one business from the surpluses earned by another, in a way that competitors could not. As an effect, it could drive out competitors. Before going into further details regarding related PDS, a definition of Unrelated Product Diversification is given. In this case, as the word unrelated points out this diversification strategy focuses on firms offering products that have no relation, are not complementary between each other and do not have necessarily the same raw material as their prime and main composition. Moreover, they do not need to share any part of their supply chain (customers, distributor, manufacturer, logistics, etc). For instance, the Easy Group Company is present in several industries and services that have actually no relation. Some of them are: travel companies, car rentals, internet-cafes, cinemas, cosmetics, etc. Stelio Haji-Ionannou, the founder of the company has developed a cost strategy that pretends to apply in all its businesses. It seems that he believes that his formula is valid for any business. Normally the reason why firms choose this path is known to reduce their financial risks. Peng (2008) refers to unrelated PDS as firms entering into industries new lines that have no evident connections to the present firm line of businesses. Furthermore, Hoskisson (2007) says that unrelated PDS occurs when there are no overlapping capabilities other than financial resources. This strategy is also known in the financial literature as conglomerates (Hoskisson, 2007; Peng, 2008; Pearce and Robinson, 2005) It has been widely discussed whether related is more successful or unrelated. To be able to answer this fundamental question the following pros and cons are explored: Human resources: Related product diversification is characterized by the ease of human resources relocation because the skills and capabilities needed for the introduction of the new products are very similar. On the other hand, unrelated PDS requires recruiting new personnel or training current employees in the new fields. (Tallman, 2003) Technologies Obviously, if a firm chooses unrelated PDS, it will probably not be able to share technologies. Therefore, the investment needed to apply this kind of diversification is greater than by applying a related one. Related PDS is characterised by sharing technologies needed to produce the new products. For example, a firm which produces shampoo and introduces hair conditioner may use the same technology. In that way it reduces the investment costs for the new production and gain economies of scope (also see 2.5). Tallman (2003) confirms that related products can increase the use of existing fixed investments and existing capacity for more purposes and more intensively, gaining efficiencies that reduce costs. Additionally, he says that it can improve the efficiency of its existing resource infrastructure by increasing the flow of product to a wider range of customers. Management For managers it is easier to introduce related products than unrelated ones because they are familiar to the industry and can apply the same or similar strategies. For unrelated ones, managers have to learn about the new products and often the strategy used for the current products is not applicable for the new ones. Therefore, managers should experience new strategies which at the beginning may fail. Prahalad and Hamel (1990), said that it is likely that firm managers of unrelated products may be ineffective because the routines and capabilities they have already developed are not applicable one to one to the entire range of businesses. On the other hand it could be argued that it can be effective as top management can concentrate on financial management and costs controls while leaving operational control with each business unit. Competitors It is easier for competitors to imitate the financial economies of a firm than the operational synergies derived from a related PDS. This is due to the fact that operational synergies derived from the use of current know-how, facilities, capabilities and experiences are more difficult to imitate than realizing that a firm is diversifying into new unrelated products based on the percentage of the revenue it can gain. Therefore, it is less likely that competitors will imitate a firm which introduces new related products. Peng and Delios, (2006), and Khanna and Palepu, (2005), (cited by Hoskisson, 2007) sustain that competitors find it easier to imitate financial economies than replicating the value gained by related PDS from the economies of scope developed through operational relatedness. Control Mechanism The principle control mechanism for related diversification is strategic control with rich communication between corporate and business units managers. Financial results are obviously not a fair means to measure the functioning of each business unit. One business unit may have low revenues but its main function is to support the others. For unrelated products, the best way to control is exactly the opposite. The emphasis has to be on financial control (return and investment) to evaluate the units performance. (Peng, 2008) Market saturation When the product a firm is offering is close to a market saturation or obsolescence, the best thing a firm can do is to enter into another market offering unrelated products. In that way the company has an opportunity to grow. It would be a great mistake in a saturated market to introduce related products because the competition is already very high and to get a profitable market share is unlikely. Stabilize Earnings Another reason would be to stabilize the earnings and dividends of a firm in a cyclical industry. In that case, the firm should diversify into an industry with complementary cycles independent of the relation with the current products. Independency Firms that are uncomfortable to be dependent on one product line should diversify into other businesses or industries. In that way the risk is spread and all the weight is not in one product line. All in all the benefits of both categories of diversification do not appear as the result of a magic formula that just happens but as Tallman (2003) and Peng (2008) also sustain it is the result of an active management of resources and capabilities with potential for broader application. Product diversification synergies need to be explored in more detail. Therefore the following section is dedicated. Product Diversification Synergies Pils (2009) explains that the word synergy is derived from the Greek word synergos and literally means working together. In business terminology, synergy is used to describe the ability of two or more business units or firms to make greater value working together than they would do independently (Goold and Campbell, 1998, p.133). Diversifying a large firm is considered economically positive only if synergetic effects between the different businesses units are achieved. As a consequence, the idea of maximizing synergies as the main objective of diversification strategy is presented below. Operational Synergies The emphasis of product related diversification is on operational synergies because in this strategy production resources are shared to have a cost competitive advantage. In the financial literature, the term operational synergy has been used as a synonym for economies of scope (Tanriverdi and Vendkatraman, 2005). Economies of scope and/or operational synergies are the result of two or more business units that share and transfer factors of production, its resources and capabilities. As a consequence the shared production costs will be lower than production costs of each one separately. Peng (2008) defines it as competitiveness increase beyond what can be achieved by engaging in two product markets separately. In other words, firms benefit from lowering unit costs by gaining advantage from product relatedness, i.e. 2+2=5. Some sources of operational synergy are (Peng, 2008): Technologies, such as common platforms Marketing, such as common brands, and Manufacturing, such as common logistics Conscious of these possible synergies, Zodiac a French large firm who in 1930 was focused on inflatable boats and had strong ties to the French army started to introduce new related products to its portfolio. Zodiac created 5 different divisions having inflatable materials as a common denominator. These divisions have been: marine division (recreation, military, professional, safety of life at sea, environmental solutions); pool division (pool sector and pool care and water cleaning, heating, pumps, filters); airline equipment division (passenger seats and on-board toilets and sanitation systems); aerosafety systems division (aircraft escape slides, parachute systems, helicopter floats, and flexible fuel tanks); technology division and aircraft system division. (Zodiac Aerospace, 2009) Zodiac has benefited from the operational synergies through the use of inflatable products technology and has also used market synergies because it has supplied the same customers with different produc ts. Conversely, unrelated diversification does not need to have advanced levels of operational relatedness. Rather, each business unit has its own strategic and operational responsibility and the management can focus on the financial synergies. (Tallman, 2003) Investment synergies are very much related to the operational synergies. It can be argued that one is the consequence of the other or that they are developed hand in hand. Investment synergies are the result of products sharing the same plant, resource and development (RD) and machinery. This is more probable to happen with a related product diversification because of the previous explanations. For unrelated products, the machinery is improbable the same and each product need its own RD. Financial Synergies The means obtaining financial synergy is different from obtaining operational synergies. The key role of firms is to identify and find profitable investment opportunities. The parameter to measure if financial synergies are to be achieved is whether managers can exceed the job of identifying and taking advantage of profitable opportunities compared to external capital markets (Peng, 2008). Hoskisson (2007) defines financial synergies as cost savings realized through a better use of financial assets based on investments inside or outside the firm. Competent internal capital distribution can lead to financial synergies and reduces risk between the firms businesses (Higgings and Schall, 1975). A firm using unrelated PDS may grow, but only internally in each business unit and will not reach operational efficiencies but financial ones. That means, the revenue of each business unit will be greater when functioning as a conglomerate rather than functioning independently. This idea is supported by Peng (2008) who states that competitiveness increases for each unit financially further than what can be achieved by each unit competing independently as an individual firm. Many different products that are not necessarily related offer opportunities of high returns. If a firm is only interested in the returns, unrelated product diversification may be a right path of growth. Sales synergies: These occur from sharing salespeople, warehouses, distribution channels, and advertising. Salespeople have more chances to be able to sell to the same customer a wide range of related products than unrelated ones. Salespeople will try to sell a complete pack of product to the same customer and in that way take advantage of the sales synergies that related product diversification presents. Imagine a company selling sport shoes and refrigerators, in a selling process it is more unlikely to be able to sell both products to the same customer than if he would offer sport shoes and sport clothes. On the other hand, if a firm has developed a well-known brand, the use of the brand-name in other products, related or unrelated, can increase and facilitate sales because it can have build before customer loyalty to the brand. For example, Mars chocolate confectionery successful launched ice-creams. Much of it success could be related to the brand name. So, sales synergies do not occur only withi n related products but also within unrelated ones if the brand name is positively perceived and recognized by the customers. Management synergies It arises from managers accumulating experiences from handling problems in one business unit that can be applied and used to solve problems in a related business unit. Even more, the accumulated experience and know-how allows answering faster to the industry trends and challenges. Managers are able to transfer their skills, experiences and strategies (Enz, 2009, p.222). Contrarily, unrelated product managers can not apply the experience gained from solving the problems of one unit to the other in most cases because the problems are specific for each product. All these synergies can be undermine due to additional layers of management, delays due to organization and information complexity, communication costs for coordination, imaginary synergies that in fact do not exist, incompatible production processes, etc. Therefore while choosing between related and unrelated PDS the mentioned synergy risks have to be taken into account. Research Methodology In this section an explanation of how the data for the case study was collected and how it was analyzed is presented. It is important to know how the data was collected because the method chosen affects the final findings. The information and content of The Mondi Group Case Study was obtained through an expert interview with Mr. Wolfgang Kropiunik, Mondis Marketing Manager of Uncoated Fine Paper. A questionnaire was sent as a guide and overview of the face-to-face interview questions. A meeting for a 40 minutes exploratory semi-structured interview was organized on the 24th of November 2009 at Mondi Headquarter, Vienna. Mondi Group was chosen as the large firm to be analyzed as it is a large firm with more than 33.000 employees worldwide and has its headquarter in Vienna (Mondi, 2009). Therefore the results presented in this research are very much related to Mondis functioning and successful method. It might be possible that if the studied firm had been another one, the results of the research question could have been different. The interview was recorded and the data obtained was transcribed (see appendix). The transcription of the interview allowed a deeper comprehension of Mondis product diversification strategy, synergies and challenges. Moreover, the recommendations presented to the company (see 4.7) are inspired from the challenges Mr. Kropiunik mentioned during the interview. The interview gave a number of information about Mondis life cycle, PDS and challenges especially during the current financial crisis The Mondi Group Case Study Mondi is a large and international packaging and paper firm represented in around 35 countries. In 2008, it had revenues of 6.3 billion EUR and about 33.400 employees (Mondi, 2009). It has a strong presence in Western Europe, Russia and South Africa. Mondis Europe and International Division has its headquarter in Vienna while the corporate headquarter is located in Johannesburg. In Vienna, there are three businesses: Uncoated Fine Paper, Corrugated and Bags Specialties. Mondi has reached to be fully integrated having the control of its supply chain. It grows trees, manufactures pulp and paper and converts packaging paper into corrugated packaging an Synergies of Product Diversification Strategy Synergies of Product Diversification Strategy Introduction Nowadays large firms have to survive in the face of economic competition. They have to keep an eye on the competitors performance. Managers try to progress and run their businesses well in order to grow and be competitive. When a large firm has reached a mature life-cycle stage it often has to explore the possibility of how to still grow. Ansoff (cited by Johnson, Scholes and Whittington, 1998) presents four basic growth alternatives: a) increased market penetration, b) market development, c) product development and d) diversification. Choosing the right path is major decision for managers. Finding out if there are reasons which may lead a large firm to prefer diversification, more specific, product diversification as the growth alternative strategy instead of other strategies is a main question. Firms who spread their activities and businesses across different product markets that are more or less related between each other are said to follow a product diversification strategy. (Pils, 2009, p.10) Product diversification strategy definition has evolved during the last decades. Some definitions are evolutional and complementary but some others contradict each other (Goold and Luchs, 1993). Therefore, it is important for managers to have a clear definition. The benefits of product diversification have been divided into two categories depending on the type of diversification: related or unrelated. Related product diversification refers to entries into new products or service businesses that have a connection to the firms existing markets (Peng, 2008). Researches (Hoskisson, 2007) and business experiences (such as Mondi AG, Procter Gamble, CHR plc., etc.) have proven that some of the benefits of this type of diversification are: Operational synergy: economies of scale Utilizing excess productive capacity Reinvesting earnings Unrelated product diversification refers to the development of products or services beyond the current capabilities and value network (Johnson et al. 2008). Some of the benefits and reasons for this type of diversification are: Financial synergy: economies of scope Increasing market power Spreading risk across a range of businesses The challenge for any large firm, once product diversification is chosen as the growth path, is to decide which type of diversification is most appropriate and what strategic plan to follow. Product diversification gives also other challenges to managers such as the need of new skills to manage a wider group of businesses, new techniques, sometimes new facilities, large capital to test the viability of the new product, produce it and market the product, hire and train new employees, etc. Therefore, diversification has some inconveniences as it involves taking a step into a territory where the parameters are unknown to the firm (Peng, 2008). Product diversification can be achieved by acquiring an existing firm in the business it wants to enter, starting up a new business subsidiary or entering into joint ventures. For large firms knowing the different growth strategies including its benefits and inconveniences is fundamental to giving managers practical recommendations. For a better understanding of these fundamental issues this research will analyze whether related or unrelated product diversification strategy leads large firms to exploit more synergies and creates more value for the firm. Based on this research question, the following sub-questions are going to be addressed in this research: Should large firms, such as Mondi AG, aim to focus on related or unrelated businesses to exploit operational synergies? How is Mondis life cycle related to the right time of diversifying? Which recommendations on product diversification strategy can be given to large firms regarding financial synergy? To answer the above questions, I will present a detailed and methodical literature review on product diversification strategy concept, categories, synergies, its relation with large firms life cycle and explore the effects of a financial crisis on large firms who have chosen this type of diversification to identify the appropriate strategy for the research goal. This research is based on the hypothesis that related product diversification is the right strategy to be chosen if operational synergies are to be achieved while for financial synergies, unrelated product diversification strategies are more appropriate. The strength of this hypothesis is tested through a case study of a large firm: The Mondi Group. The Mondi Group has been chosen as the large firm to be explored in this research because it is an international firm with one of its largest teams and headquarters in Austria. Trend, an Austrian financial magazine, ranked Mondi as the 13th top Austrian large firm out of 500 firms in 2008 having 5.159,00 Mio. Euro net sales and 26.425 employees worldwide. Product Diversification In the 20th century many researchers have written about product diversification strategy (PDS). This research will analyse how PDS is seen by managers because of the larger experience there is nowadays. Diversification has been specially growing after the whole post-war period. Whereas in 1950 only around one third of large firms in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom were diversified, by the 1990s it increased to two thirds or more (Whittington and Mayer 2003). Size and Product diversification strategy This research is focused on how large firms have reacted to the different paths of growth. The firm size: small, medium or large is an important parameter while analysing a firm strategy. In the financial and economical studies and researches the relation between size and firm variables remains a controversial subject. Some argue that size is the primary factor that determines structure whether others say that size is irrelevant (Jackson and Morgan, 1978). In my opinion, it is true that product diversification can be applied both by small and large firms, but I believe that a small firm has more limitations and can not fully develop this strategy in its organization due to limited resources: human, financial and technological. I also believe that as a consequence a firm applying product diversification strategy will increase its size. With larger number of products, the complexity of processes and production is greater. Therefore the craft needed is greater. As mentioned before, some researchers agree with this point of view like the study realized by Dewar and Hage (n.d., cited by Jackson and Morgan, 1978) which suggests that large firms facilitate changes in structure in a way that small firms can not afford. On the other hand, Woodward, Zwerman and Harvey (n.d., cited by Jackson and Morgan, 1978) concluded that instead of size, the production systems used by the firms are more connected and explain better the firm structure and feature. In other words, an efficient production system can explain the success of one large or small firm and therefore the relationship between size and differentiation is not linear. Diversification and Product Diversification Strategy Terminology Diversification The root of the word is, obviously, diverse. Pitts and Hopkins (1982) define it as literally meaning different, unlike, distinct, and separate (p.620). Therefore, if this definition is applied to the context of product diversification, we can say that it means firms having their products in various and different lines. Pils (2009) also confirms this definition as he points out that product diversified firms are understood to be active in multiple, distinct product-markets (p.10). The various definitions, forms and ways of managing diversification are the main topics of this research. Product diversification strategy There is a common denominator in the way product diversification is defined in the literature. For instance, Pils (2009) defines it as firms spreading their activities and products across different product-markets that are more or less related between each other. He also affirms that product diversification strategy determines which businesses a corporation should be in, defining the scope of the firms activities and being of high relevance for creating value for the firm. Berry (1971, p.380) defines product diversification as an increase in the number of industries in which firms are active. However, he does not point out that it can be also increasing the number of products in the current industry. Pitts and Hopkins (1982, p.620) consider firms product diversification if operating multiple different businesses at the same time. Hoskisson (2007), on the other hand, says that the firms level of diversification is a function of decisions about the number and type of businesses in whic h it will compete as well as how it will manage the business. These definitions have surely been influenced by the work of Ansoff (1957) in which he presented diversification as a possible growth strategy as mentioned in the introduction. Ansoff presented two ways of diversification: market diversification and product diversification. Although this research only focuses on the product diversification side, few lines are dedicated to explain the difference and characteristics of these two strategies. Market diversification is a strategy that takes the firm from its existing market to new ones. It exploits the current products and capabilities in new markets looking for geographical spread. This strategy is more and more used in the current times where globalization is facilitating the firms internationalisation. It also presents some challenges like cultural barriers, adding management costs and government restrictions among others. Product diversification is about adding new product to the firms portfolio whereas market diversification is about entering in new markets offering the firms current products. Reasons and Challenges Reasons and Motivations for Diversification: Any firm has a start. Normally starting as a small business it focuses on a single product. This is known as a single business strategy. The natural reasons are commonly due to a lack of cash, experience and know-how. Over time, the resources, capabilities and core competences are rooted and stabilized. At that point, firms may choose product diversified strategy, with two broad categories (related or unrelated). Large firms use product diversification strategy for a variety of reasons. Pearce and Robinson, (2005) and Hoskisson ( 2007) mention among others, the following reasons: To increase the growth rate of the firm For a better use of the companies funds than investing them into internal growth To balance the product line Diversifying the product line when the firm has reached its mature life cycle To increase efficiency and profitability, especially, if there is operational or financial synergy To increase the firms value by improving its overall performance To increase revenues or reduce costs To match and neutralize competitors market power To reduce managerial risk To increase the firms size and thus managerial compensation Product diversification challenges The above mentioned reasons and motivations for PDS can also bring along challenges and costs. One could say that PDS needs new facilities, technologies, skills, know-how, employee and managerial training, etc. It is important to know that it can have a great negative impact on the firms current products if a new product is launched with the firms brand name and the product is not well accepted in the market. The reasons for the market rejection can be e.g. lower quality than expected from the firm, high price, poor distribution, etc. At that point, the whole company will be negatively affected by a bad move. This argument is also supported by various authors such as Hoskisson, (2007); Grant, Jammine, and Thomas (1998); Goold and Luchs (1993), (cited by Pils, 2009). They state that some of the challenges are information processing, coordination, and control problems due to increase of information asymmetries difficult for a single business to deal with. In case of applying a PDS a fi rm has to change its structure and adopt new systems. Moreover Hoskisson (2007) elaborates that the data and information a firm using PDS requires is substantially greater. Furthermore increasing portfolio diversity may involve inefficiencies due to growing conflict on top management and a lack of adaptability to environmental change. Product Diversification Strategy Categories: Related Unrelated Product Diversification Strategy As mentioned before, there are two broad categories of PDS: Related and Unrelated. Some authors such as Richard Rumel (cited by Lovallo and Mendoca, 2007), Peng (2008) also categorize PDS as: focused, moderately and highly diversified. These three categories are not deeply explored in this research. But to dedicate some words, it should be mentioned that Richard Rumelt, in 1972, was the first person to statistically prove the linkage between corporate strategy and profitability. He concluded that moderately diversified firms outperform more diversified ones. Lovallo and Mendoca (2007) sustain that this finding has been valid more than 30 years of research. Moreover, a contemporary author, Peng (2008), also points out that some moderate level of diversification is the most optimal. The main focus of this research is whether a related or unrelated strategy is more suitable for large firms while diversifying. Therefore, in the following lines a definition and a detailed explanation of both is presented. Related product diversification can be defined as a strategy that firms can choose as a growing path. As the word related signals, this diversification strategy is focused on products that have a correlation between each other and are related in some way, especially in their core competences. Normally, firms that choose related product diversification as a strategy are sharing a common factor such as the raw material, the technology or the know-how needed to produce different products. Moreover, the products offered by the firm do not necessarily need to be similar. For instance, a firm running a cinema complex and also offering soft-drinks to be sold at the movie theatres is using a related PDS. Even if their products may not be related, they must share some common ground on their value or supply chain. In this case, the customers targeted are the same. Pearce and Robinson,(2005) confirm this by defining related businesses as those relying on same or similar capabilities in order to have success and achieve competitive advantage in their product markets. Major advantages of related PDS are: concentration of strength, exploitation of a market niche, and the development of synergies. A good example, of a firm applying this strategy is CRH, an Irish company who operates in 35 countries with more than 93.500 employees. The CRH Corporate Social Responsibility Report (2007) states that the firm is a diversified building materials group which manufactures and distributes building material products from the fundamentals of heavy materials and elements to construct the frame, through value added products that complete the building envelope, to distribution channels which service construction fit-out and renewal. CRH has three closely related core businesses: primary materials (aggregates, cement, asphalt and ready mixed concrete); value-added building products (pre-cast, architectural, construction accessories, clay, gas, insulation, building envelope products); and specialist building materials (CRH, 2009). CRH initially decided to diversify to gain economies of scope and also to stretch the corporate parenting capabilities. While CRH diversified its market its power i ncreased and consequently it could afford to cross-subsidise one business from the surpluses earned by another, in a way that competitors could not. As an effect, it could drive out competitors. Before going into further details regarding related PDS, a definition of Unrelated Product Diversification is given. In this case, as the word unrelated points out this diversification strategy focuses on firms offering products that have no relation, are not complementary between each other and do not have necessarily the same raw material as their prime and main composition. Moreover, they do not need to share any part of their supply chain (customers, distributor, manufacturer, logistics, etc). For instance, the Easy Group Company is present in several industries and services that have actually no relation. Some of them are: travel companies, car rentals, internet-cafes, cinemas, cosmetics, etc. Stelio Haji-Ionannou, the founder of the company has developed a cost strategy that pretends to apply in all its businesses. It seems that he believes that his formula is valid for any business. Normally the reason why firms choose this path is known to reduce their financial risks. Peng (2008) refers to unrelated PDS as firms entering into industries new lines that have no evident connections to the present firm line of businesses. Furthermore, Hoskisson (2007) says that unrelated PDS occurs when there are no overlapping capabilities other than financial resources. This strategy is also known in the financial literature as conglomerates (Hoskisson, 2007; Peng, 2008; Pearce and Robinson, 2005) It has been widely discussed whether related is more successful or unrelated. To be able to answer this fundamental question the following pros and cons are explored: Human resources: Related product diversification is characterized by the ease of human resources relocation because the skills and capabilities needed for the introduction of the new products are very similar. On the other hand, unrelated PDS requires recruiting new personnel or training current employees in the new fields. (Tallman, 2003) Technologies Obviously, if a firm chooses unrelated PDS, it will probably not be able to share technologies. Therefore, the investment needed to apply this kind of diversification is greater than by applying a related one. Related PDS is characterised by sharing technologies needed to produce the new products. For example, a firm which produces shampoo and introduces hair conditioner may use the same technology. In that way it reduces the investment costs for the new production and gain economies of scope (also see 2.5). Tallman (2003) confirms that related products can increase the use of existing fixed investments and existing capacity for more purposes and more intensively, gaining efficiencies that reduce costs. Additionally, he says that it can improve the efficiency of its existing resource infrastructure by increasing the flow of product to a wider range of customers. Management For managers it is easier to introduce related products than unrelated ones because they are familiar to the industry and can apply the same or similar strategies. For unrelated ones, managers have to learn about the new products and often the strategy used for the current products is not applicable for the new ones. Therefore, managers should experience new strategies which at the beginning may fail. Prahalad and Hamel (1990), said that it is likely that firm managers of unrelated products may be ineffective because the routines and capabilities they have already developed are not applicable one to one to the entire range of businesses. On the other hand it could be argued that it can be effective as top management can concentrate on financial management and costs controls while leaving operational control with each business unit. Competitors It is easier for competitors to imitate the financial economies of a firm than the operational synergies derived from a related PDS. This is due to the fact that operational synergies derived from the use of current know-how, facilities, capabilities and experiences are more difficult to imitate than realizing that a firm is diversifying into new unrelated products based on the percentage of the revenue it can gain. Therefore, it is less likely that competitors will imitate a firm which introduces new related products. Peng and Delios, (2006), and Khanna and Palepu, (2005), (cited by Hoskisson, 2007) sustain that competitors find it easier to imitate financial economies than replicating the value gained by related PDS from the economies of scope developed through operational relatedness. Control Mechanism The principle control mechanism for related diversification is strategic control with rich communication between corporate and business units managers. Financial results are obviously not a fair means to measure the functioning of each business unit. One business unit may have low revenues but its main function is to support the others. For unrelated products, the best way to control is exactly the opposite. The emphasis has to be on financial control (return and investment) to evaluate the units performance. (Peng, 2008) Market saturation When the product a firm is offering is close to a market saturation or obsolescence, the best thing a firm can do is to enter into another market offering unrelated products. In that way the company has an opportunity to grow. It would be a great mistake in a saturated market to introduce related products because the competition is already very high and to get a profitable market share is unlikely. Stabilize Earnings Another reason would be to stabilize the earnings and dividends of a firm in a cyclical industry. In that case, the firm should diversify into an industry with complementary cycles independent of the relation with the current products. Independency Firms that are uncomfortable to be dependent on one product line should diversify into other businesses or industries. In that way the risk is spread and all the weight is not in one product line. All in all the benefits of both categories of diversification do not appear as the result of a magic formula that just happens but as Tallman (2003) and Peng (2008) also sustain it is the result of an active management of resources and capabilities with potential for broader application. Product diversification synergies need to be explored in more detail. Therefore the following section is dedicated. Product Diversification Synergies Pils (2009) explains that the word synergy is derived from the Greek word synergos and literally means working together. In business terminology, synergy is used to describe the ability of two or more business units or firms to make greater value working together than they would do independently (Goold and Campbell, 1998, p.133). Diversifying a large firm is considered economically positive only if synergetic effects between the different businesses units are achieved. As a consequence, the idea of maximizing synergies as the main objective of diversification strategy is presented below. Operational Synergies The emphasis of product related diversification is on operational synergies because in this strategy production resources are shared to have a cost competitive advantage. In the financial literature, the term operational synergy has been used as a synonym for economies of scope (Tanriverdi and Vendkatraman, 2005). Economies of scope and/or operational synergies are the result of two or more business units that share and transfer factors of production, its resources and capabilities. As a consequence the shared production costs will be lower than production costs of each one separately. Peng (2008) defines it as competitiveness increase beyond what can be achieved by engaging in two product markets separately. In other words, firms benefit from lowering unit costs by gaining advantage from product relatedness, i.e. 2+2=5. Some sources of operational synergy are (Peng, 2008): Technologies, such as common platforms Marketing, such as common brands, and Manufacturing, such as common logistics Conscious of these possible synergies, Zodiac a French large firm who in 1930 was focused on inflatable boats and had strong ties to the French army started to introduce new related products to its portfolio. Zodiac created 5 different divisions having inflatable materials as a common denominator. These divisions have been: marine division (recreation, military, professional, safety of life at sea, environmental solutions); pool division (pool sector and pool care and water cleaning, heating, pumps, filters); airline equipment division (passenger seats and on-board toilets and sanitation systems); aerosafety systems division (aircraft escape slides, parachute systems, helicopter floats, and flexible fuel tanks); technology division and aircraft system division. (Zodiac Aerospace, 2009) Zodiac has benefited from the operational synergies through the use of inflatable products technology and has also used market synergies because it has supplied the same customers with different produc ts. Conversely, unrelated diversification does not need to have advanced levels of operational relatedness. Rather, each business unit has its own strategic and operational responsibility and the management can focus on the financial synergies. (Tallman, 2003) Investment synergies are very much related to the operational synergies. It can be argued that one is the consequence of the other or that they are developed hand in hand. Investment synergies are the result of products sharing the same plant, resource and development (RD) and machinery. This is more probable to happen with a related product diversification because of the previous explanations. For unrelated products, the machinery is improbable the same and each product need its own RD. Financial Synergies The means obtaining financial synergy is different from obtaining operational synergies. The key role of firms is to identify and find profitable investment opportunities. The parameter to measure if financial synergies are to be achieved is whether managers can exceed the job of identifying and taking advantage of profitable opportunities compared to external capital markets (Peng, 2008). Hoskisson (2007) defines financial synergies as cost savings realized through a better use of financial assets based on investments inside or outside the firm. Competent internal capital distribution can lead to financial synergies and reduces risk between the firms businesses (Higgings and Schall, 1975). A firm using unrelated PDS may grow, but only internally in each business unit and will not reach operational efficiencies but financial ones. That means, the revenue of each business unit will be greater when functioning as a conglomerate rather than functioning independently. This idea is supported by Peng (2008) who states that competitiveness increases for each unit financially further than what can be achieved by each unit competing independently as an individual firm. Many different products that are not necessarily related offer opportunities of high returns. If a firm is only interested in the returns, unrelated product diversification may be a right path of growth. Sales synergies: These occur from sharing salespeople, warehouses, distribution channels, and advertising. Salespeople have more chances to be able to sell to the same customer a wide range of related products than unrelated ones. Salespeople will try to sell a complete pack of product to the same customer and in that way take advantage of the sales synergies that related product diversification presents. Imagine a company selling sport shoes and refrigerators, in a selling process it is more unlikely to be able to sell both products to the same customer than if he would offer sport shoes and sport clothes. On the other hand, if a firm has developed a well-known brand, the use of the brand-name in other products, related or unrelated, can increase and facilitate sales because it can have build before customer loyalty to the brand. For example, Mars chocolate confectionery successful launched ice-creams. Much of it success could be related to the brand name. So, sales synergies do not occur only withi n related products but also within unrelated ones if the brand name is positively perceived and recognized by the customers. Management synergies It arises from managers accumulating experiences from handling problems in one business unit that can be applied and used to solve problems in a related business unit. Even more, the accumulated experience and know-how allows answering faster to the industry trends and challenges. Managers are able to transfer their skills, experiences and strategies (Enz, 2009, p.222). Contrarily, unrelated product managers can not apply the experience gained from solving the problems of one unit to the other in most cases because the problems are specific for each product. All these synergies can be undermine due to additional layers of management, delays due to organization and information complexity, communication costs for coordination, imaginary synergies that in fact do not exist, incompatible production processes, etc. Therefore while choosing between related and unrelated PDS the mentioned synergy risks have to be taken into account. Research Methodology In this section an explanation of how the data for the case study was collected and how it was analyzed is presented. It is important to know how the data was collected because the method chosen affects the final findings. The information and content of The Mondi Group Case Study was obtained through an expert interview with Mr. Wolfgang Kropiunik, Mondis Marketing Manager of Uncoated Fine Paper. A questionnaire was sent as a guide and overview of the face-to-face interview questions. A meeting for a 40 minutes exploratory semi-structured interview was organized on the 24th of November 2009 at Mondi Headquarter, Vienna. Mondi Group was chosen as the large firm to be analyzed as it is a large firm with more than 33.000 employees worldwide and has its headquarter in Vienna (Mondi, 2009). Therefore the results presented in this research are very much related to Mondis functioning and successful method. It might be possible that if the studied firm had been another one, the results of the research question could have been different. The interview was recorded and the data obtained was transcribed (see appendix). The transcription of the interview allowed a deeper comprehension of Mondis product diversification strategy, synergies and challenges. Moreover, the recommendations presented to the company (see 4.7) are inspired from the challenges Mr. Kropiunik mentioned during the interview. The interview gave a number of information about Mondis life cycle, PDS and challenges especially during the current financial crisis The Mondi Group Case Study Mondi is a large and international packaging and paper firm represented in around 35 countries. In 2008, it had revenues of 6.3 billion EUR and about 33.400 employees (Mondi, 2009). It has a strong presence in Western Europe, Russia and South Africa. Mondis Europe and International Division has its headquarter in Vienna while the corporate headquarter is located in Johannesburg. In Vienna, there are three businesses: Uncoated Fine Paper, Corrugated and Bags Specialties. Mondi has reached to be fully integrated having the control of its supply chain. It grows trees, manufactures pulp and paper and converts packaging paper into corrugated packaging an