What Does Columbine, Sandy Hook, And The Edlington Murders...

What does Columbine, Sandy Hook, and the Edlington murders all have in common? These were all violent crimes, committed within the last decade, by people under the age of 21. Every time you turn on the television, there is news of children engaging in disruptive, dangerous behaviors. Juvenile detention camps are filled with children under the age 18 who have maimed and murdered others. Looking at data from the National Criminal Data base, it is a clear fact that children’s behavior is significantly deteriorated from 20 years ago. Some critics would argue that the rate of children’s misbehavior has been the same through the decades, but this paper will present evidence that children’s behavior is indeed on the incline. Factors to support this view include: data of school violence, the severity of crimes committed, and the increase of diagnosing children with mental and behavior disorders. Schools are no longer a safe havens for furthering knowledge; instea d violence is occurring at alarming rates. Common occurrences in schools include: physical altercations, severe property damage, and bullying behaviors. According to â€Å"ThefutureofChidren.org,† youth violence in schools costs the public 158 billion dollars each year. In this decade, that rate of children inflicting violence on other children and teachers is staggering. Today’s teachers are being trained on gun safety, school lobbies are being installed with bullet proof glass, and counselors hold

Security Risk Analysis, Risk Management And Security Policies

Research Report Security risk analysis, risk management and security policies Introduction:- in, business or in any sector relating trading, banking etc., information security is an important factor in which it is necessary to secure or hide the important business details such as client detail etc. So in information system technology, data storage management should be extremely secure the security conditions or security policies would be hard and there should be no flaw or weakness in information security system. Although, no computer system is 100% efficient to stop security flaws but the effectiveness of the information system should be so high so that it would be very hard for a person or intruder to hack the security management of the information system. In information systems risk can be physical e.g.: from an employee which work in the organization and logical e.g. from an intruder that can remotely access the system from outside without permission. In my research report I will cover security analysis, security management and security policies. In security analysis, we find the risk level, security flaws which can occur in the daily practice of the system. In the security analysis, the risk assessment is done. There is a test which is used to analyze the security which is known as penetration test of the security system. In this test the system is under fake attack, but conditions are likely to same as that could be in the real attack. Intensions behind thisShow MoreRelatedIs4550 Week 5 Lab1611 Words   |  7 Pagesand Audit an Existing IT Security Policy Framework Definition Learning Objectives and Outcomes Upon completing this lab, students will be able to complete the following tasks: * Identify risks, threats, and vulnerabilities in the 7 domains of a typical IT infrastructure * Review existing IT security policies as part of a policy framework definition * Align IT security policies throughout the 7 domains of a typical IT infrastructure as part of a layered security strategy * IdentifyRead MoreRisk Assessment : An Essential Part Of A Risk Management Process1046 Words   |  5 PagesIntroduction The risk assessment is an essential part of a risk management process designed to provide appropriate levels of security for information systems. The assessment approach analyzes the relationships among assets, threats, vulnerabilities and other elements. Security risk assessment should be a continuous activity. Thus, a comprehensive enterprise security risk assessment should be conducted at least once every two years to explore the risks associated with the organization’s informationRead MoreIs20071634 Words   |  7 PagesISO27001security.com Version 1 28th November 2007 0 INTRODUCTION 0.1 WHAT IS INFORMATION SECURITY? 0.2 WHY INFORMATION SECURITY IS NEEDED? 0.3 HOW TO ESTABLISH SECURITY REQUIREMENTS 0.4 ASSESSING SECURITY RISKS 0.5 SELECTING CONTROLS 0.6 INFORMATION SECURITY STARTING POINT Information security is defined as the preservation of confidentiality, integrity and availability of information †¦ Information security is defined as the preservation of confidentiality, integrity and availability of informationRead MoreU.s. Department Of Homeland Security1668 Words   |  7 Pages1. Purpose Among one of the missions of The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is to protect and preserve the security of the Cyberspace in the country. The principal objective of this Security Plan is to give instructions and direction for the Department’s workers and help the Homeland Security to create best practices and strategies in the IT security system. 2. Scope This policy needs to be applied to all users, employees, contractors, suppliers and to all IT resources such as e-mails, filesRead MoreHow Security Management Is The Core Component That Made Up The Foundation Of A Corporations Security Program1437 Words   |  6 Pagesexplaining what security management is. It defined it as the core component that made up the foundation of a corporation’s security program. Risk management, security organizations, security education, information classification, information security policies, standards, procedures, baselines and guidelines are the elements of the core component. This chapter further explained that security management is activated to protect company assets. These assets can easily be identified through risk analysis. ThisRead MoreElectronic Protected Health Information On The Confidentiality, Integrity, And Availability Of The Electronic Protection Essay865 Words   |  4 Pagesestablish guidelines to assess and analyze potenti al risks and vulnerabilities to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the electronic protected health information that Topaz Information Solutions, LLC (Topaz) creates, uses, processes and transmits. II. Scope and Limitations This policy applies to all Topaz workforce members. III. Related Policy Names and Numbers Privacy Policy (COM-001) Security Policy (COM-002) Disclosure Policy (COM-003) IV. Definitions Electronic Protected HealthRead MoreSecurity Risks And Risk Management1267 Words   |  6 PagesEHEALTH SECURITY RISK MANAGEMENT Abstract Protecting the data related to health sector, business organizations, information technology, etc. is highly essential as they are subject to various threats and hazards periodically. In order to provide security, the information has to adapt to certain risk analysis and management techniques which has to be done dynamically with the changes in environment. This paper briefly describes about analyzing the security risks and risk management processes to beRead MoreQuestions Bank : Discuss Investment Process Essay753 Words   |  4 PagesQ.2: DISCUSS INVESTMENT PROCESS. ANS.: INVESTMENT PROCESS: 1. INVESTMENT POLICY: The government or the investor before proceeding into investment formulates the policy for the systematic functioning. The essential ingredients of the policy are the investible funds, objectives and the knowledge about the investment alternatives and market. Investible funds- The entire investment procedure revolves around the availability of investible funds. The fund may be generated through savings or fromRead MoreRisk Assessment Of Information Systems Security Risks Essay1311 Words   |  6 PagesInformation security professional’s job is to deploy the right safeguards, evaluating risks against critical assets and to mitigate those threats and vulnerabilities. Management can ensure their company’s assets, such as data, remain intact by finding the latest technology and implementing the right policies. Risk management focuses on analyzing risk and mitigating actions to reduce that risk. Successful implementation of security safeguards depends on the knowledge and experience of informationRead MoreCase Analysis : Topaz Information Solutions1184 Words   |  5 PagesTopaz is required to complete an annual security risk assessment to evaluate the physical, administrative and technical safeguards implemented to comply w ith HIPAA’s Privacy and Security Rules. The Privacy and Security Rules require that a covered entity obtains satisfactory assurances from its business associates that the business associate appropriately safeguards the PHI it receives, creates, uses or transmits on behalf of the covered entity. The Risk Assessment Team evaluated the physical,

Strategy in Digital World Initiatives and Technologies

Question: Discuss about the Strategy in Digital World for Initiatives and Technologies. Answer: Summary of the article The paper discusses the strategies that are adopted in the digital World. The organizations are adopting and investing in digital initiatives and technologies. The main aim of this paper is to create a clear understanding of digital technologies among people, as the concept is still not clear. The paper explains the way in which different organizations define, implement and develop strategies that are related with digital technologies. According to DCruz et al. (2015), the entire investment that is made in the fields of digital technology includes all the people that are related with centralized or decentralized technology services. Recent innovations in the field of digital technology are supported by the practices and principles of web 2.0 helps in transforming the business and social relationship. The paper discusses several philosophical and theoretical concepts that help in underpinning the study. This paper focuses on the gaps and challenges by exploring the various concepts that are related with digital strategy and its differences with the conventional strategies. In this paper, three senior executives are employed for analyzing the interview date, which resulted in the creation of three theories (Bharadwaj et al. 2013). The interview was structured in three parts. The first set helps in gathering information that helps in conceptualizing the responses of the participants. The second set explores the understanding of the participants that are related with digital strategies. The final set aims to discuss the concept of the participants on the aspect of digital strategies as discussed in this paper. Many conceptions and digital strategy were identified from the data of the interview by employing different thematic analysis (DCruz et al. 2015). The findings are summarized in this paper. The digital strategies focuses on the operational process of efficiency by enhancing the experience of the customers or by transforming the models related with the business (Belk 2013). The theme 2 of the analysis discusses the fact that digital strategies always range from digital point to more holistic strategies. It is always related with the provisions that are provided by the online services and it helps in allowing the entities to sustain in the competitive situation. Digital strategy is a response for technological and consequential social and behavioral changes (Reggi and Scicchitano 2014). The paper discusses that the development and execution of Digital strategy is an iterative and experimental process. It acts as an enabler for corporate, business and functional strategies of the busine ss. It is reviewed in the paper that digital strategy helps in displacing the strategies that are related with IT strategies (Smith 2016).Then the applicability of the six related strategies is proposed in the digital context and two applications are proposed. One of the most important strategies of this study is that the executives who are interviewed are primarily from a business or IT background, thus the findings in this paper do not reflect on other perspectives (Whalen 2013). The contribution of this paper creates deeper understanding of digital strategy that helps in supporting further research that are related with academic research and it also helps in providing guidance to practitioners. Explanation of the Tangential of Research Interest DCruz et al. (2015) stated that integrative approach is better for conducting the research. The research is based on conceptual, substantive and methodological domains. The conceptual domain is viewed as concepts as well as by the ideas of author in the abstract. The methodological domain is described by the strategies, techniques that are used with the digital technologies. (Murti and Zaharna 2014). The different conceptions of the digital strategy are interviewed and employed by the use of thematic analysis. This research study focuses on the digital strategy by creating a clear understanding of digital technologies among people. Actionable Advice to Research Approach The applicability and integrative approach has allowed the analyst to refer to the different concepts of digital strategy by employing various thematic analyses (Ward and Peppard 2016).With the help of integrative approach, the analyst was able to tailor the various purposes and requirement of individual organizations with the utilization of different theoretical models and strategies of digital technologies. Critical Review of the Article from the Authors Perspective The article reviewed the strategies that are related to digital technology by using the method of thematic analysis, which helps in demonstrating the adoption and investment process of organization in these strategies (DCruz et al. 2015). In the literature review section, the author provides a way for transformation of business to IT enabled opportunities by ensuring the facts that are related with functional integration between the IT and business domains, which is mainly between the external and internal dimension (Mather et al. 2013). It is argued in the paper that IT strategy iscategorized as functional level strategy whereas digital business strategy is categorized as business strategy in the digital world when the organizations need or dependency increases in the fields of digital connection and communication. The article provides information about the digital technologies that are developed and implemented in organizations (Zerdick et al. 2013). The paper is reviewed by the an alyst who are from an IT background and therefore they focuses only on the technological strategies of the organizations that are related with digital strategy. Description of General and Specific Comments The research clearly describes that digital technology, which has became one of the important platform for the organizations who invest and adopt the technologies. The paper uses the strategies that related digital technologies for defining, implementing and developing strategies for the use of the organizations. Ward and Peppard (2016) stated that digital strategies are useful for proper development and execution of digital technologies in an iterative and experimental way. Explanation of the Articles Strengths The main strength of this article is that it helps in creating a clear understanding of the concepts of digital technologies. The article mainly explains the development and implementation of digital strategies in different organizations. The author explained the process that is interviewed mainly in three sections (Ryan 2014). The first set of questions helps in gathering information that is used in order to get conceptual responses of the participants. Secondly, the article explains the understanding level of the participants about digital technologies. The final set of questions helps in explaining the different aspects of digital strategies. The author of this article uses cutting technique in order to analyze the data of the interview process. Data that is relevant to research questions is identified in order to sort the quotes by using the word processing processor (Setia et al. 2013).Themes were constructed in the article for differentiating the different theoretical constructs. Recommendations were provided in this current study for enhancing the research. Design validity is demonstrated with the help of descriptive value, transferability and credibility for adopting well-established method of data adopting (Hmmerle et al. 2015). It also helps in adopting constructionist perspective for ensuring the finding accurately. It also helps in reflecting the various versions of reality, which is provided by the participants of the study. Analytical validity in this study helps in demonstrating validity that supports the identified theme. The findings help in revealing the digital strategies that helps in explaining and identifying the different outcomes of digital strategies (Horst and Miller 2013). The article explains the fact that digital strategies mainly explain the efficiency that is related with the operational process and customer service. The interview findings range from holistic solutions for supporting the evidence of the interview (Beetham and Sharpe 2013). The interview data helps in indicating that the digital strategy is conceived related with the requirements of the online services. Interviews are conducted for gaining further insights into digital strategies and exploring the conventional strategies for highlighting the approach, which are required for developing and implementing strategies in a digital world. The development of digital strategy is one of the experimental processes that helps in creating responsiveness for environmental changes which includes technological changes, expectations of the consumer, providing guidance and assurance to consultants. It acts as an enabler for business, industries and serviceable strategies of the industry (Heath et al. 2014). It is explained in the paper that digital strategy assists in relocating the strategies that are related with IT strategies. Then the applicability of the six correlated strategies is planned in the digital circumstances and two applications are proposed. The article provides clear and better understanding of the concepts that are related with digital strategies. This all helps in providing greater insights of permutations within the indentified approach or dimensions (Bennett et al. 2014). This helps in providing unified for understanding the digital strategies for deeper understanding of digital strategy. It provides help in supporting further research that are related with academic research. Quotation on the Parts of Article The author does a good job by highlighting the positive and negative aspects of the digital strategy for making people aware by creating a clear understanding of digital technologies. It also helps in revealing some important information that the organizations must be aware of while adopting the digital strategies (Beetham and Sharpe 2013). The research is valid and by studying the article, it helps in inspiring the further research and investigations on the digital technologies. In the page 10 of the articles result section, the author reflects an important as well as interesting approach that helps in developing and implementing strategies in the digital world (Hmmerle et al. 2015). It helps in explaining the fact that the digital strategies are very much different from conventional strategies which helps in highlighting the different approach for the development of digital market. Comments on Use of Table and Figures In this article, the author uses theoretical concepts for analyzing and discussing the various strategies for explaining the need and or creating a clear understanding of the digital technologies (Mather et al. 2013). The author does not provide figures and tables for explaining the concept. It was analyzed that the authors employed different strategies of digital technologies, which uses thematic analysis. The technology explains various features and findings of the author but they do not put effort on explaining the facts by the use of figures and tables. Commentary on the Article The article helps in offering a comprehensive evaluation of the future research and helps in providing interesting findings of different strategies that are analyzed by various authors (Setia et al. 2013). The author has failed to explain the results in simple terms as well in providing the examples of real world. The real world examples make the research easy so that everyone can understand in a better way. The article was mainly analyzed by IT experts and therefore those only focuses on the digital technologies (Beetham and Sharpe 2013). Other approaches seem to be unclear as the experts did not provide much effort in explaining those facts which is one of the main limitation of this article. The findings of the article do not explain other perspectives such as digital marketing, executive instances and many more. Factual and Honest of the Article The full assessment of this article provides relevance and therefore it is co-operated in a comparative way for limiting the accessibility (Ryan 2014). The paper does not depend on a single theory; and it is dependent on different theoretical approaches, which are simple as well as intuitive metaphor. In various sections of the literature review, the study has limited explanation. The interview is taken by the analysts who are fully from technological background therefore different aspects other than technology is not focused properly (Mather et al. 2013). Finally, the paper suggests some of the digital technologies that are employed by using the theories of thematic. The strategies are helpful in creating a clear understanding of the concepts of digital technologies. The paper provides full information about the development and implementation of digital technologies or strategies in different organizations. Future Study A deeper understanding about digital strategy has been achieved from this article which helps in identifying dimension and helps in facilitating a unified understanding of digital strategies for supporting further academic studies (Setia et al. 2013). It would also helps in providing guidance to practitioners so that they understand the knowledge and approach that are related with digital strategy. Suggestion for Alternative Approach The alternative to the integrative approach is the application of the mixed research approach of the both qualitative and quantitative of analysis of data (Whalen 2013). The mixed approach helps in providing the study with some theoretical background with the use of raw data and practical information that is about the concept and use of digital strategies. Review Date Activities 5-10 hrs 10-20 hrs 1 Day 2 Days 3 days 4 days Reviewing the Article Search Alternative Research Paper Understanding research Approach Research on alternative research Approach Identification of Strengths of the Article Quote on the Manuscript Findings the Result Suggest Future Study References Beetham, H. and Sharpe, R., 2013.Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age: Designing for 21st century learning. routledge. Belk, R.W., 2013. Extended self in a digital world.Journal of Consumer Research,40(3), pp.477-500. Bennett, G.J., Western Digital Technologies, Inc., 2014.Analog-to-digital converter with input voltage biasing DC level of resonant oscillator. U.S. Patent 8,711,027. Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O.A., Pavlou, P.A. and Venkatraman, N.V., 2013. Digital business strategy: toward a next generation of insights.Mis Quarterly,37(2), pp.471-482. DCruz, M., Timbrell, G. and Watson, J. (2015).Strategy in a Digital World. Hmmerle, C.H., Cordaro, L., Assche, N., Benic, G.I., Bornstein, M., Gamper, F., Gotfredsen, K., Harris, D., Hrzeler, M., Jacobs, R. and Kapos, T., 2015. Digital technologies to support planning, treatment, and fabrication processes and outcome assessments in implant dentistry. Summary and consensus statements. The 4th EAO consensus conference 2015.Clinical oral implants research,26(S11), pp.97-101. Heath, M.A., Coker, K.T. and Viraraghavan, P., Western Digital Technologies, Inc., 2014.Data storage device overlapping host data transfer for a write command with inter-command delay. U.S. Patent 8,631,188. Horst, H.A. and Miller, D. eds., 2013.Digital anthropology. AC Black. Mather, C., Marlow, A. and Cummings, E., 2013. Web 2.0 strategies to enhance support of clinical supervisors of undergraduate nursing students: An Australian experience. In5th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (EDULEARN13)(pp. 3520-3527). Murti, B. and Zaharna, R.S., 2014. Indias Digital Diaspora Diplomacy: Operationalizing Collaborative Public Diplomacy Strategies for Social Media.Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy,5(1), p.3. Reggi, L. and Scicchitano, S., 2014. Are EU regional digital strategies evidence-based? An analysis of the allocation of 200713 Structural Funds.Telecommunications Policy,38(5), pp.530-538. Ryan, D., 2014.Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. Kogan Page Publishers. Setia, P., Venkatesh, V. and Joglekar, S., 2013. Leveraging Digital Technologies: How Information Quality Leads to Localized Capabilities and Customer Service Performance.Mis Quarterly,37(2), pp.565-590. Smith, E., 2016. Successful digital strategies of five large-and small-circulation city magazines. Ward, J. and Peppard, J., 2016.The Strategic Management of Information Systems: Building a Digital Strategy. John Wiley Sons. Ward, J. and Peppard, J., 2016.The Strategic Management of Information Systems: Building a Digital Strategy. John Wiley Sons. Whalen, M., 2013. Embodied, Embedded, Emergent: New Digital Strategies for Cross Laminated Timber Fabrication and Use. Zerdick, A., Schrape, K., Artope, A., Goldhammer, K., Lange, U., Vierkant, E., Lopez-Escobar, E. and Silverstone, R., 2013.E-conomics: Strategies for the Digital Marketplace. Springer Science Business Media.

Societies Concern about Sensationalism, Media Ethics, and Practices

Abstract In the contemporary world, people handle things differently because of their desire to earn massive profits. The media executives aspire to generate huge profits, and therefore, they have taken a different approach in handling the junior journalists.Advertising We will write a custom proposal sample on Societies’ Concern about Sensationalism, Media Ethics, and Practices specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Journalists, who ought to exercise an authoritative role in giving reliable information, are acting under the influence of the public and the pressures from their bosses. Lately, the journalists desire to obtain public attention at all cost. They do not consider the effects that their actions would have to the larger society. Various societies are raising their concerns about the ethical considerations of the journalists. Communities are wondering if the media executives take a stringent analysis of the possible nega tive effects of programs before making broadcasts. This research proposal gives a clear outlay of the procedures that the researcher will employ to obtain the required information. The researcher will interview various members of different age groups within the area of study. Thereafter, the researcher will sample various media outlets, and select the respondents to take part in the study in a random manner. Essentially, the entire research will take a quantitative approach, where the researcher will go the field and collect first hand information. The main data collection instruments will comprise of questionnaires and interview pamphlets. Further, the researcher will employ two approaches to analyse the collected data. Thematic analysis will be essential in detecting the themes and subthemes in the responses of the interviewees, while the statistical package for social sciences will be helpful in analysing collected data.Advertising Looking for proposal on communications med ia? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Introduction Background information The main role of the media is channelling communication to the public. Through the media, citizens are enlightened about the happenings within their nations and across the entire world. In the past, people could spare time to listen to the news broadcasts, as they were very vital. The few media outlets that exist could spend quality time to prepare conspicuous news that could capture the attention of every individual. However, media stations are increasing in number, and every media station competes for the public attention (Kellner, 2003). With the increase in the number of lucrative advertising deals, the media attendants are emphasizing on the quantity rather than the quality of information passed to the audience. The stifling news bulletins are meant to capture the attention of the observers and listeners. Interestingly, any advert that is aired during such prime moments generates massive income to the media station. Sometimes journalists have to use inaccurate news to capture the attention of the audiences. With an increase of the viewership and ratings, the media outlet is likely to obtain more lucrative deals than before (Kellner, 2003). It is noteworthy that people in the contemporary world are becoming enlightened, and they no longer believe in the inaccurate news. The desire to generate massive profits has obligated the journalists to ignore the media ethics that they ought to employ in their practices. The loss of trust in the media, the unethical broadcasts, and the ignorance that prevails in all the affected people has degraded the societal values. Therefore, various societies are highly concerned about media ethics and practices, and thus, they question the future of the media industry.Advertising We will write a custom proposal sample on Societies’ Concern about Sensationalism, Media Ethics, and Practices specif ically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Literature review Ethics is a set of moral conducts that are very essential in every aspect of life. Journalists have an enormous role of ensuring that they portray the highest level of moral standards in everything that they perform daily. To ensure that journalists have the essential ethical trainings, curriculum developers ensure that they incorporate ethics into syllabuses of the journalists. By so doing, the educators release competent journalists into the society. However, it was noted that the employers are to blame for the unethical practices in the profession of journalism. The executives of media outlets are always on the neck of the field journalists. They have set targets that the journalists have to attain by the end of the day. With or without sensational news on the ground, the journalists have to develop some thrilling stories to broadcast to the public (Jones, 2004). Cases have happened wher e journalists had to develop inaccurate stories and sensationalize them to attain the set targets. It is worth noting that the heightened technologies have eased the procedures of entering into the media and communication industry. The rising number of media outlets brings some competition amongst the service providers. Every media outlet desires to have the highest number of viewers and the highest rating. The most popular media outlet attracts companies that intend to make adverts, and through the adverts, the media stations are able to generate massive profits (Kellner, 2003). The struggle to have the highest rating is what makes media outlets to ignore the standards of transmitting their messages to the public. Sensationalism is a very common occurrence in the contemporary world. News editors have developed a habit of over-hyping news stories to increase viewership. The editors will omit some important facts and emphasize on controversial parts of the news regardless of their ir relevance.Advertising Looking for proposal on communications media? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The entire exercise leads to misrepresentation of information and exaggeration of useless facts. The news broadcasters will stress on some news contents that cannot help the modern business-minded people. Cases have happened where news writers present their controversial subjects in noticeable pages of the newspapers to attract the readers. The press coverage presents exaggerated and biased controversial political matters under the influence of prominent politicians (Jones, 2004). Therefore, enlightened citizens will never trust some of the information presented by media outlets. The fact that media outlets are trying to catch up with the evolving technologies and to make the best out of them is recommendable. However, it is very discouraging to note that politicians, wealthy companies, and influential people are taking advantage of their power to control the media and the things that they broadcast to the public. The whole issue has weakened the media’s voice of authority. T he journalists in the contemporary world are becoming unaggressive and submissive to the powerful people at the expense of the other citizens. The media will air what the influential people want the rest of the citizens to hear. The editors will alter any true information that may raise the eyebrows of the citizen. They will wipe out off insightful information about corruption and scandals that involve prominent people. The journalists will have to distort national public figures that may bring suspicions for monetary gains. The whole issue brings biases and inaccuracies of the broadcasted information. Members of the public can no longer trust the media transmissions, as they cannot know if the information is accurate or not (Tsfati Capella, 2003). Essentially, the media outlets can only regain the trust of the public if they stop being money minded, but instead become purpose driven by employing all the ethical practices that are indispensable in the career of journalism. Statemen t of the problem The aggressiveness of the various media outlets heartens the journalists to air sensational information to the public. Media sensationalism has played a significant role in reducing the interest of the viewers by increasing the doubts of whether the broadcasted information is precise or not. Journalists perceive the sensitive information as crucial as it captures the interest of the citizens; however, the information depicts the dark side of the journalism career. The society feels that the media is playing a significant role in instilling immorality among the young children. Street magazines, journals, and the television among other media outlets display distorted materials to the public. Children, especially the adolescents, will always develop ways to access the sensational information while the adults tend to limit the time they spend reading and viewing the distorted materials. So far, societies have shown their concerns about media ethics and practices by rais ing their voices against the sensational information. The whole issue presents an enormous problem that may breed an immoral generation if the situation continues. Moreover, the media outlets may find it difficult to convey serious news to the people, who usually take things lightly. Hypothesis Null hypothesis: Media outlets portray ethical practices of journalism that do not raise the eyebrows of the society, and thus they do not relay any sensational information to attract the public and earn massive profits. Alternative hypothesis: Media outlets portray unethical journalism practices that raise the eyebrows of the society, and their main aim is to relay sensational information to attract the attention of the public and earn enormous profits. Aims and objectives of the research The research will aim at finding out how the public perceives the information relayed by the current media outlets. Secondly, the research will aim at obtaining the exact reason as to why the journalists ha ve to broadcast sensational information that may not be accurate. To arrive at the set aims, the researcher will focus on the specific objectives listed below. Determine accuracy levels of the information relayed by various media outlets and determine the ethical considerations of the journalists. Measure the level of satisfaction of the target customers of the media outlets and find out their opinions on what the media should do. Take a stringent analysis of the current media transmissions and compare their content with that of the transmission in the early days. Determine the best approaches that the media outlets should employ to win the trust of their target customers and the address the society’s concerns. Research questions To achieve the set objectives, the researcher will be obligated to have the following research questions in mind. To what extend is the target customer satisfied with the media transmissions in the current world? Is there some pressure that influe nces the journalists to carry out their practices in an unethical and sensational manner? Do journalists care about the effect that their sensational information has on the young children, teenagers, and the entire population in general? What is the level of accuracy and reliability of the information that the journalists present in various media outlets? Is there a significant difference between the accuracy, reliability, and ethical considerations of the current broadcasts and the previous broadcasts? Research methodology This research aims at obtaining first hand information that will help in informing the media that their unethical practices are bringing more harm than good. The collected data will be essential in testing the hypothesis. Therefore, it is very vital to employ a very organized approach to achieve its goals. A detailed research design, a decisive sampling procedure, viable data collection tools, excellent data processing, and analysis procedures will be necessary. Research design The research will take a quantitative research design, as it will involve some form of numeric data. The whole research will aim at analysing the relationship between the dependent variable, media ethics and practices, and the three independent variables: influence from prominent people, desire to generate massive profits, the highly set targets. Clearly, the information needed is very sensitive, and the researcher will have to collect first hand information that would help in coming up with a decisive conclusion. From the newly collected data, the researcher will be able to develop influential explanations that may help in convincing the journalists to review their unethical practices. Sampling procedures This research will take two stages in sampling the respondents to take part in the study. Firstly, a random sampling technique will be useful in selecting the potential respondents. Secondly, the researcher will employ convenience sampling to find people, who ar e willing to participate in the study interviews. The two-stage sampling process will be very essential in achieving randomization and in selecting the right respondents who will give information willingly. The two stage sampling procedures will only apply to the target customers of the media industry. Essentially, the media industry targets citizens of all ages across the nation. Moreover, it will be very essential to consider some children, whose views will be very important. The researcher will be very keen in ensuring that the sample comprises of males and females to avoid biases. The researcher will ensure that it employs a balanced sampling procedure to enhance external validity of the findings. Essentially, the researcher will select the participants depending on various variables that will guarantee of the selected sample as a true representation of the study population. The researcher will target about one thousand respondents and will predict a response rate of 90%. For th e media outlets, the researcher will make a random selection of the outlets and the respective respondents. The overwhelming journalism role is worth considering when determining the journalists, who to take part in the study. Therefore, from one point to another, the researcher will have to use personal judgment to identify the friendly journalists, who would give the required information with ease. The purpose of the strategic sampling procedures is to collect the most viable and convenient information from the willing respondents. Instruments of data collection The main data collection instruments will be the interview pamphlets and the questionnaires. The interview pamphlets will be structured in a strategic manner to collect all the required information. The researcher will have to list the topic that relates to the research questions, research objectives and the research hypothesis. Thereafter, the researcher will then reorganize the questions such that related questions have a systematic flow. Introductory questions will come first, while the other questions will follow systematically. The most complex questions will be somewhere in between the questions while very friendly questions will appear at the end of the interview pamphlet. From one time to another, the researcher may have to record the entire interview on tape to capture the entire discussion. The recorded material will play a great role in ensuring that there is accuracy in the analysis of the respondents’ information. The questionnaire is a very critical data collection instrument. It has to be structured in a very simple manner that will motivate the respondents to spend very little time filling it. The researcher will ensure that the questions seek the relevant information without beating around the bush. The first information in the questionnaire will assure the respondents that the information that they give is purely for research purposes, and most importantly, no part of the que stionnaire will require the respondents to give personal information. The researcher will include both closed and open-ended questions in the questionnaire. Moreover, the respondents will have some spaces to write their general views about sensationalism, media ethics, and practices. Data collection procedures The first step of the data collection procedure is examining the suitability and reliability of the data collection instruments. A pilot test will be very essential in determining the weak areas of the interview pamphlets and questionnaires (Bryman, 2008). In case the questionnaires and the interview pamphlets need some amendments, the researcher will have to prepare a new set of the data collection instruments to meet the demands of the target respondents. It is noteworthy that the in-depth interviews are likely to have some structured questions that need interpretation. The researcher will have to interpret the questions to the respondents to ensure that they have a clear un derstanding of what is required of them. Secondly, the researcher will have to listen carefully to what the respondents have to say. It will be extremely important for the researcher to observe and interpret the body language of every respondent to have a clear outlay of every aspect discussed. If need be, the researcher may have to record some interview conversation, however, this will be after seeking permission from the respondent. The researcher will have to ensure that the interviewee is very comfortable with the venue of the interview. If possible, the interviewer should choose a place that is free from disruptions, and most importantly, the interviewees will have the freedom to choose their convenient time. The researcher will have to determine the best method of ensuring that the respondents obtain their questionnaires. The researcher may opt to make a hand delivery of hard copies of the questionnaires. In that case, the researcher has to collect the duly filled questionnair es in person. Secondly, the researcher may opt to send the questionnaires to the respondents through postal addresses. The other option would be to send soft copies of the questionnaires through a reliable email address. To motivate the respondents to return the duly filled questionnaires, the researcher will attach paid stamps to the return envelopes. In case the last two options are the most suitable, the researcher will arrange to obtain the email addresses and physical addresses of the selected respondents. As evident from the descriptions of the data collection procedures, the research will be too demanding and thus the researcher will have to spend quality time to achieve the required results. However, the entire research will take approximately eight months, which is enough to walk around interviewing and obtaining first hand information. With the decisive research proposal, the researcher is likely to secure some funding from non-governmental organizations that addresses soc ial matters. Therefore, the researcher will have enough resources to collect reliable data that will formulate a significant research report. Other possible methods The researcher may opt to obtain the necessary data through observation or using second hand information from previous literature. However, observation is very unreliable as biases may arise while collecting the information. The researcher may always depict a wrong image about the media even in cases where the media require some credit. Moreover, using information from previous researches is very unreliable, as one cannot measure the accuracy of the information in a research report. Moreover, past research reports may not capture the information of the contemporary world that changes steadily with the evolving technologies. The researcher may have to replicate the mistakes that previous researchers have made, and thus, there would be no addition of value to the existing researches. Data processing and analysis Data analy sis is a very critical exercise in any research and in this case, the researcher will employ the thematic analysis procedures to comprehend the responses. Thematic analysis will allow the researcher to detect the themes and subthemes in the recorded interviews. The most important part of the procedure is coding of responses, where, the researcher will consider the age, profession, and the education level of the interviewee. Secondly, the researcher will contemplate the themes and subthemes that will arise in every section of the interview. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) will be very essential in giving a statistical approach of analysing the numeric data contained in the questionnaire. Firstly, the software will be very essential in giving a descriptive outlay of all the respondents. The software will enable the research to determine the number of males and females who took part in the study. Further, the researcher will be able to categorize the respondents in d ifferent age groups. The SPSS software will enable the researcher to make a correlation and regression analysis of the different variables of the study. The software will give all results at the researcher’s precision level of choice. Multivariate analysis will be very essential in making a multiple comparison of the study variables. Validity and reliability of the collected data Indeed, if the researcher follows the aforementioned procedures to collect the data, the entire research will give valid and reliable data. The reliability and validity of data is dependent on the level of accuracy. The quantitative research design is more likely to produce the most reliable data than any other research design (Corbetta, 2003). Reliability is the ability to obtain the same results if the researcher replicated the study. On the other hand, validity is attained if all the aforementioned procedures are employed in every step of the research process. Therefore, with great planning of the events, the researcher will be able to interview the respondents in an appropriate manner to obtain accurate information. The recorded interview sessions will help greatly in retrieving the required information in case of gaps and misunderstandings. The questionnaires will also provide accurate and reliable data as long as they are handled in a proper manner. The researcher will offer the respondents with sufficient time to fill the questionnaires. The assurance of confidentiality will help greatly in obtaining the most reliable information. The most important factor of applying no prejudice in the data collection and analysis exercise will assure the audience that the researcher is likely to come up with the most reliable report ever. Limitation of the chosen approach As mentioned before, the researcher hopes to obtain funds from an NGO that deals with social matters. Therefore, if the researcher fails to secure the funds, the entire research exercise may be crippled. The research er may have to skip some stages of the data collection exercise to cut on costs. Moreover, the researcher may have to cut on the number of target respondents to have a small sample representation. As the small sample may not represent the entire population appropriately, the researcher may have to replicate and generalize the results. Secondly, the fact that the researcher may have to carry out several interviews is quite challenging. The whole exercise may be too demanding, and the researcher may have to outsource some services to handle the interviewees. The outsourced researchers may not be keen on studying the facial and body language. The entire data collection exercise is time consuming, tiresome, and the researcher may be bored at some point of the study. The boredom and other external factors may distort the remaining exercises, which may affect the remaining part of the study. Interview biases are likely to be common if the researcher decides to outsource the research assis tant services. Lastly, non-response errors may occur in the research, where the researcher may have more spoilt questionnaires than anticipated. Ethical issues The main ethical considerations of the participants are the assurance of confidentiality, informed consent, and equal justice. As mentioned earlier, the interviewer will not record any conversation with the interviewees without permission. The researcher will have to inform the respondents about the research and respond to all queries regarding the research in a calm manner. Secondly, all the questionnaires will emphasize on the important of confidentiality. Most importantly, all participants will obtain equal treatments from the researcher. The researcher will have to protect raw data. The public will only access the research results in the form of a report. Respect, punctuality, and accuracy of speech are some of the inevitable items that the researcher will have to adhere to throughout the study. Lastly, all participants w ill voluntarily participate in the study. References Bryman, A. (2008). Social research methods (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Corbetta, P. (2003). Social research: Theory, methods and techniques. London: Sage. Jones, D.A. (2004). Why Americans don’t trust the media: A preliminary analysis. The Harvard International Journal of Politics, 9(2), 60-75. Kellner, D. (2003). Media spectacle. London: Routledge. Tsfati, Y. Capella, J.N. (2003). Do people watch what they do not trust? Exploring the association between news media skepticism and exposure. Communication Research, 30(1), 504-529. This proposal on Societies’ Concern about Sensationalism, Media Ethics, and Practices was written and submitted by user Janelle Olson to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Toora Loora Lay by Na Fianna free essay sample

Toora Loora Lay is the latest single released by an Irish singing group named Na Fianna. It was released on June 18, 2014. Na Fianna is a group that has been around for at least a few years now. They sing classic Irish songs putting a modern and new twist on songs. Toora Lorra Lay is their new single that I love a lot. I feel in love with it as soon as I first heard it. Everything about this song is great from the vocals to the instrunmentals of the song. You can find it on itunes if youd want to listen to it.

Financial Institutions and Economic Growth Essays

Financial Institutions and Economic Growth Essays Financial Institutions and Economic Growth Essay Financial Institutions and Economic Growth Essay 2000). Other things being equal, better-off and more dynamic societies have not only a larger amount of available resources out of which to save but also a higher propensity to do so. Throughout these years, the Scandinavian countries would appear to have been at an advantage in both respects relative to southern Europe. Before we analyse this relationship, however, we must deal with two potential distortions. The first concerns the probability that not all the financial resources considered in the preceding sections originated domestically. At a time of great international factor mobility, a poorer economy might well have a weaker domestic supply of savings to fuel its financial development, but be able to compensate this by attracting foreign-owned capital. On the other hand, more developed financial systems might reinforce their advantage by drawing in, additionally, large amounts of funds from abroad. Table 7 shows that at the end of our perio such net inflows were indeed contributing significantly to the growth of all financial systems but far more in the Scandinavian case. The latter’s superiority in attracting domestic resources was thus matched by a similar strength in the international sphere, a fact that has been noted before (Rousseau and Sylla, 2001). On the other hand, this did not alter much our previous ranking of these countries and still leaves to be explained the considerable gap between the two groups of countries in terms of financial liabilities per capita. table 7 about here] A second potential source of distortion was the effect of hoarding on financial activity. Given the alleged inclination of southern Europeans towards this form of storing wealth, as might befit traditional peasant societies, it seems fair to ask how much of the region’s weaker institutional savings performance was due to this. For the sake of argument, we suppose that Scandinav ian countries were too advanced, socially and culturally, to engage in such practices. We further assume that in southern Europe this concealed wealth would have taken the form mainly of gold coin silver would have been too bulky – and therefore the stock of this type of specie would have been its upper limit. In the late 19th century, this varied between ? 1. 4 and ? 2. 4 per capita, for Italy and Portugal respectively, with Spain somewhere in between (Zamagni, 1993; Reis, 1992; Tortella, 1974). Even if we admit that as much as half of this was hoarded, this would have entailed only a small correction of the figures in table 7, of about ? per capita, thus leaving its essential findings untouched. [15] Recent evidence based on more than seventy developed and less developed economies, between 1960 and 1995, have established a strong correlation between indicators of private savings and financial development. More importantly, they also provide us with regression estimates that quantify the positive influence of per capita GDP on the savings rate (Beck et al. , 2 000). The lack of any comparable evidence for earlier times prevents us from replicating this exercise here but we can follow another, less exact approach. This rests on the assumption of linearity in the relationship between the two variables, which is suggested by the behaviour of the underdeveloped economies that comprise this sample. Using the data in Prados (2000), we find that average differences, between Scandinavia and southern Europe, of income per capita were respectively 12 % in 1880 and 25% in 1913, and we shall presume that the gap between gross savings must have been similar. The differential in domestic per capita savings absorbed by the financial systems was, however, much greater, respectively of the order of 30 and 100%. This strongly suggests that besides the effect on financial development of levels of income and savings, other factors, mainly of an exogenous nature, must have played an important part too by causing economic agents to channel different shares of their spare resources to the financial systems of their respective countries. Three features of any financial system are bound to affect the inclination of savers to enter into lasting relationships with its institutions and markets and, in particular, to entrust them with funds. One is accessibility to users, another is suitability to their specific needs, a third is trust. In what follows we shall concentrate exclusively on the corporate financial sector because, in contrast, differences among countries in the development of their respective stock markets appear relatively minor. In the Scandinavian countries, the volume of private securities was considerably greater than that of state bonds, whereas in Spain, Portugal and Italy the opposite prevailed. Yet when we put all of these financial instruments together, the aggregate volume per capita is relatively uniform throughout the sample. Moreover, the information regarding national stock markets suggests that inter-country regulatory divergences were not substantial at this time and where they existed, this would not have made much difference to global outcomes (Fohlin, 2002). [16] Recent research on the post 1960 period has argued that cross country differences in legal and accounting systems help account for differences in financial development (Levine et al, 2000: 31) and similar claims have been made in a far broader historical perspective (Sandberg, 1978; Sylla, Tilly and Tortella, 1999). An overview of the legislation governing corporate financial activity does not suggest, however, that this was a major cause of the divergence we have been examining here. This is not to say that there was absolute regulatory uniformity within the sample or that the legal framework had no impact on other aspects of the financial history of these countries. Rather, there could and was an influence but the effect was not necessarily important in the present context. The Norwegian-Swedish comparison illustrates this. Regulation restricted the lending policies of savings banks in the latter country while it was quite liberal in the former. As a result, the Norwegian savings sector flourished and even took on the functions of commercial banks. In Sweden, on the other hand, it did only half as well and was overshadowed by the commercial sector, which in Norway was comparatively weak (Egge, 1983; Nordvik, 1993). Globally, however, the two countries achieved very similar results in terms of the assets gathered by the financial corporate sector as a whole, only through different structures. There are three ways in which the time-path of regulation could have influenced the evolution of commercial banking, yet in all of them a surprising degree of international uniformity is encountered. Barriers to entry is one of them. After a highly restrictive first half of the nineteenth century, which was dominated by specially chartered national privileged banks of issue created to deal with pressing monetary and fiscal problems, in the 1850s and 1860s it became relatively easy to found joint stock commercial banks with limited liability. This new ease of incorporation opened the system to competition, vastly increased the number of institutions and allowed them the freedom to open branches, which in some countries proliferated and in others not. The second area is that of the limits placed on the scope and type of business banks might undertake. Typically, rules defining lending policies were few and on the whole were quite liberal. In some cases, banks were simply governed by the general law on joint stock companies, while in others they were placed under a specific banking code (Grossman, 2001). Towards the end of the 19th century, however, and as a consequence of various crises, regulation was tightened in some countries, but it is unclear whether this entailed much change. The evidence is that the enforcement of bank legislation was on the whole lenient, in the spirit of Liberalism, and the institutions dealt with were often allowed to evade it when this was found expedient (Fritz, 1988). The ease with which Norwegian banks overcame the strictures of usury laws is an eloquent illustration of this (Knutsen, 2003). 17] Finally, a fully centralised note issuing regime does not appear to have produced results that were inferior, in terms of financial development, to those where multiple issue was in place. Despite the contemporary belief that commercial banks that had a right of issue enjoyed a business advantage over deposit banks, one finds instances of both regimes both in Scandinavia and southern Europe with no obvious impact on global financial performance. [18] Mortgage banking based on the issue of bonds, which was for profit in some countries, but not in others, displayed the most significant degree of regulatory variety. In Spain and Portugal, national monopolies were established from the start, while Italy experimented with regional ones and went over to a national one in 1890. They therefore tended all towards large loans and large denomination bonds. In Scandinavia, Sweden and Denmark were very liberal on this score, but Norway had a state mortgage bank. Table 5 reveals that in the long run, however, this mattered less to the respective shares of this sector than might be expected. In Denmark, mortgage bonds were very important but Sweden was on the level of the monopolistic countries, while Spain, with a similar set of rules, did frankly worse than all others, including Portugal,. When it comes to non-commercial, small scale, local and often cooperative banking, it is essential to remember first that this was a era in which two quite different types of saver supplied the resources of financial institutions and arguably constituted quite separate segments of the market (Verdier, 1996)[19]. The well-to-do deposited with or bought the shares of commercial banks, while middle and low income people prefered to entrust their savings to local savings banks, credit co-operatives and the like (Vittas, 1997). This being so, in societies where both kinds of institution had a significant presence, as happened in Scandinavia, the financial system was likely to collect a larger portion of savings. In Spain and Portugal, the weakness of the savings sector was such that it meant that a majority of the population in effect had little access to the system as a whole. Consequently, the volume of savings per capita gathered was smaller. Italy was able to do better than the Iberian peninsula because of a considerable and varied movement of thrift organisations prevalently in the northern half of the country that tapped, the savings of the humble and middle class people, whether rural or urban. It is far from evident, however, that national dissimilarities in legislative framework were responsible for this kind of institution to evolve to such contrasting extents. In all countries considered, thrift institutions were supported by local or national authorities in a variety of ways, with deposit guarantees and, perhaps most important of all, with tax exemptions. Arguably though, on the assumption that there was market segmentation, this would hardly have diverted funds from the commercial joint stock sector, which was the principal alternative. Until the 1880s, the general norm was absence of legislation, complete ease of entry, an enormous multiplicity of statutory arrangements and only slight restriction on the uses to which savings could be applied. Full and proper regulation had to await the 1880s 1875 in Sweden but, in the event, was of a very mild nature. [20] Supervision, accounting rules and some operating limits were introduced, against the solid resistance of the thrift institutions themselves, but by most accounts this barely influenced the sector’s level of activity (Bruck et al. , 1995; Hansen, 2001). One of the principal aims of regulation was to stimulate trust in the system by deterring irregularities and imposing transparency on its operations. As we have just seen, Scandinavias superiority in mobilising resources does not seem to have owed much to a better set of rules and regulations. From the publics point of view, a more reassuring indicator of trustworthiness was how a system performed, not its rules, and here stability of markets and institutions was doubtless the factor that would affect the inflow of savings. Whilst all countries were prone to turbulence and its savers and investors suffered losses as a result, between 1860 and the First World War, the southern European record seems to have been by far theworst. One instructive sign of this is the mortality of commercial banks. Complete data are only available for Spain, Italy and Denmark but are highly revealing. In Spain, aside from the earlier devastation wrought by the crisis of 1864-6, of the 117 banks founded after 1874, only 60 were still open in 1914 (Tortella, 1974). The losses to Italian commercial banking during three critical periods were similarly substantial: 42 out of the 143 in existence, in 1873-9; 21 out of the 161, in 1888-93; and 11 out of the 163, in 1902-4 (Mattia, 1967). In Denmark, of the 160 banks created between 1845 and 1914, only 20 failed. A second measure is the variance around the trend of a global systemic indicator such as total assets. Available information covers only the same three countries but the result, now comprehending all types of banks, fully confirms the earlier finding. [21] The stability of the Danish financial system was significantly greater than that of the Italian one, with the Spanish one a long way behind. If a stable financial environment meant anything to savers, then Scandinavia appears to have enjoyed a considerable from this point of view. Several factors can explain this contrast but two especially should command our attention. One is structure, the other is policy. As regards the first, Scandinavian economies enjoyed the benefit which, in southern Europe, Italy had over Portugal and Spain – of a relatively larger not-for-profit financial sector, which was less crisis prone than commercial banks. 22] This was due to several characteristics inherent in such institutions. They had better and cheaper information on the risks posed by clients, lower costs of administration and greater ease in enforcing repayments. Moreover they were less likely to suffer runs by depositors, who knew them well. In addition, they often enjoyed some form of group deposit-insurance, and normally enjoyed deposit guarantees from governments, local authorities or simply groups of local notables. Lastly, because unlike commercial banks they were not under pressure from shareholders to produce high dividends, they did not have to lend to projects with higher returns but also higher risks. Their image of conservatism more often than not was matched by reality even though they had to contend with the instability that is usually associated with a small scale. [23] Given how frequent and severe national bouts of financial instability could be, one has to ask whether domestic counter cyclical policies might not have influenced the attractiveness of these financial systems. As regards government intervention, the low priority given at the time to such policies rules out a significant role for this factor. On the other hand, national banks of issue were just beginning to play the part, informally, of money market regulators, something that would only be enshrined in their charters after the First World War. The timing of their assumption of lender of last resort status matches poorly the way in which these economies responded to financial shocks. In Denmark and Sweden, two highly stable systems, came to this early, between the 1860s and the 1870s, but so did in Portugal and Italy the Banca Nazionale, the Bank of Italy’s predecessor was already behaving as a bankers’ bank in the 1860s (Hansen, 1991; Lindgren and Sjogren, 2002; Reis, 1999; Polsi, 1996). On the other hand, Norway and Spain were both latecomers to this field, respectively in the late 1890s and just before the War and yet were at opposite ends of the league table for financial stability (Egge, 1983; Tortella, 1974). 24] While proto-central banking may not have been a major determinant of the closeness between savers and financial institutions, accessibility clearly was. The ease with which economic agents could approach the system mattered a great deal in establishing a relationship with it. One dimension was physical location, distance, ease of travel – and this was an important reason for the success of the Danish ‘parish savings ban ks’ (Guinnane and Henriksen, 1998). Another was the suitability for those involved of the institutions available to them. Savers would more readily supply an institution with funds if, other things being equal, they felt welcome, understood the procedures, knew the people they had to deal with and could easily satisfy burocratic requirements, e. g. minimum size of deposit. In other words, not all institutions and markets served equally well for everyone and this must have had an impact on the propensity to accept the liabilities offered by the system. As Table 8 shows, a considerable disparity existed during these years in the supply of outlets that each system offered. This is one more spect of the enormous distance that separated our two groups of countries, in this case the number of inhabitants per financial outlet, and also brings to light a ranking that matches exactly the ranking presented in table 1. In particular, Italy, which had a density five to eight times that of Portugal and Spain but was five times below the levels of Denmark, Norway or Sweden, had the financial system that managed to at tract the greatest volume of savings of southern Europe. Besides the number, the spatial distribution of these outlets also seems relevant. In Spain and Portugal, financial institutions were an urban phenomenon and were concentrated in the major centres. In Scandinavia, the opposite was the case. A large proportion of financial outlets was in small towns and hamlets. They were therefore close to country people, who were the majority of the country’s population. Thrift institutions were ‘local organizations, formed and run by local people to further what they saw as local goals’ (Guinnane and Henriksen, 1998: 52). . [table 8 about here] Altogether then, perhaps the most important factor in explaining differences in financial development lay in each society’s propensity to accept non-commercial banking in its midst. Scandinavia’s greater overall capacity to mobilise funds mainly derived from the strength of its thrift sector in all its forms, and this arose because so many people there were prepared to join these movements. Since this cannot be ascribed to major income dissimilarities, nor to diversity in regulation, nor even to the rise of central banking, only two explanations seem to remain available. Verdier’s (1996) standpoint is that it was political struggles that lay at the heart of the matter. In Denmark, Sweden and Norway, centrifugal political forces were important and prevented the state’s wish to centralize banking, thereby absorbing the resources of the periphery in order to finance central public expenditure. As a result decentralized thrift banking flourished. In the south of Europe, the opposite happened and consequently non-profit banking was suffocated by the pressure from a centralizing state intent on draining the financial resources of the periphery. There are two objections to this. The first is that what the state wanted these resources for was to finance the public debt, not central public expenditure, and here the contrast between the two regions could not have been greater. As we saw earlier, southern European countries were indeed voracious consumers in this respect. Secondly, we must also not ignore that in these countries finance for the public debt typically does not seem to have come from their peripheries, nor from provincial banks. Rather, it tended to be held personally and was accumulated at the centre, where saving propensities were apparently higher. This would explain why provincial commercial banking was able to expand in Portugal, Spain and Italy during this period, in spite of their huge public debt commitments (Reis, 2003). Perhaps a more fruitful enquiry should ask why, in the latter countries, except for a small group of wealthy and educated citizens, most of the provincial population appeared remote from institutional saving. For this we have to try and understand the roots of the stronger impulses in Denmark, Norway and Sweden to create small thrift organisations in terms of the stronger presence of certain social and cultural conditions in these countries (Guinnane, 1994; Galassi, 2000). A basic ingredient was trust, a form of social capital that involved a readiness to accept peer control and to enter into common ventures with other economic agents beyond one’s immediate social circle, which required that direct monitoring and control was left to others. Societies, like in Scandinavia, founded on a prosperous middle sized peasantry, that experienced successful agrarian reform at the end of the Ancien Regime, and where a more even distribution of income was present, seem to have provided an environment in which such attitudes could flourish. In contrast, apparently this was not the situation in Portugal and Spain, or Italy s south. In Italy, where in some regions only limited liability credit cooperatives (banche popolare) were common, by the 1880s clearly those in the south had much greater difficulty in attracting members’ and their deposits. As a result, they relied much more on share capital and rediscounts at large banks, and tended therefore to have to hide defaults in their accounts. This in turn exacerbated the problem of trust between members and management, the latter usually from a higher social stratum, and fostered a low-trust equilibrium (Ahearn, 2000). A second element in this approach emerges from the analysis of the early development of modern financial intermediaries, which appeared in Scandinavia already in the first half of the nineteenth century and which very much depended on the degree of human capital endowment present. Nilsson, Pettersen and Svensson (1999) have shown how literacy in the Swedish countryside before 1850 was associated with the rise in the use of sophisticated credit instruments and probably created a fertile seed-bed for the activity of localised credit institutions. Again, southern Europe was woefully behind in this field, with rates of illiteracy that were still 50 per cent or more in 1900 compared to negligible figures in their northern counterparts. A greater readiness on the part of Danes, Norwegians and Swedes to accept contract money, particularly in small denominations, may be another expression of this cultural dimension. 25] Finally, one should not neglect the influence of the strength of local sentiment in this matter. Its importance has been remarked upon a propos of Denmark (Hansen, 1982), as it has in the case of Italy, the only southern economy where local thrift organizations developed to a significant degree (Polsi, 1996). 5. Why Scandinavian systems recycled liabil ities better In comparing national differences in financial intermediation, the second major question of this paper has to do with the efficiency with which the funds gathered by each system were transformed into credits to the private sector. From this point of view, three circumstances help us understand the efficiency loss of about one half the measures the distance in this respect between the two groups of countries. Possibly the most important one was the more or less chronic difficulty associated with public finance in southern Europe, in contrast to its generally healthy condition in Scandinavia. For the former, this meant a crushing weight of Public Debt holdings and a scant application of these resources to growth inducing purposes. For the second group, not only was this burden far lighter but the resources thus absorbed were also used more effectively for investment. A further implication, of a more structural nature, was that the problem of an oversized public debt stimulated the emergence in Italy, Spain and Portugal of oversized national banks of issue, which dominated their respective commercial banking sectors, as we saw in section 3, and were the least efficient of all corporate institutions at recycling funds into credits. Why Italy, Spain and Portugal should have been consistently unable to break the grip of budget deficits and of a pyramiding Public Debt is an issue which plunges its roots deeply into the 19th century political, social and military histories of these countries. Unfortunately, it is impossible to do justice here to such a complex problem. One should note, however, that unstable political institutions, a weak public administration and an excessively powerful military were present in the region throughout the period, unlike what happened in the Scandinavian periphery. As a result, southern European governments found it hard to discipline expenditure, whilst the revenue-to-GDP elasticity tended to be very low as a result of the public administration’s incapacity to increase revenue sufficiently and diversify its sources. A strong military tended to embroil the country in occasional internal or external costly conflicts that had to be paid for mostly by means of fiscal and monetary unorthodoxy, and was an ever present factor of political instability. Public borrowing in itself was not the difficulty, since the Scandinavians engaged in it without harm. What was dammaging about it to the southern Europeans was its scale, which dwarfed other efforts at mobilising resources, and its use largely to pay off earlier borrowing and maintain a costly ineffective machinery of government. Negative structural effects on southern Europe were not confined to the politically motivated â€Å"excessive† development of their national banks of issue. The socio-cultural reasons that explained the greater prevalence in Scandinavian financial systems of thrift institutions can also be invoked here in explaining their higher global transformation ratios encountered in table 6 above. Less clear, on the other hand, is whether these factors also help explain the fact that, in every type of institution, this region unmistakably led southern Europe in terms of capacity to recycle its liabilities into credit. Two features of the financial environment appear more helpful in this respect. The first is the difference in the degree of risk that financial institutions had to face. This made it possible for the Scnadinavian ones to immobilise smaller proportions of total assets as reserves, or to avoid tying up resources in safe state bonds. The goals and the quality of management is the second circumstnace to account for differences in the proportion of idle assets in the portfolios of corporate financial institutions. Possibly, southern European managers were simply reacting reasonably to a riskier investment climate by allocating funds with greater prudence and conservatism than Scandinavian ones needed to. On the other hand, it has been hypothesized (Berthelemy and Varoudakis, 1996: 301) that ‘the technical efficiency of the financial sector is an increasing function of the collected volume of savings [and] that learning-by-doing effects also exist in intermediation activities’. Poor management has been claimed for both Portugal and Spain (Reis, n. d. ; Sudria, 1994) though comparisons with Scandinavia have yet to be carried out and the case therefore remains open. As regards Portugal in particular, it has been shown, following Hinderlitter and Rockoff (19.. ), that, after taking risk differences into account, the share of unused funds in the balance sheet of commercial banks was greater than could be justified by reference to practices in contemporary major financial centres. Finally, the high returns on government issued liabilities in southern European caused resources to be diverted away from private credit operations in contrast to Scandinavia where the yield of such holdings was comparatively less attractive and better alternative investment opportunities seem to have been more numerous. 6. Conclusion During the course of the long second half of the 19th century, the southern and the northern peripheries of Europe followed contrasting paths of financial development. This led to quite disparate results in the supply of credit to the non-state non-bank part of their economies and justifies perhaps speaking of a â€Å"Scandinavian†, as opposed to a â€Å"southern European† type of financial system. Having quantified these differences, this paper argues that the gap is large enough to justify the view that finance contributed to the divergence in economic growth between the two regions. To address the reasons for the substantial efficiency differential between southern European and Scandinavian financial systems, it was necessary to break this down into the two basic functions that financial systems carry out. One concerned the mobilization of savings as financial liabilities of these systems. The second revolved around the conversion of these liabilities into credits to the non-financial private sector. Southern European countries were losers in both instances. The analysis of the first of these brought to light that Scandinavian institutions were capable of mobilizing comparatively more resources than their southern counterparts, the exception being in state bonds, where the latter led by a clear margin. The second dimension of this study revealed that Scandinavian institutions were also capable, type by type but equally in toto, of extracting a larger quantity of credit from their laibilities in order to make them available to the productive sectors of the economy. To some extent these contrasts were caused by endogenous conditions. The simple fact is that Italy, Portugal and Spain were consistently poorer and were becoming increasingly so. This affected their volume of savings but also probably lessened the demand for the financial outlets that enabled savers to recycle these funds as institutional financial liabilities. On the other hand, exogenous factors probably also played an important part in helping to understand fully the process of financial development in these two regions. Essentially, three aspects are involved here. Regulatory conditions have loomed large in many analyses of this type but do not appear to have had a significant impact on the global outcomes picked up here, although they probably shaped some of the structural differences observed. A much stronger case can be made instead for the part of political, social and cultural factors in driving a wedge between the financial development paths that we have observed above. The last two were instrumental in leading to a greater development in Scandinavia of the non-commercial bank sector. This was responsible for diversifying the supply of financial outlets, attracting an much greater volume of savings per capita and then ensuring that a larger proportion of such funds became available for investment purposes. In all their complexity, political factors probably mattered most of all because they translated savings into a huge mass of state issued liabilities that stifled the expansion of the other parts of the system in the southern countries. At the same time, having helped to mobilize these funds, politics then became responsible for their sterilisation as financial instruments. When all is taken into account, it is this which perhaps explains the best part of the great financial divide between our two sets of countries. Of politics it can always be said that it might have been otherwise and this may seem a trivial conclusion. To claim this, however, would be to ignore the fact politics and institutions have long histories too and that path dependency is not solely the preserve of economic phenomena. References A’Hearn, B. (2000). Could southern Italians cooperate? Banche Popolari in the Mezzogiorno. Journal of Economic History 60, pp. 67-93. Aleotti, A. (1990). Borsa e Industria. 1869-1989: Cento Anni di Rapporti Difficili. : Edizioni di Comunita. Beck, T. , Levine, R. and Loayza, N. (2000). Finance and the sources of growth. Journal of Financial Economics 58, pp. 261-300. Berthelemy, J. C. and Varoudakis, A. (1996). Economic growth, convergence clubs and the role of financial development. Oxford Economic Papers 48, pp. 300-28. Broder, A. (1976). Les investissements etrangers en Espagne au XIXe siecle: methodologie et quantification. Revue d’Histoire Economique et Sociale 54, pp. 29-63. Bruck, C. (ed. ). (1995). Les Caisses dEpargne en Europe. Paris: Editions de l’Epargne, 2 vols. Calomiris, C. (1995). The Costs of Rejecting Universal Banking: American Finance in the German Mirror, 1870-1914 in N. Lamoureaux and D. M. Graff (eds), The Coordination of Activity within and between Firms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Cameron, R. (1967). Banking in the Early Stages of Industrialization. New York: Oxford University Press. Cameron, R. (ed. ). (1992). Fina

Personnel Rights, Diversity, Sexual Harassment, and Affirmative Action Assignment

Personnel Rights, Diversity, Sexual Harassment, and Affirmative Action - Assignment Example The concept of better human resources treatment in workplaces is not a preserve of only the private sector but has over the years extended to public companies and institutions thus putting to question the role that public personnel manager has to play in ensuring that the aforementioned issues are well addressed (Cooper, 1990). This paper looks at the issues above based on a critical review of some peer reviewed journals as well as other sources. Employee’s rights Within an organization that consist both the employer and the employee, each group has its own role to play in terms rights. There is need to ensure that employees have access to adequate compensation in relation to their work performed. Overtime work must be paid through overtime schemes in order to avoid exploitation. Proper channels need to be put in place to address the misgivings of employees since they have a right to be heard and assisted (Robertson & Fadil, 1999). The other part includes providing employees w ith safer working environment that has no hazards whereby the management must consider safety and health standards of the work place. Also the management has the responsibility of training its employees and advising them on the possible hazards that could be encountered within the organization as well as performing voluntary medical tests on the employees to keep medical records updated. Among others, the management also has the duty to keep records of employees on work related injuries that could be used in future if need arises. All these responsibilities are to safeguard the employees’ safety which they have a right to (Brooks, 1989). Diversity It is in the interest of any organization, be it in the public or private sector, to create a diverse workforce environment. This involves managing an organization’s human resource from a wide variety of background with wide range of experience to smoothly attain the goals of the organization (Robertson & Fadil, 1999). Divers ity in employment relates to issues of race, color, national, age, religion, disability, sex, gender identity, socio-economic background, parental status, education, among others. These issues are important and must be considered while managing human resource. This gives each individual within the organization the opportunity to contribute positively with a sense of belonging to the attainment of the organization’s goal. With diverse variety in experience, there is more opportunity that promotes on job training as well as improvement on personal skills. As much as it is a new productive tool to the organizational management, it faces challenges as well. With the new era of more educated and young managers straight from management schools, they get opposition from the traditional old managers and employees within an organization and this hinders organizational objectives. Although diversity has gained momentum, it is still evident that there exists biasness in the higher level of management where women and the disabled are still sidelined in employment and promotions. Also diversity is challenged in terms of race where the race factor is more influenced by political factors such as which race is more dominant in politics and hence it should be influential in other