Net Present Value - 1157 Words

There are six projects which â€Å"Cheltenham Races† LTD aims to undertake and for this purpose the company is using investment appraisal methods. Investment appraisal procedure is the technique of evaluation of different projects to choose the best projects which maximise the company’s profit. THE INVESTMENT DECISION MAKING PROCESS: There are number of stages to be followed in the investment decision making process. * Origination of proposals; It is very important at this stage that organisation’s have free friendly atmosphere for the staff/participants in decision making, as new ideas are expected to develop at this stage, thus rejecting some alternatives projects early. * Project screening; At this stage qualitative factors†¦show more content†¦In this method the following factors have much importance and that they affect the results of the NPV. Such factors are; a) Time value of money b) Inflation c) Depreciation d) Taxation / Written down allowance Time value of the money is based on the concept that the value of the money increases over time, e.g.  £1 earned or spent sooner is worth more than  £1 earned or spent later. There are many reasons for this rise in worth of present value of  £1 in the future. * Uncertainty The business world is considered full of risk and uncertainty. It is believed that in practise the business get promise of cash in future, it can never be certain until it is actually received. * Inflation Inflation is the decline in purchasing power of the monetary unit. It is a common sense that money’s worth changes over time due to inflation. If there is an element of inflation then it is necessary to adjust the values by the given rates for inflation. Inflation is not considered important in the decision making process when it is low but it is important to include the factor when it rises let say 10 %. Factors influencing Ranking NPV vs. PI If we take an approach of Net present value (NPV) and Profit index (PI) to rank these 6 projects without setting any constraints then the simple raking would be below showing projects in the following sequence. RANK | PROJECT | | INVESTMENT | NPV | PI | RANK | (NPV) | | |  £Show MoreRelatedNet Present Value1875 Words   |  8 Pagesyear and reported the following information. The company had current assets of $153,413, net fixed assets of $ 412,331, and other assets of $83,552. The firm also has current liabilities worth $65,314, long-term debt of $178,334, and common stock of $162,000. How much retained earnings does the firm have? a. $ 405,648 b. $243,648 c. $167,918 d. $573,566 6.) Tre-Bien Bakeries generated net income of $233,412 this year. At year end, the company had accounts receivables of $47,199Read MoreNet Present Value1958 Words   |  8 Pagestimes attributed to the nature of a project. Capital inv appraisal of new technologies: Problems, misconceptions and research directions * Specifically, it has been alleged that the traditional appraisal methods of payback, discounted net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) undervalues the long-term benefits; that traditional financial appraisals assume a far too static view of future industrial activity, under-rating the effects and pace of technological change; that thereRead MoreNet Present Value/Present Value Index2559 Words   |  11 PagesNet Present Value/Present Value Index The management team at Savage Corporation is evaluating two alternative capital investment opportunities. The first alternative, modernizing the company’s current machinery, costs $45,000. Management estimates the modernization project will reduce annual net cash outflows by $12,500 per year for the next five years. The second alternative, purchasing a new machine, costs $56,500. The new machine is expected to have a five-year useful life and a $4,000Read MoreNet Present Value and Salvage Value1144 Words   |  5 Pages------------------------------------------------- FINC5001 Capital Market and Corporate Finance ------------------------------------------------- Workshop 5 – Capital Budgeting II 1. Basic Concepts Review a) In applying Net Present Value, what factors do we include, and what factors do we ignore? Use cash flows not accounting income Ignore * sunk costs * financing costs Include * opportunity costs * side effects * working capital * taxation * inflation Read MoreNet Present Value Essay603 Words   |  3 Pages1. Basic present value calculations Calculate the present value of the following cash flows, rounding to the nearest dollar: a. A single cash inflow of $12,000 in five years, discounted at a 12% rate of return. b. An annual receipt of $16,000 over the next 12 years, discounted at a 14% rate of return. c. A single receipt of $15,000 at the end of Year 1 followed by a single receipt of $10,000 at the end of Year 3. The company has a 10% rate of return. d. An annual receipt of $8,000 for threeRead MoreNotes On The Net Present Value1462 Words   |  6 PagesQuestion C [1] The Net Present Value [NPV] is the total sum of the present values of all the expected cash flows. For a project with a normal cash flows, this would mean that the NPV is the present value of expected cash flows minus the initial cost of the project. The formula is as such; NPV = -CF0 + CF1 (1+k)-1 + CF2 (1+k)-2 + †¦ + CFn (1+k)-n where; CF0 is the initial investment outlay, or cash outflow CFt is the after-taxed cash inflows at time t k is the required rate of return for the projectRead MoreNet Present Value and Project3264 Words   |  14 Pagesbe 13.487% and a Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) to be at a value of 9.70%. Factoring in the WACC into our projections we found that if the demand maintains at an average rate the project will be at a positive Net Present Value of $5,997,505.31 with an IRR of 13.21%, a profitability index of 8.84, and an approximate payback period of 6.84 years. Please see Exhibits below for a snapshot of the capital budget and NPV values. This information seemed to be very promising for the project inRead MoreNet Present Value ( Npv )1530 Words   |  7 PagesNet present value (NPV) is a discounted cash flow technique used to determine the overall value of a project or a succession of cash flows (Blocher et al, 2008). See Appendix 1 for a simplified calculation. Belli (2001) argues that NPV is more suitably applied to mutually exclusive projects; these types of projects are those that if accepted, prevent other contending projects to be approved (Mowen et al, 2009). NPV is understood to be an absolute measure, therefore when selecting between mutuallyRead MoreNet Present Value and Question5593 Words   |  23 Pagesof capital. C) If you are unsure of your cost of capital estimate, it is important to determine how sensitive your analysis is to errors in this estimate. D) If the cost of capital estimate is more than the internal rate of return (IRR), the net present value (NPV) will be positive. Question 2 If it is feasible to undertake a project irrespective of the decision concerning the acceptance of another, the two projects are said to be: A) independent. B) dependent. C) mutually exclusive. D) none ofRead MoreNet Present Value and Business9074 Words   |  37 PagesPrinciples (GAAP). By using these concepts as the foundation, readers of financial statements and other accounting information do not need to make assumptions about what the numbers mean. For instance, the difference between reading that a truck has a value of $9000 on the balance sheet and understanding what that $9000 represents is huge. Can you turn around and sell the truck for $9000? If you had to buy the truck today, would you pay $9000? Or, perhaps the original purchase price of the truck was

What You Should Do to Find Out About Millenium Gates Essay Samples Before Youre Left Behind

What You Should Do to Find Out About Millenium Gates Essay Samples Before You're Left Behind Millenium Gates Essay Samples Explained Read my essay writing service reviews and my guide to selecting the ideal service for everything you want to understand about how to pick the best writing businesses. When it's difficult to compose an essay in 45 minutes, start with taking more time. Once you locate a service you enjoy, don't neglect to look at my review of it. In summary, the service exists, so should you want to use it in order to find a top essay, that's reason enough. Your entire scholarship amount will also be dependent on the length of time you're ready to renew the scholarship. If you have issues with finding great GED essay ideas, ask your professor or a teacher who can assist you. Make sure that you practice because many samples as possible before the true essay. Additionally, there are amazing GED essay samples you need to take your time to experience. Millenium Ga tes Essay Samples and Millenium Gates Essay Samples - The Perfect Combination Gates is still quite active. Bill Gates has accumulated an enormous personal fortune through the years. To begin with, he has made numerous donations to various charities throughout his career. Bill Gates just employment was supposed to improve thoughts and ideas. Within this section you'll find samples of essays belonging to several essay types and manners of formatting. There are many GED-specific study guides which you can buy to further help you study and get ready for the essay section, and the remainder of the test. You need to read the example answers to acquire ideas about what are good forms of answers and what are bad forms of answers. Very good examples can persuade your reader to understand your point of view when adding words to help you achieve your 200-word limit. Getting stressed whilst writing might continue to keep your focus away from the task and affect the caliber of your essa y. The author employs the traditional five-paragraph essay format. A common way of writing this kind of essay is the five-paragraph strategy. It's helpful to earn a comprehensive of all these things before you get started writing your essays so you don't forget anything important. We specializing in supplying you the customized essay that you will need. Practicing the elements of superior essay writing is helpful regardless of what topic you concentrate on. You're not given a choice in regards to what sort of essay you will write. It's critical that the service you select knows for sure they're only employing the ideal essay writers. Ideas, Formulas and Shortcuts for Millenium Gates Essay Samples Gates was a superb small business man and had the capability to spot the upcoming upcoming products. You should have your reasons, and our primary concern is that you find yourself getting a great grade. Through his programming skills, competitive small business practices, and capacity to spot innovative products, Bill Gates has become the richest person on the planet for the past 12 decades. With his programming skills, competitive business practices, and ability to spot innovative products, he has been the richest person in the world for twelve years straight . Millenium Gates Essay Samples - Overview Add ideas for examples you wish to have in your essay. Most essay questions have several components. Instead, you can search for essay topics online. You're able to read through GED essay examples to understand the way the topics are written. Employing a writing service is the perfect method to have a well-written essay to use as a guideline to guarantee the essays you write are hitting all the critical points and are at the appropriate depth necessary for your academic grade. For organization, an excellent resource for you is most likely the five-paragraph essay. Thoroughly answer all sections of the essay prompt, together with the points you say in your introduction you will discuss. Then think about writing a GED essay and you'll have the chance to achieve that. Vital Pieces of Millenium Gates Essay Samples To enhance the nutritional condition of the students the school can introduce meal programs to make sure the students have atleast one nutritional meal daily. 2010 should not possibly be the start of the `new and uncertain' journey towards the millennium development targets, rather it ought to be the `refueling' point on this voyage which has been happening for the last ten years. Perhaps you have more questi ons and Pell Grant eligibility since you've got to fulfill those criteria as a way to get the Gates Scholarship. Students lead busy lives and frequently forget about a coming deadline. Millenium Gates Essay Samples and Millenium Gates Essay Samples - The Perfect Combination Providing education to girls provides a fantastic probability of survival to her children later on. 1 prime explanation is poor governance. The program's mission is to give opportunities for outstanding minority students to attain their greatest potential. A fundamental education of an excellent quality is essential for developing an awareness of the world and the possibilities it provides, and for being in a position to operate effectively within it.

Planning and Organizing Event-Free-Samples-Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss about the report focusing on the Planning and Organizing event. Answer: Identifying the event and associated attractions: We are planning a sports event in Victoria, cycling capital of Australia. This event will consist of various cycling events and a musical fest at the end of the day which consists of food, fun and cultural events. The attractions to the event are half marathon for men and women, relay race, time trail and stage races (Cot, 2010). The winners will be awarded jerky signed by famous bicyclist Cradle Evans or Shane Warne and monetary prizes of AUD $10000 (Fuller, 2017). Cycling event half marathon and relay race will have free entry whereas time trial and stage races will be having entry on purchase of tickets (CADELROADRACE, 2016). The evening programme is planned to having entry tickets for the visitors. There are three types of tickets available Ticket type 1 entry to all events with unlimited food AUD $ 50 Ticket type 2 entries to all events and food can be taken on paid basis AUD $ 30 Ticket type 3 entry to the venue but events and food are on paid basis. AUD $ 20 Brief analysis of the Cycling Event: Location and Size: The location selected for the event is Cadel Evans Ocean Road, Victoria. This event is planned to happen on 3rd September, 2017 Sunday on the occasion of fathers day. The expected number of visitors to the sports event will be around 20,000. The number of visitors in the closing ceremony is expected to be 10,000 to 12000 (Greenwell,et, al., 2014). The Event Budget: It is the planning about the sources of income for organizing an event. The income sources to the event will be sponsors, visitors and stall owners (Ashe-Edmunds,2016). Whereas expenses will be on organizing event, hotel stay, venue of the closing ceremony, its decoration, the other expenses includes prizes and prize money, Jersey for the winners and celebrity endorsement (Solberg, and Preuss, 2015). This also includes planning for any kind of contingency which may happen due to bad climate, accidents at the event or any unavoidable reason (Zavyalova, et. al., 2016). Estimated Income: ticket price 20000* AUD $33.33 = 666600 Income from sponsors: Main sponsor AUD$ 100000 Co- sponsor AUD$ 50000 Other Sponsors AUD$ 10000 Total sponsorship 100000+50000+10000*10 = 250000 Income from stall bookings: AUD $ 800*25 stalls = 20000 Total income: AUD$ 936600 Estimated Expenses: Celebrity endorsement: AUD$ 50000 Venue and advertisement: AUD$ 350000 Trophy and Jersey: AUD$ 30000 Decoration and other expenses: AUD$ 50000 Total expenses: AUD $ 480000 Net income: AUD$ 456600 Number of participants: The estimated number of participants in the various events is 100. Some of the participants will participate in multiple events whereas rest will participate in single events. The team events will be consisting of 5-8 teams each consisting of 5 members. Same process will be applicable in women events (Getz, and Page, 2016). Event Stakeholders and their involvement in the event Participants: These are the key for the success of any event. The participants in this event are the local as well as national level cyclists and other cyclists. They are the centre of attraction which is necessity of the event (Masterman, 2014). Visitors: Visitors are the persons who are required to cheer and success of any event. These are tourists, students, sports persons, local population and travelers from various countries which are present at the time of the event. Management: These are the persons who plan for the event. They are responsible for the proper planning of the event, raising of funds, deciding venue of the event, the various attractions of the event, ticket prices, prizes, event promotion, taking permission from local authority and other amenities and facilities like stay of the sports persons, there security and proper scheduling of the event (Blackman, et, al., 2017). They are also responsible for hiring different vendors and planning attractive events that are going to be inculcated in the program (Berridge, 2014). It may include dancers, band performance and any other cultural event or local custom related folk dance etc. the management is also responsible for approaching to sponsors for sponsorship. Performers: These are the persons which attracts visitors with their performance in the closing ceremony of the event. They are experts in the field of music, dance or any other style such as laughter show or mimicry. Stalls: These are also the participants of the event program. They provide paid services to the visitors such as fast food, traditional food and various kinds of beverages such as soft drinks, fruit juices, health drinks and cocktails. This also includes gaming stalls which attracts and entertain childrens and students. There are some stalls selling sports items such as jersey, shoes, shorts and t- shirts to promote more sports activities. Sponsors: Sponsors are the financial supporters of any event they are charged by the event organizer in order to promote their name (Vance, et, al., 2016). This will help them to get better recognition and several times it leads to increase in the sales turnover of the sponsors. Conclusion: This report helps to understand the various aspects of organizing an event. It also helps to know the various participants in an event organisation and the requirement of the various resources, their need and importance. It also develops understanding about need and importance of proper planning in the success of an event References: Ashe-Edmunds, S. (2016) What Are Budget Considerations? [Online]. Available at: https://budgeting.thenest.com/budget-considerations-21148.html (Accessed: 09 August 2017). Berridge, G. (2014) The Gran Fondo and sportive experience: an exploratory look at cyclists' experiences and professional event staging. Event Management, 18(1), pp. 75-88. Blackman, D., Benson, A. M., and Dickson, T. J. (2017) Enabling event volunteer legacies: A knowledge management perspective. Event Management, 21(3), pp. 233-250. CADELROADRACE (2016) NEW RACE TO BRING WORLDS BEST CYCLISTS TO MELBOURNE. [Online]. Available at: https://www.cadelevansgreatoceanroadrace.com.au/news-media/news/new-race-bring-worlds-best-cyclists-melbourne/ (Accessed: 08 August 2017). Cot, A. (2010) How to Plan the Perfect Cycling Event. [Online]. Available at: https://www.bicycling.com/rides/advocacy/how-to-plan-the-perfect-cycling-event (Accessed: 08 August 2017). Fuller, G. (2017) Shane Warne versus hoon cyclists: affect and celebrity in a new media event. Continuum, 31(2), pp. 296-306. Getz, D., and Page, S. J. (2016)Event studies: Theory, research and policy for planned events. UK:Routledge. Greenwell, T. C., Danzey-Bussell, L. A., and Shonk, D. (2014)Managing sport events. UK: Human Kinetics. Masterman, G. (2014)Strategic sports event management. UK: Routledge. Solberg, H. A., and Preuss, H. (2015) Major Sports Events: The Challenge of Budgeting for the Venues.Event Management,19(3), pp. 349-363. Vance, L., Vance, L., Raciti, M. M., Raciti, M. M., Lawley, M., and Lawley, M. (2016) Sponsorship selections: corporate culture, beliefs and motivations. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 21(4), pp. 483-499. Zavyalova, A., Pfarrer, M. D., Reger, R. K., and Hubbard, T. D. (2016) Reputation as a benefit and a burden? How stakeholders organizational identification affects the role of reputation following a negative event. Academy of Management Journal, 59(1), pp.253-276.

Music + protests free essay sample

The United States has always thought that democracy should be the main form of government around the world. In 1949, when China became a communist country, President Harry Truman presented the Truman Doctrine before Congress. The Truman Doctrine stated that the United States would do everything in its power to keep other nations from becoming communist countries. At the timer Vietnam was split into two different countries: North Vietnam and South Vietnam. When the Northern part of Vietnam decided to try and overtake South Vietnam, the United States sent supplies and troops toSouth Vietnam to help preserve democracy. Democracy is also the reason that the United States entered the Vietnam War. In America, the decision to go to war with in Vietnam was not a popular one. There were many protest against going into Vietnam; some were with music, others with speakers. Some of the musical influences who protest the Vietnam War were Black Sabbath, Oozy Osborne, The Ramose, Metallic, and Iron Maiden. We will write a custom essay sample on Music + protests or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In Black Sabbath song War Pigs, the lyrics Politicians hide themselves away. They only started the war. Why should they go out to fight?They leave that to the poor. Top Ten Songs About Nuclear War) These lyrics are talking about the politicians who started the war in Vietnam. Wealthy Americans did not have to enlist as much as Americans who were poor. The soldiers who were drafted during the Vietnam War were from the baby boom after the victory of World War II. Heavy metal music artists are known for not sugar coating things; if they see something that isnt right, they will write song about it. The Ramose wrote a song called, 53rd and 3rd this song deals with the Green Beret which was a special force in the military. If you think youve got it, well mom on man. I was Green Beret in Viet Name (Top Ten Songs about Nuclear War). The Green Berets job was to wage guerrilla warfare, which is when a group of soldiers will ambush the enemy using raids, ambushes, and sabotage. Also, the Green Beret was in charge of organizing a force of resistance behind enemy lines. Bodies fill the fields, see, hungry heroes end no one to play soldier now, no one to pretend. Running through killing fields, bred to kill them all (Top Ten Songs about Nuclear War). This lyric is from a song called Disposable Heroes by Metallic.Personally, this is one of my favorite songs concerning the Vietnam War. This song shows how war really was. In America, there was no way to not look at the war. The newspapers used yellow journalism, which is when a journalist twist the truth to get a particular outcome, to tell about the number of casualties in Vietnam. Heavy metal and punk rock artists both wrote songs trying to get the American people to realize that the United States was wrongfully in the war in Vietnam. Civil Rights and Folk/Rock Music The Vietnam War is not the only event in US history that heavy metal and punk rock music has helped to protest.Heavy metal and punk rock music was also closely related to the civil rights movement. Heavy metal music was the first genre of music to start trying to break down the walls of segregation. At a heavy metal concert, there would be both Caucasian people and African American people standing in the audience. Of course, in America, this was a very controversial. When heavy metal music was first formed, the Supreme Court had just decided to integrate schools. This proved to be a real threat to White America. Music was a very useful tool in keeping the hopes and spirits of African Americans alive during the Civil Rights Movement.Songs would be Sung at marches, sit-ins, performed on stage, or recorded by some Of the leading artists involved in the Civil Rights Movement. The most celebrated Civil Rights song is We Shall Overcome by Pete Seeker. Although Pete Seeker was not a heavy metal or punk rock artist, he is a folk artist. The genre of music that is the closest to the Civil Rights Movement is folk music. Another artist who was involved in the Civil Rights Movement is Bob Dylan. He was not involved in the Civil Rights Movement until Emmett Tills death. Emmett Till was a fourteen year old boy who was visiting his family in Mississippi. Music + protests free essay sample Throughout the Twentieth Century One way that Americans assert their independence Is freedom of speech. There are many different forms of freedom of speech, but one Is always in the limelight Is music. Music has Influenced the culture and pride of the united States. Whether Its The Star Spangled Banner or We Didnt Start The Fire, the US Is known for Its music. During the twentieth century, music helped the American people protest different events happening in America, such as the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and government officials.The Vietnam War and Heavy Metal/Punk Rock Music The United States has always thought that democracy should be the main form of government around the world. In 1949, when China became a communist country, President Harry Truman presented the Truman Doctrine before Congress. The Truman Doctrine stated that the United States would do everything in its power to keep other nations from becoming communist countries. We will write a custom essay sample on Music + protests or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page At the time, Vietnam was split Into two different countries: North Vietnam and South Vietnam. When the Northern part of Vietnam decided to try and overtake South Vietnam, the unitedStates sent supplies and troops to South Vietnam to help preserve democracy. Democracy Is also the reason that the united States entered the Vietnam War. In America, the decision to go to war with in Vietnam was not a popular one. There were many protest against going into Vietnam; some were with music, others with speakers. Some of the musical influences who protest the Vietnam War were Black Sabbath, Oozy Osborne, The Ramose, Metallic, and Iron Maiden. In Black Sabbath song War Pigs, the lyrics Politicians hide themselves away. They only started the war. Why should they go out to fight?They leave that to the poor. (Top Ten Songs About Nuclear War) These lyrics are talking about the politicians who started the war In Vietnam. Wealthy Americans did not have to enlist as much as Americans who were poor. The soldiers who were drafted during the Vietnam War were from the baby boom after the victory of World War II. Heavy metal music artists are known for not sugar coating things; If they see something that Isnt right, they will write song about it. The Ramose wrote a song called, 53rd and 3rd: this song deals with the Green Beret which was a special force in the military.If you think youve got it, well come on man. I was Green Beret in Viet Name (Top Ten Songs about Nuclear War). The Green Berets Job was to wage guerrilla warfare, which is when a group of soldiers will ambush the enemy using raids, ambushes, and sabotage. Also, the Green Beret was in charge of organizing a force of resistance behind enemy lines. Bodies fill the fields, I see, hungry heroes end no one to play soldier now, no one to pretend. Running through killing fields, bred to kill them all (Top Ten Songs about Nuclear War). This lyric Is from a song called Disposable Heroes by Metallic.Personally, this Is one of my favorite songs concerning the Vietnam War. This song shows how war really was, In America, there was no way to not look at the war. The newspapers used yellow Journalism, which Is when a Journalist twist the truth to get a particular outcome, to tell about the number of casualties in Vietnam. Heavy metal that the United States was wrongfully in the war in Vietnam. Civil Rights and Folk/Rock Music ere Vietnam War is not the only event in US history that heavy metal and punk rock music has helped to protest. Heavy metal and punk rock music was also closely related to the civil rights movement.Heavy metal music was the first genre of music to start trying to break down the walls of segregation. At a heavy metal concert, there Mould be both Caucasian people and African American people standing in the audience. Of course, in America, this was a very controversial. When heavy metal music was first formed, the Supreme Court had Just decided to integrate schools. This proved to be a real threat to White America. Music was a very useful tool in keeping the hopes and spirits of African Americans alive during the Civil Rights Movement. Songs would be sung at marches, sit-ins, performed on stage, or recorded y some of the leading artists involved in the Civil Rights Movement. The most celebrated Civil Rights song is We Shall Overcome by Pete Seeker. Although Pete Seeker was not a heavy metal or punk rock artist, he is a folk artist. The genre of music that is the closest to the Civil Rights Movement is folk music. Another artist ho was involved in the Civil Rights Movement is Bob Dylan. He was not involved in the Civil Rights Movement until Emmett Tills death. Emmett Till was a fourteen year old boy who was visiting his family in Mississippi. He was brutally murdered for lairing with a white woman in a convenience store. Emmett Tills assassins were the Moans husband and brother. The two men nearly beat Emmett to death, gouged his eye out, shot him in the head, and then threw his boy into the river. Emmett Tills death was the event that helped American realize the level of injustice the Jim Crow laws brought about. Bob Dylan is not a heavy metal or punk rock artist; he is a folk/ rock artist. Many different genres of music are closely related to each other. Music keeps evolving along with history; different events in history have helped music transform into different genres.

Horses and how they grow essays

Horses and how they grow essays Horses and How They Grow Horses are fun to ride, but they can be a lot of hard work. The first horse was the Eohippus. It was about the size of a fox. It can be traced over a period of 60 million years. From America they spread across the world. Then 8-10,000 years ago the horse be-came extinct in America. It was reintroduced by the Spanish Conquistadors in the 16th century. The herds of mustangs in north America is descended from horses introduced by the Spanish in the 16th century. Baby horses are born from a mare horse. The mare holds the baby for 11 or 12 months. Most mares will have 5 or 6 foals during their lives. Normally a foal is born with its front feet first. Foals are born with their eyes open and with a full coat of hair. When the newborn foal is born, it drinks its mother's milk for the first 6 Months. Foals can stand up shortly after birth. It also begins to Supplement its diet by nibbling on grass and it's mother's oats. The best place to feed your horse is in a bucket. A horse must have fresh water and eat oats. A healthy treat for horses is carrots and apples. A horse's age can be told by looking at its teeth. Up to the age of five a horse still has its milk teeth. A foal can be weaned from 4-6 months. Most horses reach their full size by the time they are five years old. The bones from a baby foal are very soft for the first three years. You shouldn't ride a horse until it is three years old because you can sway its back. When the owner weans the foal he separates it from the mother, and puts it out to the pasture with other foals. A baby girl horse is a filly, and when she is mature she is called a mare. A baby boy horse is a colt. When he is mature, he is called a stallion. A yearling is a one-year-old horse. Training horses requires great skill and patience. It begins almost immediately after it is born. You should put a halter on it, and teach it to lead an...

How to Use Parentheses in Writing

How to Use Parentheses in Writing The parenthesis is a  punctuation  mark, which is written or typed as an upright curved line. Two parentheses, ( ),  are generally paired and used to mark off explanatory or qualifying remarks in writing. Parentheses indicate an  interrupting phrase,  a word group (a statement,  question, or  exclamation) that interrupts the flow of a sentence  and can also be set off with  commas  or  dashes. The parenthesis is a type of  bracket, which when paired with another bracket- [  ]- is  used to interject text within other text. Parentheses are prevalent in mathematics, too, where they are used to set off arithmetic symbols as well as numbers, operations, and equations.   Origins of the Parenthesis The symbols themselves first showed up in the late 14th century, with scribes using  virgulae convexae  (also called  half moons) for a variety of purposes. By the end of the 16th century, the  parenthesis  (from the Latin for insert beside) had begun to assume its modern role, as Richard Mulcaster explained in Elementarie, which was published in 1582: Parenthesis is expressed by two half circles, which in writing enclose some perfit branch, as not mere impertinent, so not fullie concident to the sentence, which it breaketh, and in reading warneth us, that the words inclosed by them ar to be pronounced with a lower quikker voice, then the words either before them or after them. In her book Quoting Speech in Early English, Colette Moore notes that parentheses, like other marks of  punctuation, originally had both elocutionary  and  grammatical  functions: [W]e see that whether through vocal or  syntactic  means, the parentheses are taken as a means to downplay the significance of the material enclosed within. Spanning more than 400 years (Moores book was published in 2011), both authors say essentially the same thing: Parentheses separate text that, while important in that it adds meaning, is less significant than the text that falls outside of these punctuation marks. Purpose Parentheses allow for the insertion of some verbal unit that interrupts the normal syntactic flow of the sentence. These are called  parenthetical  elements, which may also be set off by dashes. An example of parentheses in use would be: The students (it must be acknowledged)  are a foul-mouthed bunch. The important information in this sentence is that the students are foul-mouthed. The aside adds texture to the sentence, but the statement would work fine and make sense without the parenthetical information. The Chicago Manual of Style Online explains that parentheses, which are stronger than commas or dashes, set off material from the surrounding text, adding that; Like dashes but unlike commas, parentheses can set off text that has no grammatical relationship to the rest of the sentence. The style guide gives these examples: Intelligence tests (e.g., the Stanford-Binet) are no longer widely used.Our final sample (collected under difficult conditions) contained an impurity.Wexford’s analysis (see chapter 3) is more to the point.The disagreement between Johns and Evans (its origins have been discussed elsewhere) ultimately destroyed the organization. The style manual also notes that you can use parentheses as  delimiters for letters or numbers in a list or outline, as well as in academic  uses including  parenthetical references to a list of works cited. Using Parentheses Correctly Parentheses (as with other punctuation marks) can be tricky to use until you understand a few simple rules: Adding additional information:  June Casagrande, author of The Best Punctuation Book, Period., notes that you can use parentheses to convey additional information, such as: The new sedan is fast (it goes from zero to 60 in just six seconds).The boss (who had walked in just in time to see the accident) was furious.She strolled the third  arrondissement  (district). In the first sentence, the statement,  The new sedan is fast, does not end with a period. Instead, you place the period after the parenthetical sentence (as well as the final parenthesis),  it goes from zero to 60 in just six seconds. You also start the parenthetical sentence with a lowercase letter (i) because it is still considered part of the overall sentence and not a separate statement. In the second sentence, you might argue that the parenthetical information (the fact that the boss saw an accident) is key to understanding the sentence. In the third sentence, the parenthetical word district is an English translation of the French word  arrondissement. Though the word  district  is parenthetical, it might be important in helping a non-French-speaking reader understand the sentence. Delimiters for letters or numbers in a list:  The Chicago Manual of Style says you should put parentheses around each number or letter in a list, as in these examples: Compose three sentences to illustrate analogous uses of (1)  commas, (2)  em dashes, and (3)  parentheses.For the duration of the experiment, the dieters were instructed to avoid (a)  meat, (b)  bottled drinks, (c)  packaged foods, and (d)  nicotine. Ins, as noted by  Purdue OWL, are: According to Jones (2018), Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time (p. 199).  Jones (2018) found students often had difficulty using APA style (p. 199); what implications does this have for teachers?The study participants showed no improvement in cholesterol levels (McLellan and Frost, 2012). For these types of parenthetical citations, you generally include the year of the publication, the author(s) names, and, if needed, the page number(s). Note also that in the previous sentence, you can use parentheses around a single letter, indicating that the word number may be singular referring to a single page number, or it may be plural, referring to two or more page numbers or that there may be only a single author or several authors. Mathematical problems:  In  math,  parentheses are used to group numbers or variables, or both. When you see a math problem containing parentheses, you need to use the  order of  operations  to solve it. Take as an  example the problem:  9 - 5 à · (8 - 3) x 2 6. In this problem,  you would  calculate the operation within the parentheses first, even if it is an operation that would normally come after the other operations in the problem. Parenthetical Observations Neil Gaiman really likes parentheses. Biographer Hank Wagner quoted the British author in Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman explaining why he is a fan of these curved punctuation marks: I admired [C.S. Lewiss] use of parenthetical statements to the reader, where he would just go talk to you. Suddenly the author would address a private aside to you, the reader. It was just you and him. Id think, Oh, my gosh, that is so cool! I want to do that! When I become an author, I want to be able to do things in parentheses. Gaimen may feel blessed when the author offers him a personal aside, but other writers say that parentheses may be a clue that the sentence is becoming contorted. As author Sarah Vowell notes in her book, Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World, with a touch of sarcasm: I have a similar affection for the  parenthesis  (but I always take most of my parentheses out, so as not to call undue attention to the glaring fact that I cannot think in complete sentences, that I think only in short   fragments  or long,   run-on  thought relays that the literati call   stream of consciousness  but I still like to think of as disdain for the finality of the period). So take the advice of The Associated Press Stylebook. Be kind to your readers and use parentheses sparingly. Rewrite your sentence if you find you are including long asides or more than one set of parentheses. Use these punctuation marks only when you have a short, pithy, and interesting bit to convey to readers to heighten their interest- not confuse them.

How Attractive is the Keurig System in the Office Coffee Market Assignment - 1

How Attractive is the Keurig System in the Office Coffee Market - Assignment Example The data was collected from these test locations and from the feedback that was received from the office, as well as from the different facility managers in these locations. As per the feedback received by the Keurig company, these managers had mentioned that the OCS was considered to be a wonderful type of benefit, which they were able to provide the company staff and this created a better atmosphere in the entire workplace. Indeed the office managers were really positive regarding the performance and the benefits that the coffee machine placed by the Keurig Company since now they feel that the staffs enjoy the coffee breaks because of the in-house availability of the coffee. In addition to this, the company is also able to save valuable office time with the OCS machines, since the staff would otherwise be wasting precious time by taking coffee breaks outside the organization, at the nearest coffee houses. The flavor offered by the Keurig’s coffee machines was also quite acceptable to the staff since there was a total of eight varieties of flavor. Apart from this the marketing team at Keurig maintained that the use of the OCS coffee machines would lead to lowering the wastage levels of the coffee, that would have otherwise been washed off the drain due to the flavor problems, incorrect type of brewing, or because the coffee becoming stale. In addition to this, the OCS machines could be easily cleaned and maintained quite efficiently. The company also marketed what was popularly called as the K cups. Thus as per the company management, it was decided that the company would market and sell both its brewers as well as the K cups through its regional distributors to the offices. Thus the Keurig company was very successful in this market segment since there was approximately a total   1,700 of the OCS distributors and each one of them was able to achieve a whopping sales of $1.4 million.

Comparison and Contrast - TV Commercial Analysis Essay

Comparison and Contrast - TV Commercial Analysis - Essay Example The ability to attract the opposite sex gives an individual a unique sense of happiness and confidence, which perhaps provide a boost to his success. Hence this concept of beauty has now been extended to men as well especially with metro sexuality in vogue. Despite some ethical arguments, the advertisements of fairness creams and products have been popular amongst the Asians and almost all beauty brands have catered to this segment with the help of fairness lotions and creams. The recent ‘Emami Fair & Handsome’ TV commercial has been taken up as the exhibit to be analyzed in order to depict how good looks can change one’s lifestyle and even career almost overnight. The idea of using such products is no longer a female’s domain. The advertisement depicts girls admiring fair looks in their man of choice rather than vice versa. The paper will therefore bring up a comparison of how the male models and female models are presented in terms of their movements and reactions to the product advertised and using icons like the reputed Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan makes this larger than life truth more convincing. In my opinion, such advertisements have managed to ease out the gender differences in terms of concepts of looks. A young girl was supposed to be fair in order to gain attention of his male partner as portrayed in previous fairness advertisements but this commercial promotes the metro sexual image of a man where the skin color would play a similar role. Irrespective of gender differences, fairness of the skin promises to change one’s a) public image which decides success and b) look that gives confidence, but c) promotes discrimination on grounds of racism The main idea promoted by the 60 seconds television advertisement is the fact that fairness, which has once been, portrayed as a requirement for the female and dark skin a shame is now applicable even for men. However using such products or looking fair does not take away thei r manliness and hence gone is the concept of ‘tall, dark and handsome’. The advertisement here portrays Shahrukh Khan enacting a film scene where he fights with sword and even rescues a woman, portraying chivalry. The woman is struck by the glow of his skin and stares at him. When he enters amidst a big crowd of audience, people especially the girls, cheer for him. They almost rush and gather around him. While walking down the carpet, he notices a dark skinned young boy staring in awe at the actor. All the young girls are flocking to the middle aged icon with glowing fairness instead of the young boy who looks amazed at his popularity. He is a little shy because of his dark skin and hence does not have the confidence to mingle with the others and enjoy like them. His dark skin also seems too dark which makes him stand out from the crowd and nobody seems to notice him apart from the actor. As the boy watches his icon’s popularity and ability to perform like the he ro as well as be the girls’ favorite outside his shoot, he is ashamed of his dark skin and this is identified by the icon who hands over the secret of his success, the ‘Emami Fair & Handsome’ facial cream which changes his fate instantly. The next scene finds the boy with a fair skin and he walks down the carpet like his icon with beautiful female models running towards him and embracing him. Everything seems like a dream come true and at this point it is difficult to recognize any difference between reality and illusion

Strategic Management Essay Example for Free

Strategic Management Essay Introduction For a company to succeed in its businesses, strategic management must be its main agenda. Managing multinational companies can be a hectic job and can end up in disarray if not well structured. Strategic management is based on a company’s top brass of management. The top management of the company is always at the center of decision making process on behalf the real owners of the company. This set up is in charge of mobilizing resources and structuring the company to match the external business environments. Formulating policies, planning and setting of objectives is the management’s concerns. Strategic management also deals with the achievement of the company’s vision through fast tracking the mission, programs and projects. In strategic management, there is a deliberate effort by the management to strike a scorecard that is balanced through evaluating the general performance of the business and the steps toward the achievement of the business’ set objective. Strategy in any business or company is in line with the expectations of all the stake holders of the business and must be based on the stakeholders’ objectives. Most multinational companies that have managed to be main players in the global business market have history of effective strategic management measures and settings. Such companies include the Coca-Cola Company, the Toyota Company, and the Hyundai Company among other multinational companies. Strategic management is the backbone of a successful multinational company or global business. Witcher Chau (2010) Background study For any company or business to be competitive in the market, there must be a high level and a well coordinated strategy management which is the fundamental aspect of tactics and goal setting. Strategic management is always vital in offering the direction to the business and its ultimate success. In business administration, strategic management and strategic consistency between the business and its environment needs to be struck. In various companies, strategic management is always undertaken by a management team which is mostly comprised of a Board of Directors among other stakeholders. Amason (2010) Different companies employ different strategic management approaches in trying to stay competitive in the business environment. The management boards in different companies apply different processes of evaluation and controlling the businesses and the various industries that are involved with the company. This is the case in two leading automobile companies, the Toyota and Hyundai companies. In assessing their competitors’ strategies, the two companies use various strategy management processes. Despite executing different strategic management forms, both companies consider basic factors in strategically managing their businesses. Such include the size of the organization and the need to adapt to the changes of the business environment. In order to achieve the objectives of any company, there are various aspects and concepts that need to be explored. A strategic management which is more structured may be employed in consideration to the size of the company, operations, requirements and the views of the stakeholders. Strategic management plays a very important role in shaping the way a business is run or the success and achievements of a company. Nevertheless, strategic management is always tied to the goals, vision, mission and the objectives of the company. In managing a company, the management board or team do work towards the views and expectations of the owners of the company or business. Hitt, Ireland Hoskisson (2009) Toyota Motor Corporation The Toyota Motor Corporation is based at Toyota at Aichi in Japan. The multinational company is an automaker with a large employee base of over 400000 employees with the largest manufacturing capacity of automobiles and specifically the famous vehicle brand ‘Toyota’. It terms of world revenue, the Toyota Company sits at the eleventh position and had manufactured an estimated 200 million vehicles in July 2012. Founded in 1937 as a family company by Kiichiro Toyoda, the company has been keen to strategically manage its businesses. The Toyota Company has had a choice of leadership that has embraced the benchmark of quality, perfect practices and corporate responsibility in the wake of stiff competition and technological advancement in the global market. Borowski (2010). The strategies of the company have been deeply rooted in principles that have continued to improve the respect for people, their strategy framework as been gearing towards waste cutting, positive attitude building and maximum utilization of the inherent talents of the workers. The Toyota Company has managed to create an impression of social responsibility in the global market. The company has exploited a number of strategies with a view of being the best company in terms of product quality and service provision vis-a-vis matching growing customers’ needs and technological advancement. The management board of the Toyota Company has been vigil to clinch any opportunity in developing and growing the company’s worth, a strategy that has gone a notch higher to see the company explore options of developing hybrid cars among other market strategies. The underlying strategy of the Toyota Company is rooted in rewarding merit and identifying faults in an attempt to perfect the product and service delivery. Through this basic strategy, the Toyota Company has managed to propel its influence and achieve an extensive customer base. Magee (2008). Strategy and management The success of the Toyota Company is attributed to its strategic management formula that has made them to remain competitive in the automobile market while maintaining the quality and efficiency of their products. The philosophy of management at Toyota Company has continued to evolve over a long period of time. This management philosophy has been built on the original value of the company which was centered on ‘Lean manufacturing and the concept of production in time. These two concepts have been vital in the development and growth of the company. The Toyota Company strives to produce designs of cars that are exclusively ideal and perfect. In its lean manufacturing policy, the company aims at achieving a customer ideal production which will eventually cumulate to customer satisfaction. In this quest, the Toyota Company has been producing different models of cars in order to meet the demands, taste and different preferences of its customers. Hino (2006). This has enabled the company to remain competitive and to have a wider market area. The business strategies and managerial values have been collectively convened into a single structure referred to as the ‘Toyota Way’. a. The ‘Toyota Way† The ‘Toyota Way’ was one of the strategies that the Toyota Company adopted in order to help them stay ahead in the automobile industry. It is a set of values guidelines of conducts that all the employees at Toyota are expected to embrace. The strategy had two main pillars; Continuous improvement and Respect for People. Liker Jeffrey (2011). All the conduct guidelines and values of the Toyota Company are summarized into major principles of embracing challenge, striving to improve their services and products, respect to customers, teamwork and a ‘go and see’ slogan. This is a strategy that the company has employed to ensure that the employees not deviate from the main objectives of the company thus enhancing success in business thus working as a driving force towards an achievement. Liker (2003). The strategy has also aided the formation of identity and has kept the spirit of quality and service which has helped the company to be outstanding among other automobile manufacturers. Alongside the Toyota Way are four other components that complement the strategy. These components include management decisions that are based on long term deliberations and a comprehensive problem solving process. Further, the aspect of focusing on the development of the people has added a lot of value to the organization. Consequently, the Toyota Company has embraced the art of organizational learning through solving the root problems continuously in the organization. Ono (1988) b. Worldwide establishment The Toyota Company has used a world presence strategy that has made them be a common household name in terms of automobile development. Through intensive marketing and strategic management, the company has expanded tremendously thus establishing factories in a majority areas in the world that deal with assembling and manufacturing of different types of vehicles. The Company has set branch factories in countries like South Africa, Turkey, Japan, India, The United States of America, Brazil, France, the United Kingdom, and Columbia and has recently established factories in Thailand, Mexico, Malaysia, Argentina, Pakistan, Vietnam, Russia, Egypt and Mexico. In this manner, the company has been able to meet the rising demand for automobiles and have provides a large variety of automobiles thus giving the customers the large variety to choose from. This is a strategy that has ensured that the products of Toyota Company are accessed by most people around the globe. The strategy of worldwide establishment does make a company to be widely known and become easier to be identified with. c. Electric technology Strategic management is all about exploring the possible options that can assist a company to be elevated above its competitors. This means that every implemented strategy needs to be suitable to effectively achieve the mission, feasible to ensure that it is applicable and that the strategy is accepted by the stakeholders. The management team at Toyota Company has explored the application of electric technology which is feasible, acceptable and suitable. In this respect, the Toyota Company has gone a long way in releasing hybrid electric vehicles into the automobile market. It has been the first company to introduce and sell hybrid electric vehicles, thus shaping the face of the automobile industry. In 1997, the company introduced the Toyota Prius and started producing vehicles that were smaller but maintaining the luxurious touch. Such cars like Lexus and Camry were received into the automobile industry with excitement, a sign of an effective strategic management implementation. Anderson Judy Anderson (2010). In 2012 October, the Toyota Prius became the hybrid car that was best sold in the whole world and this earned the Toyota Company about 2. 8 million units. This high sale was replicated in most parts of the world. Later in 2012 October, the company was the first to manufacture a passenger car that was hybrid and a motor vehicle hybrid that was one plug in model. This model was availed to around 80 regions and countries worldwide. The company has an aim of achieving the launch of a 20 hybrid vehicles models at the end the year 2015. Hyundai Motor Company. The Hyundai Motor Company has been a main player in the motor industry just like the Toyota Company. It is a multinational automotive company with it’s headquartering in South Korea in Seoul. Founded in 1967, Hyundai is ranked the forth in terms of automobile manufacturing having sold about 3. 6 million vehicles in the year 2010. Hyundai is the largest automobile company that is integrated with an employee base of around 75000 people working in the factories worldwide. Hyundai Company has applied strategic management in its success story. The company has set up 6 development and research centers across the world. The company has also an established center in California for designing automobiles specifically for the markets in the United States of America. Hyundai Company has applied various forms of strategy to remain equally competitive. The Hyundai Company has been able to establish a system of quality management which has gone forth to help the company achieve the status of a major player in automobile industries and machineries globally. In this sense, the company has realized a top class service provider status. Lansbury, Chung , Sok Suh, Kwon Ho Kwon (2007) a. Product development. Hyundai has strived to improve the quality levels of their products through application of unique procedures. The company has applied pilot production vis-a-vis researching by center engineers in an aim to meet the desired levels of production. The pilot production is a strategy that Hyundai Company used to avoid problems during the production of automobiles in mass. Through the large pilot plants, Hyundai Company is able to ensure there is quality in the production of its models. The company is also striving towards achieving a perfect product quality in order to be at the helm of profit making. Henry (2008) b. Outsourcing Outsourcing has been part of Hyundai’s strategy to maintain the quality of products they offer. This is a strategy that amalgamates various parts manufacturers who manufacture specific automobile parts before the parts are assembled by Hyundai to form complete automobiles. This strategy contravenes the Toyota policy whereby the manufacturing of the automobiles is done wholesomely by the company. The Hyundai Company outsources companies which make parts. The outsourced parts are sub-assembled into some modules which are further assembled into final automobiles. This strategic management aspect has made the Hyundai Motors Company to save a lot in terms of profits. Through outsourcing, the company has been able to shift its concentration more on marketing and product development and not to worry about the production of parts. This aspect of the Hyundai production model has been advantageous to the company as it accumulates more resources and channels them towards marketing and improving on its products. c. Advanced philosophy and Quality innovations strategies The achievements made by the Hyundai Motors have been as a result of quality innovations. The company, through strategic management organs, has weathered the challenges of hostile and competitive business environment through application of innovation. There has been an increase in customer satisfaction which has proved that the Hyundai Company has the ability to marshal massive shares in the market. As a result of aggressive and intensive innovations, Hyundai has come up with vehicles which meet the customers’ demands, wishes and comfort. This has been in line with the achievement of the company’s objective of meeting customer satisfaction and bringing ultimate elegance, enjoyment and creating confidence in its customers. The style and luxury that is aimed at by the Hyundai Company is thereby achieved. This strategy has ensured that Hyundai Company stands out in terms of class and design, making its products popular among people worldwide. Despite the growing fierce competition in the automobiles industry, Hyundai Company has managed to stay at the top in terms of quality and market base as a result of its management philosophy which is advanced. Its strategy has ensured that there is a clear cut for the future of the Company not leaving the customers behind. Hyundai’s philosophy has seen an increased favor among the customers due to its striving to make products of good quality and its main goal of laying emphasis on the satisfaction and efficiency of its products to the customers. Hyundai has continued to be a global brand name in automobiles. This has been boosted by the fact that the company has been creating an impression of fairness and transparency in terms of the acceptable and expected business ethics. d. Expansion of production Hyundai Company has employed the strategy of market expansion as a way to ensure it achieves its main objectives. It has increased the shares of its export in the market internationally and domestically. During the economic recession in the year 2009, Hyundai still managed to export 1. 3 million vehicles amidst a production capacity of 1. 6 million units. This strategy ensured that the company stayed at the top of automobile manufacturing and assembly industries when other players were diversely affected by the recession. Its marketing strategy and management strategy strength is further exhibited in the company’s success in increasing its market shares in the United States of America. This has gone a long way in improving on the quality of the company’s products. Hyundai has also extended its competitiveness in engaging in overseas businesses since the late 1990s. It has established its products in Alabama, Montgomery among other areas. In North America, Hyundai’s plant was ranked second in the level of productivity. e. Electric vehicles Just like the Toyota Company, the Hyundai Motor Company has embraced the use of electricity in the manufacture of vehicles. The company has introduced a hybrid electric automobile to match the increasing technological advancement. In 2008 November, the company introduced the first electric car which was facilitated by the technology of lithium polymer battery. In applying the electricity technology, Hyundai Company aimed at achieving sophistication, style and class in order to remain as competitive as possible. Chris, Masrur, Gao (2011). The strategy of applying electricity technology has ensured that the company has been at par with the other automobile producers to ensure that it does not lose its grip on the top spot in the global business. Society of Automotive Engineers (2000). Conclusion. Strategic management has been the center of interest for both the Toyota and Hyundai automobiles companies. Both have gone out of their way to establish global markets and have embraced the use of electricity in automobile development. Toyota Company manufactures its own vehicles from scratch while the Hyundai Company opts to outsource for parts manufacturers in order to reduce the costs incurred. The role of strategic management is evident in the two automobiles companies as both do have a team or a board of managers that is always tasked with the responsibility of formulating policies to help the company grow to transcendent heights. The board reviewing possible strategies in the companies does work towards actualizing the aims and objectives of the companies. The owners’ wishes can never be ignored in the strategic management process. References Allen C. Amason (2010). Strategic Management: From Theory to Practice. NY: Taylor Francis. Anthony Henry (2008). Understanding Strategic Management. NY. Oxford University Press. Arkadi Borowski (2010). Report on the Toyota Company. UK: GRIN Verlag. Barry J. Witcher, Vinh Sum Chau (2010). Strategic Management: Principles and Practice. UK: Cengage Learning EMEA. Chris Mi, M. Abul Masrur, David Wenzhong Gao (2011). Hybrid Electric Vehicles: Principles and Applications with Practical Perspectives. UK: John Wiley and Sons. Curtis Darrel Anderson, Judy Anderson (2010). Electric and Hybrid Cars: A History. UK: McFarland. David Magee (2008). How Toyota Became #1: Leadership Lessons from the Worlds Greatest Car Company. UK: Penguin Group. Jeffrey Liker (2003). The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the Worlds Greatest Manufacturer. McGraw Hill Professional. Liker, Jeffrey (2011). The Toyota Way: Management Principles and Field book (eBook). NY: McGraw-Hill Professional. Michael A. Hitt, R. Duane Ireland, Robert E. Hoskisson (2009). Strategic Management: Competitiveness and Globalization: Cases. Canada: Cengage Learning. Russell D. Lansbury, Chung-sok So, Chung-Sok Suh, Sung-ho Kwon, Seung-Ho Kwon (2007). The Global Korean Motor Industry: The Hyundai Motor Companys Global Strategy. Seoul. Taylor Francis Satoshi Hino. (2006). Inside the Mind of Toyota: Management Principles for Enduring Growth. Productivity Press. Society of Automotive Engineers (2000). Hybrid electric vehicles. Society of Automotive Engineers. Nov 1. Taiichi Ono (1988). Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production. Tokyo: Productivity Press.

the scarlet letter :: essays research papers

The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Scarlet Letter is a story that shows a love that cannot be. â€Å"Mother,† said little Pearl, â€Å"the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom. It will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!† This quotation is how I see the love that cannot be. The sunshine is the love of a man (Arthur Dimmesdale) and it does just what Pearl says - it runs and hides itself from the scarlet letter.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   This love must be hidden because of practical reasons; such as Roger Chillingworth who is her husband is still alive. He knows about his wife and Arthur and he is plotting revenge on Arthur. With Roger in Boston he would get in the way of them having an open relationship and he would destroy their true love.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Arthur and Hester’s love cannot exist because of personal reasons as well. Hester wears the scarlet letter, so Arthur can’t be with her or it might destroy his reputation. Also, if he were to be with her, the people of his church could not look up to him for their spiritual guidance. The final reason to keep these lovers apart is societal. The Puritan belief in New England during the middle of the seventeenth century would not have tolerated any type of union between Arthur and Hester. The strict codes of conduct would destroy any way for them to be alone. Their only opportunities to be alone are chance encounters in the forest, but then it would seem as if they were going to see the black, mysterious man that represents evil in this book. Because of all these reasons, The Scarlet Letter is a story about a love that could not be.

Shifting Experiences of Work and Non-Work Life

Work, Employment & Society http://wes. sagepub. com/ Life after Burberry: shifting experiences of work and non-work life following redundancy Paul Blyton and Jean Jenkins Work Employment Society 2012 26: 26 DOI: 10. 1177/0950017011426306 The online version of this article can be found at: http://wes. sagepub. com/content/26/1/26 Published by: http://www. sagepublications. com On behalf of: British Sociological Association Additional services and information for Work, Employment & Society can be found at: Email Alerts: http://wes. sagepub. com/cgi/alertsSubscriptions: http://wes. sagepub. com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www. sagepub. com/journalsReprints. nav Permissions: http://www. sagepub. com/journalsPermissions. nav Citations: http://wes. sagepub. com/content/26/1/26. refs. html >> Version of Record – Feb 17, 2012 What is This? Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 Beyond redundancy: article Life after Burberry: shifting experiences o f work and non-work life following redundancy Work, Employment and Society 26(1) 26–41  © The Author(s) 2012Reprints and permission: sagepub. co. uk/journalsPermissions. nav DOI: 10. 1177/0950017011426306 wes. sagepub. com Paul Blyton Cardiff University, UK Jean Jenkins Cardiff University, UK Abstract This article sheds new light on neglected areas of recent ‘work-life’ discussions. Drawing on a study of a largely female workforce made redundant by factory relocation, the majority subsequently finding alternative employment in a variety of work settings, the results illustrate aspects of both positive and negative spillover from work to non-work life.In addition, the findings add to the growing number of studies that highlight the conditions under which part-time working detracts from, rather than contributes to, successful work-life balance. The conclusion discusses the need for a more multi-dimensional approach to work-life issues. Keywords part-time work, po sitive/negative spillover, redundancy, re-employment, work-life balance Introduction Recent discussion of the relationship between work and non-work life – much f it focused on the notion of work-life balance – has tended to give preference to two aspects of that relationship over others. First, there has been a marked tendency to consider the impact of work on non-work life to a much greater extent than vice versa. Second, as Corresponding author: Jean Jenkins, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, Wales, UK. Email: [email  protected] ac. uk Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 27 Blyton and JenkinsGuest (2002: 260) has pointed out, there has been an equal tendency to explore ‘work-life conflict’ rather than examine possible positive associations within that relationship. For Guest (2002: 263), this reflects a widely held view that over the past generation the pressure of work has be come a more dominant feature of many people’s lives, as a result of among other things perceived increases in work demands and a widespread expectation to show commitment by working long hours (see, for example, McGovern et al. , 2007; Perlow, 1999).Coupled with the growth in female labour market participation, particularly among women with dependent children, this is seen to increase pressure on non-work activity by reducing the time and/or energy available to fulfil outside responsibilities. Where the possibility for positive ‘spillover’ (Staines, 1980) between work and nonwork life has been examined, this has mainly been undertaken by social psychologists, generally approaching the issue both from an individual perspective and with the non-work focus primarily on the family.Examples include studies that have identified a positive association between an individual’s job satisfaction and their satisfaction with family life (for example, Near et al. , 1987 ). Less attention has been addressed to more aggregate levels of analysis more typically explored by sociologists, such as the influence of the work group or workplace community on life outside work (for a notable exception, see Grzywacz et al. , 2007, and for earlier sociological accounts, see Horobin, 1957; Tunstall, 1962).Yet, despite the attention given to the potential for positive spillover of individual-level factors, even among psychologists the clear direction of travel has been to examine possible conflictual rather than beneficial relationships between aspects of work and non-work life. In their meta-analysis of 190 studies of associations between work and family, for example, Eby et al. (2005) found almost three times the number of studies focusing on the unfavourable effects of one sphere on the other, compared to those considering possible favourable effects.Even more starkly, of all the studies examining the effects of work on family or vice versa, less than one in fi ve of the studies entertained the possibility of the relationship being characterized by both favourable and unfavourable effects. A recent study involving a largely female manufacturing workforce made redundant by factory relocation, most of whom subsequently found alternative employment in a variety of work settings, allows for examination of some of the neglected aspects of the relationship between work and life outside work.In several respects the nature of this study in terms of the workplace and its location – a large clothing manufacturer, Burberry, in the Rhondda Valleys of South Wales – is somewhat distinctive. In earlier times the plant had been one among a cluster of factories in its locality, but the decline of coal and manufacturing meant that it had become the biggest employer for a relatively isolated community in an economically depressed area. Thus, while in operation, the factory exerted a considerable impact on the non-work lives (both in terms of fa mily and community) of its workforce.Indeed, there was a symbiotic relationship between community and workplace in our case that resonates with Cunnison’s (1966) earlier garment factory study. Such windows on the interaction of factory and community are becoming increasingly rare in the context of manufacturing decline in the UK and the changing nature of what a ‘workplace’ has become. The study provides insight into the journey of a redundant manufacturing workforce into new Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 28 Work, Employment and Society 26(1) mployment in the contemporary labour market. In this, there are clear points of reference to be drawn with Bailey et al. ’s (2008) study of redundancy at the MG Rover plant at Longbridge, Birmingham, UK, even though that study dealt with respondents from a quite different demographic and skills base. Manufacturing employment in Britain has typically involved workers employed fulltime and this pattern also prevailed in clothing factories, including our case (see Kersley et al. , 2006: 78; also Phizacklea, 1990: 66).Factory closure and the paucity of good jobs in the immediate locality gave workers limited choice and the subsequent employment experience of many of our female respondents (the majority of whom were over 45 years of age) involved part-time jobs in the service sector. Their responses usefully contribute to discussions (led by Walsh, 2007; Walters, 2005; Warren, 2004, among others) on the extent to which (and conditions under which) part-time working may contribute to (or detract from) a successful work-life balance.It is evident from the present sample that both part-time employment – particularly the lower incomes deriving from that work – and the lack of stability in the hours worked, had a significant negative impact on different aspects of non-work life. What emerges is a picture that highlights the obstacles to positive sp illover in part-time, low wage service sector occupations which fail to offer workers stability and security in terms of contracts, hours or earnings.To explore these issues, the remainder of the article is divided into five sections. First, the context of the study is outlined: the nature of the community and the closure of the factory that was the focus for our enquiry. Second we describe our investigation and our maintained connection with a sample of the workforce made redundant and their trade union representatives. The third and fourth sections trace the changing nature of the relationship between workplace and life outside work: the shift from a largely positive o a more problematic association as employment experiences altered. While the third section examines the association between Burberry and broader features of workers’ lives, the fourth explores work and non-work experiences of workers following the Burberry closure. This fourth section explores, among other thi ngs, the effects of parttime working and unpredictable work hours on the families and social lives of our respondents.The final, fifth section reflects on the findings and underlines the value of work-life enquiries adopting a more context-sensitive and multi-dimensional approach to the interconnections between work, family and community. The context: the locality and the factory This study centres on the experiences of women and men employed by Burberry, until the closure of its manufacturing plant in South Wales in 2007. The Burberry factory studied was located in Treorchy, a former coal-mining town in the Rhondda Valleys.This region saw ‘permanent structural change’ during the last quarter of the 20th century, due to the acute decline of coal mining and steel (Williams, 1998: 87, 121). Regeneration has been a regional government priority but the relative geographical isolation of valley towns like Treorchy presents particular challenges for individuals in travelling for work and also for agencies charged with attracting alternative sources of investment (Bryan et al. , 2003).Founded in 1939, the factory changed ownership more than once, with Burberry being a customer throughout its history and taking full ownership in the late Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 29 Blyton and Jenkins 1980s. At its height, the factory employed 1500 employees and though employment levels had contracted to around 300 by 2007, it remained a key employer in the area. As was the case in Cunnison’s (1966) study, the community outside the workplace entered the factory gates in the form of amilial ties, friendships and long-established associations and over time the plant had acquired a strong local identity as an example of the surviving manufacturing sector and a bastion of ‘jobs in the Valleys’. The factory’s workforce was overwhelmingly female, reflecting the gender profile of the clothing sector gener ally (Winterton and Taplin, 1997b: 10). Low levels of recruitment in latter years had resulted in an ageing workforce, with the majority of workers at the factory being 45 years or older.As part of a ‘buyer-driven’ global value chain (Gereffi, 1994), the British clothing industry has experienced structural change associated with outsourcing and outward processing of production (Jones, 2006: 101). While Burberry had formerly set itself apart from the trend to off-shoring by ‘focussed differentiation and niche marketing’ (Winterton and Taplin, 1997a: 194) of its high value garments as ‘quintessentially British’, in 2006 it joined the ranks of other producers and gave notice of its intention to relocate the Treorchy plant’s production to China in the interests of cheaper labour costs.The shock of the notice of closure was deeply felt in a community with limited prospects of alternative work and within a workplace with a strong social networ k. In his earlier study of garment workers, Lupton (1963: 72–3) comments that factory life was made tolerable by the sociable groupings that evolved within their walls, and that workers’ attachment to the company ‘sprang very largely from [their] emotional attachment to the small group of friends rather than any love for work that had little intrinsic value, or for their employer’.As well as the loss of these sorts of relationships, the Burberry workers also feared the loss to the local community of a factory which had, over its 70-year history, become emblematic of secure employment and was regarded, as one respondent commented, as a ‘guaranteed job †¦ a job for life’. Thus, when Burberry made its announcement, the workforce reacted with outrage and disbelief. A fierce campaign attracted considerable media attention, but the plant closed in March 2007 (for a discussion of the closure campaign, see Blyton and Jenkins, 2009).For the majori ty of our respondents, closure meant the end of their workplace community and the rupture of friendships and associations that had been built up over lifetimes. It also meant entry into a new world of job search or enforced ‘retirement’ in the context of low pay and limited choice. The study Using survey, interview and observational methods, we have examined several aspects of the redundancies, and individuals’ subsequent employment experiences, over a longitudinal research period which had key stages in 2007, 2008 and 2009.The research began in January 2007, and initially concentrated on the workers’ campaign against closure of the plant. Regular interviews were held with full-time and lay union representatives, and shop-floor staff, and a short survey was issued to employees in February 2007, while the plant was still open. A further survey of the effects of redundancy was issued in March 2008 (one year after plant closure) and interviews with union repr esentatives have continued up to the present. In addition, the authors attended various public and trade union meetings and workers’ reunions occurring since the plant closure. Downloaded from wes. sagepub. om at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 30 Work, Employment and Society 26(1) As the initial 2007 survey sought information specifically on employees’ response to the union campaign against closure, it has only a limited contribution to make to this article’s focus on the effects of redundancy. The 2008 survey and interviews conducted in 2009 provided the main sources of information about the effects of redundancy. It was in this phase of the research that the focus was on workers’ employment experiences since redundancy as well as aspects of their previous employment and comparisons were drawn between life ‘before and after Burberry’.The 2008 survey was posted to the homes of 191 former shop-floor staff (all the staff we were able to s ecure home addresses for) and 80 usable replies were received (a response rate of 42%). Reflecting the lower levels of recruitment at the factory in latter years, 70 per cent of the respondents were 45 years or older (74% were married or living with a partner, and 70% had no children living at home). Of the 80 respondents, 71 (89%) were female. The full-time union representative for the largest union in the plant, the GMB,1 estimated the ratio of female to male employment within the factory at 80:20.Employment records could not be obtained to verify this estimate but it was a good reflection of the profile of shop-floor union membership, which stood at around 80 per cent density. In January 2009, the 28 respondents to the 2008 survey who had indicated their willingness to participate in ongoing research were contacted and asked to participate in interviews about their experiences since redundancy. Eleven agreed and semistructured interviews took place, focusing on their experiences while employed at the factory and the way their lives had changed in the two years since the closure.Interviews took place in respondents’ own homes and lasted, on average, one hour and 40 minutes. Two interviewees were male, nine were female. Despite the predominance of female respondents in the survey and interviews, male workers at the plant participated in all phases of the research in rough proportion to their representation at the workplace, and work-life issues for both men and women in the study were negatively impacted by low paid, insecure work in the prevailing labour market environment.In terms of its representativeness and relevance for wider social enquiry, it is acknowledged that this study has many distinct features in terms of workplace and location, but it contributes to the building of generalizations (see Gerring, 2004: 341, 352) in two areas. First, Burberry’s own cost-focused rationale for closure highlights the workings of the garment value chain and the fact that low paid female workers in a mature economy are now ‘too expensive’ to manufacture garments – even those at the high end of the retail market.Thus, what is examined in this case is a particular instance of the ‘new forms of inequality’ (Glucksmann, 2009: 878) which result from an international division of labour where labour is casualized and ‘recommodified’ in the service sector of the global north (see Standing, 2009: 70–78) as manufacturing relocates for cheaper people and more favourable regulatory regimes elsewhere. Second, the respondents’ experiences of job search contribute to analysis and understanding of the contemporary British labour market and the increasing phenomenon of nvoluntary part-time working, particularly among women (Yerkes and Visser, 2006: 253). In this respect, Bailey et al. ’s (2008) study of job search and re-employment of Longbridge workers is a useful comparator for th e present enquiry even though their respondents differed from the Burberry workforce in that 90 per cent were male and were mainly professional, skilled, semi-skilled or technical workers. The Longbridge results indicate that, post-closure: Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 31 Blyton and Jenkins igher earning occupations were more likely to travel for work and were consequently much better placed to cope with job loss; men were more likely to find alternative full-time jobs; redundant workers needed ongoing support and training; women were more likely to be found in part-time employment in the service sector; and those workers moving from manufacturing into public services in education, health and social care (as did the majority of the Burberry respondents) reported the largest decline in salary, which Bailey and colleagues (2008: 54) refer to as a particular indicator of ‘growing labour market polarization and inequality’.In det ailing key factors in successful efforts at re-employment, Bailey et al. ’s findings help to illuminate what was absent from the demographic and skills profile of the Burberry respondents and highlight the factors which limited their prospects for re-employment. It is evident in the Burberry case that low paid, full-time female manufacturing workers classed as unskilled became low paid, part-time service sector workers out of necessity not choice.The majority of workers could not travel for work due to a range of factors, among which low earnings, job insecurity and the close intersection between their work and non-work lives were prime considerations. While it was perhaps the very legacy of poor pay and the marginalization of women’s work as ‘unskilled’ at the Burberry plant which presented the greatest challenges for e-employment, the factory had undoubted compensations: it offered a working week that had fixed boundaries of time and effort, perceived jo b security, norms of employment that followed women’s life patterns and strong sociable groupings, all of which allowed workers to make positive accommodations between their paid and unpaid working lives. In the contemporary ‘low-skilled’ labour market outside the plant, most of these compensations were absent and the combined effects of low hourly rates of pay and unpredictable part-time hours in their changed employment eroded any positive spillover from work.The following sections examine these factors in greater detail. The changing relationship between work and life outside work: Burberry and community integration As the majority of employees and our respondents were female, a key issue in the findings related to the intersection of paid and unpaid work in the lives of women workers. Working near to home in a close-knit workplace had helped women manage the integration of their work and non-work lives in various ways; these were explored in interviews at the time of the closure, in unstructured discussions at public events, and in the interviews conducted in 2009.Five factors in particular were most commented on in relation to ways in which the factory was positively interconnected with the lives of the workers in the community. First, frequent reference was made to the advantages of the workplace’s proximity to their homes: No bus fare to pay, on the doorstep. I could leave the house at 25 to eight and be clocking on at a quarter to. We used to finish at 4. 40 and I’d be home by 4. 45. I could get on with my ironing before tea. I absolutely hated it the day I started, but it was so convenient – you’d finish at 4. 0 and be home at five. Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 32 Work, Employment and Society 26(1) This proximity was also helpful in coping with unforeseen domestic emergencies: We didn’t earn a lot but I had a job where I was near to home. I could cope w ith all the commitments in my private life, if my mother was taken ill [for example]. The second most commonly referred-to factor was the reliability of the company as a source of employment, with relatives able to ‘have a word’ with Personnel to secure employment for other family members.Interviewees referred to relatives made redundant several times from other manufacturing jobs before getting ‘security’ in a job at Burberry. Many had several members of their family working at the factory. It was like a family – when I started work, my mother worked there, her sister worked there, my father’s sister worked there, my own sister worked there and I had two or three cousins there. Out of the 14 houses in my street, 10 of them had Burberry workers living in them.Such was the prevalence of familial ties throughout the plant that one interviewee commented that her husband always referred to his mother by her first name when inside the factory, sayi ng that there was no point in calling her ‘Mam’ because ‘there were so many mothers and children on the shop-floor’. A number of people met their future spouses at the plant and patterns of life-time work within the factory traditionally facilitated exit and re-entry into work, following childbearing.The expectation of a job being available resulted in many women giving up work to have families, in the knowledge – accurate up to the last years – of re-employment at a later date. A third advantage for life outside work was perceived to be the factory’s predictable working hours. Almost all staff (over 95%) at Burberry were employed full-time, with the factory operating Monday to Friday, 7. 45 a. m. to 4. 40 p. m.As one respondent commented after the closure, she ‘really missed the Monday to Friday routine’ – this routine being something else that was seen to compensate for the low wage rates paid at the factory (and a routine absent from many jobs subsequently obtained, as discussed below). Fourth, many references were made to the social aspects of work, with interviewees and survey respondents using terms such as their ‘Burberry family’ and ‘one big family’, where they saw their neighbours every day.Though aspects of the work routines were reported as ‘strict’, the work atmosphere was clearly punctuated by ‘all the laughs’ they had, and the everyday chat. Comments on the latter included: Officially we were supposed to start at 7. 45 but some of us used to go in 15 minutes early for a chat before we started work. Once you’d done your number [piecework target] you could take a break and go upstairs to the toilets for a chat.As in Lupton’s study (1963: 72–3), the workers did not idealize the tensions or the work of factory life at the Burberry plant, which was hard and low paid, particularly for the majority of female workers who earned little more than the national minimum wage. Comments about their ‘Burberry family’ were made alongside derogatory remarks about Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 33 Blyton and Jenkins their former employers. Thus nostalgia for factory life was reserved for memories of events and those friendships and people that had characterized workers’ experience of employment at the plant.There were also more organized social activities such as charity fund-raising events, works trips and parties which were clearly valued (and missed) and, in combination with the informal relations between workers, had contributed significantly to the ongoing contact with others in the community. In addition to these four aspects of positive connection between work and non-work life, respondents identified two further, related attributes of their work that had relevance for life outside the factory.First, several commented on the skills they had acquired at Burberry and the positive feelings that this had given them (‘pride at being a Burberry worker’). Examples of reported skills were numerous, including the interviewees who pointed out ‘hand-sewers’ still working at the plant in 2007, and indicated their level of skill in comments such as ‘we used to prove the methods’ (‘proving a method’ involved transferring a design from planning into full production, something necessary from time to time with difficult garments, and requiring considerable expertise).Several referred to the national awards for excellence won by the factory, to the long hours they had worked beyond their contracts, and being always keen to ‘get the work out’. Closely associated with the pride in their skills, a number of respondents reported an acquired status that reflected responsibilities held within the factory which they felt had been undermined by job loss. The quest to maintain social status and social identity has been recognized in studies of redundancy among men, such as former steel workers (Harris, 1987: 36).From several ex-Burberry respondents came comments that they were shocked to find themselves treated in the job search process as ‘low skilled’ or ‘unskilled’ (as a result of generally lacking certified or accredited qualifications), with their former status within the plant often being replaced by alternative employment in junior-level service sector jobs. One interviewee, for example, who had held supervisory responsibilities at Burberry, commented that her next employer (the retail chain Argos) entrusted her with virtually no responsibility: ‘they didn’t know me or what I’d done’.In their study, Bailey et al. (2008: 50) comment on the crucial influence of the local labour market for re-employment, together with accredited skills, the need for ongoing training support and help with travelling for work. Our findings lead us to agree that the propensity to travel and retrain for work are key determinants of success in job search, and this former supervisor at Burberry was an example of what occurs when low paid, insecure, unpredictable work makes travel too costly.Though she had taken advantage of short-term training courses offered by local employment services, she was unable to gain recognition for the skills she had acquired over 40 years of factory working and had been able to obtain only two temporary jobs since factory closure. She described the consequent effects on her sense of purpose and identity and the negative physical and emotional effects of being a ‘job-seeker’ for the first time in her life in her mid-50s, as ‘devastating’ and the cause of depression.All told, our respondents (even those who said they had grown to enjoy their new employment and were earning more) expressed regret at the loss of the social factors that have been d iscussed in this section, which constituted significant compensations for the comparatively low wage rates at the Burberry plant. After closure, the legacy of years of low pay and particularly the marginalization of women’s work as ‘unskilled’ meant that Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 34Work, Employment and Society 26(1) job search was an activity that prioritized the local labour market. Once workers entered new forms of employment, however, they did so without the supporting structure of the social network and sense of identity that (for them) had defined the experience of being a Burberry worker. The changing relationship between work and life outside work: redundancy, re-employment and social isolation The vast majority of the redundant Burberry workers restricted their job search to their own locality.This choice was partly facilitated by the building of a new Wal-Mart Asda store, along with the availability of care work with the local authority. Data from the local Job Centre Plus confirmed our finding that the majority of Burberry workers prioritized proximity of alternative employment over other factors such as remaining in similar occupations or moving for alternative manufacturing opportunities elsewhere. The context of low pay made relocation financially unrealistic, even if it had been desired. In 2007 the local jobs market was dominated by part-time hours, relatively low earnings and little perceived security.These criteria fall far short of an incentive to move established households and lose the support network of family, community and friends. As well as the risk of not finding better or secure employment elsewhere, workers faced the constraints of the housing market and the low property values characteristic of deindustrialized areas, which effectively trap people in regions of high unemployment (McNulty, 1987: 42). Relocation was therefore an unrealistic option for the majority of our respondents, but this did not prevent it being proposed for consideration during the process of job search.One male interviewee recounted his first visit to a local Job Centre Plus, where he was faced with a question he found outrageous: Do you know the first thing they [Job Centre staff] said to me was, ‘Are you prepared to move? ’ Can you believe that? Why would I want to move away? I said no, I wouldn’t. This reaction was typical of the majority of our respondents. While the plant was still open but under notice of closure, Burberry provided employment consultants to help with job search and vacancies were posted on the factory notice-board.One interviewee described how she and other workers used to ‘have a laugh’ about the jobs being advertised hundreds of miles outside Rhondda, many of which were also part-time at minimum wage rates. Several interviewees commented (during the run-up to closure and in later interviews) that they regarded the posting of such jobs as not only ridiculous but also a cynical ploy to misrepresent their situation, feeling that Burberry could claim it was doing all it could to meet its responsibilities to a workplace community that could find alternative work if only it took up the opportunities the company had researched on their behalf.For workers though, not only relocation but the option of daily commuting was constrained by the precise nature of work available. The costs and difficulties of travel for variable shifts and short daily hours spread over 24 hours and five or seven days of the week were not likely to be sustainable on a low income. All these factors made relocation and travelling for work to different degrees economically impracticable. Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 35 Blyton and Jenkins Table 1.Summary of patterns of work and earnings for former Burberry workers one year after redundancy Respondents Male (n=9) Female (n=71) As % of total respondents 11% 89% Working patterns prior to factory closure, March 2007 No. and proportion employed full-time 9 (100%) 68 (94%) Working patterns following factory closure, March 2008 No. of respondents in paid work 7 46 No. and proportion employed full-time 7 (100%) 19 (41%) No. and proportion in part-time work 0 27 (59%) Proportion of respondents in paid work, 28% 23% eporting an increase in weekly earnings Proportion of respondents in paid work, 71% 56% reporting a fall in weekly earnings All (n=80) 100% 77 (95%) 53 26 (49%) 27 (51%) 24% 59% At the time of our 2008 survey, just over two-thirds of the respondents were in paid work with the remainder divided roughly equally between those who had retired and those still seeking employment. The majority of those in work were in the same job that they found on leaving Burberry, while 15 respondents had had two or more jobs since their redundancy.The areas of paid work entered by our sample were mainly in the manufacturing, home -care or retail sectors; two-thirds of respondents in paid work entered relatively low-skill service sector employment. Table 1 highlights the study’s findings on the nature of re-employment patterns. Just over half of the respondents in paid work were employed part-time, on hours ranging from six to 30 per week (and with a mean and mode of 20 hours).Most (88%) of those with part-time jobs reported that their actual hours varied week by week. Those in care work and retail jobs were especially likely to hold part-time contracts with variable hours. The care contracts, for example, typically began as (effectively) zero-hour contracts with no hours guaranteed until a training period was completed. After that, just 16 hours per week were commonly guaranteed, though workers could be asked to work as many as 30 hours in a week depending on demand.The same was true of retail work, though attaining a 30-hour week was far less common in that sector. For many, their parttime status (ra ther than their hourly rate of pay) was the principal reason why their weekly earnings were lower than they had been at Burberry. In several subsequent interviews, respondents commented that making ends meet while working part-time was only made viable by supplementary state benefits and that part-time employment dominated available opportunities rather than being a chosen option.Both from survey responses and interview comments, it was also clear that many were subject to working time patterns that not only varied from week to week but were also highly unpredictable, in terms of both timing and duration. For those on variablehours contracts, their shifts could be scheduled during the daytime, evening or weekends, and for many their forthcoming weekly schedule was known only at the latter end of the previous week. In interviews, the majority of respondents commented on the difficulties Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 6 Work, Employment and S ociety 26(1) created in their home lives by the variability and unpredictability of their new work commitments. One interviewee, for example, employed full-time as a hotel receptionist in 2008 had had her hours cut to 20 per week when interviewed in 2009, and she received just ? 120. 00 gross weekly pay. Though contractually her employer undertook to issue shift patterns and times one month in advance, in practice working patterns were given to her weekly. Shifts ran from 7 a. m to 3 p. m. , 10 a. m. to 6 p. m. , and 3 p. m. o 11 p. m. , and it was quite normal to have to undertake ‘back-to-back’ shifts finishing at 11 p. m. and starting work again at 7 a. m. She commented that the ‘worst thing’ about the job was the timing and unpredictability of the shift work: You can’t plan anything. I’ve just had to cancel a dentist’s appointment because they’ve called me in for a shift and I can’t make another appointment because I w on’t know what I’m working next week. Without her parents’ help, this interviewee commented that she could not have coped with caring for her daughter.It was family support that allowed her to achieve any sort of balance, however imperfect, between her paid and unpaid working life and the tax-credit state benefit (effectively acting as a subsidy for a low paying employer) was an essential factor allowing her to afford to travel to work and keep her employment. A further example of the negative impact of unpredictable hours concerned another respondent who now worked for the local authority (via their care work agency) and was a married mother of two children.Her employment was typical of work in this sector in that it began (in 2007) as a zero-hour contract, with actual hours of work determined wholly by demand. She received notice of her hours each weekend, for the following week. Her shifts were normally based on notional patterns of 8 a. m. to 10. 30 a. m. an d 4. 30 p. m. to 6 p. m. over a seven-day period, but she never knew exactly how many hours she would be given (or which days she would work) for the week ahead. As a new employee, in common with all new recruits, she was classed as ‘casual’ and therefore had no guaranteed hours of work.The interviewee explained that this meant that she sometimes had four hours’ work for a week, but that this could just as likely be twenty or thirty, depending on what her supervisor assigned. ‘Permanent’ status was necessary to attain guaranteed minimum income equivalent to 16 hours’ work per week. As a ‘casual’, she said that planning her income or any sort of family event was impossible; even knowing her hours one week in advance did not help as ‘they can call you, phone you, any time and ask you to come in’.And as a worker hopeful of allocation to a permanent team and reliant on the support of her line manager, this interviewee did not feel she had the scope to refuse any such request. In January 2010, she had still not been upgraded from casual status and could depend on just three hours’ work a week. Unpredictable work patterns were not the sole preserve of women workers. Men were more likely to obtain full-time work but, anecdotally, were more prone to lay-off or seasonally influenced working patterns.One of our male respondents found a seasonal, 40-hour a week job marginally above the national minimum wage rate after several months of unemployment. With no security of contract or predictability of hours, he worked entirely according to the employer’s demand. In the summer he could work as many as 65 hours a week, reducing to 20 at other periods, and was laid off altogether in Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 37 Blyton and Jenkins the coldest months.Hours of work were notified one week in advance, but were frequently subject to change on the day. He re garded placing his time completely at the employer’s disposal as essential to keep his employment. This interviewee had a history of 30 years of regular employment at Burberry and commented that his new working life was a source of anxiety for the future. Jobs with such variable and unpredictable hours have become common in sectors such as retailing (Backett-Milburn et al. , 2008; Henly et al. 2006; Lambert, 2008; Zeytinoglu et al. , 2004) and care (Henninger and Papouschek, 2008; Rubery et al. , 2005). It is also clear that further variability occurs in ‘real time’ as employees are requested at short notice to stay on, or leave early, to reflect particular work circumstances. For management, this access to variable hours offers a means of deploying labour to shadow fluctuations both in demand and available staff but for the people we were interviewing, this variability and unpredictability had many drawbacks.In particular these disadvantages included: a general uncertainty over their work schedule, making it difficult to plan activities outside work; for some, increased problems of organizing childcare and maintaining a consistent care arrangement; a disruption to domestic routines such as meal times; and a lack of stable income as earnings fluctuated with actual hours worked. In the 2008 survey, questions were also asked about changes in other areas of respondents’ non-work lives since the factory closure. Responses to a question about socializing and friendships since the closure showed a marked deterioration.Almost three in five (58%) indicated that this aspect of their life had got worse, compared to 30 per cent saying it had stayed the same and a minority reporting an improvement. In subsequent interviews, several commented that they saw friends and neighbours much less now that Burberry had closed and female interviewees remained emotional about their changed situation even two years after the closure: I miss the company †¦ I can pick the phone up and speak to people, but it’s not the same. Now, I have no social life. There are no friends passing here nd although people say they will keep in touch, they don’t. A similar picture was evident in relation to community involvement. Over two in five of the survey respondents reported a decline in their community involvement since the factory closure, compared to approximately one in seven who reported an increase (the remainder reporting no change). Both in comments on the survey and in interview comments, several references were made to having ‘less money for going out’, compared to former full-time earnings at Burberry.This was especially the case for part-time workers. Those working part-time were more likely (compared to their counterparts in full-time jobs) to indicate that both their level of friendships and community involvement had deteriorated in the time since the factory closure. From comments in interviews, it was ev ident that reduced involvement with friends and the community were issues related to the break up of the workplace community (which had acted as a conduit to wider community involvement), lack of income and the consequence of more fragmented work patterns.Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 38 Work, Employment and Society 26(1) Conclusion While other responses made by the former Burberry workers indicated that the clothing factory was far from an ideal place to work, the factory nevertheless engendered a strong sense of workplace community which in turn extended to various aspects of workers’ non-work lives. As a consequence, the workplace had a number of positive spillover effects into the non-work lives of its workforce.The frequency of interpersonal contact, access to employment for family members, the sense of pride, skill and status that the work generated and the proximity of work to home: all were seen to create a beneficial effect on the workers’ lives more generally. The way that, for many, these factors later diminished, further underlines what the workers had gained from working at Burberry. Subsequent work, much of it part-time and/or with irregular and unpredictable hours, undermined the stability of contact, interaction and social life that had prevailed hitherto.Widespread reductions in earnings exacerbated this situation with less disposable income to spend on a social life. These insights into work to non-work spillover contribute to the work-life debate in two ways. First, they underline the limitations of couching the discussion, as has been common, in terms of the negative impact of work on non-work life. It was clear among this group of workers that their former work experience at Burberry had generated various positive spillover effects, these only diminishing as they moved to other employment after the factory closed.Second, as was discussed at the head of the article, any attention tha t has been given to positive spillover from work to home has focused largely on the influence of individual work-related variables such as job satisfaction. Aspects of these individual-level factors were certainly present among the ex-Burberry workers: a sense, for example, that the status acquired through responsibilities in the factory also had meaning in the non-work community.Importantly, what the present study underlines are more group level, sociological factors positively affecting areas of non-work life: the importance, for example, of interaction among the workforce, reinforced by chat, gossip and ‘having a laugh’. Further, the way the factory represented a source of family, rather than solely individual, employment and the proximate location of the factory in the Treorchy community further reinforced a sense of community both inside and outside the factory.The study’s findings also contribute to the discussion on the extent to which parttime working can contribute to work-life balance or, put differently, the way part-time work reflects a preference for a particular balance of time between work and non-work (Hakim, 2000). Several authors (for example, Walsh, 2007; Walters, 2005; Warren, 2004) have already pointed to the shortcomings of using part-time work as an indicator of a preference and a strategy for achieving work-life balance – noting in particular that this fails to take into account the heterogeneity of part-time work and that, for ome, working part-time is not a means to achieve work-life balance but rather a source of low pay and poor-quality jobs. The present study further underlines the need for a more differentiated view of part-time working. In our sample, while many working part-time in principle had more time available for non-work activities – even when taking longer travelling times into account – this did not translate into more time for friends or community activity. On the contrary, part -time working was associated with work-life Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 9 Blyton and Jenkins impoverishment for this group more than work-life balance. For most of those on part-time contracts who had been used to working full-time, part-time work was an undesirable consequence of the kind of paid work available within the local labour market. The lower earnings that the part-time jobs generated and the variability and unpredictability of many working patterns detracted from, rather than contributed to, the quality of workers’ non-work lives. Overall, these findings signal the value of a nuanced approach in discussions around ‘work-life balance’.In focusing on the associations of work to non-work life, this article has identified the ways in which associations may be positive or negative and has indicated that the nature of those associations may vary over time and from one context to another. As a result of tracing t he subsequent employment experiences of the former garment workers in this study, it became clear that there is a continuing need for wider recognition not only of the heterogeneous nature of part-time work, but also the reasons why people are working part-time and the degree to which it is a voluntary, employeedriven choice.It was also clear that variable and unpredictable work patterns may exert a significant deleterious influence on the ability of workers successfully to organize and fully enjoy their lives outside work. Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge and thank the union representatives and former Burberry employees who participated in this research. We would also like to express our gratitude to the editor and three anonymous referees for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. 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In: Taplin IM and Winterton J (eds), Rethinking Global Production: A Comparative Analysis of Restructuring in the Clothing Industry. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1–17. Yerkes M and Visser J (2006) Women’s preferences or delineated policies?The development of p art-time work in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. In: Boulin J-Y et al. (eds) Decent Working Time: New Trends, New Issues. Geneva: International Labour Office, 235–61. Zeytinoglu IU, Lillevik W, Seaton IMB and Moruz J (2004) Part-time and casual work in retail trade: stress and other factors affecting the workplace. Relations Industrielles 59(3): 516–43. Paul Blyton is Professor of Industrial Relations and Industrial Sociology at Cardiff Business School and Research Associate in the ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS) at Cardiff University.His research interests include employee responses to organizational change, working time and work-life balance. Recent publications include The Sage Handbook of Industrial Relations, co-edited with Nicolas Bacon, Jack Fiorito and Edmund Heery (Sage, 2008); Ways of Living: Work, Community and Lifestyle Choice, co-edited with Betsy Blunsdon, Ken Reed and Ali Dastmal chian (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Reassessing the Employment Relationship, co-edited with Edmund Heery and Peter Turnbull (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and Researching Sustainability, co-edited with Alex Franklin (Earthscan, 2011).Jean Jenkins is a lecturer in HRM at Cardiff Business School. Her research interests include labour conditions and unionization in the global garment sector, working time and union-management partnership. Recent publications include Work: Key Concepts, with Paul Blyton (Sage, 2007). Date submitted January 2010 Date accepted November 2010 Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013