Food Safety and Sanitation Essay

In today’s dirty, filthy, impoverished world, it is important to keep our food clean. Without clean food, we are susceptible to diseases and viruses, and our lifespan shortens by years depending on the inflicted disease. Ebola can spread through food. That banana you’re about to eat? It wasn’t properly cleaned. Now you have Ebola. Get ready, I’m going to get some facts up in this. Restaurants have to follow a set of rules, as do food suppliers. We all do. But these are very specific rules that insure the quality and cleanliness of our food. Let’s begin with temperature control. Here’s a bulleted list to explain in a short and sweet method. Avoid prolonged holding in the danger zoned (from 40F to140F). Provide functional thermometers to all food storage boxes. Monitor the temperature on serving lines on a regular frequency. Thaw frozen foods under refrigeration or under cold water.  Do not thaw foods at room temperature.  Regardless of type of processing or food handling operation, the number one consideration in food sanitation is people. Persons known to be suffering from, or known to be carriers of a disease likely to be transmitted through food, must be restricted from any food-handling area. Likewise, persons afflicted with infected wounds, skin infections, sores, etc., must also be restricted from these areas. Facilities with hot water for hand-washing must be provided and must be convenient to food handling areas. All personnel involved in food handling must thoroughly wash hands with soap under warm-running, potable water. Hands must also be washed after handling contaminated materials and after using toilet facilities, as well as disinfectant hand dips. Personal cleanliness must also be maintained while involved in food handling operations: Sanitary protective clothing, hair covering, and footwear must be worn and maintained in a clean, sanitary  manner. Gloves, if worn, must be clean and sanitary. All food-handling personnel must remove object (i.e. watches, jewelry) from their person which may fall into or contaminate the food product. Tobacco, gum, and food are not permitted in food-handling areas All food-processing and –handling rooms and other rooms must be in a clean, sanitary manner. A major source of plant contamination is from custodial personnel and equipment. All custodial brushes and equipment must be in good repair as well as being clean and sanitary. Now in a not so serious tone, the conclusion. We must keep our food and food-handling areas clean because otherwise, epidemics can start. Stomach viruses, Ebola, and etc. will spread quickly and the apocalypse will occur. Only YOU can prevent epidemics. Simply wash your hands, cough into your elbow, and sneeze into a wad of paper. And wash your hands again. Then rub disinfectant all over.

Country Factbook Between Seden and Denmark on Organic Food Industry Essay

1. Executive summary The organic food industry is suitable for business investments in both Sweden and Denmark due to several factors. First of all, efficient local intermediary firms and certain broader macro-level institutions facilitate business and provide location advantages. Moreover, studying the business/industry culture can be used to gain insights in the business environment of Sweden/Denmark in the field of organic food. However, the complex natures of harvesting organic goods make it impossible to indicate the best location for production, as this depends on the particular product being produced. As a result, demand and supply across Sweden and Denmark are met by means of a widespread retail sector, intra-industry trade and export. Only by making an estimation of sectorial breakdown and its counterparts an (somewhat) informed investment decision can be made. Either way, it is evident that organic food industry as a whole has gained popularity due to several reasons. One example is that CSR profiles of firms have become an customary element in the product purchasing decision in recent times. It can be said that recent developments in technological- (information technology revolution) and political nature (subsidies) have contributed to this trend, documents playing an important role in particular. Since culture consists of documents and culture is more available to document analysis today it has been our choice in our data collection method. In turn, for data analysis we have made use of coding, series of events and semiotics. It is these that have allowed us to assess macroeconomic performance of Sweden and Denmark as well as its historical developments, socio-cultural conditions and the nature of competitiveness in the organic industry field. Despite the fact that Sweden and Denmark share many similarities in each one of these areas there are some differences. However, these are considered to be subtle and highly context-dependent. Therefore, we would also not like to answer our research question, ‘’How and why do the organic industry conditions differ between Sweden and Denmark? ’’ in this section, but hope that you will find an answer what is best for you in the pages of the remainder of this report. Ultimately, we will provide major findings of comparisons and recommendations, based on our views and experience gained during our research. It might be possible to ‘’tweak’’ this information in such a way in making it applicable for your particular business scenario or business plan. 2. Introduction This section is meant to state the goal, relevance and purpose of our Factbook. Furthermore, it will give rise to our lead question, being ‘’How and why do the organic industry conditions differ between Sweden and Denmark? ’’ To boot, we hope to achieve appraisal and recognition for our deliverables from whom ultimately might use and/or buy our Factbook. Like the CIA Factbook, our focus is on the industry. However, it is important to note that we have tried to achieve more than the already existing Factbooks, as they are often too comprehensive or lacking in value. We have tried to overcome the first problem by linking theory to application and writing about it. In this, our main challenge has been to take into account all aspects that somehow matter for the bottom line, the profitability of an investment project. Yet, since profitability is a relative term it might be better to speak of opportunity costs. This terminology is crucial to understand for correct business decision making to take place and also forms the backbone for our final recommendations in our Factbook. Moreover, Pugel (2009) has showed that many industries incur rising, rather than constant, marginal opportunity costs. For instance, efforts to expand Denmark/Sweden organic wheat production would fairly quickly run into rising costs caused by limits on (1) how much more land could be drawn into wheat production and how suitable this additional land would be for wheat production, (2) the availability of additional workers willing and suitable to work on the farms, and/or (3) the availability of seeds, fertilizers, and other material inputs. As for the second problem, we focus mostly on institutionalism and culture as they are lacking in other country Factbooks. Examples of institutions that can facilitate business in Sweden and Denmark are efficient local intermediary firms and certain broader macro-level institutions, both being considered to be generally available location advantages (Verbeke 2010). Concerning culture, we are particularly interested in business/industry culture. This is based on logic that our analysis is mainly on the industry level. Furthermore, Hollensen (2008) has showed that business/industry culture of business behavior and ethics is similar across borders, i. e. expected to be the same for Sweden and Denmark. By learning about the industry culture the decision maker will be aware of important ‘rules of the game’ (Hollensen 2008). Concerning the purpose, this Factbook is meant to facilitate a document that will be considered important for decision makers, i. e. policy makers but especially business investors. From an investment perspective, several hierarchical modes (domestic-based sales representatives, mergers and acquisition, alliances, greenfield) are possible. However, retailer alliances and mergers and acquisition are most popular. To illustrate, in the case of Sweden retailer alliances control 90% of the food retail stores (http://www. snee. org/filer/papers/193. pdf). Furthermore, because the organic food market in Denmark and Sweden and Europe in general is rather fragmented, mergers provide benefits and interest to investors through economies of scale (http://www. nytimes. com/2011/05/24/business/global/24organic. html). Lastly, market growth, political support and complimentary resources in both Denmark and Sweden stimulate and attract business investors. These and other issues will be elaborated in the remainder of this report. All in all, we will provide the examiner with information of which we believe to be relevant for decision makers and can be used for deciding which company, or which industries of this company, to invest in. Hereby, we have tried to identify the major dimensions relevant to comparative country studies. These have been chosen carefully and matter for the organic food industry and a wide spectrum of business within this industry. In turn, these dimensions can be used to compare the countries Sweden and Denmark. Ultimately, the contents of this Factbook are meant to stay closely connected to the country set Sweden/Denmark and it’s organic food industry, yet still is general to the extent that it allows applying the information to a concrete business case. With the final product of our Factbook we hope to have provided the reader with a clear understanding of the conditional differences between Sweden and Denmark and as such an answer to our research question. Concerning the structure of the remainder of this paper, we will subsequently discuss: methods and frameworks, introduction to organic food sector, methods and frameworks, country comparison, major findings of comparison and recommendations and the bibliography. 3. Methods and frameworks 3. 1 Method for Factbook compilation As method for our Factbook compilation we have opted to first focus on the country and then on the region. It can be described as a region-based compilation (RBC) technique. For example, if you look at technology, technology is taking place in Eindhoven in The Netherlands and not in Delfzijl. If you are going to do something with energy then you end up in Delfzijl rather than in Eindhoven. However, making such a comparison for Sweden or Denmark in terms of organic food proves difficult. To explain, people that argue that organic food is simply being harvested on the most fertile agricultural land are likely to mix up terms. That is, fertility should be clearly set aside from productivity or even best land. Indeed, you can have a highly fertile area but deficient in its use do its limited crop sizes. Moreover, a certain area of agricultural land might be appropriate to harvest a particular organic product, but is less appropriate or least suitable for other organic products. Lastly, in general organic material levels go up as you go north. But productivity does not necessarily follow the same trend because the same shorter season and lower temperatures that helped build and maintain that organic material, limits growing seasons and crops growth. In order to prevent complexity we have decided to focus more on the retail sector of Sweden and Denmark than the production sector. The retail sector will include exports as over 70 percent of the exports of industrialized countries are shipped to other industrialized countries, and nearly half of total world trade is industrialized countries trading with each other (Pugel 2009). Sweden and Denmark are no exception, as they are known to have an established intra-industry trade relationship. Besides physical locations we also like to discuss official statistics as another compilation issue. The main issue is that official statistics often rely on incomplete information and therefore involve estimation. In our report we have made use of two types of estimation, sectorial breakdown and its counterparts. We have chosen to select these two types in order to facilitate the decision maker with a reflection opportunity of a wide variety of activities he/she might be interested in. Furthermore, in an attempt to ‘standardize’ statistics we will use figures of the Central Statistics Office (or a comparable source) as much as possible for both Denmark and Sweden. We believe it is advisable to use comparable or equal sources between the two countries as it strengthens the reliability of our research. Based on previous experience and narratives we believe the Central Statistics Office (also known as Central Statistics Bureau) is one of the most easily accessible and reliable sources to be found on the Internet. Furthermore, in order to prevent possible ambiguity we will use equal terminology for both countries as much as possible, including definitions of sectors and instrument categories. Moreover, we would like to briefly discuss the overall structure of the Factbook. First of all, the executive summary is meant to provide background information on the topic of organic food as an industry and can act as a quick-review guide of what the examiner is likely to expect in the report. In this, the executive summary contains several main ideas reflected in the report itself. Furthermore, the introduction discusses more distinct the Factbook and the underlying principles. Then, data collection and data analysis show arguments for the choices we have made in conducting our empirical research. As to the chapters that follow, these are simply a representation and a more in-depth analysis of what has been announced in the previous chapters and act as to share our findings in terms of describing legal, political, environmental, institutional and cultural dimensions. Lastly, we finalise our report by concluding with major findings of comparisons and recommendations. 3. 2 Prime theories and approaches There are different theories to be utilized for compiling this Factbook. One of the main drivers for organic farming is environmental reason, which are often associated with care for the environment. Moreover, it can be argued that the choice for buying ‘’organic’’ is also driven by social cultural reasoning, having this care for the environment being embedded as part of the culture. Indeed, this is mainly the case in the Western market where awareness towards environmental issues has risen in recent times. It is terms like corporate responsibility and sustainability that have become a part of the decision making process of Western consumers as to what to buy and to whom to buy it from. In this, environmental and socio-cultural values have become an important facet in the decision making process of the consumer in general, the organic food industry being no exemption. In an attempt to verify and examine these trends we will make use of theory of Schwartz (1999) combined with the theory of planned behaviour to determine if organic food consumption offers potential for business investment to take place. As we shall see later on, Schwartz his cultural values can be used to assess the main characteristics of the average Swedish and Danish inhabitant and how these assist in making inferences about core values, behaviour and its relation to the organic food industry. In order to find more specific similarities and differences we have made use of the framework as proposed by S. Ruiz de Maya et al. (2011), who offer us a theoretical approach to the organic food industry from the consumer side. It is this that provides us with socio-cultural factors and helping the investor to decide whether Sweden or Denmark is more ‘suitable’ to invest in, depending on a particular context. In addition, the PESTLE analysis will also be utilized in this report. It is important to note that we will not be focusing on the whole framework but on the political, social and legal factors provided. By examining the political factors we can determine how these influence the organic food industry. For instance, some administrations can be beneficial for the organic food industry. For instance, by stimulating farmers to dedicate more land for organic farming and usage of organic food in government institutions. However, in another term a different administration might not be so favourable to organic farming and food, which could lead to a different situation. For example, abolishing organic farming grants. As mentioned before, the social side of organic food consumption is important. Health and environmental issues have become more important for the general public. Furthermore, the investor should keep in mind that views concerning organic food can change. These factors can have an influence on the demand. Last aspect is the legal aspects. For example, determine the definition of organic food and who or how they uphold this standard. This factor is related to the political part of the PESTLE analysis. Legislation concerning organic food is important for the Factbook. There can be differences between Denmark and Sweden concerning organic food industry. 3. 3 Method for data collection and analysis. This section will discuss our chosen method for data collection and analysis. We will start by addressing the data collection technique, after which the data collection analysis approach will follow. First of all, it can be said that our study involves both qualitative research (a focus on text) and quantitative research (a focus on numbers). However, since institutionalism and culture are clearly more qualitative we have opted to focus on qualitative data collection techniques. In the end, we have made use of solely documents as a qualitative data collection technique. Although we would have liked to include interviews and fieldwork in our research, we experienced that it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to carry out these activities successfully. First, we could not find any suitable individuals or focus groups being knowledgeable about our subject. Second, we do not believe ourselves to be proficient enough in fieldwork as to ensure reliable and valid results. Moreover, the duration of the necessary fieldwork was also expected not to fit within the given timeframe set to create the Factbook. In either case, there are some advantages of using documents as opposed to interviews and fieldwork. For example, documents are relatively cheap and quick to access (Payne & Payne, 2004). It is usually much easier to obtain data from documents than from interviews or fieldwork. Also, if there are many documents on a subject, which we believe to hold true for our case, triangulation is possible to study developments over time. In terms of sources of data, our research is limited to secondary data only. Indeed, we did not make use of any unpublished data being gathered directly from people or organizations. Instead, we have made use of published books, webpages, newspaper articles and journal articles. Somewhat surprisingly, we found that these sources were able to provide us with sufficient empirical data for our research, especially with regard to culture related aspects. Concerning the latter, we would also like to refer to Altheide (1996), who said that documents are studied to understand culture. He has pointed out that a large part of culture consists of documents. Furthermore, he has showed that culture is more available to document analysis today because of the information technology revolution. (Altheide, 1996). Finally, in order to assess the quality of the documents used, we have made use of four criteria as proposed by Scott (1990): (1) authenticity, (2) credibility, (3) representativeness & (4) meaning. Concerning the method for data analysis, we have chosen to make use of several approaches for analyzing qualitative data. Probably the one being used the most is coding. We have chosen this approach primarily because it is one of the easiest ways to analyse qualitative data. In addition, it offers many advantages. For instance, it allows reducing the size of the data and is useful for retrieving, organizing, and speeding up the analysis (Miles & Humberman, 1994). Although this method has been used throughout the entire report, it has been particular helpful in our literature review on the organic food industry, as making use of buzzwords has helped in defining the scope of our research. Moreover, it was found helpful for the executive summary and the introduction, as these are more restricted in terms of length. Here coding has acted as an instrument to make distinctions between either ‘too detailed’ or ‘too general’ more easily. Another data analysis approach we have made use of is series of events. We have made use of this approach as we considered it to be helpful to compare relevant historical developments for our industry. Listing a series of events by chronological time periods and subsequently assigning events to categories has helped to identify similarities and differences over time. As such, it allows us to pinpoint more precisely when historical developments have been most evident and how it has changed the view of the industry. Due to its very nature this approach was utilized in the historical developments section of our report. Lastly, we have made use of semiotics, which is concerned with the meaning of signs and symbols. For business and management research, semiotics is most useful in marketing, management, consumer research and information systems. This is because in these segments, signs are very important. For example, form of brand names and logos are considered to be highly important. In our view semiotics also play an influential role in the organic food industry. Currently, there is some debate about the future growth of the organic food industry; it either being with brands or retailer private labels. It has been argued that large food retailers are taking advantage of the ‘organic’ brand without making any of the associated investment. While the industry has been built by certification agencies and pioneering brands, their presence in terms of logos and brands is diminishing in supermarkets and mainstream retailers (http://www. organicmonitor. com/r0811. htm). As such, investment scenario’s in the organic food industry are less clear-cut than in the past and require careful examination of conventions governing the use of signs and sign systems. In our report, semiotics has been found crucial to explain the socio-cultural and market/industry conditions more fully. 4. Introduction sector/industry In order to provide the examiner with an introduction of the organic food industry, general trends, definitions and boundaries will be discussed. To boot, the European organic food market has a total revenue of $24. 7 billion in 2010, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8. 9% between 2006 and 2010 based on research of DATAMONITOR (2010). The European organic food market grew by 6% in 2010 to reach a value of 24. 7 billion and it is predicted that in 2015 the European organic food market will be worth $36. 8 billion, an increase of 48. 8% since 2010. According to UNCTAD, organic agriculture is defined as a holistic production management whose primarily goal is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil, life, plants, animals and people. Moreover, According to Chen (2009) organic products are goods that respect the environment and that are manufactured without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, growth hormones, antibiotics or gene manipulation. By viewing the production side, organic producers should combines best environmental practices, a high level of biodiversity, the preservation of natural resources and application of high-animal welfare standards, providing higher quality products to respond to a certain consumers’ demand. Nowadays, the concern of Western society on how products may be profoundly harmful to the environment has led to a higher demand for organic products, sustainable business activities and stricter regulations from national governments (Gurau and Ranchod, 2005). Due to this increasing concern and higher demand in European countries, it can be argued that the organic food industry is becoming a more interesting and challenging sector for investors to invest in. Furthermore, organic food industry generates revenue as the second largest market within Europe and is continuously growing. However, some boundaries as to this sector do exist. Three main boundaries we found to be of importance are price premiums, quality and availability and time factor. Of these three, price premium is expected to be the most important. This is due to the fact that organic food more often than not requires another form of processing and is more difficult to conserve. Moreover, the costs of quality control are also expected to be higher as no pesticides are used as to protect large crops. As such, it is rational that the price is more expensive than conventional food products. In effect, consumers with lack of knowledge will reconsider buying organic products because of this simple fact. Considering quality of the organic products, consumers believe that by charging a higher price this is equivalent to a higher quality. This view is based on the rationale of human beings, sometimes depicted in phrases such as ‘pay more, get more’. Whilst this ‘rule’ not always holds true, our (inner) convictions and background study has verified that this is in fact the case in the organic food industry. An example of the organic food retail sector is that high priced restaurants tend to favour organic (natural) ingredients. Based on the above, the organic products will meet consumers’ expectation by providing the products above the conventional product’s standards, with a price tag to match its difference in quality. The last constraint we would like to discuss is availability and time factor. The availability of organic products do not vary as much as that of conventional products. As organic products are often less well exposed, they are more difficult to find in stores. This is an important consideration and largely influences issues such as sales expectations, storage costs and risk of decay. Furthermore, in the following part we will discuss and analyse how the conditions of organic food provide the investor with a broader view of the organic food industry. In this, we will consider four conditions as factors being relevant for organic food: political-, cultural-, legal- and labor systems. 5. Country comparison 5. 1 Macro-economic indicators A country comparison on macro-economic indicators can be considered to be beneficial for decision makers as it gives them food for thought on the expected macroeconomic performance of that country, i. e. the behavior of a country’s output, jobs, and prices in the organic food industry in the face of changing world conditions. This judgment call about performance is basically what drives most macro-economic analysis. It can be used to assess issues such as how well a country’s economy is performing and how close it is to achieving broad desirable objectives, such as stability in average product prices (no inflation) and low unemployment (Pugel 2009). The most relevant macro-economic indicators for the organic food industry are considered to be economic indicators and financial indicators. Demographic indicators do not seem important to us as research has shown that gender or age does not have any significant effect on whether people decide to buy organic food or not (http://newhope360. com/organic-consumers-share-values-not-demographics). In order to ensure reliability we have chosen to attain all figures of these indicators from one source, namely De Grote Bosatlas (2002). Fig. 1 STATISTIEK EUROPA (part 1) Fig 2. STASTIEK EUROPA (PART 2) From figure 1 we can infer that Denmark had a higher agricultural contribution in terms of percentage towards the GDP. Moreover, Denmark has a substantial higher percentage of agricultural grounds (62. 4% versus 7. 9%) Furthermore, Denmark has a higher contribution to GDP per capita. Besides, inhabitants from Denmark are slightly wealthier than those in Sweden, when looking at GDP. Lastly, Denmarks development of the GDP in 1990-1999 has risen more than was the case for Sweden. Then, from figure 2, we can infer that Denmark has a stronger economy than Sweden, but only by a small margin. Furthermore, inflation rate for Denmark is lower, yet also again only by a small margin. Moreover, Denmark has more government spending in terms of percentage of GDP. Concerning education, Denmark spends more in terms of percentage of GDP. Besides, Denmark inhabitants generally enjoy a higher purchasing power than is the case for Swedish inhabitants. It also shows that more Danish people are working in both the agricultural and industrial sector than Sweden, these tend to work more in the service sector. Lastly, Denmark has a lower percentage of the work force being unemployed. From this preliminary analysis we can infer that in terms of economic indicators investments in Denmark are likely to require a higher yield on an investment than were the case of Sweden. This assumption is made based on the simple fact that as for many elements Denmark performs better than Sweden on compared elements. The same holds true in terms of financial indicators. Although the data may be easily said to be ‘outdated’, we believe this is not quite the case. That is, our analysis on historical development has not provide any conclusive evidence as to not believe that the relationship of these economical and financial figures to be that much different as they are today. Yet, since we do not know when the actual investment is to take place it is always advisable to check the results of a more recent research. Although we would have loved to use a more recent version of De Grote Bosatlas ourselves, we could not find ourselves in the position to get access to one during the course of this research. Luckily, we were able to find a recent figure for gross domestic expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP that verified our assumption. [pic] From the figure above it can be concluded that Denmark spends between 1. 01% and 2. 00% of its GDP on R&D activities. Sweden on the other hand spends a little more with 2. 01% and above. This corresponds with our financial records of the Grote Bosatlas, where government spending in Sweden was higher than that of Denmark in general. Furthermore, since the R&D expenditures on R&D as a percentage of GDP are larger than that of most other parts of the world, we expect no real problems for investors in this area. Background information as to why Sweden and Denmark support expenditures on the organic food industry is discussed extensively in both the chapters about socio-cultural conditions and market/industry conditions. 5. 2 Historical developments relevant for the industry. The issues with the environment have many different facets. These range; from deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution and many others (EBS 295, 2008). The attitude concerning these issues by the general public can change over time. Values change over time and this applies for the public perception of organic food as well. Likewise, one could say that the organic food industry is driven in a sense of improving and protecting the environment. In addition, consumers also attitude towards the environment also contribute in how they value organic food. Furthermore, not only concern for the environment but also growing awareness by the general public concerning their food and the production involved. These issues related to food production range from; health, food safety and animal welfare. (Sippo manual, 2011) The origins for organic farming in both countries are similar. In the same manner consumers started become more aware of the environment. Farmers also become more aware and began with organic farming. Both countries have had organic farming since early eighties in the general concept of the term organic farming. If we take into account the establishment of organizations concerning organic food then Denmark was a few years earlier with the founding of Danish Association of Organic Farmers in 1981. The Swedish counter part is called the Ecological Farmers Association, which was founded in 1985. Both organizations are private initiatives of organic farmers organizing themselves. (http://www. fao. org) Since the 1990’s the governments of both Denmark and Sweden have introduced various regulations concerning the organic food industry. These regulations include assigning certificates that label products as organic. In addition, the European Union also implemented regulations concerning the organic food industry. Likewise, the organizations that control and label organic foods also found their origins in late eighties early nineties. In Denmark the first organic food legislation was implemented in 1987. The government assigns the O logo to organic food. (www. fvm. dk). This state approved logo is only given to products that are conforming to the standards of â€Å"organic† as stated by Danish regulations. In addition, in Denmark only state approved farms may carry the â€Å"organic† label. In Sweden the organization that is tasked with the certification of organic food is called KRAV. Founded in 1985, this organization was formed from the Ecological Farmers Organization in order to standardize the various interpretations of the term â€Å"organic farming† and bring both farmers and food producers together. (Gunnar Rundgren, 2002) However, it should be noted that the KRAV organization is a non-governmental organization. While, it’s Danish counterpart is part of the Ministry of Agriculture. 5. 3 Socio-cultural conditions Cultural systems From the point of view of the investor, it is important to know the differences and similarities between the two countries Denmark and Sweden. In this section, we will focus on this in terms of cultural assessment. In order to describe the cultural systems of both Denmark and Sweden we have made use of five cultural dimensions as proposed by Schwartz (1999): harmony, egalitarianism, effective autonomy, mastery, and conservatism. It is these cultural dimensions that will help to describe each countries culture and detect any important similarities and differences. The cultural values focus in the article of Schwartz is on the national culture. The national culture being introduced for heterogeneous nations refers primarily to the value culture of the dominant, majority group. In this case, Schwartz tries to interpret the value priorities that characterize a society by aggregating the value priorities of individuals (e. g. Hofstede’s framework). It is depicted that individual value priorities are a product of both shared culture and unique personal experience. Moreover, Schwartz has placed his list of researched countries into different segments (clusters). Denmark and Sweden put in the first group (cluster), Finland and Italy in another, Spain as a third group and Germany, Greece and the United Kingdom in a fourth group.

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Apple Inc. Business Analysis - Essay Example The organization’s current strengths are multi-varied. Perhaps Apple’s greatest current strength is its competitive advantages. From the earliest incarnations of Apple Computer the company sought to carve out a competitive advantage through horizontal and vertical integration that restricted external product licensing ("Apple computer, inc.," 2011). Today among Apple’s strongest products are the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and the Mac book. These elements have a strong presence in everyday recreation uses, artistic practices, and education. In addition, they are supported by Apple’s globally strong brand. Another prominent advantage is Apple’s attention to design elements. Building products from the ground up allows Apple to implement innovative design elements that create a loyal customer base. One considers the iMac released in 1998 with its eggshell design as prominently implementing this technique ("Apple computer, inc.," 2011). This design advantage al so extends into Apple’s image. Apple, Inc. increasingly cultivates an image that presents itself as the alternative choice to mainstream computer producers. This has allowed Apple to become a cultural force resulting in significant market advantage. The iPhone contains Apple’s unique operating system, allowing it significant quality advantage over competitors ("Apple -- iphone," 2011). Indeed, quality product design has become one of the driving forces of Apple’s success and has created a significant competitive barrier for outside manufacturers, such as Google (Gilbertson, 2010). One must also consider the iPhone’s competitive advantage in terms of its position in the Apple whole. In these regards, Apple has been able to leverage its competitive position in mp3 with iTunes and its compatibility with the Macintosh operating system as a means of encouraging user identification (Schramm, 2011). The Apple App Store also provides the organization with a uniqu e advantage over other smart phone suppliers. In addition, Apple’s implementation of Siri voice activation technology will surely drive an amount of future sales. Weaknesses While Apple, Inc. has a number of strengths one must consider their potential weaknesses. One of the largest questions of the organization is the extent that they can continue their current unprecedented streak of innovation and growth. Perhaps the greatest challenge in this realm of understanding considers that company founder Steve Jobs recently died; significant questions remain as to whether new CEO Tim Cook will be able to continue this past success. While the Apple App store is a highly important element in the iPhone’s success the Android Marketplace has begun developing a number of competitive applications as a means of threatening Apple’s smart phone sustainability (Wauters, 2011). In addition, Microsoft has developed a new smart phone design and will pose new challenges to Appleâ⠂¬â„¢s overarching market share. Still, the greatest weakness is that while Apple has leveraged market share through product innovation the open source models have been able to reengineer many of Apple’s innovations. While Apple has engaged in a series of patent lawsuits, notably a recent victory over HTC, the extent that this remains a viable strategy remains greatly questionable. Furthermore, Google’s position as a cornerstone of the Internet, coupled with the

Flag Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Flag - Essay Example Jennifer de Poyen is both a writer as well as visual artist. She was a critic and journalist for the San Diego Union Tribune, writing about theater and dance. After graduating from McGill University, she studied journalism and finally graduated from Stanford University. In her book â€Å"Seeing Stars and Stripes† she criticizes the attitude of the Americans towards their national flag ever since the catastrophic incident of the 911. She explains how the American citizens treat the flag because of all the gruesome incidents that had taken place ever since. Jennifer de Poyen was triggered to paint the U.S. national flag for one of her painting assignments, but soon she realized that her interest in the flag was not academic but was more sentimental in nature. In her book â€Å"Seeing Stars and Stripes†, she recalls the days before the 911 incident when the U.S. national flag stood as a proud symbol of Liberty, Fraternity and Peace. The citizens respected and honored their flag and held it in high esteem by hoisting it on Independence Day and other important political holidays. The proud waving of flags was meant to show their love, solidarity and patriotism for America. However, Poyen states that a major reactionary shift or change in the American sentiment towards the national flag occurred ever since the catastrophe of the 911. She writes vehemently on the aftermath and states that though many people took comfort in the national flag after the 911 incident, she and many others view the flag from a different angle. According to Poyen, the fear of terrorist attacks and the helplessness to avoid such acts was brought on by the subsequent acts of the U.S. government. In particular, she makes mention of John Ashcroft’s vengefully repressive department of justice. The display of the stars and stripes evidenced a reactionary shift in sentiment of all Americans. Poyen recalls that horrendous day when thousands of innocent people lost their lives

Maslow and behaviour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Maslow and behaviour - Essay Example Once these are met, then they provide a foundation for attaining a higher level of motivation that are based on the basic ones. For instance, after an individual achieves his or her safety and physiological needs, then they would be more inclined into belonging and finding acceptance among their peers and other groups that they identify with. Contrary to the mode of study done by Freud and B.F Skinner, Maslow opted to study successful and accomplished individuals such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, and Fredrick Douglas. Walking through any institution of higher learning such as a college would open ones eye to the striking difference in the students of any one institution. Some of the glaring difference is evident in the health, confidence, and living conditions. However, it is apparent that all the students have needs. Therefore, it is necessary for individuals needs to be identified so that they can be met. This is why initial diagnostic assessment is so important. It is also essential to assess whatever has been put in place to check its suitability for purpose. Regular tracking and monitoring will enable the effectiveness to be measured and any necessary adjustments to be done. Deficiency needs are the first four levels of needs within the hierarchy. These needs must be satisfied before the person is motivated to be able to move to the higher levels. Once a deficiency need has been met the drive or desire to meet that need lessons. For example, you were hungry and could not concentrate on your lesson. You would feel quite differently once you had eaten and would be able to re-engage with your lesson. Having a small group i.e., eight students enables me to work closely with each and develop strong home-college links allowing me to notice if there are deficiency issues and respond accordingly. For example by helping families to access benefits so that they can pay

Magnet Designation (Massachusetts General Hospita, Boston) Assignment

Magnet Designation (Massachusetts General Hospita, Boston) - Assignment Example It aims at demonstrating how the â€Å"forces of magnetism’’ required by the American Nurses Credentialing Centre are epitomized and show how the standards set for Magnet Recognition are met. Also, at the end of the paper my stance or personal opinion in regard to the organization discussed will be publicized. The notion of Magnet can be traced back to 1983 when ‘American Academy of Nursing Task Force on Nursing Practice’ personnel carried out a study to determine factors that attracted excellent nurses to continue delivering those excellent healthcare services and it is this that the organizations/hospitals that were studied, 41 were labelled ‘magnet’ hospitals because they retained excellent nurses although there was scarcity of nurses. This was the onset of Magnet Recognition Programme as the Board of Directors at the American Nurses Association permitted Magnet Programme to be managed and run by American Nursing Credentialing Centre (ANNC) in 1990. Massachusetts General Hospital is privileged to have earned Magnetic Status; a certification considered to be the upmost honour in the nursing brilliance. It swanks to have become the first hospital to have earned this (Magnet) status in the United States in 2003.Achieving this was indeed not a single event but an intensive process that involved so many stages. After the application was written and received, a meticulous evaluation was conducted by very conscientious and keen personnel from ANNC in which both written and observed proof to verify that the nursing services offered at the hospital met the standards of excellence at the ANNC. Support documents of about 2600 pages were forwarded to the ANNC; which convinced them to come to make an on-site observation (American, 2004). A team of ANNC evaluators finally came to the hospital and spent three days to examine service delivery, inter-group work relationship, adherence to standards of practice, leadership practice, and certifica tion

Otherness in Moby Dick Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Otherness in Moby Dick - Essay Example The capacity to reveal human nature within fiction is especially true when demonstrating various ways of life, or aspects of social culture. Quality fiction, regardless of when it was written or the length of the written text, can reveal significant aspects of human nature and thus reveal us to ourselves as we identify various elements of the story with our everyday lives. Literature such as Melville's novel Moby Dick or The Whale remind us that even when we feel we belong within a society, there are often elements of otherness that keep us separate. One of the first examples of Otherness found within the book is Ishmael's enforced relationship with Queequeg. Otherness is established when Ishmael checks into a very crowded whalers' inn, the Spouter Inn, at which the only accommodation to be had is a shared bed with a harpooneer. Although he agrees to the necessity easily enough, Ishmael begins to have strong misgivings about the idea as the night draws forward and he has yet to meet the man, "the more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him" (18). His feelings are not eased by hearing the strange stories that are told of this man selling heads that he picked up in New Zealand. Given the opportunity to look around the room before Queequag's arrival, Ishmael is also surprised by the strange things the harpooneer has in his possession such as "a parcel of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place" (22) and a strange object draped over a chest. Queequag's appearance does nothing to help him blend in either, described as "a dark, purplish, yellow color, here and there stuck over with large blackish looking squares" (23), which gives Ishmael cause for brief alarm. This alarm is only heightened by Queequag's strange bedtime ritual with the idol. Like many individuals, Ishmael's first reaction to Otherness is not an attempt to understand as much as it is an instinct to fear and flee. In spite of his misg ivings regarding the Otherness of his mysterious roommate, though, Ishmael is willing to work through them to discover more. This becomes clear as he tries on Queequag's poncho, which Ishmael describes as a doormat with a hole or slit in the middle, "I put it on, to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncomfortably shaggy and thick" (22). This willingness to try on the unknown persona of another is what enables Ishmael to overcome his original aversion to the man himself once he finally appears. Because of this earlier willingness to think through the strangeness, Ishmael is quickly able to overcome his initial reaction to Queequag's appearance, "what is it, thought I, after all! It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin" (23). Although he has numerous misgivings at first, Ishmael is able to recognize that Queequag's manner is gentle and kind. "For all his tatooings he was on the whole a clean, comely-looking cannibal" (26). Not only that, but Is hmael realizes Queequag is as much human as Ishmael himself and thus susceptible to all the same fears and misgivings Ishmael himself has been experiencing. Although he has come to accept Queequag's humanity by the next morning, when he wakes to find the savage's arm draped around him as

Church Reformation in the 16th and 17th century Research Paper

Church Reformation in the 16th and 17th century - Research Paper Example This group rejected to live the previous ways; thus believed that the Judgment Day was near. They formed new societies and much confusion in the social order. The reformation contributed to issues such as the dead of the blacks, western rupture and eroding faith of people in the catholic churches. The fall of the Roman Emperor contributed to the reformation and circulation of protestant churches. Under the Roman Emperor Christianity spread and many churches evolved. The Roman Catholic Church, which became one of the most prominent churches to the councils evolved. It organized in Trent, which is an education centre for church teachings especially in the tradition and scripture issues. Council of the Trent is a convention of cathedral councils or theological professionals whose purpose is to resolve church policy matters or practices. The councils provide teaching programs for the community priests in order to augment pastoral care. This was initiated by the Roman Catholic Church unde r Pope Paul 1112 (Becchio and Johannes 98). The council of the Tent provided teachings, reasserted traditional practices and articulated dogmatic of the Catholic Church doctrines. These doctrines include the seven sacraments, celibacy, belief of taking wine and bread during the mass services, which they translated as the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Other doctrines included worship of remnants and saints whom they referred as the Holy Virgin Mary. Others included the significant of having faith and working towards achieving salvation. Moreover, the ecumenical councils of the Roman Catholic Church made a significant reform on dogmatic issues in the 16th and 17th century. The transformation known as the catholic reformation was the restoration era for the Catholics and it began with the Council of Trent. Some scholars consider the council of Trent as being responsible for Protestant Reformation. They laid strict issues, which the protestant minster nearly disputed. Pope Paul 111 re formed the Roman Catholicism in many European areas. In the first period of the Roman Catholicism, they church accepted the 3Nicene Creed as the basis for the catholic conviction (Queen, Prothero and Shattuck 76). They set the old and New Testament canons and fixed seven sacraments. However, this dogmatic ruled out the doctrines of Martin Luther’s beliefs of faith jurisdiction. The general council established the transubstantiation of doctrines and offered Episcopal authority verdict and other doctrine issues. However, many issues that contributed to protestant reformation started disappearing, and the church began to reclaim many of its followers by the end of the 16th century. The council of the Trent focused so much on education of the clergy because of varied reasons. First, they wanted to eradicate the mistreatments of the 4Catholic cathedral such as alms treats in order to advance the superiority of bishops. This was seen essential to the Catholics because they protesta nt churches criticized their teachings. Hence, they emphasized on the importance of the church teachings and created new rules that clergies were to follow. They followed the teachings of Martin Luther and Calvin and rejected any other reformation leaders. The council of Trent played considerable roles in renewing the catholic cathedral5 of Europe

How Women Changed During the Civil War Essay Example for Free

How Women Changed During the Civil War Essay The Civil War was a defining moment in American history. It was the event which determined the fate of the nation as the American community was divided into two opposing sides. It was also a time of significant social change. The realm of war previously belonged to the men; it was the male soldiers who fought in the battlefields. However, the Civil War altered the situation. The status of women dramatically changed as they became active participants in the war effort. Indeed, the Civil War opened many opportunities for women and allowed them to be active members of society. This research paper aims to discuss how women changed during the American Civil War, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the said changes. In the 19th Century America, men dominated society and women were regarded as inferior to them. Women lived under the authority of the opposite sex, either that of the father, husband or another relative (Massey, 1994). They were confined in the domestic sphere; their main concerns were their home and family. Women had no voice in the political arena because only the men had dealt with public affairs. Not only was it objectionable for women to fulfill men’s jobs, it was also disagreeable for them to wear men’s clothes (Eggleston, 2003). When the Civil War began, the social lines were blurred. Women suddenly were presented the chance to go beyond their realm and participate in the world of men. They were given roles and jobs that were not accessible to them before. Both the Union and the Confederacy allowed women to take part in the war effort. For the first time, the government allowed women to become doctors and nurses (Eggleston, 2003). Women also served as messengers and spies. Meanwhile, there are also those women whose contributions were domestic in nature; these include cooking, as well as mending and sewing uniforms for the soldiers (Eggleston, 2003; Silber, 2005). These activities may have been the same as those women were tasked to do in the past; however, there was a significant change. Before, women only did those jobs due to the necessity in the household. During the war, the women did those jobs due to the necessity of the nation. Their domestic activities were no longer performed for private purposes; they had become part of the public affairs. However, women were not merely passive participants. They were also directly involved in the war effort as soldiers. The battlefield was reserved for males, but the females eventually found themselves fighting the same war. Women became soldiers by concealing their real identities (Eggleston, 2003). There were many reasons why women opted to disguise themselves as male soldiers. There were those who fought in the war to either escape from their betrothal or to be with their loved ones. Some saw the war as an adventure and craved its excitement. There were others who saw fighting for its financial benefits and the opportunity to better provide for their families. Meanwhile, there were women who took part in the Civil War for more noble reasons; they went to war because they were compelled by duty and patriotism (Eggleston, 2003). Women had to resort to extreme measures to appear like male soldiers. There were women who were immediately discharged because the way they acted revealed their real identities (Eggleston, 2003). Meanwhile, there were women who dramatically changed their actions and behavior before enlistment to successfully disguise themselves. They modified the color of their complexion and learned how to chew tobacco. They used vests with pads to conceal their breasts; the pads also made them seem more bulky and masculine (Eggleston, 2003). Having women disguised as men in war had its share of difficulties. The problems arose from the different toilet habits as well as other personal routines (Eggleston, 2003). Nonetheless, the recruitment of young men in the army proved to be advantageous for the female soldiers. The army consisted mostly of boys, who were still shy and reserved around each other. Most of them were hesitant to relieve themselves in the company of other soldiers; to attend their toilet needs, they had to hide in the woods or others areas which offered privacy. The meek nature of young men was beneficial for the female soldiers because it allowed them to seek privacy without appearing unusual. In addition, the young men of the army have not yet started shaving, so it did not appear unusual for the females if they did not shave (Eggleston, 2003). It is remarkable that women have finally reached the public realm during the Civil War, even if they had to pretend as men to do so. However, that kind of participation had disadvantages. Women who had successfully kept their real identities hidden as part of the army suffered all the difficulties which came with war (Eggleston, 2003). Female soldiers were held captive by their opponents, brought to prison camps and killed in the battlefields. There were those who perished and buried without their real identities discovered. Because women soldiers were not supposed to be fighting in the war, their participation in the war was previously not acknowledged. There were even those who denied the direct involvement of women as soldiers (Blanton, n. d. ). The non-recognition of women fighters in the Civil War prevented the discovery of the total number of female soldiers who offered their services. The numbers available on record are merely estimates. This situation posited a real problem, as it undermined and ignored the contributions of women in the battlefield. During the American Civil War, women changed because they went beyond the roles that were initialed assigned to them. The war effort presented them to enter the public realm of men and participate in it. Women had indeed changed during that time, as they progressed from housewives to participants in war. Women even came in disguise to become soldiers. While it is a great thing that women became active members of the community, some of their contributions were not recognized or accurately recorded because of their secret identities. Nonetheless, this does not diminish that fact that women were a significant part of the American Civil War. References Blanton, D. (n. d. ). Women soldiers and nurses of the American civil war. American Civil War Website. Retrieved March 13, 2009, from http://americancivilwar. com/women/index. html Eggleston, L. G. (2003). Women in the Civil War: Extraordinary Stories of Soldiers, Spies, Nurses, Doctors, Crusaders and Others. North Carolina: McFarland. Massey, M. E. (1994). Women in the Civil War. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. Siber, N. (2005). Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Review of a qualitative research article

Review of a qualitative research article This essay is a review of a research article of how Local Authority Social workers make decisions when they are considering referrals of children. The title of the study is Threshold Decisions: How Social Workers Prioritize Referrals of Child Concern by Dendy Platt (2008). I would attempt to critically appraise this Qualitative journal article based on essential elements of the research which include the Title, Abstract, Introduction, Method, Findings and Conclusion. The study examined how social workers make choices on individual cases of children concern referrals, if to carry out a an initial Assessment i.e. Sect 17 of the Children Act 1989 or if to undertake the Child Protection Procedure under the Sect. 47 of the Children Act 1989. The major finding suggests that Social workers prioritize their referrals based on five key areas, Specificity, Severity, risk, parental responsibility and corroboration. It was refreshing to know that data were collected from Social workers and that Parents were also involved. Title It is worth noting that the title adequately prepares the reader as it gives good insight into what the study is about. The title of an article is very important as it exposes the reader to an article. The key words were appropriate and sufficient as they did retrieve the article upon typing the key words in the search engine. (According to Descombe 2008 p.88), a topic needs to be a very much more narrowly defined area of its study. Abstract The major finding in this article suggests that social workers evaluate referrals based on five key factors, specificity, severity, risk, parental responsibility and corroboration. It is worth noting the abstract did prepare a reader for this study. The abstract clearly highlights that the aim of the study is to find out how social workers reach decision when to carry out an initial assessment (Sect 17 of children act 1989) or a core assessment, (Sect 47 of children Act 1989) when considering referrals about child concerns. The abstract clearly stated that the study chose a qualitative approach. According to (Punch 2000 p. 243), qualitative approach is often sensitive to context and process to lived experience and local groundedness, where the researcher tries to get closer to what is being studied. Using qualitative method allows the researcher to find out a lot about the study. He went further to explain thatqualitative research methods are the best way we have of getting the insiders perspective (Ibid) Qualitative method allows the researcher to generate new theoretical ideas. This happens because they are able to observe and speak to the people (person) being studied and allows them to come up with new ideas through out the study. Being bias is one of the limitations of qualitative research method because researchers can write their own view or even opinion on the matter. But as we can see that reaching difficult area is a great advantage to qualitative research method.) Introduction Looking at the introduction, it seems clear that the problem that led to the research was that the interpretation of the developments of the refocusing initiative has contributed to a climate where social workers work often feel pulled and pushed in different directions by political and popular opinion. The introduction touched on relevant government policies and initiatives such as refocusing initiative which was initiated by the government in 1990 and the framework for Assessment of children in need. In my view, the author attempted to appraise the refocusing initiative policy which attempts to refocus social work practice and to initiate any necessary changes. I partly agree with this notion as the study may bring about positive changes in the child protection climate. But also the author needs to acknowledge where he points on that the climate of child protection is one of uncertainty, that social work itself is a profession full of uncertainty. The researcher explained that the implication of the refocusing initiative is the rise in the threshold for acceptance of a child protection referral as it was thought that the cost to family of child protection procedures were not acceptable in the cases where allegations are minor. In my view, the identification of gap of knowledge shows that the problem has significance for social work practice and the research may positively inform practice. Interestingly, the researcher acknowledges and analyses previous work on the child protection field ( what is known) but also points out the knowledge gap as it demonstrates how application of these factors differs between cases of child concern and cases of child protection (What is desired to be known). I would argue that these reasons amount to sufficiently justification of this study. Literature Review Knowledge gap was identified but author did not explain how his work would attempt to close the gap. Author made an effort to critically review the work of others and points out inconsistencies. The purpose of the research is to examine ways social workers in England made decisions at the initial referral stage. It is my believe that since the author decided to collect information form social workers and families suggest that research is from a grounded theory approach. According to Punch (2000 p.163) Grounded theory is best defined as a research strategy whose purpose is to generate theory from data, To be grounded means basically the theory is generated from data. (ibid) My rational for asserting that a grounded theory approach was implemented is that the author made sense of the data through concepts primarily informed by social workers and the discovery of these concepts begins from the interviews with the social workers. (Somekh and Lewin 2006p.49) point out that grounded theory is best described as an integrated theoretical formulation that gives understanding about how organization experience and respond to events that occur. From this definition, it could be argued that grounded theory was the most effective way to approach this study. Researchers do bring perspective to the research, although these perspectives tend to guide the question and influence interpretation, but they dont drive the research. (ibid p.51). However one of the drawbacks from this approach is that research may be influenced by the researchers personal experiences and previous studies which thus disable the research in approaching the study with an open mind. Finding In my view, the researcher study has a strong internal validity, the researcher made a good effort to eliminate the alternative explanations in his findings. The result however cannot be applied beyond the sample. It would be clearly naà ¯ve to believe that the findings reflect how social workers in the UK decision making. Method The Researcher implemented ethical principles. The social workers involved have to be made aware of what they were getting into before deciding to collaborate. I would argue that appropriate procedures were implemented; also the participant understood what the purpose of the research. The researcher effectively anonymised participants identities, which protected participants privacy. The likely outcome the research aim to achieve include possible changes in policy, examine practice issues for social workers carrying out initial assessment, where in the past, it would have been a child abuse investigation ( Sect 47 of the children Act 1989) One of the strengths of case study is that multiple methods and data sources can be used to explore and interrogate case study thereby leading to a good description of a research from the perspective of the participant (Someth and Lewin 2006 p.33). I do admire the fact that the research implemented the case study approach as this gives the reader a very rich description of the study and also gives a reader a good understanding on the issue. Reliability of the finding was promoted by the data collection from two local authorities who have a very different procedures and practice, also All interviews were tape- recorded. According to (Silverman 2006p. 285), working with the audio and video recordings eliminates at one stroke many of the problems that researchers have with the unspecified accuracy of field notes and limited public access to them However the generalization of the research may not be possible. The weakness of case study is that it is not possible to generalize statistically from a small number of cases to a population as a whole (Someth and Lewin 2006 p.34) References Punch, K.F. (2000) Introduction to Social Research Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches. London: Sage Publication. Somekh, B. and Lewin, C. (2006) Research Methods in the Social Sciences. Sage Publication: London. Silverman, D. (2006) 2nd Edition. Qualitative Research. Theory, Method and Practice. Sage Publication: London. Denscombe, M. (2008) Ground Rules for Good Research, a 10 guide for social researchers. Open University: Buckingham.

Reflective Social Work Practice Social Work Essay

Reflective Social Work Practice Social Work Essay Social workers are knowledgeable about and apply the principles of critical thinking and reasoned discernment. They identify, distinguish, evaluate and integrate multiple sources of knowledge and evidence. These include practice evidence, their own practice experience, service user and carer experience together with research-based, organisational, policy and legal knowledge. They use critical thinking augmented by creativity and curiosity. I will critically examine this extract based on my own practice experience and evaluate the use of theories, tools and techniques of reflective practice to see if it supports the statement. I will begin by providing a description of a case study drawn from my previous placement to draw on the practice experience gained and how this may illustrate my learning so far. It is based on a 14 year old young girl who has been attending a horse-riding charity to help promote her well-being, self-esteem and social skills. For the purpose of this assignment she will be referred to as A. In this particular example, it is A and myself who have met as I have been given the task by my manager to talk to her about her personal hygiene. My manager felt this would also help in meeting the criteria required to handle complex situations (National Occupational Standards, Key role 6). Other young girls in her group have been seen talking behind As back about her and have not wanted to participate in group work with her because of this. I felt apprehensive about the meeting as I had not yet encountered anything like this previously. Though I was reassured by my manager that I would have the opportunity to go through the best approach with her before I met with A. Unfortunately due to time constraints and my manager having to deal with a crisis she was unable to assist me. Prior to the initial meeting with A I began to research on how best to deal with the situation and plan ahead on how best to communicate with her. I wanted to do this without hurting her feelings as she was a young and impressionable young person. This is also known as second order skills when employing planning strategies in what I as a worker am doing, being aware and observing interactions, being able to feedback what has happened (Kaprowska, 2005). Still feeling unsure on how to lead onto this particular topic due to my lack of experience, I realised that if my nervousness is apparent to A this may only escalate her worries as well. As a result I tried to keep my anxiety at bay. I asked if she had access to shower/bath facilities as a lot of the children who attended the organisation came from areas of deprivation. At this point I realised I felt out of my depth in having this conversation, and on reflection later felt it conflicted with my own personal beliefs. I did not believe her to have any hygiene issues when I had worked with A in the past. This may have shown when I eventually got to the topic at hand and told her the truth. She may have observed that I did not feel happy explaining why I am asking these questions when I myself did not share the same view as my colleagues and others. I came away from the meeting with my confidence shaken, it was made worse when I learned from my manager that A was upset and her mother h ad in fact complained about me the next day. I felt a great deal of empathy for this young girl, as a professional I had made a commitment to ensure her well-being. I was trying to achieve a fine balance between trying to support her whilst also trying to bring about social change. A reason for this I realised was that A and I had a few similarities which may have affected how I worked with her, the way I perceived her and also in the way I related to her. I recognised that we both had experienced bullying at similar ages. Upon reflection I realised I had assumed her to be more vulnerable in my eyes because of my own experiences which may have impacted on the working relationship I had built with her (Ojala and Nesdale, 2004). Both A and her mother were disappointed in me and felt strongly enough to complain. I felt terrible that I had caused A such distress. Trust is a primary feature in conducting person-centred work. Originally developed in the field of psychology by Carl Rogers (1951) where he outlined the person centred therapy. If I was disclosing information to A about her poor hygiene which was not something I wholly agreed with, then being transparent and honest became difficult. A may have observed my unease with her in the meeting, and may have lost faith in me and my work. I realise afterwards that I wanted this to change, and so actively researched how I could engage in positive work with A. Person centred work also involves being able to discover the clients wishes and feelings and taking this forward in a positive manner. The theory proposes that both the worker and the client are equal, it also challenges the notion of the worker being seen as an expert of knowledge, and that the expert knows best. In the meeting with A I had not really questioned her thoughts and feelings on the situation, and therefore had made the power dynamics between A and myself unbalanced and less in her favour. I had not taken her identity as a service user into full account and consequently may have oppressed her unknowingly by not trying to understand her views and opinions. In the next meeting with A, I actively researched and utilised the person centred approach to help her feel valued and considered in the process. In achieving this I had learnt the gaps in my learning experience and attempted to further my knowledge to benefit my work with A. This can be seen that I am applying the key elements of critical thinking as mentioned in Domain 6 of the Professional Capabilties Framework (2012). When talking with A about her riding ability and work with the group, I realised that her wishes, thoughts and feelings had perhaps been neglected when providing this service. Once I reached this conclusion I also began to see that the organisation that I was based in, it may have been the case that a person centred approach was taken initially to begin with. However, when trying to implement the approach fully into practice it seemed as if the people working with A may have forgotten that the planning is not fixed and irreversible. Mansell and Beadle-Brown (2004a) have stated that this is may be the reason why there is a decrease and collapse in being able to take plans forward. Furthermore similar to Carl Rogers (1951) and his humanistic view for individualism within person centred practice, Yelloly and Henkel (1995) suggested uniqueness as central for effective social work practice. With reference to As identity which I had not originally considered, I had come to understand that I needed to make some self-disclosures about my understanding of how I viewed her. I achieved this by communicating honestly my thoughts on how I had assumed that she would not be resilient enough to understand the first meeting. I had labelled her as a victim of bullying in my mind when this is not how she saw herself. Perhaps if I had realised this early on I would not have meandered through the conversation of hygiene with no direction, and stated the facts in a much direct and open manner. I made my apologies known to A and explored more about her thoughts on bullying and its impact. This allowed me to remain consciously focused on her as an individual and aware of my own valu es about addressing individuals. Funding and organisational issues within the social care sector have meant that resources and number of staff available to attend to service users has meant there is an uphill struggle to meet the needs of the users (Routledge and Gitsham, 2004). These have also had a substantial effect on the voluntary sector where I was based. My interactions with A were largely unsupervised to begin with because of a shortage of qualified staff and resources. This meant the amount of time and resources I was able to spend with any of the young people attending the service has to be made the most of. This may be why having highly skilled practitioners is vital in the face of the current political context. In the face of a double dip recession means having to economise now also extends to social workers as well (Sanderson et al., 2002). Having enough staff members to begin with would be helpful in providing one to one work usually required for person-centred planning. Even when facing such hardships , it may be crucial to have a positive attitude and have a good team to work within to feel that the work you are producing is not only of a high standard but also done collaboratively. Kydd (2004) also affirms that the solution may not always lie in having enough resources but positive together to develop conducive and appropriate working environments. This may go some way to explain how my manager supported me in this particular incident and was able to provide valuable insight into how to improve our working relationship, by being present in future work with A. It is also in line with the organisations working policy (Appendix A). Transparency is crucial to completing positive work with people in social work. Congruence is an imperative aspect of this where the worker and the service user have openness within themselves and with one another to foster trustworthiness (Platt, 2007). Though this can only happen if there is a genuine desire to be honest with one another. That the professional will not hold up a faà §ade and will be able to attend to what the service user is saying by staying in the present and remaining transparent. This may have seemed like a natural concept but was quite difficult to apply when working with A. I did not want to undermine her experience of being bullied by her peers by bringing my own personal experiences into the forefront. Yet I thought if I told her she may not feel quite so isolated which is a common feeling in teenagers with complex lives (Metzing-Blau and Schnepp, 2008). Ultimately I realised my confidence had been shattered to the point where I began to question almost ev ery piece of work I undertook with A, convinced that I would disappoint her and her mother. This led me to consider other approaches or skills I could better use with A later in my work with her. I came across cognitive-behavioural therapy which is an amalgamation of both behavioural and cognitive disciplines which emerged as a fascinating new concept in 1970s (Rachman, 1997). It addresses the thinking and emotional aspects together, and believes that behaviours can be unlearned. In this way I hoped to be able to view how A conceptualises particular events in her life. Through this I recognised the way A may view herself as she often expressed feeling low, and lack of self-esteem and self-worth. A also had a persistent habit to turn a seemingly positive situation into something negative. This enabled me to understand her experiences from a different point of view and continuous reflection helped me see how she may have needed empowering. A strengths-based approach was also researched and utilised in my work with A, which has become favourable in both direct and indirect work with service users (Rapp, 1997). This approach appealed to me as it is more service-user led, and helps them see how their strengths play a significant role in the face of their problems or crisis that they may be facing. It is quite different to other approaches in that it acknowledges a persons suffering and impairment as the result of systemic rather than just psychological drawbacks. In using this approach, this helped A to understand her ability to cope well despite the harshness of her surrounding environment and daily routine of caring for her mother. She was able to see her positive attributes, how others also recognised these which provided for a more balanced view of herself. This is also in line with social work values which places emphasis on helping the user feel empowered and in control (Value B, Topps, 2002). Since the incident I have had ample time to reflect on my work with A and how I feel about it. Different techniques and tools are used to enable reflection within the field of social work, which can help the way we relate to work, home, culture, and supported networks. Winter (1988) states that experience is not something that we store as we would on a computer, rather we story it. Similarly keeping a reflective journal is a useful technique in proactively encouraging critical reflection if done correctly (Kam-shing, 2005). This was a requirement whilst on the course, which I was not keen on at the beginning. I felt it was quite a daunting experience expressing my thoughts and feelings and could not see the benefits of this. For the duration of the placement, as my ability and knowledge of reflection improved with the help of my educator, I was able to understand how this would help me in becoming an effective practitioner. It helped to formalise my ideas, trail of thoughts and bring about a heightened sense of awareness on my own practice. This technique can be seen as embedded within a theory of reflection developed by Schà ¶n (1991). He called this reflection in action (whilst the event is occurring) and reflection on action (after the event has occurred). The journals or learning logs were primarily used after an event had occurred to understand our learning. This tool is available to evaluate the work I have undertaken and how my knowing-in-action may have had an impact on the end outcome. Thus will be able to improve on my skills and ability to reflect-in-action and recognise if there is something more to be done to help the service user. In my interactions with A and other users, I have also recognised that reflection on action is beneficial in evaluating my own practice and reflection in action to implement those lessons learnt actively. To be able to detect my own mistakes and correct these involves uncovering deeper learning. Argryis and Schà ¶n (1974) proposed that when we as people and practitioners simply only operationalize our goals rather than question them we are only applying single-loop learning. When this incident with A occurred, I looked at the different aspects such as theories, As behaviour, the organisations policies that had influenced my thoughts and perceptions and brought me to look at myself and the situation with close scrutiny and query the governing variables to enforce social change be that within myself, the organisation or A or all of these. Kolb (1984) and his reflective cycle helped me examine the structures to my reflection. He developed four stages to his cycle. These include concrete experiences, reflective observation, followed by abstract conceptualisation which includes drawing conclusions from incidents encountered and active experimentation. Active experimentation is the ability to learn from past situations and try a new approach. I think this is where I feel I continued my work with A from the very first incident in trying to utilise different approaches to help her. Using this approach also made me realise that perhaps even if the event itself may have hurt As feelings it may have raised awareness about her hygiene and brought about independence. This is also in line with Value B of the GSCC codes of practice (Topps, 2002) and with Domain 6 (Professional Capabilities Framework 2012). Group studying has been known to develop enhanced learning and reflection. Bold (2008) suggests that having a supportive group to talk through your knowledge and experience gained can generate deeper learning and increase reflective competence. In using group reflection I found that having a group to talk through my morals, beliefs and assumptions that direct my work very useful in a public and collaborative setting. It provided the opportunity to look back at a past experience from multiples perspectives and raise questions. I had not realised the grave nature of discussing ones hygiene would be so difficult, with the help of the group I was more aware of my hidden assumptions on this and how it could affect my practice. Research by Dahlgren et al. (2006) highlights the importance of group reflection and the role of a critical friend to promote empowerment to both students and teachers. This may be because it allows for the students work in an informal setting and therefore have more of a balanced working dynamics. This kind of democratic environment aids reflective learning by advancing self-knowledge. In my group learning set I came away learning more about my own assumptions about A being a carer to her mother with mental health issues meant that she may not have had facilities to aid good hygiene. The group also helped me look at other explanations for what had happened. I came to understand that whilst the issues of A smelling might have been genuine, it could have also been exacerbated by other staff and children through their own assumptions about her learning disability, and status as a young carer to a parent with mental health problems. Their behaviour and assumptions daily may have impacte d the way I saw A even though I did not agree with their views. I failed to raise this further with my manager when handed the task of telling A, as I may have also assumed here that she would know best. Much later I was introduced to the critical incident technique developed by Tripp (1993). To analyse incidents that have had a strong emotional impact on ourselves as practitioners. It entails learning to look beyond just describing to gain deeper reflection. I began to understand that my underestimation in what I had to tell A, was my own failure. This underlying assumption I later realised arose from my supervision with my manager who had assured me that disclosing this information to A would benefit her. The feedback given from my group has helped me identify areas of my reflection where there may perhaps be gaps and how I could improve on these. I felt the feedback was accurate and enriching, it helped for me to understand how they saw my situation with A and were able to offer alternative explanations for the outcomes that I had not yet explored further. Overall this assignment has aimed to demonstrate that there are a number of factors involved in practicing good social work. This is highlighted by being able to demonstrate an awareness of my own values and philosophies, how my knowledge in terms of theories can be applied to inform my own practice. I have learnt that utilising and evaluating theories have furthered my practice by eliciting my understanding and learning over time. I have gained additional skills together with multiple sources of knowledge and techniques to better help the people I have worked with. This kind of creativity is what can bring about social change and empowerment. Reflection is an integral part of social work practice and different tools like journals can augment deep learning and improve future practice. What I may have learnt from a situation initially does not mean that these are the only recommendations to take forward. Through continual reflection and critical thinking, it can help to question our j udgements and that of others and see if more can be done to change the face of social work practice.

Fidel Castro Essay -- History Biographies Papers

Fidel Castro In 1959, a rebel, Fidel Castro, overthrew the reign of Fulgencia Batista in Cuba; a small island 90 miles off the Florida coast. There have been many coups and changes of government in the world since then. Few if any have had the effect on Americans and American foreign policy as this one. In 1952, Sergeant Fulgencia Batista staged a successful bloodless coup in Cuba . Batista never really had any cooperation and rarely garnered much support. His reign was marked by continual dissension. After waiting to see if Batista would be seriously opposed, Washington recognized his government. Batista had already broken ties with the Soviet Union and became an ally to the U.S. throughout the cold war. He was continually friendly and helpful to American business interest. But he failed to bring democracy to Cuba or secure the broad popular support that might have legitimized his rape of the 1940 Constitution. As the people of Cuba grew increasingly dissatisfied with his gangster style politics, the tiny rebellions that had sprouted began to grow. Meanwhile the U.S. government was aware of and shared the distaste for a regime increasingly nauseating to most public opinion. It became clear that Batista regime was an odious type of government. It killed its own citizens, it stifled dissent. (1) At this time Fidel Castro appeared as leader of the growing rebellion. Educated in America he was a proponent of the Marxist-Leninist philosophy. He conducted a brilliant guerilla campaign from the hills of Cuba against Batista. On January 1959, he prevailed and overthrew the Batista government. Castro promised to restore democracy in Cuba, a feat Batista had failed to ac... ...ed far longer; measured American responses might have appeared well deserved to an increasing number of Cubans, thus strengthening Cuban opposition to the regime instead of, as was the case, greatly stimulating revolutionary fervor, leaving the Russians no choice but to give massive support to the Revolution and fortifying the belief among anti-Castro Cubans that the United States was rapidly moving to liberate them. The economic pressures available to the United States were not apt to bring Castro to his knees, since the Soviets were capable of meeting Cuban requirements in such matters as oil and sugar. I believe the Cuban government would have been doomed by its own disorganization and incompetence and by the growing disaffection of an increasing number of the Cuban people. Left to its own devices, the Castro regime would have withered on the vine.

Essay --

When you dial 911 for an emergency, the outcome may very well depend on the 411 – the quality of information available on your condition and ways to treat it. Everybody will experience an Emergency Room visit at some point in their life, go through the extensive admittance process and will be expected to wait for a considerable amount of time before they get treated. The treatment might not come right away depending on the severity of the injury. But have you ever wondered why this always happens? It is obvious that hospitals are always busy; you’ll see nurses always running around and hear doctors’ names being called on the PA, all of this caused by the endless amount of people that get admitted every second of the day. What people aren’t aware of is that there’s an uprising problem that’s present throughout the whole healthcare system. The healthcare industry generates massive amounts of data every day, part of which is sourced and document ed from ancient times. Not every bit of information generated has been in a format readily understood by people in the medical field. To help better acquire, document and understand this information, and to create practical guidelines and applications in today’s healthcare industry, Health Informatics has been created as a discipline. Many medical informatics systems have been developed for maintaining patient records in the doctor’s offices, clinics, and individual hospitals, and in many instances systems have been developed for distributing information among multiple hospitals and agencies. But much remains to be done to make such information systems maximally useful, issues surrounding confidentiality and ethics plus the lack of funds and training pose as the biggest challenges. The advance... ...tics to Improve Environmental Health Practice† published in the Journal of Environmental Health, asserts that the Environmental Health Specialists Network Information System (EHSNIS) program has been implemented by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Environmental Health to serve as a model of how health informatics would translate into the health environmental field. The EHSNIS’ main purpose is to accumulate data from numerous areas to track of a potential â€Å"foodborne and water-borne illness outbreak† (44). On the local to global scale an integrated informatics system would enable health professionals to detect and track natural health emergencies. More importantly this emphasizes on how the collaboration of two different organizations in making of an informatics system that could detect of a potential outbreak should serve as a model

Ernest Hemingway: Prelude To A Tragedy :: essays research papers

Ernest Hemingway’s suicide was foreseen by most who knew him well. During his lifetime, he was a very well-rounded, yet seemingly unsatidfied man. He appeared to be afraid of nothing, not even death. In fact, in many of his poems and short stories conceited on death. His hobbies included bullfighting, big game hunting, and war, which all included the same risk: death. Hemingway saw that he was predestined to die, and his only hope was to face the inevitable stoically. He set colassal expectations for himself, and he looked at himself as a failure whenever he achieved a â€Å"less than great† status. Hemingway was very accident prone, and also inclined to become ill rather frequently. Also, his father committed suicide in 1928 due to depression and health problems.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hemingway was brought up in a somewhat prestigious family, and he was urged to follow the footsteps of his parents. His mother taught him music, and made sure he was well-educated in the arts, while his father wanted him to study medicine. His parents ran a strict household, and disciplined his well as his other siblings. In his youth years, Hemingway loved to go hunting and fishing and engage in war games with his friends.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When World War I began, Hemingway wanted to go fight, but his father forbade him to. Despite his father’s wishes, he went anyway. Unfortunately, because he had less than perfect eyesight, he was not allowed to fight. Instead he accepted a job as an ambulance driver in Italy, where he got a first-hand look at death.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hemingway traveled all over the world during his lifetime, writing about his experiences and everything he saw. He married four times, his longest relationship lasting only about twelve years. As mentioned before, Hemingway was very accident prone. In World War I, he was hit by some Austrailian artillary and seriously injured his leg. After numerous operations, he ended up with two hundred and twenty-seven scars on his leg. In another incident, he was involved in a plane crash, but no one was seriously injured. They managed to call out another plane, and as soon as it took off, it also crashed. In this accident, he lost virtually all use of his kidneys, which resulted in extremely high blood pressure. He was administered drugs to keep his blood pressure down, but one of the major side effect they had on him was depression. Hemingway developed a very withdrawn, moody personality, and often talked of suicide. His last wife, with whom he was still married, was very concerned about him and sent him to the Mayo clinic to treat