The subject of social responsibility of business Essay

The subject of social responsibility of business - Essay Example Social activists argue that engagement of business in social activities of improvement is clearly moral and civic value and should be carried out without the incentive of any financial gain in mind. Efforts are being made to correlate social responsible corporate actions with financial performance. Social responsibility is approached as a continuum with five distinct levels: illegal and irresponsible companies, complaint companies, fragmented companies, Strategic and social advocacy. The Author concludes it does pay to be good but only in limited contexts. Unit of Analysis: Businesses, Ultimate Objective: To signify the correlation of social responsibility and financial performance of businesses, Source of Motivation: Socially responsible companies have been in business for long terms now. Businesses with strong cultures seem to have been better off than the businesses with weaker culture.Focus of Attention: the focus herein has been the evaluation and analysis of the Correlation between social responsibility and financial performance. Based on reading the article, the author has presented various distinct views of groups of individuals, who have in one way or the other tried to prove correlation between social responsibility and financial performance. ... stand that they do not discourage involvements of business in social welfare activities but believe that they should be carried out only if there are any financial gains in sight. Social Activists views are the fact that they perceive social responsibility is a moral value. The author defines levels of the Social responsibility continuum, used as a model. Five distinct levels have been brought into our views. Hence the author deducing the following conclusions: The companies at level 1 , not profitable at all in the long run (illegal), for level 2 (Complaint) companies compliance with legal mandates is simply a necessary condition for existence, for level 3 (Fragmented) companies act responsibly beyond complying with the law, Level 4 (Strategic) is the strongest link between the CSR and financial performance, at level 5 ( social advocacy ) is on social change rather than on profits . Furthermore at least two types of HR activities seem to be important contributors to profits. According to the author the short answer to this is that Yes it does pay to be good but under limited constraints. One other very vital issue to be noted here is that there is no evidence that companies who engage in social welfare or development without any financial gains in return face any negativity in profits. Like Wise there seems to be no evidence that suggests that businesses who do not engage in any activity other than making profits or increasing shareholders value are in any financial gains.

Irony in to Kill a Mockingbird Essay Example for Free

Irony in to Kill a Mockingbird Essay Irony: A rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is an incongruity between the literal and the implied meaning. Example: â€Å"’We are a democracy and Germany is a dictatorship†¦ Over here we don’t believe in persecuting anybody. Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced’† (329). Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird. Context: In To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, during class, little Cecil Jacobs gives his current event about Adolf Hitler to the class. Miss Gates, the teacher, takes this opportunity to teach the children a lesson about how wrong prosecuting the Jews was and how she â€Å"hate Hitler so bad† (331). Scout later finds this misleading because at the courthouse, she overheard Miss Gates telling Miss Stephanie â€Å"’it’s time somebody taught [black people] a lesson, they were getting’ way above themselves’† (331). Concept: In To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee utilizes irony to emphasize the connection between the issue of racism in Maycomb to Hitler’s intolerance for Jews. Lee applies the reference to Adolf Hitler as a representation of the discrimination in Maycomb. During a lesson, Miss Gates expresses her belief of how it was horribly erroneous Hitler’s injustice to the Jews was. Although she believes â€Å"‘[in Maycomb], we don’t believe in persecuting anybody’,† she is oblivious to the prejudice she is against because it was fairly distinct in the aftermath of Tom Robinson’s trial, that the town, in fact, does commit the act of aversion towards black people (329). Scout recalls Miss Gates telling Miss Stephanie in the courthouse after Tom Robinson’s trial, that â€Å"it’s time somebody taught [the black people] a lesson’† (331). Miss Gates contradicts herself by teaching the children a lesson about the detestable acts of persecution while she hypocritically judges the blacks harshly right in Maycomb. She herself is mirroring the actions of Hitler, persecuting the black people in her own town when she herself says that the people of Maycomb â€Å"don’t believe in persecuting anybody† (329). It is ironic because Miss Gates has these views on Hitler whereas her actions are comparable to Hitler’s. Connection: In To Kill A Mockingbird, the above example links to the characterization of the Maycomb townspeople. Their hostility reveals a darker, more lurid side to the seemingly peaceful town. The biased townspeople are very discriminating to the black people. Their hateful ways show ignorance and how they rule the community’s concept of what democracy means. When Atticus says that Tom Robinson’s case â€Å"is as simple as black and white,† he literally means it is that simple. The white people easily side with Bob Ewell’s story rather than with the truth just because it is a black man’s words. This displays their prejudice and animosity against black people.

Relationship between Assets and Liabilities on Balance Sheet

Relationship between Assets and Liabilities on Balance Sheet Cement industry indeed a very important part of industrial sector that plays a essential role in the economic development. Though the cement industry in Pakistan observed its lows and highs in recent past it improved during the last couple of years and floated once again. A basic economic decision deal with a financial intermediary is the mixture of assets to buy and liabilities to sell, a decision that reflects a complex set of economic and institutional considerations. When viewed as a decision under uncertainty, the outcomes from this decision involve interactions among the assets, among the obligations and among assets and obligations. The asset and obligation structures of cement sector of Pakistan necessarily reflect these interactions as well as many regulatory and institutional constraints unique to the cement industry. Multivariate statistical procedures such as canonical correlation analysis are being used more frequently and the methods used in thesis can be applied to other studies. The mixture of assets and liabilities chosen can be viewed as a basic portfolio theory decision. In thesis canonical correlation analysis was applied to examine the relationship between assets and liabilities made by a cross-section of 18 large cement companies of Pakistan listed in stock exchange. Canonical correlation is a multivariate statistical technique that was used to assess the nature and strength of relationship between assets and liabilities. The correlation between each set of assets and each set of liabilities indicates the relationship between assets and liabilities but all of these correlations assess the same hypothesis that assets influence liabilities. The thesis focused on firms of the Pakistans cement industry and the purposes of the thesis was to identify relationships between assets and liabilities exhibited by these corporations and to explain the nature of these relationships. The teaching of corporate finance as reflected in the major textbooks compartmental izes the decision areas of finance and within each compartment management is assumed to attempt to maximize the firms wealth, holding the other areas of the firm constant. For example, capital budgeting decisions are made given a cost of capital or required rate of return (a capital project is evaluated independent of how it is financed), or the capital structure is chosen given the character of the firms assets. Cash, receivables, and inventory balances tend to be optimized independently. There is a tradeoff between the rigor afforded by global models of the firm (such as the CAPM) versus the realism afforded by the various approaches used in the compartmented models (e.g., cash management models, equipment replacement models, leasing, etc.). Business practice has the same dilemma; complex organizations must decompose the overall wealth maximization problem into sub problems which, when solved, allow the firm to make satisfactory decisions. Business executives may be uncomfortable with an assumption of independence between investing and financing decisions for two reasons. First, even if the decisions were independent, the decisions may occur simultaneously because of the necessity of raising the funds to invest. Second and more importantly, the assumptions necessary to obtain independence may not be obtained. Several interdependencies might be anticipated between assets and liabilities: Hedging is commonplace, where firms go with maturity structure of their assets and obligations (i.e., short-term assets tend to be financed with short- term obligations and long-term assets tend to be financed with long-term obligations). Some assets are used as collateral for loans. For example, accounts receivable can be used as collateral for short-term bank loans or factor loans and real estate as collateral for mortgages. Commodity-producing firms will maintain inventories which may be financed with credit from suppliers (accounts payable) while service-providing firms may have little of either inventories or accounts payable. High risk businesses may try to manage risk by using less leverage on right hand side of balance sheet (high equity) and by maintaining larger liquidity balances on the left-hand side. This process may enable management to reduce the probability of insolvency It was the objective of the thesis to determine relationships between assets and liabilities on balance sheet exhibited by a sample cement firms of Pakistan. Canonical correlation analysis was used to identify and study the nature of relationship between the structure of the left and right hand sides of the balance sheet. Though canonical correlation analysis is very similar to discriminant and factor analysis, it has not been widely employed in finance. The variables used in this study are, Cash, Account Receivable, Inventories, Long-term Assets, Account Payable, Short-term Debt, long-term Debt and Share Holder Equity. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Stowe,John D,Watson,Collin J Robertson ,Terry D (1980) observed the relationship between assets and liabilities with the help of canonical correlation analysis. The purpose of research was to identify relations between the two sides of balance sheet (Assets and liabilities) revealed by the corporations and to explain the nature of these relationships. Data from balance sheet for a cross-section of firms was used in the study. For each firm / corporation, a general size (or percentage breakdown) balance sheet was constructed with 4 asset and 4 liability accounts. A big diversity of balance sheet structures was present between 510 firms. A number of remarkable relationships were found in the study i.e. inventories were positively correlated with accounts payable and long-term assets were correlated with long-term debt. On the other hand, stockholders equity was not highly correlated with any of the asset proportions. An independence of asset and liability composition of the firm is tilted in much modern financial theory, the independence of investing and financing decision is a prominent part of Modigliani and Millers classic capital structure research. Though the distribution of financing and investment decision is an invaluable assumption which greatly makes simpler many business financial decisions, real balance sheets of modern corporations do not exhibit independence between assets and obligations on balance sheet. The aim of the study was (1) to recognize relationships between t assets, obligations and equity on a balance sheet reveal by these firms and (2) to clarify the nature of these relationships. Independence of liability and asset composition is explicit in Modigliani and Millers capital structure proposition. In their article, they exhibited that, given a flow of risky earnings; the firms total market value and cost of capital are independent of capital structure. The education of corporate finance, as imitated in the major textbooks, compartmentalizes the decision spots of finance and, within each box, management is assumed to effort to maximize the firms wealth, holding the other spots of the firm stable. For example, capital budgeting decisions are made given a cost of capital or required rate of return (a capital project is evaluated independent of how it is financed), or the capital structure is chosen given the character of the firms assets. Cash, receivables, and inventory balances tend to be optimized independently. There is a tradeoff between the rigors afforded by global models of the firm (such as the CAPM) versus the realism afforded by the various approaches used in the compartmented models (e.g., cash management models, equipment replacement models, leasing, etc.). Business practice has the same dilemma; complex organizations must decompose the overall wealth maximization problem into sub problems which, when solved, allow the fi rm to make satisfactory decisions. Business executives may be uncomfortable with an assumption of independence between investing and financing decisions for two reasons. First, even if the decisions were independent, the decisions may occur simultaneously because of the necessity of raising the funds to invest. Second and more importantly, the assumptions necessary to obtain independence may not be obtained. Several interdependencies might be anticipated between the assets and liabilities, those are, (1) Hedging is commonplace, where firms go with maturity structure of their assets and obligations (i.e., short term assets tend to be financed with short term obligations and long-term assets tend to be financed with long-term obligations), (2) some assets are used as collateral for loans. For example, accounts receivable can be used as collateral for short-term bank loans or factor loans and real estate as collateral for mortgages, (3) commodity-producing firms will maintain inventories which may be financed with credit from suppliers (accounts payable) while service providing firms may have little of either inventories or accounts payable and (4) high risk businesses may try to manage risk by using less leverage on right hand side of balance sheet (high equity) and by maintaining larger liquidity balances on the left hand side. This process may enable management to reduce the probability of insolvency. It was the intent of the study to determine relationship between assets and lia bilities on balance sheet are exhibited by a sample of large corporations. Canonical correlation analysis was used to identify and examine the nature of relationships between the structures of the left- and right-hand sides of the balance sheet. While canonical correlation analysis is very similar to discriminate and factor analysis, it has not been widely employed in finance. There were two general conclusions of study. The first basic purpose of study was satisfied that there are basic relationships between assets and obligations on a balance sheet which were identified with canonical correlation analysis. The assumptions behind much of modern financial theory allow us to separate investing and financing decisions. Relaxation of these assumptions can admit interdependencies between assets and obligations and several interdependencies were found in our empirical study. These relationships across the balance sheet include (1) hedging, (2) the use of collateral for loans, (3) invento ries associated with accounts payable, and (4) manage risk with instantaneous use of inferior leverage and larger liquidity balances. The capital structure research since M and Ms original irrelevance argument has attempted to utilize the effect of the current value of interest tax shelter due to debt financing and the effect of expected bankruptcy costs on the firms optimal capital structure. The interdependencies between assets and liabilities found in this empirical study could be incorporated into models of capital structure. The second general conclusion was to recommend canonical correlation analysis of financial statement data for other research topics. Much of the published empirical research concerning financial statements is on topics with a single, well defined dependent variable; these topics would include predicting bankruptcy, bond ratings, or loan defaults and explaining market risk measures. Canonical analysis, where there is a set of dependent variables, would allow empirical analysis to proceed where no unique variable can be chosen as the dependent variable. Furthermore, variables which are linear combinations of financial statement proportions might be employed instead of the usual financial ratios.7 Canonical variate scores for a firm could be associated with its bond ratings, probability of default, or systematic risk. These topics usually have been investigated using financial ratios as predictor variables Stowe,John D Watson,Collin J(1985) did the multivariate analysis on balance sheet composition of life insurer. The purpose of that analysis was to study the empirical relationships between the assets and obligations structure of the life insurer. The assets and liabilities mixture that chosen by life insurer can be viewed in terms of basic portfolio theory decisions. Canonical correlation analysis was used by the researcher to study or examine the internal structure of these portfolio decisions that was made by a cross section of large life insurers. The financial intermediaries study, such as life insurers, is distinguished from that of nonfinancial businesses for several causes. First, the financial intermediaries assets consists just about entirely of financial assets as opposed to the real assets that bulk large on the balance sheets of nonfinancial businesses. As suggested by Moore B. J (1968) in his article an introduction to the theory of finance that the financial assets dif fer from tangible assets; the financial assets are intangible and they are held for the income they generate as opposed to the direct physical services they yield; financial assets are more liquid and finally financial assets can be more freely converted from one form to another while real assets are indurate. A second difference between intermediaries and nonfinancial businesses involves the nature of their obligations. Financial intermediaries accumulate loan able funds through issuing a variety of claims. For example, the commercial banks and life insurers claims are quite different from the obligations issued by nonfinancial corporations. A final significant difference between financial intermediaries and other businesses is that the intermediaries normally are more seriously regulated and sometimes are subject to separate taxation from other firms and individuals. Like other intermediaries life insurers have been the subjects of a range of empirical research projects. J. D (197 3) Cummins in his article An econometric model of the life insurance sector of the U.S economy and J. E Pesando, in his article The interest sensitivity of the Flow of funds through life insurance companies presented an econometric analysis for the comprehensive flow of funds through the life insurance sector. J.D Stowe (1978) in his article examines the investments of individual life insurers in a cross-sectional, time-series study. The basic operational hypothesis for the study on balance sheet composition of life insurer was that a number of categories of assets on the left hand side of life insurer balance sheets had more than one pattern of correlations when they are associated with several liability and surplus classes from right hand side of balance sheet. In addition to testing this hypothesis, the natures of the relationships between assets and obligations were examined and the strength of the multivariate relationship was anticipated. The structure of life insurer assets w as explained as a function of the structure of the other side of the balance sheet and of some additional firm specific variables. In this study it was necessary to predict several criterion variables simultaneously by means of a second set of predictor variables. Under these circumstances, no single regression equation can presented a fully adequate solution. Any linear combination of the criteria may be used as the dependent variable in a regression equation, and in general not one but a number of regression equations must be used to give an appropriate picture. The problem of finding linear combinations of the criterion variables that can be most accurately predicted from the predictor variables was solved by H. Hotelling in his article The most predictable criterion commonly known as canonical correlation analysis. G. Donald Simonson, D. J Stow, and J. Collin Watson (1983) analyzed a canonical correlation analysis between assets and liabilities structure of commercial banks in. They analyze the balance sheets of all 435 domestic U.S banks with assets in excess of $300 million at year end 1979. Data was taken from the December 31, 1979 Foreign and domestic Report of Condition files prepared on magnetic tape by the three federal bank supervisory agencies. They limited the analysis to large banks for two reasons. First, smaller banks do not have the talent or market position to aggressively practice liabilities management and therefore their balance sheets are not as likely to reflect differentiated policies relative to bearing interest rate risk. Second, the three federal agencies require only banks with assets over $300 million to report maturities of both de posits and selected loans, as well as a breakdown of loans in to those with predetermined versus floating interest rates. These large bank data permit us to construct several key balance sheet accounts on the basis of interest sensitivity. Six asset and six liability/capital categories were expressed a s a proportion of total assets for each of the 435 banks in the study. The purpose of a study was to identify and describe the relationship including heading behavior of a single dependent variable as a function of a set of independent variables, canonical correlation analysis relates two sets of variables. In the present case one set of variables is the composition of the left hand side of the balance sheet and the other set is the right hand side. The variables used in this study are asset and liability/ capital categories expressed as proportion of total bank assets. These portions were used in lieu of the more usual financial ratios and no information exogenous to the bank was employed. During the past two years bankers and bank analysts have been concerned about how interest rate risk is derived from cross balance sheet relationships. The mismatching of maturities or interest sensitivities whether interest sensitive assets financed with long term liabilities or long term assets financed with interest sensitive liabilities creates interest rate risk. For example high interest rates and a downward sloping yield curve, one whose short term rates exceed long term rates for borrowers of similar creditworthiness, especially expose institutions which pursue the traditional financial intermediation formula of borrow short lend long. In commercial banking, the exposure is greatest for banks which finance fixed rate term loans and long term fixed income securities with short term funds at money market rates. Banks can defend themselves against this exposure by practicing asset/liability management; by coordinating their procurement of funds and acquisition of assets. There was early theoretical appreciation of the necessity for management of the maturities of asset and liability portfolios. In a simple three variable model D.H Pyle (1971) in his article theory of financial intermediation shows that assuming banks maximize the expected utility of terminal wealth, ba nks choices of assets (liability) portfolio will be conditioned upon the parameters, including maturity, of their liability (assets) portfolios (given nonzero covariance of liability and assets yields). According to the applied asset/liability management dictum, banks with volatile short term interest sensitive source of funds should attempt to structure their asset portfolios to emphasize short term and floating rate movements and in general maturities of asset and liability portfolios should be matched. Such banks can be said to adopt defensive loan portfolios. Other banks by their nature are less dependent on short term market rate funds and are in a better position to offer fixed rate loan terms to borrowers their customers provide a relatively large core of stable savings and time deposits with average interest costs well below current market rates. As result these banks have to be free to acquire long term assets at predetermined interest rates that are they can adopt aggressi ve loan portfolios. HO, T.S.Y in his article (1980) The determinants of bank interest margin showed that balance sheet hedging is a rational response to interest margin uncertainty which results from the interplay between volatile interest rates and asset and liability structural interrelationships. Their research attempts to find evidence of such asset/ liability hedging practices among U.S banks during a period of high and volatile interest rates and a downward sloping yield curve. If banks in aggregate tend to hedge interest sensitive funds with core funds, the banking industry would appear to be coping appropriately with interest rate risk. On the other hand, if there is a systematic tendency for many banks to combine fixed rate long term assets with volatile short term funds, the industry might be excessively exposed to interest rate risk. The issue of capital adequacy also concerned with the comparative maturity structure and duration of the two sides of the balance sheet. S.T. Maisel and R. Jacobson in his article Interest rate changes and commercial banks revenues and costs they showed that over the period 1962 to 1975 for the average bank, the threat of insolvency due to the instability of economic returns stemmed primarily from the mismatch of asset and liability durations. They concluded that unheeded interest rate risk might require additional equity capital. Other sources of risk, such as default risk, would dictate a positive relationship between the amount invested in riskier loans and securities and the amount of equity capital. Research was limited because data on the market values of asset and liability items are not available. Presumably, potential changes in cross balance sheet market values are transmitted to changes in the market value of the firm. There was a considerable literature addressing asset-l iability management in banks. One of the key motivators of asset-liability management worldwide was the Basel group. The Basel group Banking Supervision (2001) formulated broad supervisory standards and guidelines and recommended statements of best practice in banking supervision. The purpose of the committee was to encourage global convergence toward common approaches and standards. In particular, the Basel II norms (2004) were proposed as an international standard for the amount of capital that banks require setting to the side to protect against the types financial and operational risks they face. Basel II proposed setting up accurate risk and capital management necessities designed to make sure that a bank holds capital reserves suitable to the risk banks picture their self to throughout its lending and investment practice. In general, these regulations mean that the larger risk to which the bank is showing, the larger the amount of capital the bank requires to hold to defend it s solvency and whole economic strength. This would ultimately help to defend the international monetary system from the kind of problems that may take place should a major bank or a sequence of banks collapse. Gardner and Mills (1991) discussed the principles of asset-liability management as a part of banks strategic planning and as a response to the changing environment in prudential direction, e-commerce and new taxation treaties. Their text provided the foundation of subsequent discussion on asset-liability management. Haslem (1999) used canonical analysis and the interpretive structure of asset/liability management to identify and interpret the foreign and domestic balance sheet approach of large U.S. banks. Their study found that the least money-making very large banks have the biggest size of foreign loans, yet they give emphasis to domestic balance sheet (asset/liability) matching strategies. on the other hand, the most money-making very large banks have the smallest size of foreign loans, but, however, they emphasize foreign balance sheet matching strategies. Vaidyanathan (1999) discussed issues in asset-liability management and elaborates on various categories of risk that require to be managed in the Indian context. In the past Indian banks were primarily concerned about adhering to statutory liquidity ratio norms but in the changed situation, namely moving away from administered interest rate structure to market determined rates, it became important for banks to equip themselves with some of these techniques, in order to immunize them selves against interest rate risk. Vaidyanathan argued that the problem gets accentuated in the context of change in the main liability structure of the banks, namely the maturity period for term deposits. For instance, in 1986, nearly 50% of term deposits had a maturity period of more than five years and only 20%, less than two years for all commercial banks, while in 1992, only 17% of term deposits were more than five years whereas 38% were less than two years Vaidyanath. It was found that several banks had inadequate and inefficient management systems. Also argued that Indian banks were more exposed to international markets, especially with respect to forex transactions, so that asset liability management was essential, as it would enable the bank to maintain its exposure to foreign currency fluctuations given the level of risk it can handle. It was also found that an increasing proportion of investments by banks were being recorded on a market to market basis, thus being exposed to market risks. Is was also suggested that, as bank profitability focus has increased over the years, there is an increasing possibility that the risk arising out of exposure to interest rate volatility would be built into the capital adequacy norms specified by the regulatory authorities, thus in turn requiring efficient asset-liability management practices. Vaidya and Shahi (2001) studied asset-liability management in Indian banks. They suggested in particular that interest rate risk and liquidity ris k are two key inputs in business planning process of banks. Using firm-level data, an extensive accounting literature focuses on the contemporaneous correlation of stock returns and earnings. Despite the statistically reliable positive association between stock returns and earnings, Ball and Brown (1968), Beaver, Clarke, and Wright (1979), Beaver, Lambert, and Morse (1980), Easton and Harris (1991), Collins, Kothari, Shanken, and Sloan (1994), and others find that the explained fraction of stock return variation was significantly less than one (typically under 10 percent). Lev (1989) and others suggest that the relatively low explanatory power stems from earnings lack of timeliness and/or value-irrelevant noise in earnings. The idea that correlation between a cash-flow proxy and stock return may be due to any of the three components was not novel. Fama (1990), Schwert (1990), Kothari and Shanken (1992), Campbell and Ammer (1993), and others recognize that when stock returns are regressed on cash flow proxies, any of the three effects may be d riving the regression coefficients. They do not, however, clearly quantify the relative importance of these three effects. Thus, in the end, it is still unclear why cash-flow proxies are or are not related to stock returns. The fundamental subject of working capital is to provide optimal balance between each element forming working capital. Most of the efforts of finance directors in a firm are the efforts they make to carry the balance between current assets not at optimal level and responsibilities to an optimal level Lamberson (1995). One reason for this was the decisive influence of current assets on others, another reasons was liabilities of completion of present responsibilities. The combination of the elements forming working capital are change over time. Need for working capital manipulate liquidity stage and profitability of a company. As a result, it affects investment and financing decisions, too. Amount of current assets to be calculated at a level where total cost is of a least degree means an optimal working capital level. The optimal working capital point is case wherein balance between risk and effectiveness is provided.. The entire current assets hold by a firm known as working capital. Net working capital is calculated when short term obligations are took out from current assets. Return of total assets of a firm as a result of an activity is closely related to level and distribution of assets of the firm and efficiency in application of these assets. In lots of firms current assets called working capital make up of a remarkable part of community assets. (Note 1) But it is clear that working capital is ignored in finance journalism compare to long term financing decision. Corporate finance studies usually concentrate on core decisions like, dividend, capital structure and capital budgeting. Though, the sum of assets group is a important part of entire asset and called working capital (inventories, quasi money and money. short term liabilities and trade receivables) is a focus matter in all main books relating to corporate finance where efficiency level of distribution and application of assets influe nce profitability and risk level of the company. The major purpose of a company is to increase the market worth. Working capital management influence profitability of the company, its risk and thus its value Smith, (1980). Further, effective management of working capital is a key component of the broad strategy aim to increase the market rate (Westhead and Howorth (2003). Since the flexibility of this group of assets is very high in terms of adapting to changing conditions and due to these uniqueness they can frequently be applied to understand the major aim of financial management through policy changes. Success of a firm mainly depends on efficient management capability of finance director to manage receivables, inventories and liabilities (Filbeck and Krueger, 2005). Firms can strengthen their funding capabilities or decrease the source cost reducing source amount they allocate to current assets. In finance literature there is a common opinion about the importance of working capi tal management. Explanations about why effective capital management is important for a company usually concentrate on the association between effectiveness in working capital management and company profitability. Effective working capital management includes controlling and planning of present assets and liabilities in such a way it avoid extreme investments in current assets and prevents from working with few currents assets insufficient to fulfill the responsibilities. In relevant studies the measure taken as an indicator of efficiency in working capital management is generally cash conversion cycle. For firm cash conversion cycle is the period during which it is transited from money to good and again to money. In the studies conducted by Shin and Soenen (1998), Deloof (2003), Raheman and Nasr (2007) and Teruel and Solano (2007) it was concluded that there is a negative relationship between profitability of a firm and cash conversion cycle. Thus, it is possible to increase firm profitability through more effective working capital management. It is necessary to realize that major basics of cash conversion cycle (short term account receivables, short term trade liabilities and inventories) should be managed in a way they maximize firm profitability. An efficient working capital management will increase free cash flows to the firm and growth opportunities and returns of stockholders. Working capital level of a firm indicates that it wants to take a risk. The more working capital amounts, the liquidity risk and profitability become lower. The working capital strategies of firms differ according to the segments and within each segment it varies over time Filbeck and Krueger (2005). Ganesan (2007), put forward that the firms in less competitive sectors focus on cash conversion minimizing receivables, while the firms in more competitive sectors have a relatively higher level of receivables. Lazaridis and Tryfonidis (2005) stated that small firms focus on inventory management, the firms with low profitability on credit management. Statements in literature of finance about the significance of working capital for companies are being once further emphasized in these unstable days of international economy. While firms make efforts to increase return on assets in a way they pay their due obligations as late as possible and keep the cash, decreases in activ

malaria Essay -- essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is one of the ten deadliest diseases of all time. It effects men, women, children, and animals. It is in full force in Africa, India, Asia, China, South America, and the Caribbean. This disease is malaria. Nearly 40 percent of the world’s population lives in areas that are effected by the disease.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Malaria is a serious, infectious disease spread by certain mosquitoes. It is caused by infection with the Plasmodium genus of the protozoan parasite. More than one hundred species of this parasite exist. It is capable of infecting reptiles, birds, rodents, and primates. Four species infect human beings, the most common being P.vivax and P. falciparum.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many animals can get malaria but human malaria does not spread to animals. In turn, animal malaria does not spread to humans. A person becomes infected with malaria when bitten by a female mosquito who pocesses the malaria parasite. The parasite enters the blood stream and travels to the liver, where they multiply. When they re-emerge into the blood stream symptoms appear. By the time most symptoms show up, the parasites have reproduced very rapidly, clogging blood vessels and rupturing cells.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Malaria cannot be casually transmitted. Instead an infected mosquito bites someone with it, and then passes the disease on to the next person bit. It is also possible to spread malaria through contaminated needles or in bl...

Health policy, law and ethics Essay

For the purpose of this assignment I will look at the legal and ethical aspects involved in the following scenario and this will be discussed. I will take into consideration both the deontological and consequentialism theory. Laws relevant to this scenario will be looked at. Scenario To maintain confidentiality the name of the patient has been changed. The patient D is 60 years old male who had kidney cancer he had been admitted to the hospital for further treatment. On the following investigation the patient had been diagnosed with the last stages of cancer which meant it had spread into the surrounding tissue. Prognoses were poor, palliative was to be offered. The family had requested that the patient should not be informed therefore, D was not aware about his current condition. The patient could not understand why medical staff only made him comfortable and were not taking a different approach to his treatment. Consequently, he lost faith in the staff and his will to live and refused everything that was given to him. The nurses made a decision to inform him of his terminal illness, believing this to be in his best interest. He understood the situation and expressed a wish to die at home. Legal aspects The situation that the nurses faced in this scenario was uncomfortable for both the patient and the healthcare professionals. The nurses had a dilemma of legal and ethical aspects on one hand, and patient’s legal rights on other hand. In any discussion of ethical issues in medicine, legal aspects may arise. Both of them set standards of conduct, where law often shows a â€Å"kind of minimal ethical societal consensus† (Emanuel et.al. 1999, p2). The study of law expresses a process of legal thinking and applying legal doctrine to the real-life situation in the healthcare setting (Flight and Meacham 2011). A deontology comes from the Greek term â€Å"deon†, meaning â€Å"duty† (Jones and Beck 1996). White and Baldwin (2004) state, deontological is fundamental in medicine as it means â€Å"do no harm† and â€Å"act in the patients’ best interest† (p.54). Using deontology approach in this case, healthcare providers were following the rule â€Å"Act in the patients’ best interest†. The problem that occurred in this situation is that it was difficult for the healthcare professionals as from a legal point of view the  patient had a right to know the truth if he wish. The NHS Constitution (2013) states, that a patient has the right â€Å"to be involved in discussions and decisions about his the health and care, including end of life care, and they be given information to enable the patient to do this† (p.9). Healthcare professionals were acting according to the Hippocratic Oath and following a set of rules, which are established as a framework of the NHS. One of the rules states, that nurses must â€Å"safeguard and promote interests of individual patients and client† (Tingle and Cribb 2007, p.16). Medical professionals must always act in the best interest of the patient. However, difficulty may be experienced in certain situations as the borderline between legal issues and ethics is narrow. The important professional concept of nursing is accountability for their actions to deliver appropriate care for their patients. This accountability is applicable in the legal context and important professionally, it is based on knowledge and un derstanding. Therefore, legally it is closely related to negligence and duty of care (Young 1995). In this scenario the nurses felt that they were acting as an advocate for the patient by following the rules. Montgomery (1995), state that accountability, responsibility and duty of care are closely linked. Irrespective of professional standing responsibilities, healthcare staff are still accountable, with regard to duty of care within the expectation of their job (Fletcher and Buka 1999). In this case, the patient’s anxiety could have been alleviated if he had been fully informed of the severity of his medical condition. This would then enable him to understand and accept this news, and would not lead the further complications in his psychological condition. Kravitz and Melnikow (2001) suggest that patient’s participation in the decision making process about their care is necessary. Analysing this situation I felt that patient D had a lack of autonomy. A patient should be fully informed about the diagnosis, and consent should be obtained for the treatment proposed; otherwise the autonomous being would be disregarded (Fletcher et al 1995). The importance of patient autonomy came from Nuremberg Trials codes of ethics, which was established in 1948 and stated that â€Å"The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential† (Washington 1949 p.181). The autonomy of D was disregarded by his family as they believed it would not be beneficial for him to know the truth. However, D had the capacity to make autonomous  decisions, such as whether or not he wanted to receive information about his current condition. Ethical aspects The issue that medical staff came across was to respect patient’s autonomy that had been breached in the described situation. Pearson et al (2005) states that patients are individuals, they have the right to be involved in making the decision process about themselves and their future. This belief refers to patient autonomy which is defined as freedom of making decisions within their limits of competency. Being unaware of his medical condition patient D had been deprived of his autonomy. Hendrick (2004) described autonomy as the ability to think about their lives and act accordingly to a chosen set of rules. Respecting autonomy means treating a person as an individual, involving him in discussion about his planned treatment, allowing him make his own decision. This is an essential part of any document of patients’ rights. O’Connell et al (2010) states that there are some ethical principles in nursing which include two important elements such as beneficence and non -maleficence. Both of them have significant implications for nurses. Hendrick (2000) supporting this view states that, in healthcare settings beneficence appears to be a straight forward term, and means to do â€Å"good†. In this situation there had arisen a massive ethical dilemma, and to choose the right approach to do â€Å"good† was not very easy for nurses. From one side, we had the patient who was not suitable for any medical treatment, as he was terminally ill but still had the right for palliative care, hence staff had to comply with all ethical principles. One of them was beneficence, as it seemed beneficial in the beginning not to tell the patient the truth about his condition, according to his family wishes. The family believed that patient D’s unawareness of reality would help him cope with his progressive illness. However, nurses whose responsibility it was to protect the patient from psychological stress and follow another ethical principle, which is non-malefice nce. Beauchamp and Childress (2009) state that, the principle of non-maleficence dictates an obligation not to harm. Both beneficence and non-maleficence were described in the Hippocratic Oath as â€Å"I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgement, and I  will do no harm or injustice to them† (Greek medicine 2010). The patient D’s reaction to the atmosphere surrounding him determined the medical staff to change the original approach to his care and give him the correct information about his prognosis. Respect should be shown to the patient; a simple obligation to give him a realistic picture of his condition. The patient had a right to know the truth, as he was approaching the end of his life. He might need to discuss some questions with his family and carers in order to arrange his affairs (Nicoll 1997). Basford and Slevin (1999) state, the principles of autonomy and justice as, are vital in healthcare practice and are dominant in many arguments within medical and nursing ethics. Consequently, there is a conflict bet ween the patient’s right to know and the carers’ duty of care. Honesty is an important part of any relationship. Jeffrey (2006) suggests that â€Å"communication would become meaningless if there was no overriding moral obligation to be truthful† (p. 64). Conclusion In any ethical dilemma healthcare staff should follow the government polices according to the Code of Conduct. As they are responsible for peoples’ health and have an honour to represent the National Healthcare Service, therefore, they cannot take any situation emotionally and personally. The healthcare professionals’ attitude to clinical judgement seemed to have increased during the last decade. Considering this, healthcare staff were taking into account new views of recognition of patient rights, to make an autonomous choice. The patient D had an opportunity for choice and made a decision to die at home. The argument in this situation was that all medical professionals should be telling the truth whether or not the patient’s family agreed. In this case I believe the medical staff were acting professionally and the patient received the attention he required in time, and there were no regrets afterwards. References: Basford and Slevin (1999) Theory and practice of Nursing Cheltenham: UK Beauchamp and Childress (2009) Principles of biomedical ethics (6th edition) New York: US Emanuel L, von Gunten C and Ferris F (1999). The Education for Physicians on End-of-life Care (EPEC) curriculum: US Fletcher N, Hold J, Brazier M and Harris J (1995) Ethics, Law and nursing Manchester: UK Flight M and Meacham M (2011) Law, Liability, and Ethics for Medical Office Professionals Delmar (5th edition): US Greek Medicine (2010) Hippocratic Oath: translated by North M Online at: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html [Accessed on: 21/03/14] Hendrick J (2000) Law and ethics in nursing and healthcare Cheltenham: UK Hendrick J (2004) Ethics and Law Cheltenham: UK Jones R and Beck S (1996) Decision making in nursing Delmar: US Kour N and Rauff A (1992) Informed patient consent-historical perspective and a clinician’s view Singapore Med 33(1): 44–6 Kravitz R and Melnikow J (2001) Engaging patients in medical decision making. British Medical Journal 323: 584-585. Nicoll L (1997) Perspectives on Nursing Theory New York: US O’Connell S, Bare B, Hinkle J, and Cheeveret K (2010) Textbook of Medical-surgical Nursing (12th edition) Philadelphia: US Pearson A, Vaughan B, Vaughan B, FitzG erald M and Washington D (1949) â€Å"Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law 10 (2): 181-182 Online at: http://history.nih.gov/research/downloads/nuremberg.pdf [Accessed on 11/03/2014] The NHS Constitution (2013) Online at: http://www.nhs.uk/choiceintheNHS/Rightsandpledges/NHSConstitution/Documents/2013/the-nhs-constitution-for-england-2013.pdf [accessed on 10/03/2014] Tingle J and Cribb A (2007) Nursing law and Ethics (3rd edition) Oxford: UK White S and Baldwin T (2004) Legal and Ethical aspects of Anaesthesia critical care and perioperative medicine. Cambridge: UK Bibliography: George J. Annas Edward R and Michael A. Grodin (1992) The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human . Oxford: US Morrison E (2010) Ethics in Health Administration: A Practical Approach for Decision Makers (2nd edition) London: UK

Leadership and power Essay

We have described power as the capacity to cause change and influence as the degree of actual change in a target’s behaviors. Ho Ching’s power as a leader has been recognized by many, but would you describe Ho Ching as an influential leader? Why? Yes Ho Ching would be an influential leader because she has the capabilities to persuade others to follow her lead 2.Based on the excerpt from Ho Ching’s speech, what type of tactics does she use to influence the behavior of others? Ho Ching use coercive power to direct her followers 3. Ho Ching has been named one of the most powerful leaders in Asia. What are her major sources of power? Her major resource of power came mainly on her connections mostly her husband Review the Leader Motives in Ch. 5 of Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience. How would you characterize Ho Ching’s motives? Her motives were to build a better relationship with India and help Singapore grow. Review Highlight 5.3 in Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience. What role, if any, do managerial differences based on gender play here? There are managerial differences based on gender Females tend to act with the organization’s broad interests in attempt mind, consider how others felt about the influence, involve others in planning, and focus on both the task and interpersonal aspects of the situation. Male managers, on the other hand, were more likely to act out of self-interest, show less consideration for how others might feel about the influence attempt, work alone in developing their strategy, and focus primarily on the task alone. Malemanagers, on the other hand, were more likely to act out of self-interest, show less consideration for how others might feel about the influence attempt, work alone in developing their strategy, and focus primarily on the task alone. Female managers were less likely than male managers to compromise or negotiate during their influence attempts. The female managers were actually more likely to persist in trying to persuade their superiors, even to the point of open opposition. Although their managerial styles were different neither group was more effective than the other.