The Case of Mann Gulch Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

The Case of Mann Gulch - Essay Example Mr. Dodge is seen to portray poor leadership in a number of ways. First and foremost, he took out his team on a mission without even proper familiarization with his crew members. He never knew even the names of the crew members but was supposed to command them. He only came to learn of their names in the field. Secondly, he was a quiet person which even made it had for him to build mutual and collaborative interactions with his crew. Thirdly, he never kept his crew intact by providing unified leadership. There were many cases of disunity that he was not sensitive to. Lastly, he was supposed to make his crew aware of his decisions which left them wondering the reason why he was lighting a backfire. Their decisions were out of ignorance. Some other people see the fault to this problem in poor training of the crew members. Despite the fact that smoke jumpers are highly trained individuals, the crew on the Mann Gulch fire case lacked experience in firefighting. Most of the people on the crew were young people who had lacked any form of experience in firefighting fire. This explains the reason why they panic was too high for them making them come up with wrong decisions. In this case, research made by urban fighters on the performance of firefighters showed that experienced firefighters have their performance improved under high stress and uncertainty while those inexperienced have their performance decline under such conditions. This level of panic was also amplified by the level of disintegration witnessed in the crew. In such a case, it is very difficult to follow orders. On matters of recommended approaches, it is important that crew leadership familiarizes with crew members and agree on collaborative operation before setting out on a mission.

Four wheel steering Vs Front wheel Steering Assignment

Four wheel steering Vs Front wheel Steering - Assignment Example The vehicle is symmetrical about the x-z axis; 2. The vehicle’s total mass  is lumped; 3. The vehicle’s roll axis is fixed and ; 4. The road’s surface conditions are consistent throughout the modelling; 5. Small angle approximations apply to the vehicle’s motion. The dynamics of the 4WS vehicle system can be divided broadly into three categories which are: 1. Tyre side forces; 2. Yaw moments; 3. Roll moments. These aspects of the steering system will be investigated separately based on three kinds of steering systems which are the 2WS (two wheel steering) with front wheel steering, 4WS under 40 km/h where the wheels are steered in opposite phases and 4WS over 40 km/h where the wheels are steered in the same phase. The three modes of steering and the relevant dynamics and motion investigation are discussed below. 2. Vehicle Dynamics Where: The variables ,  and  all represent various kinds of disturbances that may affect the lateral, yaw and roll d irections such as drag effects, side wind gusts, braking on ice, modelling uncertainties, loads, a flat tyre, an uneven road etc. These external disturbances may exert a sizeable influence in certain circumstances but for the sake of this investigation these disturbances will be neglected. The longitudinal forces  are related to the wheels’ rotational model and these forces can be described by denoting them as: Where  is the effective rotational inertia that includes all related drive train effects. The lateral forces  are non-linear functions that can be described using the magic formula as below: Where   are six different coefficients that depend on the vehicle load  and the camber angles  and . In order to study the dynamic behaviour of the vehicle model being investigated under the assumptions that the side slip angle is small under regular driving conditions, the equation listed above can be linearized and written as: The tyre slip angles presented in the notation above can be written as: If the roll angle is assumed to be small then  and . In this case the equations listed above can be linearized as below: Similarly: And: If the vehicle is considered to be travelling under constant velocity conditions in a steady state fashion then  = 0 and the longitudinal force  displayed by the wheels can be approximated as: The dynamics of the involved actuator can also be represented as a linear first order lag system that can be described as: Where: And: Using the equations listed above a descriptor system can be obtained that possesses the form listed below: Where: The matrix inverse operation can then easily be used in tandem with the matrices presented above to produce a linear time invariant system that is described as below: The system above can now be easily modelled as a state space system in MATLAB in order to see how the system behaves when subjected to different steering angles and speeds. The parameters of interest are the lateral velocity, the yaw rate and the roll angle. 3. MATLAB Simulation The space state system was simulated as such in MATLAB for a host of combinations. The input steering angles were investigated for two wheel steering (2WS) and four wheel steering (4WS) systems for the yaw rate, the lateral velocity and the roll angle for limits of vehicle speed above and below 40 kilometres per hour. The 2WS system was investigated as such both above and below 4

How Does Corruption Effect International Development Politics Essay

How Does Corruption Effect International Development Politics Essay Corruption is omnipresent in society and is taking total control over the minds of citizens at an alarming rate. Even though actions are being taken worldwide, corruption is still a main issue of concern for world leaders and prestigious organizations like the United Nations and the Southern African Development Community. With reference to several surveys carried out by great economists, psychologists and watchdog bodies around the world, we have carried out this project to investigate how far corruption affects development and creates inequality in Mauritian society. However due to time and word constraints, we have preferred to focus on the Mauritian society. [Introduction] Corruption may be simply defined as The abuse of public or private office for personal gain (Prevention of Corruption Act 2002) or The abuse of authority for personal gain (Independent Commission Against Corruption, Hong Kong) Bribery, favoritism, helotism, extortion and embezzlement and use of influence are examples of acts of corruption. Corruption is omnipresent in the society. However, many people do not realize that corruption is having a great and deep impact on our Mauritian society. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider and wider with corruption and this is also hindering our economic progress. Corruption may thus be compared to a cancer which needs to be controlled at all cost before it spreads dangerously and threaten the very fabric of our democratic nation. As the saying goes, An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, both public and private sectors in Mauritius or even worldwide should work together in the battle against corruption- a fight against corrupt individuals, practices and systems. This strategy will help to enhance good governance and transparency in the economical mechanisms throughout the world. Risks of bribery and extortion between the private and public sectors as well as private companies should be minimized. Each organization should establish its own anti-corruption policies and strategies; corruption-prevention checkups should be reinforced and systems improved. The help of foreign fraud specialists and consultants should definitely be solicited if positive results want to be seen. The Mauritian ICAC adopts a three-pronged strategy to fight corruption, namely, through law enforcement, education and prevention. Its vision: Mauritius-our home, clean and fair. ICAC needs support and cooperation and commitment of the national population to succeed in its fight against corruption. The ICAC acts independently, impartially, fairly and in the sole interest of the public. Such organizations are one major step in the cleansing process of the society; in eradicating corruption. Corruption prevention programs can help increase confidence in such organizations. They enhance integrity in the organization financial reporting and promote the development of an ethical culture while ensuring transparency and good governance. However, risks of corruption can rarely be completely eliminated. The boards of organizations, and not sole individual, must constantly be alert about these types of risks. Only then shall acts of corruption diminish and society progress. Chapter 1 [why corruption?] Ivan Pavlov, the Nobel Prize winner in Psychology or Medicine in1904, described the operant condition as the food of all corrupt acts. Pavlov suggested in 1904 that the corrupt man acts similarly to a trained dog. He answers to stimuli which trigger his memory. As such the memory is related to corruption. Actually, the need of prevailing over someone and gain power over him is what triggers corruption. A person compares himself with one of his fellow friend. The desire of seeing this friend unsuccessful triggers reinforcement for corruption- jealousy. Human psychology explains that since jealousy means not willing to abide by the success of someone, it forces the person to apply force so as to triumph over him. Such mediocre thoughts are the image of a mediocre mindset. Memories which trigger such acts are accumulated through a persons life- from childhood till death. The stimuli-response behaviour is so subconscious that we are not able to recognize it and take actions against it. Therefore, if the person gains profit when he abuses human relationships, his brain captures the situation and causes the person to act repetitively in this way. Thus corruption and lust for power makes a persons life immoral. When such a stage is reached, the person cannot go backwards. He finds pleasure in taking advantage of other persons to gain profit. He cannot do otherwise since he will fail and will eventually need to abide by corruption. Last time, when I took advantage of that gullible guy, I won that prize. So now I guess that I will win again. Why should he succeed? I cannot allow this. I shall do something!These are what might be passing through the mind of a person just before he commits an act of corruption: If I do that, I will be the one gaining profit from it. I shall do it. Then, only will people recognize me. I must attain that height, no matter what! I must do it! Let me bully that guy so that he does the dirty work for me. However, some people do not corrupt deliberately but instead they are forced to do so. Corruption consumes the person bit by bit until it becomes his way of living. This is a major psychological phenomenon prevailing in many countries. Corruption is triggered by many factors which cause the human mind to become feeble and rely on corrupt measures to earn a living. Such factors are listed below: Low wages Hope is all what a low-waged employee can have. However, as time passes, lust and impatience take over his mind. This is the beginning of corruption which eventually leads to the death of the society. Low wages pressurizes the person to obtain more money. Between his social status and familial pressures, he opts for corruption to seek for a better future. Since most of the employees in Mauritius earn a modest living, they will normally be tempted to easy-money. This scourge is spreading worldwide and the real root of this problem is none other than the merged action of a lack of meritocracy and an unprecedented rise in the standard of living. Weak sense of civilization So much is being said nowadays and so little is being done. After so much years of moral and social enlightenment, it is a matter of shame that the corrupt can still act blind in front of the suffering that he is both directly and indirectly inflicting to others. It is shocking to find that even highly educated persons and high dignitaries are implicated in fraud cases. Such a case to be noted is The Watergate Scandal in 1974. The President, Richard Nixon, governing over America then was arrested after having been proven guilty of stealing, abusing indulging in campaigns frauds, political espionage and sabotage, fund laundering, massive wire tapping and the list goes on. Such a high dignitary and he stooped so low. This shows the hypnotic power lust and materialism can have on the human brain. In President Nixons case, he did not even ponder on the feeling of betrayal the millions of Americans felt on the day they found out this scandalous truth. Indeed, corruption kills our inner self and makes us as death as a corpse. Culture In African countries, it has become a tradition that after rendering a service, the person should be rewarded in terms of gratuity or tip. This tradition is so intensely practiced in some countries that the glimpse of abolishing it might create a huge cultural rift. In Africa, the reward is usually to gift the chief special honours, and in this way, politicians accepting such honour and rewards are considered acceptable. As such some politician might take advantage of this tradition and render its value nil. They would ask for gifts and rewards for jobs. This type of corruption makes the society sick and even worse is when the whole society indulges in corruption, thereby leaving not a ray of hope for a reestablishment of law and order. Absence of institutional mechanisms In a country where there are no institutions, either internal or external, to investigate into complaints related to corruption, the tendency of people practicing corrupt acts is relatively high. This is so since the chance of getting caught is minute. The absence of watchdog institutions also minimizes the consequences if the offender is caught. Wisely, such institutions should be built. It will increase the countrys economic growth since less fraudulous trades will be done. As such the country will regain a better image in terms of financial security. This will furthermore increase the Foreign Direct Investments of the country which will be the start of an unprecedented rise in wealth and status for the country. Absence of rules and regulations and lack of transparency Rules and regulations should remain omnipresent in an organization so that the employees can behave and conduct themselves in an appropriate and acceptable way. Such limitations allow everyone to be treated and judged fairly and equally. The effectiveness of these rules depends on the way of communicating them to individuals so that they are implemented and followed. The presence of a clear policy and legislation, and a wide range of enforced rules and regulations and policies might help to decrease the level of corruption in an organization or even a country. On the other hand, the absence of transparency increases the risks of corrupt acts. Transparency, as such, means tasks and functions been conducted and are open for examination by the Government officers or the general public. Also, the media must have the right of freedom of speech so that the media can inform citizens about any act of corruption been reported to it. Corruption is deterred by a transparent system as civil servants remain constantly vigilant. Therefore, strict rules create the fear of been defame by the media if the act is reported. This can drastically decrease the rate of corruption in a country because every person cherishes most his status. Discretion and absence of accountability In every system, there should be a person or an authority to take decisions. Such a person or authority has the freedom to act within certain limits. Corruption can occur where public officials: Have immense authority, Are not accountable to anyone, and Have lust instead of the grey matter. An environment with more discretion and without accountability is more prone to be submerged by corruption. Public leaders and civil servants should be accountable to the general public in a democratic country. This means that they should be able to answer to people for the action taken if a question is raised on the topic in question. Lack of effective laws can cause corruption to flourish as people will be carefree and act as they want. Therefore accountability is definitely one of paths toward neutralizing corruption. Chapter 2 [trend of corruption in mauritius] Several studies have been carried out during the last decade about the opinions of Mauritians on the perception of corruption. The Research Institute Analysis carried a survey in 1998 by interviewing 500 people. The results obtained have been classified into 3 main categories: The Tolerance of Mauritian Towards the Perception of Corruption It has been concluded that Mauritians normally tolerate, or more specifically, favour corruption whenever they can benefit from it. Paradoxically, they are the first one to condemn acts of corruption. Thus, within 37% of managers interviewed within the private sector. Corruption is commonly accepted in businesses since it plays a vital role in ensuring the success of the enterprise and thus output a favourable profit. On the whole, 85% of the interviewed people agreed that they do not tolerate corruption while the remaining 15%confess that indeed corruption does affect their activities directly. In 2004, 58% of people questioned said they would report any case of corruption they witnessed. However 30% thought that in doing so they might create problems for themselves. The remaining 22% feared possible acts of vengeance. The Most Corrupted Sectors in Mauritius From the surveys carried out, The police sector and the National Transport Authority (NTA) have been considered as most corrupted in terms of awarding contracts to private enterprises. The politicians are the most cited among the most corrupted persons of the country. The general opinion of the public about the private sector is also pessimistic. According to a survey carried out by the ICAC in 2004, 28% of people questioned think that the private sector runs in a corrupt environment, while 54% think that the private sector operates in a clean atmosphere. The Effectiveness of Legal Measures In 2004, an interview revealed that: 29.5% of people queried believed that laws against corruption are efficient, 26% thought the opposite, 20% considered that laws are efficient but are unfortunately not applied effectively, 32.8% assumed that the power of the court as an institute is limited and insignificant towards high dignitaries (the part of the general public did not receive University Education). On an international ground, The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index has rewarded Mauritius as follows: Chapter 3 [corruption and development] Corruption has always existed. During recent decades, however, corruption has grown both in terms of intensity and geographic extent. Since the 1970s, it has infiltrated every country in the world. After the end of the Cold War, it was expected that political and economical restrictions would somehow reduce this trend. People hoped that the process of democratization and openness, resulting from political pluralism and freedom of the press, should mobilize efforts to overcome corruption. Unfortunately, emergent democracies are still delicate and seem to find the duty of tackling with corruption very difficult. Nowadays, it is seen that weakened state structures, such as inappropriate legislations, powerlessness on the part of the judicial system to fight against corruption, and pursuit of easy money, altogether contribute to aggravating the situation. Such a state of affairs surely has an effect on those who are involved and concerned by development issues. As such corruption is one of the major obstacles in a countrys progress and its effects on development are disastrous. On analyzing the effects that corruption has on development, we found out that corruption adversely affects development in the following ways: Corruption increases the costs of goods and services. Although there is 5% reduction in the profit margin, corruption levels of 10% to 20%, which is the price and will consequently, be paid for through the national or foreign resources of the country. Thus, it is the national economy that suffers the consequences of an unreasonable surcharge on the goods or services bought. Since such operations are normally financed by bank loans or by foreign parties, through concessional loans, corruption indirectly increases the country debts. Corruption affects the quality of services supplied to the public. The corrupt person is tempted to accept a substandard quality of service which increases his personal profit margin. Then, the complicity between the Government and the contractors may result in corner-cutting with regard to agreed quality standards so that the savings made may be shared out between the two parties. Corruption affects the conception of a project. In this section, we are referring to situations in which the real development priorities of a country are neglected in favour of operations which generate the greatest personal gain for the decision-makers. Corruption causes the Government to spend more on the construction of unwanted projects or on lower order investments in infrastructure rather than on social areas. In most corrupted countries, corrupt politicians tend to choose projects irrespective of their intrinsic economic factor but rather on the bribes and kickbacks that these projects offer which results in poor infrastructures leading to economic imbalance. Rise in the public burden. Due to corruption, many countries that borrow money to finance projects and are not able to satisfy their real needs will see their debt burden increase. The loss will be 100% if one views it in terms of the cost of the unproductive investment t the national economy. From the many researches we have carried out and investigated on, we have found out that political corruption is the main object of concern as far as development is affected. It is a fact that politicians are the one who control the whole development mechanism. This phenomenon is not present in every state but the moment its presence is confirmed, that state starts degrading. Political corruption takes place when decisions are made on the budget. This is the root of political corruption which accounts for a massive load of corruption across the world. As such, high rates of corruption divert resources away from their real functions and it also reduces the Government revenue. This decrease in income further decreases the resources available for public investment: development is eventually affected. High corruption rate is also associated with poor infrastructure; bodies are not working at full efficiency thus decreasing output. So, when corrupt politicians influence the approval of an investment project, the rate of return, as calculated by the cost-benefit analysis, is no more the criterion for project selection. A compilation of corrupt decision as such often fails to generate the wanted economic growth. Further on, negligible economic growth halts any type of social and infrastructural development. Corruption leads to tax evasion and poor administration. In many cases, tax collection is much less than estimated financial commitments: Pensions, Interest payments, Public debts, Salaries, and Subsidies. This was one of the major problems that Mauritius faced in the past years due to uneven governance from the various politicians in power. However, gradually politicians have become aware of the danger they are going to face in the near future. As remedial measures, they have taken long term effect measures to prevent any further misbalances to the economy. The positive results of these crucial but necessary measures can be perceived and yet many more are to come. Chapter 4 [corruption and inequality] Corruption and inequality are directly linked. There are two ways in which they are correlated: The change of economic inequality due to corruption, and Economic inequality as a factor of corruption. In other words, an increase in corruption due to economic inequality can produce additional drawbacks. Judicial corruption has also a very big hand in bringing economic inequality. The first example that can be taken is in terms of the tax system. Nowadays, due to corruption, we have a biased tax system where wealthy are favoured and become richer and the poor are marginalized and remain poor. The result of this favouritism leads to a defective tax administration causing an unprecedented increase in social inequality as the gap between the poor and the rich is maintained. Adding to this situation is the poor effective targeting of social programs which, due to corruption, are having a serious problem. Funds that are supposed to help in alleviating poverty are being shifted from trust funds to reach powerful individuals. This is really going to increase inequality in society as the poor people will not be able to enjoy their merits while on the other hand the rich people will continuously play with money. Poor people are the only victim of acts of corruption. Hence an increase in the rate of the perception of corruption will cause an increase in poverty, causing the regression of a country and ultimately the downfall of the world. It is true that when you invest in corruption, there is always the uncertainty that you will get what you actually wanted. The rules constantly change. Thus if a poor person invests in a corrupt plan, then the powerful and wealthy individuals might easily turn the tables and take all the profit. Therefore, inequality will always prevail amongst individuals as long as the barrier between the poor and the rich is not breached. Social trust also plays a fundamental role between equality and corruption. If politicians of one country will keep on trusting the population and vice-versa, then corruption will be totally eradicated. Rich and poor people will never be tagged. Thus, everyone will earn equal amount of money and eating the same quality and amount of food. However, it is all due to mans vile mind that social trust is gradually disappearing from the society. People tend to snatch others possessions and in trying to be like others, they simply crush the desires of others. This disease is due to social inequality and the materialistic barrier between the poor and the rich. Chapter 5 [government measures] Corruption has become one of the most serious problems in Mauritius. In order to fight this scourge, the leading Governments, over time, have taken several corrective measures: Strict Judiciary System Obligations Watchdog Body Strict Judiciary System With enforced laws and regulations, people caught practicing corrupt acts are dealt with more severely. Through time, much legislation has failed in their task of rendering justice and controlling the rate of corruption. In a more optimistic point of view, several legislations have been modified in order to adopt a more realistic and righteous approach to criminal acts- corruption. They have permitted through the years to bring development in the society and to help people stay within their limits. Watchdog Bodies The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was established on the 1st April 2002 as the Prevention of Corruption Act (PoCA) 2002 was put into effect by official proclamations. The principal aim of the ICAC is to plan and implement the national strategy against corruption in the Republic of Mauritius. Its mission statement is: With the community, the ICAC is committed to fight corruption through effective law enforcement, education and prevention to help keep Mauritius fair, just, stable and prosperous. The ICAC is an independent body and acts impartially. The ICAC investigates all allegations of corruption that are reported in respect of both the public and private sectors and then takes appropriate remedial measures. For instance, the ICAC and the MQI launched the second edition of the Best Anti-Corruption Framework 2008 at the Rajiv Gandhi Science centre on Wednesday 7th May 2008. Its aim was to identify loopholes and weaknesses in enterprises that may give opportunities for corruption and initiate actions for fraud detection and prevention. In addition, the ICAC plays an important role in education whereby its goals are: Make educators more concerned about imparting knowledge Promote good control education Enhance professional and moral principles among teachers Provide strength and support to teachers to enable them to fight actively against corruption Boost up the inclusion of anti-corruption education in the school curriculum Obligations The Republic of Mauritius is growing day by day and in order to bring sustainable development, the Government is continuously making commitments with several high order organizations: The United Nations Convention Against Corruption, The SADC Protocol Against Corruption and The African Union on Preventing and Combating Corruption among many others. The fundamental raison dà ªtre of such obligations is to attract foreign investments to the country in order to have a positive economic growth and hence progress in the world. Chapter 6 [evaluation of measures] In this section we will be dealing with a local case and explain how the case in question affected development and created inequality in society. Also, we will try to find out what more can be done in order to prevent such situations in the future. 1 Mr. Robert Rivalland was prosecuted in this year for being part of a plot which was to the detriment of Air Mauritius. He was part of a money laundering case between 1982 and 1997, along with three other high officials of the Air Mauritius and The Rogers: the case was withdrawn from the three other partners. Robert Rivalland was the only one accused of having corruptly diverted about Rs. 85 million. His lawyer, Mrs. Yamilla Moonshiram, declared that the case of his defendant was stronger compared to one of the three other accused. Mr. Rivalland was finally condemned. Analysis: During this case, Mr. Rivalland seemed to be quite silent, especially during the case hearing. This may be seen in two ways: either he is truly innocent or he is really a culprit. Being part of the so called suspicious commission during 1982 and 1997 made it a hard attack against his defense in Court. As such, his name was mentioned several times when one of his fellow partners was accused: he was the one who approved the cheques which were diverted from the Air Mauritius account. During the 15 years of conspiracy, the Air Mauritius suffered a colossal loss. The Rs. 85 million could have been used in the expansion of the airport. This would furthermore enable a more massive flow of tourists in and out of the country. Since tourism is one of the pillars of the economy of our country, the whole nation would have benefited to a much larger extent. Moreover, the employees of Air Mauritius could have enjoyed a better salary which would have led to a higher standard of living and increase their productivity at work. The plot created a great disturbance in the Mauritian economy. The employees of Air Mauritius were marginalized. They could not benefit from any rise in their salaries and this further increased the gap between the rich and the poor in the society. The poor workers had to struggle to satisfy their needs which created a rift between their wealthier colleagues. Consequently, this increased social inequality. aaa Chapter 7 [recommendations] Mauritius is trying hard to polish its image around the world. Among poverty eradication and literacy, corruption is yet a problem that the Mauritian Government is facing. Some of the measures that can be implemented are: Keep the issue of acting against corruption under regular review. Collaborate with other countries and work together to devise strategies to counterattack corruption. Adopt the International Code of Conduct for Public officials. Hand over the power of a system to a Board of people rather to a single person. (Decisions that are voted by a Board are less doubtful compared to that made by a single person.) Abolish old and ineffective laws and establish new and stricter ones. Organize campaigns to both prevent and control corruption. Zero tolerance towards corrupt officials and high dignitaries (Through this measure, many high dignitaries were found to be implicated in corrupt acts in Zimbabwe- a member of the SADC. Since Mauritius forms part of this community, the same measure can be implemented to combat corruption). Sensitising workers on the causes, trend and impact of corruption Inculcating ethics and moral values as early as from primary schools so that children understand the implications of corruption. [conclusion] Ivan Pavlov rightly said that corruption is a conditioned-reflex action; a persons past corrupt gains boosts up his corrupt endeavours. Due to the innumerable factors discussed above, corruption has in fact become a vulnerable stage from which a feeble mind cannot abstain for long. Indeed, as several worldwide surveys have shown it, the scourge of corruption is a perpetual process that keeps on devouring a persons life. Once addicted to corrupt acts, it is nearly impossible for him to escape from the clutches of corruption. Nowadays, people of the higher hierarchy want to go ahead and earn even more money while on the other side, the poor remains unemployed and keeps on trying to meet the ends monthly. Both, corruption and inequality coexist in society and in order to eliminate one, we need to eliminate the other; they are mutually related. We should stop favouritism and start keeping faith in one another. Corruption will lead to nowhere while social trust will show the way to a country with a sustainable economy and hence a healthy population. We have, in the course of this project dealt with very resourceful information and have tried to bring forth the slowly emerging plague of the society- corruption- and we have also tried to suggest some recommendations. At the end of this highly resourceful project, we have realised that corruption is nothing more than the fruit of humans mind. We need to control it before it gets at arms length in the race of such a materialistic world. Facts and figures are the witnesses of its unprecedented rise. It is also a fact that people are becoming more aware of it but much remains to be done so as to eradicate corruption in not only Mauritius but in the whole world. Appendix The interview of Mr. Boodhoo, Chief Officer at the Corruption Prevention and Education Division on Monday 5th May 2008(10.00 a.m.) According to ICAC, how can corruption be defined? Corruption is an abuse of power or authority for personal gain. Now, according to the law and constitution of Mauritius, what is the definition of corruption? PoCA defines corruption as an abuse of power in the public and private sector for personal gain. What do statistics say about the trend of corruption in the Mauritian society? Corruption cannot be measured. It is impossible to measure corruption. It is a secretive activity. Nothing is gained from surveys about corruption. Only the perception of corruption is measurable. However, this is not 100% efficient. What procedure does the ICAC adopt to treat corruption cases? The complaint is directed to the board of ICAC. The board refers the matter for investigation if required. In terms of national and international relationships, how does corruption affect our countrys status? Investors will not be willing to invest if they perceive the country as corrupted. Knowing that for every business, bribes will be needed. Hence, there will be no Foreign Direct Investment. Laws and bills are still being voted in the Mauritian assembly. How far do you think that these measures are reliable and effective? We should know how far the laws are enforced. We should not only pass laws

Rushdie, Postmodernism & Postcolonialism :: Essays Papers

Rushdie, Postmodernism & Postcolonialism Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, published in 1980, was perhaps the seminal text in conceiving opinions as to interplay of post-modern and post-colonial theory. The title of the novel refers to the birth of Saleem Sinai, the novel’s principal narrator, who is born at midnight August 15th 1947, the precise date of Indian independence. From this remarkable coincidence we are immediately drawn to the conclusion that the novel’s concerns are of the new India, and how someone born into this new state of the ‘Midnight’s child’, if you will, interacts with this post-colonial state. To characterise the novel as one merely concerned with post-colonial India, and its various machinations, is however a reductive practice. While the novel does at various times deal with what it is to be Indian, both pre and post 1947, it is a much more layered and interesting piece of work. Midnight’s Children’s popularity is such that it was to be vote d 25th in a poll conducted by the Guardian, listing the 100 best books of the last century, and was also to receive the Booker Prize in 1981 and the coveted ‘Booker of Bookers’ in 1993. http://www.bookerprize.co.uk/ Why Midnight’s Children is much more than of interest to the reader interested in post-colonialism, is possibly due to its strong elements of magic realism, a literary device that goes hand in hand with postmodernism. Perhaps the most notable exponent of magic realism in literature is the Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose One Hundred Years of Solitude written in 1967 came to be seen as the standard bearer for the genre. Marquez was an undoubted influence on Rushdie’s work and in Midnight’s Children in particular, which was to adopt many of the surrealist ‘flights of fancy’ which characterise One Hundred Years of Solitude. The term was first used in a wider post-colonialist context in an essay by Jacques Stephen Alexis, of the ‘Magical Realism of the Haitians’ (Alexis 1956), although the term itself had been in circulation since Franz Roh the German art critic coined it in 1925. Yet the term only became popularised when it was employed to characterise the work of South American writers such as Marquez. More recently the term has come to refer to the inclusion of any mythic material from local written or oral culture used in contemporary narrative. The material is often used to examine the assumptions of Western narrative, which is usually categorised by its rationality and strict linearity.

A Little Wiggle Room

Today we will be looking at two articles written by University of California Psychology Director Craig Haney.   He specializes in the assessment of institutional environments especially the psychological effects of incarceration.He has written several scholarly articles and is involved in many research projects mostly specializing in the effect of incarceration and overcrowding, making headway into the understanding of the effect an overtaxed system has on an individual.He looks at issues such as recidivism, prison violence, mental and emotional disorders and the long term effect of solitary or supermax facilities when inflicted on lower security inmates due to overpopulation.In these two articles entitled â€Å"The Wages of Prison Overcrowding† and â€Å"Prison Overcrowding: Harmful Consequences and Dysfunctional Reactions† I believe Haney tries to not only explain the great toll that overcrowding has on an individual as well as the taxpayer, but offers solutions to ease out of the current trend spending more tax dollars converting facilities into sleeping quarters.â€Å"There is a clear association between the restriction of living space and the occurrence of disciplinary violations.† (Haney 2)   Haney goes on to point out the fact that when a prison is filled beyond its capacity, there is less of everything to go around, causing hoarding, violence and tension between prisoners.Prisoners are forced to do without basic necessities such as showers and toilets being forced to wait for availability increasing tension inside the facility.Guards are left unable to control the already agitated population caused when people who may already be lacking social skills necessary to function in everyday life are forced to live in close quarters with others.   The current solution most prisons call for is more staff, better armaments for the staff, and better punitive measures with which to control the inmates, making the prison more painful and h armful to the inmates.Areas normally reserved for recreational facilities make way for bed space with basic security contributing to inmate idleness and inactivity further worsening the problem.The prisoners are left with less to do and less outlets for releasing tension, the rates of prisoner animosity towards each other rises, as well as towards the guard’s.Facilities generally used to rehabilitate prisoners, such as education and prison work facilities are transformed into bed space, leaving prisoners with unfilled needs, adding to the problem of recidivism.He has shown that a majority of prisoners read at or below a third grade level calling them â€Å"marginally literate† (Haney 5) and points out they leave prison in very much the same condition.Unprepared and therefore unable to function as normal productive citizens with a lack of education and basic job skills, they return to their old ways and end up back inside the system in much the same condition they left prison in.  In his articles Haney attempts to inform not just his fellow scholars, but also the individual states and penal systems on the effects they are having on the people theYincarcerate.How being pushed through a system too overworked to notice a prisoner with special needs such as mental of emotional disabilities can have a serious effect on the people they are forced to live in close quarters with.   This eventually leads to a breakdown of the prisoner moral, leading to dissention, and prison violence.These articles are a great starting point for any discussion into prison life, recidivism, prison overcrowding or assessments on how tax dollars should be spent.   I share the author’s belief that if nothing is done and eventual breakdown of the prison system is inevitable.He points out that the current solution, bringing in more weapons and more brutal tactics by guards can have an even worse effect on the individual prisoner, causing low risk inmates into recidi vism.   Tactics that enforce order and control over inmates rather than improving living conditions often worsen violence inside prison walls.Rather than deal with the issues that caused the potential violence in the first place they fight fire with fire.  Ã‚   While (overcrowding) â€Å"is not the only cause of the sometimes dangerous conditions and potential for abuse that exists in many of our nation’s prisons, it is a central and critical issue that must be effectively addressed if these other problems are to be solved.† (Haney 12)SourcesHaney, Craig. â€Å"Prison Overcrowding: Harmful Consequences and Dysfunctional  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Reactions.† prisoncommission.org. 2 Nov 2008. Commission of Safety and Abuse inAmericas Prisons. 3 Feb. 2009 Haney, Craig. â€Å"The Wages of Prison Overcrowding: Harmful Psychological  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Consequences and Dysfunctional Correctional Reactions.† http://law.wustl.edu/. 5  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Dec. 2008. Washington U niversity Law School. 3 Feb. 2009.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  

Puberty

Puberty is known to be the transitioning period for children to become emerging adults. Puberty is important because not only is it a sign for parents that their child is growing up. It is a sign for the child itself that he or she is growing up. Puberty is different for both boys and girls especially the biological events that take place.When girls go through puberty, they go through it at an earlier age than the boys. Girls start at the age of eight to the age of 14. What happens first for girls is the breast development. Breast buds typically occur around nine or ten years old, although sometimes for some children they occur earlier or for others they occur later. The girls' parents are often surprised that their daughter has breast buds since the breast develop slowly and occur at different times. At the beginning of puberty, sometimes one breast often appears first than the other. The girl may believe that something in the breast is wrong like gaining a tumor, especially since the tissue of the breast can feel very sore and sensitive, but this because the breast are developing slowly at a decent rate which is extremely normal. The second sign of puberty is gaining pubic hair in the genital area. At first, there are very few hairs and come out straight and soft. As the girl grows up, the pubic hair grows out and becomes dark, curly, and coarse. The pubic hair grows gently to the lower stomach to the inner thigh, looking like in a three-cornered shape. About another couple years, hair begins to grow in the armpits. The third sign for puberty is that the girls gain weight which gives them a more rounded belly. This gives girls extreme anxiety because they believe they are gaining weight but usually it is adipose tissue. Adipose tissue is the tissue where fat is kept. The body will separate the fat from the stomach and waist to other parts of the body so it can create a nice figure. The last is usually the menstrual cycle. There are many myths when it comes to menstruation like you cannot use a tampon till you are a full adult, or you cannot swim in the pool and so on. Menarche or menstruation is when ovulation is beginning which means that you can begin to be able to be pregnant. In a study in 1982, the researchers Brooks- Gunn and Ruble, reported that girls feel more grown up now that they are finally menstruating. A longitudinal study in 2003 reported that there is an increase in self-esteem and social maturity. Boys go through puberty much later than girls which are the ages of twelve to sixteen. The first step of puberty for boys is that the boy is going through with maturing is when the size of the testicles and the scrotal sac grows. As the testicles grows, the scrotum skin darkens, expands, thins, and lastly hangs down. Like girls and each breast size, boys when it comes to their testicles, one testicle hangs lower than the other. Like girls the next step of puberty for boys is the pubic hair. Similar to girls, the pubic hair changes to a darker color, the hairs become curlier and rougher in texture, but the pattern is more of a diamond shaped than a triangle. Over the next few years it covers the pubic region, and then covers the thighs like a girl would have her pubic hair covered. Difference between boys and girls pubic hair is that boys have their pubic hair going up to their belly button. Then light or thin little hairs grows on a boy's face, legs, arms and underarms, and chest. The third step of puberty is the body shape changes. Before puberty, usually boys look chubby and lanky. The boys then have a growth spurt as they go into puberty. Body proportions change during this spurt, which are the legs extend and the trunks become bigger. Boys then gain muscle mass and continue to grow even after girls are finished with puberty. When the boys are at the top of puberty, their voices begin to change drastically. For a brief period of time, the boys voice may break once in a while as it deepens. Once the larynx or the vocal box reaches to a suitable size, the cracking will stop. J.M. Tanners Longitudinal research on Pubertal Development helped greatly to understand puberty. In the year 1960 through the 1970s J.M. Tanner, a British biologist, was studying physical development. He took many pictures and physical evaluations of both boys and girls throughout their lives to figure out the steps of puberty. From each photo and physical evaluation, Tanner figured out the ages of the changes that happened to the children. A good theory when it comes to puberty would be Storm and Stress by G. Stanley Hall. This is a great example because as the child grows up, he or she becomes a different person. To go deeper, Storm and Stress goes through difficulties with parents, risky behaviors, and drastic mood swings. This all happens because of the hormones, like estrogen and testosterone, which the children are gaining as they are going through the process of puberty. Puberty is different for everyone. Sometimes puberty comes early or late for either gender. It affects them differently emotionally, and physically. The one fact is true for either gender is that it is a period for the child or adolescence to mature and to find more of themselves to become a great and fitting adult in society.

The Trip Essays - 9, The Prisoners, Free Essays, Term Papers

The Trip Essays - 9, The Prisoners, Free Essays, Term Papers Ms. Hoogewerf Writing College Success 18 September 2015 The Trip Tomorrow morning! You guys get up bright and early 8 am tomorrow morning and well go. Andrews dad muttered as he staggered out of the kitchen with another beer in his hand. I was at my friend Andrews house with my other friend Ethan. We were in the middle of discussing our plans for jet-skiing the next morning. I knew the plans werent going to go as planned as his dad was obviously drunk as could be. But we eventually decided to go along with it. After forcing ourselves awake the next morning, we walked into the living room to see his dad crashed on the couch. We waited and waited, he didnt budge. Jet skiing was officially out of the picture. I told you guys he was talking nonsense I muttered to my friends as I headed back to bed. I got up early to see your dad fast asleep in front of the TV? my friend Ethan asked Andrew angrily. You guys want to go to Adventure Island instead? said Andrews mom as she walked into the room. We looked at each other hesitantly. A water park full of scre aming kids who use the pools as a toilet? What could be better on a Sunday afternoon? Sure we said shrugging. We would try to make the best out of it. After an hour or so drive later we were walking into the park. None of us had been there in a while so we didnt know quite where to start. Andrews parents found some seats near the wave pool and set all their things down. You guys meet us back here when the park closes. That was 6 hours from then. We didnt think wed need too much time to slide down some slides and splash water in strangers faces. We picked one direction and ran until we came across something interesting. We stumbled upon the entrance to a slide. This looks decent Andrew claimed. We walked through the entrance and started heading up the long spiraled stairs. Excuse me gentlemen, a line is made to wait in, not cut. We turned around to see a short shirtless man with his 2 kids behind him. And then we saw the people behind his kids. And the people behind them. We had walked by a mile long line without even realizing it. This was going to take a while. 45 minutes later, we were getting ready to slide down. It was one pers on at a time so I decided to go first. I slid down into the dark enclosed tube as water rushed by my sides and splashed into my face. The tube open up halfway through the ride and I could finally see where I was. I stuck my arms out to my sides and gripped onto the sides of the slide. With all my strength, I held myself in place from slipping any further and waited for Ethan to slide down behind me. Surely he wouldnt be expecting this. After a few seconds, he rushed up behind me and screamed as he slammed into the back of me. We laughed hysterically as we continued to hold ourselves from sliding any further. Shortly after Andrew slid down and crashed into Ethan. Whats wrong with you guys?! Andrew yelled. If we dont hurry a whole line of people is going to ram into us! he yelled pushing us forward. We finally let go of the sides and continued to slide down. We picked up more and more speed and finally fell into the pool at the end. You guys cant come down at the same time! yelled the lifeguard to the side of the pool. Sorry! We got stuck! Ethan yelled back as he climbed out of the pool. You guys are idiots, we can get kicked out for things like that Andrew said swimming up behind us. I laughed to myself as I heard him say this. Kicked out of Adventure Island? The whole world is over! I screamed sarcastically. Alright fine, act like animals Andrew said letting out a sigh. I knew we wouldnt get kicked out for spicing the experience up a

Adolf Hitler Appointed Chancellor of Germany

Adolf Hitler Appointed Chancellor of Germany On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed as the chancellor of Germany by President Paul Von Hindenburg. Hindenburg made the appointment in an effort to keep Hitler and the Nazi Party â€Å"in check;† however, the decision would have disastrous results for Germany and the entire European continent. In the year and seven months that followed, Hitler was able to exploit the death of Hindenburg and combine the positions of chancellor and president into the position of Fà ¼hrer, the supreme leader of Germany. Structure of the German Government At the end of World War I, the existing German government under Kaiser Wilhelm II collapsed. In its place, Germany’s first experiment with democracy, known as the Weimar Republic, commenced. One of the new government’s first actions was to sign the controversial Treaty of Versailles which placed blame for WWI solely upon Germany. The new democracy was primarily composed of the following: The president, who was elected every seven years and vested with immense powers;The Reichstag, the German parliament, which consisted of members elected every four years and based on proportional representation- the number of seats was based on the number of votes received by each party; andThe chancellor, who was appointed by the president to oversee the Reichstag, and usually a member of the majority party in the Reichstag. Although this system put more power in the hands of the people than ever before, it was relatively unstable and would ultimately lead to the rise of one of the worst dictators in modern history. Hitler’s Return to Government After his imprisonment for his failed 1923 coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler was outwardly reluctant to return as the leader of the Nazi Party; however, it did not take long for party followers to convince Hitler that they needed his leadership once again. With Hitler as leader, the Nazi Party gained over 100 seats in the Reichstag by 1930 and was viewed as a significant party within the German government. Much of this success can be attributed to the party’s propaganda leader, Joseph Goebbels. The Presidential Election of 1932 In the spring of 1932, Hitler ran against incumbent and WWI hero Paul von Hindenburg. The initial presidential election on March 13, 1932, was an impressive showing for the Nazi Party with Hitler receiving 30% of the vote. Hindenburg won 49% of the vote and was the leading candidate; however, he did not receive the absolute majority needed to be awarded the presidency. A run-off election was set for April 10. Hitler gained over two million votes in the run-off or approximately 36% of the total votes. Hindenburg only gained one million votes on his previous count but it was enough to give him 53% of the total electorate- enough for him to be elected to another term as president of the struggling republic. The Nazis and the Reichstag Although Hitler lost the election, the election results showed that the Nazi Party had grown both powerful and popular. In June, Hindenburg used his presidential power to dissolve the Reichstag and appointed Franz von Papen as the new chancellor. As a result, a new election had to be held for the members of the Reichstag. In this July 1932 election, the popularity of the Nazi Party would be further affirmed with their massive gain of an additional 123 seats, making them the largest party in the Reichstag. The following month, Papen offered his former supporter, Hitler, the position of Vice Chancellor. By this point, Hitler realized that he could not manipulate Papen and refused to accept the position. Instead, he worked to make Papen’s job difficult and aimed to enact a vote of no confidence. Papen orchestrated another dissolution of the Reichstag before this could occur. In the next Reichstag election, the Nazis lost 34 seats. Despite this loss, the Nazis remained powerful. Papen, who was struggling to create a working coalition within the parliament, was unable to do so without including the Nazis. With no coalition, Papen was forced to resign his position of chancellor in November of 1932. Hitler saw this as another opportunity to promote himself into the position of chancellor; however, Hindenburg instead appointed Kurt von Schleicher. Papen was dismayed by this choice as he had attempted in the interim to convince Hindenburg to reinstate him as chancellor and allow him to rule by emergency decree. A Winter of Deceit Over the course of the next two months, there was much political intrigue and backroom negotiations that occurred within the German government. A wounded Papen learned of Schleicher’s plan to split the Nazi Party and alerted Hitler. Hitler continued to cultivate the support he was gaining from bankers and industrialists throughout Germany and these groups increased their pressure on Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor. Papen worked behind the scenes against Schleicher, who soon found him out. Schleicher, upon discovering Papen’s deceit, went to Hindenburg to request the President order Papen to cease his activities. Hindenburg did the exact opposite and encouraged Papen to continue his discussions with Hitler, as long as Papen agreed to keep the talks a secret from Schleicher. A series of meetings between Hitler, Papen, and important German officials were held during the month of January. Schleicher began to realize that he was in a tenuous position and twice asked Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and place the country under emergency decree. Both times, Hindenburg refused and on the second instance, Schleicher resigned. Hitler Is Appointed Chancellor On January 29th, a rumor began to circulate that Schleicher was planning to overthrow Hindenburg. An exhausted Hindenburg decided that the only way to eliminate the threat by Schleicher and to end the instability within the government was to appoint Hitler as chancellor. As part of the appointment negotiations, Hindenburg guaranteed Hitler that four important cabinet posts could be given to Nazis. As a sign of his gratitude and to offer the reassurance of his professed good faith to Hindenburg, Hitler agreed to appoint Papen to one of the posts. Despite Hindenburg’s misgivings, Hitler was officially appointed as chancellor and sworn in at noon on January 30, 1933. Papen was named as his vice-chancellor, a nomination Hindenburg decided to insist upon to relieve some of his own hesitation with Hitler’s appointment. Longtime Nazi Party member Hermann Gà ¶ring was appointed in the dual roles of Minister of the Interior of Prussia and Minister Without Portfolio. Another Nazi, Wilhelm Frick, was named Minister of the Interior. The End of the Republic Although Hitler would not become the Fà ¼hrer until Hindenburg’s death on August 2, 1934, the downfall of the German republic had officially begun. Over the course of the next 19 months, a variety of events would drastically increase Hitler’s power over the German government and the German military. It would only be a matter of time before Adolf Hitler attempted to assert his power over the entire continent of Europe. Sources and Further Reading Hett, Benjamin Carter. The Death of Democracy: Hitlers Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic. New York: Henry Holt, 2018.  Jones, Larry Eugene. Hitler versus Hindenburg: The 1932 Presidential Elections and the End of the Weimar Republic. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2016.  McDonough, Frank. Hitler and the Rise of the Nazi Party. London: Routledge, 2012.  Von Schlabrendorff, Fabian. The Secret War Against Hitler. New York, Routledge, 1994.

A Native Role; Gary Snyder as the seer and prophet in ‘Turtle Island’

A Native Role; Gary Snyder as the seer and prophet in ‘Turtle Island’ Charles Altieri writes that in his collection of poetry, Turtle Island, Gary Snyder encapsulates two roles: the seer and the prophet. Altieri describes the two roles vaguely, the seer being one who is able to look past the irrelevant aspects of modern life to a purer kind of experience, while the prophet is able to articulate a traditional way of thinking native to the land of America. It could be argued that due to the vagueness surrounding the description of these two roles it would be hard not to find some continuity between Altieri’s idea and the poems, but regardless the distinction between the two roles can clearly be seen. Two good examples of Snyder acting as seer and prophet are the poems â€Å"The Bath† and â€Å"The Uses of Light† respectively. Before the two poems can be dealt with, it is worth mentioning the title of the collection as incorporating both the vision of the seer and the understanding of the prophet. The name Turtle Island is a direct reference to Native American culture, it being a name for the American continent based off of the creation myths of several Native tribes. In his essay â€Å"Gary Snyder: The Lessons of Turtle Island†, Michael Castro writes that the title encapsulates a â€Å"recurrent theme among its poems and essays [that there is a] need for modern Americans to return to the perception of the earth as a living organism to whom we are related†.[1] Through Castro’s note we can see that in the title, Turtle Island, the seer calls for the individual reader to abandon the ego so prevalent in modern culture, and see themselves as incorporated in a wider system entwined with not only the physical land of America, but also the earth as a whole, while the prophet emphasises that t his wider system is not a modern notion, but a far more indigenous and ancient concept held by the original inhabitants of the American continent. Even in his title Snyder is clearly shown to support Altieri’s idea of the seer and the prophet, setting a standard for the collection as a whole for upholding a clear artistic and symbolic intent. In â€Å"The Bath† Snyder, acting as the seer, challenges modern notions surrounding the family and consciousness, advocating for a collective consciousness and a more naturalistic attitude towards family relations. The poem presents Snyder, his wife, and his young son Kai bathing together, and much of the imagery of the poem could easily be read as inappropriate due to the frank language Snyder uses: â€Å"†¦Washing-tickling out the scrotum, little anus, His penis curving up and getting hard As I pull back skin and try to wash it Laughing and jumping, flinging arms around, I squat all naked too†. [2] This language, focussing particularly on Snyder describing his son’s genitals, serves a purpose other than simply shocking the reader for affect. Rather, it symbolises an openness Snyder and his family have found through their countercultural practices that include Native beliefs, an openness that permits a relationship between father and son that many people, both within the poems context of the 1960s and a contemporary readership, would deem as inappropriate. By removing themselves from the cultural consciousness of the 1960s and accepting a countercultural lifestyle that borrows heavily from Native ideas about the family, Snyder is able to separate the body and sexuality, allowing for a freer relationship between his son and himself. As the seer, Snyder is able to see through the modern misconceptions of sexuality and thus embodies a type of familial experience that is more honest, tender, and open than that of the wider culture of 1960s America. This separation between the body and sexuality that Snyder proposes is continued throughout the poem, and is extended to a collective physicality through a shared consciousness. Throughout the poem there is a refrain that, though changing slightly, is based around the question â€Å"is this our body?† [Snyder, pp.12] As Snyder’s description of the familial bath is moved away from focussing primarily on the physicality of Kai and incorporates more collective actions, such as â€Å"sucking milk from this our body sends through / jolts of light; the son, the father, / sharing mother’s joy† [Snyder, pp.13], and scenic depictions, such as â€Å"The cloud across the sky. The windy pines. / the trickle gurgle in the swampy meadow† [Snyder, pp.14], the separation between Snyder, his wife, and his son becomes blurred and indistinct. The poem’s conclusion presents Snyder’s family as a unified whole, inseparable from each other and aware of their place on the Earth: â€Å"This is our body. Drawn up crosslegged by the flames †¦ Laughing on the Great Earth / Come out from the bath.† [Snyder, pp.14] The progression from the questioning â€Å"is this our body?† to the declarative â€Å"This is our body† shows an acceptance of an innate connection between the family members, as well as between the body and consciousness. While in a modern context the individual is taught to think in a more individual manner, and to stay away from communal thinking, Snyder, as the seer, incorporates Native thinking to show the connectedness of the world, that the individual ego does not exist but rather there is a collective consciousness that exists in many separate bodies. Furthermore, the mention of the â€Å"Great Earth† suggests a link between this collective conscious and the connections that Native culture states exist in the natural world. Acting as the seer in â€Å"The Bath†, Snyder does much to dissemble modern notions of egocentric conscious ness and installs in its place a collective consciousness that allows a more direct approach to experience. The role of prophet, to recognise and articulate a native way of American thinking that outdates America as a nation, can be seen in â€Å"The Uses of Light†, a poem that explores the many ways that light is used in the natural world. In the poem, Snyder records how five different entities use light, progressing from the least relatable to the reader to the most: first the stones, then the trees, moths, deer, and finally a voice one can assume to be that of Snyder himself taking on the perspective of a Native American. In the poem Snyder creates a sense of interconnectedness between these five entities, and also creates a sense that this connectedness, as a belief, is ancient. The first stanza, â€Å"It warms my bones / say the stones†, personifies the stones in a voice that has an elderly, archaic, creaky tone, suggesting a history to this belief that predates not only Snyder, but also perhaps modern American culture. As the first stanza, and thus the base of the hiera rchy of life that Snyder has created in the poem, the stones symbolise how deeply this connectedness is rooted in the natural world. While we, readers immersed in a modern culture and mode of thinking, assume that stones, unlike plant or animals, are not living creatures, Snyder articulates a Native belief that the world as whole entity is a living organism. Life, therefore, is not held only by those organisms that breathe and grow, but is rather a quality everything in our world has in common. The final stanza articulates this sense of Native tradition perhaps the most clearly: â€Å"A high tower On a wide plain. If you climb up One floor You’ll see a thousand miles more.† [Snyder, pp.39] As Snyder, for the greater part of the collection, does not talk about an urban environment, but rather a rural great plains one, we can assume this â€Å"tower† is not a literal anachronistic building, but rather a metaphor. Perhaps Snyder is taking on the viewpoint of a Native American who climbs a hill to survey this â€Å"wide plain†? Light in the poem is frequently used as a means of survival: it warms the stones, it helps the tree grow, and allows the deer to be wary of predators, so perhaps this Native American is surveying the land for survival as well, wanting to â€Å"see a thousand miles more† to search for food or shelter. Through this interpretation Snyder, as the prophet, presents a use of light in accordance with a tradition native to the American land, as well showing how the indigenous people believed in sharing the light with the world as a whole and thus enforcing the connectedness that is so prevalent in Native culture. As both prophet and seer, Snyder floods Turtle Island with Native American belief, and creates a vision of America where a traditional interconnectedness exists as the primary driving force of life. Whether it is through the seer of â€Å"The Bath†, or the prophet of â€Å"The Uses of Light†, the message Snyder presents is always the same, only the means he uses change. This message can be seen as a call back to a traditional way of thinking, turning away from the modern consciousness or mind-set, and accepting a way of life reminiscent of the ancient Turtle Island of the Native peoples. Citations Michael Castro, â€Å"Gary Snyder: The Lessons of Turtle Island†, Criticial Essays on Gary Snyder, ed. by Patrick D. Murphy, (Boston: G. K. Hall and co., 1991), pp.132 Gary Snyder, Turtle Island, (New York: New Directions Books, 1974), pp.12

Nursing home administration Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Nursing home administration - Assignment Example He is normally the key advisor to the senior most leaders like the chairperson and the vice-chair person of a nursing home. His general responsibilities include the provision of the managerial as well as the business administrative affairs of a nursing home. He also helps to budget, providing expertise in the medical fields related to finance, providing strategic plans, collection of the revenue as well as expense controlling, heading the human resource department, program developments, research grant administration, space maintenance, managing information systems as well as the contract agreements with the stakeholders of the nursing home. He also provides leadership to the nursing home in the event that the chair and the vice of the nursing home are not available to discharge their administrative functions to the nursing. Medical director This is a person who helps to provide a medical perspective expertise in the medical field of the therapeutic applications as well as the renal p roducts applications. He plays a key role in the provision of the reviewing as well as the oversight services in the clinical matters regarding the new product development of the nursing home (Polifko-Harris, 2004). ... Moreover, he also functions to provide the consultancy services to a nursing home in order to help in the engineering of the functions that help to support the label changes of a nursing home, provision of the pharmaceutical vigilance services, the nursing home risk assessment as well as the evaluation of the nursing home product complaints (Booyens, 2004). Director of nursing This is a person is involved in the supervision of all the nursing personnel at a nursing home as well as establishing the necessary required nursing standards in a nursing home and how they can be maintained for a long time. He also provides the responsibility and accountability services required for nursing services. In addition, he advices the CEO, the HR, COO, the clinical managers as well as the medical staff in relation to the medical nursing services. Additionally he consults with the medical director in regard to the clinical issues that might emerge from a nursing home. Additionally, a director of nurs ing is responsible for the completion of the special medical assignments in a nursing home as assigned by the medical director as well as the implementation of the medical reports. Moreover, the director of nursing participates in the interviewing process of the medical staff. Furthermore, he participates in the planning, the implementation, as well as the evaluation of the nursing home programs and services. However, there are occurrences of some health cases in a nursing home that might end up causing the roles of each of the above officers to overlap. Such a scenario is so despicable to speak since the officers might end up engaging themselves in supremacy battles at the nursing home; causing many conflicts in the

Has the improved explosive device impacted our ability to develop a Essay

Has the improved explosive device impacted our ability to develop a reasonably priced tactical vehicle - Essay Example The aim of selecting these sites is for them to explode underneath or beside a vehicle causing maximum damage2. The improvement of the vehicle armor on the military vehicle has made the insurgents to place IEDs on raised positions like utility poles, road signs or trees so as to be able to hit the less protected areas. In Afghanistan, it was reported by military experts in January 2010 that Taliban fighters had already developed a new, almost undetectable generation of the IEDs. This new generation has no metallic or electronic parts compared to the previous IEDs that were triggered by two blades of hack-saw separated by a spacer. The most recent and lethal means of exploding the IEDs is the trigger mechanism which incorporates either the use of the radio, cell phone, is victim-operated or infrared device which makes it difficult to detect or disarm them. Impacts of Improved Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan on US Army’s Ability to Develop a Reasonably Priced Ta ctical Vehicle Due to the new inventions and improvements in the use of IEDs, law enforcement and military forces personnel have come up with several RSP (render safe procedures) to curb the threat of IEDs. These RSP may be developed from direct experience with the devices or research applied which is designed to counter the threat. Among countermeasures put in place include the application of the underbelly armor applique’ on the EFV (Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle) as it comes ashore and before their encounter with the IEDs following the June 2007 letter from the Subcommittee of House Armed Services on Expeditionary Forces and Sea Power to the marine corps commandant3. The January and February 2010 tests at the centre of Aberdeen showed that the EFV offers protection on blast equal to 2nd category protected vehicle of the mine resistant ambush, including two IEDs which are simulated on its tracks and under its belly4. Improved explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanista n have also impacted the US army’s ability to develop a reasonably priced tactical vehicle. This is because it has since helped in the development of improvised vehicle armor. This is an armor that is added or centrally planned in the field, which was originally part of the design. In the recent US-Iraq and US-Afghanistan wars, US troops armored their Humvees in their war against Iraq. Their transport vehicles were also armored with scrap materials. The Americans came to know this as â€Å"hillbilly armor or hajji armor† when Iraqi contractors installed it5. In Afghanistan, the US troops lined their vehicles’ floor with sandbags to provide them with extra protection against improvised explosive devices. Sometimes, US tanks had tracks of spare strips welded on the hulls6. However, this was to provide them short lived protection, as the Iraqis and Afghanistan’s learnt about it and devised the devices in a way that they could destroy them by use of new trigg er mechanisms. This was a loss to the US army because despite the investment, the impact was not to last for long, and they had to find another means of dealing with the trigger mechanism. When Baghdad was captured by US troops, vehicles of military police were fully installed with required machinery. However, road side bombs, snipers, RPG teams and small alarms were deployed by insurgent forces to attack US military vehicles on known routes and supply conveys. American troops protected themselves from such threats by

World of Work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

World of Work - Essay Example According to Ashenfelter (1999), computer technology has resulted to change in relative demand for skills. Change in workplace caused by introduction of computer has required individual workers to enhance their skills. However, the change has made work to be much easier and enjoyable than it used to be before. This has actually made individual workers to be more efficient on their roles thus becoming more productive. Currently, an employee who used to type one page using the typewriter can write ten pages using a computer in a much easier and enjoyable manner. The change in workplace resulting from introduction of computers has also resulted to great impact to the society. Through internet technology, computers enhance searching of record as well as the displaying of results (CSA, 2010). This has reduced the level of fatigue for individual workers. As a result, their interaction during work and after work has been greatly enhanced. Moreover, the technology has improved communication between individuals. This has greatly enhanced the relationships of individuals in the society thus resulting to societal

2 journal questions Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

2 journal questions - Assignment Example They can develop sleep disorders, attention problems, and difficulties in comprehending what they learn at school. The excessive exposure to the media can also make children overeat, and the consequence is weight gain or obesity. I also learned that providing the children with non-electronic materials and limiting their screen time can help overcome the problems (AAP). I learned effective approaches that can be used to tame children who use their phones excessively. Most children value keeping in touch with each other and can end up misusing their phones by over texting. Although the habit is annoying, texting is a preferred mode of communication among kids. The excessive use phones can affect how kids handle their homework, engage with family members, and attend to other responsibilities. Parents should insist that phones be kept aside at times such as when taking dinner or conversing with their seniors. Parents can take away their kids’ phones at night for charging, as well as, monitoring how they used them during the day. Finally, parents can institute location and time limits for phone use

Reason in Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 4

Reason in Philosophy - Essay Example In the Twilight of the Idols, he describes the problem of the early philosophers such as Socrates and he says, "you want to know what the philosophers' idiosyncrasies are?... Their lack of historical sense for one thing, their hatred of the very idea of becoming, their Egypticity. They believe that they ought to be showing respect for something when they dehistoricize it, sub specie aeterni,- when they turn it into a mummy." He believes that for the past decade or so, philosophers (attempting to define why society is the way it is, or why someone behaves as they do), have lost touch. They use concepts that have been mummified, meanings that they kill the idea as it is and instead, stuff it with their beliefs. When they are faced with questions they cannot handle or that is beyond their reasoning, they look for reasons to criticize it (NIETZSCHE). The irony in his way of reasoning enables the reader to understand why he completely differs from every other philosophers explanations. It is his interpretation of what reasoning ought to be. This guides the themes he discusses in his first book where he rejects God and Christianity and sees them only as generalizations and a point whereby the philosophers confuse the idea of causal from effect. As a result, they take the obvious truths - the last idea, which is Christianity that ought not to be included, and criticizes what they accept as good since for him it is evil. According to Nietzsche, good people are great liars. As such, the society has embraced this morality to Christians who, in essence, are reasonable. A reasonable person, in this case, refers to an individual who embraces alternative truths. Thus, the society tends to criticize people by morally generalizing them. His justification for this argument, is that a strong person has learnt to put his personal desires for p ower that brings happiness to most humans under control, instead of being caught in crossfire of trying to justify themselves (Nietzsche).

Genocide Of either Holocaust or the Rawnda Essay

Genocide Of either Holocaust or the Rawnda - Essay Example (Kagame and his RPF were said to be the ones who ended the genocide) Later on, Kagame is elected as President and has ruled the country since March of 2000. Gourevitch recently wrote that Kagame â€Å"has come to be recognized by his adversaries and his admirers alike, as one of the most formidable political figures of our age† (cjr.org). A detailed report from the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) regarding the events in the run-up and during the April to July of 1994 provided the scale of the genocide in a straightforward lead: â€Å"Between April and June of 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days† (news.bbc.co.uk). The genocide all started from the assassination of Habyarimana and other officials when the airplane they had boarded â€Å"was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April 1994† (new.bbc.co.uk). By Kagame’s account, dissident Hutus were behind the killing of Habyarimana just to give excuse for Hutus and state fo rces to purge the Tutsis out of Rwanda; but a French judge has blamed Kagame. It is clear that several factors had phenomenally laid the groundwork for the horrible genocide to happen. Aside from the shooting down of Habyarimana’s plane, cases of violence–specifically between Hutus and Tutsis which are the two races in Rwanda–replete the torrid history of Rwanda. â€Å"Ethnic tension in Rwanda is nothing new. There have been always disagreements between the majority Hutus and minority Tutsis† (news.bbc.co.uk). Way back in 1916, Belgian colonists considered the Tutsis as superior. Tutsis stood tall and had had â€Å"enjoyed better jobs and educational opportunities† (news.bbc.co.uk) than the Hutus. It is the Hutus’ ethnic hatred towards the Tutsis which added more fuel in burning genocide. In the midst of the Rwandan genocide was Paul Rusesabagina, 56. A hotel manager of the Millie Collines, a luxury hotel in capital Kigali, Rusesabagina has saved many Tutsis from the armed Hutus. His actions transformed him into being an â€Å"unlikely hero† (nationalgeograophic.com). His story was filmed and premiered in Hollywood on the December of 2004 as Hotel Rwanda. Hotel Rwanda has revealed the daily struggles of Rusesabagina just to keep many Tutsis safe in the luxury hotel. It revealed the corrupted and disordered local politics in Rwanda. It has also shown the cowed response of the United Nations’ peacekeeping force in handling the situation. It has also revealed many impoverished families who mired in hunger and poverty. Ultimately, it is a success story on the part of Rusesabagina that despite of all the intimidations he’s been through, he successfully saved his neighbors and loved ones from the genocide. The UN is pretty straightforward in its campaign against genocide. Under the UN Agreements on Human Rights, it is stipulated that the convention bans â€Å"acts committed with the intent to destroy, i n whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group† (hrweb.org). It also declared that â€Å"genocide itself, conspiracy or incitement to commit genocide, attempts to commit or complicity in the commission of genocide all to be illegal† (hrweb.org). It is clear that the true intent of the convention is to straighten the fact that genocide is illegal thus deserves

Reason in Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 4

Reason in Philosophy - Essay Example In the Twilight of the Idols, he describes the problem of the early philosophers such as Socrates and he says, "you want to know what the philosophers' idiosyncrasies are?... Their lack of historical sense for one thing, their hatred of the very idea of becoming, their Egypticity. They believe that they ought to be showing respect for something when they dehistoricize it, sub specie aeterni,- when they turn it into a mummy." He believes that for the past decade or so, philosophers (attempting to define why society is the way it is, or why someone behaves as they do), have lost touch. They use concepts that have been mummified, meanings that they kill the idea as it is and instead, stuff it with their beliefs. When they are faced with questions they cannot handle or that is beyond their reasoning, they look for reasons to criticize it (NIETZSCHE). The irony in his way of reasoning enables the reader to understand why he completely differs from every other philosophers explanations. It is his interpretation of what reasoning ought to be. This guides the themes he discusses in his first book where he rejects God and Christianity and sees them only as generalizations and a point whereby the philosophers confuse the idea of causal from effect. As a result, they take the obvious truths - the last idea, which is Christianity that ought not to be included, and criticizes what they accept as good since for him it is evil. According to Nietzsche, good people are great liars. As such, the society has embraced this morality to Christians who, in essence, are reasonable. A reasonable person, in this case, refers to an individual who embraces alternative truths. Thus, the society tends to criticize people by morally generalizing them. His justification for this argument, is that a strong person has learnt to put his personal desires for p ower that brings happiness to most humans under control, instead of being caught in crossfire of trying to justify themselves (Nietzsche).

Ritzers Macdonaldization Essay Example for Free

Ritzers Macdonaldization Essay In this essay, I aim to explore the term ‘McDonaldization’ dubbed by esteemed Sociologist and University of Maryland Professor, George Ritzer, to correlate his findings with those of the English Sociologist Les Back and then ultimately examine the effect both Globally and Locally. Ritzer’s concepts are fundamentally built around the theories of Max Weber, a German Sociologist who first established the idea of ‘Rationalization’. More specifically, four headings were used to define this shift in the organizational structure of society: Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability and Control of new technologies increasing the productivity of the modern world. I will explore the relevance of these headings later in this essay. Weber maintained it was bureaucratization that contributes to this advance in achieving the â€Å"optimum means to ends† (Ritzer, 2008, 25). The bureaucracy as Weber defines it seems to be the prototype for flawless corporate functionality. â€Å"A bureaucracy is a large-scale organization composed of a hierarchy of offices. In these offices, people have certain responsibilities and must act in accordance with rules, written regulations, and means of compulsion exercised by those who occupy higher-level positions† With an operating structure as tightly knit as described above, it is no surprise that the paradigm of formal rationality according to Ritzer, McDonalds, is one of the most envied business models in the world. 50 million customers a day will find restaurants in 118 nations (Ritzer, 2008, 3). Thousands of businesses strive to emulate their successful rational framework yet fail to conquer, such as the fast-food giants, MacDonald’s. Franchising at an unbelievable rate, McDonalds profits are being maximized year after year as it expands worldwide. A British author Martin Plimmer captures the mastery of their expansion â€Å"There are McDonalds everywhere. There’s one near you, and there’s one being built right now even nearer to you† (Ritzer, 2008, 2). It is on the basis of this exorable power and infectious growth that Ritzer lays his ‘McDonaldization’ theory. â€Å"The process by which the principals of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world†. Ritzer, 2008, 1). Another aspect to this notable commercial structure is McDonaldization’s propensity to de-humanize. Teamed with bureaucratization, McDonaldization has the leverage to spread to modern society on a whole. Fears that people will be consumed by such a heavy emphasis on the rational and technical benefits of practicality and efficiency, destroying the human spirit and reducing them to nothing more then â€Å"a small cog in a ceaselessly moving mechanism† (Macionis and Plummer, 2005:143) as rational globalization expands. Sociologist Les Back puts forward the positive and negative influences of the flourishing technological network on globalisation in his monograph ‘Local/Global’. The concept of a global village; the idea that through new technologies and new converging forms of economy and political state that the world is shrinking and diminishing the importance of peoples differences (Back, 1998, 77) is one that can be both greatly agreed upon or just as easily denied, in my opinion. Firstly, It cannot be argued that one of McDonald’s keys to it’s worldly success was it’s overt American-style image, which many people outside the United States Of America hankered after. The book ‘Golden Arches East’ by James L. Watson describes vividly McDonalds highly anticipated entry into East Asia â€Å"Prior to McDonalds opening in Beijing, the company’s name was already popular among trendy consumers and it was only natural that, when the first restaurant was opened in Beijing in April 1994, thousands lined up for the experience. † (Watson, 1997, 48). Not only did this fascination generate billions of capital for McDonalds (and other fast-food diners such as KFC, Pizza hut etc. ) steering revenue away from Asia’s own food industries but sociologically speaking, the influx of American-Style escapism in which the people of Asia were immersing themselves in spawned a question of multinationals refusal to localize. Are Hamburgers on the Champs-Elysees or Chicken Nuggets by the Grand Canyon really necessary or is it just corporate extremism exercising their capability to the nth degree? Somehow I’m not convinced it is a case that McDonalds cuisine is so delicious that we physically need to have it within reach at all times, particularly in such countries such as France, Italy or Spain, where gastronomy is paramount to their local culture. Back’s theory on this type of globalisation seems a lot more simplistic. He argues that â€Å"globalization can go hand in hand with the commercialization of exotic local cultures† (Back, 1998, 74) but I ask to what extent is this local commercialization succeeding? Chiefly global multinationals are apparent in the rapidly developing worldwide industries, leaving little to zero space for contained business ventures to gain momentum. Although Back does recognize an effective uses of localization in advertising imagery to which these trans-national companies happily comply. â€Å"Advertisers are willing to integrate all kind of notions of difference as long as they serve their purpose† (Back, 1998, 73). A fantastic example is that of the recent McDonald’s advertising campaign, which was specifically intended for a distinctly Irish audience. Johnny Logan, a well-known Irish performer appearing to many different characters with strong colloquial Irish accents, pulls in on regional interest. Vernacular phrases such as â€Å" ye plank.. † â€Å".. sound.. †and â€Å".. free gaff.. † are used, unmistakably local and familiar to McDonalds’s Irish consumers. Back relates the decreasing size of global margins to advances in technologies, which of course is impossible to deny. Although communication overseas and intercontinental conveyance is almost taken for granted at this stage, Back reiterates the speed at which this occurs and the inter-dependence this signifies. â€Å"International flows of technology and media hardware strengthen the dependency relationship between the West and the former colonial peripheries and promote a form of cultural homogenization† `(Back, 1997, 72) In spite of the fact that many of Ritzer’s examples are American the concept of this uniformity is at the heart of his writing and falls under the four heading’s of McDonadization aforementioned. Predictability is one of the devices multinational corporations have taken under their wing in the development of a McDonaldized framework of business. Globally, these giant organizations do not start at the bottom when it comes to extending their trade name abroad and casting their image over seas. â€Å"Wal-Mart bought out 120 stores in Canada in 1994 when it purchased the Wertkauf GmbH hypermarket chain in Germany in 1997, Similarly, when Starbucks moved into the U. K. n 1998, it acquiresd the already existing Seattle Coffee Company and refitted it’s 82 stores as Starbucks outlets†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (Klein, 2005, 139) Specifically many coffee shops have undergone ‘Starbucksization’ to the point where any coffee shop in the western world could fail to posses a hint of originality. Insomnia, Costa Coffee and increasingly McDonalds contribution to the market McCafe, are but a few of the cafe chains that are adapting to the modern competition. In our local environment a comprehensible instance of McDonaldization would be the excessive franchising of Spar shops in Ireland, eplacing another family corner shop as it unfurls over the country. As consumers we’ve experienced the components of Weber’s ‘Rationalization’ and Ritzer’s McDonaldization in its plainest form. The efficiency of these stores is unrivalled, often containing Juice Bars, Off Licences, Delicatessens and Coffee shops, a conglomerate of effectiveness under one roof. Calculability by the selection of staff who work at each counter, pricing, weighing and recommending items for purchase. Chiefly the predictability of a Spar shop would almost be similar to what one would expect of a handful of McDonalds’, the flooring, the lighting and the layout are all but slightly in difference nationwide. Finally, these environments are controlled not only by the presence of Security guards at the entrance to many branches but they are hi-tech and forward thinking in technologies in contrast with many of there older competitors, featuring Automatic doors and self check-out services. In conclusion, both George Ritzer and Les Back have some shared views and some conflicting one’s on the matter of globalization and how it affects us directly and indirectly. Ritzer’s theory of McDonaldization worked alongside many of Back’s viewpoints on technologies, in particular as regards the dimension of control. Finally, the concepts of Global and Local, I believe will be disputed not only by both Ritzer and Back as the relationship worldwide decreases in size with the introduction of further connectivity when does the benefits of this begin and cease.

Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude

Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude The relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes Introduction The concept of human resource management (HRM) has received focussed attention for around 20 years, with the catalyst being that many US companies found they were being rivalled and in some instances overtaken, in markets they had dominated (Ehrlich, 1994, p. 492). As Lodge (1985, p. 319) observes: By the early 1980s there was still little disagreement that US corporate managers, employees and trade unions would have to change their ways in order to compete successfully for markets in America and abroad. Harvard university academics introduced a new compulsory component of HRM into their MBA syllabus and reinforced this so-called Harvard Model with influential books and articles (Beer et al., 1984; Walton, 1985b; Walton and Lawrence, 1985). While there would surely have been a genuine desire to help US business, US society, and even US employees, there was also a long-term effort to ensure that the Harvard Business School faculty provided leadership in human resource management (Walton and Lawrence, 1985, p. xx). The Harvard concept stresses that HRM should lead to employee commitment not simply as a means to employer objectives of improved productivity and profits, but because the fulfilment of many employee needs is taken as a goal rather than merely a means to an end (Walton, 1985a, p. 49). At about the same time as the Harvard concept was being developed another viewpoint was being promulgated by academics who supported a strategic concept of HRM, with the major work edited by Fombrun et al. (1984). This work emphasises that the four generic human resource activities of all organisations: selection/promotion/placement process; reward process; development process; and appraisal process (Tichy et al., 1984, p. 26) need to be strategically aligned with the organisations overall strategic objectives. Hard and soft HRM British writers have focused on the differences between the Harvard commitment concept of HRM and the strategic HRM concept. Keenoy (1990, p. 368) sees the Harvard concept as philosophically grounded in the recognition of multiple stakeholders and the belief that the practice and benefits of HRM can be achieved through neo-pluralist mechanisms, while the strategic concept is almost uniformly unitarist in orientation and displays a quite singular endorsement of managerial values. The former is frequently referred to as soft HRM, while the latter is hard HRM. In theory, soft HRM fulfils employee needs as an end in itself, and the favourable attitudes generated from the use of appropriate HRM practices (Guest, 1997) together with communication, motivation and leadership (Storey, 1987, p. 6), result in commitment to the organisation and improved performance. Hard HRM is only concerned with the effective utilisation of employees (Guest, 2002) and emphasises the quantitative, calculative and business strategic aspects of managing the head count resource in as natural a way as for any other economic factor (Storey, 1987, p. 6). If the reality of soft HRM practice was that it produced the benefits referred to in the rhetoric of academic evangelists such as Richard Walton then it should be highly favoured by both employees and employers. Questions have been raised by a number of researchers, however, about the ability of soft HRM to achieve these benefits. There are two concerns. The first is that the real motive behind its introduction is to undermine unions (Sisson, 1994). Indeed, going back to the introduction of the Harvard concept of soft HRM, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) writes about a seminal colloquium on HRM between 35 senior executives and Harvard academics. He claims that the question as to whether HRM was designed to keep the union out was emphatically denied, and he protested that all but three of the firms represented were at least partially unionised, with several having had a significant number of units of both kinds, with their older plants unionised and the newer ones not. An unreasonable interpr etation therefore would be that these leaders of commitment HRM will happily dispense with unions given the opportunity. Indeed, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) admits that there was a general view that in a well-managed unit with decision-sharing, a union was not needed to represent employee interests. Guest (1990, p. 389) concludes, the main impact of HRM in the United States may have been to provide a smokescreen behind which management can introduce non-unionism or obtain significant concessions from trade unions. The second concern is that meeting the needs of employees has never been an objective in itself, and has simply been the normative view of what Harvard academics would like to see as the employment relationship. Truss et al. (1997, p. 70) in a study of soft and hard models of HRM, concluded that even if the rhetoric of HRM is soft, the reality is almost always hard, with the interests of the organisation prevailing over those of the individual. Similar conclusions have been reached by Keenoy (1990), Poole and Mansfield (1992), Guest (1995) and Legge (1995a, b, 1998). If the soft model of HRM has validity, then there should be a clear relationship between the experience of soft HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (reflecting their needs are being met) and increasing employee commitment as well as improved productivity. Surprisingly, however, most of the research and reporting on HRM has ignored the views of employees. Legge (1998, p. 14) points out: when reading accounts of HRM practice in the UK and North America it is noticeable the extent to which the data are (literally) the voices of management. Guest (1999, p. 5) agrees, claiming that from its conception human resource management reflected a management agenda to the neglect of workers concerns. Some studies have considered employee reactions to HRM (Gibb, 2001; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000; Mabey et al., 1998) but Guest (2002, p. 335) is perceptive in his criticism that a feature of both advocates and critics of HRM is their neglect of direct evidence about the role and reactions of w orkers. Even the exceptions noted which gave employee reactions to HRM did not relate the employee experience of HRM practices to their reactions, and Guest (1997) argues for a research agenda that addresses this gap. This paper aims to contribute to this gap by fulfilling two major objectives. The first is to add to the limited number of studies which have tested to see if there is a relationship between HRM practice and positive employee attitudes. The second objective is to see if there is a significantly stronger relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes if employee perceptions of HRM practice are taken as the measure of HRM rather than employer perceptions, which has been the approach taken in general by previous researchers. HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes The soft model of HRM, as stated previously, suggests a relationship exists between the use of appropriate HRM practices and positive employee attitudes, and while theoretically these relationships remain poorly developed (Guest, 1997, 2001), a number of attitudes are nonetheless widely considered to be an outcome of soft HRM. For example, levels of job satisfaction, which is the affective perception that results from the achievement of desired outcomes (Harber et al., 1997), are found to be related to levels of HRM practice (Guest, 2002; Ting, 1997). High levels of employee commitment have also been found to be related to the use of appropriate HRM practice (Guest, 2002), and results from investing in HRM practices which benefit employees. For example, the provision of opportunities for training and skill development benefits the employee by equipping them with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to function autonomously and responsibly (Guest, 2002). Furthermore, it impro ves retention and enables them to cope with change in the work environment (Guest, 2002). Organisational fairness is the term used to describe the role of fairness as it directly relates to the workplace and is concerned with the ways employees determine if they have been treated fairly in their jobs and the ways in which those determinations influence other work-related variables (Moorman, 1991, p. 845). The HRM systems, policies, and procedures that operate in an organisation have been identified as impacting on an individuals perceptions of bias and fairness (Kurland and Egan, 1999; Greenberg, 1990). Studies show that where employees believe they are treated fairly in the workplace then they hold positive attitudes towards the organisation (Moorman, 1991), whereas HRM practices that are perceived to be unfair have been found to result in the employee feeling bewildered and betrayed and thus less committed (Schappe, 1996). As far as the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is concerned, the HRM practice dimension has been measured by collecting data from employers in one of the two ways using additive measures of HRM practice or self-reports about the extent to which particular HRM practices have been operationalised. A possible third approach would be to collect employee views about the operationalisation of HRM practice and then relate these reactions to their attitudes. These approaches are described below. The additive approach To date the most common approach for assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the additive approach. This involves employers indicating, using a yes/no response format, which HRM practices from a predetermined list currently operate in their organisations. The yes responses are then added together, and the assumption is that a higher sum indicates better HRM. Researchers using the additive approach usually correlate the total number of practices with the HRM outcomes being examined. Research exploring this relationship show a strong correlation between high numbers of HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1999; Guest and Conway, 2002; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000). While this approach is frequently used, it has attracted criticism (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1997, 2002). The additive approach is very simplistic. If an employer claims a practice is utilised there is no differentiation on the basis on how well, or to what extent the practice exists. For example, there could be token training and development, or a high level of commitment to a professional and effective training and development programme. Both examples are credited as a yes. This perceived weakness has led some researchers to use employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice. Employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest that an improvement on the additive approach is to assess the extent or strength of practice using response bands such as those contained in Likert scales. Such an approach sees employers self-reporting, either on the extent they consider particular HRM practices to be effective (Delaney and Huselid, 1996), or alternatively on the extent to which HRM practices have been operationalised (i.e. to what extent practices are practised) in their workplace (Kane et al., 1999). Guest (2001, p. 1099) claims further research is needed to test the extent that employer and employee views on HRM practices coincide or differ. Specifically he suggests: There is now a need for more research comparing the responses of managers responsible for developing and overseeing HRM practice and employees to identify levels of agreement about the operation of practices such evidence as it is possible to glean from reports about levels of autonomy and consultation suggest that levels of agreement might be quite low. Support for this assertion has already been found. For example, Appelbaum and Bergs (2000) study comparing supervisor and employee perceptions about participative initiatives in US organisations found wide differences. Similarly, Kane et al. (1999) also found evidence of perceptual differences about HRM between different organisational stakeholders. While managers and employers are important stakeholders, so too are employees. This has led to a strong call for employee voice to be heard in HRM research (Guest, 2001). Employee self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Given the apparent perceptual differences between employers and employees perceptions of HRM then a third approach that could be used would see employees reports on the strength of operationalised HRM practice analysed in relation to their levels of work-related attitudes. There is now growing support for assessing HRM from the employee perspective emerging in the literature (Fiorito, 2002; Gibb, 2001; Guest, 2001), and given that where the concern is employee attitudes, then it is intuitively logical to relate that to employee rather than employer perceptions of the effectiveness of HRM policies and practices. Method The most common approach employed in studies assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the survey (Cully et al., 2000; Guest, 1999), and this is the method of data collection used in this study. Four areas of HRM practice are examined good and safe working conditions, training and development, equal employment opportunities (EEO), and recruitment and selection. These areas of HRM have been selected because they have previously been identified as those likely to have the greatest impact on employee behaviour and attitudes (Guest, 2001). Three employee work-related attitudes are examined organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness. These attitudes are generally considered to be desirable outcomes that result from the use of soft HRM (Meyer and Smith, 2000; Guest, 1997). Measurement Three approaches are used to measure HRM practice an additive measure completed by the employer, and two perceptual measures, one completed by employers and one completed by employees. All three measures relate to practices characterised in the literature as soft HRM or best practice HRM (Guest, 1999; Guest and Peccei, 1992; Johnson, 2000; Kane et al., 1999). They are employee-centred (i.e. they should produce benefits for employees when operationalised), and thus should impact on employee work-related attitudes. The additive measure, as stated, is the one most commonly used in research of this type. The additive measure used in this study asks employers to indicate, using a yes/no response format, which practices, from a comprehensive list of 80 practices (20 for each functional area covered), currently operate in their organisation (for example, Do you consult employees on their training needs?). A 20-item scale consisting of statements about HRM practice is used to assess the strength of HRM practices (five items for each of the four functional areas). Respondents are asked to indicate, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree, the extent they consider each practice occurs in their organisation, for example, EEO is promoted within this organisation (see Appendix 1 for a full list of statements). The same scale is used for both the employer and the employee groups, with the wording amended to reflect their different perspectives. Employer and employee assessments of HRM using this measure are, therefore, concerned with the judgements these groups make about the extent a particular HRM practice has been operationalised in the workplace. The ÃŽ ± coefficients for the five item measures relating to each of the four areas of HRM practice examined ranged from 0.83 to 0.88, suggesting high internal consistency exists (Browne, 2000). The s tatements about HRM practice on the perceptual measure closely reflect the ones used in the additive measure, but there is not a direct correspondence as that would have resulted in an excessively long measure. Three widely accepted measures of employee attitudes are used. Guest (1997) suggests organisational commitment should be measured using the standard measure developed by Mowday et al. (1979) the organisational commitment questionnaire (OCQ) because this scale captures the extent the employee identifies with the organisation, their desire to remain in the organisation and their willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organisation. An adapted and shortened version of the OCQ is used in this study to measure organisational commitment. Again, respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.8535). To measure job satisfaction, an adapted and shortened form of the Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire (Weiss et al., 1967) is used. The scale has six items and respondents are asked to indicate how satisfied they are with respect to each of the statements, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=very dissatisfied to 5=very satisfied (ÃŽ ±=0.8664). While organisational fairness has two dimensions distributive and procedural this study is concerned only with procedural fairness and HRM policy and practice. The measure used is an adapted and shortened six-item version of the procedural justice scale used by Moorman (1991). This measures employees perceptions about the way formal procedures are carried out. Respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.9160). Employer and employee respondents were also asked to provide a range of demographic information. Analysis Data are analysed using SPSS, Version 11, using matched employer and aggregated employee data from 37 organisations. Correlations, using Pearsons r, are completed to explore the relationships between HRM practice and employee attitudes. The multiple linear regression technique is used to explore the differential impacts of the three approaches being tested. The sample In total, 234 organisations were originally contacted to participate in this study. A total of 40 organisations agreed to participate. The person most responsible for operationalising HRM practice was requested to complete the employer survey. Employee participation was voluntary, and the company fully endorsed their participation. The employer participant was requested to distribute the surveys to a representative sample of their workforce, in terms of occupational classification, ethnicity and gender. The targeted population of employees consisted of a total of 1,075 full- and part-time employees from the 40 participating organisations. A total of 626 employees responded (a response rate of 58 per cent) by completing the survey and returning it in the reply-paid envelope provided. In total, 37 usable matched sets of data were obtained. These 37 matched data sets comprise one completed employer questionnaire (total usable employer responses=37) and on average 15 employee questionnai res for each organisation (total usable employee responses=572). The number of actual employee responses received for each organisation varied with workplace size, and ranged from eight to 31. The demographics for the employer and employee samples are reported in Table I. New Zealand is a relatively small country and organisations employing in excess of 100 employees are usually classified as large, with those having between 50 and 99 employees classified as medium and organisations with under 50 employees as small. Three-fifths of the organisations participating in this study can be classified as large; one-fifth are medium, and the remaining five small. Of the 37 participating organisations, 19 are located in the private sector, 18 in the public sector. Around 35 per cent of the participating organisations are located in the service industry, with this group being evenly represented across both sectors. All other organisations are classified in the manufacturing, transport, retail, sales, education and health industries. Both the employer and the employee samples are reasonably a representative of organisations and the composition of the workforce in New Zealand, with the only notable exception being the employee sample is skewed in terms of occupation towards professional and semi-professional groups. Results The first analysis examines the relationship between additive measures of HRM practice and attitudes. The number of practices for each functional area varied considerably between organisations. Generally it is found that there are relatively high levels of practice for the areas of good and safe working conditions (M=15.95, SD=3.22), training and development (M=16.77, SD=2.76), along with recruitment and selection (M=16.52, SD=2.50). EEO is the one area, on the other hand, where a considerably lower mean level of practice exists (M=12.17, SD=5.96). According to prior research, high numbers of HRM practice are associated with positive employee attitudes (Guest, 1999). The results of the analysis for this relationship are reported in Table II. These findings differ from those previously reported. Using aggregated employee means, when levels of organisational commitment (M=3.72, SD=0.78), job satisfaction (M=3.72, SD=0.79) and organisational fairness (M=3.70, SD=0.86) are correlated with the combined additive measure of HRM practice, the results show that higher index scores in the number of HRM practices are not related to higher levels of organisational commitment (r=0.155, df=35, p=>0.05), job satisfaction (r=0.085, df=35, p=>0.05) or organisational fairness (r=0.146, df=35, p=>0.05). When this relationship is examined by functional area the correlations are also found not to be significant. Next the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is examined using first employer self-reports, and second employee self-reports. These results are also reported in Table II. Statistically significant correlations are found to exist between the three attitudes measured and employee assessments of HRM practice for all the functional areas examined. However, no significant correlations are found between employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice and employee attitudes. Data are then analysed using a regression technique, enabling the predictive qualities of each of the three approaches for assessing HRM practice to be explored. The model used for regressions is shown in Figure 1. All the measures of HRM practices were entered into a multiple regression[1] equation so that the character of the relationship between different measures of HRM practice and employee attitudes could be explored. It is found that nearly 51 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment (R 2=0.506, p The results of the regressions for the three measures of HRM practice, along with the three measures of employee attitudes, are presented in Table III. When the results of the regression for the three different measures of HRM practice are analysed it becomes evident that employee assessments have the greatest level of predictive power for attitudes. The regression reveals that numbers of HRM practice and employer assessments about the strength of HRM practice account for very little of the variance in attitudes. On the other hand, employee assessments of HRM practice appear to be very influential. Around 47 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment is explained by employee assessments of practice across the four HRM areas examined, with even larger and equally significant levels of variance being explained by this for job satisfaction and organisational fairness. If we exclude employee assessments related to EEO from the analysis, as it uniformly records the lowest ÃŽ ² across all three attitudes, the ÃŽ ² statistic for the remaining three functional areas of HRM practice implies that for every increment in employee assessments, levels of attitudes increase by between 0.17 and 0.34. The most statistically significant and consistent increments are in relation to employee assessments of good and safe working conditions, along with training and development, and these are found to apply to all aspects of work-related attitudes measured. Also worth noting is that, not surprisingly, assessments of recruitment and selection practices accounted for the largest variance in levels of organisational fairness. Discussion and concluding remarks Consistent with the work of Appelbaum and Berg (2000), Cully et al. (2000) and Guest (1999), this study also finds that a significant relationship exists between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes. There is a strong statistically significant relationship when HRM is researched from the employee perspective. However, there was no significant relationship when HRM practice was measured using the additive approach or employer self-reports. These results have implications for current approaches used to assess the HRM practice-employee work-related attitudes relationship. This study demonstrates that by far the greatest correlate of employee attitudes are employees own assessments of the strength of HRM practice. Interestingly, higher levels of HRM practice, using an additive measure, are not found to be significantly associated with attitudes across any of the four functional areas of HRM examined. In fact, it is revealed that higher levels of HRM practice are in some cases related to decreased levels of job satisfaction and organisational fairness. For example, looking at the data for each functional HRM area, it is possible that higher levels of EEO practice may actually have no, or even a negative, effect on employee attitudes, with a strong inverse relationship being found for job satisfaction. Similarly, weak relationships are found when the relationship between employer assessments about operationalised practice and attitudes are examined. So while Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest these areas are important aspects of best practice HRM, this study finds them to be unrelated to attitudes when data are collected from employers. Put together these results suggest that if managers want to maximise employee attitudes, then implementing lots of practices is not sufficient. Practitioners need to be aware that the way they implement their HRM practices may be a more important determinant of employee attitudes than the number of practices they put in place. This builds on the research findings of other recent studies (Armstrong, 2001) that suggest it is possible that it is the quality of the practice that counts and not the quantity. It may be that practitioners may need to undertake regular attitudinal surveys to assess employee reactions to current HRM practice and assess these on a longitudinal basis to identify what is working and what is not. It was beyond the parameters of this study to examine the complex relationship between HRM practice, employee attitudes and business performance; it has, however, explored the narrower relationship between HRM practice (for the areas of good and safe working conditions, training and development, EEO and recruitment and selection) and three employee attitudes (organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness). While regressions tell us nothing about the cause-effect nature of relationships between assessments of HRM practice and employee attitudes, these findings strongly suggest that incorporating the employees experience of HRM into analyses exploring the HRM practice, employee attitudes relationship will contribute further to our understanding about what aspects of HRM have the potential to yield the greatest performance outcomes. Arguably, more so, it would appear, than exploring this particular relationship solely using additive measures or employer self-re ports. This study has some limitations. This study found the standard deviations for assessments of HRM practice and work-related attitudes amongst employee groups within each organisation to be reasonably low, showing close agreement. Nonetheless the aggregated data has been developed from a relatively small sample, thus it may not be representative of the bulk of employee views. The evaluative nature of the questions used introduces the possibility of common method variance (i.e. an artificial correlation across questions due to mood or other contaminants (Fiorito, 2002)). Also, the HRM practices used in this study are supposedly best practice; however, there is still insufficient evidence available to confirm that they are indeed best practice. Finally, Gibb (2001) suggests effective HRM is about implementing best practice. While this may very well be true, it is clear from this study that simply introducing best practice, or even assessing the effectiveness of practice from the employers viewpoint, is no guarantee that they have been successfully implemented. If the organisations objective is to improve employees workplace attitudes, then possibly a better way to confirm which HRM practices are having the greatest impact, and hence are effective, is to correlate employees assessment of them with employees attitudes. Further studies in this area are now required. References Appelbaum, E., Berg, P. (2000), High performance work systems: giving workers a stake, in Blair, M., Kochan, T. (Eds),The New Relationship: Human Capital in the American Corporation, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Armstrong, G. (2001), The Change Agenda: Performance through People, The New People Management, CODE, London, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Beer, M., Spector, B., Lawrence, P.R., Mills, D.Q., Walton, R.E. (1984), Managing Human Assets, Free Press, New York, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Browne, J.H. (2000), Benchmarking HRM practices in healthy work organizations, American Business Review, Vol. 18 No.2, pp.54-61. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Cully, M., Woodland, S., OReilly, A., Dix, G. (2000), Britain at Work: As Depicted by the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, Routledge, London, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Delaney, J.T., Huselid, M.A. (1996), The impact of human resource management practices on perceptions of organizational performance, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 39 No.4, pp.949-69. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Ehrlich, C.J. (1994), Creating an employer-employee relationship for the future, Human Resource Management, Vol. 33 No.3, pp.491-501. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Fiorito, J. (2002), Human resource management practices and worker desires for union representation, in Bennett, J., Kaufman, B. (Eds),The Future of Private Sector Unionism in the United States, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] (1984), in Fombrun, C., Tichy, N., Devanna, M. (Eds),Strategic Human Resource Management, Wiley, New York, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Gibb, S. (2001), The state of human resource management: evidence from employees view of HRM systems and staff, Employee Relations, Vol. 23 No.4, pp.318-36. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Greenberg, J. (1990), Organisational justice: yesterday, today and tomorrow, Journal of Management, Vol. 16 pp.399-43 Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude The relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes Introduction The concept of human resource management (HRM) has received focussed attention for around 20 years, with the catalyst being that many US companies found they were being rivalled and in some instances overtaken, in markets they had dominated (Ehrlich, 1994, p. 492). As Lodge (1985, p. 319) observes: By the early 1980s there was still little disagreement that US corporate managers, employees and trade unions would have to change their ways in order to compete successfully for markets in America and abroad. Harvard university academics introduced a new compulsory component of HRM into their MBA syllabus and reinforced this so-called Harvard Model with influential books and articles (Beer et al., 1984; Walton, 1985b; Walton and Lawrence, 1985). While there would surely have been a genuine desire to help US business, US society, and even US employees, there was also a long-term effort to ensure that the Harvard Business School faculty provided leadership in human resource management (Walton and Lawrence, 1985, p. xx). The Harvard concept stresses that HRM should lead to employee commitment not simply as a means to employer objectives of improved productivity and profits, but because the fulfilment of many employee needs is taken as a goal rather than merely a means to an end (Walton, 1985a, p. 49). At about the same time as the Harvard concept was being developed another viewpoint was being promulgated by academics who supported a strategic concept of HRM, with the major work edited by Fombrun et al. (1984). This work emphasises that the four generic human resource activities of all organisations: selection/promotion/placement process; reward process; development process; and appraisal process (Tichy et al., 1984, p. 26) need to be strategically aligned with the organisations overall strategic objectives. Hard and soft HRM British writers have focused on the differences between the Harvard commitment concept of HRM and the strategic HRM concept. Keenoy (1990, p. 368) sees the Harvard concept as philosophically grounded in the recognition of multiple stakeholders and the belief that the practice and benefits of HRM can be achieved through neo-pluralist mechanisms, while the strategic concept is almost uniformly unitarist in orientation and displays a quite singular endorsement of managerial values. The former is frequently referred to as soft HRM, while the latter is hard HRM. In theory, soft HRM fulfils employee needs as an end in itself, and the favourable attitudes generated from the use of appropriate HRM practices (Guest, 1997) together with communication, motivation and leadership (Storey, 1987, p. 6), result in commitment to the organisation and improved performance. Hard HRM is only concerned with the effective utilisation of employees (Guest, 2002) and emphasises the quantitative, calculative and business strategic aspects of managing the head count resource in as natural a way as for any other economic factor (Storey, 1987, p. 6). If the reality of soft HRM practice was that it produced the benefits referred to in the rhetoric of academic evangelists such as Richard Walton then it should be highly favoured by both employees and employers. Questions have been raised by a number of researchers, however, about the ability of soft HRM to achieve these benefits. There are two concerns. The first is that the real motive behind its introduction is to undermine unions (Sisson, 1994). Indeed, going back to the introduction of the Harvard concept of soft HRM, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) writes about a seminal colloquium on HRM between 35 senior executives and Harvard academics. He claims that the question as to whether HRM was designed to keep the union out was emphatically denied, and he protested that all but three of the firms represented were at least partially unionised, with several having had a significant number of units of both kinds, with their older plants unionised and the newer ones not. An unreasonable interpr etation therefore would be that these leaders of commitment HRM will happily dispense with unions given the opportunity. Indeed, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) admits that there was a general view that in a well-managed unit with decision-sharing, a union was not needed to represent employee interests. Guest (1990, p. 389) concludes, the main impact of HRM in the United States may have been to provide a smokescreen behind which management can introduce non-unionism or obtain significant concessions from trade unions. The second concern is that meeting the needs of employees has never been an objective in itself, and has simply been the normative view of what Harvard academics would like to see as the employment relationship. Truss et al. (1997, p. 70) in a study of soft and hard models of HRM, concluded that even if the rhetoric of HRM is soft, the reality is almost always hard, with the interests of the organisation prevailing over those of the individual. Similar conclusions have been reached by Keenoy (1990), Poole and Mansfield (1992), Guest (1995) and Legge (1995a, b, 1998). If the soft model of HRM has validity, then there should be a clear relationship between the experience of soft HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (reflecting their needs are being met) and increasing employee commitment as well as improved productivity. Surprisingly, however, most of the research and reporting on HRM has ignored the views of employees. Legge (1998, p. 14) points out: when reading accounts of HRM practice in the UK and North America it is noticeable the extent to which the data are (literally) the voices of management. Guest (1999, p. 5) agrees, claiming that from its conception human resource management reflected a management agenda to the neglect of workers concerns. Some studies have considered employee reactions to HRM (Gibb, 2001; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000; Mabey et al., 1998) but Guest (2002, p. 335) is perceptive in his criticism that a feature of both advocates and critics of HRM is their neglect of direct evidence about the role and reactions of w orkers. Even the exceptions noted which gave employee reactions to HRM did not relate the employee experience of HRM practices to their reactions, and Guest (1997) argues for a research agenda that addresses this gap. This paper aims to contribute to this gap by fulfilling two major objectives. The first is to add to the limited number of studies which have tested to see if there is a relationship between HRM practice and positive employee attitudes. The second objective is to see if there is a significantly stronger relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes if employee perceptions of HRM practice are taken as the measure of HRM rather than employer perceptions, which has been the approach taken in general by previous researchers. HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes The soft model of HRM, as stated previously, suggests a relationship exists between the use of appropriate HRM practices and positive employee attitudes, and while theoretically these relationships remain poorly developed (Guest, 1997, 2001), a number of attitudes are nonetheless widely considered to be an outcome of soft HRM. For example, levels of job satisfaction, which is the affective perception that results from the achievement of desired outcomes (Harber et al., 1997), are found to be related to levels of HRM practice (Guest, 2002; Ting, 1997). High levels of employee commitment have also been found to be related to the use of appropriate HRM practice (Guest, 2002), and results from investing in HRM practices which benefit employees. For example, the provision of opportunities for training and skill development benefits the employee by equipping them with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to function autonomously and responsibly (Guest, 2002). Furthermore, it impro ves retention and enables them to cope with change in the work environment (Guest, 2002). Organisational fairness is the term used to describe the role of fairness as it directly relates to the workplace and is concerned with the ways employees determine if they have been treated fairly in their jobs and the ways in which those determinations influence other work-related variables (Moorman, 1991, p. 845). The HRM systems, policies, and procedures that operate in an organisation have been identified as impacting on an individuals perceptions of bias and fairness (Kurland and Egan, 1999; Greenberg, 1990). Studies show that where employees believe they are treated fairly in the workplace then they hold positive attitudes towards the organisation (Moorman, 1991), whereas HRM practices that are perceived to be unfair have been found to result in the employee feeling bewildered and betrayed and thus less committed (Schappe, 1996). As far as the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is concerned, the HRM practice dimension has been measured by collecting data from employers in one of the two ways using additive measures of HRM practice or self-reports about the extent to which particular HRM practices have been operationalised. A possible third approach would be to collect employee views about the operationalisation of HRM practice and then relate these reactions to their attitudes. These approaches are described below. The additive approach To date the most common approach for assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the additive approach. This involves employers indicating, using a yes/no response format, which HRM practices from a predetermined list currently operate in their organisations. The yes responses are then added together, and the assumption is that a higher sum indicates better HRM. Researchers using the additive approach usually correlate the total number of practices with the HRM outcomes being examined. Research exploring this relationship show a strong correlation between high numbers of HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1999; Guest and Conway, 2002; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000). While this approach is frequently used, it has attracted criticism (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1997, 2002). The additive approach is very simplistic. If an employer claims a practice is utilised there is no differentiation on the basis on how well, or to what extent the practice exists. For example, there could be token training and development, or a high level of commitment to a professional and effective training and development programme. Both examples are credited as a yes. This perceived weakness has led some researchers to use employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice. Employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest that an improvement on the additive approach is to assess the extent or strength of practice using response bands such as those contained in Likert scales. Such an approach sees employers self-reporting, either on the extent they consider particular HRM practices to be effective (Delaney and Huselid, 1996), or alternatively on the extent to which HRM practices have been operationalised (i.e. to what extent practices are practised) in their workplace (Kane et al., 1999). Guest (2001, p. 1099) claims further research is needed to test the extent that employer and employee views on HRM practices coincide or differ. Specifically he suggests: There is now a need for more research comparing the responses of managers responsible for developing and overseeing HRM practice and employees to identify levels of agreement about the operation of practices such evidence as it is possible to glean from reports about levels of autonomy and consultation suggest that levels of agreement might be quite low. Support for this assertion has already been found. For example, Appelbaum and Bergs (2000) study comparing supervisor and employee perceptions about participative initiatives in US organisations found wide differences. Similarly, Kane et al. (1999) also found evidence of perceptual differences about HRM between different organisational stakeholders. While managers and employers are important stakeholders, so too are employees. This has led to a strong call for employee voice to be heard in HRM research (Guest, 2001). Employee self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Given the apparent perceptual differences between employers and employees perceptions of HRM then a third approach that could be used would see employees reports on the strength of operationalised HRM practice analysed in relation to their levels of work-related attitudes. There is now growing support for assessing HRM from the employee perspective emerging in the literature (Fiorito, 2002; Gibb, 2001; Guest, 2001), and given that where the concern is employee attitudes, then it is intuitively logical to relate that to employee rather than employer perceptions of the effectiveness of HRM policies and practices. Method The most common approach employed in studies assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the survey (Cully et al., 2000; Guest, 1999), and this is the method of data collection used in this study. Four areas of HRM practice are examined good and safe working conditions, training and development, equal employment opportunities (EEO), and recruitment and selection. These areas of HRM have been selected because they have previously been identified as those likely to have the greatest impact on employee behaviour and attitudes (Guest, 2001). Three employee work-related attitudes are examined organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness. These attitudes are generally considered to be desirable outcomes that result from the use of soft HRM (Meyer and Smith, 2000; Guest, 1997). Measurement Three approaches are used to measure HRM practice an additive measure completed by the employer, and two perceptual measures, one completed by employers and one completed by employees. All three measures relate to practices characterised in the literature as soft HRM or best practice HRM (Guest, 1999; Guest and Peccei, 1992; Johnson, 2000; Kane et al., 1999). They are employee-centred (i.e. they should produce benefits for employees when operationalised), and thus should impact on employee work-related attitudes. The additive measure, as stated, is the one most commonly used in research of this type. The additive measure used in this study asks employers to indicate, using a yes/no response format, which practices, from a comprehensive list of 80 practices (20 for each functional area covered), currently operate in their organisation (for example, Do you consult employees on their training needs?). A 20-item scale consisting of statements about HRM practice is used to assess the strength of HRM practices (five items for each of the four functional areas). Respondents are asked to indicate, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree, the extent they consider each practice occurs in their organisation, for example, EEO is promoted within this organisation (see Appendix 1 for a full list of statements). The same scale is used for both the employer and the employee groups, with the wording amended to reflect their different perspectives. Employer and employee assessments of HRM using this measure are, therefore, concerned with the judgements these groups make about the extent a particular HRM practice has been operationalised in the workplace. The ÃŽ ± coefficients for the five item measures relating to each of the four areas of HRM practice examined ranged from 0.83 to 0.88, suggesting high internal consistency exists (Browne, 2000). The s tatements about HRM practice on the perceptual measure closely reflect the ones used in the additive measure, but there is not a direct correspondence as that would have resulted in an excessively long measure. Three widely accepted measures of employee attitudes are used. Guest (1997) suggests organisational commitment should be measured using the standard measure developed by Mowday et al. (1979) the organisational commitment questionnaire (OCQ) because this scale captures the extent the employee identifies with the organisation, their desire to remain in the organisation and their willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organisation. An adapted and shortened version of the OCQ is used in this study to measure organisational commitment. Again, respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.8535). To measure job satisfaction, an adapted and shortened form of the Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire (Weiss et al., 1967) is used. The scale has six items and respondents are asked to indicate how satisfied they are with respect to each of the statements, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=very dissatisfied to 5=very satisfied (ÃŽ ±=0.8664). While organisational fairness has two dimensions distributive and procedural this study is concerned only with procedural fairness and HRM policy and practice. The measure used is an adapted and shortened six-item version of the procedural justice scale used by Moorman (1991). This measures employees perceptions about the way formal procedures are carried out. Respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.9160). Employer and employee respondents were also asked to provide a range of demographic information. Analysis Data are analysed using SPSS, Version 11, using matched employer and aggregated employee data from 37 organisations. Correlations, using Pearsons r, are completed to explore the relationships between HRM practice and employee attitudes. The multiple linear regression technique is used to explore the differential impacts of the three approaches being tested. The sample In total, 234 organisations were originally contacted to participate in this study. A total of 40 organisations agreed to participate. The person most responsible for operationalising HRM practice was requested to complete the employer survey. Employee participation was voluntary, and the company fully endorsed their participation. The employer participant was requested to distribute the surveys to a representative sample of their workforce, in terms of occupational classification, ethnicity and gender. The targeted population of employees consisted of a total of 1,075 full- and part-time employees from the 40 participating organisations. A total of 626 employees responded (a response rate of 58 per cent) by completing the survey and returning it in the reply-paid envelope provided. In total, 37 usable matched sets of data were obtained. These 37 matched data sets comprise one completed employer questionnaire (total usable employer responses=37) and on average 15 employee questionnai res for each organisation (total usable employee responses=572). The number of actual employee responses received for each organisation varied with workplace size, and ranged from eight to 31. The demographics for the employer and employee samples are reported in Table I. New Zealand is a relatively small country and organisations employing in excess of 100 employees are usually classified as large, with those having between 50 and 99 employees classified as medium and organisations with under 50 employees as small. Three-fifths of the organisations participating in this study can be classified as large; one-fifth are medium, and the remaining five small. Of the 37 participating organisations, 19 are located in the private sector, 18 in the public sector. Around 35 per cent of the participating organisations are located in the service industry, with this group being evenly represented across both sectors. All other organisations are classified in the manufacturing, transport, retail, sales, education and health industries. Both the employer and the employee samples are reasonably a representative of organisations and the composition of the workforce in New Zealand, with the only notable exception being the employee sample is skewed in terms of occupation towards professional and semi-professional groups. Results The first analysis examines the relationship between additive measures of HRM practice and attitudes. The number of practices for each functional area varied considerably between organisations. Generally it is found that there are relatively high levels of practice for the areas of good and safe working conditions (M=15.95, SD=3.22), training and development (M=16.77, SD=2.76), along with recruitment and selection (M=16.52, SD=2.50). EEO is the one area, on the other hand, where a considerably lower mean level of practice exists (M=12.17, SD=5.96). According to prior research, high numbers of HRM practice are associated with positive employee attitudes (Guest, 1999). The results of the analysis for this relationship are reported in Table II. These findings differ from those previously reported. Using aggregated employee means, when levels of organisational commitment (M=3.72, SD=0.78), job satisfaction (M=3.72, SD=0.79) and organisational fairness (M=3.70, SD=0.86) are correlated with the combined additive measure of HRM practice, the results show that higher index scores in the number of HRM practices are not related to higher levels of organisational commitment (r=0.155, df=35, p=>0.05), job satisfaction (r=0.085, df=35, p=>0.05) or organisational fairness (r=0.146, df=35, p=>0.05). When this relationship is examined by functional area the correlations are also found not to be significant. Next the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is examined using first employer self-reports, and second employee self-reports. These results are also reported in Table II. Statistically significant correlations are found to exist between the three attitudes measured and employee assessments of HRM practice for all the functional areas examined. However, no significant correlations are found between employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice and employee attitudes. Data are then analysed using a regression technique, enabling the predictive qualities of each of the three approaches for assessing HRM practice to be explored. The model used for regressions is shown in Figure 1. All the measures of HRM practices were entered into a multiple regression[1] equation so that the character of the relationship between different measures of HRM practice and employee attitudes could be explored. It is found that nearly 51 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment (R 2=0.506, p The results of the regressions for the three measures of HRM practice, along with the three measures of employee attitudes, are presented in Table III. When the results of the regression for the three different measures of HRM practice are analysed it becomes evident that employee assessments have the greatest level of predictive power for attitudes. The regression reveals that numbers of HRM practice and employer assessments about the strength of HRM practice account for very little of the variance in attitudes. On the other hand, employee assessments of HRM practice appear to be very influential. Around 47 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment is explained by employee assessments of practice across the four HRM areas examined, with even larger and equally significant levels of variance being explained by this for job satisfaction and organisational fairness. If we exclude employee assessments related to EEO from the analysis, as it uniformly records the lowest ÃŽ ² across all three attitudes, the ÃŽ ² statistic for the remaining three functional areas of HRM practice implies that for every increment in employee assessments, levels of attitudes increase by between 0.17 and 0.34. The most statistically significant and consistent increments are in relation to employee assessments of good and safe working conditions, along with training and development, and these are found to apply to all aspects of work-related attitudes measured. Also worth noting is that, not surprisingly, assessments of recruitment and selection practices accounted for the largest variance in levels of organisational fairness. Discussion and concluding remarks Consistent with the work of Appelbaum and Berg (2000), Cully et al. (2000) and Guest (1999), this study also finds that a significant relationship exists between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes. There is a strong statistically significant relationship when HRM is researched from the employee perspective. However, there was no significant relationship when HRM practice was measured using the additive approach or employer self-reports. These results have implications for current approaches used to assess the HRM practice-employee work-related attitudes relationship. This study demonstrates that by far the greatest correlate of employee attitudes are employees own assessments of the strength of HRM practice. Interestingly, higher levels of HRM practice, using an additive measure, are not found to be significantly associated with attitudes across any of the four functional areas of HRM examined. In fact, it is revealed that higher levels of HRM practice are in some cases related to decreased levels of job satisfaction and organisational fairness. For example, looking at the data for each functional HRM area, it is possible that higher levels of EEO practice may actually have no, or even a negative, effect on employee attitudes, with a strong inverse relationship being found for job satisfaction. Similarly, weak relationships are found when the relationship between employer assessments about operationalised practice and attitudes are examined. So while Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest these areas are important aspects of best practice HRM, this study finds them to be unrelated to attitudes when data are collected from employers. Put together these results suggest that if managers want to maximise employee attitudes, then implementing lots of practices is not sufficient. Practitioners need to be aware that the way they implement their HRM practices may be a more important determinant of employee attitudes than the number of practices they put in place. This builds on the research findings of other recent studies (Armstrong, 2001) that suggest it is possible that it is the quality of the practice that counts and not the quantity. It may be that practitioners may need to undertake regular attitudinal surveys to assess employee reactions to current HRM practice and assess these on a longitudinal basis to identify what is working and what is not. It was beyond the parameters of this study to examine the complex relationship between HRM practice, employee attitudes and business performance; it has, however, explored the narrower relationship between HRM practice (for the areas of good and safe working conditions, training and development, EEO and recruitment and selection) and three employee attitudes (organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness). While regressions tell us nothing about the cause-effect nature of relationships between assessments of HRM practice and employee attitudes, these findings strongly suggest that incorporating the employees experience of HRM into analyses exploring the HRM practice, employee attitudes relationship will contribute further to our understanding about what aspects of HRM have the potential to yield the greatest performance outcomes. Arguably, more so, it would appear, than exploring this particular relationship solely using additive measures or employer self-re ports. This study has some limitations. This study found the standard deviations for assessments of HRM practice and work-related attitudes amongst employee groups within each organisation to be reasonably low, showing close agreement. Nonetheless the aggregated data has been developed from a relatively small sample, thus it may not be representative of the bulk of employee views. The evaluative nature of the questions used introduces the possibility of common method variance (i.e. an artificial correlation across questions due to mood or other contaminants (Fiorito, 2002)). Also, the HRM practices used in this study are supposedly best practice; however, there is still insufficient evidence available to confirm that they are indeed best practice. Finally, Gibb (2001) suggests effective HRM is about implementing best practice. While this may very well be true, it is clear from this study that simply introducing best practice, or even assessing the effectiveness of practice from the employers viewpoint, is no guarantee that they have been successfully implemented. If the organisations objective is to improve employees workplace attitudes, then possibly a better way to confirm which HRM practices are having the greatest impact, and hence are effective, is to correlate employees assessment of them with employees attitudes. 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