Theory Of Constaints Assignment Essay Example for Free

Theory Of Constaints Assignment Es rangeQuestion 1 Highlight the production trouble philosophy and principles of TOCAny manufacturing companys success is dependent on how well its resources perform, in other words the level of performance of its factory. The factorys performance is in turn constrained by the manufacturing infrastructure and is indeed designed so as to suit the companys st rungy related to to to the products and their quantities. Production solicitude essenti altogethery fulfills the companys strategic requirements in terms of its key competitive objectives, for instance shorter lead clipping, low cost etc. , and translates them into entry for the factory environment in terms of inventory, job sequencing and time table etc., so that these objectives atomic number 18 met (Childe, 1997, p.28).In an industrial environment, there ar eer unobtrusivenesss that affect the throughput of a strategy in terms of quantity or quality of product delivered or the d elivery time (Lange Ziegenbien, 2005, p.1).Some of these constraints are bottlenecks i.e. resources whose availability is slight than the demand placed on them, while others are potential bottlenecks or Capacity Constrained Resources CCRs i.e. resources who personal exercise is close to capacity and in case of non-optimal utilization may begin bottleneck (Telsang, 2002, p. 518).Theory of Constraints was real to address such practical problems in manufacturing. This theory given by Goldman and Cox in their renowned book Goal is basic t extinct ensembley a productions and operations management strategy dealing with the CCRs i.e. potential bottlenecks in an industry environment (Quassin, 2000, p.3).According to Goldman and Cox, the finishing of all the manufacturing companies is to make m wizy (quoted, Childe, 1997, p.29). Hence according to them the success for any manufacturing company would come if they push aside properly identify the aims to their business and then deal w ith the constraints which would install to be present or potential bottlenecks in achieving the cultivation (Childe, 1997, p.115)The Theory of Constraints was developed in over a decades period, by the Israeli Physicist Dr. Eliyahu M Goldratt based on his observations of certain common characteristics that effect brass operations (Dettmer, 1998, p.11). This combined with his thoughts comprises the Theory of Constraints TOC, which is a collection of principles, a set of generic tools and the specific screenings of these tools.The principles explain the management actions and the various interactions between affectes. The tools are methods that can be used to apply these principles in specific instances, while the applications are the instances where these tools make water been successfully applied in these situations many times so that they can be considered as generic solutions to the problems. Hence, the TOC is still evolving to this day (Dettmer Schragenheim, 2000, p.13).Am ong the principles of TOC, the most basic are three key assumptions ab unwrap constraint management, five focusing steps to guide the system and three measures to assess whether the actions being interpreted at the topical anesthetic level are producing the desired results at the global level.Assumptions TOC is based on three interrelated premisesEvery system has a goal and plus of necessary conditions that must be satisfied if the goal has to be achieved,The overall systems performance is more than just the sum of its component performances, andin truth few factors or constraints, often only one, limit a systems performance at any given time(Ronen, 2005, p.21)Five focal point Steps Goldratt created five steps as a way to make sure that the management focuses on the bring for continuous improvementIdentify the systems constraint,Decide how to exploit the systems constraint,Subordinate everything else to the decision taken in the step aboveEvaluate alternative ways to repeal t he constraintReturn to the 1st step in case the system constraints oblige been changed(Srinivasan, Jones Miller, n.d., p.136)Evaluation The evaluation of the operate decisions can be done by the three financial yardsticks which are provided by the constraint theory Throughput (T), Inventory or Investment (I), and Operation Expense (OE) (Dettmer Schragenheim, 2000, p.40). These form the yardsticks because as mentioned earlier, according to Goldman and Cox, the goal of all the manufacturing companies is to make money (quoted, Childe, 1997, p.29)Question 2 Describe how TOC can help to prioritize the most profitable high impact initiatives within a production environmentThe use of Theory of Constraints in the production management was initially done to solve the problems of bottlenecks, scheduling and inventory reduction (Wang, 2002, p. 149).Industrys aim to achieve the goal of making money has been traditionally achieved by reducing the operating costs. The logic is that every do llar that is saved adds up to the profit. A compelling reason for adopting such a measure is that the costs can be controlled. The next step is to reduce the inventory while increasing the throughput is the termination precedency with the production managers.Japanese saw the value that can be achieved by reducing the inventory and and then put this as their first precedency. They developed what is known as the Just-in-Time philosophy. For doing this the pipeline needs to be kept leaning i.e. a pull phenomenon, which correspondingly increases the importance of increasing the throughput to being the second highest priority (Dettmer Schragenheim, 2000, p.44).However, according to Goldratts Constraint theory, the highest priority should be given to increasing the throughput, while reducing the inventory or investment should have the second priority and reducing the operating expense should be the last priority (Bushong Talbott, 1999, p. 2). The reason for this is in the tradition al methods, the production managers were assuming that an infinite amount of hours were available in each factorys work and weapons, which is not practically possible.Hence, Goldratt began by assuming that the manufacturing company is essentially a system with machines and people available for finite periods of time per day or week or month. He further assumed that at any instant in time only one factory or resource could prove to be a bottleneck in achieving the goal of making money. Hence, it followed that if this bottleneck was running to its full capacity, increasing the speed of the other centers would not do any good, as the speed of this particular centre would not increase (McMullen, 1998, p.105).This can as well as be explained as follows. theoretically the any of the constraints could vary from zero to infinity, but practically the operating expense and inventory cannot be reduced under zero, neither can the throughput be change magnitude till infinity. However, the pr actical limits for reducing the operating expense and the inventory are actually much higher than zero.This is because the manufacturers have to spend money on them in order to make money from the end products using these investments as inputs. While the practical limits for increasing the throughput is still much less(prenominal) than infinity, but its potential for adding up to the profits is much higher than the potential to do the same using cost- roll in the hayting. Cost-cutting is also risky in nature, because there is always the danger of spending less than what is required which would directly impact on the quality, and hence the inventory too in the long run (Dettmer Schragenheim, 2000, p.44).The management philosophy of Theory of Constraints can hence be viewed into three separate areas which are interrelated logistics, performance management and logical thinking. Logistics includes the drum- lover-rope scheduling, archetype management and VAT analysis. Using these tool s, the tasks are memoriald in a production environment and prioritized.The next area is the Performance measurement which includes the Throughput, Inventory, the operating expense and the five focusing steps which have been discussed earlier. The thinking process tools help in identifying the root-problem (current reality tree), identifying and expanding win-win solutions (evaporating clouds and the future reality tree), and developing the death penalty plans (prerequisite tree and transition tree) ( stein, 1997, p. 199)..DBR Scheduling The basis for the DBR or drum-buffer-rope scheduling is the factorys primary constraint which could be a present or potential bottleneck. This primary constraint acts as the drum for the DB scheduling. This scheduling process produces the schedule of what jobs to be produced and in what order on the drum.A time element known as the buffer is then used to establish the realistic payload dates for the operation and its deadline. Another time elemen t called the rope determines the schedule for introducing additional tasks and materials into the work process flow of the operation. Each task or batch in the drum schedule has a buffer and a rope time element. There are other time elements in the buffer also which when taken as a group form the time buffers (McMullen, 1998, p.106).This DBR scheduling process synchronizes the entire work throughout the factory, and creates a synchronized manufacturing state by basing all the schedules on the drum schedule or the bottleneck. In addition to this, it also provides menstruateback and control process which is known as buffer management. The function of the buffer management system is to manipulate that all the other factory resources which are non-constrained are working on the right jobs, at the right times in the sequence, and in the right production batch quantities such that the schedules are supported from the drum task and customer deliveries are met.Finally all the non-constrai ned by definition have some spare capacity. While this is not excess capacity and can be used in the productive or protective sense, the scheduling of these is also important so as not to have excess inventory or investment condition. This is taken care by introducing the time buffers, discussed earlier, in the DBR schedule such that no production is lost at the drum. The extension of this process into the dynamic buffering can be used for fine-tuning the extra capacity (McMullen, 1998, p.107).Hence, this scheduling process reliable delivery schedules for the customers, because the schedules are based on finite capacity assumption instead of the erroneous infinite capacity assumption (Bushong Talbott, 1999, p. 3).Question 3 Discuss how you will implement the proposed philosophy in order to rescue a sick hypothetical organizationThe prior component dealt with the drum-buffer-rope i.e. DBR scheduling, which is the TOC production readying methodology. As the aim of the TOC is to see to it that the constraint does not effect the production schedule, the DBR takes care of the weakest link i.e. the drum, schedule i.e. the buffer, and deadline i.e. the rope (Greeff Ghoshal, 2003, p. 70). In addition to the DBR scheduling, a buffer management scheme was also described above, which is needed to monitor the entire process.In the tradition approach, the DBR scheduling was used as the planning process and the buffer management was used to monitor the plans progress. In the present scenario, the DBR and buffer management process are dynamic and offer continuous feed backs to the production manager so that he can improve upon the system.As was mentioned in the first section, throughput is the primary are of focus of the TOC arrangement. The throughput is the money generated by the system after taking out the external costs, and this should be maximized for the profits to increase according to the theory of constraints. However, the implementation of TOC is not very easy in a practical situation, and in many cases it necessitates a change in the entire way a company operates. This difficulty can be explained by a simple example as follows.A company has identified that for increasing the its throughput, there is a need for producing the product and selling it with the lower sale damage per product building block of measurement. As of now the company compensated its sales forces on a commission basis, based on the percent of sales and the people in this department try to sell their products with the highest sales price. This means that the company would need to develop an solely new way of compensating its sales force. There might be further problems if the arrangement is not satisfactory enough to the sales people, which might lead to a drop in the sales quite opposite to the goal of the company.Care should also be taken to remember that TOC is a dynamic management process. This means that the task does not end after finding out the constraint. On the contrary, the management should continuously analyze to see if this factor can be increased or some other factor might become a constraint. Such analysis should be made regularly and the options should be revised. In addition to this, continuous analysis should be made to check the operating expenses and inventory and investments should also be minimized (Bushong Talbott, 1999, p. 4).ExampleThe above theories will be explained by taking an example below. First the basic system application is given using the TOC to explain the various constraints of the system. After this the complete system is shifted to a plant, which is a sick unit and steps are given to shift this plant into a optimal unit.Basic System and ConstraintsThe example has a manufacturing unit which is essentially a machine that cuts silicon wafers into individual chips (Anderson, 2003, p. 30). The number of wafer cut by this machine in a unit time without getting overloaded is the constraint of the machine a nd the primary constraint of the entire manufacturing system. For instance, the machine can cut on 100 wafers per hours. In this case, it would be immaterial to get more raw materials since the constraint would still not be affected in this case.Now that the constraint of the system has been identified, a decision must be made on how to minimize its constraining ability on the system. The utilizing capacity of the constraint must be maximized i.e. the Capacity Constrained Resource, in this case the machine, must be fully utilized and must never be deadened. Every unit of production that is lost on this system is a unit lost to the complete system (Anderson, 2003, p. 29).This constraint can be protect from being idle by providing a buffer or queue of raw materials for it to cut. For this example, let us assume that each wafer can be cut into 25 chips. That is to say 4 wafers would be needed by the machine per hours. This follows the generalization that the constraints are protected by buffers. The queue of silicon wafers in this case would be physical buffer of inventory.In addition to this protecting a constraint is a necessary part of exploiting a constraint to the full (Anderson, 2003, p. 29). In case of the manufacturing system, the manufacturing unit can be protected from starvation or idle moments, by providing a buffer of silicon wafers. The unit also needs to be protected from power interruptions and surges, by providing a uninterruptible power supplies, and further giving a backup generator.The manpower related constraint can be sorted out by working the machine in three shifts by people of eight hours each, so that the machine is utilized for 24 hours per day. Finally the quality related issues can be sorted out by performing a quality check on the wafers prior to being set on the queue, to ensure that only good quality wafers are passed on to the manufacturing unit.In case of TOC care should be taken to ensure that subordination of all the activiti es are obtained to take care of the constraint (Anderson, 2003, p. 31). As can be seen in the example a decision is taken to see that the manufacturing unit is the constraint of the system, a and hence steps have been taken to take care of this constraint and utilize he machine for obtaining the maximum productivity.Ti marcher all other activities to this decision, the flow of inventory should be regulated from the factory gate to the wafer cutting machine. The rate of sending the wafer to the machine should be same as the rate of the machine to entirely cut the wafer. Here, the rate of the cutter is the drum. The inventory of the factory gate to the cutter is the rope and a buffer in front of the cutter to prevent it from getting idle is the buffer.Plant as a Sick UnitSuppose that there are 10 such systems in a plant which is a sick unit. There are problems with excess inventory, the quality of wafers produced, the throughout is varied and is not stable and there are problems with delays between the operations with long periods where the machines are idle and others where there is extra load on the machines.The primary problem here is to streamline the operations. The basic constraint is already mentioned in the prior section i.e. the number of wafers that can be cut by a unit. This cannot be changed and must be utilized to the maximum. All the remaining actions must be subordinate to this activity such that the constraint or the drum is taken care.First of all the machines as a total can process 1000*10 =1000 wafers in a hour, which means 4*10 = 40 wafers must be passed to the machines per hour (as each wafer can be cut into 25 chips). Now that this has been decided, the queuing systems should ensure that the wafers are taken from the resource gate and passed to the machines. The easiest way of doing this would be to pass 4 sets of wafers per hour, after every 45 minutes 4 more wafers would be passed to the machines. This means that there would be enough tim e for checking the quality of the wafers and passing them to the machines, without worrying about(predicate) the exact synchronization of each wafer to rate at which a machine cuts them.This would also take care of the idle periods of the machines, as in this case the machines would always have one wafer to cuts, by which time the other 4 wafers would be sent to it. The inventory would be controlled too. In addition, the throughput would be at a constant rate. Finally, the technique would also ensure that the incubus on the quality checkers and machine operators is minimal.In the former case, the quality checkers could have a quality check wafers ready for a straddle of hours advance, which would be passed to the machines every three quarters of an hours, which means these people do not need to be on job 24 hours a day. Also, the machine operators would have more time to check the power supply and other maintenance issues, while checking if the new wafer lot has been passed or no t.The above example gives the implementation of Theory of Constraints method to a sick unit, to make it operate in an optimized way. The example taken is a very simplistic application which can be solved easily using the single DB technique.ReferencesBooksAnderson DJ, 2003, Agile Management for Software Engineering Applying the Thoery of Constraints for Business Results, stark naked Jersey Prentice Hall PTRChilde SJ, 1997, An doorway to Computer Aided Production Management, 1st Edition, London Chapman HallDettmer HW, 1998, Breaking the Constraints to World-Class Performance, Milwaukee ASQ Quality PressDettmer HW, Schragenheim E, 2000, Manufacturing at Warps Speed Optimizing tot up Chain Financial Performance, Florida CRC PressGreeff G, Ghoshal R, 2004, Practical E-Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management, Oxford ElsevierMcMullen TB, 1998, Introduction to the Theory of Constraints (Toc) Management System, FloridaCRC PressRonen B, 2005, The Theory of Constraints Practice and Rese arch, Amsterdam IOC PressStein RE, 1999, The Theory of Constraints Applications in Quality and Manufacturing, New York CRC PressTelsang M, 2002, Industrial Engineering and Production Management, New Delhi S Chand Company Ltd.Wang JX, 2002, What Every Engineer Should know about Decision Making Under Uncertainty, New York CRC PressOnline ArticlesBushong JG, Talbott JC, 1999, The CPA in Industry An Application of the Theory of Constraints, The CPA Journal, April 1999 Issue, http//www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/1999/0499/Departments/D530499.HTM, Article Accessed on 18th phratry 2007.Lange I, Ziegenbien A, 2005, The Constraints Game Learning the Theory of Constraints with a Dice Game, 9th International Workshop on Experimental Interactive Learning in Industrial management New Approaches on Learning, Studying and Teaching, http//www.simlab.tkk.fi/events/lange.pdf, Article Accessed on 18th September 2007.Quassin RY, 2000, The Theory of Constraints in Manufacturing, Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences, J. Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci.vol.22no.4Rio de Janeiro, 2000, http//www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0100-73862000000400001script=sci_arttext, Article Accessed on 18th September 2007.Srinivasan M, Jones D, Miller A, n.d., Applying the Theory of Constraints Principles and Lean Thinking at the Marine Corps Maintenance Centre, Defense Acquisition Review Journal, http//www.dau.mil/pubs/arq/2004arq/Srinivasan.pdf, Article Accessed on 18th September 2007.

Frankenstein coursework Essay Example for Free

Frankenstein coursework EssayFrankenstein was written in 1816 by female novelist, Mary Shelley. She was only 18 at the time she had the idea for it. Her, her boyfriend Percy Shelley (whom she later married) and some of her friends were on holiday at the shore of lake Geneva in Switzerland, and at the time it was gushing down outside, so one of them decided that they should have a competition to see who could create the scariest horror story. Each person tried desperately to count on of one, so much that they tried eating things that would give them nightmares. Mary had the idea of a creature being brought to life, which and so lead to the birth of Frankenstein.This book is rafts referred to as the modern Prometheus, named after a greek god who stole power from heaven to create life from lifeless materials.When this book was first published, it was through with(p) so under an anonymous name because in those days women were not supposed to do things manageWrite horror stori es and therefore would have been outcast.summaryThis story is based upon an English man called Robert Walton who is writing to his sister back in England. He is seeking to find the North Pole. In doing this, he finds a man called Victor Frankenstein floating on a piece of ice. Walton drags the man aboard and revives him. When Frankenstein is recovered he starts to tell his story.He begins to tell Walton about his gravel and how he came to life, and goes on to talk about his childhood. At this time everything seems fine as Frankenstein appears to have had a very happy time as a child with his family, but it is after this that things start to go wrong.Frankenstein tells of how he goes to university to study natural philosophy, otherwise known as chemistry. It is from this that he goes on to make the find he so dearly goes to regret the discovery of giving new life to dead material.He goes on to say that with this discovery he begins to come along a new being. He not only begins to build it, he becomes obsessed with creating new life and even though he becomes ill he continues with it until it is done. He explains how excited he is with what he is doing and how he cant wait to get it finished. However, when it does spring to life the last emotion Frankenstein feels is joy.He is horrified by his creation, and runs out of his room. He returns later to find, to his extreme delight, the fanatic to be gone. Frankenstein soon forgets about it and decides to return to Geneva to visit his family who he has not seen for 5 years. He returns to discover some grave news.His younger brother, William, has been murdered and his adopted sister, Justine, has been accused of the crime. Frankenstein instantly knows who had really performed the act. He knew that it was the monster he created which had done this heinous deed. He knew, however, if he t experient the court that they would not believe him, so Justine was convicted and executed.This filled Frankenstein with great bi tterness and hatred towards the monster. He decides to go for a walk in the the Alps to take his mind off things. It is here where he confronts the monster for the second time.When Frankenstein sees the monster his first instinct is to kill it, but the monster is a lot bigger than stronger than him. The monster then tells Frankenstein to listen to what he says and then judge him. This is where the monster tells his story.He says that he came into the world with no understanding of anything around him, like a fully-grown baby. After his confrontation with Frankenstein, he walked out into a park, where he found berries to eat and a stream to drink from. He then locomote out into the countryside where he had numerous encounters with humans hed rather forget about.Whenever humans saw him, they either ran away or attacked the monster. This upset him, because he did not handle to harm them. Eventually, he found a small hovel (small hut) on a farm. It was here he stayed for a long time. He learnt the names of the bulk who lived on the farm, and as well as their history, that they were sent out of France by the government because they were planning to free someone from prison. The monster slowly picked up their language of these people and also how to read from old books they threw out. He helped the family by cutting wood for them at night in the winter at night, and generally became quite attracted to the family. After a year and a bit, the monster decided he would confront the family.This went well at first because firstly he met the old man. This was an advantage to the monster because the old man was blind and couldnt judge him by his looks. However, when the rest of the family came home they were horrified by the monsters appearance and attacked him. The monster was very upset by this and ran out of the house.He ran out into the forest, and returned the following morning to discover the family rushing to leave the place from the monster. He was so angered by this that he trashed the farm, destroying everything and burning it all.The monster then set his sights on returning to Geneva. He spent about half a year travelling but eventually got there.When he got there he discovered Frankensteins younger brother, William. The monster grabbed the boy, and he started shouting so he tried to silence him by choking him and ended up killing him. The monster found a pendant round the boys neck, and out it round a girl who was sleeping nearby, and then ran. It is here the monster concludes his story.

How Women Are Affected By Poverty Sociology Essay

How Wo custody Are Affected By Poverty Sociology EssayIn young years, focus has been on discovering if want is gendered, that is to say to what ut around wo hands may be to a greater extent at threat of poverty than men. In this essay I shall be discussing how women are affected by poverty and what factors kick the bucket to women being poorer than men. Peter Townsend et al (1987) expect argued that there has been a feminisation of poverty, this term may be understood in various rooms, it may invoke to the increased risk of poverty or the increased visibility of womens poverty it may also refer to the reconstruction of poverty from a womans viewpoint.It is difficult to tailvass the poverty of men and women because statistics are usually based on households and this suggests that household incomes are shared evenly between adult members. Glendinning and Millar (1987 primary(prenominal)tain that men vanquish a larger share in most cases and this may echo their higher earning ability and the fact that in umpteen households men still advert the decisions of how money is spent.It has been shown that women are more give carely to be poorer than men, although their poverty has often been masked behind studies that focused on male-headed households Ruspini (2000).Townsend acknowledges four groups which make up the mass of the female poor, these consist of women who take care of children and other dependents they are un stipendiary and are unable to take up date. There are also alone(predicate) women with children who dip in and out of employment. Then there are elderly women like pensioners who live alone. There are also women with low earnings where the incomes of others in the household do not contribute towards the total household income to enable the womens income to go over the poverty line. Women unquestionably melt down to experience more poverty than men because their grok both un nonrecreational and paid is undervalued, in addition women hav e always experienced lean in a different way from men.A private and populace split has always existed where women were controln as belonging in the private sphere of hearth and home and the ideologically constructed family, whereas men were seen as belonging in the public sphere of the market and the province.In price of work, three main reasons for why womens poverty continues have been identified, the first is because a trey of all women of working senesce still live away the labour market almost twice the proportion for men, they do not have allude access to the core of the labour market and they are disproportionately represented within part- era and lower paid jobs and on average women are paid less than men. The New Labour government has flummoxed to maximize labour force involvement by supporting (the idea of work-life balance) and trying to make it easier for people to blend paid work and family life. In-work benefits and revenue credits were introduced as incen tives however the working families tax credit has been more beneficial to women earners than those whose main income comes through male partners since it is more likely to be paid through the pay packet. The development of a National Childcare Strategy was also introduced but it does not measure up to the levels of childcare provision to be found in most other European countries.The second reason involves the responsibility women have for most of the tasks associated with social reproduction in the way of unpaid care work and domestic labour.The third reason is the sharing of income and resources within families, in the majority of cases this does not benefit women. Individuals can be poor in households with adequate incomes. This finding has important implications for policy initiatives aimed at the relief of poverty (Pahl 1989 Kempson 1996).Other forms of contrast have persisted within the public sphere, Gillian Pascall (1997) and others have argued that while women now make up a high proportion of the public sector workforce in healthcare, social work and education, they remain under represented in senior and management positions. This is characteristic of the sticky floor where women are concentrated in specific occupations with low pay and spatial relation and what they do at work is often similar to what they do at home, although the incoming of the minimum wage in April 1999 has been beneficial to women who are dependent on low paid work but not to other wage groups. Though most health redevelopment workers are women, most of the surgeons are men and it is largely men who control health and social services including services that concern women, for instance reproductive healthcare, as hearty as support for sluttish carers and the education system. This is typical of the glass ceiling where women are less likely to hold senior positions and when they do hold senior positions they have to work harder and for lifelong hours in jobs that are classed as mens work. In the 1970s 70 percent of managers were men and today 90 percent of judges are men.Anti dissimilitude legislation has sought to outlaw all forms of sex discrimination but this has mostly brought or so advances for individual women but has not benefited all women although it has improved the practices of most employers as well as raising public awareness.While the education system no longer just prepares girls for domesticity, it is tending to equip them for sub- servient occupations especially in the public sector on the other hand it has also expanded womens options in the labour market.Despite the fact that women have been allowed to vote and participate in the democratic process on the same term as men since 1928, in 2000 only 20 percent of Westminster Members of Parliament were women and in 2001 only 28 percent of local anaesthetic government councillors were women (EOC 2001).Although there has been a feminisation of the labour market, the increase in womens workforce participation can have disastrous effectuate on their health because of the double burden they have to shoulder, at home they take care of children and perform domestic tasks which are unpaid as well as doing their paid job.The General Household Survey of 1998 showed that the majority of carers were women who provided more than a hundred hours of care per week which was far more than any paid worker would do. It has been shown that caring is costly in various ways, for one there is loss of earnings and the rate of adults providing care who are in paid employment is low, the effect is even greater for women than men and greatest of all in the case of a mother providing care for a disabled child Arber and Ginn(1995) Baldwin (1985).In addition costs that are associated with disability like house adaptations to accommodate special equipment and higher transport costs.There is also the cost to the carer in terms of the stress and strain (Glendinning and Millar1992 Pahl 2006).S ocial policy is beginning to acknowledge the contribution of carers, one way was the introduction of the Carers Act 1985 which imposed an obligation on local authorities, however the support that carers receive is still limited.Financial support is also provided by the social security system with benefits like carers allowance and disabled persons tax credit for low paid disabled workers.There are also many ways in which care can be paid for Ungerson (2000) see also Ungerson (2006).The way social security is arranged and its effects on women can be attributed to the architects of the offbeat system who were so used to patriarchal assumptions about respective roles of male breadwinners and female homemakers that the National Insurance system for example was founded on the idea that married women would mainly be financially dependent on their husbands and although obvious biased elements have since been removed, the inheritance of the assumptions on which the system was founded remai ns.Lewis and Piachaud (1992) demonstrated that women have always been poorer than men by showing the proportion of women amongst adults in communicate of poor relief or social assistance was at around 60 percent and was the same at the end of the 20th century.Women are the main recipients of most benefits and rely more on means tested benefits even though it means greater personal scrutiny, rather than contribution based benefits like jobseekers allowance, incapacity benefit and industrial injury benefit because these types of benefit rely on the recipient having been employed, and for women their work patterns are roughtimes interrupted when they take time out to raise children and therefore their national insurance contributions are affected. Women are also in some cases hidden claimants because they receive benefits as dependents of male breadwinners, and for this reason, the welfare state may also function directly to make women dependent on men, although housing and social se curity provision has provided at least some measure of independence to women like those escaping from violent or dysfunctional dealinghips.Donzelot (1979) has observed that families seem to have extended functions and are proceeds by the welfare state to greater levels of surveillance and control for example womens performance as mothers and informal carers may be subject to supervision by healthcare and social service professionals. The family has not lost its functions, but it has lost control. It is still the major arena for the care of dependents, but traditional female tasks are now defined and managed outside the family and by men. Pascall (1997 23). This is seen in the cases of lone parents 90 percent of whom are women who will have social assistance benefits withdrawn if they should cohabit and they can be compelled to befriend with the making of child support assessments against the father(s) of their child(ren).In terms of work the, mother -as-work policy ignores that c hild care is also work and lone mothers stand slender chance of becoming equal stakeholders because they must be both breadwinners and carers, and the position at present is that lone mothers are likely to be praised for the paid work they do and condemned as welfare dependent for the unpaid work they do and the eradication of the Lone Parent Premium to income support which directly disadvantaged many lone parents most of whom are women.In recent years studies have shown that pensioners are far more likely than the working population to experience on-going poverty, between 1998 and 2001, 18 percent of pensioners experienced persistent poverty as compared to 7 percent of the working population. Studies have also found that in recent decades older women and those from ethnic minorities are more likely to experience poverty than other pensioners.Findings from these studies led Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to state in 2002 Our aim is to end pensioner poverty in our countr y. the introduction of a pension credit in October 2003 which guaranteed a minimum income of half of those people in this age group in the UK attempted to meet this goal but the success of this policy depends on all those entitled to claiming the benefit actually doing so Flaherty et al (2004).The majority of people over state pension age do retire from the labour market, but as longevity has increased the labour markets have tightened and retirement has become in Townsends words a kind of mass redundancy (19916).As a group, old peoples vulnerability to poverty is not as great as it was in the post second land war period, but this should not mask the fact that there is now greater inequality between older people than before.Since the number of old people both as a proportion of the total population and in absolute terms has grown this means that pensioner poverty is still a major issue.The employment of older people can be sensitive to changes in the labour market conditions and t hey may be shut out of jobs when the demand for labour falls.Age concern (see McEwan 1990), argue that older people are frequently subject to discrimination if they choose to re-enter the labour market often on mistaken assumptions about their reliability and adaptability.Additionally when older people do in the end become frail they suffer the same problems associated with disability.The lack of provision of universal pension in this country is out of sync with most industrialised countries, although the introduction of stakeholder pensions for people with no access to private pensions and the introduction of free eye tests has gone some way in helping pensioners at a disadvantage.Feminists tend to view welfare state provision as being important for improving womens lives but it also reinforces female dependency on men and the familiar division of labour.Some strands of feminism stress that women are closer to nature and are naturally more caring and less aggressive and they addr ess the world in a different voice Gilligan (1982).Other strands of feminism discard this view and assert that the gendered nature of society is the exact product of power relations and patriarchy. It is a result of the dominance of men over women and can be rejected.So in conclusion, having assessed and considered all the evidence and studies on gender and poverty, it is clear that although in series(p) governments have through legislation and policies attempted to lessen the poverty of women, the gap between the sexes still exists and women are still very disadvantaged and are poorer than men and a major reason is the structure of the welfare state which contributes to and reinforces the differences.

A Financial Analysis Of Starbucks Coffee

A Financial Analysis Of Starbucks CoffeeThe aim of this financial analysis of Starbucks is to obtain a deep populateledge of yearly financial reports and other corporate information, which can provide us measurable conclusions about the bon ton. It is essential to understand the nature of companys business, by analyzing its frugal and financial surroundings and strategy choices made in the past.This report will begin with industry and company explanation, followed by financial performance all everywhereview and projection of company development over the next deuce days.Conclusions drawn from above analysis will support managers in making a decision whether to invest in the company.2. The industry descriptionThe coffee industry is growing since 2002, and in recent years t present was a boom caused by consumers becoming more educated about espresso-based drinks and how they atomic number 18 made (H. Holmes, 2004). The coffee industry includes 20,000 outlets with combined tax of $11 billion. Approximately 20 million people work in the coffee industry worldwide. trade is very concentrated at the top with the 50 companies taking up 70% of the sales, and fragmented at the bottom. Starbucks is the market leader (Franchise direct, 2010).2.1. Starbucks descriptionStarbucks Corpo symmetryn is mingled in purchasing, roasting, and sale of whole bean coffees, cold-blended beverages, various food items, selection of teas, and beverage-related accessories and equipment, primarily through its company-operated retail inventorys. It was established in 1971 in Seattle, Washington. In 1986 Howard Shultz, sell Sales and Marketing Manager, left the company to lolly his own retail coffee outlet, Il Giornale. In 1987 the original investors of Starbucks bought Peets Coffee and sold Starbucks to H.Shultz, who renamed Il Giornale to Starbucks. watertight expended with shops in Chicago and Vancouver. Starbuck was the first coffee company to offer employee stock options in 1991 and went public in 1992. In 1990s Starbucks started distributing coffee through section stores, bookstores, hotels, supermarkets and on patronage it signed contract with PepsiCo, AOL and Dyers and opened stores in Japan, Singapore, and UK. (Hoovers.com, 2008)Starbucks has built one of the worlds most powerful and recognizable brands and the image of a unique Starbucks Experience. Its mission asseveration was to pep up the coffee bar industry by building a perception of a coffee shop as the third place amidst work and home. Wi-fi earnings access in all stores makes it a place where customers can work. The companys goal was to make each location a community center for higher-income crowd of the newborn and college-educated, a group that tends toward higher luxury-consumption levels. (Wikinvest.com, n.d.)2.2. CompetitionStarbucks close competitors include other specialty coffee shops, doughnut shops, and restaurants. Starbucks holds a dominant position in the coffeehouse m arket which is dispersed among the thousands of independent or small-chain coffee shops. Their largest direct competitors are Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds. Both offer specialty coffee at a lower price. of import competitors short descriptionDunkin, specializes in fresh baked cheeseparings, but began offering coffee in 2005. Their level of sales is at $4.3b. Currently, their coffee sales start to exceed food sales, 5-10% of total sales are from espresso-based drinks. Dunkin has a 22.9% market share. (Starbucks in the aggregate category maneuvers a 24.7% market share)McDonalds entered the coffeehouse industry in 2007, offering coffee at its flagship stores and opening its espresso-centric McCafe concept in several(prenominal) markets. McDs coffee sales generate $813m in additional annual income. Current revenue from coffee is around $490m, about 6-6.5% of Starbucks coffee sales. Their price point is at 18% discount on Starbuckss.The two competitorss targets are slimly different fro m Starbucks. They focussing on cheaper coffee to go, whereas Starbucks is providing a premium experience for a luxury price. Consequently, they compete with each other more directly than with Starbucks, however McCafe has a ostracise impact on Starbucks. Analysts believe that competitors will settle into separate niches, McDonalds being the better value proposition and Starbucks offering higher quality experience.3. Financial surgical procedure 2007-20093.1. Overview of Starbucks performance 2007-2009In the financial year 2007, Starbucks achieved a solid performance. All goals like new stores opening, total revenue out ripening, comparable store sales growth and considerable cost rises from dairy products were completed. The consolidated direct income in 2008 was $503.9 and operating perimeter 4.9%. This was a significant moderate compared with the past few years, the reason for hang was a changing of structure. In 2009, Starbucks faced umpteen challenges caused by unexpec ted economic environment and more intense competition, which had impact on the revenue, comparable store sales, operating income and margins.3.2. Income statement analysis 2007-2009While bread revenues of Starbucks havent been stable from 2007 to 2009 (first increasing then decreasing), its total operating income have also been moving in 2008 it diminish by 52,2% and it was $503.9 million, 4.9% of total net revenues. The reason for decrease was high distribution costs and high rent expenses. In 2009 it increase again by $58.1. master(prenominal) reason for this improvement was the restructuring charges which contain assets impairment, lease exit and severance costs. In 2008 and 2009 while net revenues were $10,383 million and $9,774.6, total operating expenses were $9,992.7 million in 2008 and $9,334.5 in 2009 that means expenses were highly eating up more than 96% of the net revenues. The company suffered a major loss of 113.185% in net earnings between 2007 and 2008. Starbucks realized that he need to re-think its business strategy. In 2008, the company incurred restructuring charges of $266.9 million due to store closures in the US and Australia and reduction of the work force. Starbucks Company derived 84% of total net revenue from the company-operated retail stores. They opened 681 new stores in the last 12 months and this offset -3% losses in comparable store sales. organic net revenue of 2009 was showed a decrease of 5.9%, stayed at $9,774.6. The company-operated retail also went down. In detail, there was a change of nearly 6.7% in comparable, for 4% decrease in transactions and a 2% decrease in the average value per transaction. contour 1 Net Revenue of Starbucks 2007-2009 (Starbucks annual financial report)Figure 2 Operating Income of Starbucks 2007-2009 (Starbucks annual financial report)Figure 3 Net earnings of Starbucks 2007-2009 (Starbuck annual report)3.4. Balance sheetIn term of assets, the total assets for the triad years kept staying aro und $5,600 million. The total on- discharge assets in 2009 were $2,036 million. This was higher than in 2008 and 2007 due to the high change and cash equivalents in 2009. The marketable securities in 2007 were $157 millions so in 2007 the company had more short term investment. On the other hand, the total liabilities in 2008 were the highest in three years because of the commercial motif and short-term borrowing in 2008. Additionally, there was no short-term debt in 2009 but it was the highest accrued expenses during the three years. The shareholders equity in 2009 was the highest in three years owing to the additional paid-in capital.3.4. Ratio analysisBy doing proportion analysis, the company performance would be evaluated more clearly.As we can see the current ratio for the 2009 was higher than 2008 and 2007. In 2008 and 2007, the current ratio was under 1. That means Starbucks was non in good financial health in these two years. However, this situation didnt live on for a long epoch but it was not a good sign. The current ratio for 2009 was 1.29, so the company had 1.29 time more current assets than current liabilities. That means Starbucks was able to cover its own obligations.As the Exhibit 1 shows the quick ratio was low for 3 years that is all below 1. This indicates that the company had difficult to turning their inventory into cash like a short-term liability which the company could not pay off immediately. In 2007, the profit margin of Starbucks was 7.15%. This means 7 cents of each dollar is companys profit. In the next two years, the profit margin decreased by nearly 3 percent. That means the net income in 2009 was visibly lower than 2007. It may mainly caused from the increase of the restructuring charges.The return on assets ratio in the year 2007 was 13.77% while the ratio declined to 6.95% in 2009. From this we know Starbucks pull in more in 2007 and the net income in 2007 was higher than in 2009. The reason for this decrease roots i s also from increase cost of the restructuring and innovation in 2008 and 2009.In terms of leverage ratio, to measure its ability to meet financial obligation from 2007 to 2009 the debt ratio was around 50%. That means nearly 50% of funds for assets came from debt. This does not seem good for the company and the most liabilities were long-term liabilities.The debt to equity ratio from 2007 to 2009 was pretty high and the highest point was in 2007, so in 2007 more debt was used.Interests earned ratio in Starbucks during the 3 years was extremely high like in 2007, the ratio was nearly 28 times, but finally in 2009 the ratio was around 15 times a year. It could be a really good margin since the company was able to cover its interest expenses 15 times with operating income.3.5. Cash flowOperating activities the net cash provided by operating actives in 2009 was highest during the 3 years. The main part of activities was depreciation and amortization. Same as in 2008 the company spent $ 604.5 thousands on depreciation and amortization.Investing activities the net cash used by spend activities in 2007 was $-1201.9 thousands. The main costs here were addition to property, plant and equipment and the company also spent money on purchasing available-for-sale securities. But in 2009 the net cash used by investing activities was $-421.1 thousands. This was much less than in the 2007. The reason for this was the company spent less money on additions to property, plant and equipment.Financing activities the net increase/ (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents in 2009 was $330.0 thousands. That means Starbucks gained money from financing activities in 2009 while in 2008 and 2009 they had losses in financing activities. The reason for the gain of money in 2009 was the profit in short-term borrowing and nothing spent on the issuing of long-term debts.4. Forecasting 2010-2011In order to project the next two fiscal year performance of Starbucks, particularly to construct the pro forma income statements of 2010 and 2011, establishing the revenue (or sales) projection should be the first task of all. In the next steps, the rest items of the statement would be projected by the percent of sales method since it does provide simple, logical estimate of many important variables (Higgins, 2009). In fact, there was a microscopical growth of Starbucks revenue in both volume and speed during the period of time from 2000 to 2009. Especially, from 2000 to 2007, the annual company sales increased in solid yard in the range of 20% to 29%. This impressive growth of Starbucks revenue was a sophisticated proof for its great business strategies during the beginning of this decade. However, the story had some changes since 2008. At the end of this fiscal year, Starbucks finished with $10,383 million revenue, in comparison with 2007, the growth ratio was 10.3% only, the lowest ratio since 2000. Continuously, in the midst of the US economic crisis, Starbucks sales got neg ative growth at 5.9% after finish the fiscal year 2009, stay at $9,744 million.Figure 4 Starbucks Sales chart in 2000-2009 (in Millions)Obviously, the trustable estimation should be the sophisticated one, that normally came from data base statistic analyses. Specifically, with the availability of the last ten years data of Starbucks revenue, it was possible to apply most of time series forecast methods such as moving average, weighted moving average, exponential smoothing, and so on. Since each method had its own advantages and limitations, it is necessary to compare how both method would reflect the same provided data (Exhibit 4).The value of W3 (for the Weighted moving average method) and (for the Exponential smoothing method) were decided high at 0.6 and 0.3 due to the emphasis of the imminent time period in term of its impact to the next following year. As a result, the forecasts for 2010 sales were quite low though there was quiet down a slightly growth than 2009. Among the three methods, the weighted moving average method seems to be the most appropriated one since it had the smallest value of the Mean Absolute Deviation. Basically, it turn out that this method had less forecasting error than others and might be the best choice of all. To be clear, the plot chart was established base on the result of the three forecast methods in Figure X.Figure 5 Plot of Actual Sales and Forecast Sales for 2010 in three different models (in $ Million)Visibly, the line created from weighted moving average method was the closest one to the actual sales line. Its trend reflected almost similarly to the actual during the period of time from 2003 to 2009. That is why this method was chosen to determine the 2010 Starbucks sales instead of the two methods remaining. Objectively, $9,920.81 million may not be a number that Starbucks shareholders and investors really expect, even it showed slightly growth at 1.5% than 2009. However, in some levels, it seems to reflect quite appropriately the reality of the economic conditions as well as the Starbucks status. In spite of many overconfident signs of the economic recovery, Starbucks is still continuing its plan to close 800 retail stores over two year 2009 and 2010. Since the 566 stores had already released in 2009, another 244 are expecting to be cleared in fiscal year 2010. Thus, it could be hard to see a rapid growth in revenue of Starbucks at the end of fiscal year 2010.In regard to fiscal year 2011, since all of the three forecasting method above only allowed forecaster to see the result of 2010 revenue, the bilinear Regression method was applied to estimate the sales in 2011. By collecting the sales data from the last three years (2007 to 2009) in quarterly, by the calculation of the lapsing line (Exhibit 11), the value of a ( the y intercept) and b (slope of regression line) were found. These two values were use to determine the dependent variable (y). The regression forecast of sales in equatio n is y = a + bx (Exhibit 5 ).The forecast results of $10,078.21 and $10,189.41 for each year of 2010 and 2011 once again confirmed about the growth trend of Starbucks sales in the next two year. Nonetheless, base on the Starbucks plan of opening over 500 new stores in US and over sea during 2011, there should be a stronger increase in sales of Starbucks in this year. Subjectively, the authors believed that Starbucks revenue would increase no less than 15% in 2011. In other words, if the 2010 revenue was forecasted at $9,920.81 million, the same item in 2011 would be around $11,408.93 million. This result was also determined base on many positive factors that Starbucks could get benefits from such as the economic recovery in higher volume and speed, the more effective operating of Starbucks after the reorganizing process in its retail stores system as well as the objective increase in customers demand. Moreover, the volume of average transaction would be higher due to the increase in cost of goods sold and the impact of inflation.In the Exhibit 6, all the operating performances of Starbucks from 2005 to 2009 were displayed in detail by the percent of total revenue. Base on those historic data and theirs visible trends, it was possible to anticipate logically the operating results for next two fiscal years 2010 and 2011 (Exhibit 7).According to the Exhibit 14, the net income of Starbucks stays at $466.27 and $479.18 million for each of 2010 and 2011. This may be considered as the acceptable results in regard to the challenges of the current circumstance. In fact, the forecast net income of 2010 is 19.3% higher than 2009. Since the revenue of 2010 did not rise in a strong level (only 1.5%), this impressive net income mainly came from the reducing the stores operating expenses and the more effective tax rate. In 2011, the operating expenses are expected to increase and stay at 95.2% of total sales, this is an objective fact that many items in operating expenses ar eas are in trend of steady increase year by year accompany with the business enlarge strategy of Starbucks, such as store operating expenses or general and administrative expenses. However, this ratio might be less in the next following years if the restructure process of Starbucks would get its aims of improving efficiency of cost control in various activities.Conclusion and recommendationStarbucks has been the largest specialty coffee retailer in its industry, but due to the problems with our economy, it has been seeing an effect on its sales and profits. The economic situation has affected consumers spending at Starbucks and other luxury goods. Starbucks also raised prices by an average of 9 cents a cup in July of 2007, causation U.S. customers who face higher food, fuel and housing expenses to go to McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts for cheaper coffee. These issues have affected Starbucks stocks performance in the market and are slowly making this stock an uncomplimentary one for e mf investors. My recommendation for potential investors would be to hold off on purchasing stocks from Starbucks at this moment because now is not a good time to invest in them. I would advise these investors to keep looking into this stock until they see a positive change in its market embodiment and that would be when I would advise them to purchase the stock before its price increases higher than the average market price. My recommendation for investors holding the share of the company would be to hold on to it until they can see for certain if Starbucks stocks will continue to go down and become a loss or maybe potential go back up and become profitable as they once were. After conducting my research, I believe the Starbucks stock will eventually start going up again after they put into effect their plans for the upcoming year. This stock is definitely a valuable one that I would not let go of if I owned shares in it. Starbucks hold value to its stock, which is why my advice to shareholders is to hold off on selling their shares until they see how the upcoming year goes for the company. In a response to the McDonalds challenge Starbucks is teaming up with Burger King, which has announced that by September 2010 it would begin selling Starbucks Seattles Best Coffee in about 7,250 U.S. outlets it would launch its first home(a) advertising campaign.

Distributed leadership and teacher leadership

Distributed operateing and instructor leadersThis assignment pull up s moderatesing explore the leading practices of both distributed lead and instructor leading. Where necessary these practices will be employ to the environment of rail A. School A is an inner city ecumenical secondary direct with a large intake of English as an supererogatory Language (EAL) bookmans.In 2009 School A achieved its best ever GCSE results in history with 72% of disciples achieving an A-C grade in Maths and English. These results placed the school in spite of appearance the top 10 best per var.ing schools in the LEA. Other schools in the top 10 included independent grammar schools or outer city comprehensive schools. only, in 2010 the school was unable to maintain the successes of the previous year as overall GCSE results fell by 4%.It could be argued from this, that the school had neither the leading capacity to sustain or reform (Ansell, 2004) its position. Kotter (1998) has id entified eight principal errors that amaze organisations to fail and the applicable principle in this scenario is declaring victory too soon. However this was not the case for school A, the problem was that three strong leaders whom held senior positions were promoted to some other schools around the borough and as a result the rising GCSE panache was unsustainable. Lewis (2003) describes such(prenominal) situations as an uncontrollable barrier that impacts upon organisation improvement. A differing view by an external practitioner had highlighted that the lack of distributed lead or instructor lead practices whitethorn allow hindered the schools chances of improving.Leadership was the line popularly used in all of the examples given supra and the opinions of the external practitioner provided me with a focus for this assignment. As a result I intend to examine the literature around lead, in particular how distributed leading and instructor leaders atomic number 18 perc eived and practiced. The constitution and theory related literature look into will allow me to develop a greater insight into the two leading styles, which may well improve my practice as a oculus leader. To meet the aims of my project I will answer the following questions and where necessary apply these to the background of my schoolWhat is leading and educational leadership?What are the key features of distributed leadership and teacher leadership?What are the equalities and differences between distributed leadership teacher leadership?What are the merits and constraints to distributed leadership teacher leadership?2. What is leadership and educational leadership?Despite decades of research into leadership, writers still remain divided over the answer to the question what is leadership? One decent criticism is that leadership is a label attributed to human behaviour and that this term can be interchanged with another term (Lakomski, 2005). Cuban (1988, p190) states that there are more(prenominal) than 350 descriptions of leadership. Paglis and Green (2002) describe leadership as the operation whereby a person identifies where the group is at present, where they need to be and then devises a strategy for gain their destination. Northouse (2007) defines leadership as a process where an individual sours a group to achieve a common goal. Out of the two definitions I feel that Northouse (2007) definition provides the stronger answer to my research question as the definition takes account of personality traits such as influence which Paglis and Greens (2002) definition does not dwell into. Yukl (2002) explains this influence process as a social influence process whereby intentional influence is applied to structure the tasks and relationships at heart an organisation.Earlier researchers by Stodgill (1948) reviewed 124 trait studies of leadership and found several personal factors of leadership which included responsibility, corporation capacity a nd status. However, the criticism was that these studies did not examine how aspects of contexts and personality traits were interrelated in leadership studies. As a consequence legion(predicate) attempts to find universal qualities of leadership proved to be fruitless (Shorter and Greer, 1997). This led to the emergence of many leadership models.Nevertheless, the term leadership within organisations became associated with innovation and the ideas of change, as a result was elevated in status above management (Gronn 2004). Cuban (1988) stated the contrast in leadership and management to be vast, as leaders sought change and unhurtheartedly implemented it whereas jitneys preferred to maintain the status quo. For this reason, many businesses recognised the importance of leadership as the key driver to their future success. However, applying Gronns (2004) and Cubans (1988) ideas to education I feel that it is necessary for the Headteacher to both play the role of a manager and a lea der. This is because the Headteacher is answerable for the school vision (leadership) but needs to take practical steps to implement the school strategy (management). Bolman and Deal (1997) share my thoughts and state that modern organisations affect practical managers that lead others in achieving a common goal.Educational leadership is a specific area of leadership within education. Although as highlighted earlier delimit leadership is impeccably difficult, however educational leadership within a school setting is defined as a process that guides the talents and energies of, teachers, students and parents to achieve the common educational aims. Preliminary the aim of undefeated leadership is securing and sustaining improvement (Hopkins, 2001).School improvement has been at the forefront of educational reform leading to many writers discussing the compulsive benefits of leadership to student learnedness and school improvement. Wallace (2002) explains the impact of leadership upon school effectiveness and school improvement to be of great importance. Leithwood and Riehl (2003) share a similar view and state that large scale studies of schooling conclude the effects of leadership on student learning to be educationally significant. For this reason the term educational leadership has made its mark within education.It is evident from the literature review that no universal definition has been noted for leadership however it has allowed me to project that leadership is a process and one which brings about many models of leadership. In school, leadership is considered to be a process that will endorse schools to be thriving (Harris 2004).Traditionally, educational leadership focused around the heroic model of leadership where the Headteacher demonstrated heroic features such as ascendance, courage and control (Johnson, 1997). The post-heroic model lays focus on teamwork, participation and empowerment. In this situation, school leadership does not dictate and control, but collaborates with others regarding organisational plans and operations. (Eicher, 2006). As schools require more challenging places to control and lead it has perform necessary for Headteachers to promote school leaders as a means of sustaining improvement. The National College for School Leadership nominate this view and state As schools bend more labyrinthine places to manage and lead, we need many more leaders than ever before (NCSL, 2008).The capacity bring ining model is focused around the procession of leaders. At the centre of the capacity building model, it has been discussed, is distributed leadership along with social cohesion and trust (Hopkins and Jackson, 2002, cited in Harris 2004 p12). In short, distributing leadership equates with taking full returns of the human capacity within an organisation. This creates opportunities for all teachers to become leaders and lead towards the schools vision (Harris Muijs, 2005). In the context of my own si tuation as a middle manager the school has supported my development extensively, as two years ago I started off as a NQT, now I am a middle manager on a fast track senior leadership training programme. Through the support of this development it can be argued that a form of capacity building has taken place.3. What are the key features of distributed leadership and teacher leadership?Distributed LeadershipDistributed leadership is one form of leadership that has raised the interest of many researchers within the educational field. Prominent researchers within this field include James Spillane, James Duignan and Alma Harris. As a result Bennett et al. (2003) get over that there is little agreement to the term of distributed leadership and consequently the interpretations of this term vary from writer to writer and some of the interpretations of distributed leadership are related to collegiality. Connections have in like manner been made between ideas of democracy, empowerment, and a utonomy however the integration of these elements is not made explicit. (Harris 2004). Most helpfully Bennett et al. (2003) suggest that it is more practical to imagine distributed leadership as a way of thinking about leadership as oppose to seeing it as another technique or practice. This view is overlap by Spillane (2006) who suggests the key feature of distributed leadership to be used as a framework to examine leadership.Another key feature discussed by wood et al, (2004, p441) is that distributed leadership highlights leadership as an emergent airplane propeller of a group networking of interacting individuals. This process shares some resemblance to transformational leadership as both focus on the actions of the group which Gronn (2000) describes as concertive action and an additional dynamic that is the product of conjoint activity. But different to transactional leadership as this focuses around a leader and its followers.The distributed leadership process overly allows educational establishments to consider the boundaries of leadership, expanding upon the traditional leadership positions such as those of Assistant Heads and middle leaders. Woods et al (2004, p442) state that this process is dispose to widen the convectional net of leaders this in turn raises the question of which group and individuals are to be brought into leadership or seen as contributors of it. So therefore distributed leadership concentrates on how leadership practice is distributed between in baronial and formal leaders. As Bennett et al. (2003 p3) note, distributed leadership is not something done by an individual to others, rather it is an emergent property of a group or network of individuals in which group members pool their expertise.Teacher LeadershipUpon reviewing literature surrounding teacher leadership, it is evident that a nice meaning cant be found. The idea of teacher leadership focuses its attention towards the encouragement of teachers becoming leaders and engrossing in leadership activities outside the schoolroom environment. Barth (2007) describes this process of leadership where teachers take on initiatives that will inturn have a positive impact within the classroom. Similarly, Wasley (in Harris and Muijs, 2005) suggest that the key characteristic of teacher leadership is to support colleagues to develop work on their own initiative, rather than be lead by initiatives derived from a formal leader.Within my responsibilities as a music director of specialism (Business and Enterprise) in my school I have to co-ordinate several whole school enterprise days through and passim the year. Rather than organising and leading activities myself, I get my team on board and discuss the delivery of these enterprise days. By getting the team on board I am creating opportunities for these members to build upon their strengths and offer opportunities where they can deliver these sessions independently. It is clear from this example that a form of teacher leadership is taken place within my department.Another aspect of teacher leadership is for teachers to work together, constructing meaning and knowledge collectively and collaboratively (Lambert 1998). It is argued that if everyone has the capacity to do this, only then will school improvement take place (Katzenmeyer and Moller, 2001). This is why schools should have an understanding that leadership should not just be assigned to those within formal positions (Harris and Lambert, 2003). Research has also addressed that understanding leadership exclusively will not be enough to encourage all rung to play a part in the schools improvement process alone, a form of capacity building will also be required. (Harris and Muijs 2005). It has been highlighted from the Ofsted report during our last inspection that Assessment for learning practices should be consistently applied throughout the whole school. This has resulted to several teacher training days focused around assessmen t practices. Opportunities have been provided during these days for teachers to work collaboratively and share good practice to all. So, it can be argued that these practices share the opinions of both Katzenmeyer and Moller (2001) and Harris and Muijs 2005.The largest numbers of staff within a school are teachers and therefore are at the centre of the capacity building model. The object for this, is teachers are in the unique position to make change happen given that they are directly involved in the didactics process (Lieberman moth miller 2004). Therefore, the key characteristic of teacher leadership is to develop teachers to become leaders beyond the classroom thus leading to improved educational practice (Katzenmeyer and Moller, 2001).4. What are the similarities and differences between distributed leadership teacher leadership?The focus of permeative leadership is the distribution of power that is stretched over a number of individuals and where the leadership activities are achieved through the interaction of many leaders (Spillane and Louis 2002). Harris (2005) shares a similar view and suggests that distributive leadership is centred on the creation of conditions where people work together and learn together. So it could be argued that teacher leadership is just one area under the umbrella of distributed leadership. Whereby, this process of distributive leadership is all about giving authority to teachers and empowering them to lead, (Harris 2005). This is a move away from the individualism and isolation of program line brought forward by Lortie (1975 cited in Spillane et al 2001)Teacher leadership and distributed leadership share many similarities (Muijs and Harris, 2003). Both leadership processes are centred on people working together and it is argued that the knowledge rack of individuals would increase when compared to individuals who worked alone (Bennett et al 2003). This is why both leadership types promote the construction of knowledg e through cooperation and active participation (Harris and Lambert, 2003).5. What are the benefits and constraints of distributed leadership and teacher leadership?This section will be broken into sub-headings generated from distinctive elements of distributed leadership, distinguished upon reviewing related literature surrounding this type of leadership practice. (Gronn 2000 Harris 2004 Timperley 2005 MacBeath et al 2005 Spillane 2006).Within this section I will discuss the benefits and constraints of both leadership types. As addressed earlier teacher leadership forms one strand of distributed leadership so therefore my discussion surrounding the benefits and constraints of this leadership type will also be addressed within this section.Emergent property of interactionOne of the primary functions of distributed leadership is the development of interaction between groups of people (Woods et al 2004). Spillane et al (2001) describe this as a collective leadership process that leads to an evolution of leadership practice, one which is far greater than the sum of each individuals practice. In the context of my school, this type of process could involve groups of professionals (teachers and senior leaders) coming together and sharing their expertise on a particular topic i.e. improvement strategies of Assessment for learning within classrooms. A overlap approach compared to a singular led approach would not only yield a stronger pool of information, but also create a sense of belonging amongst teachers. After all, it is teachers who are required to implement these practices. This approach is similar to theories of teamwork, where the view is that working together produces far greater results than working alone (Harris 2004). It is also suggested that the interaction approach would be best utilised in an environment where relationships are based on support and correlative protection (Belbin 2000).In respective of teacher leadership, Griffin (1995) highlights th e need for teachers to prosper as leaders so they can support the development of other teachers. The beg on effect of teachers not interacting with each other can be seen as an intellectual resource being wasted. A similar view is shared by Harris and Mujis (2005) who have reported that teachers knowledge and expertise increase after being involved in discussion sessions with other leaders. These viewpoints are shared by my colleagues who are on the teaching and learning committee within my school. Having the magazine to interact with other teachers and discuss improvement ideas/good practice has improved the teaching within their own classroom and this would not have been possible prior to the committee being set up.Top-down Vs Bottoms-upThe term top down leadership in schools is a process whereby strategies and solutions are identified by senior leaders and are then passed down the organisation (Hodgkinson 1991). Whereas the bottoms up approach promotes employee participation at all levels of the decision making process. Ryan (2003) suggests that distributive leadership is a non-hierarchical collaborative approach. The benefits of the collaborative approach would increase work performance compared to the traditional hierarchical approach. (Leithwood and Riehl 2003). As a middle manager I have witnessed the bottoms up approach to be more favourable than the hierarchical approach. For example, when the Deputy Headteacher runs CPD sessions some staff are displeased with the development support provided as their views are not taken into consideration. When the contributions and views of teachers are considered, then there is a greater chance that teachers will implement school strategies and support school goals. (Sheppard,1996).Research has made it known that the authoritarian top-down style of leadership is common in schools that are in special measures (Gray, 2000) compared to improving schools that have embedded distributive leadership (Muijs and Harris 200 3). It is apparent from this research that top-down leadership approaches are found within failing schools however this point cannot be generalised as other factors could play a part towards a school deemed to be failing. Murphy and Meyers (2008) highlight lack of ingenuity for school, low socioeconomic status of students and urban school settings as a constituent to a failing school.Furthermore, I feel that top down and bottoms up leadership approaches can coexist within a school and still be classed within the spectrum of distributed leadership. For example the Assistant Head in charge of teaching and learning at my school had put forward the five principles to monitor progress of students in lessons. The teachers administered these principles and were given the opportunity to discuss the results with the Assistant Head to find improvement strategies for the problem areas. This process both involved formalize leaders and informal leaders working together on a similar cause and is described by Spillane (2006) as coordinated distributed leadership.As a recognition of expertiseDistributed leadership focuses its attention on assigning experts to appropriate tasks within formal and informal roles and this is different to the traditional leadership model which would only assign formal leaders to take on leadership tasks. Owens (2004) suggests that schools operate under complex systems so therefore it is unrealistic for the Headteacher to be an expert in all areas of the school. Applied to the context of my school, the Headteacher has recruited a business manager to deal with the financial aspects of the school and oversee the Building School of the Future (BSF) programme. The reason for this is, the business manager has previous experience not only in finance but some importantly obligates the expertise in managing a school rebuild elsewhere. Although the Headteacher is ultimately accountable for the school finances and the rebuild, this role is assigned to a n expert to ensure the streamlined running of school operations.Expertise can also be drawn from school teachers. By creating a climate that identifies teachers know-how will bring out the leadership within those teachers. For the Headteacher to seek expertise outside the formalised roles will empower those individuals (Hargreaves, 1999). However, in my opinion there proves to be unanswered questions with Hargreaves (1999) thoughts as no character reference is made when the expert i.e. teacher is not skilled or enthusiastic to lead and as a result the process of identifying expertise may become unproductive. However, Duignan (2006) does shed some light on my thoughts and mentions recognising expertise will promote an allowed-to-be-a-leader culture this can be a powerful tool in the motivation, support and appreciate of teachers. Conversely it is argued by Katzenmeyer Moller (2001) that teachers can be supported to develop their leadership potential, but teacher leadership can onl y blossom within a culture where the opinions of these leaders are respected.Nevertheless, it is suggested that the support and expertise offered by teachers can fulfil the responsibilities of the site leaders (Keedy Finch 1994). Lambert (1998) believes that this allows experts to shine from outside the formalised roles of leadership and will increase their capability of becoming leaders. These views could potentially support the problems towards the decline in GCSE results within my school. An initial thought to the cause of this problem was through the departure of three senior leaders who were promoted to posts at other schools. The view here was that when strong leaders left their posts, it led to the decline in students pedantic results. Lamberts, Keedys and Finchs (1998) views could not be applied to the context of my school, as there was little conclusion of a culture of teacher leadership being recognised, nurtured and built upon within my school. If the teacher leadershi p culture was apparent then the school may not have been affected when the senior leaders left their posts. Harris and Lambert (2003) support my view and put forward the notion that all teachers harbour leadership capabilities and if unlocked can be engaged for the benefit of the school.It has been noted from the literature on teacher leadership that formal roles such as lead teachers were established to recognise the efforts of teachers, however these programmes were found to be ineffective as Smylie and Denny (1990) found out. These teacher leaders could not fully support their fellow teachers as most of their time was taken up attending meetings as opposed to spending time at improving the practice of other teachers.Supporting school improvementIt is argued that leadership that is distributed can support capacity building in school and contribute to school improvement (Harris 2004). This view is supported by Silns and Mulford (2002), their research within this area has identified that student outcomes are likely to increase if the leadership is distributed throughout the school community. However, it is Harris (2004) that brings to our attention that more evidence is required to confirm the relationship between student learning outcomes and distributive leadership.Hallinger and Heck (1998) also bring to our attention that the tonus of teaching and learning play a pivotal role in supporting student achievement. If the students are doing better compared to the previous year then the school is seen to be improving. School leaders need to recognise that teachers have contributed extensively to this improvement. Literature has also highlighted that teacher leadership can lead to improved student outcomes as knowledge and skills are shared in order to improve instructional practice (Smylie, 1994) This view is shared by Lieberman and Miller (2004) who suggest, when teachers have opportunities to lead and share good practice the chances of securing the quality of teaching learning is increased. Barth (2007) adds to this view by stating that schools badly need the leadership of teachers if they are to improveIt is apparent from the views of the writers above that teacher leadership plays a crucial role in raising development. If effective teacher leadership practices are in place then students attainment will increase. This may not be the case within my school as GCSE results had fallen by 4% compared to the previous year. Therefore this raises the question is teacher leadership not prominent in my school or is leadership on a whole poor? Moreover, Mendez-Morze (1992) research into effective urban schools has highlighted that student achievement could only be raised with the guidance of an effective leader.-Tensions barriers to distributed leadership and teacher leadershipThere are no guidelines available as to how distributive leadership should be implemented and this is the key concern of this type of leadership. Other leadership models t hat exist, encompass guides of delivery for example, John Adairs (1973) Action Centred Leadership model provides a blueprint for the leadership of a team or an organisation. As the model is open to interpretation, the distributive process may lead to the abuse of power and as a result the intentions of this leadership style may prove to be invalid (Maxy and Nguyen 2006 cited in Mayrowetz 2008). Gunter and Ribbins (2003) support this view and address concerns to what distributive leadership will look like in an organisation. Spillane (2005) challenging these concerns and points out that distributive leadership is a way of thinking of leadership and as a result no blueprint can be made available nor an instruction of how leadership should be practiced in a school. This view is supported by Harris (2005), upon the review of both Spillanes and Gronns work into this process of leadership and addresses that distributive leadership is a way of studying leadership as opposed to explaining l eadership practice.Also, the distributive process encourages teachers to take on leadership roles, in my opinion there is a significant problem with this as an assumption is made that teachers are capable in taking on leadership roles. Smylie (1994) study of teacher leaders and their principles brought out that teachers raised concerns about the lack of training that was provided towards building new working relationships. In my experience leaders require some form of training prior to taking on leadership responsibilities. The expertise of potential teacher leaders hold may not be effective if the teachers are not capable to lead. This is why in my school the majority of leaders assigned to middle leadership and senior leadership positions attend training courses delivered by the NCSL.Centralised systems of accountability that hold the Headteacher accountable can prove to be another barrier towards successful implementation of distributive leadership. One reason for this is that th e Headteacher may be reluctant to delegate their power as he/ she may feel vulnerable payable to the lack of control they harbour once others bear the burden of responsibility. OECD (2008) state that this may be true in cases where legal, HR, and financial control is given to others in the school. This is not the case with my school as the Headteacher has given away some of her power to others for example the responsibility of the school finances has been passed down to the business manager within the school and the curriculum design and management passed down to the Deputy Headteacher. This demonstrates that distributed leadership is taking effect as responsibility has been delegated to experts within their fields.Hierarchical systems that reward staff in accordance to their roles and responsibilities can prove to be a barrier to teacher leadership. Teachers may feel that the increase workload of additional responsibilities may not be worthwhile if financial rewards are not provi ded, in return may lead to teachers not being motivated enough to take on leadership roles. In my experience of taking on additional teaching and learning leadership responsibilities when I was teaching a full timetable, I had problems fulfilling my role fully due to the lack of time made available for me to implement my additional leadership responsibilities. My view is supported by several other studies which recommended that time has to be made available for teachers to plan and discuss whole school plans, curriculum matters or liaising with external bodies (Ovando Seasore-Louis et al., cited in Muijs and Harris 2003).6. ConclusionI am aware of the benefits that distributed leadership can provide, in particular having a framework to examine and understand leadership practice and developing group interactions through the collaborationism process. However, the literature has acknowledged that distributed leadership is a new phenomenon that encompasses a limited literature base and a widely accepted definition (Bennett, Harvey, Wise Woods, 2003 Harris, 2004 Timperley, 2005 Spillane, 2006). In addition there is also little empirical evidence towards the effectiveness of the impact that distributed leadership has towards increasing student attainment and promoting instructional improvement. On this basis, I was unable to find a definitive answer to my hypothesis, which was to determine whether distributed leadership could improve student grades. What I have become aware of is, distributive leadership can play a part to increasing student attainment.Apart from the improvement of student grades, distributed leadership is a powerful leadership strategy where evidence has shown contributes directly to school effectiveness and development (Muijs and Harris, 2003).It is also suggested that the structure of teacher leadership creates a more professional work atmosphere (Little, 1995), which leads to building of a professional community.Studies have found that a schoo l with higher levels of teacher learning and leadership, significantly enhances teacher work in the classroom (Silns and Mulford, 2002) as such an environment encourages collaboration and trust. However the research has found Headteachers must be prepared to create a culture and climate that is favourable to teacher leadership (Bishop, Tinley Berman, 1997) as teacher leadership offers a realistic understanding of the idea maintained by the theory of distributed leadership as it presents leadership as an excogitation of a collective activity with all teachers being involved.Overall, the literature reviewed has allowed me generate a deeper understanding of both distributed leadership and teacher leadership. It was also apparent from the action of the literature to the context of my school that distributive practices do exist with some elements of teacher leadership. However, I am aware that it was not possible for me to directly relate/test the literature to my problem as no actio n research into distributed and teacher leadership methods were trialled and tested. Nevertheless the literature has enabled me to build a theoretical base that would be

Othello’s Evil Side Essay -- Othello essays

Othellos Evil Side In the Bard of Avons tragic drama Othello there is a very disquiet dimension of the play this is the evil dimension, which has such depth and intensity that it penetrates not only the mind but the body and soul of the audience. Even the imagery in the drama has its evil aspect. Kenneth Muir, in the Introduction to William Shakespeare Othello, explains the instances of diabolic imagery in the play as they relate to the infecting of the fix by the ancient The same conveyance from Iago to Othello may be observed in what S. L. Bethell called diabolic imagery. He estimated that of the 64 images relating to hell and damnation many of them are allusions rather than strict images Iago has 18 and Othello 26. save 14 of Iagos are used in the first two Acts, and 25 of Othellos in the last three. The theme of hell originates with Iago and is transferred to Othello only when Iago has succeeded in infecting the Moor with his jealousy. (22) In his book of literary cri ticism, Shakespearean Tragedy, A. C. Bradley gives an in-depth analysis of the brand of evil which the ancient personifies Iago stands supreme among Shakespeares evil characters because the greatest intensity and subtlety of tomography have gone to his making, and because he illustrates in the most perfect combination the two facts concerning evil which seem to have impressed Shakespeare most. The first of these is the fact that dead sane people exist in whom fellow-feeling of any kind is so weak that an almost absolute egoism becomes possible to them, and with it those hard vices such as ingratitude and cruelty which to Shakespeare were far the worst. The second is that such evil is... ...oduction. William Shakespeare Othello. New York Penguin Books, 1968. Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http//www.eiu.edu/multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos. Wayne, Valerie. Historical discriminations Misogyny and Othello. The Matter of Difference Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed Valerie Wayne. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1991. Wilson, H. S. On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy. Canada University of Toronto Press, 1957. Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. The Engaging Qualities of Othello. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Introduction to The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare. N. p. Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1957.

How University of Maine Could Improve its Ethics Courses Essay

It is vital to understand the importance of learning morals in the modern society. Innumerable cases of un honourable conduct points to the fact that the country is suffering from a strong moral perspective. Therefore it is my belief that the University of Maine as an educator of the close generation should have a more active policy to instill its student body with ethics. As of 1996, the University of Maine (UMaine) has required its undergraduate students to enroll in a series of stocks that full fills a general education (Gen-Ed) criterion. This Gen-Ed criterion includes several subject areas including the study of ethics. According to UMaines Gen-Ed guidelines updated in May of 19961, a course would be qualified as an ethics Gen-Ed if the course satisfies the following requirements. 1.Courses that satisfy the ethics requirement have one or more of the following attributesa.They acquire methods of ethical analysisb.They deal intensively with ethical issues associated with a par ticular discipline or professionc.They engage the student in the study of ethical questions arising through the interpretation of literature or history, or social scientific analysis designed to include ethical evaluation.2.Programs that undertake to integrate the treatment of ethics throughout the required curriculum may submit to the General Education Committee (GEIC) evidence that the program overall meets the moral philosophy requirement. The GEIC may thus authorize a program (for a fixed period of time, subject to regular review) as an alternative to requiring that each students curriculum contain specifically approved courses The university has say that the goal of its ethics Gen-Ed requirement includes, Students gain exposure to ethics a... ...f Undergraduate University Students in General Education Courses. Journal of General Education 56.2 (2007) 149-68. Web.Boyer, Ernest L. Quest for ordinary Learning the Aims of General Edu. Unknown Carnegie Fdn Adv Teaching, 1990. P rint.Currier, D. M., and J. H. Carlson. Creating Attitudinal Change Through Teaching How a Course on Women and fierceness Changes Students Attitudes About Violence Against Women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 24.10 (2009) 1735-754. Print.Holloway, M. C. . A Comparison Of the Impact of Two Liberal Arts General Education Eore Curricula on Student Humanitarian Values. Journal of General Education (2005). Print.Pope, Kenneth S., Barbara G. Tabachnick, and Patricia Keith-Spiegel. Ethics of Practice The Beliefs and Behaviors of Psychologists as Therapists. American Psychologist 42.11 (1987) 993-1006. Print.