Analysis Of The Royal Dutch Shell Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Analysis Of The Royal Dutch Shell - Essay Example The cases of oil spillage are the serious issue and also the shift of the consumers demand towards cleaner technologies to reduce pollution is a serious problem. In terms of opportunities, Shell is innovating newer technologies and low carbon solutions so as to ensure product standard and the cleaner environment. The company has been benefitted by the rise in the global demand for the Liquefied Natural Gas and therefore, there is an opportunity to expand in other economies. The threats faced by Shell are mainly oil price fluctuations in the global market, high competition, product substitution and stringent governmental rules and regulations regarding environmental concerns. 1.2. Operational strategies. The successful performance of a company depends on the organization structure, its external and internal environment. Shell has its own service stations, wide market, and transport and trade network, energy-efficient technologies for production like solar panels. The company also work s with collaboration with government, society, and industry which enables them to provide best quality products and services (Hill, Jones and Schilling, 2014). 2.0. Social and Ethical Issues for Evaluation of Economic Impact There are certain social and ethical factors that are needed to be emphasized because they have been known environmental activists for their mistakes. There are constant questions regarding the use of the technologies used by Shell and whether they are environmentally friendly or not.

Business Continuity and Crisis Management Essay

Business Continuity and Crisis Management - Essay Example In the course of providing services to their customers there exists a probability of certain disruptions that might impact them to such an extent that they might not be able to serve their customers. It is for this reason that organisations undertake functions for prevention of disruptions, try to stay prepared, undertake risk management, crisis management, recovery processes and emergency responses. They also decide on processes that can ensure speedy resumption of business and manage resources for this purpose based on their understanding of their business environment. These functions serve as the organisation’s protection from future predicaments. Efficiency and effectiveness is achieved through the integration of these functions (Shaw, n.d.). There are several factors that affect business continuity namely networking reliability, data availability, scalability and availability of operating systems, application availability and reliability of server hardware. It is imperati ve for a business to continuously operate, ensure data availability at all times and display agility in accessing the data. The advancement in information technology has made it necessary to achieve business continuity on the basis of ‘continuous computing’ technologies. This is the reason that Business Continuity Management (BCM) and Crisis Management has become an integral part of the information system of an organisation (Nijaz & Moon, 2009). Most businesses do not prepare for unexpected breakdowns in advance or even if they plan, it is often outdated. Good continuity is reflected through advance planning thereby paying attention to minute nuances so that when an emergency situation arises then there is no reason to panic. Most organisation lack this kind of detailed planning as they tend to concentrate only on Information Technology (IT) and carry out too much of business analysis. Planning and simplicity in BCM ensures acceptable service levels for key processes in the business. BCM involves preplanning and coming up with alternative solutions. BCM is essential for the long term survival of the business (Hotchkiss, 2010). What is BCM? In the words of Shaw and Harrold, business crisis and continuity management can be defined as â€Å"the business management practices that provide the focus and guidance for the decisions and actions necessary for a business to prevent, prepare for, respond to, resume, recover, restore and transition from a disruptive (crisis) event in a manner consistent with its strategic objectives† (Shaw, n.d.). BCM entails maintaining and developing a total plan for business continuity which ensures the business’ survival in case any disruption occurs. BCM involves development of plans based on the analysis of business impact, plan execution and regularly updating the plan to discover new risks, threats and business situations (Hotchkiss, 2010). BCM involves evaluating and understanding the risks faced by the company, assessing the impact of an unexpected situation on the organisation and accordingly making decisions regarding the extent to which the organisation should prepare for an unforeseen crisis situation (Matthys, 2010). Critical Appraisal of Drivers of BCM Every organisation in today’s world needs to bring about strategic changes in response to the changes occurring in their economic environment. These changed are driven by various regulations namely government regulations and compliancy regulations.

Ethics in the work place Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ethics in the work place - Research Paper Example Kerns (2003) emphasizes on certain core values that give way to ethical behavior. Accordingly, integrity and courage; love and kindness; justice and fair guidance; wisdom and knowledge, and self control have universal appeal to influencing ethical behavior. The mentioned virtues are interlinked with each other. For example, self control is the ability to keep personal motivation in low ebb to act objectively based on the principle of justice and fairness. An ethical behavior at work place is not demonstrated just by personal integrity but it often requires courage – to do the right thing without bothering about personal consequences. Love and kindness always generate a positive feeling that not only recognize others but prevent them to do any unethical behavior. Just and fair attitude is a powerful driver for an ethical behavior. Wisdom comes through experience and when it combines with knowledge, an ethical behavior is likely to crop up by all means. These core values are necessary to promote ethical behavior at work places. Greer and Plunkett (2007) provide a basic guideline for ethical decision-making. According to them, a legally supported decision is not always an ethical decision. Firing a person due to personal grudge and for absolutely no fault of the person cannot be challenged legally; however, on ethical ground, the action is not palatable. At times, it may appear that adhering to ethical principles may lead to some negative personal consequences, even then that is the best way when seen from a long-term perspective. Russell (2014) argues that workplace ethics offer significant benefits to the organization. It helps in protecting assets of the firm. The companies such as WorldCom, Enron in the recent years are glaring examples of total annihilation due to unethical behavior by managers, top executives, accountants and auditors in large scale. Their entire assets wiped out within a few months and they had to go for bankruptcy under chapter 11

Synthesis paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Synthesis paper - Essay Example Parent involvement in the learning process, though largely untapped is a viable resource for schools struggling to offer its students quality instructions while suffering the limitations of diminishing funds. In addition, parent involvement in a child’s learning increases student achievement and enhances a sense of involvement in the child’s education (Coleman and Hoffer, 1987). Parent involvement typically means different forms of participation in the education of a child. Some of these forms include attending school functions and responding to schooling obligations such as parent-teacher conferences. In addition, parents can become more involved in helping their children’s schooling through tutoring, modeling desired behavior and monitoring homework. Perhaps one of the most important schooling practices is parents’ work in the classroom. There are literally hundreds of journal articles, books and stand-alone reports on the subject of parent involvement in the classroom. These writings give expert opinions, offering sufficient information on the topic of parent involvement as a schooling practice. It is apparent that parent involvement in the class and individual student learning is positively linked to achievement. Interestingly, the more a parent is involved in a student’s learning process, the more beneficial the achievement effects are. This holds true for all the aforementioned types of parent involvement in the schooling process regardless of the age of the student. However, the most effectual modes of parent participation are those that involve parents working candidly with their children in learning activities at school. For instance, programs that involve a parent reading with the child, supporting the child’s class work and homework assignments, tutoring the child using materials and instructi ons provided by teachers show exemplarily impressive results in

Advance managerial accounting Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Advance managerial accounting Report - Essay Example This implies that data turns into information for purposes of making decisions. In the same way, Ferrara’s article â€Å"21st Century Paradigm,† the focus is on cost especially concerning industrial engineering. When Ferrara says that the volume of activity is still a problem as fixed costs grow depending on variable costs, the main point is that profitability is dependent costs. Just like Drucker, Ferrara proposes that costs affect the number of products. This is what he refers to as activity costing. In the two articles, authors clearly bring out the issue of marginal changes ignoring the impact of accounting. Data, therefore, is imperative in the two cases for continuous improvement like cutting down on the selling over a period. At the final stage, Drucker and Ferrara establish that information is crucial in any accounting system, whereby it should deal with the two issues of assigning costs between and within product lines. The next articles as well focus on utilizing costs to make decisions. Cooper and Kaplan, for instance, examine how important products are critical in controlling the costs within the market. They, at first, agree with Ferrara that costs are becoming less variable. This implies that they are the dependent factors transferring products to be independent. Cooper and Kaplan reveal that most costs change depending on the shift and diversity of products within the economy as opposed to the number of products produced (Kaplan and Atkinson 2). With reference to what Drucker tries to bring to surface on accounting systems and information, Cooper and Kaplan tend to agree with him that conventional accounting systems make more products appear more expensive than they really are. The clearest point that brings all the articles together is that management decisions vary depending on the number of product complexity as opposed to the amount. Cooper and Kaplan as well

Abortion Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 3

Abortion - Research Paper Example Though these â€Å"sides† may be difficult to come to terms with, they offer essential insights, even though other relevant sides of the stories may outweigh these insights. The rhetoric, then concerning abortion discussions revolves around labels such as the pro-life and pro-choice (Alcorn, 2009). Nonetheless, what these discussions technically advance it that either side of the former is against life, while the other side is against choice. Ultimately, these discussions ignore the nuances in a victim’s (person’s) position. Well, with regard to these, various moral principles try to demystify the moral groundings of abortion. The first moral consideration is that which considers the status of the unborn child, while the second one is that which considers the rights of the expectant women or rather pregnant women (Alcorn, 2009). A great deal of the debate regarding abortion has revolved around the knowledge, namely, whether an unborn child or the fetus is a person or not. Consequently, if an unborn child is a person, then it has the rights that belong to persons, and not thereof limited to the right to life. Thus, the personification of the unborn child or the fetus is the link between the former and the right to life (Alcorn, 2009). Therefore, from a philosophical point of view, it is clear that an unborn child in itself is a person. That is, an individual with his or her own right regardless of its status or position. Nonetheless, it is difficult to determine the exact stage at which a fetus develops into or becomes a person (Alcorn, 2009). Could it be at conception, the first trimester, or even at birth? This therefore is the technicality. Nonetheless, taking the life of a person is in itself an illegal act, and the moral grounding of the act may be unjustifiable. The interesting thing about pregnant women is that they are bestowed with the

Sexism and the Star System in Architecture Essay

Sexism and the Star System in Architecture - Essay Example This kind of discrimination, unfortunately, is quite common in the profession and continues up till this day and age; it is still a major dilemma. Here, it will be attempted to describe various elements of sexism as well as those who have overcome such barriers inherent in the field of architecture, which include—but are not limited to—sexism and the star system in architecture; womens’ roles in architecture and the ideal architect profile; how kingmakers in architecture are usually men; and what it would look like if a woman were to be a kingmaker in architecture. II. Sexism and the Star System in Architecture The star system has, for a long time, dominated the way that architecture is run. The star system in architecture dominates who are the most sought-after design gurus in the field. Unfortunately, many times this system has favored men more than women in a statistical sense. Denise Scott Brown’s article Room at the Top?: Sexism and the Star System in Architecture is found in Dana Arnold’s book: â€Å"[S]exism and the star system in architecture [exists because] ‘[s]tar [q]uality’ [is] a ‘mysterious amalgam of self-love, vivacity, star, and sexual promise†¦... III. Womens’ Roles in Architecture and The Ideal Architect Profile The reason one needs to get a good architect is paramount.   A good architect on the project lays the foundation for everything else. Ideally, one wants to choose an architect for the project who has character.   In the same way this architect’s character is, so shall your structure be. Women have been at the forefront of architecture for years, but have been relegated to the shadows. â€Å"For centuries, women have designed and built works of architecture around the globe. But when architecture officially became a profession requiring professional education and licensure, the doors were slammed shut to women†¦A less-than-welcoming educational environment and a hostile [and discriminatory] work environment awaited them.†2   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Women who are able to be professional in their field underscore the need for professionalism in the field of architecture. à ¢â‚¬Å"The absence of women from the profession of architecture remains, despite the various theories, very difficult to explain and slow to change. It demarcates a failure the profession has become adept at turning a blind eye to, despite the fact that it places architecture far behind the other professions with which architects frequently seek to align themselves.†3 One wants an architect who will be able to see the project through from inception to completion.   Therefore, this person is going to have to envision the project as well as bring it to fruition. Maya Lin designed the Vietnam War Veterans’ Memorial when she was a 21-year-old student. The memorial now serves as a reminder of those who fought in Vietnam and lost their lives as a result.