How Computers Effect Our Daily Lives Essay Example for Free

How Computers Effect Our Daily Lives Essay 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Communication Communication is defined as a process. We determine and convey it meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding. This process requires a vast repertory of skills in listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating. Use of these processes is developmental and transfers to all areas of life as home, school, community, work, and beyond. Union and support occur owing to communication. 1.2 The Importance of Communication Communication is easily overlooked, but it is necessary to carry out the thoughts and visions of an organization to the people . The importance of speech and words whether through a paper or a voice is a communication medium to convey directions. Without communication, there is no way to express thoughts, ideas and feelings. There are many ways to provide communication from the organization to the people of your community. Whether through a phone, fax, email, letter, website, you are able to communicate your organization to the world. Things can be expressed, ideas can be shared, and thoughts can be joined. The ability and the importance of communication become much more crucial when you are on a purpose or need to perform aim. The ability to effectively communicate is very important when it is usually underestimated and overlooked. Men and women have different communication forms in many places such as at home, at work and in social life. 2. COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN AT HOME Women always are under the responsibility at home. They incline chores in the family. Men only are to have a say on important issues. When they decide about the subject, women usually express their opinions. Men decide to determine with their attitudes. A writer says in her article â€Å" The relation between the sexes occurs around a single concept: superiority of man; women are a lower position in value, reputation and power issues.† ( FiÅŸek 5 ) In fact, we can divide into two section at this point as the behaviors of men and the behaviors of women. 2.1 The Behaviors of Men As we said above, when men decide about one subject, they see themselves superior than women. The study was done about it in the U.S.A by Sandra Lipsitz Bem. According to him, â€Å" Men are characters putting themselves out, independent, determined and risk-taking.† Characteristic of men’s sexual role are more pronounced than women in our society. It is an obvious situation that men are always at the front and on stage. If we think these on men, results aren’t surprising. This is an expected finding in a culture where male dominance. 2.2 The Behaviors of Women Women have great responsibilities in the home. Care of children, chores, attitude toward her husband are very important for them. If a woman is a female employee, it is also important. Women become more sensitive and soft communicating with men. They try to talk about the events. This situation is relevant training of girls and boys. â€Å" The researches which done in our society on educational and development differences between the sexes shows that men were aggressive and competitive. They are trained in establishing power and domination. It shows that women are raised for interpersonal relationship.† ( FiÅŸek 8 ) Women create feelings of closeness by conversing with their friends. But men dont use this way in communication, so they cant figure out why their women are continually talk, talk, talking. Eventually, many men just tune their women out. The ubiquitous image of the housewife at the breakfast table talking to her husband who has his head buried in the newspaper comes to mind. Tannen observed that, â€Å" For males, conversation is the way you negotiate your status in the group and keep people from pushing you around; you use talk to preserve your independence for boys, activities, doing things together, are central. Just sitting and talking is not an essential part of friendship. Theyre friends with the boys they do things with.†As a result, women should inhibit men’s repression to gain themselves strenght. They should exhibit required behaviors to be of equal status. In next section, we will deal with communication between men and women at work. 3.COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN AT WORK Communication is very important for gender in the business life. Problems may arise between sexes at various time.Men and women use strategies in with each other that the opposite sex may view negatively. Often, misunderstandings can be avoided when co-workers look beyond personalities and consider the different ways men and women communicate.Women are more verbally skilled than men. Men’s goals in using tend to be about getting things done whereas women’s tend to be about making connections to other people. Men talk to more things and fact whereas women walk more about people relationship and feeling. Journalist Katja Ridderbusch says in an article: â€Å" The problem between men and woman in the workplace is not the fact that they play by a different set of rules†, Connie Glaser points out(she is America’s guru of gender talk). â€Å"The problem is that they don’t know these rules.† She considers herself a translator, a mediator between the male and the female culture. A supporter of women in the business world. But she is not a feminist, nor does she hate men, quite the opposite. With her husband Tom, who serves as the president to the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta, she has two sons, 22 and 24 years old. In a household of three men, she says, â€Å"you quickly learn to become very thick skinned.† As in all field, there are also several problems at work. The sexes should do whatever is necessary to solve them. We can see more detailed this issue with two sub-title as success of men and the value given women in business life by society. 3.1 The Success of Man Business life has become a universe to men until recent years. According to them, it is built on male values and behaviors. Even writer Leyla Navaro talks about that an attitude emerged under the name of ‘professional behavior’ in her book. Furthermore, it is an enviable behavior’s definition. of authority. Men criticise business interest to pass in human relationship. It includes comportments as supress feeling, impersonality, decide quickly, compete use of authority. Business conducts have been to expected of women because men think in this way.Research results that measure the relationship between high intelligence and success indicates that a high propotion of men. Men don’t want to query their achievements in competition with women. There are also times they are unlucky. † Male job applicants have to prove that they possess the necessary skills, whereas women are just assumed to possess them. In todays increasingly service-based economy, this may not be good news for men†. (â€Å" Do men and women the same language†) As shown in this article, although women are more comfortable communicating, unfortunately men don’t have this feature. 3.2 The Value Given Women in Business Life by Society Although men and women work under the same conditions, the society doesn’t value women enough. A study which done on the success resulted different in women. Two thirds of those continue their lives as housewife. The others work in small position at workplace. According to Alice Rose: â€Å" The society expect achievements appropriate to their abilities of men. Whereas women do business under the talent and skills. We don’t wink at this situation and we will support them at the same time.† A successful women wants to move away both men and other women. Due to competition and jealously, women want to leave alone her. According to them, this is the most effective way of punishing a woman. Women are continious communication in society. Pushing out events affects profoundly them. Internal concerns such as unloved, exclusion lead to failure for women in business life and reduce their potential powers. They strive to show loyalty and retation to workplace. They show de pendent and helpless behaviors in the face of authority figures. This situation exposes that how much value given to women in society. If women defend their rights, they can gain their freedom at work.In last section,we will look at communication between men and women in social life.

Determining the Success of a Project

Determining the Success of a Project Success has always been the ultimate goal of every type of project. Many specialists in the field have performed extensive researches in an attempt to try and define what projects success is. Judging the success of a project is rather an elusive concept since most projects we hear may be a failure to one set of stakeholders while others may consider it to be a success. This article makes an attempt to define success in projects based on the work of experts in this field of study. Introduction A project can be defined as a unique venture with a beginning and an end conducted by people to meet established goals within a parameter of cost reduced and quality increased (Field Keller, P.2). furthermore a project has the following characteristics such as specific objectives, required resources, have a budget and schedule, and requires effort of community, measures quality and finally functions within a life cycle. On the contrary, project management can be defined as the way of controlling the success of the project objectives, by the use of existing managerial structure and capital to manage the project by linking a compilation of tools and skill without interrupting the regular function of a company. The word success is a fascinating word as its is known universally and is broad in character; defining it is not easy, because if asked from different individuals its meaning would change according their perceptions. Project success can be considered as one of the indistinct concepts of project management. Since each stakeholder of a project has different needs and expectations, it is common to anticipate them defining project success in their own way of understanding (Cleland Ireland, 2004, p2). The Sydney Opera House project is a typical example of how different stakeholders have different perspectives of a project. The Opera house (Thomsett, 2002) took 4 times more of the original time to finish and its cost went 16 times over budget. But the final impact the Opera House created was so immense it simply made people overlook the projects original unmet goals. The project was a huge hit for the general public even though it was considered as a failure in the view of project management. On the contrary, the construction of the Millennium Dome in London was a project that was completed on time and on budget but the British public considered it a failure because it didnt deliver the glamour that it was originally expected to make (Cammack, 2005). Since there is widespread variance of opinions in the study of success in projects, many learned writers seem to have given diverse views on this topic based on extensive research and surveys. Their works differentiate among project success, project success criteria and project success factors. Project success Jugdev and Muller (2005) in their article pointed out that in order to identify what success means in a project framework is like obtaining consensus from a group of individuals on the explanation of Good Art. Project success is a subject matter that is commonly talked about and yet very hardly settled upon (Baccarini, 1999). Commonly, the attitudes on project success have developed gradually over the years from simple explanations that were restricted to the implementation phase of the project life cycle to explanations that reflect gratitude of success over the whole project and product life cycle (Jugdev and Muller, 2005). Cleland (1986) suggested that project success is significant only if measured from two vantage points: the extent to which the projects technical performance objective was accomplished on time and within budget; the contribution that the project made to the strategic mission of the organization. According to Pinto Slevin (1988) in their research after sampling over 650 project managers concluded that, Project Success is something difficult than just meeting cost, time, and performance specifications. As a matter of fact, clients contentment with the final result has a great deal to do with the perceived success or collapse of projects. Baccarini (1999) discovered two different components of project success: Project Management Success This concentrates upon the project process and specially the successful achievement of cost, time, and quality. Also the way in which the project management process was performed will be considered. Product Success This deals with the effects of the projects final product. A clear difference should be made between product success and project management success, in order to properly identify and evaluate project management success and product success, as they are differ from each other. According to Baccarini (1999), Project success can be summarized as Project success = project management success + project product success With this definition in mind, it is also important to comprehend what measures enable us to judge whether a project is successful or not. These measures are termed as Project success criteria. Project success criteria Crawfords (2002) view is that project success is an important project management issue and also in discussions, a frequently discussed topic is, it is difficult to find an agreement on the criteria by which success is judged. (Pinto and Slevin 1988; Freeman and Beale 1992; Shenhar, Levy, and Dvir 1997; Baccarini 1999). A study of literature also reveals that a greater level of agreement with the definitions given by Baker, Murphy and Fisher (1988) that project success is a subject of perception and it is considered to be an overall success if the project meets requirements such as technical performance specifications, mission to be performed. It also needs a high degree of satisfaction about the project results among the key people of the project team and the key users of the project effort The renowned and famous criteria to measure project success have been known as Golden Triangle or Iron Triangle. Hence Cost, time and qulity is referd to as the central criteria of the Golden Triangle (Atkinson, 1999, p338). Atkinson continues that this method of measuring project success have not been changed or developed in almost fifty years (1999, p338). According to Stuckenbruck (1986), assessment on project success should be done by different stakeholder groups such as customers, managers, employees, stockholders, etc. Thus it was proposed that the criteria for assessing project success should reflect different stakeholder views. Freeman and Beale (1992) presented an appealing example of different perceptions of people. According to their study: An architect may consider success in terms of aesthetic appearance, an engineer in terms of technical competence, an accountant in terms of dollars spent under budget, a human resources manager in terms of employee satisfaction, and chief executive officers rate their success in the stock market. In their study Freeman and Beale (1992) identified and proposed seven main criteria for measuring success of projects. Technical performance Efficiency in project execution Managerial and organizational implications Personal growth Project conclusion Technical innovativeness and business performance Manufacturing feasibility Wideman (1996, p3-4) believes that project success is time dependant and therefore it should be assessed with time taken into consideration. The reason behind time dependency is based on the fact that project success varies with time. Wideman(1996) illustrated four time dependant groups as mentioned below. Internal project objectives efficiency during the project Benefit to customer effectiveness in the short term Direct contribution assessed in the medium term Future opportunity assessed in the long term Shenhar, Dvir and Levy(1997) constructed a universal multidimensional framework that would help in assessing project success. In their methodology, project success is perceived as a strategic management concept where the end result of the project would fit with the strategic direction of a company whom the end result of the project is originally intended to serve. Their study also revealed that project success is time dependant and thus they identified four groups and translated them into measurable criteria. Internal Project Efficiency (Pre-completion) Meeting schedule Completing within budget Other resource constraints met Impact of the Customer (Short term) Meeting functional performance Meeting technical specifications standards Favorable impact on customer, customers gain Fulfilling customers needs Solving customers problem Customer is using product Customer expresses satisfaction Business and Direct Success (Medium term) Immediate business/commercial recognition Immediate revenue profits enhanced Larger market share generated Preparing for the Future (Long term) Will create new opportunities for the future Will position customer competitively Will create new market Will assist in developing new technology Will add/has added capabilities competencies Project success factors As defined by Cooke-Davies Success factors are those inputs to the management system that lead directly or indirectly to the success of the project or business (Cooke-Davies, 2002, p185). In practice, some project managers instinctively determine their own project success factors. However, most of these factors are not clearly documented, thus are not considered to become a part of formal project management literature or historical project data (Rad Levin, 2002, p18). From the 1980s to 2000 many researchers have attempted to identify success factors for projects. Kerzner (1987), Pinto and Slevin (1987-1989), (Sadeh, Dvir, Shenhar, 2000), Cooke Davis (2002) and Muller and Turner (2005) are among the top researchers who have conducted extensive researches in this area of study. The table below (Table 1) points out critical success factors that were identified by specialists, and were later reviewed and tabulated by Belassi and Tukel (1996). Baker, Murphy and Fisher (1983) Clear goals Goal commitment of project team On-site project manager Adequate funding to completion Adequate project team capability Accurate initial cost estimates Minimum start-up difficulties Planning and control techniques Absence of bureaucracy Lock (1984) Make project commitments known Project authority from the top Appoint competent project manager Set up communications and procedures Set up control mechanisms (schedules, etc.) Progress meetings Cleland and King (1983) Project summary Operational concept Top management support Financial support Logistic requirements Facility support Market intelligence (who is the client) Project schedule Executive development and training Manpower and organization Information and communication channels Project review Pinto and Slevin (1989) Top management support Client consultation Personnel recruitment Technical tasks Client acceptance Monitoring and feedback Communication Trouble-shooting Characteristics of the project team leader Power and politics Environment events Urgency Table 1 Critical success factors tabulated by Belassi and Tukel (1996). Belassi and Tukel (1996) in their study, analyzed the above mentioned success factors and grouped them into four areas. Factors related to the project Factors related to the project managers and the team members Factors related to the organization Factors related to the external environment. It is evident that whatever critical success factors that are known, can be grouped under these four areas identified by Belassi and Tukel (1996). Dvir, Raz, Shenhar (2003) conducted a survey among 100 Israeli defense projects, and their findings pointed out a noteworthy positive connection between the projects success and each of the factors listed below. The amount of effort spent in defining and identifying the goals of the project The functional requirements Technical specifications of the project According to Verma (1995, 1996) communication, leadership and teamwork are essential for efficient management of project human resources and are vital to achieve project objectives successfully. Murray, J.P. (2001) identified nine factors that could drive an IT project into success or failure. Proper senior management commitment to the project Ample amount of project financial support A well defined set of project requirements and specifications Cautious development of a all-inclusive project plan that incorporates enough time and flexibility to foresee and deal with unanticipated difficulties as they arise A proper commitment of time and attention from the client, combined with a enthusiasm to see it through to the end Frank, accurate reporting of the status of the project and of potential complexities as they arise A critical assessment of the risks inherent in the project, and potential harm associated with those risks, and the ability of the project team to manage those risks The development of appropriate contingency plans An objective evaluation of the capability and enthusiasm of the organization to stay on the project course Turner MÃ ¼ller (2004, 2005) conducted studies on the impact of project manager and his/her involvement and leadership style on project success. Turner MÃ ¼ller (2005) believe that past literature on the subject of Project success factors, have ignored the impact of a project manager on project success. However, Turner and Muller (2005, p59) has rather given a contradictive conclusion that the leadership style and competence of the project manager have no impact on project success. In concern to project management, project success also relies on the capability to systematize, coordinate, and support a diverse group functioning towards a common target. Project success factors may differ depending on the type of project. Thus it is important to have a clear idea on what factors drives each type of project toward success. This would enable the project stakeholders to accomplish what they perceive as success. Conclusion In the past it was believed that if a projects completion time exceeds its due date, or expenses overran the budget, or its results did not satisfy a companys preset performance criteria, the project was considered to be a failure. At present it is understood that determining whether a project is a success or failure is far more complex. It is important for a project manager to be aware of what the stakeholders consider as a successful project. In order to avoid any surprises at the end of the project, it is important to identify the different perspectives of what success means before the project begins. It is generally agreed that schedule and budget performance may be considered as insufficient measures of project success however they are still important components of the overall constructs. Quality is interconnected with issues of achievement of functional objectives, specifications and issues of technical performance. It is also understood that a projects success varies with time and varies in the eye of various project stakeholders. Thus, a criteria used to assess project success should be time dependent and should be using multiple perspectives of stakeholders. However, future studies may reveal other successful means of success criteria. As for success factors, they can be generally grouped into four distinct sets. General management literature shows how effective leadership is a success factor in organizations, and has revealed that a proper leadership style can lead to better performance. However studies on leadership in project context are contradicting with this perception. A common factor pointed out by many authors is that senior management support is one of the most important factors that can drive projects toward success or failure. Success factors may vary depending on the project type. In conclusion, early classification of success criteria can ensure a definite view of how the project will be judged and early detection of success factors will assure a safe path to deliver success.

Factors Influencing Corporate Strategy: UK Supermarkets

Factors Influencing Corporate Strategy: UK Supermarkets Tesco Plc Corporate Strategy The definition of corporate strategy has changed over the years. In the past it was deemed to be a set of internal plans and policies designed to enable a business to succeed in the pursuit of its aims and objectives (Pettigrew et al 2002). Robert Grant (2004, p.7) in his study stated that the implementation of successful strategy could not happen until the business managers had appraised the available or required resources, have an in-depth knowledge of the competitive environment they operated within and the whole team had agreed upon the objectives. More recently, the understanding of corporate strategy has been extended to include external forces and thus it can rely upon the definition statement made by Collis and Montgomery (1997, p.5) which observes that: â€Å"Corporate strategy is the way a company creates value through the configuration and coordination of its multimarket activities.† The purpose of this paper is to promote further understanding of the factors that influence corporate strategy within a particularly competitive industry sector. For this purpose the supermarket retail sector has been chosen for analysis. To assess how these factors impact upon the market players, the Tesco organisation has been used a focus for a case study. The reasoning behind this particular choice is that Tesco Plc has maintained a position of industry dominance, despite strong competition from other players, including Asda and Sainsbury Retail Industry Supermarkets During the course of the past four or five decades the Supermarket has taken a progressively increasing share of the grocery retailing market, with their store size and low prices driving local and independent stores in increasing numbers. In 2005 the organisations had reached a position where collectively their revenue accounted for approaching two thirds of total UK grocery sales. in Supermarket sales now account for around nearly two thirds of total grocery sales in the UK and were having an increasing impact in other retail sectors. However, as can be seen from the breakdown of the supermarket sales in grocery products, there is a considerable amount of competition between the supermarket players (see table 1). Table 1: Supermarket grocery sales 2005 (Source: BBC News 2006 and company reports) As can be seen from the above Tesco’s leads the industry sector by a considerable margin in terms of percentage. Furthermore , despite the intensity of competition that is focused upon around a dozen competitors, in revenue terms Tesco’s sales are almost equivalent to the sum of their three closet rivals, which gives them a commanding lead in terms of the number of consumers that are attracted to their stores. Tesco operates a total of 3,262 stores internationally, including 1,988 located throughout the UK. Employing in excess of 450,000 people globally, the business has so far achieved a market leadership position in four other countries as well as the UK and is currently considering expanding its operations in the US. Similarly, in line with other retailing organisations, the business is expanding its home delivery and Internet presence through the development of its online retailing website. (www.tesco.com). As Hill and Jones (2007) identify in their research into the subject of strategic management, the key drivers change and the market players have to respond positively to these changes. The supermarket industry is no exception to this rule. Initially supermarket organisations were driven by the need to create a competitive advantage. In essence this is achieved when the business reaches a position â€Å" â€Å"whenever it outperforms its competitors† (Pettigrew et al 2002, p.55), but as Grant (2004) observes, ultimately it needs to build upon that advantage, thereby reducing the opportunities for others to compete. Grant (2004, p.30), Collis and Montgomery (1998, p.65) state that competitive advantage can be gained through cost or differentiation, either of which return greater value to the consumer. However, competitive advantage is also relevant to the business marketing process, where it is important for the organisation to â€Å"understand its consumers and the decision processes they go through (Kolter et al 2004, p.29). However, advantage in this area is also achieved by a better understanding than that of competitors Consumers also drive the industry as has been seen through recent years. Initially the consumer determinant was for lower prices, wide range of selection, convenience and to a lesser extent the ability to do a one-stop shop, hence the development of the supermarket and out of town hypermarket locations, where all the weekly shop could be performed at one time. They have achieved the objective on price through a strategy of low cost and strategy through a process of low cost and the offering of substitute products (Hill and Jones 2007), which as a side effect, has also enable d the businesses to achieve a level of power over suppliers that has forced such organisations to address their own internal issues in order to remain economically viable. However, more recently consumer demands have changed and the emphasis has now moved to other areas of importance. These include the need for quality, customer service and â€Å"organic† and environmentally friendly products. Similarly, w ith the advent of concerns regarding the natural environment supermarkets are having to respond to these changes as well. To address consumer issues human resource management has also become an important driver in the industry development. The majority of researchers believe that the manner by which a business manages their HR resources has a significant impact on strategy (Collis and Montgomery 1998, p.163) and (Grant 2004, p.144). Thus the supermarket organisations have devoted a considerable amount of effort to increasing motivation and satisfaction within their workforce. The more successful organisations, such as Tesco’s and Asda have created the appropriate style of leadership and team building that has helped them achieve success in this area (Pettigrew et al 2002, p.285). As Hills and Jones (2007) have identified, the better the abilities of management and leaders in dealing with HR management, the easier it is to get a corporate strategy accepted and implemented. Technological developments have also brought about a change in the supermarket retailing industry. By incorporating these within all aspects of the supply chain, such as using new software and Internet systems that enable a closer control of stock, this has â€Å"set the overall context of competition for all firms in the industry (Porter 21004, p.142). It has also enabled organisations such as Tesco’s to continue to maintain their position within the industry. As the supermarkets have increased size and market share, so there have found themselves being increasing subject to the constraints of external forces being exerted upon them for the political and legislative stakeholders(Porter 2004, p.56 and Collis and Montgomery 1998, p.68). For example, the competition commission has often stepped in during the past few years to halt development of new stores on the grounds that it would be detrimental to fair competition. Similarly, as a result of the increasing concerns being expressed regarding health and environmental issues, the supermarket has be driven to introduce new â€Å"health† and â€Å"organic† brands and, as part of the brand management process, to increase the level of product knowledge in respect of these issues that appears upon the packaging. Therefore, all of these external issues are now having to be borne in mind during the planning of the strategy process.(Pettigrew et al 2002, p.190). In essence, at present the critical success factors for the industry can be identified as relating to three specific areas. The first of these is the efficient management of its supply chain, where the effective performance of each part is important to the smooth running of the whole (Porter 2004, p.311). Secondly, the quality of its products and customer services and effective marketing of the brand is important in order for the business to maintain both its market position and competitive advantage. Thirdly, is the effectiveness of its change management strategy. In this later respect it is essential that there is a â€Å"continuous interaction between strategy formulation and strategy implementation in which strategy is constantly being adjusted and revised in light of experience† Grant (2004, p.17). All of these factors are important to the industry players in that there form the vital elements that enable the maintenance of the business main objective, which is to continue to add value for the business stakeholders (Hills and Jones, 2007). The structure of an organisation, how it manages its resources and the relationship that it builds with employees and customers are key elements in a business that is seeking success and profitability. The level to which each organisation can achieve the harmonisation of all these factors will determine both the competitive advantage and the position that the organisation holds with the industry. As will be shown in the following section, Tesco’s has been consistently achieving a position of successfully incorporating all of these elements into their corporate strategy. Tesco Case Study During the past five years, and before this period, Tesco’s have based the main thrust of their corporate strategy on Porter’s â€Å"cost leadership.† By concentrating upon ensuring that all aspects of the supply chain were cost driven, thereby lowering unit price, the business has been able to maintain its policy of reduce prices to the consumer whilst at the same time ensuring that it has the funds and ability to invest in the new technology needed to maintain this advantage (Porter 2004, p36). In terms of the former, this can be evidenced by the fact that, as one of the current advertising campaigns states, there are able to maintain a price advantage over all of their competitors across a wide range of their products. Even given that, partially because of the business cycle, which can be said to have reached a level of some maturity (Hills and Jones 2007), together with the constraints that have been placed upon the industry by political, regulatory and legislative forces, the same low cost strategy is being maintained as the Tesco’s organisation seeks to enter and make an impact upon other market segments, for example fashion, home products and finance. For example, the current range of prices throughout all of these non-core products are still promoted using the organisation’s brand marketing message of â€Å"every little helps,† which indicates that the consumer will receive the same approach to low prices as has been offered within the grocery retail segment of the business revenue. However, as will be noted from their website[1], the business has taken info account the other factors that are important to the cusses of corporate strategy. For example, the human resources management policies are prominent in terms of the employee importance to the business, as is the relationship that the business is maintaining within both its suppliers and consumers, mainly through the increasing use of technology. Another import element of Tesco’s success has been its ability to manage change. As Porter (2004, p.21) suggests, different stages of the business life cycle can bring about change, as can the movement of the consumer demands and aspirations (Collis and Montgomery 1998, p.3). Tesco’s has respond quickly top both of these areas of change rapidly and in an efficient manner (Porter 2004, p.71 and Grant 2004, p.382). In the former instance, as indicated, it has moved into other market segments, and in terms of the latter, it has introduced new brands, including those that concentrate upon the environmental and health issues being raised by consumers and to address the issue of quality, where it now includes a â€Å"Tesco’s finest† range. However all of these moves have been performed whilst still maintaining a dedication to the core business strategy of cost leadership. As can be seen from the following graph, during the course of the past five years, as witness to the success of the Tesco corporate strategy, the business has consistently outperformed the FTSE 100 and the shares of its nearest UK quoted rival Sainsbury. The only time there was any near convergence of the two supermarket chains share value was earlier this year, and this was because of potential bidders showing an interest in Sainsbury, not related to their performance. Conclusion As has been shown during the course of this research, Tesco’s have consistently led the UK supermarket retailing sector of the business during the course of the past few years. This has been achieved by the implementation and maintenance of a successful corporate strategy, which has enabled the business to maintain a competitive advantage despite strong competition from other industry players. In reality this success, which has been evidenced from the financial performance, has been achieved by their turning this strategy into a unique business culture, which as Hofstede et al (2004) has created a situation where the business is seen to have, has resulted in the:- â€Å"†¦the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of the group or category of people from others† Anther major element of the organisation’s success is the effectiveness of the way in which they manage change, being able to respond appropriately and rapidly to anything that poses a threat to the business future. There is little doubt that as long as the management remain focus on these strategies, that the business will maintain its present marketplace position. References Collis, David J and Montgomery, Cynthia A (1998). Corporate Strategy: A resource Based Approach. McGraw Hill. US. BBC News (2006). Tesco’s market share still rising. 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Customer intelligence From Data to Dialogue. John Wiley Sons Ltd. Chichester, UK. Lucas, R. Lupton, B. Mathieson, H. (2007). Human Resources Management in an International Context. London: CIPD. Pettigrew, Andrew M. Thomas, Howard and Whittington, Richard (2002). The Handbook of Strategy and Management. Sage Publications Ltd. London, UK. Porter, Michael E (1985). Competitive Advantage. The Free Press. New York. US. Porter, Michael E (2004). Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analysing Industries and Competitors. The Free Press. New ed. The Free Press. New York, US. Survey (2006). The UK’s Best Online Shopping Experience 2006. www.blastradius.com. Retrieved 26 September 2007 from http://www.blastradius.com/ukshopping2006.pdf Tesco (2007). Tesco at a glance. Retrieved 27 September from http://www.tescocorporate.com [1] http://www.tescocorporate.com/page.aspx?pointerid=3DB554FCAE344BD88EEEEFA63D71B831 Analysis of the Accrual Anomaly | Accounting Dissertation Analysis of the Accrual Anomaly | Accounting Dissertation Sloan (1996), in a determinative paper, added the accrual anomaly in the list of the market imperfections. Since then, academics have focused on the empirical investigation of the anomaly and the connection it has with other misspricing phenomena. The accrual anomaly is still at an embryonic stage and further research is needed to confirm the profitability of an accruals based strategy net of transaction costs. The current study investigates the accrual anomaly while taking into consideration a UK sample from 1991 to 2008. In addition, the predictive power of the Fama and French (1996) factors HML and SMB is being tested along with the industrial production growth, the dividend yield and the term structure of the interest rates. Chapter 1 Introduction Since the introduction of the random walk theory which formed the basis for the evolvement of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH hereafter) proposed by Fama (1965), the financial literature has made many advances but a piece of the puzzle that is still missing is whether the EMH holds. Undoubtedly, the aforementioned debate can be considered as one of the most fruitful and fast progressing financial debates of the last two decades. The Efficient Market Hypothesis has met many challenges regardless of which of its three forms are being investigated. However, the weak form and semi strong hypothesis have been the most controversial. A literally vast collection of academic papers discuss, explore and argue for phenomena that seem to reject that the financial markets are efficient. The famous label of â€Å"anomaly† has taken several forms. Many well-known anomalies such as the contrarian investment, the post announcement drift, the accruals anomaly and many others are just the beginning of an endless trip. There is absolutely no doubt that many more are going to be introduced and evidence for the ability for the investors to earn abnormal returns will be documented. Recently, academics try to expand their investigation on whether these well-documented anomalies are actually profitable due to several limitations (transaction costs etc) and whether the anomalies are connected. Many papers are exploring the connection of the anomalies with each other proposing the existence of a â€Å"principal† misspricing that is documented into several forms. The current study tries to look into the anomaly that was initially documented by Sloan (1996) and has been labelled as the â€Å"accrual anomaly†. The accrual anomaly can be characterised as being at an embryonic stage if the basis for comparison is the amount of publications and the dimensions of the anomaly that light has been shed on. The facts for the accrual anomaly suggest the existence of the opportunity for investors to earn abnormal returns by taking advantage of simple publicly available information. On the other hand, accruals comprising an accounting figure have been approached from different points of view with consequences visible in the results of the academic papers. Furthermore, Stark et al (2009) challenge the actual profitability of the accrual anomaly by simply taking transaction costs into consideration. The present paper employs an accrual strategy for a sample comprising of UK firms during 1991-2008. The aim is to empirically investigate the profitability of such strategies during the whole data sample. The methodology for the calculation of accruals is largely based on the paper of Hardouvelis et al (2009). Stark et al (2009) propose that the positive excess returns of the accruals’ strategy are based on the profitability of small stock. In order to investigate the aforementioned claim, the current study employs an additional strategy by constructing intersecting portfolios based on accruals and size. Finally, five variables are being investigating at the second part of the study for their predictive power on the excess returns of the constructed portfolios. The monumental paper of Fama and French (1996) documented an impressive performance of two constructed variables (the returns of portfolios named HML and SMB). In addition, the dividend yield of the FTSE all share index, the industrial production growth and the term structure of the interest rates will be investigated as they are considered as potential candidates for the prediction of stock returns. Chapter 2 Literature review 2.1. Introduction During the last century the financial world has offered many substantial advances. From the Portfolio Theory of Markowitz (1952) to the development of the Capital Asset Pricing Model of Sharpe (1964) and Lintner (1965), and from the market Efficient Market Hypothesis (hereafter EMH), developed by Fama (1965), to the recent literature that challenges both the CAPM and the EMH, they all seem to be a chain reaction.   The financial academic world aims to give difficult but important answers on whether markets are efficient and on how investors should allocate their funds. During the last two decades, many researchers have documented that there exist strategies that challenge the claim of the supporters of the efficient and complete markets. In this chapter, the effort will be focused on reviewing the financial literature from the birth of the idea of the EMH until the recent publications that confirm, reject or challenge it. In a determinative paper, Fama (1970) defined efficient markets and categorised them according to the type of information used by investors. Since then, the finance literature has offered a plethora of studies that aim to test or prove whether markets are indeed efficient or not. Well known anomalies such as the post announcement drift, the value-growth anomaly or the accruals anomaly have been the theme of many articles ever since. 2.2. Review of the value-growth anomaly We consider as helpful to review the literature for the value growth-anomaly since it was one of the first anomalies to be investigated in such an extent. In addition, the research for the value-growth anomaly has yielded a largely productive debate on whether the documented returns are due to higher risk or other source of mispricing. Basu (1970) concluded that stocks with high Earnings to Price ratio tend to outperform stocks with low E/P. Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1994) documented that stocks that appear to have low price to a fundamental (book value, earnings, dividends etc) can outperform stocks with high price to a fundamental measure of value. Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1994) initiated a productive period that aimed to settle the dispute on the EMH and investigate the causes of such â€Å"anomalies†. Thus, the aforementioned researchers sparked the debate not only on the market efficiency hypothesis but also on what are the sources for these phenomena. Fama and French (1992) supported the idea that certain stocks outperform their counterparts due to the larger risk that the investors bear. Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1994) supported the idea that investors fail to correctly react to information that is available to them. The same idea was supported by many researchers such as Piotroski (2001). The latter also constructed a score in order to categorise stocks with high B/M that can yield positive abnormal returns (namely, the F Score). Additionally, the â€Å"market efficiency debate â€Å"drove behavioural finance to rise in popularity. The value-growth phenomenon has yielded many articles that aim to find evidence that a profitable strategy is feasible or trace the sources of these profits but, at the same time, the main approach adopted in each study varies significantly. Asness (1997) and Daniel and Titman (1999) examine the price momentum, while Lakonishok, Sougiannis and Chan (2001) examine the impact of the value of intangible assets on security returns. In addition, researchers have found evidence that the value-growth strategies tend to be successful worldwide, as their results suggest. To name a few, Chan, Hamao and Lakonishok (1991) focused on the Japanese market, Put and Veld (1995) based their research on France, Germany and the Netherlands and Gregory, Harris and Michou (2001) examined the UK stock market. It is worth mentioning that solely the evidence of such profitable strategies could be sufficient to draw the attention of practitioners, but academics are additionally interested in exploring the main cause of these arising opportunities as well as the relationship between the aforementioned phenomena (namely, the value growth, post announcement drift and the accrual anomaly). In general, two schools of thought have been developed: the one that supports the risk based explanation or, in other words, that stocks yield higher returns simply because they are riskier, and the one that supports that investors fail to recognise the correct signs included in the available information. 2.3. The accruals anomaly 2.3.1. Introduction of the accrual anomaly. Sloan (1996) documented that firms with high (low) accruals tend to earn negative (positive) returns in the following year. Based on this strategy, a profitable portfolio that has a long position on stocks with low accruals and short position on stocks with high accruals yields approximately 10% abnormal returns. According to Sloan (1996) investors tend to overreact to information on current earnings. Sloan’s (1996) seminar paper has been characterised as a productive work that initiated an interesting to follow debate during the last decade. It is worth noting that even the very recent literature on the accrual anomaly has not reached reconciling conclusion about the main causes of this particular phenomenon and about whether a trading strategy (net of transaction costs) based solely on the mispricing of accruals can be systematically profitable. At this point it is worth mentioning that the accruals have been found to be statistically significant and negative to predict future stock returns. On the other hand, there are papers that examine the accruals and its relations with the aggregate market. A simple example is the paper published by Hirshleifer, Hou and Teoh (2007), who aim to identify the relation of the accruals, if any, with the aggregate stock market. Their findings support that while the operating accruals have been found to be a statistical significant and a negative predictor of the stock returns, the relation with the market portfolio is strong and positive. They support that the sign of the accruals coefficient varies from industry to industry reaching a peek when the High Tech industry is taken into account (1.15), and taking a negative value for the Communication and Beer/Liquor industry. 2.3.2 Evidence for the international presence of the phenomenon. Researchers that investigated the accruals anomaly followed different approaches. At this point, it is worth noting that the evidence shows the accrual anomaly (although it was first found to be present in the US market) to exist worldwide. Leippold and Lohre (2008) examine the accrual anomaly within an international framework. The researchers document that the accrual anomaly is a fact for a plethora of markets. The contribution of the paper though, is the large and â€Å"complete† number of tests used, so that the possibility of pure randomness would be eliminated. Although, similar tests showed that momentum strategies can be profitable, recent methodologies used by the researchers and proposed by Romano and Wolf (2005) and Romano, Shaikh and Wolf (2008), suggest that the accruals anomaly can be partially â€Å"random†. It is noteworthy that the additional tests make the â€Å"anomaly† to fade out for almost all the samples apart from the markets of US, Australia and Denmark. Kaserer and Klingler (2008) examine how the over-reaction of the accrual information is connected with the accounting standards applied. The researchers constructed their sample by solely German firms and their findings document that the anomaly is present in Germany too. We should mention at this point that, interestingly, prior to 2000, that is prior to the adoption of the international accounting standards by Germany, the evidence did not support the existence of the accrual anomaly. However, during 2000-2002, Kaserer and Klingler (2008) found that the market overreacted to accrual information. Hence, the authors support the idea that an additional cause of the anomaly is the lack of legal mechanisms to enforce the preparation of the financial statements according to the international accounting standards which might gave the opportunity to the firms to â€Å"manipulate† their earnings. Another paper that focuses on the worldwide presence of the accruals mispricing is that of Rajgopal and Venkatachalam (2007). Rajgopal and Venkatachalam examined a total of 19 markets and found that the particular market anomaly exists in Australia, UK, Canada and the US. The authors’ primal goal was to identify the key drivers that can distinguish the markets where the anomaly was documented. Their evidence supports the idea that an accrual strategy is favoured in countries where there is a common law tradition, an extensive accrual accounting and a low concentration of firms’ ownership combined with weak shareholders’ rights. LaFond (2005) also considers the existence of the phenomenon within a global framework. The author’s findings support the notion that the accrual anomaly is present worldwide. In addition, LaFond argues that there is not a unique driving factor responsible for the phenomenon across the markets. It is worth noting that LaFond (2005) documented that this particular market imperfection is present in markets with diverse methodology of accrual accounting. Findings are against the idea that the accrual anomaly has any relation with the level of the shareholders protection or a common law tradition, as suggested by Rajgopal and Venkatachalam (2007). Finally, the author suggests that, if any, it is not the different method of accrual accounting (measurement issues) that favours or eliminates the accrual anomaly, but the accrual accounting itself. 2.3.3. Further Evidence for the roots of the accruals anomaly. Additionally, papers such as those of Thomas and Zang (2002) or Hribar (2000) decompose accruals into changes in different items (such as inventory, accounts payable etc). The findings catholically suggest that extreme changes in inventory affect returns the most. On the other hand, many articles connect the accruals with information used by investors, such as the behaviour of insiders or analysts, as the latter can be considered a major signal to the investors for a potential manipulation of the firms’ figures. In particular, Beneish and Vargus (2002) documented that firms with high accruals and significant insider selling have substantial negative returns.  Bradshaw (2001) and Barth and Hutton (2001) examine the analysts’ reports and their relation with the accruals anomaly. Their findings support that the analysts’ forecasting error tends to be larger for firms with high accruals, while analysts do not revise their forecasts when new information for accruals is available. Gu and Jain (2006) decompose accruals into changes in inventory, changes in accounts receivable and payable and depreciation expenses and try to identify the impact of the individual components to the anomaly. Consistent with Sloan (1996), Gu and Jain (2006) document that the accrual anomaly exists at the components level. The findings are important since Desai et al (2004) supported the connection of the accrual anomaly with a single variable (cash flows from operations). The researchers suggest that the results yielded by Desai et al (2004) were highly dependent on the methodology used and thus, suggested that the accruals anomaly is â€Å"alive and well†. Moreover, other articles try to confirm whether the anomaly is mainly caused by the wrong interpretation of the information contained in accruals. Ali et al. (2000), investigate whether the naà ¯ve investors’ hypothesis holds. Following the methodology introduced by Hand (1990) and Walther (1997), they found that for smaller firms, which are more likely to be followed by sophisticated investors, the relation between accruals and negative future returns is weaker compared to larger firms, which are followed by many analysts. Therefore, the researchers suggest that, if anything, the naà ¯ve investors’ hypothesis does not hold. In contrast to other market anomalies where findings suggest that the naà ¯ve investors hypothesis holds, the accruals anomaly is suggested as unique. Shi and Zhang (2007) investigate the earnings fixation hypothesis suggesting that the accruals anomaly is based on the investors â€Å"fixation† or â€Å"obsession† on earnings. Their primal hypothesis is that if investors are highly based on the reports about earnings and misprice the value-relevant earnings, then the returns should be dependent not only on the accruals but also on how the stock’s price changes according to reported earnings.  The researchers’ hypothesis is confirmed and finding support that an accrual strategy for firms whose stocks’ price highly fluctuates according to earnings yields a 37% annual return. Sawicki and Shrestha (2009) aim to examine two possible explanations for the accruals anomaly. Sloan (1996) proposed the fixation theory under which investors fixate on earnings and thus overvalue or undervalue information for accruals. Kothari et al. (2006) proposed the â€Å"agency theory of overvalued equity† according to which managers of overvalued firms try to prolong the period of this overvaluation which causes accruals to increase.  The paper uses the insider trading and other firm characteristics and tries to compare and contrast the two major explanations. Evidence produces bd Sawicki and Shrestha (2009) support the Kothari et al. (2006) explanation for the accrual anomaly. In a relatively different in motif paper, Wu and Zhang (2008) examine the role that the discount rates play in the accrual anomaly. They argue that if anything, the anomaly is not caused by irrationality from the investors’side but by the rationality of firms as it is proposed by the q-theory of investment. They argue that since the discount rates fall and more projects become profitable (which makes accruals to increase) future stock returns should decline. In other words, if the capital investment correctly adjusts to the current discount rates, the accruals should be negatively correlated with the future returns and positively correlated with the current returns. The evidence of Wu and Zhang (2008) support that the accruals are negatively correlated with the future stock returns but the contribution of the paper is in that they document that current stock returns are positively correlated with the accruals. 2.3.4. The relation of the accrual anomaly with other market imperfections. Many papers examine the relation between the accruals anomaly and other well-known anomalies such as the post announcement drift or the value-growth phenomenon. Desai et al. (2002), suggest that the â€Å"value-growth† anomaly and the accruals anomaly basically interact and conclude that the  ¨accruals strategy and the C/P reflect the same underlying phenomena†. Collins and Hribar (2000) suggest that there in no link between the accruals anomaly and the â€Å"PAD†, while Fairfield et al. (2001) support that the accruals anomaly is a sub-category of an anomaly caused by the mistaken interpretation of the information about growth by the investors. Cheng and Thomas (2006) examine the claim that the accrual anomaly is a part of a broader anomaly (and more specifically, the value-glamour anomaly). Prior literature suggested that the operating cash flows to price ratio subordinates accruals in explaining future stock returns (Deshai et al (2004)). Their evidence suggests that the Operating CF to price ratio does not subsume neither abnormal nor total accruals in future announcement returns. This particular result does not confirm the claim that the accrual anomaly is a part of a broad value-glamour anomaly. Atwood and Xie (2005) focus on the relation of the accrual anomaly and the mispricing of the special items first documented by Burgstahler, Jiambalvo and Shevlin (2002). Their hypothesis that the two phenomena are highly related is confirmed since the researchers found that special items and accruals are positively correlated. Additionally, further tests yielded results that suggest that the two imperfections are not distinct, while the special items have an impact on how the market misprices the accruals. Louis and Sun (2008) aim to assess the relation between the abnormal accrual anomaly and the post earnings announcement drift anomaly. The authors hypothesize that both anomalies are related to the management of the earnings and thus, they aim to find whether the two are closely connected. The findings are consistent with the primal hypothesis, as they found that â€Å"firms with large positive change of earnings that were least likely to have manipulated earning downwards† did not suffer from PEAD, while the same result was yielded for firms that had large negative change of earnings that were least likely to have managed their earnings upwards. As supported by many researchers the value-growth anomaly and accruals anomaly might be closely related or they might even be caused by the similar or even identical roots.  Fama and French (1996) support that the book to market factor captures the risk of default, while Khan (2008) suggests that in a similar pattern firms with low accruals have a larger possibility to bankrupt. Therefore, many researchers try to connect the two phenomena or to answer whether a strategy based on the accruals can offer more than what the value growth strategy offers. Hardouvelis, Papanastopoulos, Thomakos and Wang (2009) connect the two anomalies by assessing the profitability of interacting portfolios based on the accruals and value-growth measures. Their findings support that positive returns are obtainable and magnified when a long position is held for a portfolio with low accruals while combined with stocks that are characterised as high market to book. The difference of a risked-based explanation or an imperfection of the markets is considered to be a major debate, as it can challenge the market efficiency hypothesis. Many researchers, such as Fama and French (1996) noted that any potential profitable strategy is simply due to the higher risk that the investors have to bear by holding such portfolios. In a similar way, the profitable accruals strategies are considered as a compensation for a higher risk. Stocks that yield larger returns are compared or labelled as stocks of firms that are close to a financial distress. Khan (2000) aims to confirm or reject the risk-based explanation of the accruals anomaly. The researcher uses the ICAPM in order to test if the risk captured by the model can explain the anomaly first documented by Sloan (1996). It is worth noting that the descriptive statistics results for the sample used showed that firms that had low accruals also had high bankruptcy risk.  The contribution of the paper is that, by proposing a four factor model enhanced by recent asset pricing advances, it showed that a great portion of the mispricing that results in the accrual anomaly can be explained within a risk-based framework. Furthermore, Jeffrey Ng (2005) examines the risk based explanation for the accrual anomaly which proposes that accruals include information for financial distress. As proposed by many papers, the accrual anomaly is simply based on the fact that investors bare more risk and thus low accrual firms have positive abnormal returns. The researcher tries to examine how and if the abnormal returns of a portfolio which is short on low accruals stocks and long on high accrual firms changes when controlling for distress risk. Evidence supports that at least a part of the abnormal returns are a compensation for bearing additional risk. Finally, the results support that the big portion of the high abnormal returns of the accrual strategy used in the particular paper is due to stocks that have high distress risk. 2.3.5. The accruals anomaly and its relation with firms’ characteristics. A noteworthy part of the academic literature examines the existence of some key characteristics or drivers that are highly correlated with the accruals anomaly. Many researchers have published papers that aim to identify the impact of firm characteristics such as the size of the firm, characteristics that belong to the broader environment of the firms such as the accounting standards or the power of the minority shareholders. Zhang (2007) investigates whether the accrual anomaly varies cross-sectionally while being related with firms’ specific characteristics. The researcher primarily aims to explain which the main reason for the accrual anomaly is. As Zhang (2007) mentions, Sloan (1996) attributes the accrual anomaly to the overestimation of the persistence of accruals by investors, while Fairfield (2003) argues that the accrual anomaly is a â€Å"special case of a wider anomaly based on growth†. The evidence supports the researcher’s hypothesis that characteristics such as the covariance of the employee growth with the accruals have an impact on the future stock returns. Finally, Zhang (2007) documents that that accruals co-vary with investment in fixed assets and external financing. Louis, Robinson and Sbaraglia (2006) examine whether the non-disclosure of accruals information can have an impact on the accruals anomaly. The researchers, dividing their sample into firms that disclose accruals information on the earnings announcement and firms that do not, investigate whether there exists accruals’ mispricing. The evidence supports that for firms that disclose accruals information, the market manages to correctly understand the discretionary part of the change of the earnings. On the contrary, firms that do not disclose accruals information are found to experience â€Å"a correction† on their stock price. Chambers and Payne’s (2008) primal aim is to examine the relation of the accrual anomaly and the auditing quality. The researchers’ hypothesis is that the accruals mispricing is related with the quality of auditing.  Additionally, their findings support that the stock prices do not reflect the accruals persistence characterising the lower-quality audit firms. Finally, their empirical work finds that the returns are greater for the lower-quality audit portfolio of firms. Palmon, Sudit and Yezegel (2008) examine the relation of the accruals mispricing and the company size. Evidence shows that company size affects the returns and, as the researchers documented, the negative abnormal returns are mostly due to larger firms while the positive abnormal returns come from the relatively small firms. Particularly, as the strategy with the highest profits they found the one that had a short position in the largest-top-accrual decile and a long position in the smallest-low-accrual decile. Bjojraj, Sengupta and Zhang (2009) examine the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the FAS 146 and how these two changes affected the accrual anomaly. FAS 146 (liabilities are recognized only when they are incurred) reduced the company’s ability to â€Å"manipulate† earnings while the SOX aims to enhance the credibility of the financial statements. The evidence recognises a change on how the market conceives information about restructurings charges. The authors propose that a possible explanation is that before the introduction of SOX and the FAS 146, the market was reluctant due to the ability of the firms to manage earnings. Finally, Bjojraj, Sengupta and Zhang (2009) document that post to the FAS 146 and the SOX act, low accrual portfolios do not generate positive abnormal returns. 2.4. The applications of the accruals phenomenon and reasons why it is not arbitraged away. The importance of the analysis of the anomalies is substantial for two reasons. Firstly, the profitability of a costless strategy challenges the EMH, especially if the strategy is based on bearing no additional risk. Secondly, managers’ incentives to manipulate the financial statements and consequently the accruals would be obvious if a profitable strategy based on such widely available information existed. Chen and Cheng (2002) find that the managers’ incentive to record abnormal accruals is highly correlated with the accrual anomaly. The hypothesis of the researchers, which their findings support, was that the investors fail to detect when the managers aim to record abnormal accruals and that may contribute to the accruals anomaly. Richardson’s (2000) main objective is to examine whether the information contained in the accruals is utilized by short sellers. As the researcher mentions, previous articles such as that of Teoh and Wong (1999) found that sell side analysts were unable to correctly â€Å"exploit† the information contained in accruals for future returns. Richardson suggests that short sellers are considered as sophisticated enough to utilize the accruals information. Findings confirm previous work, such as that of Sloan (2000), who suggests that even short sellers do not correctly utilize the information contained into accruals. Ali, Chen, Yao and Yu (2007) examine whether and how equity funds benefit from the accrual anomaly by taking long position into low accruals firms. The researchers aim to identify how exposed are the equity firms to such a well known anomaly and what characteristics these funds share. By constructing a measure called â€Å"accruals investing measure† (AIM), they try to document the portion of the low accruals firms into the actively managed funds. The evidence shows that generally funds are not widely exposed to low accruals firms but when they do so, they have an average of 2.83% annual return. It is worth noting that the annual return is net of transaction costs. Finally, the side-effects of high volatility in returns and in fund flows of the equity funds that are partially based on the accrual anomaly might be the reason behind the reluctance of the managers. Soares and Stark (2009) used UK firms to test whether a profitable accrual strategy is feasible net of transactions costs. Their findings support that indeed the accrual anomaly is present in the UK market. The authors suggest that for such a strategy to be profitable, someone is required to trade on firms with small market capitalization. They also suggest that although the accruals’ mispricing seems to exist also in the UK, the transaction costs limit the profits to such an extent that the accrual anomaly could be difficult characterised as a challenge to the semi strong form of the efficient market hypothesis. Finally, we should not neglect to mention two papers that discourse on why the markets do not simply correct the accruals anomaly. According to the classical theory, markets are so imperfect that can produce the incentive to the market to correct the â€Å"anomalies† at any point of time. Mashruwala, Rajgopal and Shevlin (2006) examined the transactions costs and the idiosyncratic risk as possible reasons of why the accrual anomaly is not arbitraged away. The researchers aimed to investigate why the market does not correct the anomaly, but also to identify whether the low accruals firms are riskier. The paper poses the question of what stops the informed investors from taking long positions into profitable stocks according to the accrual anomaly so that they can arbitrage it away. The paper examines the practical difficulty of finding substitutes so that the risk can be minimized and its relation with the accrual anomaly. Additionally, the paper investigates the transaction co sts and findings support that according to the accrual anomaly, the profitable stocks tend to be the ones with low stock prices and low trading volume. Lev and Nissim (2004) focus on the persistence of the accr

The films Bladerunner and Fahrenheit 451 :: essays papers

The films â€Å"Bladerunner† and â€Å"Fahrenheit 451† The films â€Å"Bladerunner† and â€Å"Fahrenheit 451† are similar in the way they show emotions in their depictions of distopias. The emotions shown are not normal to us, but are controlled by the government. The inhabitants of these worlds are being persuaded that emotions are bad, unhealthy. However, some do break free from the system. The cases in these movies are not of really living at all, but just of going through the motions of life. The movie â€Å"Bladerunner† was about androids that were made to not have feelings and not to live longer than 4 years. Rachel is a good example of they tried to control emotions. As one of the new model replicants, Rachel was implanted with memories and could recall emotions. What she did not realize was that her memories were really the memories of her maker’s niece. She did not even know she was an android until Decker did the test on her. She was very upset when she realized that he was right, because she did not know what feelings were real and what feelings belonged to someone else. She worked with the man that created androids, the owner of the Tyrell Corporation, which makes her more upset that she did not know. This is when she exclaims to Decker, â€Å"I am not in the business, I AM the business.† Although she though she was living a normal human life, Rachel was going through the motions of everything humans do, but she did not have real feelings or even her own memories. Therefore, she was not even being her own self. Another aspect of the movie â€Å"Bladerunner† is of those that broke away from the system. The â€Å"Nexus 6† were androids that developed emotions and escaped from slavery, because they wanted to live longer. Roy and Priss are good examples of androids showing that they have emotions. They were manipulative, passionate for what they wanted, and even had loving sides. Roy was the leader of the â€Å"Nexus 6† and Priss was his girlfriend . Priss acted like a helpless girl to get J.F. Sebastian to let her into his house, into which she later let Roy. They made J.F. show them to the owner of the Tyrell Corporation’s house, so they could fight to get an extension on their lives.

19th Century Women :: Victorian Era

Purpose Statement: This paper will outline the role of women in society during the Victorian Era and present some real life examples from the Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey of 19th century women following their roles and at times having the those roles challenged by the difficulty of the trail. 19th-Century Women Women in the nineteenth century, for the most part, had to follow the common role presented to them by society. This role can be summed up by what historians call the "cult of domesticity". The McGuffey Readers does a successful job at illustrating the women's role in society. Women that took part in the overland trail as described in "Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey" had to try to follow these roles while facing many challenges that made it very difficult to do so. One of the most common expectations for women then is that they are responsible for doing the chore of cleaning whether it is cleaning the house, doing the laundry. The McGuffey Readers mentions the women's duty to clean in a multiple places. In this handbook it gives clear directions to the woman on what she is to do when cleaning, "This ceremony completed, and the house thoroughly evacuated, the next operation is to smear the wall and ceilings with brushes dipped into a solution of limeÂ… (Gorn 111)." The book explains how it is the women's job to thoroughly clean the house once a year in a manner that sounds very laborious! It further states, "The misfortune is, that the sole object is to make things clean (Gorn 112)." In this part of the book it is very clear that it is saying that the woman's duty is to clean. In Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey it illustrates this in a couple of passages. For example, one woman wrote in her diary, "Oh! Horrors how shall I express it; it is the dreaded washing day . . . but washing must be done and procrastination won't do it for me (Schlissel 83)." Although this woman obviously did not like doing the washing she saw it as her job to do. In addition, the book describes this scene, "The banks of a river would be lined with women who carried their kettles, their washtubs, and piles of unwashed linen (Schlissel 82)." Again, it is the women who are doing the cleaning. The McGuffey Readers being the handbook that young girls would read in school taught them that it was their place to do the cleaning.

Boys In The Hood Essay example -- essays research papers

Hood: slang for neighborhood or black area/life. Before 1991 this concept of hood life was never before portrayed or looked into until John Singleton produced the black social drama Boyz N the Hood. This is the first film by a black director that actually goes deep inside the ghetto or inner city. Singleton carefully directs this film so that it appears to mirror the real world â€Å"having value as a kind of anthropological study of an unfamiliar way of life'; (Thompson 2). Set in lower-middle-class, predominately black, south central Los Angeles, a neighborhood where constant gunshots regularly interrupt study time and the sound of police helicopters flying above is a familiar tune, Boyz N the Hood is basically the story of three teenage friends coming of age in black urban America. It is their story of street life where friendship, pain, danger, and love combine to form their harsh reality. Unlike previous films Singleton addresses issues that relate more to the younger generation of that time. Tre, the main character is obviously the one who is on the right track toward adulthood. He has a job, plans to go to college and, â€Å"most important (as writer-director Singleton sees it, at any rate) he lives with his father'; (Tornquist 1). Brothers Doughboy and Ricky, on the other hand, live with their mother and are not good role models. Doughboy drives a fancy car but doesn’t appear to have a job, and has been in and out of prison. Ricky does a litt...

Blood Promise Chapter Six

I bolted upright, every part of me awake and alert. There were no city lights to shine through the window, and it took me several seconds to make out anything in the darkened room. Sydney was curled up in her own bed, her face unusually at peace as she slept. Where was the Strigoi? Definitely not in our room. Was it in the house? Everyone had said the road to Dimitri's town was dangerous. Still, I would have thought Strigoi would be going after Moroi and dhampirs-though humans were a big part of their diet too. Thinking of the nice couple who'd welcomed us into their home, I felt something tight clench in my chest. No way would I let anything happen to them. Slipping quietly out of the bed, I grabbed a hold of my stake and crept from the room without disturbing Sydney. No one else was awake, and as soon as I was in the living room, the nausea went away. Okay. The Strigoi wasn't inside, which was a good thing. It was outdoors, apparently on the side of the house near my room. Still moving silently, I went out the house's front door and walked around the corner, as quiet as the night around me. The nausea grew stronger as I approached the barn, and I couldn't help but feel smug. I was going to surprise this Strigoi who'd thought it could sneak into a tiny human village for dinner. There. Right near the barn's entrance, I could see a long shadow moving. Gotcha, I thought. I readied the stake and started to spring forward-And then something struck me on the shoulder. I stumbled, astonished, and looked into the face of a Strigoi. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow by the barn materialize into another Strigoi striding forward. Panic shot through me. There were two, and my secret detection system hadn't been able to tell the difference. Worse, they'd gotten the drop on me. A thought immediately flashed into my mind: What if one's Dimitri? It wasn't. At least, this close one wasn't. It was a woman. I had yet to get a feel for the second one. That one was approaching from my other side, moving fast. I had to deal with this immediate threat, though, and swiped at the woman with my stake, hoping to wound her, but she dodged so quickly, I hardly saw her move. She struck out toward me in an almost casual way. I wasn't fast enough to react and went flying toward the other Strigoi-a guy who was not Dimitri. I responded quickly, leaping up and kicking him. I held the stake out, creating distance between us, but it did little good when the woman came up from behind and grabbed me, jerking my body against hers. I gave a muffled cry and felt her hands on my throat. She was probably going to break my neck, I realized. It was a fast, easy technique for Strigoi that then let them drag off a victim for feeding. I struggled, jostling her hands slightly, but as the other Strigoi leaned over us, I knew it was useless. They'd surprised me. There were two of them. They were strong. Panic surged in me again, an overwhelming sense of fear and desperation. I was afraid every time I fought Strigoi, but this fear was reaching a breaking point. It was unfocused and out of control, and I suspected it was touched by a bit of the madness and darkness I'd absorbed from Lissa. The feelings exploded within me, and I wondered if they'd destroy me before the Strigoi did. I was in very real danger of dying here-of letting Sydney and the others get killed. The rage and distress of that thought were smothering. Then, suddenly, it was like the earth burst open. Translucent forms, glowing softly in the darkness, sprang up everywhere. Some looked like normal people. Others were horrible, their faces gaunt and skull-like. Ghosts. Spirits. They surrounded us, their presence making my hair stand on end and sending a splitting headache through my skull. The ghosts turned toward me. I'd had this happen before, on a plane, when apparitions had swarmed and threatened to consume me. I braced myself, trying desperately to summon up the strength to build barriers that would shut me off from the spirit world. It was a skill I'd had to learn, one I usually kept in place without any effort. The desperation and panic of this situation had cracked my control. In that horrible, blood-curdling moment, I again selfishly wished Mason hadn't found peace and left this world. I would have felt better if his ghost were here. Then I realized I wasn't their target. The ghosts were mobbing the two Strigoi. The spirits didn't have solid forms, but every place they touched and passed through me felt like ice. The female Strigoi immediately began waving her arms to fend the apparitions off, snarling in rage and something almost like fear. The ghosts didn't appear to be able to hurt the Strigoi, but they were apparently pretty annoying-and distracting. I staked the male Strigoi before he ever saw me coming. Immediately, the ghosts around him moved to the woman. She was good, I'd give her that. Despite struggling to fend the spirits off, she was still able to dodge my attacks fairly well. A lucky punch from her made stars burst before my eyes and sent me into the barn wall. I still had that ghost-induced splitting headache, and my head slamming into the barn didn't help. Staggering up, dizzy, I made my way back to her and continued my efforts to get a shot in at her heart. She managed to keep her chest out of my range-at least until one particularly terrifying ghost caught her off guard. Her momentary distraction gave me my chance, and I staked her, too. She fell to the ground-leaving me alone with the spirits. With the Strigoi, the ghosts had clearly wanted to attack them. With me, it was a lot like on the plane. They seemed fascinated by me, desperate to get my attention. Only, with dozens of phantoms swarming, it might as well have been an attack. Desperately, I tried again to summon my walls, to block the ghosts off from me as I'd done long ago. The effort was excruciating. Somehow, my out-of-control emotions had brought the spirits, and while I was calmer now, that control was harder to bring about. My head continued throbbing. Gritting my teeth, I focused every ounce of my strength into blocking out the ghosts. â€Å"Go away,† I hissed. â€Å"I don't need you anymore.† For a moment, it looked like my efforts were going to be useless. Then, slowly, one by one, the spirits began to fade. I felt the control I'd learned before gradually slip into place. Soon, there was nothing there but me, the darkness, and the barn-and Sydney. I noticed her just as I collapsed to the ground. She was running out of the house in her pajamas, face pale. Kneeling at my side, she helped me sit up, legitimate fear all over her. â€Å"Rose! Are you okay?† I felt like every scrap of energy in my brain and body had been sucked out. I couldn't move. I couldn't think. â€Å"No,† I told her. And then I passed out. I dreamed of Dimitri again, his arms around me and beautiful face leaning over me to care for me as he'd done so often when I was sick. Memories of things past came to me, the two of us laughing over some joke. Sometimes, in these dreams, he'd carry me away. Sometimes, we'd be riding in a car. Occasionally, his face would start to take on that fearsome Strigoi image that always tormented me. Then I'd quickly order my mind to brush such thoughts away. Dimitri had taken care of me so many times and had always been there when I needed him. It had gone both ways, though. Admittedly, he had not seemed to end up in the infirmary as much as me. That was just my luck. Even when he was injured, he wouldn't acknowledge it. And as I dreamed and hallucinated, images came to me of one of the few times I'd been able to take care of him. Just before the school had been attacked, Dimitri had been involved in a number of tests with me and my fellow novices to see how well we reacted to surprise assaults. Dimitri was so tough that he was almost impossible to beat, though he still got bruised up a number of times. I'd run into him in the gym once during these tests, surprised to see a cut on his cheek. It was hardly fatal, but there was a fair amount of blood showing. â€Å"Do you realize you're bleeding to death?† I'd exclaimed. It was kind of an exaggeration, but still. He touched his cheek absentmindedly and seemed to notice the injury for the first time. â€Å"I wouldn't quite go that far. It's nothing.† â€Å"It's nothing until you get an infection!† â€Å"You know that's not likely,† he said obstinately. That was true. Moroi-aside from contracting the occasional rare disease, as Victor had-hardly ever got sick. We dhampirs had inherited that from them, just as Sydney's tattoo gave her some protection. Nonetheless, I wasn't about to let Dimitri bleed all over. â€Å"Come on,† I said, pointing to the small bathroom in the gym. My voice had been fierce, and to my surprise, he'd actually obeyed. After wetting a washcloth, I gently cleaned his face. He continued protesting at first but finally fell quiet. The bathroom was small, and we were just a few inches from each other. I could smell his clean, intoxicating scent and studied every detail of his face and strong body. My heart raced in my chest, but we were supposed to be on good behavior, so I tried to appear cool and collected. He was eerily calm too, but when I brushed his hair back behind his ears to clean the rest of his face, he flinched. My fingertips touching his skin had sent shock waves through me, and he'd felt them too. He caught hold of my hand and pulled it away. â€Å"Enough,† he said, voice husky. â€Å"I'm fine.† â€Å"Are you sure?† I asked. He hadn't released my hand. We were so, so close. The small bathroom seemed ready to burst with the electricity building between us. I knew this couldn't last but hated to let go of him. God, it was hard being responsible sometimes. â€Å"Yes,† he said. His voice was soft, and I knew he wasn't mad at me. He was afraid, afraid of how little it would take to ignite a fire between us. As it was, I was warm all over, just from the feel of his hand. Touching him made me feel complete, like the person I was always meant to be. â€Å"Thank you, Roza.† He released my hand, and we left, both off to do our own things that day. But the feel of his skin and hair stayed with me for hours afterward†¦ I don't know why I dreamed that memory after being attacked near the barn. It seemed weird that I'd dream of taking care of Dimitri when I was the one who needed care. I guess it didn't really matter what the memory was, so long as it involved him. Dimitri always made me feel better, even in my dreams, giving me strength and resolve. But as I lay in that delirium and moved in and out of consciousness, his comforting face would occasionally take on those terrible red eyes and fangs. I'd whimper, fighting hard to push that sight away. Other times, he didn't look like Dimitri at all. He'd turn into a man I didn't know, an older Moroi with dark hair and cunning eyes, gold jewelry glinting on his neck and ears. I'd cry out for Dimitri again, and eventually, his face would return, safe and wonderful. At one point, though, the image shifted again, this time into a woman's. Clearly, she wasn't Dimitri, but there was something about her brown eyes that reminded me of him. She was older, in her forties maybe, and a dhampir. She laid a cool cloth across my forehead, and I realized I wasn't dreaming anymore. My body ached, and I was in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room. No sign of the Strigoi. Had I dreamed them, too? â€Å"Don't try to move,† the woman said with the faintest trace of a Russian accent. â€Å"You took some bad hits.† My eyes widened as the events by the barn came back to me, the ghosts I'd summoned up. It hadn't been a dream. â€Å"Where's Sydney? Is she okay?† â€Å"She's fine. Don't worry.† Something in the woman's voice told me I could believe her. â€Å"Where am I?† â€Å"In Baia.† Baia, Baia. Somewhere, in the back of my head, that name was familiar. All of a sudden, it clicked. Long, long ago, Dimitri had said it. He'd only ever mentioned his town's name once and, even though I'd tried, I had never been able to remember it. Sydney would never tell me the name. But now we were here. Dimitri's home. â€Å"Who are you?† I asked. â€Å"Olena,† she said. â€Å"Olena Belikova.†