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

Stat 2 - Assignment Example t decision making problems have multiple objectives that cannot be optimized simultaneously because of the conflicting nature of the objectives or goals. Goal programming is used to solve programming problems with several objective functions (goals) or constraints (Tanlamai, 2011). The linear problem below represents a goal programming problem, and also represents a non-linear programming problem whereby the program is defined by systems of equalities and inequalities (constraints) with real variables X1 and X2. Braaksma, A. J., Meesters, A. J., Klingenberg, W. W., & Hicks, C. C. (2012). A quantitative method for Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. International Journal Of Production Research, 50(23), 6904-6917. Lo, Q., & Chai, K. (2012). Quantitative analysis of quality management literature published in total quality management and business excellence (1996–2010). Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 23(5/6),

Canton City School District Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Canton City School District - Term Paper Example It is also possible that some or all of the group members could have poor communication skills; thus making the efficiency of the team poor. Canton City School District runs many public school institutions that serve a large number of students in the U.S. The schools range from elementary, middle, to high schools. The schools have different administrations that work to provide the children who enroll in them with quality education. In a study conducted recently, it was established that the group of institutions have been performing below their expected standards due to several reasons. These reasons include role conflicts among the administration groups, poor communication, lack of cohesiveness in groups with diverse members, and excessive conflicts in the groups. This paper will discuss how each of the identified problems could impact a group’s productivity. Role conflicts within groups Role conflicts in groups are common phenomena. While some roles may be well spelt out in t erms of the competence level required, some could be handled by all the members of the selected groups. Normally, people like to take up the roles that are less physically and mentally demanding while they are working on a group project. This becomes a great challenge when the members of a given group refuse to take up on some of the tasks that they are assigned. In some groups, the leaders may choose to assign the challenging tasks to specific people. Picking on team members may be a manifestation of rivalry at work, which has adverse effects on the performance of the human assets (Gaunt, 2011). There are many negative results that emanate from role conflicts within a group. First, the competence level that employees apply while working on conflicted tasks is rarely high enough to give the required results. When some of the members feel like they have been treated unfairly in the allocation of group tasks, they get demoralized to give their best performance (Gaunt, 2011). Second, w hen a group disagrees about the roles in the group, the organization of the group becomes dysfunctional. Most groups disagree about the leadership roles. Everyone in a group may be striving to assume leadership so that they can have the authority and power to boss the rest of the group. In other cases, there may be parties in the group who do not approve of some leaders. This breaks down the cooperation factor that is required in a group. Group conflicts slow down the rate at which the team works on the designated assignment. The members spend more time arguing things out rather than working on the relevant activities. The competence level of the members is also significantly lowered since they lack a motivating factor within the group. This eventually translates to poor performance or total failure in the delegated duties. Members of the conflicting group create rivalry and enmity among themselves and this cripples their ability to articulate ideas. Role conflicts within a group ha ve caused many organizations to fail in the realization of the major stakeholder’s objectives (Gaunt, 2011). Communication problems Communication is a vital aspect of any group work. The members of the group need to have good communication skills so that they can effectively forward their ideas to the rest of the members. Whenever there is a communication breakdown within a group, the members are not able to effectively cooperate when handling the

Study On The Objectives Of The Bse Sensex Finance Essay

Study On The Objectives Of The Bse Sensex Finance Essay BSE SENSEX is the short form of the BSE Sensitive Index. The index is widely used to measure the performance of the Indian Stock Market. It is a Market Capitalization Weighted index of 30 stocks representing a sample of large, liquid, well established and financially sound companies. The index is widely reported in both, the domestic and international, print and electronic media and is widely used to measure the performance of the Indian stock markets. The BSE Sensex is the benchmark index of the Indian capital market and one which has the longest social memory. In fact the Sensex is considered to be the pulse of the Indian stock markets. It is the oldest index in India and has acquired a unique place in the collective consciousness of investors. Further, as the oldest index of the Indian Stock Market, it provides time series data over a fairly long period of time. One of the most important attributes of Sensex is to maintain continuity with the past i.e. to update the base year av erage. The base year value adjustment ensures that the rights issue and new capital of the index scrips do not destroy the value of the index. The day-to-day maintenance of the Sensex is done by the Bombay Stock Exchange and special care is taken to include only those scrips, which pass through several filters. The Stock Exchange, Mumbai popularly known as BSE was established in 1875 as The Native Share and Stock Brokers Association. It is the oldest one in Asia, even older than the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which was established in 1878. It is a voluntary non-profit making Association of Persons (AOP) and is the first Stock Exchange in the country to have obtained permanent recognition in 1956 from the Government of India under the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956. The Exchange, while providing an efficient and transparent market for trading in securities, debt and derivatives upholds the interests of the investors and ensures redressal of their grievances whether against the companies or its own member brokers. A Governing Board having 20 directors is the apex body, which decides the policies and regulates the affairs of the Exchange. The Governing Board consists of 9 elected directors, who are from the broking community (one-third of them retire every year by rotation), three SEBI nominees (Securities Exchange Board of India), six public representatives an Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer and a Chief Operating Officer. The Executive Director and the Chief Executive Officer are responsible for the day-to-day administration of the Exchange and he is assisted by the Chief Operating Officer and other Heads of Departments. OBJECTIVES The BSE Sensex is the benchmark Index of the Indian Stock Market with wide acceptance among individual investors, institutional investors and fund managers. The objectives of the index are: Æ’ËÅ" TO MEASURE MARKET MOVEMENTS Given its long history and wide acceptance, no other index matches the BSE Sensex in reflecting market movements and sentiments. Sensex is widely used to describe the mood in the Indian Stock Market. Æ’ËÅ" BENCHMARK FOR FUNDS PERFORMANCE The inclusion of the Blue chip companies and the wide and balanced industry representation in the Sensex makes it the ideal benchmark for fund managers to compare the performance of their funds. Æ’ËÅ" FOR INDEX BASED DERIVATIVE PRODUCTS Since Sensex comprises of leading companies in all the significant sectors in the economy, we believe that it will be the most liquid contract in the Indian market and will garner a pre dominant market share LISTING OF SECURITIES Listing means admission of securities to dealings on a recognized stock exchange. The securities may be of any public limited company, Central or State Government, quasi-governmental and other financial institutions/corporations, municipalities etc. The objectives of listing are mainly to: Æ’ËÅ" Provide liquidity to securities Æ’ËÅ" Mobilize savings for economic development Æ’ËÅ" Protect interest of investors by ensuring full disclosures. The Exchange has a separate Listing Department to grant approval for listing of securities of companies in accordance with the provisions of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, Securities Contracts (Regulation) Rules, 1957, Companies Act, 1956, Guidelines issued by SEBI and Rules, Bye-laws and Regulations of the Exchange. SELECTION CRITERIA The criteria for selection and review of scrips for the BSE Sensex can be explained in the following manner: A. QUANTITATIVE CRITERIA 1. MARKET CAPITALIZATION: The Scrip should figure in the top 100 companies listed by market capitalization. Also market capitalization of each of the scrip should be at least. 0.5 % of the total market capitalization of the Index i.e. the minimum weight should be 0.5%. Since the BSE Sensex is a market capitalization weighted index, this is one of the primary criteria for scrip selection. (Market Capitalization would be averaged for last 6 months). 2. LIQUIDITY: a. Trading Frequency: The scrip should have been traded on each and every trading day for the last six months. Exceptions can be made for extreme reasons like scrip suspension etc. b. Number of Trades: The scrip should be among the top 150 companies listed by average number of trades per day for the last one year. c. Value of Shares Traded: The scrip should be among the top 150 companies listed by average value of shares traded per day for the last one year. d. Trading Activity: The average number of shares traded per day as a percentage of the total number of outstanding shares of the company should be greater than 0.05 % for the last year. 3. CONTINUITY: Whenever the composition of the Index is changed, the continuity of historical series of index values is re-established by correlating the value of the revised index to the old index (index before revision). The back calculation over the last one-year period is carried out and correlation of the revised index to the old index should not be less than 0.98. This ensures that the historical continuity of the index is maintained. 4. INDUSTRY REPRESENTATION: Scrip selection would take into account a balanced representation of the listed companies in the universe of BSE. The index companies should be leaders in their industry group. 5. LISTED HISTORY: The scrip should have a listing history of at least 6 months on BSE. However, the Committee may relax the criteria under exceptional circumstances. B. QUALITATIVE CRITERIA 1. SCRIP GROUP: The Scrip should preferably be from à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾Aà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸ group. 2. TRACK RECORD: The company should preferably have continuous dividend paying record or / and promoted by management having proven record. S P CNX NIFTY The NSE -50 Index was launched by the National Stock Exchange of India Limited, taking as base the closing prices of November 3, 1995 when one year of its Capital Market segment was completed. It was subsequently renamed S P CNX Nifty- with S P indicating endorsement of the Index by Standard and Poorà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸s and CNX standing for CRISIL NSE Index. The S P CNX NIFTY, also popularly known as the Nifty 50, is one of the most scientific indices in India that reflects the price movement of 50 blue- chips, large cap, liquid and highly traded stocks of 23 sectors. The Nifty is managed by India Index Services Products Ltd. (IISL). The total value of all Nifty stocks is approximately 70% of the traded value of all stocks on the NSE. Nifty stocks represent about 59% of the total market capitalization. OBJECTIVES The basic idea of this index is to ascertain the movements of the stock market as a whole by tapping the news which can affect the stock. The index also averages out the good stock specific news for a few companies and bad stock specific news for others and left with the news that is common to all stocks. The news that is common to all stocks is news about India, which is the sole purpose of NSE Nifty. According to NSE, the Index was introduced with the objectives of: 1. Reflecting market movement more accurately, 2. Providing Fund Managers with a tool for measuring portfolio returns vis-a-vis market returns, and 3. Providing a basis for introducing Index based derivatives. This paper discusses Efficient Market Hypothesis (thereby referred to as EMH), seasonalities and its implications in both advanced and emerging securities markets. EMH suggests that investors cannot expect to out perform the market consistently on a risk adjusted basis (Mayo, 2003). According to Fama (1965) who developed the Efficient Market Hypothesis, an efficient market is a market where there are a large number of rational profit-maximizers actively competing, with each trying to predict future market values of individual securities, and where important current information is almost freely available to all participants. In an efficient market, competition among the many intelligent participants leads to a situation where at any point in time, actual prices of individual securities already reflect the effects of information both on events that have already occurred and on events which, as of now, the market expects to take place in the future. In other words, in an efficient marke t at any point in time, the actual price of a security will be a good estimate of its intrinsic value. On the other hand, in an inefficient market, EMH would not hold. This suggests that existence of loop holes which could be exploited to make abnormal returns by predicting market price patterns, using past price information and insider information. These market inefficiencies, also called market anomalies have received as much research work as EMH. 2. THREE FORMS OF MARKET EFFICIENT HYPOTHESIS There are three forms of market efficiency in an informationally efficient market, where prices adjust quickly and accurately to new information (Emery et al, 2007). These forms show the degree of efficiency of security markets and attempt to answer the question of how efficient a market is. (Mayo, 2003 and Keane, 1983) 2.1 Weak Form Efficiency The weak form of EMH asserts that the current price fully reflects information contained in the past history of prices only. Stock market price information is available via most means of mass communication. Thus, investors should be unable to make superior profit from use of public information i.e. daily stock market prices or company results available to all. Again, many investment bankers and financial analysts devise investment strategies using technical analysis of past data to outperform the market and their competitors, in satisfying their clients demand for superior returns. Transaction costs of trading, investment advice, analysis and commissions when considered, affects the investors return, especially for investors who continue to use traditional full service brokers (Mayo,2003) 2.2 Semi Strong Form Efficiency The semi strong form of EMH, according to Brealey et al (2006), prices reflect not just past prices but all other published information, such as you might get from reading the financial press. Similarly, Fama (1969) defined it as publicly available information with examples of announcements of annual earnings and stock splits. Semi-strong form of EMH asserts that current prices fully reflects public knowledge about the underlying companies and that efforts to acquire and analyze this knowledge cannot be expected to produce superior investment results (Lorie Hamilton 1973). 2.3 Strong Form Efficiency The strong form of EMH suggests that share prices fully reflect not only published information but all relevant information including data not yet publicly available. It also asserts that not even those with privileged information (insiders) can often make use of it to secure superior investment results (Lorie Hamilton 1973). These three forms of EMH are not independent of one another. For the market to be efficient in the semi-strong form, it must also be efficient in the weak form, because if price movements follow a predictable path which the perceptive observer can exploit profitably, the implication is that the price has reacted slowly or capriciously to published information. Likewise, for the market to be efficient in the strong form it must also be efficient at the other two levels, otherwise, the price would not capture all relevant information (Keane, 1983). He went on to state that for an inefficiency (seasonality) to be operationally significant it must be exploitable. Keane (1983) analyses four criteria an exploitable inefficiency should satisfy, these are: (a) it should be authentic supportable by properly conducted statistical research. (b) It should be identifiable-not just strategies or people that beat the market but concrete and verifiable evidence. (c) It should be material- inefficie ncies are not exploitable unless they are sufficient to compensate for the costs and risks of pursuing them. (d) It should be persistent-the value of inefficiency is not just a record of its existence in the past but that it will continue to exist in future. These criteria are very important in understanding the different types of market seasonality or anomaly, their existence, prevalence and their implications for the EMH. 3. SEASONALITIES AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EMH Seasonalities, as the name suggests are time regularities, patterns or predictable trends. In the financial securities market, seasonalities would suggest predictable time patterns in the behaviour of the stock market-volume of stock trades, stock returns etc. If it does exist, then investors can exploit the market for superior returns in all financial securities markets. Seasonalities as defined by Alagidede (2008) are evidences of market efficiency anomalies. These are also known as seasonal anomalies (calendar effects) which may be loosely referred to as the tendency for financial returns to display systematic patterns at certain times of the day, week, month or year. Calendar effects include: January effect, the month of the year effect, monthly effect, holiday effect, Monday effect / day of the week effect, weekend effect, turn of the year effect etc. (Guo and Wang, 2007). Discussing a few of them will be worthwhile. 3.1 The January Effect The January effect is where returns are much higher during the month of January than any other month, i.e. where investors can earn a disproportionately high amount of the total annual return available from both fixed income assets and equity in January Clare et al (1995). Most research conducted in developed economies confirm the presence of the January effect, although, in more recent times they seem to be disappearing. Keim (1983) and Reinganum (1983) show that the January effect and the size effect are highly interrelated. Blume and Stambaugh (1983) discovered, after controlling for upward biases in small stock returns, the size effect was only significant in January. An extensive amount of studies has gone into the month of the year effect. Mills and Coutts (1995) concluded that stock returns are much higher in the month of January in the UK using FTSE indices between January 1986 and October 1992(FTSE 100,Mid 250 and 350 indices). Gultekin and Gultekin (1983) using 17 countries also found evidence that the January return is much higher than other months returns, Alagidede (2008) tested for month of the year effect in emerging African markets and concluded that the January effect is positive and significant for Nigeria, Egypt and Zimbabwe. However Guo and Wangs (2007) study on the emerging Chinese stock market shows that there is no significant January effect in Chinese stock market. Many researchers have sought the cause of the January effect and arrived at a number of causes which include: tax-loss selling hypothesis, provision of new information at the end of a fiscal year, firm size had the significant higher risk in the beginning of the year than the rest of the year and the systematic tendencies for closing prices to be recorded at the bid in the last traded in December and at the ask in early January (Guo and Wangs, 2007) 3.2 The Holiday Effect The definition of a holiday is relative, subjective and would vary for different countries and their capital markets e.g. Christian, Muslim, public holidays etc. One definition of a holiday looks at days, other than Saturday or Sunday, upon which the market is closed (Alagidede, 2008). Ariel (1990) used US data reports to show that the trading day prior to holidays on average displays high positive returns, this result was supported by Kim and Park (1994) for US, Japan and UK .However, Cadsby and Ratner (1992) using UK data concluded that the holiday effect was insignificant This conclusion was challenged by Mills and Coutts (1995) in their study of calendar effects using London stock FTSE indices. Coutts et al (2000) showed that the holiday effect is present in their study of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE), although, no similar study has been undertaken on the ASE which would have been used as a basis of comparison. Their results were consistent with international evidences. 3.3 The Weekend Effect One of the most prevalent anomalies appears to be a weekend effect where stocks display significantly lower returns over the period between Fridays close and Mondays close (Arsad and Coutts, 1995). Jaffe and Westerfield (1985) examined the daily stock market returns in 4 international stock markets including, the London stock Exchanges FT30 over the period 1950 1982 and found a significant weekend effect. Consistent with Jaffe and Westerfield (1985) findings, Condoyanni et al (1987) also found the existence of the weekend effect in the UK when examining the FT30 over the period 1979 1994. Arsad and Coutts (1996, 1997) also found the weekend effect in the FT30 from the period 1935 1994, although according to their research the effect was found not to be persistent. Board and Sutcliffe (1988) examined the weekend effect in the Financial Times all share index over the period 1962 1986 and found clear evidence of a weekend effect over the sample period, with the significance of the e ffect diminishing over time. This is consistent with later research done by Dubois and Louvet (1996) on the same index for the period 1969 1992, in which negative returns was found on Monday, which are compensated by abnormal positive returns on Wednesday. Agrawal and Tandon (1994) examined the weekend effect in 18 countries including the UK and found a negative Monday return when the market rises in the previous week. Furthermore, they found the effect disappearing in 1980. Mills and Coutts (1995) found evidence of the existence of the weekend effect in the UK when the FTSE 100, Mid 250, 350 and certain of the accompanying industry baskets was examined for the period from 1986 to 1992. Ajayi et al (2004) investigated day of the week stock return anomaly, using major market stock indices in eleven eastern European emerging markets for the period 1994 2002. The results show negative and positive Monday returns in six and five emerging markets respectively, of which only two of the six show negative Monday returns and one of the five show positive Monday returns and were statistically significant. Choudhry (2000) investigated the day of the week effect in seven emerging Asian stock markets from 1990 1995 and found significant weekend effect in some of the markets considered. 3.4 The Day of the Week Effect: The day of the week effect refers to existence of a pattern on the part of stock returns, whereby these returns are linked to the particular day of the week (Poshakwale 1996). The last trading days of the week, particularly Friday, are characterised by substantially positive returns while Monday, the first trading day of the week, differs from other days, even producing negative returns (Cross 1973, Lakonishok Levi (1982), Rogalski (1984), Keim Stambaugh( 1984) and Harris (1986). In other words, this effect relates to the difference in returns across different days of the week with the variance in stock returns found to be largest on Mondays and lowest on Fridays (Raj Kumari 2006). It should be noted that the day of the week effect in emerging capital markets has not been extensively researched and the presence of such an effect would mean that equity returns are not independent of the day of the week effect against random walk theory (Poshakwale 1996). On the other hand, the inte rnational evidence of the report has been somewhat mixed. Dubois and Louvert (1996) find returns to be lower for the beginning of the week (but not necessarily Monday) for European countries, Hong Kong and Canada. However, it was observed that the anomaly disappeared in the USA for the most recent periods. Agrawal and Tandon (1994), find negative Monday returns in nine countries and negative Tuesday returns in eight countries (out of a total of nineteen countries). Several theories have been put forward regarding specific time periods anomalies in the capital market. The day of the week effect has been explained by examining various kinds of measurement errors such as: settlement period hypothesis; which attributes the day of the week effect to the settlement dates with prices higher on the pay-in days as compared to the pay-out days. Calendar time(trading time) hypothesis; implies that since Monday returns are spread across three days (Saturday, Sunday Monday), the returns should be three times as high as other days. The negative Monday returns go against this reasoning, which lead to the proposed theory that returns should be proportional to trading time as opposed to calendar time (Raj Kumari 2006). Information flow hypothesis postulates that the difference in information flow over the weekend compared to other days of the week causes the Monday effect (Dyl Maberly 1988). Often companies hold back negative information till the weekend, g iving the investors two non-trading days to absorb the information before reacting with trading activity. Consequently, all sell orders get pushed to Monday, thereby giving negative returns (Raj Kumari 2006). Retail investor trading hypothesis, suggests that negative Monday returns could be the result of individual investor trading activity (Brooks Kim 1997). It was found that trading activity is significantly lower on Monday for large size trades, while small size trades have a higher percentage of sell orders on Monday as compared to other days of the week. 3.5 Trading Month Effect The trading month effect also called the turn-of -the-month effect which was first documented by Ariel(1987) using US data shows that returns are only positive around the beginning and during the first half of trading months, whereas during the second half they are on average zero. This study was replicated by Jaffe and Westerfield (1989), for the UK, Japan, Canada and Australia, in their study. However, only Australia shows a significant monthly effect. A conflicting evidence for the UK in a report from Cadsby and Ratner (1992) shows a significant trading month effect in the FT 500. Ariel (1988) offered three explanations for the trading month effect which include: new information concerning corporate cash flows, changes in risk free rate and changes in the preferences of market participants leading to variation in demand for securities which cannot be offset by supply. Mills and Coutts (1996) investigated the this effect using a large sample of daily returns from the Financial Time s Industrial Ordinary Share Index and found that a trading month effect is present but exists for a much shorter period than has been documented by previous studies for both the US and the UK. The information release hypothesis of French(1980) was accepted as an explanation of the trading month effect, only if the unexpected release of good and bad news has a tendency to fall in the final and first days of trading months, securities would be riskier during these periods , thus justifying the higher first half returns. Context of India: Published studies that have examined calendar effects in the Indian stock market appear to be limited. Kaur (2004) reports that few studies have examined the day-of-the-week effect in the Indian stock market, and further notes the absence of studies that examine monthly seasonality in the Indian stock market. Kaur utilized two Indian stock indexes, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 30 index and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) SP CNX Nifty stock index, to examine the day-of-the-week effect and the monthly effect. Kaur did not find a January effect in the Indian stock market, but did find that March and September generated substantially lower returns, whereas February and December generated substantial positive returns. Sarma (2004) adds that very few studies have examined calendar effects during the post reform era in the Indian stock market. Sarma investigated the BSE 30, the BSE 100, and the BSE 200 stock indexes to detect the day-of-the-week effect. Utilizing Kruskal-Wallis test statistics, Sarma concluded that the Indian stock market exhibited some seasonality in daily returns over the period January 1, 1996 to August 10, 2002. Bodla and Jindal (2006) examined several seasonal anomalies in the Indian stock market utilizing the SP CNX Nifty Index for the period January 1998 to August 2005. For the monthly effect, they did find some significant differences for their sub-period, January 2002 to August 2005. However, they were unable to find any significant differences among individual months. In an earlier study, Ignatius (1998) examined seasonality in a BSE index and in the Standard and Poors 500 stock index for the period 1979-1990. Ignatius found that December generated the highest mean returns , and that April and June generated high returns in the Indian stock index. Some studies examine seasonality in the Indian stock market as part of a broader analysis of seasonality in several major emerging stock markets. For example, Fountas and Segredakis (2002) investigated monthly seasonal anomalies in eighteen major emerging equity markets, including the Indian stock market. They examined the monthly effect for the period January 1987 to December 1995. For the Indian stock market, they found August returns were significantly greater than April, May, October and November returns. However, they did not find evidence consistent with hypothesized tax-loss selling in the Indian stock market, as the tax-year in India commences in April. Yakob, Beal and Delpachitra (2005) examined seasonal effects in ten Asian Pacific stock markets, including the Indian stock market, for the period January 2000 to March 2005. They state that this is a period of stability and is therefore ideal for examining seasonality as it was not influenced by the Asian financial crisis of the late nineties. Yakob, et al., concluded that the Indian stock market exhibited a month-of-the-year effect in that statistically significant negative returns were found in March and April whereas statistically significant positive returns were found in May, November and December. Of these five statistically significant monthly returns, November generated the highest positive returns whereas April generated the lowest negative returns. Evidence of monthly seasonality in the Indian stock market is somewhat mixed. This may be, in part, a consequence of the fact that the Indian economy is in transition and is therefore constantly evolving, supporting the notion that further research into these calendar effects in the Indian stock market is warranted.

The University Health System Should Distribute the Morning After Pill E

The University Health System Should Distribute the Morning After Pill The United States of America is known for many of its outlandish and outrageous statistics in comparison to other countries. Statistics regarding obesity, homicide rates, and political issues have displayed many of the nation?s weak points. However, the amount of teen pregnancy has become so excessive that it is becoming a cry for help and a statistic that is greatly standing out and can no longer be ignored. In 1999 about one million teenagers experienced a pregnancy. This rate was twice the amount in England, Wales, and Canada and nine times greater than that of the Netherlands and Japan. About 78% of these American teenage pregnancies were said to be unplanned. (The Alan Guttmacher Institute home page) The country has come up with many solutions to this problem, yet nearly every solution has caused ethical debate. The use of contraception is rejected by many religions and groups of people; while the option of abortion, is even more widely rejected. Many Christian religions stand firm on preventing the use of either contraception or abortion as well as sex outside wedlock. Other religions such as Judiasm, Muslims, and Hinduisms also stand against it. Politicians are also known for taken a stand on the issue, as those running on a conservative platform (Republicans) are more likely to go against. The liberals (Democrats) stress the need for womens? right to chose and consistently fight for the continuation of the practice of abortion. Although, the younger generations are more accepting of these options, does that mean it is the right decision? One quick fix to pregnancy began years ago with the introduction of the condom. This method of contraception h... ... at an early age is a fear for many young women in high school and college. About 70% of the high school age students that become pregnant will finish high school but fail to continue there education in college. (The Alan Guttmacher Institute facts and statistics on teen pregnancy home page). Many young women have goals and dreams that are sometimes shattered due to an unexpected visitor. One night can change the lives of these students and they should have an option if a mistake is made or an accident happens. If women on the James Madison University campus had the choice to receive the morning-after pill from the Health Center and take it, then there would be a lot less stress in the lives of these young women. Knowing that if something unexpected where to happen, that there is a solution, is a good feeling to have for the woman of this college university campus.

How Small Coffee Shops Can Succeed Using Social Media Essay

Everyone has a local coffee shop that they consider to be their favourite. That one place where they know they’ll be welcomed with open arms and the people behind the counter know their name (or at least their face). The place that even if their coffee costs almost double as much as Tim Hortons (Starbucks); that this is the place they’ll always recommend to their friends. A few years ago, it was nearly impossible for a local coffee shop to compete with the deep pocket coffee shops. Today, even the smallest cafe with the a very little marketing budget can compete. All they need – is a story worth telling and of course, a coffee worth brewing. If they have those, the clients will keep coming back – the main concern is usually getting them there in the first place. Here are some ways that social media can be used to help local coffee shops compete with the big players. Two Tweets and One Sugar As I write this post, twitter has become one of the biggest buzzwords of the year. However, the buzz isn’t unwarranted. Twitter is one of the largest social networking channels in North American consisting more than 15Million accounts. And while its still in its infancy; it provides businesses an unparalleled opportunity to communicate with consumers and current customers in real-time. So what does this mean for coffee shops? It means that they can communicate more effectively than ever with consumers. If that means setting up a search that tracks their brand and sending a simple thank you or going as far as taking a pre-order, so be it. Twitter gives these brands a chance to create a personal connection with their consumers and make their brand worth talking about. By being active in the twitter community an opportunity exists for coffee shops to offer their space for events such as tweet ups. Hosting these live events at your venue not only gaurantee that you’ll be selling your products, but also guarantees some buzz (tweets) about your brand. On top of that, some of these new customers were probably never in your shop in their life; however, because you got involved in twitter and hosted this event you were able to attract new customers to experience your shop. What more can you ask for? I’m glad you asked. How about 1 Blog Latte While blogging can be an important part of a social media strategy, its not worth having if you don’t have a strategy behind it. If your main goal is to develop an online community; it might be in your best interest to blog about different beans or maybe do a Wine Library TV segment – Coffee Style. However, if your strategy is focused around getting more butts in your cafes seats, it might be in your best interest to discuss offers on the blog. As great as a blog can be for an organization it can also be their downfall. A company that views their blog as being a great way to only talk about their brand and how great they are will never find readers. Well maybe they’ll have their spouse and employees; but customers won’t be interested. If you can provide your readers with something of value they will return. I often tell people looking to start a blog to try and offer the three E’s of Social Media. Entertainment, Education or Engagement An Extra Large Facebook Facebook has become the grand-daddy of them all when it comes to social networks. It has recently gone from being a questionable place to have your brand, to a necessity for many companies in the food industry. With its most recent changes to the facebook pages; it has become obvious that brand experience on facebook is back. Brands are now able to create facebook pages with more customization than ever and truly deepen their relationship with their customers. The frazzle-dazzle applications aren’t the only way for a local coffee shop to set itself a part from other stores. It can also use Facebook to promote other content that they have created. This means they can post links to their blog, videos, pictures and even coupons; reaching an audience that may not be present on the other social networking channels. With that said, we can’t forget the meat and potatoes that Facebook was built upon. The ability to get your message out to a number of people is one of the key reasons why businesses have found such success on facebook. Those tweetups we discussed earlier can easily be cross-promoted using a Facebook event. The opportunities available on facebook are great – its up to you, to turn them into something remarkable. Whose your Manager Mayor?! Foursquare is the new kid on the block in the social media world. It will be the most talked about social networking platform for the rest of this year and will definitely be playing a big part in several social media plans. James Hoffman explains on his blog why, You have people competitively visiting you, talking about you. More than that there is a pretty sensible business model in there too, meaning that foursquare could well be around in a few years. Coffee shops seemed pretty quick to embrace twitter, and it will be interesting to see if that experience has soured social media for them, or if they’ll embrace foursquare too. Something tells me that they’ll embrace foursquare like a seat-belt embraces impact. Mayorship – TechCrunch One of my favourite tactics that coffee shops can use in Foursquare is promoting the idea of becoming mayor. The basics behind this tactic is that you tell the consumers that if they become the mayor of your shop they get their beverages for free. Seeing that there is an incentive now for going to the shop more and more – You’ve ultimately created a competition that will keep the people swarming your shop. The whole idea of providing customers with rewards for loyalty has been going on for years. This race to be the mayor however, takes customer loyalty, flips it upside down and turns it into a competition. Lets not get our Mochas in a Bunch With all that said, you must always remember your companies core strategy and goals. These channels discussed above may take a similar route as hi5 or geocities in a few years time. For that reason, it is important to not put all your eggs into one basket. Facebook is already talking about their new function that will be the â€Å"Foursquare Killer.† (Keep your eyes open) Finally, remember that the value you provide your customer in the store will always out weight the value you can provide them with a social networking tool. While its important to do things to get your customers in the door – its just as important to make sure they’ll want to come back.

The Impact of Corporate Governance on Firm Performance in Mauritius

Introduction Corporate governance is a field in economics that investigates how to secure/motivate efficient management of corporations by the use of incentive mechanisms, such as contracts, organizational designs and legislation. This is often limited to the question of improving financial performance, for example, how the corporate owners can secure/motivate that the corporate managers will deliver a competitive rate of return. (Mathiesen, 2002). Another definition is â€Å"Corporate Governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individual and communal goals. The corporate governance framework is there to encourage the efficient use of resources and equally to require accountability for the stewardship of those resources. The aim is to align as nearly as possible the interests of individuals, corporations and society† (Sir Adrian Cadbury in ‘Global Corporate Governance Forum', World Bank, 2000). According to La Porta et al. (2000) â€Å"corporate governance is to a certain extent a set of mechanisms through which outside investors protect themselves against expropriation by the insiders†. The problem is to see whether the corporate governance standards adopted by firms in Mauritius are positively, negatively or more affecting the firms’ performance. Research will be made on a sample of firms operating in Mauritius. Literature Review Related searches in other countries It has been argued that as ownership concentration increases, the incentives and the abilities of shareholders to properly monitor managers increase too. This creates beneficial effect for firms in the sense that performance or profitability improves (Morck et al. 1989)). There are studies which find that higher ownership concentration lead to detrimental effects for corporations in the sense that large blockholders and managers can collude to extract rents from small shareholders (Lehman and Weigand (2000)). The study by Demsetz and Villalonga (2001) provides evidence that there is no significant relation between ownership structure and firm performance. Chhaochharia and Grinstein (2007) looked a t the impact of the 2002 governance rules established by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on firm value. They found that less compliant firms earn positive abnormal returns compared to more compliant firms. They also found that less compliant large firms earn positive abnormal returns but less compliant small firms earn negative abnormal returns. Bhagat and Bolton (2008) examined the relationship between corporate governance and performance, and found that better corporate governance, board members’ stock ownership, and CEO-Chair separation are positively related to operating performance. They also found that the probability of management turnover is positively related to board members’ stock ownership and board independence when firms perform poorly. Patibandla (2006) examined the ownership structure and firm performance on Indian firms by separating large investors into private foreignin stitutional investors and government-owned local financial institutions. Patibandla found a positive relationship between private foreign institutional investors and firm profitability and a negative relationship between government-owned local financial institutions and firm profitability. Aims & Objectives of Research The aim of this investigation is to make a research on the impact of corporate governance on the performance of firms in Mauritius. The research is going to see the contribution that corporate governance has made on the firms’ financial performance. The research seeks to evaluate the performance of firms in terms of: †¢ Firms’ financial performance †¢ Firms market value The research aim at looking standards which are contributing to high mprovement in firms’ performance and to look also those standards that are contributing to poor performance. The objectives are: †¢ Identify the causes that contribute to high or poor firms’ performance †¢ Measures that can be used to improve the poor performance of firms by comparing their corporate standards adopted by firms experiencing high performance. Research Methodology Sample A sample size of 10 firms is to be selected operating in the private sector of Mauritius. Data The data will be obtained from annual reports for the year 2007 and 2008. Questionnaire A questionnaire will be sent to those firms via letters. The questionnaire will contained defined questions that are relevant to the related research. The questionnaire should be filled by the executives of the respective firms. Methodology Some data will be obtained by looking at secondary data and the other data will be received by letters (Questionnaire). These primary and secondary data will be input in the SPSS software which will analyse and give the result of the analysis of the collected data. Tentative Grant Chat |Activities |9-Sep |9-Oct |9-Nov |9-Dec |10-Jan |10-Feb |10-Mar | Introduction |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | |Literature review |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | |Research Methodology |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | |Analysis of data |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | |Conclusion |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | | References †¢ Bhagat Sanjai, and Brian Bolton, 2008, Corporate governance and firm performance, Journal of Corporate Finance, Vol. 14, pp. 257-273. Chhaochharia Vidhi, and Yaniv Grinstein, 2007, Corporate governance and firm value: The impact of the 2002 governance rules, Journal of Finance, Vol. LXII, No. 4, pp. 1789-1825 †¢ Demsetz, H. and B. Villalonga, 2001, Ownership structure and corporate performance, Journal of Corporate Finance, vol. 7, 209-233. †¢ La Porta, Lopez-de-Silannes, Shleifer, Vishny. Investor perfomance and corporate governance. Journal of Financial Economics. 58 (2000). 3-27. †¢ Lehman, E. and J. Weigand, 2000, Does the governed corporation perform better? Governance structures and corporate performance in Germany, European Finance Review,vol. 4, 157-195. †¢ Mathiesen (2002) http://corpgov. net/library/definitions. html †¢ Morck, R. , A. Shleifer and R. Vishny, 1989, Alternative mechanisms of corporate control,American Economic Review, vol. 79, 842-852. †¢ Patibandla Murali, 2006, Equity pattern, corporate governance and performance: A study of India’s corporate sector, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Vol. 59, pp. 29-44. †¢ Sir Adrian Cadbury in ‘Global Corporate Governance Forum', World Bank, 2000