Confidential Organizational Information and Employee Responsibility Essay

Confidential Organizational Information and Employee Responsibility - Essay Example This breach at Sony made experts question the level of security that is associated with other companies that have in their possession millions of data records linked to different users. The situation at Sony should be used by those in the area of IT security to recognize and implement security protocols in a consistent manner throughout their organizations. In the case of customers, they should be careful of the people they give their data as it may not be worth the price of getting an access to online games. The PlayStation outage was caused by an external intrusion that was directed at the PlayStation Network associated with Sony as well as Qriosity services and involved personal data linked to almost seventy seven million accounts being stolen while preventing users using PS 3 and PS Portable consoles from being able to play online using the service (Daniel & Daniel, 2012). This attack took place on April seventeenth and went on up to the nineteenth of April in 2011, thereby obliging Sony to shut the PlayStation network on the twentieth. Sony ultimately confirmed that personally identifiable information associated with all of the seventy seven million accounts had been stolen on 4th May and the outage that followed went on to last twenty three days. During the outage, almost seventy seven million PlayStation Network accounts that had already been registered were affected, making it the biggest data security breach in history. It was even bigger than the TJX hack that took place 2007 that had affected approximately forty-five million customers (Delta & Matsuura, 2009). Officials from the governments of various nations were concerned about the theft and the manner in which Sony delayed before it gave a warning to its users. On 26 April, Sony gave the statement that it was trying to get its online services running in a week’s time and went on to release PS 3 firmware version 3.61 as a security patch. The users of this firmware were

What are the main differences between Monopolistic Competition and Essay - 1

What are the main differences between Monopolistic Competition and Monopoly market structure Which of these market structures best serves the interest of the consumer and why - Essay Example The word, â€Å"Monopolist† is derived from the Greek words, Mono meaning one and Polist for seller (FRIEDMAN, Milton, 2002). The existence of Monopoly in today’s world is very rare. Monopolies are usually protected by effective barriers to entry. Example of Monopolies may be a company with its unique patented drug or the only provider of electricity for a town. De Beers used to have Monopoly in the diamond market. Monopoly does not have a complete control over price in a sense that it faces a negatively sloped demand curve. This means, any price increase will eventually loss some customers. Keeping in view, a Monopoly always wants to maximize its profit. For maximizing the profit, a Monopoly increases its output to the level where Marginal Cost (MC) intersects the Marginal Revenue (MR) as shown in the figure 1. The diagram shows the profit maximization point for a monopolist. The profit maximization point lies where Marginal Revenue = Marginal Cost. The economic profit is the difference between the Demand and ATC curve. If it produces less than 5 units, the economic profit will be reduced. Also, if the output is increased to 6, the economic profit will again reduce. A Monopolist will always strive for maximizing its profit. For a Monopolist, the Demand Curve is negatively slopped. If the demand for the product is less elastic, a Monopolist can fix a higher price. Ineleastic goods include those which are needs of human being such as electricity, sugar, wheat etc. However, if the demand is elastic, then a Monopolist should adjust the price to a certain level to gain maximum profit. Therefore, the price it charges is always greater than its MC. In Monopolistic competition, there are many competing firms which are selling differentiated products (Investopedia.com). Due to this fact, each firm faces highly elastic negatively sloped demand curve. The term â€Å"Differentiated Product† refers to those products which

Marketing plan for jetblue airlines Research Paper

Marketing plan for jetblue airlines - Research Paper Example The key competitors of JetBlue Airways Corporation are Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, US Airways, and United Airlines (Cederholm, 2014a). Although it has its bases in JFK International and New York City, the airline’s other focus cities are Fort Lauderdale – Hollywood International Airport, Logan International Airport  (Boston), Long Beach Airport, Luis Muà ±oz Marà ­n International Airport  (San Juan), and Orlando International Airport (Wynbrandt, 2004). The company’s fleet size is 310 reaching more than 87 destinations. The organization’s slogan with which it has spearheaded its marketing strategies is ‘You Above All’ (Handley, 2013). The company has more than 15,000 employees. Its net income, total assets and total equity are US$ 401 million  (2014), US$ 7.1  billion  (2012), and US$ 1.9  billion  (2012) respectively. JetBlue Airways Corporation runs low-cost passenger airline services in the US. It mainly operates on point-to-point routes across the USA from its principal bases in Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles/Long Beach, New York/JFK, or Orlando (Bomkamp, 2010). Its fleet consists of 120 Airbus A320 aircraft and 49 EMBRAER 190 aircraft, traveling to over 20 states (Schlangenstein, 2007). Through its subsidiary organizations, JetBlue provides extra services such as in-flight entertainment, voice communication and data connectivity services. These services by its subsidiaries target both commercial and general aviation aircraft. Moreover, JetBlue Airways has vacation packages, provided by its subsidiary, JetBlue Getaways website. This website also offers hotel and car rental reservations alongside the vacation packages. The company has numerous resources with which it can achieve greater heights through astute marketing. First, being among the latest entrants into the airline industry, JetBlue has one of the youngest and newest fleets in the skies. Second, it is a low-cost airline. Third, JetBlue

Great Expectations Essay Example for Free

Great Expectations Essay Dickens was known as one of the best authors and many of his books have stood the test of time. Great Expectations was first published in 1861 and to this present day remains to thrill and engage modern day readers. Clearly dickens must use a wide range of techniques to gain and sustain his readers interest.  A very good technique that dickens used in Great Expectations is Dickens larger than life characters that have been exaggerated to make the story come alive and more believable. A good example is Miss Havisham, as she is regularly described by Pip as some ghastly waxwork from the fair and having dark eyes. She is also described as a skeleton, and someone who had shrunk to skin and bone and having clothes that were faded and lost their brightness. This makes the reader perceive her as a very evil and dead person. This has a significant effect because this is the first time the reader meets Miss Havisham, and therefore builds up a first impression. This technique can also emphasise on one characteristic of a person. Another characteristic that dickens emphasises on is the change in character that Joe goes through when Pp becomes a gentleman. Dickens uses respectful dialogue for Joe, using words such as sir towards Pip. This is because at the time of the novel, if you came upon wealth, regardless of your morals and the way you acted t others, you would be considered to be a gentleman. So even though Pip appears ungrateful to Joe, Joe still shows dear respect to him, thus creating more distance between them. These well-portrayed characters are what brings the story to life, and therefore help keep the readers interest. Other than the characters being larger than life, many characters personalities clash, and are extremely opposite. For instance, when Pip is describing Mrs Joe and Joe, he describes Joe as mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy going, foolish, dear fellow. However, he describes the way that Mrs Joe presents herself, as having a coarse apron, an impregnable bib that was stuck full of pins and needles and having a trenchant way of cutting. These two characters are very different as the nasty. Nightmarish, way that Mrs Joe dresses, with her dangerous needles and her impregnable apron, is contradictory to Joes easy manner and his kind gentle touch. It is strange that these two could forge a relationship, as there is a role-reversal issue because Mrs Joe is a brute, with her trenchant way of cutting and a rather manly attitude. Whereas Joe shows a kind and affectionate attitude towards Pip. It would also seem that Mrs Joe has an angry personality towards Pip and Joe as she bought them up by hand. I believe that this technique is very good because it creates variety, contrast and very exciting situations to keep the interest of the reader. In Great expectations there is a wide use of similes and metaphors, which can also be used to describe characters sometimes. For example when Pip describes the way in which Mrs Joe Gargery cuts bread he says she had a trenchant way of cutting the bread, and hewed it in half. This can be reflected upon as her character being strong, brutal, and savage. This can be backed up by the example that Pip and Joe were raised by hand. This is also a more physical approach to her character. These similes and metaphors are also a more exciting way of describing a character. This is also keeps the reader much more engaged and less likely to resign from the gripping novel. Throughout the novel on several occasions there are ironic twists in the story line. A very ironic moment is when Pip finds out that who his real benefactor is. Magwitch turns up at Pips door and later ecstatically claims this is the gentleman I made! This moment is a real moral blow to Pip and is very crushing to find out Miss Havisham was not his real benefactor. This is an ironic twist because the very person that helped Pip become a gentleman was in fact a convict. Another ironic moment is that Estella, although she is rich and upper class, was adopted from a lower class background, so just like Pip, she is now rich, but her heritage lies lower down. Pip was visiting Jaggers house and he noticed that the way the housekeeper presented herself and the way she knitted with her fingers together convinced him that this woman was Estellas mother. This is ironic because Estella, although she acts very proud of being upper class and is exceedingly harsh to Pip, has a heritage that lies in the lower class, as Miss Havisham adopted her from the housekeeper. Its these exciting twists in the story line, that are unpredictable, that make Great Expectations such a gripping novel, that along with all the other techniques, fully gains and sustains the readers interest.

Gregor Mendels Fruit Flies Essay -- Biology Gregor Mendel Essays

Gregor Mendel's Fruit Flies Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  From simple heredity experiments with garden peas, to cloning sheep, the field of genetics has come a long way. Now we are closer to mapping out the human genetic map due to advances in technology, and years and years of research. Perhaps the most influential and groundbreaking scientist, Gregor Mendel, he was responsible to provide a path to where genetics is now today with his experiments of garden peas.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In lab, fruit flies were crossed to observe inheritance patterns in their offspring. The motivation for this was to further understand how genes and characteristics are inherited. To use fruit flies would be much more effective and easier because of a couple of reasons. The genetic makeups of the flies only consist of 4 pairs of chromosomes. This makes it easier to spot characteristics, and is easily distinguishable. Another plus to using flies is that fruit flies can produce a whole new generation of offspring in two weeks, which is very convenient for researchers. This is why files are used instead of humans, but not only time, ethics have also been a major, if not the most important factor.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The traits observed here in this experiment were the wing types, whether vestigial or normal, and the eye color, whether brown or white. The genotype of the vestigial wing was a homozygous recessive vv. The normal wings were either Vv, or VV. The eye color was denoted by the genotype BB, and Bb for brown, and bb for...

Human Event Essay

Point: to argue that a balance of both texts' strategies are most effective l. Opening sentences] define leadership. What makes a good leader. Or a quote from a good leader II. Background on Chinese historic] In 500 BC, the Chou Dynasty was falling apart and there was civil strife. Confucius tried to bring people together through ritual and culture. Sun Tug was an ancient ill. No one can follow a leader without a balance of both strict rules and humanity lb.Thesis: Although the Confucius and Sun Tug share different points of view on leadership, a balance of both strategies would e the most effective in times of both war and peace. II. Rebuttal I. Include somewhere either in beginning or the end. I'. Each theory on political leadership is different and can be used effectively and separately because there is more than one way to win the hearts of the people. Ill. Confucius can easily win the hearts of the people through the moral values and cultures of China lb.Sun Tug can easily win a war through his strategic skills and defense tactics Ill. How Confucius strategies alone will not work. His teachings are all about the value and culture. He doesn't give the best advice as to how to win a war though I. 13. 120 â€Å"even with a true king, it would certainly take one generation for humanity to prevail† if. 12. 210 â€Å"always put the effort before the reward; is this not the way to accumulate moral power? To attack evil in itself ill. 8. 90 â€Å"you can make people follow the Way, you cannot make them understand it† define what the Way means. Lb. 5. 00 † there was a time went I used to listen to what people said and trusted that they would act accordingly, but not I listen to what they say and watch what they do† e contradicts himself v. 2. 30 â€Å"lead them by political maneuvers, restrain them with punishments: the people will become cunning and shameless. † Another contradiction IV. How Sun Tutu's strategies alone will not wo rk. Book doesn't display any uses of humanity and only focuses on how to gain victory. L. â€Å"In order to kill the enemy, men must be roused to anger; that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have their rewards† (46) ii.Sun Tug beheads two girls for disobeying him and disobeys his master by beheading them when he said not to hen says â€Å"there are commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed† (12). Sun Tug shows no humanity in his leadership and performs his actions to prove a point I†. â€Å"In war, the way to avoid what is strong is to strike what Is weak† too harsh on people. (62) iv. â€Å"He wins his battles by making no mistakes† (53) must complete perfection to gain victory, but no one is perfect and every one will make a mistake at some point. V. The use of humanity and kindness by Confucius.There is no need to kill the bad if unnecessary. I. 12. 190 â€Å"suppose I were to kill the bad to help the good; how about that? â€Å"you are here to govern; what need Is there to kill? If you desire what Is good, the people will be good. The moral power of gentleman Is wind, the moral power of the common man Is grass. Under the wind, the grass must bend. † II. 12. 220 love all men and no one contradicts you-is this not almost a case of ‘one single maxim that could ruin a country? † must understand your own faults even as a leader or else whole country will fall ‘v. . 190 â€Å"raise the straight and set them above the crooked, and you will win the hearts of the people. If you raise the crooked and set them abaca the trait, the people will deny you their support† v. 2. 200 ‘Approach them with dignity and they will be respectful. Be yourself and a good son and a kind father, and they will be loyal. Raise the good and train the incompetent, and they will be zealous† VI. The use of spies and deceit by Tug can be used effectively to ensure your country or even company will succeed. I. â€Å"all warfare is based on deception† (42) it.Explain how all 5 uses of spying can be used. â€Å"Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports† (98) iii. Doomed spies are robbery the most confusing and difficult type of spy but can be the most helpful because it will distract the other side from the real truth. ‘v. Uses deceit to win war, be very tricky. Best way to gain an advantage on your enemy. † if he is inactive, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected† (43) VI'.Combining both strategies and how it will prove to be most effective in leading a country or wartime against other countries. Effective way to rule a country with the balancing of both strategies ill help because one is more on humanity and ritual while the other is more on war and doing anything possible to win. I. 12. 70 â⠂¬Å"if you had to do without one of these three, which would you give up? † â€Å"weapons, then food; after all, everyone has to die eventually. But without the trust of the people, no government can stand† gaining trust will be effective in ruling a country. People must trust the leader or else he will not be followed. T. 8. 20 â€Å"when gentlemen treat their kin generously, common people are attracted to goodness; when old ties are not forgotten, common people are not sickle. † iii. 7. 310 â€Å"whenever I make a mistake, there is always someone to notice it† good to learn your mistakes even as a leader. No one is perfect not even leaders ‘v. 7. 260 â€Å"a perfect man, I cannot hope to meet. I would be content if only I could meet a principled man† no leader will be perfect and the leader must be well taught and know literature v. â€Å"in war, a general receives his commands from the sovereign, collects his army and concentrates his forc es† (69) vi. . 70 â€Å"a gentleman avoids competition† goes well with â€Å"when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces we must seem inactive† (42 vii. â€Å"Hence it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results† (99) viii. â€Å"the general who is unable to control his impatience will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain. † (49) VIII. So now what? Today's society I. Apply to our past presidents and how they led our country ii.How these leadership philosophies can be applied to businesses iii. Explain how philosophies are applied to the war strategies we use today Write an argumentative analytic comparison of the political leadership philosophies advanced in The Analects of Confucius and The Art of War. For example, your thesis might compare the id eas of Sun Tug and Confucius on political leadership and argue (I. E. , in times of war/peace, for democracies/monarchies, etc. ), you might argue that a balance of both texts' strategies are most effective, you might argue that both texts are fundamentally advocating similar behaviors, etc.

Organizational Environments and Cultures

————————————————- PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT ————————————————- CHAPTER 3: ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS AND CULTURES 1. HOW CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS AFFECT ORGANIZATIONS Environmental change: The rate at which a company’s general and specific environment changes * Stable environments: the rate of environmental change is slow * Dynamic environments: the rate of environmental change is fast * Punctuated equilibrium theory: companies go through long periods of stability, followed by a short complex period of dynamic change (revolutionary periods) to later return to stability * Environmental complexity: Refers to the number and intensity of external factors in the environment that affect organizations * Simple environments: few environmental factors Complex environmen ts: many environmental factors * Resource scarcity: Refers to the abundance or shortage of critical organizational resources in an organization external environment * Uncertainty: How well managers can understand or predict the external changes and trends affecting their business * Uncertainty is lowest when environmental change and complexity are at low levels and resource scarcity is small (if environment is not too complicated and doesn’t change much it’s easy to predict) . FOUR COMPONENTS OF GENERAL ENVIRONMENT: 1. Economy * It influences basic business decisions such as whether to hire more employees, expand production, or take out loans to purchase * In a growing economy more products are bought and sold, more people work and salaries rise; and viceversa (in shrinking economy) * Business Confidence Indices: shows how confidente actual managers are about future business growth 2. Political/Legal Trends Includes legislation, regulations, and court decisions that go vern and regulate business behaviour * New laws and regulations continue to impose additional responsibilities to companies 3. Sociocultural Trends * Demographic characteristics, general behaviour, attitudes and beliefs of people in a particular society 4. Technological Trends * Refers to the knowledge, tools and techniques used to transform inputs into outputs 3. FIVE COMPONENTS OF SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENTThe specific environment is the environment that is unique to a firm’s industry and that directly affects the way it conducts day-to-day business. 1. Customer: * Monitoring customer’s changing wants and needs is critical to business success. It can be done in two ways: i. Reactive customer monitoring: identifying and addressing customer trends and problems after they occur ii. Proactive customer monitoring: identifying and addressing customer needs, trends and issues before they occur 2. Competitor: Companies need to keep close track of what their competitors are doing * To do so, they perform a competitive analysis * A competitive analysis involves deciding who your competitors are, anticipating competitors’ moves, and determining competitors’ strenghts and weaknesses 3. Supplier: * Supplier dependence: the degree to which a company relies on that supplier because of the importance of the supplier’s product to the company * Buyer dependence: the degree to which a supplier relies on a buyer because of the importance of that buyer to the supplier’s sales * A igh degree of supplier or buyer dependence can lead to oportunistic behaviour (benefiting at the expense of the other) * In contrast, relationship behaviour focuses on establishing a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship between buyers and suppliers 4. Industry Regulations: * Regulations and rules that govern the practices and procedures of specific industries, businesses and professions * Unlike the political/legal component of the general environment, this doe s not affect all businesses 5. Advocacy Groups: These are groups of concerned citizens who band together to try to influence the business practices of specific industries, businesses and professions * e. g. environmental advocacy groups try to influence manufacturers to pollute less * Ways in which advocacy groups can influence businesses: iii. Public communications: voluntary participation of media industry to send out the group’s message iv. Media advocacy: involves framing the group’s concern as public issues that affect everyone, forcing media coverage v.Product boycott: advocacy groups actively try to persuade consumers not to purchase a company’s product or service 4. MAKING SENSE OF CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS Because external environments can be dynamic, confusing and complex, managers use a three-step process to make sense of the changes in their external environments: 1. Environmental scanning: * Searching the environment for important events or issues that might affect the organization * Manager scan the environment to reduce incertainty 2.Interpreting Environmental factors: * After scanning, the company determines what environmental events and issues mean to the organization. * Distinguish environmental events as either threats or opportunities 3. Actiong on threats and opportunities: * Managers decide how to respond to these environmental factors * Because it is impossible to comprehend all the factors and changes, managers rely on Cognitive maps that summarize the perceived relationships between environmental factors and possible organizational actions 5.INTERNAL ENVIRONMENTS – ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational culture is the set of beliefs, values and attitudes shared b members of an organization. * Creating an Organizational Culture: * The founder is the primary source of an organization’s culture * Founders create organizations at their own image * When founders are gone, culture is kept with: i. Stories: to em phasize culturally consistent assumptions, decisions, and actions ii. Heroes: people admired for their qualities and achievements within the organization. Successful Organizational Cultures: * Are Adaptable * Have employee involvement * Have a clear company vision * Are Consistent, Strong culture (even though strong cultures reduce adaptability) * Changing Organizational Cultures: * Culture has three levels: iii. Seen (surface level) iv. Heard (expressed values & beliefs) v. Believed (unconscious assumptions & beliefes) * Managers should only focus on the parts of the culture they can control, those are the surface level items and expressed values and beliefs