Marie De France Composed A Works Of The French Aquitanian...

From the works of the French Aquitanian and Champagnian troubadours, the framework/ideals of fin amour grew and spread throughout Europe, reaching the courts of Britain. As the conception of fin amour became increasingly popular amongst the literature of the aristocracy, writers such as, Andreas Capellanus wrote of the stages and rules of courtly love. Inspired by this movement in the culture and literature of court, the poet Marie de France composed a collection of romantic lays. In the â€Å"Breton Lays†, Marie presents her narratives as a guide for courtly lovers. For, each lay exhibits the problems, consequences, and rewards that can occur if a lady or knight does/or does not follow the three principles of fin amour which, as explained by the scholars Jeri S. Guthrie (1976) and F.R.P Akehurst (1995), include mezura (to have self-restraint and patience in love, to have discretion within an affair), joven (to be spontaneous in love, to woo with grand gestures and gifts), and cortezia (to follow the moral and societal rules of court). The first standard of courtly love Marie de France presents within â€Å"The Breton Lays† is mezura. Through the narratives of â€Å"Lanval† and â€Å"Yonec†, Marie reinforces the importance mezura plays in maintaining a courtly affair; she shows that being open about a relationship can lead to disaster. In the story of â€Å"Lanval†, Lanval breaks the principle of mezura by rashly exposing his affair with the amie to Queen Guinevere. When Guinevere propositions

The Agency Problem free essay sample

The preliminary and primary goal of a company is to maximize its firm value, in other words, to maximize the shareholders’ wealth. As a good instrument tool of measuring the firm value or the operation condition of a company, the share price indicates the stock market value of the company’s shares. Shareholders always expect to maximize the share price by corporate governance, however, managers in company always link their attitude to the their own interest, and they would not to try their best to achieve shareholder’s goal. Due to different interests in shareholders and managers, the conflicts always exist between them. An agency problem occurs when the interests of stockholders, the board of directors, and/or the management of the company are not perfectly aligned or when these entities conflict. EXPLAINATION Agency problem is typically caused by two reasons which are asymmetric information and hidden action. There is no legitimate theoretical or moral objection to those who assert that the goals of the modern corporation should be to serve the broad interests of all stakeholders rather than to serve the narrow interests of just the shareholders. In a large company, the principle refers to the shareholders of the company and the agent refers to the managers who is the subordinates in the company. Due to the separation of the ownership, managers are always responsible for the more detailed jobs (including job planning, supervising the sales ),the owner of the company do not have to supervise all the business in firm and managers sometimes would maximize their own profit. The behaviour mentioned before is hidden action. Moreover, managers have to run the company on a day-to-day basis, hence they hold more information related to the jobs or tasks. This will lead to different strategies and tactics made by managers, and managers could attach the documents such as financial reports and the accounting data but the shareholders only have the access to the annual reports. Hence there is a problem of hidden information which means managers may keep some information for their secrets instead of reporting to the shareholders. As a result, managers may pay attention to their own interest or profit primarily instead of the firm value then the company have to afford the agency cost. According to the agency problem, some obvious conflicts between owners and managers formed agency cost. For instance, some managers would over-consuming the perks in the company, they may use the company public resources as their own resources. It incurred in cars, office equipments and managers often use the company resource after work, for example, a manager drive the company car to pick up his friends for dinner and if he did this every single day, there will be a certain amount of cost to the company. Another example is that a manager may come up with sub-optimal decision for expansion or larger market volume. It supposed that Nokia is not well-performanced in market and the manager of the Apple company may consider to merge the Nokia company and buy the company in a cheaper price. Hence to do so, it seems that Apple has larger market volume but their performance may not still keep as well as before, in other words, empire building. The Adidas company bought the Reebok company several years ago, but larger market volume do not assist Adidas to compete against Nike, and this is still a kind of agency problem. Consequently, these conflicts and incorrect decision or expansion formed barrier of the profit-maximizing. In addition, managers have to focus on only one project and decide to accept or reject the project by its NPV value. It brings more risk to managers compared to shareholders because the owners or shareholders of the company could have number of choices of investment, in other way to say, shareholders put eggs in different baskets, and it always brings profits for shareholders, however, it’s difficult for managers to take long-term for-profit projects, what managers prefer is the short-run project with low cost. The return for managers is always related to their performance and once they choose the low cost projects, its easier to make a profit for themselves. Mentioned before is still a kind of agency problem. To choose the correct corporate management in a company is necessary to solve the agency problem. Corporate governance describes the various mechanisms and institutions, including law, contract, and norms, by which shareholders and other outside investors attempt to assure themselves that management will be faithful guardians of their investments. Some of the governance may lead to a cost to the company, for instance, the following three items belong to agency cost which are designing the contract, enforcing the contract and the residual loss respectively. According to Journal of Economic Literature (March 2010), one firm has more of the attribute but weaker performance, while the other firm has less of the attribute but better performance (which is indicated as in the diagram), and companies hence have to take correct steps of strategies instead of just putting more governance attribute. To avoid these cost, the company take the potential safeguards as steps. The main parts are organisational structure, external audit, remuneration packages. Organisational structure is to set more positions for managers instead of the owner of the company only. The advantages for this is that more managers in the company such as operating manager and financial manager, they could monitor each other and it saves time for the owner to supervise the two departments. Managers have their competition in company and once one of the managers put more effort on work, the others would put the same effort due to the competition pressure. As a positive circle, all the managers would do contributions to the company instead of considering their own profit before the firm value. Second one is the external audit. The external audit plays important role in checking whether the reports for investors are correct or not. Managers may hide some information about the financial data and the audit could find the incorrect item and the report the error to the shareholders on time so that make sure the reliability of the data and reports. The remuneration package is still an efficient approach to take the company into correct situation. In broad terms, compensation packages for managers and directors include cash, stocks and stock options. Agency theory tells us that the extent of ? nancial leverage in the corporate capital structure (i. e. , the debt-equity mix) has signi? cant managerial incentive effects. In some companies, shareholders show the reference on the stock option. Stock option is a kind of incentive option which allows the managers or directors buy the shares as much lower price as the market price. Managers are willing to do this but once they buy more shares of the company, they would become be part of owners, the potential risk is that if the share price of the company is going down, the managers share price would go down together. CONCLUSION Agency problem seems to form a barrier of the development of the company but shareholders could reduce the agency cost even remove the problem through correct management. If managers have a disutility of e? ort and are paid a wage then they will have an incentive to shirk rather than act in shareholders’ interests. It is therefore important that managers’ incentives are aligned with those of shareholders. Managers would finish their jobs efficiently once they are in profit-maximizing situation. Maybe the situation makes a cost to the company, hence shareholders have to find a balance of this as a result so that the firm value and the managers’ profit are maximising in synchrony.

article 23 essays

article 23 essays Universal Declaration Of Human Rights -Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment- Article 23 has established how the free enterprise has evolved. Choice is a key element of free enterprise. Workers have the right to choose where to work and who to work for. Article 23 clearly states people have the right to work. Another feature in the free enterprise system is competition. In Article 23 it says people have the right to a free choice of employment. This creates competition between businesses so they strive to keep their best employees. In Article 23 people have the protection against unemployment, and the free enterprise relies on individuals, not the government so Article 23 lets people own or work so our economy can succeed. An example for freedom of choice of employment is if I want to open a business and I want to hire a guy named Bob out of college. In the free enterprise system Bob has the right to work for me. Bob has the right to work where he chooses. If Bob were smart he would work for a business with lots of competition, because if the competition is there and the business is doing well he might get paid more, if the business isnt very competitive then the business wont do as well. Lets say, I hired Bob and two months later I decide to dismiss (fire) him because he I need to down size my business. Bob has the right to get another job in this field so he isnt unemployed, which will help keep the economy running because he will provide his skills for another business in need. ...

Multicultural Education In America Essays - Educational Psychology

Multicultural Education In America Essays - Educational Psychology Multicultural Education in America America has long been called "The Melting Pot" due to the fact that it is made up of a varied mix of races, cultures, and ethnicities. As more and more immigrants come to America searching for a better life, the population naturally becomes more diverse. This has, in turn, spun a great debate over multiculturalism. Some of the issues under fire are who is benefiting from the education, and how to present the material in a way so as to offend the least amount of people. There are many variations on these themes as will be discussed later in this paper. In the 1930's several educators called for programs of cultural diversity that encouraged ethnic and minority students to study their respective heritages. This is not a simple feat due to the fact that there is much diversity within individual cultures. A look at a 1990 census shows that the American population has changed more noticeably in the last ten years than in any other time in the twentieth century, with one out of every four Americans identifying themselves as black, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, or American Indian (Gould 198). The number of foreign born residents also reached an all time high of twenty million, easily passing the 1980 record of fourteen million. Most people, from educators to philosophers, agree that an important first step in successfully joining multiple cultures is to develop an underezding of each others background. However, the similarities stop there. One problem is in defining the term "multiculturalism". When it is looked at simply as meaning the existence of a culturally integrated society, many people have no problems. However, when you go beyond that and try to suggest a different way of arriving at that culturally integrated society, Everyone seems to have a different opinion on what will work. Since education is at the root of the problem, it might be appropriate to use an example in that context. Although the debate at Stanford University ran much deeper than I can hope to touch in this paper, the root of the problem was as follows: In 1980, Stanford University came up with a program - later known as the "Stanford-style multicultural curriculum" which aimed to familiarize students with traditions, philosophy, literature, and history of the West. The program consisted of 15 required books by writers such as Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Aquinas, Marx, and Freud. By 1987, a group called the Rainbow Coalition argued the fact that the books were all written by DWEM's or Dead White European Males. They felt that this type of teaching denied students the knowledge of contributions by people of color, women, and other oppressed groups. In 1987, the faculty voted 39 to 4 to change the curriculum and do away with the fifteen book requirement and the term "Western" for the study of at least one non-European culture and proper attention to be given to the issues of race and gender (Gould 199). This debate was very important because its publicity provided the grounds for the argument that America is a pluralistic society and to study only one people would not accurately portray what really makes up this country. Proponents of multicultural education argue that it offers students a balanced appreciation and critique of other cultures as well as our own (Stotsky 64). While it is common sense that one could not have a true underezding of a subject by only possessing knowledge of one side of it, this brings up the fact that there would never be enough time in our current school year to equally cover the contributions of each individual nationality. This leaves teachers with two options. The first would be to lengthen the school year, which is highly unlikely because of the political aspects of the situation. The other choice is to modify the curriculum to only include what the instructor (or school) feels are the most important contributions, which again leaves them open to criticism from groups that feel they are not being equally treated. A national ezdard is out of the question because of the fact that different parts of the country contain certain concentrations of nationalities. An example of this is the high concentration of Cubans

A Violation of Title IX Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 61

A Violation of Title IX Law - Essay Example The first compliance test of Title IX is that enrolment of women should be proportional to sports participation for example if enrolment is at 49%, sports participation ought to be 49%. In the first test, we will fail because the women enrolment rate is 52% with sports participation rate at 42% depicting a huge difference (10%) in participation. The courts have previously decided on cases using this test in Cohen v. Brown University (13%) and Roberts vs. Colorado State University (10.6%), since the case is substantially similar the decision of the court will stand and we will fail the first test. Â  The second test requires that the school depict recent expansion of women sports offering through offering a new sport in the past 3 to 5 years. A new sport has not been offered for over 10 years and following a substantially similar case decided by the court in Favia v. the Indian University of Pennsylvania; we will fail the second test based on the history of expansion. Â  The third test requires that there is full and effective accommodation of interest of women through documenting emerging interests of women in sports regularly through surveys. Since there is no documentation of recent interests of women in surveys and instead the growing interest in swimming by women is intended for demotion or cutting we will fail this test on full accommodation of interest as exemplified by court decisions in Cohen v. Brown University and Favia v. the Indian University of Pennsylvania. Â  Component 3 of Title IX requires the equivalence of benefits and opportunities including access to rights by women teams, competent officials, quality equipment and facility, among other factors.

Brand Identification Plays In Brand Loyalty and Brand Promotion Essay

Brand Identification Plays In Brand Loyalty and Brand Promotion - Essay Example The paper proposes to review the studies accomplished earlier on this particular area of concern. The earlier studies will include a number of journals articles such as ‘Social Identity Theory and the Organization’ by Ashforth and Mael, ‘Self-Categorization, Affective Commitment, and Group Self-Esteem as Distinct Aspects of Social Identity in the Organization’ by Bergami and Bagozzi. Defining Brand A brand acts as the nucleolus of a company; it helps to strengthen the image of a company in the minds of the consumers. Defining a brand is indeed the first step in the way of creating the brand strategy. By defining the brand, one constructs a foundation on which the rest of the components may later be constructed. The brand definition plays the role of a measuring stick with the help of which, the marketing strategies and materials can be evaluated. Brand defining requires the knowledge of products or services offered by the company, their quality, core values of the products or services, core values of the company, the company’s mission, the company’s expertise, the target market, the company’s tagline and the message it sends to the prospects. A brand in simple words is the term, design, symbol, name or anything that distinguishes one product from that of the other. Branding can be done based on various aspects. A brand is a conglomerate of memories, links, stories, and expectations that have a combined effect on the consumer to help him select a particular product or service in comparison to others available in the market. The consumer can be anybody ranging from a voter to a buyer. "A brand is a company's face to the world. It is the company's name, how that name is visually expressed through a logo, and how that name and logo are extended throughout an organization's communications". There are a number of ways by which branding can be accomplished. The most common of them are corporate branding, individual brandi ng, rebranding, family branding and personal branding. In order to cite an example Dove is an individual branded product from Unilever. While on the other hand IBM, G.E can be cited as the instances of corporate branding. Thus on an overall basis on whatever aspects it might be branding is important for a company. A brand is responsible for influencing the perception of the customers about the company. Consumers reflect the existence of brand value by paying a premium or spreading the word across the social network. The value of a brand is basically the aggregate of the amount consumers are willing to pay extra to buy the products or services of a certain brand while other companies rendering similar services or products cheaper by that amount are accessible to them in the market. DeMozota defined brand as the perceptions which is being determined by experience as well as through communication. Brand is also about developing and delivering the propositions to the consumers. In the m odern business era, brands are enormously focusing upon the betterment of the offering. It also remains focused towards the development of society and also to preserve the environment. However only developing or creating a brand does not mean, it will offer recognition and value to the company. The newly developed brand needs to offer value to the customers in all the aspects.

Pacific Northwest History Essay Example for Free

Pacific Northwest History Essay This paper will present, and ultimately prove that the Pacific Northwest of the United States has undergone economic, racial, environmental, and political changes due to events such as World War II, the emigration of people from the Midwestern U. S. , etc. The Pacific Northwest of the United States has for generations been a land that provided the substances that the rest of the country needed in order to survive and thrive. From the times of the earliest explorers to the region, throughout the 1800s, the economy of this region relied on the production of raw materials and natural products, such as lumber, produce, fresh fish, and the like, leading experts on the area to refer to the Northwest as â€Å"the hinterland† of the U. S. (Schwantes). This economic model changed drastically with the outbreak of World War II, which led to the Northwest becoming a center of aircraft production, shipbuilding, and other industries related to the war effort, but different from the traditional products that came from the region. Forces at work in the Region to Cause or Fuel a Changing Economy Having the luxury of viewing the history of the Pacific Northwest in retrospect over the past century or so, speaking in general terms, there were several major forces at work which ultimately caused, or fueled a changing economy. While these forces are explained in greater detail in subsequent sections of this paper, they warrant identification and a brief explanation at this point to set the stage for the research that follows. In no particular order, the forces that facilitated the changing economy of the Pacific Northwest are as follows: ENVIRONMENTAL- The eventual industrial development of the Northwest changed the environment, depleting many natural resources, such as the timber, precious metals, and fish that helped the people of the Northwest to provide for them and export these natural products worldwide. However, once these resources were exhausted, the region was forced to turn to manufacturing of durable goods to sustain themselves, such as the many products the region turned out in support of the campaigns of World War II. ETHNIC- Events that transpired during the World War II area changed the racial composition of the Pacific Northwest, with its effects being felt even today. To be more specific, when the United States was forced into World War II as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the fighting was focused mostly on the Pacific Ocean area, which made the Northwest highly important logistically for the American troops, and launched a massive war industry, including aircrafts, ships, and soldier supplies. What this industrialization did for the region was to draw people from the rural areas to live in cities, making the region more urban than rural, and likewise attracting minorities from other parts of the nation, changing the ethnic composition of the region as a whole. Additionally, the movement of Americans from the â€Å"dustbowl† of the Midwest to the lush and fertile lands of the Northwest brought new cultures, traditions and hard working people to the region. POLITICAL- Because of the move of many people from a rural to an urban environment, and the increased presence of minorities and the Americans who came from the Midwest, the attitudes and value systems of the region changed, as reflected in voting patterns and political attitudes which now focused on urban issues such as poverty, crime, and social programs, whereas the previous rural way of life focused more on environmental concerns and the like. ECONOMIC- The proliferation of industry in the Pacific Northwest, beginning in the era of World War II, changed the economy from a natural/agricultural one to a largely industrial one. These changes were not all generated from within; rather, they often took place as a result of forces beyond the Northwest. Those forces are identified and discussed in the next portion of the research.