Internal Control Essay Example for Free

Internal Control Essay Question 1 a) Select two companies where inadequate internal control have resulted in disastrous effects on the organisation or exposed it to heavy losses. Research the facts of the failure and report on the facts and the losses suffered. In your report, include suggestions for changes to operations (internal controls) that could have prevented the final outcome. Where could you find a list of these internal controls and how are they documented? Examples of companies include: Coles Myer Ltd and the Yannon affair Barings Bank (1995) AWA Case (1992) Integral Energy (2003) Australian Museum-theft of zoological specimens (2003) Argonaut Resources (2011) Each report should be about no longer than 1 page in length. Two reports required. b) Select two companies that have experienced recent corporate governance failures. Research the facts of the failure and report on the facts and the losses suffered. In your report, give suggestions on the Corporate Governance principles that should be implemented and that could have prevented the failure. Examples of companies include: ABC Learning (2008) Storm Financial (2009) Strathfield (2009) One-Tel HIH Independent Insurance (UK) Commander Communications (2008) EzyDVD (2009) Clive Peters Beechwood Homes Australian Discount Retail (Crazy Clarks’, Go-Lo, Sam’s Warehouse) (2009) Queensland Health Department (2011) Parmalat (Italy) Each report should be about no longer than 1 page in length. Two reports required. Question 2 a) In your own words explain Internal Control within an organisation, and state the major objectives of a system of internal control to management? b) List and briefly explain the five components of an entitys internal control structure. Question 3 a) Define Corporate Governance and its application in the corporate world and discuss the need for Corporate Governance. b) Look up the Annual Reports for two of the following companies and comment on the appearance, structure, content, and usefulness of the Corporate Governance and Sustainability section of the report. How does it meet the current principles of Corporate Governance? Companies include: Banks: ANZ, CBA, NAB, Westpac, Bendigo Resources: BHP, RIO Tinto, Woodside, Santos Financial services: Macquarie Group, Perpetual, QBE Health care: Sonic, Resmed, CSL Retail: Woolworths, Wesfarmers, Metcash, Harvey Norman Property: Centro, Stockland, Westfield Property Trust, WRT Family business: Westfield, Harvey Norman, News Corporation Interesting: Fairfax, James Hardie, Qantas, Telstra Your report should be about no longer than 1 page in length. Two reports required.

Selection and Decision Making in Recruitment Essay Example for Free

Selection and Decision Making in Recruitment Essay For this assignment I am required to produce an information leaflet, for a newly appointed manager, which will describe how to plan for effective selection interviews in order to appoint the perfect individual/s for the job. My chosen organisation is Tesco who conduct different selection processes for different jobs; I will be concentrating on the floor manager of a Tesco store. Newly appointed floor managers for my chosen organisation Tesco will have to plan ahead, communicate effectively and make discuss selection and decision making. One of the main things the manager has to do before the selection process even starts is prior planning, below is what the manager has to do before the interview takes place: The manager of Tesco has to plan prior to the interview; he/she has to select the interview panel. The manager of Tesco can select a supervisor and executive manager for the panel as these people are already working within the store and the manager doesnt have to go and get other human resources from headquarters which waste valuable time. Having a interview panel is effective as it makes sure discrimination against the applicant/s doesnt happen and also the panel can check if the level of techniques such as communicational skills are used throughout all the interviews, it makes sure standards dont slip. Types of interview: The manager has to decide what sort of interview he/she will have to under take, considering in this case the manager is a Tescofloor manager he/she should only consider group interviews if employing staff on a large scale such as floor staff, (shelf stackers, costumer service assistance etc) this will save time as larger number of applicants are interviews quicker, however, having group interview means not all skills of an individual may be known to the manager but this does not matter as much as these applicants are only floor staff. Also one-to-one interviews should be considered because these interviews discover a lot about the applicant as it is only one person and not a group, a one-to-one interview is suitable for a higher ranking job such as assistant manager as more skills are required compared to a shelf stacker. Tescos do not need to  conduct any other types of interviews such as telephone interviews because it is not suitable for the job they advertise. The amount of stages in the interview has to be considered, for Tesco the manager has a choice between singular staged or multiple staged interviews, it is suitable to have a multiple staged interview which Tesco currently do than a one staged interview, more stages means the applicant goes through intense testing and interviews meaning he/she is more likely to be suitable for the job. Doing a singular staged interview doesnt find out all the skills of a person and the wrong person may be selected for the job and also that person may perform bad on that one interview, whereas, having more than one stage means the performance can be averaged which is more fair. However, the more stages in interviews the more time, so, the manager has to consider time as it will take more time for multiple staged interviews. Other selection methods will have to be considered, Tesco currently undertake Psychometric Tests which measure the sensitivity or memory or intelligence or aptitude or personality of the applicant, this should be undertaken by the floor manager of Tescos as most of the staff will need good personality, memory etc for their job as they will be working with costumers. There are also multiple choice questions which are a series of question and usually four possible answers where one answer is correct, this usually finds out the technical knowledge of the applicant of the job. Finally, the manager must consider during the planning equal opportunities, he/she will have to undertake measures to make sure each applicant is treated equally and not discriminated; having an interview panel solves this problem as there is more than one person conducting the interview and less chance of discriminations. Also, a tape recorder can be used so if the applicant protests to the way he/she was treated, the tape can be used as evidence. Communicational Skills The manager has to consider his/hers/interviewers communicational skills; this is a vital role in an interview as it can make the applicant reject the  job due to inappropriate language used. Firstly, the manager has to decide whether to use effective, ineffective or a combination of both questions because asking too many ineffective questions may bore the applicant, whereas, having too many effective questions may make the applicant feel uncomfortable, so, I would recommend to use a combination of both effective and ineffective question so the applicant is neither bored or uncomfortable throughout the interview. As the floor manager will be looking for certain skills from his potential employees, asking various types questions would be ideal to find out the skills, this is an indirect way of knowing the applicants skills and is another way to check the applicant is not lying about his/her skills, a direct way of finding out about the skills is to look at the applicants CV, ask previous employer and/or ask direct questions to the applicant. I would recommend the manager to use various types of questions, below is what the manager should use or tell the interviewer to use during the interview itself: Open questions These are questions without a particular answer and makes the applicant feel less under pressure as its an indirect question, an example of an open question is Why do you want the job? or How do you handle stress?, the advantage of using these types of questions is that it lets the interviewer know the creative side of the applicant and is a way not making the applicant uncomfortable. Closed questions These are basically yes or no questions. They are very direct and I wouldnt recommend the manager to make use of these very much as they make the applicant feel uncomfortable, however, they do find out the relevant information and an example of a closed question is Do you have a criminal record? or Can you work in a group?. Hypothetical/ Situational These are similar types of questions, these are used to see if you would do the right thing during a situations e.g. the interviewer may ask what would you do if you saw someone stealing? this would be an ideal question as this person would be working in Tescos were stealing is quite common and the applicants answer should be something like I would inform security instead of saying something like I would ignore it which would send the wrong message out to the interviewer. The manager has to consider how personal information such as criminal records could be checked; he/she could either directly ask the applicant during the interview, check the applicants CV before the interview and/or check with the criminal records bureau to confirm any spent convictions. The manager of Tescos will also have to make sure the interviewer or himself make use of good body language, this means using the right tone of voice and not being rude, this makes the applicant feel welcomed and feel he/she is an ideal environment rather than in an environment where he/she is under pressure. At the same time the manager has to make sure that the interviewer listens to the applicant, it is always important to ask the applicant if he/she has anything to say rather than ending the interview with a goodbye. Furthermore, the interview is about the applicant not the interviewer, so, the applicant should be speaking more than the interviewer, and about 80% of the interview should be the applicant speaking. Analysis and summarisation of information gathered in the interview is vital as it is needed during short listing candidates, there are several ways in which the interviewer can gather information, firstly via a tape recorder, and this does not waste the interviewers time as he/she doesnt have to write much down. Secondly, the interviewer her/himself can simply use a pen and paper to gather information during the interview, however, this is time consuming and all information may not be accurate and finally, there could be two interviewers, on asking questions and the other gathering and analysing information, this is a good idea as this system also makes sure discrimination doesnt take place.

Cadburys Business Strategy and Human Resources (HR)

Cadburys Business Strategy and Human Resources (HR) 1.1 Access the fit of Cadburys approach to managing its human resources and its business strategies with reference to relevant models of SHRM. The approach in which Cadbury manage its human resources and its business strategies lies in the ability to identify the core competence of their people and use these resources with each individuals capability to create a competitive advantage for the Company to stay ahead among its competitors in the industry. Cadbury Schweppes employs more than 50,000 people and has manufacturing operations in more than 35 countries. It is the worlds third largest soft drinks company and holds either the top or second position in the market share of 24 of the worlds top 50 confectionery markets. This illustrates that this large Quaker company has its value in the market where it is important for HR to manage their employees performances, working culture and management in an efficient and positive way. Resource based model, the SHRM role becomes one of the creating systems and procedures that focus not on external relationships but on how staff and their abilities are used. The resource based model recognizes that many aspects of capability can be formally defined in skill terms and allows the integration of the intangible aspects of work alongside other more visible areas such as patents, trademarks and other intellectual. The core competencies include many things such as aspects change of the management, capability of staff, strategic development capability and speed of response. The RBV of the firm argues that a firms growth (Penrose, 1959) and competitive advantage (Wernerfelt, 1984) are function of the unique bundle of resources that it possess and deploys (Barney, 1991, 1997). Firms acquire critical human resources and then establish HR system to enhance the potential of these human resources that are most difficult to imitate (Paauwe and Boselie, 2002; Jackson et al., 2004) As the business has grown and acquired a wide range of non Cadbury originated businesses the strategy has been adapted to fit the worldwide competitive situation it finds itself in. Cadburys goal is to deliver its superior shareholder performance, just as simple as that Cadbury focused on its shareholders which ranked 26th in the FTSE and they achieved its goal in the year of 2004 by showing the turnover business from  £6,738 million to  £1,115 million for its underlying profit. The success of a best fit model depends on its ability to integrate into the strategic plans of the organization, provide horizontal or vertical integration or the key policy areas. How far organizational objectives will be met is also dependent on the level of fit between the business strategy and the environment at one level, HR strategy and business strategy at a second level and the internal coherence of the policy. Best fit allows organizations to determine whether a hard or a soft approach needs to be taken given the prevailing circumstance and the success of a best fit model depends on its ability to integrate into the strategic plans of the organisation and provide horizontal or vertical integration of the key policy areas. There is no one single perfect SHRM model to be applied in Cadburys and the Company needs to take into consideration the nature of business of the Company, the external environment of the industry and in this case the resource based view and best fit model is more suitable. 1.2 Using your knowledge from Unit 8 and the related information about managing effective change evaluate the organisations approach to change assessing its impact and the role played by SHRM techniques and processes? It is important for Cadbury to use its SHRM techniques and processes to manage effective change and evaluate the impact by helping the company in establishing or executing various strategies, provide alternative insights. HR requires people management skills but also in depth understanding of the current situation of the Company and provide value creating proposition accordingly. The HR departments strategies, policies and activities must support and align with the companys corporate and competitive strategies. The strategies of Cadbury for managing their peoples value is to aim to increase employee understanding on how company be profitable and make sure employees in the company is result oriented focused. Cadbury can carry out employees surveys and use the feedback obtained to make necessary future strategy planning. Any sort of feedback -negative or positive feedback makes huge impact in the company as HR can use this to address people management issues. Any discovery of dissatisfaction can be used to minimize existing conflict and personality or culture clash happened in the company. Furthermore, the top management formulates its strategy by supplying competitive intelligence that may be useful in the strategic planning process, supplying information regarding the companys internal human strengths and weakness by conducting employee survey, feedback regionally. By doing such, HR builds a persuasive case that show how the HR can implement several strategies that can be evaluated in a mea surable terms and contribute in creating value for the company. After the merger, there is another group of employees joining the Company with different age (gap) and technology skills which plays a huge part of their working responsibility daily no matter in operations or communications area thus, there will be an internal restructuring and consolidation of workforce to be carried out. With the given transition period after the merger, and the increasingly competitive market and the continuous evolution of technology together with the different generation who may have joined the Company (Gen Y and Gen Z or NetGen), therefore HR can be able to implement workplace training to address to skill gap between employees. These trainings must also be evaluated accordingly by doing a pre training evaluation of performance and post training evaluation. It is important to ensure that the focus of the evaluation is to analyse the performance of employees as well as providing information on how to manage the different categories of people and improve on their performance .A systematic training literature indicates which techniques might be the best for which behaviour in which situation. Changes in job as new technologies develop can have similar effects and more effective training programs can also affect other systems in the work organization. For example, when a employee in C adbury change his or her current position into new position as a result of a career change or promotion, they need to enter into training program. It is important for them to understand the effects of training experiences as part of the organisation. Merger and Acquisition in Cadbury Schweppes shows difference its difference before and after the merging with Schweppes (a.k.a Cadbury Schweppes) is that they managed to show the people how strong both the company and they are worth 4.2 billion after the merging with their new HR director, Andrew Gibson whom was promoted for Cadbury Schweppes for GB and Ireland to drive the company further as HR isnt usual. Managing for Value was invented in year 1977, which this is a programme that employees have to go through on a five-day training course that linked their work to those goals. Cadburys HR director Andrew Gibson practice the use of the 3As which include Accountable, Adaptable and Aggressive which in this context is about being results-focused and tenacious. Results-focused is certainly something every Cadbury Schweppes employee has to be according to Gibson. However, HR have to ask several question such as how has the programme able to show measurable result and overall impact for the Company and whether the programmes reflect on current issues or interest that applies to their work? The impact can be measured through designing a performance management system with quantifiable elements as the staffs key performance index (KPI). Different reward system (monetary and non monetary) can be designed to motivate the staffs further and retain the overachievers in the Company. Managing the people for their value added is extremely important for HR to consider in every level in the business such as their employees have the freedom to do what is right, bottom up their initiatives where staffs can recommend to management their ideas either locally or globally. With this merging, Cadbury had gained their competitive advantages and also in the same time improved and maximize the companys resources as the company went through a major reorganization, moving to a more decentralized way of operating business units within a new structure. In order to reinforce that message of value added for the people, Cadbury Schweppes has two share schemes, ShareSave that has been operating since 1974 and the companys share worth having for Cadburys employee. The impact can be accessed through analyzing the overall staff turnover of the Company and also conduct a staff satisfaction survey relating it to their performance results. Working Better Together is a framework designed by their HR director himself, Andrew Gibson is to encourage employees to undertake in order to work more collaboratively than they were used to a more decentralised business structure both company have different working culture after merged. Cadbury Schweppes have some tough managers who would usually only talk about hard nose financial results where they focus on behaviour and unlocking the potential of people at different levels of the business had really paid dividends. The impact can be measured by the overall team performance and the reduction in conflict or people issues. Passion for People was introduced for directors to look closely of their peoples managing performance and also their skills of enhancement. Adding to the impression that the people who work there with full satisfaction, Gibson reveals that the climate survey (staff attitude survey) where the employees said they understood the businesss purpose and values and its local priorities, were proud to work for the company and felt part of team. Cadbury is successful because their HR are able to unlock employees potential and they focused on their strength and implement the growth of people within the organisation. Both companies has different cultures and it is important for HR to develop a similar benefits in the company for the peoples consideration to get used to the culture of the business and the nature of the way may undertake change. The result of those implemented programme by HR of Cadbury, showed that training and communication among employees and management is important in order to get the ball rolling within the company and also the business regionally. 1.3 From your knowledge of the course how does the HR Function seem to be supporting the Business Strategy at Cadburys? In general how can HR best support an organisations going through change? HR function important in organisation to help them formally evaluate the effectiveness of the performances within the Company. HR seems to be supporting the Business Strategy in Cadbury by bringing in Bob Stack as the companys HR director whom has being so geared towards companys dividends such as bringing more shareholders and create a positive working environment among their employees. After the merging, Cadburys business indeed been through a huge amount of change as the acquisitions of confectioners Trebor Bassett and Adams which at $4.2 billion, the purchase of Adams in 2003 was the biggest acquisition Cadbury Schweppes has made. HR function is often linked between HR department and business such as developing people, bringing out talent, supporting the organisational strategy and being guideline to the people in the Company. System value like communication, training and development should be carry out in HR function too. The changing business environment could bring employees some uncertainty towards the organisations such work is becoming unsecure, the notion of organisational boundaries is sometimes less clear, employees long term relationships with organisations could stopped due to redeveloping access in between. The change process in organisational need to make sense for the management and employees which involve communication between people of more understanding the objective and how change can be achieved. The main areas under HR function are Recruitment and Selection, Training and Development, Industrial Relation / Employee Relation, Compensation and Benefit, Health and Safety. Under Recruitment and Selection stage, it show how effective will HR be in planning decision such as what are the recruitment planning, career planning, succession and workforce planning of staff where they will be given chance to expand their skills or ability within the Company freely. Staff selection should be integrated as the main key task for the organisation as a whole while HR department do the selection. Training and Development is also required whether it is foundation or introduction planning for new entry level staffs, professional development for executives, leadership and management training for managers and HOD in order for the people to improve and grow together with the Company. Industrial Relation / Employee Relation reflect on areas for employees assessment such as teamwork, mentoring, communication between people within an organisation. Compensation and Benefit stage is where the staffs need to know what are the equitable of themselves such as promotion, rewards, insurance, employees deduction of funds and etc. Lastly but not least, Health and Safety is being considered because the employees need to have sort of security during working hours in case if any accident might happen and the Company will have the responsibility to take care of it. In general, HR department is like a consultant of the Company where they assist people to solve their problems or difficulty working among colleagues, provide guidance, explaining or create ruling (SOP) in line with the labour laws and human rights to support organisation which is also called as HR Chain Management. Section B Question 2 What is the value to organisations in creating a learning organisational culture? How can organisations work towards creating this culture through its HRM/HRD Strategies? The value and the importance of an organization in creating a learning organisational culture is to encourage the interaction and friendship between the families in the company. Skills training programme and also advanced system that can simplify work yet promoting a happy workplace is the criteria that HRM/HRD (Human Resource Management / Human Resource Development) should consider in order to help staffs maintain a healthy balance between work and their personal life as we know we spent most of our time in workplace from 9am-6pm (average 8 hours per day). A company should be enriched by the staffs creativity, brilliant ideas and initiative in order to grow or move forward thus, taking care of their needs and potential has to discover and what matters is the quality of staffs work, results together with their passion that is always noted and rewarded by the company. Organisational culture can be reflected in person related objectives and bring in the cultural change or culture reinf orcement. For example, the HR department in an organisations will need to work closely with Corporate Culture department on how to bring their staffs together as one family such as setting up activities that are designed to build their characteristic and leadership skills by understanding their job more in various area. Culture is a set of shared meanings that influence or determine behaviour on how decision are taken care of, how rules are made, what and what information is being shared. All these elements can also prescribed by organisations in term of say their mission statements or in the informal ways, individuals and groups develop ways of thinking about working behaviour and these is an attitude that grows over time in response to organisational events. By creating a healthy culture, an HR must consider few things such as the structural control within the Company, co-ordination and job design can be influenced thoroughly thus standardisation of jobs or flexibility of job (free thinking), formalisation of communication channels and flows, division of labour between departments or teams, term and conditions and the degree of rules and also the ability to work beyond contract. The dimension of HRM in managing cultural behaviour according to strategic aspects will be discuss as follows:- What are the key to organisational relations (customer service)?, create initiatives for integrated strategic change, fast speed of making decisions, transformational leadership working to bring positive change, facilitation or prized management skills involving employee support and encouragement to employees. Teamwork and communication is always important in working culture especially it need to be handled through managing culture and being harmonised with overall business strategy objectives. Question 4 To what extent can performance management systems stand alone from an organisations overall approach to developing and managing people? How can organisations integrate the performance and developmental aspects of managing people? Use case examples to illustrate your answer. Performance Management Systems (PMS)., Bevan Thompson (1992) is a set of techniques and procedure on how to improve an organisation performance such as how to communicate the vision of an organisations objectives to the employees, providing departmental or business unit and individual performance targets that are drawn from the wider organisational objectives or a formal review process of how the objectives have been met. A fully integrated PMS (objective setting, review process and linked development and review system) provides the basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the whole performances process in providing enhanced organisational performance. As case examples, AirAsia Bhd is a low cost carrier or budget airline in Southeast Asia and they still a growing airline for 8 years now but yet theyve started to implement the 360 degrees of performance appraisal among its employee so that the company can know well as well as provide its employees with unparalleled opportunities for career development and to achieve a multi-skilled workforce which a lot more other established company has not practise this 360 degrees appraisal program. The role of HR under PMS is to consult and formulate its schemes in consultation with line of managers and staff, monitor and evaluate PMS based on stakeholder use on what are the outcomes and process effectiveness, review organisational capability as a result of PMS and design policy action in HRD and recruitment. PMS distinguishing in an organisation is seen as a series of steps linked to an overall business strategy such setting objectives, on going review on the objectives, development of personal improvement plans, formal appraisal with feedback, a competence based organisational capability review and pay review for result oriented. In this world of business today, managing people could be tough and challenging especially in a huge organisations where there are employees from different countries, different culture and also the language barriers. The features that can make up PMS as a series of steps linked to an overall business strategy as follows: Figure 1: Features of a Performance Management System As illustrated in Figure 1:Features of a Performance Management System, a performance management system has six (6) distinguished features, namely: i) Objective setting this would be the area where long term objectives would be set for the employee and are normally stated in a formal Key Performance Indicator/Index (KPI) and is normally set by the immediate manager or by the management team. ii) Ongoing review of objectives this would be the area where KPIs are reviewed periodically either every 3 months or quarterly to ensure that the employee would be able to meet the said long term objectives. iii) The development of personal improvement plans linked to training and development this area is to ascertain the targeted development that the employees wish to go through and to allow personal development to takes place to help improve productivity of the employee. iv) Formal appraisal with feedback this area is to review the progress of the employee against personal skills development and personal experimentation in trying out new tutoring systems or skills. Also to ascertain the level of self improvement the employee had managed to gain throughout the period of the objective setting. v) Pay review this area would allow the management to see how best fit the employee would be rewarded for the effort that they had shown over the period of the appraisal. vi) A competence-based organisational capability review this area would be more to organisational strategies where the organisation would be able to place resources where they are more suitable to able productivity to be increased. Learning and Development objectives should also be measured in order to contributes to better productivity, improved job performance and eventually a high performance culture. LD objectives is bring employees in an organisation to link directly with the skills and core competence requirements of the business and help to achieve organisational development goals. All these include how the employees behaviour in term of the job is being carryout, positive teamwork attitude or communication among colleagues or customers. Thus, HR department is responsible to emphasize on quality behavioural factors of the people, differentiation of individual performance (resource based view), increase bottom line (profit/cost) prioritisation to be fed down to each employee and get to understand the importance of communicating with employees themselves that can align their behaviour and attitudes. The concern to improve individuals potential in their workplace is necessary for HR because the future of th e organisations will become more dependent on the people and their ability will effectively help the company grow stronger. Despite of providing external training, staffs within the organisation can often have swapping lesson where opportunities is opened for self directed learning experiences from different colleague, different field. As for conclusion, the organisational culture will be influenced by the decisions taken by PMS on matter such as the relationship the relationship of dependence or interdependence formed by managers and employees and how this influences change through the design and delivery of the scheme. References Irwing L.Goldstein K.Kevin Ford., Training in Organisations (Fourth Edition), 2002. Derek Torrington, Laura Hall Stephen Taylor., Human Resource Management. Strategic Management of Human Resources,. University of Sunderland BA (Honours) Business Management, Version 3.0, Unit 1 Definition and Purpose of SHRM., pp.13-22. Strategic Management of Human Resources,. University of Sunderland BA (Honours) Business Management, Version 3.0, Unit 8 Managing Change: Culture and Performance., pp. Managing Human Resource Capabilities for Sustainable Competitive Advantage www.emeraldinsight.com/reseachregister The Strategic Managing of Human Resources., John Leopold, Lynette Harris Tony Watson, 2004.

Dickinson vs Whitman Essay -- essays papers

Dickinson vs Whitman Two Poets, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are probably two of the most influential people in American poetry. They are regarded as the founders modern American poetry. Walt Whitman (1819-1892), for the time was breaking new ground with his diverse, energetic verse with regards to subject matter, form and style whether talking about overlooked objects in nature such as a single blade of grass or even our own hearing. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) while living a life of seclusion, never really leaving her birthplace, was very adventurous internally. She was well read in English literature, often deeply exploring her own thoughts. While Dickinson and Whitman are referred to as the founders of modern American poetry, they are strikingly different. While Whitman’s poems are large and expansive, the lines long and visually descriptive, Dickinson’s works, in contrast, are highly compressed, squeezing moments of intense emotions and thought into tight four line stanzas whi ch contract feeling and condense thought. If one was to compare Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn...

Reiki Therapy Essay -- Research Japanese Papers

Reiki Therapy The History of Reiki According to the Reiki Holistic Healing at Christal Center web page, the word â€Å"Reiki† is defined as the Japanese word for â€Å"universal energy†. Reiki therapy is a â€Å"laying on of hands† by a therapist who has studied Reiki, and therefore has enabled him/herself to provide a channel of healing energy for their clients. Although Dr. Makao Usui, a Christian monk, is credited with rediscovering Reiki therapy in Japan during the 1800’s, believers say this therapy dates all the way back to when Jesus healed others through his touch thousands of years ago (http://www.cwizard.com/christal/reiki.htm). Wade Ryan (a Reiki Master) claims in his web page on facts about Reiki that this is not a religion, but that the spiritual energy received by clients often leads to an expansion of one’s own personal faith (http://www.freeyellow.com/members/Reiki/page1.html). â€Å"The Three Reikis† (http://www.freeyellow.com/members/Reiki/page2.html) explains that about five years ago distinctions for three forms of Reiki were recognized. The three forms are Usui Reiki, Vajra Reiki, and Karuna Reiki. Usui Reiki is the traditional form of Reiki rediscovered by Dr. Usui. Usui Reiki is noted for being a very gentle therapy, and therefore appropriate for adults and children seeking to maintain their good health, for providing energy to those who are lacking it due to illness or treatment, and also for the elderly. During Usui Reiki, the Practitioner’s Hand Positions are centered mainly on the head or torso. Although most Practitioners are satisfied with Usui Reiki Ability, those who are interested in a wider range of Healing Energy (i.e. caregivers of the extremely ill) would be more interested in Vajra R... ... very few studies out on this topic, and those that are out seem to disagree with each other; some are in favor of the benefits of Reiki, and some claim that these benefits only exist because of psychological reasons or don’t exist at all. Although Reiki is an ancient practice, it is just beginning to become popular in modern medicine. We can expect more and more research to be published in the near future as more studies are conducted and completed. Bibliography Green, CA (1998). Reflection of a therapeutic touch experience: case study 2. Complementary Therapies in Nursing & Midwifery, 4(1), 17-21. Samarel, N. (1997). Therapeutic touch, dialogue, and women's experiences in breast cancer surgery. Holistic Nursing Practice, 12(1), 62-70. Thornton, Lucia Marie (1993). Effects of energetic healing on female nursing students. MAI, 31/01, 284.

Anxiety Disorders :: Psychology Essays

Anxiety Disorders As I got close to the Embassy Suites, where Lincoln Financial Group was holding their interviews, I felt myself get tense. "What if people are in the lobby and they see me in jeans? Would that make a bad impression?" After a long debate with myself, I decided that it was nearly midnight and that people would not be awake. I walked into the lobby, got my room key and went up. We all had our own suite so it was clear that Lincoln had some money to spend. As I tried to fall asleep, I became more and more restless. I began thinking about all the things that could go wrong. I couldn't sleep. 3am rolled around. Then 6am. At 7am I got up, showered, put my suit on and walked out of the room. I immediately turned around because I realized that I had forgotten my name tag. As I tried to open the door with the plastic key, I realized I was trembling so bad that I could not get the stupid key in the door. I finally managed to enter the room and get my name tag and I proceeded to stab my finger with the safety pin of the tag. The pin kept slipping because my palms were sweaty. I took a deep breath, cleaned myself, cursed myself for being clumsy, and went downstairs to eat. The elevator doors opened and I saw over 150 people in the lobby. I nearly fainted. I felt like my lungs would not expand and for a second everything went black. I quickly walked over to the bathroom and slapped myself a couple of times. Splashing cold water on my face would have been out of the question given that I was wearing mascara. I asked myself to get a grip (several times) and walk out of the bathroom. I was so nervous that I hung my head and walked over to the food hoping to avoid any eye contact. I looked at the food and I wanted to eat because I was hungry, but my nausea got in the way. I finally had to look up and then I saw the rest of the name tags. "OH MY GOD!" Cornell, University of Penn., Princeton, Yale, Columbia. I wanted to start crying but there were too many people around. I thought "you might as well go home.

Gender and subject choice Essay

To carry out these interviews, I would take a sample of 20 sixth-formers, preferably within my own sixth-form to allow easier, speedier access and consisting equally of both males and females. In order to do this I would use quota sampling, this is a way in which variables can be controlled and the participants with similar characteristics are chosen, hence the overall sample can reflect the characteristics of the population as a whole. These samples would also preferably include students that had chosen to study any of the sciences, however particularly focusing on Biology. This sample would also take into account ethnic and class differences in order to allow me to differentiate between males and females according to different variables, providing sufficient extra data to measure gender against class roles and the intersections. Whilst this will provide qualitative clues as to subject choices by gender it will be limited in illustrating the impact of the learning environment and gender roles, as this would demand more ‘qualitative analysis’ such as that of Anne Colleys’. However, I would expect the results to be generalisable to a wider population. I will anchor these questions in previous research such as that of Anne Colley. Within the interviews, I am going to focus on Biology in particular when asking about the science/favourite subjects, etc. My reasons for doing this arise from the evidence that Science at GCSE level is more popular with males whereas at A-level it is more commonly chosen by females. I would begin the interviews with a number of open-ended questions, so as to give the participant a chance to provide me with worthy feedback, eg. â€Å"Why did you choose Biology? â€Å", and â€Å"What did you think of it ?(in comparison to GCSE level), etc. I would record the answers to these open questions as it would be time-consuming to write down many long answers, etc. This would enable me to extract a varied viewpoint on many different students perspectives of subject choice and preference. Then I would ask a series of closed-ended questions which will generally be more appropriate to achieve a table of results for clear comparisons to be made. These closed-ended questions would include similar questions to: â€Å"Do you think Biology is a girls subject?† and â€Å"Do you think Physics is a boys subject? â€Å", etc. Questions would be piloted on a small group of males and females to ensure its adequacy. This is in fact a small-scale preliminary study which will allow me to check that things will run smoothly during the interviews and also allow improvements to be made to the design of the research, should there be any faults. (471 words) Potential Problems As this is a such a small piece of research, it would a problem to generalise from it, especially to schools and pupils different from the sample, eg.ethnic minorities, private education, etc. It would give an idea of the reasons in which a particular small group of students chose their ‘A’ level subjects and their own individual reasons for doing so. However it could give a fair impression of reasons for subject choice in other cases, eg. similar circumstances to other pupils studying the same subjects etc. The usage of quota sampling does have both theoretical and practical drawbacks in some circumstances. It isn’t truly random as each person within the population doesn’t have an equal chance of being chosen. The lack of this genuine randomness may have a significant effect on the results. For example, the quota sample within my study would be only those illustrated on the biology class register, however the results may have more of an impact if a quota sample had been taken from all those who achieved a high grade at GCSE biology and were in fact considering going on to study it at a higher level, etc. There is of course, with my research an interviewer bias. As my opinions on the topic are set by doing the research, participants may be influenced by my asking of the questions and will therefore respond by giving a respectable answer as they may find the real truth embarrassing, eg. â€Å"I fancied a lad who was taking the course†. However I am similar in status to my chosen sample group, therefore they may wish to impress or please me by giving me answers that they think I ‘want’ to hear. Another problem may be the reliability of the interviewees memory, they aren’t currently making their choice and might not remember their thoughts on it at the time. Also during interviews, a crucial factor as a way of achieving a reliable outcome of the research is to not put ideas into the students head before having asked open-ended questions. For example, closed-ended questions especially may put forward ideas that weren’t there before and therefore mislead me about ‘their’ thoughts on the matter, etc.