ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Abstract McDonald’s uses employees to create a good picture in the minds of employees, stakeholders, and external customers. This is because they determine the profitability and financial stability of the organization. The organization cannot operate without their support and commitment. The employers have to sustain and monitor the image created in the minds of employees, shareholders, and customers to ensure profitability that arises from building of true commitment, self-actualization, pride, and belongingness in true spirit and words. This paper utilized the use of quantitative research methods that involved the use of quantitative data to justify the objectives of the study. The quantitative data about the company was obtained from secondary sources of the company and included the company’s financial data that were obtained from newspapers, reports, magazines, books and journal articles among others. The targeted population was the entire of McDonalds. The collected data was chosen through convenient sampling technique that proved vital in this report as compared to other sampling methods like stratified sampling. The collected data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Qualitative analysis involved descriptive statistics and explanations on the company’s performance regarding its products. Quantitative analysis involved use of statistics to justify the performance of the firm. The overall outcome pointed out that the introduction of McJobs affected the image of McDonald’s as the term associated with low paying jobs, low prestige, job with no future, and low benefits in the retail or service sector. McDonald’s had to take action immediately to prevent bad image. Introducing Kroc McDonald’s founded McDonald’s in 1955. McDonald’s is one the largest chains of fast food in the world offering the world’s favorite foods that include Big Mac, French Fries, Chicken McNuggets, Quarter Pounder, and Egg McMuffin. Its headquarters are at Oak Brook in Illinois. The restaurant chain has approximately 31,967 restaurants in 118 countries. The business serves more than 58 million customers globally recording about the United States $ 23.5 billion (Gould, 2010). McDonald’s offers flexible schedules to help employees balance work and personal life. The business offers training and development programs to create opportunities for employees to acquire promotions and develop their careers (Qumer, 2009). According to Punjaisri, Wilson and Evanschitzky (2008), the fast food retail stores and restaurants is associated with low paying jobs from the 1980s. Due to this, the term ‘McJobs’ was introduced meaning low benefit, low prestige, and no future job in the service sector. The term ‘McJobs’ targeted McDonalds because regulations on employees were strict and required semi-skilled workers. The popularity of the term led to its introduction in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in 2001 and Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary in 2003. McDonald’s needed to acquire talented employees to improve performance but could not attract them
Early childhood is an essential stage of a child’s development. Children aged 3 through 5 learn a wide range of physical, cognitive, social, and emotional skills. Play is an important process through which children learn and should be used in instruction. Children aged 3-5 experience rapid physical development. Younger children usually cannot move purposefully; at the age of 3-5, they learn to walk smoothly and hold their balance. They develop “the locomotor movement of running, jumping, and leaping, or the manipulative movements of throwing, catching, kicking, and trapping” (Spodek & Saracho, 2013, pp. 106-107). Instruction should help children develop these skills. Children also grow physically; large muscles (e.g., in arms and legs) develop before small ones (e.g., in fingers); the body develops from top to down. As for cognitive development, 3-5-year-olds absorb vast amounts of information and attempt to make sense of the surrounding world. This accompanies the rapid development of the brain. At this age, children also quickly learn to use language. While at the age of two children are only able to produce short sentences (2-4 words) with the subject and predicate, these sentences become much more complicated by the age of 5. By this age, children will usually have learned approximately 10,000 words. Thus, one of the important focuses of teaching preschoolers is language instruction. At the age of 3 through 5, children develop a concept of themselves; they learn to describe themselves using different characteristics, but do not yet form a complete self-portrait. Preschoolers develop new social skills; they play with peers and engage in stable friendships. They can describe the reasons why they like their friends (Spodek & Saracho, 2013, p. 24). This develops into even stronger relationships later (Lerner, Bornstein, & Leventhal, 2015, pp. 186-188). Teachers may find it useful to help children engage in social interactions. As for emotional development, babies can experience only the simplest emotions such as anger, fear, etc., whereas with time their spectrum of emotions increases rapidly. 2-year-olds can feel sympathy towards others, can love and be responsive, etc.; 3-year-olds can show affection for their siblings and attachment to their friends (Neaum, 2010). Children aged 4 to 5 start reflecting on emotions and paying attention to controlling them to comply with various social expectations. It is useful to help children learn to control their emotions; the developing emotional needs need to be taken into account in instruction. Play is crucial to a child’s development. When children participate in active physical games, it provides them with data and examples on which to build their new motor skills. Pretend play helps build cognitive and social skills, and might “constitute a bridge between the social world and the more individualistic experience of cognitive skills” (Spodek & Saracho, 2013, p. 10). The stage of a child’s development affects the complexity of games they can play, whereas the play allows a child to master various skills and behaviors which are required for tran
Headquarters of Nike is located in Beaverton, Oregon within the Portland metropolitan area. This corporation established in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. Several years later, in 1978 the company transformed its business name to Nike, Inc. This name comes from Greek language; it belongs to ancient Greek goddess of victory. The company was initially established as an importer of Japanese shoes. Eventually, it has expanded into the leading global marketer of footwear with a world market share of about 37%. The company has about 22,000 retail stores spread throughout the United States where it sells its merchandise. The company markets its goods under its brands Plus, Nike Golf, and Nike Pro. The company has a number of well-known subsidiaries such as the Converse and Umbro. Nike’s major business endeavor is the designing, development, and global marketing of high-quality footwear, equipment, apparel, together with accessory products. Nike is the giant distributor of athletic footwear and athletic apparel all over the globe. The company is spread in one hundred and eight countries where it markets its finished goods. Virtually, independent contractors manufacture all the goods or products belonging to Nike, Inc. Almost all the apparel and footwear products are produced outside the United States of America. This paper focuses on the kind of market structure that Nike, Inc. belongs to, the price elasticity of its demands, the price elasticity of its products, the company’s closest competitors, the substitutes or subsidiaries of Nike, Inc. products, the growth in the demand for its products, the company’s labor force, level of profitability, and how Nike, Inc. can improve its profitability. Nike, Inc. Market structure Every corporation operates under a particular market structure. There are various kinds of market structures. They include monopoly, oligopoly, and duopoly market structures. This segment explores the type of market structure Nike, Inc. belongs to. To commence with, Nike, Inc. is a classic case of an oligopolistic market. This kind of market structure has a few suppliers who dominate it. The small number of the leading firms accounts for the greater percentage of the market share. Under this kind of arrangement, there is an extremely increased level of market concentration. Going by the established economic dogmas and precepts, the top five companies usually account for about 60% of all the sales within an oligopolistic market organization. In the world’s market for sports apparel, Adidas, and Nike, Inc. hold 60% of the market share. Lately, the athletic footwear and garment industry have become more consolidated. As a result, the leading competitors of Nike, Inc. namely, Adidas and Reebok merged in 2006. This merger increased the market share of the two firms since both companies had a significant prop
Introduction This paper is about a group/family article focusing on summarizing as well as critiquing of a social work article describing practice with a small group or family. The article of choice in this case is using social justice group work with young mothers who experience homelessness authored by Coker, Meyer, Smith and Price in 2010. The choice of the article was based on the fact that it is practice-oriented and focuses on showing how the worker used group or family practice theory to help client system. The authors of the article, using social justice group work with young mothers who experience homelessness, address the problem of lack of shelter among children and women. Ideally, the critique focuses on identifying various features addressed in the article alongside and appraisal of the article with respect to two or three lessons from the article. Characteristics of the group or family discussed In the article, the authors focus on discussing the facilitation of social justice principles in group work. The group discussed in the article was started for the purpose of assisting residents address the problem of homelessness especially in aspects of parenting and during pregnancy periods (Coker, Meyer, Smith, & Price, 2010). The article discusses two groups each comprising of six members. However, health reasons cost one of the members of the first group. The group members were Blacks, Indians and Whites and aged between 17 and 24 years. All the members shared similar experiences about episodic homelessness and all but one, had not been counselled or
Abu Dhabi Municipality Abu Dhabi Municipality is a United Arab Emirates based company. The company is well-known for providing services to the public. It offers services such as construction permits, customer service, urban planning and legal affairs and real estate management among others (Municipality of Abu Dhabi City, 2012). The main goal of the company is to deliver high quality and sustainable service for all residents of the city. Abu Dhabi’s Knowledge acquisition and collection technique Harrington and Voehl (2007) say that information is found at any place in the organization. Thus, it is the role of the organization, through Knowledge Officers to determine the mode of collection and use of the information. Harrington and Voehl (2007) cite that an organization can acquire knowledge from various sources. Some of these sources are individual’s creative ideas, observation and the internet among others. The Abu Dhabi Municipality relies on knowledge banks to acquire new knowledge. Mostly, it uses libraries and the internet as the source of acquiring new knowledge. Similarly, the company has established brainstorming sessions. This approach allows workers to meet and share ideas. Strategies such as brainstorming sessions, libraries and the internet has enabled Abu Dhabi Municipality to collect and add more knowledge to its knowledge bank. Other than the methods mentioned above, the company uses action reviews and customer surveys to acquire new knowledge. Knowledge storage and Integrity of Knowledge Repository Leask et al (2008) cite that knowledge repositories provide the company with effective platform where knowledge acquired is stored. A repository simplifies storage and retrieval of information on business intelligence (Leask et al., 2008). Abu Dhabi Municipality manages its own informatin by owning a knowledge warehouse. The knowledge warehouse serves as the storage medium for qualitative knowledge generated from various sources (Municipality of Abu Dhabi City, 2012). Similarly, the knowledge warehouse helps the company extract captured information from different business applications (Municipality of Abu Dhabi City, 2012). The knowledge warehouse also sorts the information stored to facilitate decision making. Abu Dhabi Knowledge Dissemination Strategy Ruggles (1997) points out that knowledge dissemination is the process where knowledge collected is directed towards creating an action in the organization. Information dissem
The effects of the Tobin tax on the direct and indirect financial intermediation Tobin tax is a type of taxation that is commonly used to restrain speculative trading in order to raise revenues. The European Union has suggested the inclusion of a financial transaction tax in their countries. However, this is faced with opposition from fifteen countries, including the United Kingdom. The tax has both negative and positive outcomes. If implemented, the tax will play a major role in ensuring there is fiscal consolidation without having any direct impact on the economy. In addition, the tax can enhance long-term investing, hence contributing to the market constancy (Reisen 1). On the other hand, financial services would not be exempted from any value-added tax, thus making sure there is a reduction in a competitive business. However, the Tobin tax would have a huge negative impact on the UK financial services. The reason is that the commission has put it clear that the financial transaction tax will not only be implemented to financial institutions that are within the FTT region. It will also be applied outside the FTT region in case the transaction is carried out with a counterpart, which headquarter is in the region (Reisen 1). In addition, financial investors are more likely to be affected by the tax. For example, invested vehicles that require constant trading will suffer from the highest tax strain. The ability to hedge risks The implementation of an FTT would lead to increased hedging risks and costs. The reason is that whenever an investor involves in a project using foreign currency, he/she/company is faced with an exchange rate risk. With the Tobin style of taxation, investors would be unwilling to sell their risks. Therefore, hedging will create insufficient risk allocation. Moreover, tax on derivatives will make it very expensive to hedge against any risk. Effects on global bond, equity, and derivatives markets Global bonds, equity, and derivatives markets will be negatively affected. MMFs will be required to incur tax on secondary markets since there may be an increase in operational costs. There will be a huge effect of FTT on money market funds. Investors who contribute to funds will be forced to pay double taxes (Food 1). The first way they will be paying tax will be through selling and buying units of a fund. The second way will be when the fund sells or buys securities that it uses to invest. What the tax might mean for you? The Tobin tax will mean a lot to me. According to my understanding, the Tobin tax makes those who are targeted by it more likely to avoid the levy. Small businesses will be left behind struggling. The likelihood of people losing jobs will increase. The financial trading will go up since banks will be trying to recapture the cost of doing business. An increase in the cost of doing business leads to losses in a business. A business will be forced to cut the cost through job losses. The main impact would be on small businesses. Will it affect the US? To
Introduction Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is an independent regulatory body that seeks to promote high-quality corporate governance on proper reporting and investment. The FRC is structured to have board members, senior personnel, and a reviewing panel. The FRC has several benefits that are useful for accounting entities in the aspect of keeping uniformity and fair reporting. The council is mandated to formulate, issue and revise accounting policies that govern the reporting of financial statements. They also ensure all stipulated policies are fully adhered to. All this is done to safeguard the public financial governance and also to keep the same reporting framework across the globe. The council has to observe objectivity, integrity, and independence while undertaking its mandate. This is of key importance since it should not be compromised in various objectives. Structure of Financial Reporting Council FRC is a limited guarantee corporation that is partially funded by the government, industry, and the board. The board is appointed by the secretary of state business, innovation, and skills. They play a critical role in overseeing and developing the standards of the accounting industry (Fleming 37). The codes and standards committee offers advice to the FRC board on issues of systems, setting standards, and policy issues. On the other hand, the conduct committee offers advice on matters about behavior involved in the daily activities of the reporting. All these are in essence to foster high-quality reporting. Such high-quality factors include monitoring, overseeing, investigation, and discipline matters (Yaffey 27). The monitoring committee, which is under the conduct committee, is composed of the financial reporting review panel while the case management committee consists of a tribunal. Additionally, according to the former structure, the FRC incorporated six bodies that were the Accounting Standards Board, Financial Reporting Review Panel
The Problem Discussed in the Article and Formulated Hypothesis The Article Used to Answer Questions: Laiho, Tiina, “Gender and personality in a transformational leadership context.” Leadership & Organization Development Journal , Vol. 34, no. 1, 2013, pp. 44 – 66. From the onset, the article presents a problem, which concerns leadership and the impact of gender. The article argues that while several scholars have researched transformational leadership and its benefits, few of them have delved into the impact that gender has on facilitating the leadership styles. According to Laiho, gender plays a role in defining the style of leadership that an individual employs to lead an organization (45). Therefore, having few scholars delve into the issue is a problem that the article presents. From the study of the article, it is clear that the author elucidates the cornerstones associated with the problem that many scholars have avoided. In effect, the author of the article clarifies that only one of the scholars recently introduced a study on women and on how they execute transformational leadership. By indicating that only one scholar introduced the study recently, the article tries to compound its argument that the limited studies on gender and transformational leadership are a problem that requires timely intervention. The hypothesis that plays out from the article is one that focuses on the impact of gender on personality and leadership styles. Remarkably, the article tries to ascertain whether gender plays a role in determining the type of leadership that an individual uses as well as establishing whether personality is reliant on a person’s gender. All through the article, the theories used and the data collected focus on whether gender should be a matter of consideration about leadership. From the article, it is clear that the leadership style that dominates is transformational leadership and the author tries to check on the relationship that it has with the concept of gender. To coin its hypothesis the article presents questions that guide the research. It is practical to explain that the questions presented by the article confirm the hypothesis because they revolve around gender and its impact on leadership and personality. Need for Study and Methodology The article is essential in modern societies. Stakeholders who are either managing contemporary organizations as well as those who want to champion effective leadership styles find the article ver
Research topics can be analyzed using different methods which can be separated into two major categories – qualitative and quantitative. Studies that use a quantitative approach rely on calculations to prove or disprove a proposed hypothesis. Thus, the choice to apply this methodology for a topic has to be founded on the necessity to show specific numbers and their correlation. On the other hand, if the chosen approach does not fit the study, some adverse outcomes may follow. The discussed studies investigate the topic of anxiety in children. The first article deals with concentrations of plasma oxytocin and cerebrospinal fluid and their connection to children’s anxiety levels. The second one explores the correlation among attention, behavioral inhibition, and social anxiety. Both studies employ a specific quantitative methodology. The appropriateness of these strategies and ramifications that may occur if a wrong design is chosen are discussed further. Studies’ Description and Design The first study by Carson et al. (2015) is called “Cerebrospinal Fluid and Plasma Oxytocin Concentrations Are Positively Correlated and Negatively Predict Anxiety in Children.” The authors investigate multiple correlations between these fluids and children’s anxiety. They also attempt to show that concentration levels can predict whether a child will develop anxiety in the future. This study uses a correlational design because it explores a connection between two variables. Moreover, as the scholars aim to foresee possible effects that one variable can have on another, the research can be considered a predictive correlational study. The measurements were taken on one occasion, making the design cross-sectional. The second article by Thai, Taber-Thomas, and Pérez-Edgar (2016) is called “Neural Correlates of Attention Biases, Behavioral Inhibition, and Social Anxiety in Children: An ERP Study.” In it, Thai et al. (2016) explore the link between attention biases, BI (behavioral inhibition), and children’s development of social anxiety. They use an approach similar to the previous authors, collecting measures on a single occasion, comparing variables, and searching for a connection among multiple factors. Therefore, this is a cross-sectional predictive correlational study as well. Design Appropriateness The two studies utilize the chosen design appropriately. First of all, they are both interested in finding a specific correlation between identified variables. The nature of their research asks for a quantitative approach to visualize the relationship. Moreover, the variables chosen by the scholars are quantifiable. The concentration of plasma oxytocin and cerebrospinal fluid in the first study can be measured and connected to children’s anxiety. Similarly, behavioral inhibition can be assessed with the help of ERP (event-related potential) – a response measured by EEG (Thai et al., 2016). Therefore, the chosen method supports the validity o