ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Nowadays, cross-cultural communication belongs to the number of the most popular fields of research. It is relevant for our society as nations have to communicate on a daily basis. In their article, Hwang and Matsumoto (2013) focus their attention on such an aspect of cross-cultural communication as nonverbal behavior. The latter can be conveyed through different channels such as voice, touch, and mimics. The authors claim that nonverbal behaviour should be paid more attention to, especially if one has to communicate with people of a different culture. In general, it is quite informative and interesting to read. Overall, this article seems to be very interesting as authors start from reviewing earlier studies on nonverbal behaviour, and then give their own conclusions on its role in cross-cultural communication. Authors claim that many people tend to retrieve a little information from nonverbal messages. In fact, as they see it, such messages often tell many things about the cultural background and personal attitudes of the participant of communication. As for the positive points of the article, it contains a lot of useful information that can be applied during everyday communication. Therefore, it possesses certain practical significance. To continue, the article is very informative, and it has a good structure that makes it easy to read. Thus, it reveals three main components of nonverbal communication (voice, face, and gesture) and all of them are explained abundantly. As for the negative points, there are a few cases of unnecessary repetition, but they do not affect understanding. Anyway, some parts of the text could be improved. In general, I see the article as quite a valuable source of information that can be relevant for those who study cross-cultural communication. It is of interest for this field as the authors reveal peculiarities of nonverbal behavior during the communication between people of different cultures. Reference Hwang, H. C., & Matsumoto, D. (2013). Nonverbal behaviors and cross-cultural communication in the new era. Language and Intercultural Communication in the New Era , 116 (1), 145-189.
Introduction There are various determinants or factors that affect the prevalence of peace in countries where the parties have entered into agreements and accords. Both parties are motivated to avoid the return to the place where the bloodshed occurs. The parties must be committed to the peace process. In the Camp David treaty, Israel and Egypt were committed to the peace process. They also wanted to be in good relations with the United States. They did not want the role of the United States to go beyond the negotiation process (Telhami, 1990, pp. 121). Despite the fact that peace accords are signed after the war has been ended and the assistance that the states receive from the rest of the countries that supported them, the post-war reconstruction period takes considerable amount of time. Hence, though signing a peace accord is supposed to mean an end to the confrontation, in most cases, it never does. According to what Steenkamp (2005) says, the given phenomenon has sufficient grounds to base on: “This violence (such as ‘criminal’, ‘vigilante’ and ‘mob’ violence) in the post-peace accord society is peculiar when considering that the political legitimacy which violence might have enjoyed before the accord, has largely been removed” (p. 253). Nevertheless, the author assures that the instances of violent treatment of the defeated countries after signing the peace treaty occurs rather often: “One example is the continuing torture of civilians by Sri Lankan security forces after the 2002 ceasefire between the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) insurgents ” (2005, p. 258). It has been noted that more harm is done when parties are not committed to the provisions of the peace accord than if there was no agreement at all. There are scholars who have suggested that the peace agreements should have provisions on international intervention and power sharing clauses for the peace agreement to be successful or the parties will return to war. In the recent years, negotiated agreements have gained popularity as the medium for ending civil wars. The countries return to war either after five years or three and a half years, though. Despite the high number of peace agreements research has shown that 50% of the peace agreements fail, which means that a peace accord does not necessarily solve the post-war complexities, but, on the contrary, may add new ones. In the case of the Vietnam peace accord, had the United States remained an interested party in the peaceful process things would have turned out differently. In this case, South Vietnam would have not suf
People have different paths to understanding the fundamental principles of the Christian ethics. While following these paths, it is important to find the answers to all the questions which can be rather challengeable and controversial. John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Christian Life provides readers with discussions of a lot of basic and problematic issues which can be associated with the question of the Christian ethics. While reading Part III of the book, I focused on three issues in discussing which I was interested when I began to study the principles of the Christian ethics carefully. I found the answer to the question of God’s revelation at the first pages of Part III. The next important point was the examination of the problem of faith and its definition. Moreover, I had the opportunity to study the author’s viewpoint on the issue of adiaphora and focus on his attitude to the supernatural as an aspect of the world and human spirituality. God’s revelation is one of the most significant concepts in the Christian life. However, persons are inclined to add their own ideas to the traditional Christian vision of the concept. That is why, it is necessary to discuss the concept with the direct references to Scripture. Nevertheless, the question is too complex, and Frame’s discussion of the issue of God’s revelation which is presented in Part III from several perspectives is useful for making my own conclusions. Thus, revelation in all its forms can be perceived as an organism or unity that is why these forms are closely connected with each other and cannot be discussed separately. God reveals himself in many forms, and all of them are important for understanding the nature of revelation. Furthermore, a person should follow the ethical principles in their relation to revelation because people are created in the image of God (Frame 2008, 131-134). The issue of faith is discussed in Chapter 19. The question about the nature of faith and its aspects is usually associated with the moment when people become interested in following the Christian ethics and tradition. I am inclined to agree with Frame’s discussion of faith as the approach which can pervade the life of a Christian. However, Frame pays attention to one more aspect which is the fact of receiving God’s grace. Thus, faith can be discussed as an instrument to receive God’s grace and as the reflection of people’s trust on God’s promise (Frame 2008, 363-367). The notion of faith is complex, and it should be discussed from different perspectives, and Frame’s book helps to understand the approaches to discussing the question. The concepts of the Christian ethics are based on the distinction between right and wrong actions and things. However, sometimes it is rather difficult to determine things and actions as good or bad. In Chapter 11, Frame pays attention to the notion of adiaphora which is used to define the actions which are neither good nor bad (Frame 2008, 166-168). In spite of the fact this concept can help to explain the nature of many people’s actions, the idea adiaphora cannot be used in relation to the Christian life because all those actions which are not right shou
Life History Karl Marx postulated many economic theories throughout his life culminating in the theory of value. Born to Jewish parents in 1818 in Prussia province, Rhineland, currently called Trier, Marx studied history and philosophy at the University of Bonn, obtained a law degree from Jena University, and later obtained a PhD from the prestigious University of Berlin, Germany, at the age of 23. He later turned to radical journalism becoming a newspaper editor after he failed to secure an academic career due to his radicalism (Cohen, 1978, p.27). However, the Prussian authorities censored the newspaper that he was an editor, after his continued attacks on the Prussian leadership, forcing him to relocate to Paris in 1843. In Paris, he again established a radical journal, which was also suppressed by the authorities later on. In 1845, French authorities expelled Marx forcing him to move to Brussels, where together with his friend, Frederick Engels, founded the Communist League with a Communist Manifesto in 1848. The founding of the Communist League by Karl Marx and Engels coincided with the1848 revolutionary upheavals across Europe. However, following the unsuccessful revolution in 1848, Marx was again routed from Germany and the extremist newspaper he edited in Cologne banned. Subsequently, Marx moved to London in the same year where he eventually settled for the rest of his life (Cohen, 1978, p.41). In London, Marx lived in poverty with his family supported by the little proceeds from occasional journalism and financial assistance from his long time friend, Engels. It was during this time that Marx developed major works on capitalism culminating on a systematic theory on capitalism. Throughout his life, Marx involved himself in social criticism of leadership particularly in Germany. His first involvement came in 1832 when he became a member of ‘young Hegelian’, strong critics of German idealist philosopher, Georg Hegel’s political philosophy. After Hegel’s death in 1832, this radical movement continued to flourish eventually leading to the 1848 revolution. Hegel political philosophy revolved around his belief that every idea produced an opposed idea resulting in a conflict or struggle (Cohen, 1978, p.52). Marx, later, reposed on Hegel’s philosophy to explicate how the then class warfare would result in a harmonious society. Hegel’s philosophy was based on the belief that ideas influenced history. In contrast, Marx, being a materialist, believed that society was greatly influenced by economic dynamics. Although both of Marx’s parents were Jewish by religion, Marx remained indifferent towards religion; actually, he coined the phrase, “religion is the opium of the poor people” (Cohen, 1978, p.49) in one of his philosophical essays. After he moved to Paris in 1843, Marx dived into radical economic thinking reaching a conclusion that the industrial revolution that characterized Europe in the 19 th Century only benefitted the capitalistic employers at the expense of poor laborers. In
Introduction According to sociologists, deviant behavior refers to failure to conform to customs or laws of a certain group. The set of laws usually differ from one group to another and from one society to another. For instance, watching videos is a normal behavior among the American citizens whereas the same is seen as a deviant behavior by the Amish (Schafer, 2008, 178-216). The following essay examines the articles by Rosenhan (1973) and the speech by Eqbal (1998) to explain the sociological approach to deviance. It also examines how the two authors would deal with deviance in society based on their assessments. Summary of Rosenhan and Eqbal’s arguments The article by Rosenhan (1973), “On being sane in insane places”, discusses a situation whereby people with sound mind were treated as if they were insane and were admitted to a mental hospital. Staff in the mental institution did not have a clue that these people were pretending and that they were insane. Actually, these people were psychiatrists who were on a mission to observe the responses of others who were admitted to the hospital. The psychiatric professionals kept them in hospital for many days and they were all treated with powerful medications. Rosenhan then asserts that psychiatric professionals face a major challenge of identifying the sane people from the insane in mental institutions. The main reason behind this experiment was to expose the dangers of labeling others in the society. From the experiment, it is extremely hard to distinguish mad people from the sane in mental institutions. According to Rosenhan, doctors should conduct a thorough investigation before considering whether a patient is to be admitted or not. Also, doctors should refrain from relying entirely on patient’s report because many patients fake their illnesses (Bowers, 2004, P. 24). Ahmad (1998), in his speech, “ Terrorism, theirs and ours ”, tried to convince the audience that terrorism matters are complicated. He recalled stories that explain that yesterday’s terrorist is today’s hero. According to him, terrorism is a serious issue in contemporary world. There are many inconsistencies as far as definition of terrorism is concerned. People should therefore make effort to know the real meaning of terrorism. People should also know the main causes of terrorism and how it can be avoid (Ahmad, 1998, P. 1-16). The authors’ point in writing their articles Rosenhan aim of writing his article is to explain the hypothesis that: psychi
Organizations the world over have used diverse ways to implement corporate social responsibility (CSR), ranging from a focus on “social” responsibility to the inclusion of environmental responsibility, green supply chain, corporate citizenship, and sustainability programs (Flammer 758). The present paper not only investigates how British Petroleum (BP) implements socially responsible practices into its operating procedures, but also evaluates the impact of these practices on the company’s stakeholders. Company Overview With well-established operations spanning all continents, BP is a leading integrated oil and gas company engaged in providing “customers with fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, lubricants to keep engines moving and petrochemicals used to make everyday items as diverse as paints, clothes and packaging” (British Petroleum 1). The company has over 80,000 employees, with most of them based in Europe and the United States. In 2013, the economic value generated by BP stood at $403.3 billion, while its economic value distributed to others stood at $342.6 billion (British Petroleum 4). Stated Commitments to CSR BP’s stated commitments to CSR include (1) supporting communities’ efforts to increase income and improve standards of living, (2) striving to be a world-class operator, a responsible corporate citizen and a good employer, (3) working to avoid, minimize and mitigate environmental impacts in its areas of operations, (4) engaging in joint venture partnerships with other companies to address carbon and climate risk, (5) empowering employees, and (5) investing in alternative energies (British Petroleum 4-23). BP’s CSR Performance In terms of employee/labor relations, the company has performed well in encouraging women participation in leadership, facilitating workforce diversity and inclusion, attracting and retaining the best talent through strategic recruitment, rewarding employee performance through executive remuneration and other benefits, building capability through leadership development, and entrenching a code of conduct that defines its commitment to higher ethical standards (British Petroleum 20-23). In terms of environmental impacts, BP has received much support globally for its hands-on standpoint on environmental challenges, most notably for not only investing heavily in technologies aimed at reducing the carbon footprint, but also advocating for the use of alternative sources of energy such as biofuels and wind energy (British Petroleum 15-18; Christiansen 1). In particular, BP has performed well in:  1.
Literature Review Overview of Mentorship Mentorship is a personal development relationship in which a more experienced person offers guidance from a real world perspective. Effective mentoring involves building a continuous learning relationship between the mentor and the mentee. Research has shown that matching mentors and mentees helps create effective mentorship programs (Bokeno, 2003). Organisations have designated mentoring administrators consisting representatives of human resource and training and learning departments. The administrators scrutinise the mentoring profiles and match the mentor and the mentee depending on training needs, career goals, and competence. Moreover, mentees can use technology to choose the most appropriate mentors and mentorship programs. There are many types of mentorship. However, they fall under two categories, namely, monologic mentoring and dialogic mentoring. Mentoring administrators help mentors to select the best programs with reference to the prevailing needs. Some of the benefits of mentoring include enhancement of self-efficacy and productivity. Types of Mentorship Business managers should choose mentorship programs that meet the needs of employees across the various levels of organisational structure. Whether the managers choose dialogic or monologic mentoring, they need to structure objectively the mentoring programs. Dialogic mentoring Dialogic mentoring is the best organisational program for learning. The most recent re-emergence of interest in dialogic mentoring is traceable to many organisational learning theorists. Current research has confirmed that there are patterns of communication and tactic theories in use that are obstacles to the invention of mutual learning efforts. Dialogic mentoring attempts to eliminate the obstacles and enhance learning (Bokeno, 2003). Dialogic mentoring relies on the aptitude and readiness to express one’s ideas and feelings authentically, the aptitude and readiness to take part in both collective and individual reflection, and a natural care and respect for the mentor and the mentee. These aptitudes have productive impact on learning and organisational change. According to research, the concept that the dialogic mentoring is highly effective is based on the understanding that collaborative mentoring creates a two-way communication strategy that enhances learning (Mezirow and Taylor, 2009). However, dialogic mentoring has certain shortcomings. Notably, the mentoring approach requires facilitation, episodic interventions, and structuring. The
Introduction The following research paper is based on to develop a business plan for the company ABC Corporation, which is situated in Venezuela. Venezuela is an independent nation and became a member of MERCOSUR in the month of July 2004. The main focus of this study is to pay attention to the circumstances and situations faced by a normal business oriented company while being a part of the Venezuelan system who is also the member of MERCOSUR. The key highlights of this study would include pros and cons for Venezuela being a member of MERCOSUR, to measure benefits and drawbacks of a company operating in Venezuela, and to analyze what adjustments are required to be made by the company as a result of this. Understanding Relationship Of Mercosur & Venezuela (Doole, Lowe; 2007, p61) MERCOSUR is basically the South American southern cone and the 4 th largest integrated market in the world, which is four times larger than the size of the European Union with more than 300 million members and combined GNP of over 1 trillion US$. MERCOSUR is basically the customs union that links Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and Venezuela. The associate members of this union are Peru, Chile, Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador; and these countries have a free trade agreement with MERCOSUR. The union offers specialized services in international trade whose main objective is to provide advanced increase to the customer and member countries in their business profitability and to improve their competitive endeavors, MERCOSUR is an important networking system/union that accepted application of membership from Venezuela in the month of July 2004, and granted full and permanent m
Technology is to great extent a synonym to a change. Any time technology makes a step forward, it brings changes to different fields of our life, from industry and medicine to education and even entertainment. Agents use technology on different purposes: they may intend to enhance their products and services, reduce costs, outstrip competitors and simply to survive. Thus, the most important task in this case is to choose the right direction of change: as Fitzhugh Dodson said, “Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination” (quoted in Lombardo, p.46). The case discussed in this paper is devoted to the attempts of the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission (WSPRC) to introduce technology to make communication with customers more effective and convenient. Today this practice has become customary for numerous parks throughout the country; however, the period discussed in the case (1997-1999), was the period of taking the first steps by trial and error. The purpose of our study is to develop the optimal “destination” for the “ship”. We will analyze the data on operation of the Washington State Park System provided in the case and try to select the most effective strategy of introducing a new technology to serve the customers and communicate with them. Case Discussion Approaches to Strategy Development “During the late 1990s, Washington Governor Gary Locke challenged state agency leaders to think seriously about how their organizations could harness information technology to advance agency missions and objectives” – the case begins with these words (McKiernan, p.1). This phrase does not provide us with a full notion on the initial considerations of WSPRC and other sides that gave birth to this initiative; neither does the further case text throw light upon the initial intents of the team. We may assume that having “smelled” the growing scale of using technology to serve the customers in all industries, the leaders had come to the idea that it was time for the Washington State Park System to get modernized as well. As a rule, to take an action, a manager should have clear understanding of what goals this action addresses. Particularly, actions can be taken in order to nourish strengths, overcome weaknesses, realize opportunities or avoid threats. Considering the discussed Washington State Park System case, implementation of technology can have the following purposes: Technology is the way to cope with the problems, weaknesses and threats that exist in the Park System. Having chosen this approach to developing the strategy of introducing technology, the leaders would have to:  1. Detect the most burning problems and threats that the System has  2. Define how exactly technology may solve these problems  3. Analyze whether introduction of technology is the optimal way to cope with these problems Technology is the way to gain competitive advantages. By that moment, other national parks had already introduced elements