ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Chevron is the second largest U.S. oil company after Exxon Mobil. In 2001, Chevron expanded dramatically by acquiring Texaco and subsequently in 2005 after acquiring Unocal. It has interests in chemicals, gas, fossil fuel explorations, geothermal power, and many other sources of energy. In addition, the company owns “stakes in over 25,000 gas stations around the globe, which operate with brands such as Texaco, Chevron, and Caltex” (Chevron Corporation, 2014). Chevron’s sustainable and continuous growth has been contributed by its compliance to its codes of ethics touching on issues such as operational excellence, human rights, antitrust/competition laws, internal laws, and company records. Other issues tackled in the codes of ethics include anti-bribery, anti-boycotts laws, and data privacy among other issues that are discussed in depth in this paper. The Nature, Structure, Types Of Products Or Service of Chevron Chevron is one of the major American multinational energy corporations, which is based in San Ramon, California, and has subsidiaries in more than 180 countries worldwide. In addition, Chevron is involved in “exploration, production, refining, marketing and transportation of oil, gas, and geothermal energy” (Chevron Corporation, 2014). It is also engaged in the manufacturing and sale of chemicals, electric power generation, lubricants, additives, petrochemicals, fuel cells, and hydrogen. Chevron has its main operations in areas such as the West Coast of North America, the United States Gulf, South Korea, Australia, South East Asia, and South Africa. It is estimated that in 2010, the company managed to sell an average of 3.12 million barrels on a daily basis of refined products including gasoline and jet fuel. The three key issues that are critical for the success of Chevron as a multinational energy producing company include operational excellence through the protection of the environment, safety and health of people, and reliable and efficient operations. In addition, Chevron derives much of its success from its participation in government affairs and political involvement in accordance with high ethical standards. Finally, the company is one of the US organizations operating within the antitrust/competition laws (Chevron Corporation, 2014). Codes of Conduct of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. and British Petroleum (BB) Plc. The two companies that are also highly involved in the energy sector similar to Chevron are the Royal Dutch Shell Plc. based in the Netherlands and the British Petroleum (BB) Plc, which is a British multinational company with headquarters in London (British Petroleum, 2014). Chevron’s policy of operational excellence intends to protect the safety and health standards of employees and other people in community where it conducts its business, with major emphasis being on protecting the environment when conducting its operations (Chevron Corporation, 2014). This policy is also regarded as the secret behind the success of the two riv
Introduction Education is the passing on of knowledge, skills, and information from teachers to students. In this way, the students develop academically and become sociable with people. The American education system is unlike that in many other countries. The governance system is a federal one, the one which values local governance. This means that there is no countrywide curriculum existing in the United States. The state and local government are primarily responsible for education. The States profoundly control what teachers teach at schools and pinpoint the requirements a student must meet at the end of any curriculum. Apart from the property taxes, the States directly provide funds to the public schools. This means that courses, subjects they learn, the age of students for compulsory education and other issues always vary depending on where the school is built and located (Kevin). Structure of the American Education System Public education in America is available universally. There are a number of private schools too. Every local school district controls its public schools. Boards usually run district schools. The local community elects the board members. Otherwise, it becomes the duty of the local government. The education system in America is classified into elementary education, secondary education and postsecondary education (college or university). District schools encompass Elementary, Middle and Secondary school levels. Currently, elementary schools comprise pupils in kindergarten and grades 1-5. In many states, children attend kindergarten starting from the age of five. It is towards the end of August that the American school year starts or the day after Labor Day in September. Grades 6-8 learn in middle schools while grades 9-12 are the students who are finishing schools to become students at high educational establishments. However, pupils’ age in these grades may not be the same in all states (Kevin). High school (secondary) education is demanding in America. Students take a range of courses in such subject as English, science, mathematics, and social sciences. They may also select music, art, or theatre courses and include a foreign language or physical education as a requirement. “Many high schools also offer vocational training courses”. High school level “charter schools” have been recently on the increase in America. Charter schools are free public schools that specialize in maintaining stiff competition during the enrollment process. Nowadays, there are charter schools in 40 states and the Columbia District with more than 15% of U.S. secondary pupils. Public schools may fall under several sub-schools including home schooling, parochial schools, military academies, private boarding and day schools (Kevin). In America, education is mandatory for students until the age of sixteen according to laws of different states . “In 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 89% of people ages 18 to 24 were high school graduates” (Kevin). Most graduates from high school are at the age of eighteen or seventeen years. To achieve the award of high school diploma, students have to pass with at least
Edmund Spenser was one of the most famous English poets of the 16 th century whose main achievement was the creation of the epic poem, The Faerie Queene. This poem is considered to be a successful example of how the stanzas may be organized, and Spencer’s contribution to the development of fixed verses was considerable. In this paper, the two beginning verses of the poem will be analyzed in order to comprehend the motives of the author as well as the main messages sent from the end of the 16 th century. Each line of The Faerie Queene is a kind of brick that creates a magnificent path to the door that opens the world of Faerie knights, ladies, and emotions which develop various types of relations. There are two verses of 9 lines each which are introduced in the iambic pentameter ended with one Alexandrine line. Such combination of lines facilitates the reading process and shows that more interest appears with each new line offered. Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske, As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds. (Spenser and Kaske 3) The author admits that he is not ready to disclose his personality but still underlines that he has certain skills to introduce a story as he has Muse that had already inspired him long time ago. Am now enforst a farre unfitter taske, For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds. (Spenser and Kaske 3) These lines show that the author has to take a serious step in his life and undergo a number of changes to meet the expectations of the society. Though he is not sure whether he is ready to take such a step, he makes an attempt and wants to succeed. And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds, Whose prayses having slept in silence long. Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds To blazon broad emongst her learned throng: Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song. (Spenser and Kaske 3) His task now is to describe the life of knights and their ladies, and his previous duties were far from evaluating such amazing times of honor, prudence, and passion. Though the stories about those past times are hidden to the reader, the author wants to disclose the peculiarities of human lives. Fights, love, and glory are the main aspects of the poem. Helpe then, O holy Virgin chiefe of nine, Thy weaker Novice to performe thy will. (Spenser and Kaske 4). The author is not afraid to ask for help and admit his own weaknesses. Still, he has to perform the will set, and he will ask anyone for help to succeed in his activities. Lay forth out of thine everlasting scryne The antique rolles, which there lye hidden still, Of Faerie knights and fairest Tanaquill, Whom that most noble Briton Prince so long Sought through the world, and suffered so much ill, That I must rue his undeserved wrong: O helpe thou my weake wit, and sharpen my dull tong. (Spenser and Kaske 4) In these lines, the author introduces one of the main ideas of the poem, and “fairest Tanaquill”, the q
Current business trends in the spa globalization have improved a great deal from mass production to the mass customization field. Porter (2004) has shown that the key movers of the industry have been: globalization, drivers of globalization, strategic alliances, foreign direct investment franchising management contracts and joint ventures. The services in the industry can only be relevant to customers as they decide marketing direction, marketing process and even sometimes the marketing strategy. Any malfunction to customers, as pertaining to their service perception simply means loss of contemporary market plus future space. With all these in mind, we can now tell what kind of service flourishes and how it develops the globalization of the spa industry. Significantly, services are relational to each sector in business, managing from a service viewpoint profiting relational approaches and customer management. Good service always grows long term customers who appreciate and market the services rendered. In the meantime, demand and diversification leads to categorization of labor on condition, which means, in service trade, service diversified with individual requirements is a major stream so that service contents split into small professions and the whole business goes bigger. The New 3P’s in Service Marketing Customarily 4P’s marketing is become accustomed to products marketing, but in service management something innovative is considered necessary. Booms and Bitner (1981) advise three new P’s to service marketing: people, physical evidence and process. People In any service and experience in marketing, people are the most cherished element. Realizing inseparability and variability (Gronroos, 2007) promotes customer experience, which is an aspect of anticipated performance, of a customer buying an item or service. Then we can envision the situation that people constantly buy from people that they like, so that the skills, approach, outlook of staff ought to be top class. People add value to an experience in
The cash flow statement is a mandatory part of a company’s financial reports, it records the amounts of cash and cash equivalents entering and leaving the company. The cash flow statement analyzes the cash income and expenditures during a financial period and it has three parts which show the variations in the firm’s cash flows including operational, investment, and financial activities. It examines the components such as accounts receivable, Inventory, accounts payables and credit terms, and also items that do affect the firm’s income for some time such as purchase of equipment, lumpsum payment of debt, bank refusal to renew or extend loan, reduction of credit by suppliers. There are two ways of analyzing a cash flow: building a cash flow analytical model or one can use concepts such Internal Rate of Return (Clark & Maguire, 2006). Operating Activities Cash flow is obtained by making particular changes to the net income by aggregating or deducting difference in incomes, expenses and credit operations obtained from operations taking place during a particular year to the other. This is done because non-cash items are calculated into net income, assets and liabilities e.g. depreciation expenses are not cash in nature and it’s a value subtracted from the net value of the asset, which had earlier on been adjusted. Adjustments in debtors’ accounts on the balance sheet should be shown in the cash flow. However, if the debtors accounts are decreasing, this shows that the debtors are clearing off their debts and the amount is aggregated with the total sales, if there is a decrease then the amount must be deducted from net sales because although the amounts reflect on the accounts receivables as revenue they are not cash. Increase in stock levels implies that the firm has spent more money to buy more raw materials, thus the value of the increment in stock should be deducted from total revenues, while a decrease should be added to the total revenues. But if the goods are sold on credit, then an increase in trade receivables should be aggregated with the total revenues then shown on the balance sheet. This process will also be done for tax payables, salaries outstanding and prepaid expenses (Mclaney & Atrill, 2008). Investing activities This involves changes in assets and investments, with most of these changes being cash outs due to more investments. There is also cash in when assets are sold for example selling marketable securities or disposal of assets. Financing activities These are changes in debts, loans, or dividends, when capital is raised (for example, through sale of shares) and there is cash in and cash out when dividends are paid or payment of interests to bondholders. Benefits of cash flow statement Cash flow statements are vital fiscal statements when appraising a company’s overall monetary stability and when trying to appreciate the impact of a new economic ventures or pro
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is among the media companies in Canada with the features of a cultural industry. Consequently, the company has rich profile and current activities in relations to the country’s history. The company’s products with cultural orientations are news services, merchandising, interactive television programs, online, and commercial activities. In addition, CBC also engages in social responsibilities such as providing reading spectacles among others. These products and services of CBC have both cultural and historical connections to Canada. Occasionally, cultural industries sell their products and services as final goods or services, or as intermediate products and services. Over the last decades, the CBC profile and activities have undergone considerable changes due changes in the media industry. The company’s profile of products includes those sold directly to customers, such as newspapers, magazines, and pay-television. At the same time, the company also has cultural products, which act as intermediate products and services. This helps it in attracting the audience for selling advertising space or airtime for advertisers. This category of cultural products includes the free media products such as television programs, free magazines, newspapers and radio broadcasting. Cultural industry like CBC obtains its revenue mainly from advertisement activities and related markets (Robinson, 2009). The focuses on revenue growth and innovative products and services have affected the current activities of cultural industries. For instance, CBC has become entrepreneurial and is continuously searching for new opportunities for revenue growth. In this manner, the company must actively concentrate on its advertisement activities. Therefore, the focus must be spending most time on advertisement programs in free television and pay-television channels. These profiles of advertisement activities influence charges on subscriptions. Cultural industries like CBC have also devised methods to generate revenue. In turn, these activities affect their products strategies. Advertisers buy access to CBC audience. This depends on time, size of the audience, and demographic characteristics of the target audience. Since advertisement is the main source of revenues, CBC, a company in a cultural industry has expanded its programs and profile of activities. This is happening under a condition of demand uncertainty. Cultural industries have problems with creating and maintaining brand loyalty. This is because med
Introduction It is evident that newspapers and magazines, as well as news television and radio programs, are usually referred to as mass media. However, newspapers and other print editions are recently beginning to be considered media dinosaurs. There are two groups of people: some think that newspapers have to exist, and others believe that this sphere has to be replaced by the Internet. The purpose of this paper is to provide arguments supporting both of these opinions. Arguments for Newspapers to Exist Several arguments support the idea of the necessity of saving newspapers. For example, nowadays, there are more newspaper readers than ever before – the SMH website, in particular, has reached almost four million followers. People are used to newspapers and want to continue reading them, whether printed or online – it is evolution but not extinction. Another argument is that if democracy continues to function, it must have a free and fearless press. Unfortunately, without journalists’ supervision, corruption starts flourishing everywhere. It is the role and duty of newspapers to control and tell the truth about governments and businesses. Finally, nowadays, there is a News Corp online opinion site that canvasses issues such as pay gaps, same-sex marriage, and domestic violence. These are rather essential topics that need to be discussed, but new media has no monopoly on these conversations. Arguments for Newspapers to be Replaced Some arguments prove the necessity of the Internet replacing newspapers. To begin with, new media like blogs or Twitter continues to research and promote stories that old media do not cover at all. They are rather important but probably may not be discussed by newspapers due to censorship. Moreover, investigative journalism can thrive in an online diverse media world just as it succeeds in printed publications. Finally, effective monitoring of media is the first step to controlling society’s values and future direction, and newspapers are difficult to control. Hence, they need to be replaced by the Internet. Conclusion It is hard to disagree that there are certain spheres of life that, on the one hand, are usually for people, but on the other hand, need to disappear to let new ideas flourish. Probably, the same is happening to newspapers, and they have already become or are becoming media dinosaurs. People have to decide whether newspapers will continue to exist or be replaced by online sources.
Introduction According to Solomon (2008) “global warming has become a question for citizens and not only for scientists (p.1).” “Global warming has implications on our quality of life-it affects our nutrition, and brings about adverse changes in natural phenomena such as increased severity of tropical storms, hurricanes and so on” (Solomon, 2008, p.1). Tackling it though necessitates us to make hard decisions with regards to our lifestyle for example opting for the more costly but energy saving and less carbon emitting fuels, and even harder decisions for industry players who have to be willing to or be obliged to participate in the added cost of investing in environmental sustainability technologies. Global warming the biggest threat in 21st century The main argument behind global warming has been the world’s increasing dependency on fossil fuels which when combusted gives off carbon dioxide as an unwanted by-product into the surrounding air. This is believed to be the primary cause for increased concentration of carbon dioxide (Fuchs, & Sullivan, 2007). Global warming occurs when these gases become trapped within our atmosphere, where they absorb heat and cause temperatures to rise. Korgen (2006) goes ahead to inform us that because nature has its way of spinning off heat for example through tropical storms and hurricanes, increased global temperatures has led nature to produce stronger and more destructive tropical storms and hurricanes. Other adverse effects of global warming according to Ramin (2007) “are increased malnutrition, increased range of infectious disease vectors, and increased mortality as a result of stronger natural phenomena such as floods, droughts and heat waves” (p. 1320). The issue of malnutrition arises because of unpredictable weather patterns, prolonged droughts and increased flooding. These phenomena will be felt in counties that are still developing and will further cause an extra crisis in addition to already existing food shortage. These effects will not only affect the present generations but will also affect the generations to come. Korgen (2006) specifically highlights the rapidly declining fish population as a specific danger on one of man’s key source of nutrients. According to Ramin (2007) warming also prolongs the reproduction season for some vector insects while shortening the duration it takes for the malaria parasites to mature. Malaria is already the largest killer in Africa and therefore we do not want to imagine the situation as global warming progresses. Ramin (2007) therefore appeals to all of us to reflect on the potential impending catastrophe due to global warming especially on the world’s more vulnerable populations residing in the least developed nations. This does not imply that the first world countries are protected from the harmful effects of global warming. The developed countries for instance manifested their inability to contain the adversities caused by global warming such as the heat waves that were experienced in Europe. However, if global warming were such a simple issue then it would not still be stirring debates all over the world. The fact is that emerging ec
Introduction In contemporary business arena, business-leaders need to develop strategies that can enable their organization utilize factors of production effectively. Scarcity in resources and competition in modern globalized world calls for adoption of strategic management policies; strategic management involvesdetermination of mission, vision, values, goals, objectives, roles, and responsibilities of an organisation and the pathways through which the organisation can follow to attain competitiveness. Global automobile industry is competitive with players making different models and designs of vehicles. To remain competitive in the highly volatile market, General Motors has to have strategic management policies that will enhance the utilization of its strengths to take advantage of opportunities in the market. This paper undertakes an analysis of strategic policies of General Motors in 2009. General Motors historical background General Motor Corporation is world’s second largest automobile company after Toyota Motor Corporation; the company operates in more than 157 countries, it also sells cars and trucks through various divisions like Buick Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Opel, Vauxhal , and Holden; it was founded in 1908 by William C. Durant. During the initial years of operation, the company targeted the well to do in the society as it produced custom-made automobile that were expensive for ordinary people. However, in the 1920s, the company was struggling to keep up with competition of its main competitor Ford Motor company that has specialized in making low cost automobiles; the then management lead by Alfred P. Sloan had no option other than change their approach to the market. At the wake of global financial crisis of 2008, the company suffered financial difficulties to the point of seeking billion of dollars to stay afloat from the government. The global financial crisis found a suffering company that had been dropping its employees and managers in dozens of thousands. The main operating base of the company is in the United States of America where it has its headquarters at Detroit, Michigan. After the United states, China forms t