Benihana Company Essay

Helping our guests feel welcome is as important as our cooking. And it is just as great a skill. Ever striving for excellence in hospitality, it is truly our restaurant family who has built Benihana’s success. Company History: Benihana, Inc. owns and licenses restaurants in the Benihana and Benihana Grill chain of Japanese dinnerhouses. The restaurants specialize in an exhibition-style of Japanese cooking called teppanyaki. Customers sit around a communal table at which a Benihana chef slices their seafood, steak, chicken, and vegetables with lightning speed, grills their meal right in front of them, and then tosses it accurately onto their plates. The restaurants are decorated with Samurai armor and valuable art, and Shoji rice paper screens partition the dining areas. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 1996, the company had sales of over $81 million, an all-time high. By December 1996, Benihana operated a total of 49 licensed and wholly owned restaurants in 20 states as well as in Bogota, Columbia, and Aruba, Netherlands Antilles. Early History, from Tokyo to New York The founder of Benihana, Inc. was a 25-year-old Olympic wrestler from Japan named Hiroaki Rocky Aoki. He got his start in the restaurant business by working after school in his family’s coffee shop in downtown Tokyo. His mother named the family business Benihana after a red flower that survived the bombing of Tokyo during World War II. Rocky was a scrapper, defending himself in the streets and schoolyards against bigger boys. He got hooked on wrestling, became a national university champion, and earned a place on the 1960 Olympic team. Although he didn’t compete because he was over his weight limit, he did fall in love with New York when the plane stopped there on the way to the Games in Rome. That fall he left Japan for the United States. In 1964, Aoki graduated from New York Community College’s School of Hotel and Restaurant Management. During the summer he earned money driving the only ice cream truck in Harlem. The job was not easy, as he explained in an article in Management Review. â€Å"Every time I robbed, I get up earlier the next day and work later to make up. Every time I lose money, I get more challenge.† With that philosophy, he managed to save $10,000 during the summer, which, along with a loan, was enough to start his first restaurant, Benihana of Tokyo. Aoki’s concept for his new restaurant, derived from specialty restaurants he knew of in Japan, was part entertainment and part food service. He wanted to offer Americans food they were familiar with, such as chicken, steak, and shrimp, prepared in a novel setting. He chose the teppanyaki table–a stainless steel grill surrounded by a wooden eating surface–where customers could watch a knife-wielding, joke-telling chef prepare and serve their food. His parents and brothers came from Japan to help him get started. Unfortunately, New Yorkers equated Japanese food with raw fish and weren’t comfortable sitting at a table with strangers. They ignored the midtown Manhattan eatery until the restaurant critic of the New York Herald Tribune gave it a glowing review. Suddenly, everyone in New York, including the Beatles and Muhammad Ali, wanted to sit around one of Benihana of Tokyo’s four teppanyaki tables. Within six months after the review the restaurant had paid for itself, and Aoki quickly opened another restaurant in a larger, fancier building. The new location provided the same teppanyaki-style cooking but was decorated with valuable art, Samurai armor, heavy wooden ceiling beams brought from Japan by Aoki’s father, and sliding Shoji screens to provide some privacy. 1965-80: Building a Company The Benihana concept combined reasonable prices with good food, and, by preparing what was eaten right at the table, held waste to a minimum. Profits were good, and, in 1968, Aoki opened his first Benihana of Tokyo outside New York City–in downtown Chicago. That location made $700,000 in its first year and continued to be one of the company’s top earning outlets. Between 1969 and 1972, the company opened six more of its own restaurants and licensed franchisees to open another ten. In a joint venture with the Las Vegas Hilton, the company developed Benihana Village, a 38,000-square-foot complex of restaurants, bars, and other entertainment venues. In 1972, the company grossed $12 million and the Harvard Business School selected Benihana of Tokyo as a case study of an entrepreneurial success story. With business going so well, Rocky Aoki could devote time to his other interests which included racing balloons and powerboats, collecting items ranging from vintage cars to slot machines and learning backgammon. â€Å"Rocky wanted to play,† Joel Schwartz, the company’s president, explained in a 1989 Forbes article. To help oversee the chain’s operations and expansion, Aoki brought in a management company, Hardwicke Cos., as a partner in 1976. The relationship lasted only four years and, in 1980, Aoki ended the partnership, paying $3.7 million to break the contract. As Rod Willis of Management Review explained in a 1986 article, â€Å"He [Aoki] felt the company’s management style clashed with his predominately Oriental workforce, and he wanted to maintain control over each restaurant’s quality.† The following year Aoki settled, without admitting any guilt, a Securities and Exchange Commission charge that he had improperly traded in Hardwicke stock while serving as vice-president of Hardwicke. The 1980s: Ups and Downs To help pay off the debt incurred in the split with Hardwicke, Aoki decided to take part of the company public. He accomplished this by having Benihana of Tokyo (BOT) form Benihana National Corporation (BNC) in 1982 and then taking the latter company public the following year. Investors paid the Miami-based BNC $11 for a unit consisting of two common shares and a warrant to buy another at $6. With the $5.5 million raised by selling half a million of these units, BNC bought 11 restaurants from Aoki in exchange for 60 percent of the BNC common stock and $2.5 million to pay BOT’s debt. Later in the year, BNC bought another three restaurants from BOT for $7 million. In spite of the new corporate structure, Benihana of Tokyo and Benihana National Corporation remained under the management of the same group of executives. As corporate president, Joel Schwartz continued to oversee the day to day operation of both companies. Aoki, who served as chairman of both entities, retained 51 percent of the common stock in BNC and kept about 30 restaurants in the privately held BOT. Aoki developed new concepts for the Benihana food chain but he also continued to play hard, becoming a championship-level backgammon player and setting a world record in off-shore powerboat racing. The Double Eagle V, a 400,000 cubic-foot gas balloon, displayed the Benihana logo as it became the first crewed balloon to successfully cross the Pacific Ocean, with Aoki as one of the crew members. One of Aoki’s new concepts was Benihana National Classics, a line of Chinese gourmet frozen foods, introduced in 1984 and sold in supermarkets. Chinese cuisine was chosen when the company found that Japanese food didn’t freeze well. Within a year the Classics were the best-selling Oriental frozen foods in the United States, with sales in one quarter alone reaching more than $40 million and profits climbing to over $4 million. The company’s stock took off, going as high as $21.50 in 1985. In December of that year, Restaurant and Institution magazine named Benihana of Tokyo the most popular family-style restaurant in America. At that time, Benihana of Tokyo and Benihana National together operated or franchised restaurants in 60 locations, from Seattle to New Jersey, serving a total of 25,000 customers a day. Benihana National’s frozen food success quickly attracted the attention of major food companies. When Campbell Soup and Stouffer’s began offering their own lines of Oriental frozen foods, however, Benihana couldn’t compete. The company lost $11 million on frozen foods between 1985 and 1987 and finally sold the business, for $4.5 million, to the small company that had been producing the dinners for them. Frozen food, however, was not Aoki’s only new idea. In 1985, Benihana National opened its first seafood restaurant, The Big Splash, just north of Miami. Aoki believed the sea would be the primary supplier of food in the future, and, borrowing an idea from a Malaysian fish market, came up with the concept of a seafood marketplace/restaurant. Customers could choose from hundreds of varieties of fresh seafood, decide how they wanted it cooked, and watch it being prepared. The idea was so popular initially that a second Big Splash was opened. The seafood restaurants soon experienced difficulty, however, registering losses of $2.7 million during 1987. The wide variety of options ran completely counter to the tight focus and minimal waste of the Benihana steakhouses. At the Miami location, the majority of customers were retirees who resented the high prices and preferred to eat fish they were familiar with. â€Å"All we sold was salmon and red snapper,† Aoki told Eric Schmukler in a March 1989 Forbes article. The company closed its Big Splash outlets in March 1988. The 1988 fiscal year was a hard one for Benihana, as the company recorded a loss of nearly $7 million. Despite the company’s financial problems with Classics and Big Splash, the Benihana restaurants themselves were still popular. By the end of fiscal 1989, the publicly owned Benihana National Corp. reported profits of some $1.8 million on sales of $34 million at its 20 restaurants, with Aoki’s privately-held Benihana of Tokyo taking in similar revenues. 1990-94: Making a Turnaround Rocky Aoki kicked off the new decade by opening a gallery in one of the Miami Benihana restaurants to display a portion of what was becoming known in the art world as the Rocky Aoki Collection. Having spent more than a year consolidating his diverse collections, Aoki told Antiques & Collecting, â€Å"I think it’s a natural to have a gallery here. More than 90,000 people eat in this restaurant every year; why not provide them with something beautiful to look at, not to mention buy, if they so desire.† In a 300-square-foot space that had been the restaurant’s gift shop, diners could view etchings by Icarts, lamps by Tiffany and Handel, and bronzes by Remington. The publicity about Aoki’s collection helped generate business for the restaurant, and overall company revenues continued to grow. Profits, however, were less than a million dollars a year, and BNC stock fell below $1 a share. Angry at the situation, some shareholders sued. As Marilyn Alva reported in a 1992 Restaurant Business article, the shareholders claimed Aoki and his management team were in a conflict of interest by managing the two companies. The complainants further maintained that Benihana management had misappropriated the assets of Benihana National Corporation, passing them through Benihana of Tokyo for their personal benefit. The shareholders, however, were ultimately unsuccessful in trying to take control of the company away from Aoki. Meanwhile, Benihana management took advantage of a health-conscious American public’s growing interest in Japanese food and entertainment. With the tag line, â€Å"We have been the restaurant of the ’90s since the ’60s,† Aoki and Schwartz instituted a major advertising campaign stressing the fact that Benihana had always offered healthful food. Soon afterwards, in 1993, the Atlanta Benihana of Tokyo restaurant added an 18-seat sushi bar and 35-seat Karaoke dining room to draw more customers on weekday nights. Despite the higher labor and food costs associated with sushi, the company reported an increase in beverage sales, and a lot of sampling of the $.99 sushi pieces by people waiting to eat at the traditional teppanyaki tables. Learning from its experience a decade earlier, in 1994 Benihana National Corp. decided to get into the frozen food business again. This time, however, by entering into a licensing agreement with Campbell Soup Co., the company hooked up with a major marketer rather than trying to compete with the big names. The new product was a line of frozen stir-fry kits featuring the Benihana trademark. The dinners served six people and sold for about $8.00. As Peter McMullin, an analyst with Southeast Research Partners, told Florida Review.Net, â€Å"This time the strategy makes sense because it is linking with a high profile food company to help strengthen the distribution side and offsetting the razor-thin margins of retail by manufacturing with a low cost producer like Campbell.† By the end of the fiscal year, revenues were over $70 million, with profits up 41 percent to $2.4 million. 1995 and Beyond: A New Company At the beginning of 1995, Benihana National announced it would buy Aoki’s 21 Benihana of Tokyo restaurants on the U.S. mainland, along with the U.S. rights to the Benihana trademark, for about $6.15 million. On May 16, a newly created subsidiary, Benihana Inc., acquired the BOT restaurants and, through a merger, simultaneously acquired Benihana National. BNC shareholders received one share in the new holding company for each of their shares of Benihana National. Aoki continued to serve as chairman of the new company and Schwartz as president. Benihana Inc. now owned or licensed the 43 Benihana restaurants in the continental United States along with a franchise in Honolulu. It also had the rights to develop or license Benihana restaurants in Central and South America and the Caribbean Islands. Aoki kept private his Benihana of Tokyo restaurants in Hawaii, Britain, and Thailand. During 1995, the new company took several steps to attract more customers. Benihana introduced weekend luncheon service and, following the success in Atlanta, opened sushi bars in seven locations. The company also instituted a national Karaoke contest for its patrons. In the fall, the company opened its first smaller format unit, called the Benihana Grill, in Sacramento. At 3,800 square feet, the Grill format was less than half the size of the traditional Benihana, and enabled the company to open units in smaller locations, particularly in urban areas. Schwartz had been refining this format since 1989 as an alternative to the company’s more common free-standing, special use restaurant buildings. The Benihana Grill was designed to accommodate 10 to 12 teppanyaki tables, compared to the 18 tables in the typical Benihana. Analyst Peter McMullin remarked, â€Å"Initial indications are encouraging even before the grand opening. With the lower capital costs of approximately $500,00 0 versus a stand-alone restaurant cost of $2 million, this could become an enormous growth vehicle for Benihana.† The new hours and offerings helped increase guest counts in existing restaurants by 8.7 percent and same store sales by an average of 7.7 percent for fiscal 1996. This rise, plus the addition of the Benihana of Tokyo restaurants and the new Benihana Grill, resulted in annual revenues of over $81 million. Benihana’s growth came primarily from increased traffic in its existing restaurants, and the company continued to support that strategy. Early in 1996, in an effort to gain a larger share of the ethnic market, the company launched Spanish-language television advertisements in Miami and Los Angeles. In May, Benihana kicked off a two-year, $5 million ad campaign, focusing on the entertainment value of teppanyaki cooking. â€Å"We want to bring the Benihana name to a different audience,† company president Joel Schwartz told Nation’s Restaurant News in a May 6, 1996 article. â€Å"The ads show that Benihana is a place the entire family can come to and have a good time–a place they will see the chef perform and flip shrimp.† Individual restaurants also developed innovative marketing techniques. A visit and meal at the Benihana in Bethesda, Maryland, for example, is one of the activities in the county’s social studies curriculum for third graders l earning about Japan. The company did not depend entirely on its existing restaurants for growth. During 1996, it also signed leases for several more Benihana Grills and expanded its franchise operations, including restaurants in Bogota, Columbia, and Aruba, Netherlands Antilles. Benihana’s track record of steady growth in same store sales, rising customer count, and profitability appeared to be continuing into the late 1990s as revenues for the first half of fiscal 1997 were up over eight percent from the year before. Further Reading: Alva, Marilyn, â€Å"Very Rocky Business: Aoki Besieged by Shareholder Suits,† Restaurant Business, February 10, 1992. â€Å"Benihana Buying Founder Aoki’s Units,† Nation’s Restaurant News, January 16, 1995, p. 14. â€Å"Benihana Profits Rise 67% for First Nine Months of Fiscal ’95,† Nation’s Restaurant News, February 12, 1996, p. 12. â€Å"Benihana Testing Stir-Fry Kits,† Supermarket News, October 17, 1994, p. 28.

Employee Motivation at FMC Green River and Other Organizations Essay

Organizational behavior theories are known to differ as to what motivates employees, not because the essential characteristics of all employees are varied across organizations and industries. Rather, the motivational needs of employees differ from organization to organization because separate work situations, ethics and settings, in addition to their interaction with individual personalities, teams, and managements call for different employee needs to be prioritized. Employee motivation is simply referred to as an organizational method to satisfy employees in areas where they feel unsatisfied. Whereas poor health and safety conditions might be the Number One challenge to encounter in Company ABC, it is possible that the employees of FMC Green River would be more motivated by higher salaries. Moreover, the employees of FMC Green River may hold a collective opinion that their working conditions are the best in the industry. Hence, the management of FMC Green River would not be as focused on improving health and safety conditions as Company ABC should be. Given that job performance is a function of ability and motivation, it is appropriate to inquire into the specific needs of the workers in order to employ the correct mix of employee motivation strategies to boost job performance, company-wide (â€Å"Employee Motivation,† 2007). As an example, the employees of the Piketon Research and Extension Center and Enterprise Center were asked about the main motivating factors at their particular workplace. According to the research findings, the employees believed themselves to be motivated by the following, in the order of importance: â€Å"a) interesting work, (b) good wages, (c) full appreciation of work done, (d) job security, (e) good working conditions, (f) promotions and growth in the organization, (g) feeling of being in on things, (h) personal loyalty to employees, (i) tactful discipline, and (j) sympathetic help with personal problems (Lindner, 1998). Contrary to these findings, a peer reviewed study on employee motivation found that most employees across various organizations believe the following to be the chief motivators at the workplace: â€Å"enjoyment of the work; work/life balance; pay satisfaction; link between pay and performance;† and â€Å"adequate staffing levels† (Katcher). Thus, it appears essential to increase employee motivation only after inquiring into the main motivators in a specific organization. Also within a single organization, the blue collar workers are expected to be more motivated by an increase in pay, while the white collar employees might believe that enjoyment of work is more important. In this case, the organization would have to divide up its employees in two separate groups to inquire into the particular motivators for the blue collar workers as opposed to the white collar employees. It is best, therefore, for employee motivation strategies to be based on group by group studies, although organizations may also apply the rule of generalization. In that event, Company ABC would believe that it could effectively use the motivators of FMC Green River’s employees to improve the job performance of its own workers.

Psy Analysis

Marla is a 42-year-old Hispanic female who comes to the mental health clinic complaining of having trouble sleeping, feeling â€Å"jumpy all of the time,† and experiencing an inability to concentrate. These symptoms are causing problems for her at work, where she is an accountant. Resources: Appendix A, Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, and the Faces of Abnormal Psychology Interactive application at the McGraw Hill Higher Education Web site Write a 1,400- to 1,750-word paper analyzing Marla’s disorder. Address the following:Decide which disorder Marla may have using the information in the Faces of Abnormal Psychology Interactive Application at http://www. mhhe. com/socscience/psychology/faces/#. The profile introduction will match more than one of the disorders found in the application. You must choose one of the disorders and complete the profile. Include the 10 question from the week Four CheckPoint. Summarize the disorder using the information provided in the inte ractive application. Explain the origin of the disorder and any potential treatments by using one of the models of abnormality found in Ch. of Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology. * * 1. Tell me some basic information about yourself†¦ Name, age,etc Marla, 42 Hispanic female 2. What brings you in to see me? Having trouble sleeping, feeling jumpy, lack of concentration, affecting her accountant job 3. Why do you feel that you need a clinical interview? For the larger part of her life she has been fighting depression, suicide thoughts, 2 attempts of suicide, self mutilation period 4. How do you feel most days? Worthless, low, no energy 5. Is there anything that makes you more happy/sad?Shopping, spending money to make she appear nicer, looks 6. How long have you been experiencing these feelings? Most of her life but in the past couple of years it has gotten worse 7. How is your relationship with your parents? Father knows him but has never been around, molestation, â€Å"she was never his son† had son straightened up but Marla wasn’t worth it Mother a drunk in bed at 7, cheated, and raised her by herself and new husband 8. How often do you go out and socialize? Homebody 9. Have you noticed anything specific that triggers your moods?Anything, everything, stupid people, people in general 10. Is there anything else you feel like sharing with me? My life sucks and my wife says that my moods suck and I go from on top of the world to being underneath it in. 1second After meeting with Marla and doing my initial interview with her, where Marla revealed that she has been clinically diagnosed with depression. Marla has much more mental disorders than just depression. She has lived her life trying to be enough for her dad, mom, everybody else in her life. Marla was never taught love, acceptance.I am diagnosing Marla with Bipolar disorder with ADHD with anger tendencies. Marla has a feeling of jumpiness and lacks concentration, which is affecting her accou nting job. Marla informed me in our interview that she knows her father but he was never really around. He tried to buy her love and gave her a lot of empty promises. Marla’s father use to tell her that she was not his son, that he always wanted a son and that she was not. She had animosity towards her father for straightening his life out once his son was born. This left her with feelings of not being enough for his love.Carrying this feeling her entire love grew to anger as an adult. Her father did not matter anymore but that pain she felt as a child she turned into anger. Marla’s mother raised her but she was a drunk. Her mother married a new husband, showed Marla how to cheat on this man. When that marriage failed lived with another who made fun of Marla for being a lesbian. Her mother cheated on him with who would become her husband now. Marla has periods of mania more often than she is happy. Marla went through more serious and long periods of mania where she wen t through self mutilation phases.During these times Marla has attempted suicide many times, two times she was hospitalized. When Marla is feeling low, she has realized that she likes to shop to make her appearance appear pricier. I came to my diagnoses of Bipolar with ADHD with severe anger tendencies due to the following facts. ADHD’s symptoms include difficulty staying focused and paying attention, difficulty controlling behavior, and hyperactivity (over-activity). Bipolar Disorder is a condition in which people go back and forth between periods of a very good or irritable mood and  depression.The â€Å"mood swings† between mania and depression can be very quick. Bipolar individuals go from manic to mania in a split second or in some cases over lap each other. The manic phase may last from days to months. It can include the following symptoms: * Easily distracted * Little need for sleep * Poor judgment * Poor temper control * Reckless behavior and lack of self cont rol * Binge eating, drinking, and/or drug use * Poor judgment * Sex with many partners (promiscuity) * Spending sprees * Very elevated mood * Excess activity (hyperactivity) * Increased energy * Racing thoughts Talking a lot * Very high self-esteem (false beliefs about self or abilities) * Very involved in activities * Very upset (agitated or irritated) These symptoms of mania occur with bipolar disorder I. In people with bipolar disorder II, the symptoms of mania are similar but less intense. The depressed phase of both types of bipolar disorder includes the following symptoms: * Daily low mood or sadness * Difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions * Eating problems * Loss of appetite and weight loss * Overeating and weight gain * Fatigue or lack of energy Feeling worthless, hopeless, or guilty * Loss of pleasure in activities once enjoyed * Loss of self-esteem * Thoughts of death and suicide * Trouble getting to sleep or sleeping too much * Pulling away from frien ds or activities that were once enjoyed There is a high risk of  suicide  with bipolar disorder. Patients may abuse alcohol or other substances, which can make the symptoms and suicide risk worse. Sometimes the two phases overlap. Manic and depressive symptoms may occur together or quickly one after the other in what is called a mixed state. (http://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. ov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001924/) Some individuals may be diagnosed with both ADHD and bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, some are misdiagnosed because the symptoms of the two disorders can overlap or look similar. In mania, individuals may appear distracted, always moving and restless, which may look similar to symptoms of hyperactivity. Also, individuals with ADHD may demonstrate some mood symptoms, but not to the extreme necessary for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. It is important to ensure that an individual meets the criteria for both of the disorders, rather than just demonstrating symptoms that could be constru ed as both. http://www. livestrong. com/article/252912-adhd-bipolar-disorder-in-adults/). The treatments for these disorders are medications such as, Adderall, and or Vyvance, there are also non stimulant medications such as Strattera. With the stimulation medications most individuals are put on a sleeping agent to bring them down such as Clonodine. Medications for Bipolar can include Abilify, and or Cymbalta. Most Bipolar individuals take an anxiety agent as well. Individuals such as Marla may be prescribed Adderall, Clonodine, Abilify, and Depokote.The disorder ADHD originated in 1902, there is the first documented disorder relating to impulsiveness. This was in Britain, and the doctor who diagnosed the impulsive disorder was named Dr. Still. He called this disorder â€Å"Defect of Moral Control† and he believed that the diagnosed individual had a medical disorder beyond their control. (http://ezinearticles. com/? History-of-ADHD&id=217254). Bipolar disorder is perhaps one of the oldest known illnesses. Research reveals some mention of the symptoms in early medical records. It was first noticed as far back as the second century.Aretaeus of Cappadocia (a city in ancient Turkey) first recognized some symptoms of mania and depression, and felt they could be linked to each other. His findings went unnoticed and unsubstantiated until 1650, when a scientist named Richard Burton wrote a book, The Anatomy of Melancholia, which focused specifically on depression. His findings are still used today by many in the mental health field, and he is credited with being the father of depression as a mental illness. (http://www. caregiver. com/channels/bipolar/articles/brief_history. htm).

The distinction between ethics and the law in the context of Gary's Assignment

The distinction between ethics and the law in the context of Gary's business situation - Assignment Example With ethics, there is need for a good relationship with customer whether you are giving them what they need or you are short of what they need. With ethics, arrogance is not in the picture. With the law, it is necessary for your employees to give you value for your money but with ethics, offering service to you is on consensus where you both benefit from. Ordering them to work extra hours at the regular rate with no complain is a form of dictatorship baring in mind that they have responsibilities they have to meet especially for the single moms. There should be a point of negotiation where one airs their likes and dislikes for a peaceful coexistence between the owner of the business and the employees. Though the business has flourished, it is important for ethics to be upheld for the business to continue growing. This is because with such an attitude, Gary risks incurring losses due to hiring cost. People want to work where they are accepted and respected. Adopting a different view and different behavior will not only save him money, but will create an atmosphere conducive for his employees, customers and

Critique of Aristotle's Politics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Critique of Aristotle's Politics - Essay Example Other types include tyranny, oligarchy and democracy, which are considered bad ones. It has been argued that there are a number of advantages and disadvantages that come with the type of government in practice. This affects the level of benefits of the people as well as the level of peace in a government. Benefits and disadvantages are associated with the types of government that Aristotle discusses in his classification of empires. This paper provides a discussion of those pros and cons. It also provides the argument whether these forms of rule would be suitable for the administration of the Roman Empire. Discussion One of the first political structures Aristotle refers to is a monarchy. He distinguishes a monarchy noting that, â€Å"The rule of a household is a monarchy, for every house is under one head: whereas constitutional rule is a government of freemen and equals† (Aristotle 279). Aristotle goes on to indicate that the major pros of a political monarchy are that the h ead of state is separated from the head of government. It has also been noted that there exists a great relationship between the leader and the people if the leader is a monarch. This is because people see the Royal Family as a family they can relate to. Indeed, at one point Aristotle even compares a monarchy to a family, with the head of the household constituting the King or Queen. The other pro is that this form of leadership ensures the interest of the nation is placed first in preference to other considerations. It is also a form of government that represents centuries of history and tradition. It is considered a tourist attraction due to its archaic nature, and tourists usually come to see the working palaces. This type of empire would have been successful in the Roman Empire during the reign of Diocletian which started in 284 CE. Since the monarch divided the empire into two, it would have ensured loyalty to the monarch from the eastern and the western empires. This would ens ure cases of disagreements and rebellion against the monarch are prevented. Aristocracy, on the other hand, is a form of rule which ensures the best rulers. There are certain pros associated with this form of rule. The main one is that it ensures the best people who can rule the country are given the authority to do so if the present leadership is hereditary. This ensures the country is ruled by the right people in the right direction. This form of rule would have been successful in the Roman Empire. In these regards, one considers that Aristotle extols the virtues of the aristocracy as being effective with many strongholds (Aristotle). The Roman Empire had various problems from attacks from the Vandals in 455 CE. This led to the removal of the Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus from power by the Odovacar, a paid mercenary of the Romans as well as the leader of the Goths. This is what resulted in the end of the Roman Empire. The selection of the right leader would ensure he puts the ri ght defensive measures to ensure the people are protected and the multitude of strongholds would have constituted an effective defensive measure. This would have contributed to the continued existence of the Roman Empire. Tyranny can also be considered to have certain pros with respect to the Roman Empire. This is because only a tyrant is allowed to act in a manner that he wants without considering ethics. It allows the society to run free by assuming control irrespective to the nature of the control. Aristotle notes,

When do democratic mechanisms increase political risks to waging war Essay

When do democratic mechanisms increase political risks to waging war - Essay Example In the current times, the inter-dependency of resources becomes one of the most critical issues for peaceful negotiations of crisis across borders. It can also be argued that technology has redefined communication and has helped transform international political economy that relies on global consensus and global views. â€Å"The relation between military organization and the civilian environment can be shaped in different ways: in some countries, the civilians are executing firm oversight over the armed forces, whereas in some other countries the military can perform its duties regarding national security in its own, autonomous way, if not even in the way where the military imposes its principles of governance over the citizens. In the contemporary society, the last, i.e. military-dominated political systems are rare†(Jelusic,2007). But at the same time, Shultz (1999) points out that within democratic mechanisms, the political leaders tend to face higher political cost to wagi ng war and therefore the threat to war is often resisted by the target nation. Indeed, the wider ramifications of threats by democratic state are less likely to be taken seriously by rogue nations than by threats from non-democratic states. However, history is witness to the fact that this is not always true. Moreover, according to Jelusic the idea more common are civilian-dominated political systems, in which civilian political leaders control the military in very authoritative way, or where the whole civilian environment through the channels of the democratic control over the military imposes the tasks, the execution of tasks and respect for democracy in the inner-military organizational structures. America’s war against Iraq was fought not for political leverage but for personal gain vis-a-vis access to the vast resources of oil and gas (Habermas, 2006). The democratic constraints and reasons for waging war have therefore become increasingly contentious issues that need to be looked from the wider perspectives of emerging new equations of political economy that has redistributed wealth and created new power structure. Globalization has brought huge changes not only in the economic circles, but also in the political circles. For example, America and China were not in good terms before the introduction of globalization. However, both the countries realized the importance of meaningful cooperation for mutual benefits. At present, China is one of the major trade partners of America. Moreover, plenty of American companies are operating in China and America is one of the major markets for Chinese products. In short, the magnitude of interdependencies between China and America is huge at present and hence these two countries are not at all clashing each other aggressively when political differences widen in between these two countries. It should be noted that China is supporting Palestinians whereas America is supporting Israel in the Middle East conflict. At the time of writing this paper, intense fight is going on in Gaza between Israelis and Palestinians. However, neither China nor America seems to be interested in interfering in this issue even though both these countries have contrasting views regarding this war. The silence of these two superpowers clearly suggests that they do not want to spoil their economic relationships for political gains. The case is not much different as far as the problems in Syria are concerned. Yet despite the grisly murders by the Syrian regime, the Arab League remains silent. The Arab regimes remain silent. In the meantime, Walid al-Muallem, the Syria Foreign Minister, had the chutzpah to chide the Arab ambassadors in Damascus for not condemning the

The Use of the Internet for Purchasing Goods and Services Has Enormous Essay

The Use of the Internet for Purchasing Goods and Services Has Enormous Potential - Essay Example The relationship marketers’ efforts are supported by frequent catalog mailings and e-mail campaigns both of which are designed to cause inbound telephone sales and interactive websites, which allow customers to purchase products directly over the Internet. BP & S would like to address the department named customer sales and marketing. This department is aimed at fetching the customers for its products and services. It markets its products and services over the internet for selling its products. The online technologies would act wonders for BP & S enterprise in giving them a global stand and make them quite susceptible to attract competition. Presently it caters to a limited amount of consumers. Its desire to enlarge its wings to international market makes sure that the global demands of the consumers would result in fostering standard practices in line with international standards. The products would be made to compare with the competitors and would further add the brand and quality for sale in the international market. The international consumers would be at ease to purchase products at their convenience and would get across its message with the help of online technologies. Its products would fetch better acceptability in the foreign market and would comprise quality and international standards in the making of things. Rendering to international customers and consumers is quite a challenge for any enterprise as they perceive the products and services of other countries with extreme competitive motives and continuous comparisons with their usual practices. The brand image of BP & S would accelerate the products sale and push its image into the international market for better collaboration and sale. Collaboration with international suppliers and vendors for sale would result in making immense profits and would compose better deals for making profits.

Compassion Fatigue in Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Compassion Fatigue in - Essay Example In this case, a Compassion Fatigue Self-Test (CFST) consisting of thirty questions was administered to 500 public health nurses who could have been deployed to assist hurricane victims. These nurses were identified by the Florida State Department of Health (DOH). The commonest data collection methods used in survey research is questionnaires and interviews (Nieswiadomy, 2008). At first, the nurses were asked to go back in time and think of their hurricane experience and respond to the questionnaire based on those feelings. Secondly, they were requested to answer the same questionnaire based on their current feelings. The second responses were printed on a different colored paper in order to distinguish it from the initial. The participants had to rate the questions on a scale of how often they experienced that feeling or event. In this case, the Likert scale was used (1=rarely, 10=very often). The range of possible scores of the thirty questions would automatically be 30 to 300. The scores obtained from each issue are then added up to give a total score of (range from 173) and the risk level of compassion

Private and public management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Private and public management - Essay Example However, public management involves managing critical infrastructure which directly disturbs quality of public life. In fact, in many cases, huge government spending on public management, relying on the estimates given by public managers leads to create interest conflicts and violets ethical guidelines to a great magnitude (Boyne 97-122). Private management refers to a situation where responsibilities are delegated to some private organizations to manage and control certain areas of services such as schools and hospitals. In this paper, the operational efficiencies created by private and public management will be analyzed. To understand the theory better, the functioning of the publicly funded health care system, National Health Service (NHS), will be evaluated in the light of management differences in public and private sector. As mentioned earlier, National Health Service is a publicly funded health care unit based in the countries of United Kingdom. The healthcare system is mainly funded through the tax collected by the nation centrally. National Health Service is aimed at providing wide array of healthcare services among which most of the services are not chargeable for the legal residents of the United Kingdom. The services of NHS are categorized under four discrete systems such as National Health Service (England), Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland, NHS Scotland and NHS Wales. These four systems are generally different and independent of each other in terms of management, regulations and political accountability. However, the basic functions are performed on a regular basis, as regulated by the UK Department of Health. Healthcare services provided through all these four segments are denominated under the â€Å"NHS†; only the unit provides services in England, is officially called Natio nal Health Service. Nevertheless, no