Monday, September 30, 2019

Economics in construction

1. Perfect competition maybe described as a theoretical form of market wherein no buyer or supplier has the capacity (or what is termed the ‘market power’) to control the market price. Regular definitions of perfect competition in economics describe it as a situation in which there is absolutely ‘efficient outcome’. The hypothetical situation of ‘perfect competition’ is primarily conjured to build the fundamentals of the supply and demand theory. Totally contrary to the ideas of a perfectly competitive market is the idea of a monopoly, which maybe defined as a continual market situation within which there is only one supplier of a particular service or an item. All monopolies are necessarily devoid of any economic competition and the utter deficiency of ‘substitute goods’. Often a monopoly is sanctioned by the state. Such a monopoly is called a ‘legal monopoly’ or a ‘government granted monopoly’ and is authorized by the government so as to encourage firms to take up a particularly ‘risky’ or ambitious project. Instead of allowing a certain firm to take up a venture in this manner the state might also keep the project all to itself. Such a situation will then be referred to as a ‘government monopoly’. (King, 126) Unlike in a monopoly in a perfectly competitive market there are a number of minor suppliers and buyers who operate at equal capacities in the market. Given their equal status neither of them manages to attain enough significance to influence the market in their favor. The firms in such a set-up are therefore price-takers rather than price-setters, as in the case of monopolies. Also, while a monopoly provides a particular, unique item or service to the market in a perfectly competitive market no firm enjoys any sort of individuality. Instead, each of their products is quite like the others such that there is no room for ‘product differentiation’. A monopoly remains the sole provider of a certain product or service by simply barring other similar firms to enter the market by some means or the other. Often such means include government authorization, like in the case of ‘legal monopolies’ discussed above. In case of perfect competition however no such entry barrier can be introduced. As a result any given firm can enter the market if it wishes to. Similarly, unlike in a monopoly in a perfect competition set-up all firms have access to the same kind of resources all of which are completely ‘mobile’. In a monopoly of course a particular firm controls (and occasionally even withholds) essential resources and production expertise. Given the large number of close substitutes available for the products/services sold by firms in a perfectly competitive set-up it is only obvious that no single firm or even a group of firms have any say about the ‘market-price’. The price of the products or services of firms in an arrangement such as this is duly decided instead by the market, which in turn depends on the behavior of the buyer. A monopoly however doesn’t remain obligated to the market in this manner. Instead, it effectively determines the market price simply by increasing or decreasing the quantity of its produce. Such independence is enjoyed by a monopoly simply because it faces no form of price pressure from opponents. However, there is a limit to which this liberty maybe pushed. Monopolies that raise their price far beyond permissible limits invite competition and may soon have to face rivals providing the same services/products either legally or even illegally. (Fletcher, 188) 2. The residential construction industry might pretend to be a single, solid, well defined industry but it in fact is far from being that. As anyone who has ever had a house made knows building a great house involves a number of things; great plumbing, great carpentry, great painting etc. etc. etc. Given the large demands of building a residential outfit the residential construction industry does not represent one single market, like it appears to be but rather a variety of sectors. However, not all of them need to come into play in every residential construction project. Often a particular house does not need all the facilities the industry is capable of providing it with. For instance if an environmentalist who feels strongly about the use of wood in his house decides to build a house tomorrow he is hardly likely to employ a carpenter, irrespective of how easily he can land one. Similarly a family who decides to paint their interiors themselves will not need painters, at least to the extent they are usually needed by new house owners. Also, in many cases residential construction involves repairing old structures. This obviously takes less effort and expertise than those required for building a house from scratch. As is obvious therefore there are a number of ifs and buts in the industry. We will take a look at some of these a little closely. Normally, specialist contractors who have long standing reputation in the field carry out residential constructions. These individuals take complete responsibility of building an entire building from scratch and cover everything from plumbing to painting. Once they achieve the contract however they duly sub-contract additional independent workers who assist and accompany their own crew. Contractors are often described as the king of the jungle in their own area. They are managers, salesmen, supervisors and directors all rolled into one. As a result of their unique capacity to bring in professionals of their own field under their wings these individuals soon turn out to be perfect monopolies by themselves. Often many of these professionals operate all by themselves in a given area, without any form of opposition or competition. Given their advantageous position they duly flex every possible monopoly muscle they possibly can and obviously determine the market price of the services they provide. Similarly special service providers in the industry, such as say wood engravers or carvers who are both sophisticated and rare in terms of their skill usually monopolize the market and set the market price by themselves. Unlike them plumbers or electricians, who are found in plenty and whose skills hardly vary can never really behave in a monopolistic manner. Instead, their circuit closely replicates what can be called a ‘perfectly competitive’. Much like them painters and carpenters can hardly afford to be choosy or ultra expensive since they are easy to substitute. A good illustration of this point is provided by the use of lumber in the industry in the past decade or so. The U.S. residential construction industry is, by all accounts the biggest consumer of softwood lumber. However, the amount of softwood lumber available to the industry fell dramatically following the restrictions that came to be placed on state and federal forests in the past few years. As a result of this unfortunate fall in supply a large chunk of the industry soon shifted to other alternatives available in the market. Amongst the 2,500 builders we surveyed for this particular study about 12.8% reported to have increased their use of alternative structural materials in the past decade alone. 99% of the respondents also confessed to having started to use at least one out of the long list of alternative structural materials that we provided them with. Till 1995 only 91% of the builders interviewed used substitute materials. (Kar, 145) While the decreased supply of lumber has obviously proved unfortunate for the lumber industry the construction industry itself has survived virtually unscathed. This is primarily due to the wide availability of materials such as reinforced concrete, plastic fiber, steel etc. which maybe easily used as a replacement for lumber. This example clearly proves the market for construction material itself therefore it maybe said to be a ‘perfectly competitive’ market. With easily available substitutes, easy entry into the market and hardly any product differentiation it fits almost every characteristic of the ‘perfect competition’ market to the tee. Unlike lumber and its alternatives however other important facets of construction are not as easily obtained. The expertise required to design a house for instance is far harder to replace than the construction material it is to be built with. Due to the utter importance of their job and how extraordinarily dependant on knowledge and skill it is, the architect and the whole engineering industry maybe described as a bit of a monopoly. It is of course difficult to enter their market, there are hardly any ‘substitutes’ available (since the level of skill and expertise of each engineer varies from the other) and the engineers themselves tend to determine the market price of their know-how. (Lamb, 243-245) Thus we see how the residential construction industry of U.S.A. is actually a mà ©lange of a wide variety of competitive markets and not a single market by itself. It is the proper functioning of each of these individual parts that ultimately allows the construction business to function properly. References: Fletcher, R; Economy: Beliefs and Knowledge; Believing and Knowing. (Mangalore: Howard & Price. 2006) pp 188 Kar, P; History of Indian Consumer Market Applications (Kolkata: Dasgupta & Chatterjee 2005) pp 145 King, H; Fiscal Fitness Today (Dunedin: HBT & Brooks Ltd. 2005) pp 126 Lamb, Davis; Cult to Culture: The Development of Civilization on the Strategic Strata. (Wellington: National Book Trust. 2004) pp 243-245   

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Stylistic: Public Speaking and Oratorical Style

Linguistic peculiarities of publicistic style The publicistic style is used in public speeches and printed public works which are addressed to a broad audience and devoted to important social or political events, public problems of cultural or moral character. It falls into three varieties, each having its own distinctive features. Unlike other formal styles, the publicist style has spoken varieties, in particular, the  oratorical  sub-style. The development of radio and television has brought into being a new spoken variety â€Å" the radio and television commentary. The other two are theessay  and  articles  in newspapers, journals and magazines.The general aim of the publicist style is to exert influence on public opinion, to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the writer or the speaker is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the point of view expressed in the speech, essay or article not merely by logical argumentation, but b y emotional appeal as well. 1. Explain the differences and similarities between publicistic and scientific prose style. This brain-washing function is most effective in oratory, for here the most powerful instrument of persuasion is brought into play: the human voice.Due to its characteristic combination of logical argumentation and emotional appeal, the publicistic style has features in common with the style of scientific prose or official documents, on the one hand, and that of emotive prose, on the other. Its coherent and logical syntactic structure, with an expanded system of connectives and its careful paragraphing, makes it similar to scientific prose. Its emotional appeal is generally achieved by the use of words with emotive meaning, the use of imagery and other stylistic devices as in emotive prose.The publicistic style also has some elements of emotionally coloured colloquial style as the author has no need to make their speech impersonal (as in scientific or official styl e), but, on the contrary, he or she tries to approximate the text to lively communication, as though they were talking to people in direct contact. 2. Explain the typical features of oratory and speeches. The oratorical style is the oral subdivision of the publicistic style. The most obvious purpose of oratory is persuasion, and it requires eloquence.This style is evident in speeches on political and social problems of the day, in orations and addresses on solemn occasions as public weddings, funerals and jubilees, in sermons and debates and also in the speeches of counsel and judges in courts of law. The sphere of application of oratory is confined to appeal to an audience and therefore crucial issues in such spheres as science, art, or business relations are not touched upon. Direct contact with the listeners permits the combination of the syntactical, lexical and phonetic peculiarities of both the written and spoken varieties of language.In its leading feature, however, the orato rical style belongs to the written variety of language, though it is modified by the oral form of the utterance and the use of gestures. Certain typical features of the spoken variety of speech present in this style are: a) direct address to the audience by special formulas (Ladies and Gentlemen! ; My Lords! â€Å" in the House of Lords;  Mr. Chairman! ; Honourable Members! ; Highly esteemed members of the conference! ; or, in less formal situation,  Dear Friends! ; or, with a more passionate colouring,My Friends! ).Expressions of direct address can be repeated in the course of the speech and may be expressed differently (Mark you! Mind! ). b) special formulas at the end of the speech to thank the audience for their attention (Thankyou very much; Thank you for your time). c) the use of the 1st person pronoun  we; 2nd person pronoun  you:  We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienabl e Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness ¦(Th. Jefferson,  The Declaration of Independence). ) the use of contractions  Iâ„ ¢ll; wonâ„ ¢t; havenâ„ ¢t; isnâ„ ¢t  and others:  Weâ„ ¢re talking about healing our nation. Weâ„ ¢re not talking about politics. Weâ„ ¢re all here to do everything in our power to save lives ¦ Iâ„ ¢m here to thank you for hearing that call. Actually, I shouldnâ„ ¢t be thanking you, I should be thanking a Higher Power for giving you the call  (George W. Bush). e) features of colloquial style such as asking the audience questions as the speaker attempts to reach closer contact:  Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself.Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to  govern him? (Th. Jefferson), or calling upon the audience:  Let us then, with courage and confidence, pursue our own federal and republican principles  (ibid). Like the colloquial style, oratory is usually characterized by emotional colouring and connotations, but there is a difference. The emotional colouring of the publicist style is lofty â€Å" it may be solemn, or ironic, but it cannot have the lowered connotations (jocular, rude, vulgar, or slangy) found in colloquial speech.The vocabulary of speeches is usually elaborately chosen and remains mainly in the sphere of high-flown style: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived and so dedicated in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this (A. Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address). The stylistic devices employed in the oratorical style are determined by the conditions of communication. If the desire of the speaker is to rouse the audience and to keep it in suspense, he will use various traditional stylistic devices. Stylistic devices are closely interwoven and mutually complementary thus building up an intricate pattern. For example, an antithesis is framed by parallel constructions, which, in their turn, are accompanied by repetition, while a climax can be formed by repetitions of different kinds.But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate â€Å" we cannot consecrate â€Å" we cannot hallow  this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated  here to t he unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.It is  rather for us to be dedicated  to the great task remaining before us â€Å" that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion â€Å" that we here highly resolve that these dead  shall not have died in vainâ€Å" that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom  Ã¢â‚¬Å" and that the government of the people,  by the people, for the people,  shall not perish  from the earth  (A. Lincoln). As the audience rely only on memory, the speaker often resorts to repetition to enable his listeners to follow im and retain the main points of the speech. Repetition is also resorted to in order to persuade the audience, to add weight to the speakerâ„ ¢s opinion. The following extract from the speech of the American Confederate general, A. P. Hill, on the ending of the Civil War in the U. S. A. is an exampl e of anaphoric repetition: It is high time  this people had recovered from the passions of war. It is high time  that counsel were taken from statesmen, not demagogues ¦Ã‚  It is high time  the people of the North and South understood each other and adopted means to inspire confidence in each other.A mere repetition of the same idea and in the same linguistic form may bore the audience and destroy the speaker-audience contact, therefore synonymous phrase repetition is used instead, thus filling up the speech with details and embellishing it, as in this excerpt from a speech on Robert Burns: For Burns exalted our race, he hallowed Scotland and the Scottish tongue. Before his time we had for a long period been scarcely recognized; we had been falling out of recollection of the world. From the time of the Union of the Crowns, and still more from the legislative union, Scotland had lapsed into obscurity.Except for an occasional riot, or a Jacobite rising, her existence was almos t forgotten. (All those different phrases simply repeat the idea nobody knew us, Scots, before). Repetition can be regarded as the most typical stylistic device of the English oratorical style. Almost any piece of oratory will have parallel constructions, antithesis, climax, rhetorical questions and questions-in-the-narrative. It will be no exaggeration to say that almost all typical syntactical devices can be found in English oratory. Questions are most frequent because they promote closer contact with the audience.The change of intonation breaks the monotony of the intonation pattern and revives the attention of the listeners: No? You donâ„ ¢t want to leave the U. N. to the Europeans and Russians? Then letâ„ ¢s stop bellyaching about the U. N. , and manipulating our dues, and start taking it seriously for what it is â€Å" a global forum that spends 95 percent of its energy endorsing the wars and peacekeeping missions that the U. S. wants endorsed, or taking on the thankle ss humanitarian missions that the U. S. would like done but doesnâ„ ¢t want to do itself. The U. N. actually spends only 5 percent of its time annoying the U. S.Not a bad deal! (Thomas L. Friedman. The New York Times, May 29, 2001) The desire of the speaker to convince and to rouse his audience results in the use of simile and metaphor, but these are generally traditional ones, as fresh and genuine stylistic devices may divert the attention of the listeners away from the main point of the speech. Besides, unexpected and original images are more difficult to grasp and the process takes time. In political speeches, the need for applause is paramount, and much of the distinctive rhetoric of a political speech is structured in such a way as to give the audience the maximum chance to applaud.One widely used technique is an adaptation of an ancient rhetorical structure â€Å" the three-part list: X, Y, and Z. These lists are not of course restricted to politics only:  signed, sealed and delivered; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Tom, Dick, and Harry; the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; this, that, and the other. Such lists, supported by a strong rhythm and a clear rising + falling intonation sequence, convey a sense of rhetorical power, structural control, and semantic completeness. They are widely used in formal writing.And they are especially common in political speeches, where the third item provides a climax of expression which can act as a cue for applause. In an acclaimed study of speech and body language in political speeches, using videotaped data, specialists found such instances: * Governor Wallace:  and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever. * Norman Tebbit:  Labour will spend, and borrow and borrow, and tax and tax. * Tony Ben:  and they kill it secretly, privately, without debate. History and literature provide numerous examples: * Abraham Lincoln:  Government of the people, by the people, fo r the people. Mark Anthony:  Friends, Romans, Countrymen ¦ * Winston Churchill:  This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning. And even crowds use tripartite sequences: Lone voice:  Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Crowd:  In, in, in. Consider the prosodic pattern of a fragment of the speech delivered by Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Party Conference in 1980. (Pauses are shown in seconds or tenth of a second; stressed words are underlined; pitch jumps are shown by arrows):  This week has demonstrated  (0,4)  that we are a  party  unitedin  ? ±Ã‚  purpose  (0,4),  strategy  (0,2) and  resolve.Audience:  Hear, hear  (8,0). (After M. Atkinson, 1984. ) In the House of Commons, as in other government chambers, the period set aside for MPs to put questions to ministers is a linguistic game  par excellence. The formal asking of a question is a chance to do several things â€Å" to focus public attention on an issue, express identity with a party political line, or cause trouble for the other sideâ„ ¢. It is a chance to get oneself noticed, settle old scores, or repay a constituency debt. Just occasionally, it is a real question, to which the questioner wishes to receive a real answer.Parliamentary questions are asked for a reason, which are often little to do with the semantic content of the question and more to do with the kind of confrontation which is taking place. Skilled politicians can resort to several techniques in order to evade an awkward question e. g. to ignore the question, to decline to answer it, or acknowledge it without answering it, etc. The questions politicians receive are rarely straightforward, but are preceded by a series of often unclear and controversial claims. This can be seen in the analysis of one question which was addressed to a cabinet minister during a radio interview.Well now â€Å" when Mr. Helistine protested at the cabinet meeting on December 12th â€Å" over the fact that Mrs. Thatcher had cancelled this meeting on December 13th â€Å" he raised a protest â€Å" which as you know â€Å" in his resignation statement he said â€Å" he said wasnâ„ ¢t recorded in the cabinet minutes â€Å" and now heâ„ ¢s gone back and said that he wants that protest recorded â€Å" can you say â€Å"as â€Å"as a bit of an expert on the constitution â€Å" probably more than a bit of an expert â€Å" can you honestly say â€Å" as a member of the cabinet â€Å" that you were happy that Mrs.Thatcher allowed proper discussion by all the cabinet in detail of this very important decision for defence? Elucidating the content of this question brought to light 20 possible issues, among them * Presuppositions for the validity of the question: There was a decision on defence. The decision was important. The cabinet did not properly discuss the decision ¦ * Assertions about others: Thatcher cancelled the cabinet dis cussion. Helistine protested the cancellation. Somebody omitted the protest from the record ¦ * Attributions about respondent: You are an expert on the constitution.You are a member of the cabinet ¦ * Propositions in question: Thatcher allowed discussion. Thatcher allowed discussion in detail ¦ * Questions to be answered: do you agree that some/all propositions are true? Can you agree that some/all propositions are true and be honest about it? * Yes * No Of course, no one would have reached cabinet minister rank who would use such one-word answers by way of reply. What the questioner will receive is better categorized as a response rather than an answer. 3. Explain the most characteristic language features of essay.This genre in English literature dates from the 16th century, and its name is taken from the short Essays (=experiments, attempts) by the French writer Montaigne, which contained his thoughts on various subjects. An essay is a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social or literary subjects, which preserves a clearly personal character and has no pretence to deep or strictly scientific treatment of the subject. It is rather a number of comments, without any definite conclusions.Consider an extract from Ben Johnson (16th century): Language most shows a man; speak, that I may see thee. It springs of the most retired and in most parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a manâ„ ¢s form or likeness so true, as his speech, and, as we consider features and composition in a man, so words in language. Some men are tall and big, so some language is high and great. Then the words are chosen, the sound ample, the composition full, all grace, sinewy and strong.Some are little and dwarfs; so of speech, it is humble and low; the words are poor and flat; the members are periods thin and weak, without knitting or number. Nowadays an essay is usually a kind of feature article in a magazine or newspape r. Essays are written commonly by one and the same writer or journalist, who has cultivated his own individual style. Some essays, depending on the writerâ„ ¢s individuality, are written in a highly emotional manner resembling the style of emotive prose (Hail, Nickel. Mother of Murder! Blessed destroyer of human flesh! Balm of twenty-six million corpses in six years!D. Cusack), others resemble scientific prose and the terms review, memoir, or treatise are more applicable to certain more exhaustive studies:  Taking English Poetry in the common sense of the word, as a peculiar form of the language, we find that it differs from prose mainly in having a regular succession of accented syllables. In short it possesses metre as its characteristic feature ¦(S. Maugham). The essay on moral and philosophical topics in modern times has not been so popular, probably because a deeper scientific analysis and interpretation of facts is required.The essay in our days is often biographical; p eople, facts and events are taken from life. These essays differ from those of previous centuries â€Å" their vocabulary is simpler and so is their logical structure and argumentation. But they still retain all the leading features of the publicist style. The most characteristic language features of the essay, however, remain 1. brevity of expression; 2. the use of the first person singular, which justifies a personal approach to the problems treated; 3. rather expended use of connectives, which facilitates the process of grasping the correlation of ideas; 4. the abundant use of emotive words; 5. the use of similes and metaphors as one of the media for the cognitive process. In comparison with the oratorical style, the essay aims at a more lasting, hence at a slower effect. Epigrams, paradoxes and aphorisms are comparatively rare in oratory, as they require the concentrated attention of the listener. In the essay they are commoner, for the reader has an opportunity to make a caref ul and detailed study both of the content of the utterance and its form.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

American Pageant-13th Edition: Dbq 1

In 1606, hundreds of settlers embarked on a journey from England to the Virginia colony, in search of wealth and treasure. Although they experienced much destitution early on in their journey, they were able to transform their colony with the use of the indentured servants and slaves by basing their economy around tobacco. With tobacco, they were able to create an industry in which the colonists would depend on socially and economically. The journey for the new colonist was brutal. They were crammed onto ships, so communicable diseases spread very easily. There was little food, so many of them died of starvation. When they finally arrived, they were introduced to even more diseases. On top of starvation, and chronic diseases, some died in wars. The most common cause of death for the new colonist was famine. Some of the colonists said that there were never any Englishmen left in a foreign country in such misery as their newly discovered Virginia. After they reached Virginia, they were given contracts with various people who had already settled there. With the use of tobacco, they transformed their economy. The demand for tobacco products in Europe was increasing, and the Virginians knew it. The tobacco rush soon swept over Virginia. The father of the tobacco industry, John Rolfe, became an economic savior in 1612, when he perfected methods of raising and curing the pungent weed. The colonists now focused most of their attention, concentration, and energy on planting this demanded crop. They had created one of the first products to be marketed with name-brand advertising. The industry had now built the economic foundation for the colony of Virginia. However, intense tobacco farming depleted the rich Virginia soil. The vile weed would soon ruin the soil and eventually make it unfit for planting in subsequent years. Due to the barren lands after planting, there became an increased demand for large-acre plantations. When more tobacco was planted to fill the needs of the Europeans, there also became a need for more labor. A massive workforce was now needed to work the new tobacco plantations and this demand would soon be fulfilled with the use of forced laborers and indentured servants. The colonists now faced the problem of a greater need for labor. However, families procreated too slowly, the Native Americans died too quickly from disease, and slaves were too expensive. At the time, England had an abundance of displaced farmers in search of long term employment. These laborers, known as â€Å"indentured servants,† willingly rented out their work. They signed binding contracts to their masters, to work for a number of years to pay their passage. Approximately fifteen hundred indentured servants were coming from England, Scotland, and Ireland every year. These settlers also changed the colony of Virginia socially. When they first arrived, the population of Virginia was basically zero, excluding the Native Americans. Within 71 years, there were approximately two thousand black slaves and six thousand Christian indentured servants. The population had also reached forty thousand people. The tobacco plant was the main reason for the successful changes in the Virginia colony. The profit from the plant was the reason for the economically, and the increased population of the workers was the reason socially. Without the tobacco plant, there would have been such a significant change in the new Virginia colony.

Friday, September 27, 2019

See Below week 6 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

See Below week 6 - Essay Example or the hypothesis test to take place.one of the scenario s where the t statistics is used is when a researcher wants to know whether or a treatment for a certain ailment administered by doctors can cause a change in a population mean. First, a sample from the population is obtained and treatment is administered. If the results from this sample population do not tally with those of the original population, then the investigator can conclude that the treatment actually has a significant effect. The difference between the actual mean and the sample mean indicates that the hypothesized value of ÃŽ ¼ should be rejected. The main goal of this hypothesis test to the researcher is actually to evaluate the significance of the observable difference between the original sample mean and the population mean.it would be wrong of we make an assumption that the significant effect is large since the treatment effect is partly determined by size of the sample and partly by the size of the effect. It is therefore recommendable that a measure of effect of size be computed along with the assumption test. After completing the t statistic, there will be formation of a ratio. The top part of the ratio indicates the obtained difference between the sample mean and the hypothesized population mean. The bottom of the ratio is the typical error which measures how much variance is expected by accidental. Finally, the movie would be more captivating by including mathematical calculations for better

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Intro to Information System Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Intro to Information System - Assignment Example Baidu and Google have major differences. Google provides many results than Baidu on the same search most of which may not be relevant. Baidu on the other hand provides fewer results which are more accurate and relevant. Baidu is more customized to address internet needs for Chinese population while Google tries to generalize its services to the global community. I like Google since it provides more information which is useful in research. Baidu is good since it narrows its results to more relevant information particularly in Chinese hence more useful in quick search. I dislike Google since it has more restrictions on copyrighted items. Baidu also fails to appeal since I have to request for translation every time I open a new search result page. Microsoft seems to be the best in product help screen. Microsoft provides easy to follow help topics which are easy to follow even for average persons. Problem troubleshooting downloadable software is of utmost beneficial. The program does automatic troubleshooting, repairs the installation problem and if it can’t do that it sends the problem to Microsoft site for technical review. CDs, DVDs and Blue ray Discs are multipurpose information storage devices each having advantages and disadvantages. I like CDs since they are less risky in data storage. A CD is still readable even with slight scratches on the surface. Additionally, they can be played on all machines. I dislike them since they hold very little data. DVDs are good since they are playable on most machines and hold more data than CDs. However, I dislike them since they are sensitive to surface mechanical damage. I like Blue ray Discs due to their massive storage space however, I dislike them since they require ultramodern machines to play them and also their high sensitivity to scratches. Damage to one Blue-ray disc means loss of a lot of data which is not admirable at

Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Lab Report Example The product produced is easy to handle and easy to apply due to the use of peppermint oil. The peppermint also improves its flavor. As provided by the ingredients we can see that calcium carbonate is the major ingredient with the heaviest weight (Field). As discussed above the ingredient is responsible for protection against tooth decay, dental carries and other forms of tooth infections. Re-mineralization is a basic concern in preparation of any toothpaste since it helps in fighting dental carries a common disease worldwide. Calcium and phosphate are also important since they are able to alter cariogenic potential of dental plaque biofilm. The paste is applied depending on the size of the toothbrush. A small amount is applied and brushed over the teeth in a normal brushing way (Perlich, Bacca and Bollmer). The contents should be disposed immediately the process of brushing is over. The mouth should be cleaned and rinsed with fresh clean water. The toothpaste has no harmful effects and can be used regularly depending on the user needs. The paste should be stored in a cool and dry place to prevent it from drying. The paste should be used while fresh and valid. If it expires it can have negative and harmful effects. Since it is homemade and non-medicated it is advisable that little content is made at a time to prevent cases if impurity. Homemade paste made ensured protection of the gums and the teeth in general since these are the main reasons as to why people go for toothpastes. The paste helps in re-mineralization which is also an important aspect of dental carries control and other infections in the mouth. Perlich, MA, et al. "The clinical effect of a stabilized stannous fluoride dentifrice on plaque formation, gingivitis and gingival bleeding: a six-month study." The Journal of Clinical Dentistry (1995): 6 (Special Issue):

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Anglo- Saxon culture Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Anglo- Saxon culture - Research Paper Example It is one of the first British literature recorded epic poem (Clyne, 1987). It is the symbol of creative Anglo Saxon Art and Literature. Beowulf is an important character within the poem. This poem revealed several values of the Anglo Saxon culture. These specific values include their belief in revenge, loyalty and boasting. Values of the Anglo Saxons Beowulf is considered as one of the most epic poem of the British literature. This poem has effectively portrayed the culture and value system of Anglo Saxon. Three most important values, such as courage, honour and kinship has been thoroughly discussed in this poem. While these are all sovereign societal and cultural values, they worked collaboratively in order to reflect the clear picture of the culture. The Anglo-Saxon period is one of the oldest periods of time that availed a complex culture with stable art, culture, literature and political structure. During that period of time, culture of several societies was unsophisticated. But the Anglo Saxon culture was extremely advanced considering the time period. Anglo-Saxon time is a time that filled with effective advancements and discoveries in society, religion, art, literature, culture and government. The Anglo Saxon period was lasted for almost 600 years. During these 600 years, the Anglo Saxon brought own cultural values, beliefs and religion (Howe, 1993). They had competence in creative art, literature and architecture. The Anglo Saxon art is highly popular and recognized throughout the globe. The illustrated manuscript of Anglo Saxon culture is effectively utilized across the globe. Beowulf was their fast poem. They have effectively incorporated their culture and value system in this poem. It was the essence of warfare culture and values of Anglo Saxon that has been revealed in this poem. The poem also reveals different universal and paramount themes. These include heroic deeds, deadly personification and raw emotions like pride, greed and glory. The indivi duals within the group were quite loyal towards their leader as they believed that their leader can protect them from an enemy or other terrors in order to gain loyalty. Courtesy, generosity, courage, personal valour, loyalty, faith and fame are the major characteristics of the Anglo Saxon society. They admired the men from various tribal backgrounds for their outstanding courage (Weale, Weiss, Jager & Bradman, 2002). They believed in the significance of loyalty of a leader. They effectively valued the severe personal valour that was necessary for survival. Everybody within the cultural and societal background was aware of shortness of life. Last but not the least; everyone competed for fate and fame which is the only thing that ever lasted. The Anglo Saxon Culture as Reflected in Beowulf The social structure of Anglo Saxon consisted of several tribal units. A chieftain was the king of these units. The leader theoretically earned respect from their warriors. However, each and every culture has its own sets of customs, values and beliefs. Cultural values, beliefs and assumptions are indirectly or directly acquired throughout a lifetime. It is true that the culture is the sum of an entire group’s lay of life and there is no difference with the antique Anglo Saxon culture. The importance of values, heroes or leaders and religion effectively reflected in the Beowulf epic poem. According to their beliefs and values, the

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Entrepreneurship Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 7

Entrepreneurship - Essay Example disadvantages of this form of business relates to the difficulty to raise capital and lack of continuity in situations when the owner is absent (Canada-Saskatchewan Business Service Centre, 2011). The other form of business is a partnership, which is commenced by a minimum of two or more individual, who owns and manages the business. The partners share unlimited liabilities of the business, and they run the business together. Some of its advantages relate to the ease of raising capital, and partners are jointly responsible for obligations of the business. However, the business has some disadvantages, which relates to the slow decision making and there is a chance of dispute occurring resulting to dissolution of the business. A corporation is a limited liability business owned by multiple shareholders, who elect the board of directors to run the business. The business is distinct from the owner and they are able to borrow money and sign contracts pay taxes and be sued, while profit is gained from the dividends or appreciation of stock, but they are not liable for the company obligations. Therefore, some of the advantages associated with this business relates to the ability to raise funds through sales of stock, while the shareholders are able to transfer their ownership easily by selling stock. The owner has limited liability; thus, it only covers the value of stock in the corporations. On the other hand, some of the disadvantages relate to the restrictions due to regulations and monitoring by government agencies, thus making it more costly to incorporate compared to other forms of organizations. The profit is taxed by the corporate tax rate, and shareholders’ dividends are not deductible from the corporate income. The limited liability companies are simple, and their liability is limited, thus is allows the entrepreneurs to keep their own assets and finances separate from the business. One of the advantages of the limited liability companies is offering

Monday, September 23, 2019

Jennifer Weltz Discussion Board Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Jennifer Weltz Discussion Board - Coursework Example The background image of an open book and presentation of various authors work is informative on the role of the corporation. Furthermore, the placement of functional hyperlink at the top region of the website makes navigation easy. In addition, the information about presented on the website is appropriate for the purpose of the website. Consequently, this among other reasons brings out the purpose of the website. 1. As the president of JVNLA, an organizational that has sold books domestically and internationally for almost two decades, I would like to know what do you look for in an author’s work that makes JVNLA what it is today (Our Team: Jennifer Weltz )? 3. With regard to your speech to the Historical Novel Society Convention that was held in San Diego, Madam President I quote â€Å"†¦I try to help my authors receive what they need to make their books reach their highest potential†. To me this implies that you have a commanding knowledge in realizing what it takes one to be the best author. Do you have any plans to nurture potential authors

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Drug Abuse Essay Example for Free

Drug Abuse Essay An estimated 12. 8 million Americans, about 6 percent of the household population aged twelve and older, use illegal drugs on a current basis (www. ncjrs. gov). Over the years the abuse of psychoactive drugs has become a persistent issue effecting individuals worldwide. Psychoactive Drugs are substances that change a person’s mood, perception, mental functioning and behavior (Understanding Psychology pg 142). These drugs are often ingested to alter an individuals feelings or to help them cope with their problems. However the â€Å"high† that they receive does not remain long, resulting in the continuous use of the drug to remain feeling that â€Å"high†. Nevertheless the ongoing abuse of these drugs may lead to these individuals developing a tolerance for the drug. This results to the individual becoming dependant upon the drug. This dependence is known as addiction. Nicotine, â€Å"Crack† Cocaine and Alcohol, are the most dangerous and addictive psychoactive drugs. Other commonly abused drugs are Amphetamines, Prescription Medication, Heroin, Ecstasy, and Marijuana. In the movie Rain substance abuse was seen numerous of times. Rain’s mother, and her best friend all showed signs of substance abuse or dependency. The movie showed how Drug abuse and addiction affects the society at large. However once a person becomes addicted there are ways to help them so that they can recover and be productive in society. Before I discuss the various ways to help a substance abuse recover, I will elaborate on how the addict harms themselves, as well as their families and the society.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

The impact of gender in research

The impact of gender in research Does the gender of the interviewer effect the response rate, interview and the results obtained? Many researchers have investigated the effect that interviewers gender has on research, this paper seeks to examine if there is an effect and how relevant that effect is. It will draw on academic papers, business examples and a case study. Hyman et al (1954) were one of the first to examine the effect gender-of-the interviewer has on the interview process; they found respondents replied differently to male and female researchers. Since then there has been an abundance of research in the field, much of the research is based on and argues that gender-of-interviewer effects are evident on, topics related specifically to feminism, politics and other sensitive issues. This paper will analyse the research and apply it to a case study. With the main aim to determine if the gender-of-interview affects all interview areas or whether it is topic specific. It is important to understand what is meant by interviewer effects; interviewer errors are expected to occur differently in every interview whereas interviewer effects refers to a specific interviewer characteristic i.e. gender (Dijkstra 1983). Interviewer effects look at how interviewer variance can bias the results of research. The case study being looked at took place in Oldham, it was a consultancy project investigating participation rates of food waste recycling, with the main objective to increase participation rates. The methodology used was semi-structured interviews and drop off questionnaires. The interviewers were made up of two women and three men. Researchers went out in pairs, for safety reasons, the researchers went out in four pairings, three pairs made up by a women and male interviewer and the final pairing was comprised of two male researchers. Due to time constraints and the nature of the work this case study was unable to talk to residents about their impression of interviewer-gender-effects. However all interviewers were interviewed extensively by the author of this paper, to grasp their view of the effect gender had. The main topics covered were response rates, lengths of interviews and results obtained. Does the gender-of-interviewer affect response rate? Gender can affect the response rate; Smith (1972) suggests that women are less likely to invite men interviewers into their home explaining that it is due to the perceived danger, this argues Smith can be an issue for male interviewers conducting research. When looking at the Oldham Case study this was evident, the response rate for the mixed paring had a higher response rate to the male only pairing. The mixed pairings had a response rate average of ? and the male only pairing had a response rate average of  ¼. This is backed up by Dommeyer (2008) whose study examined how using a photo in the cover letter of a drop off questionnaire effects responses. Female interviewers prove to obtain a higher response rate. His research found that rivalling the gender was only productive if they were female. Bean and Medewitz (1988) had similar results when sending out cover letters with a female signature; a higher response rate was produced than when a male signature was used 35% and 26% resp onse rate respectively. Moreover, Catonia et al (1996) experiments found that on a phone interview when respondents were given the opportunity to request a gender 82%, of women and 72% of male respondents did request with the majority selecting a female, suggesting that respondents prefer female interviewers. When interviewed, Keith from the Oldham case study expressed: Sandra seemed to get a higher response rate then I did, we quickly realised this and Sandra became the interviewer and I the scriber. Johnson and Delamater (1976) discuss, whilst looking at response rates in sex surveys, the effect gender has on respondents agreeing to be interviewed. They argue that the gender of the interviewer can have a substantial effect on response levels; attributing it to the type of survey suggesting that if they are embarrassed about the topic being discussed they may be less likely to opt to participate, especially with someone from the opposite gender. In the Oldham case study this can be compared to respondents who do not participate in recycling and are therefore are less likely to agree to be interviewed, however the gender of the interviewer is unlikely to make a difference there. Benny et al (1956) notes that male interviewers gain fewer responses to female interviewers and most of these are from female respondents. Rourke and Lakner (1989) discuss the gender bias that exists within the data collection.. How does gender affect the results obtained? Huddy et al (1997) looked at the effect that the gender-of-interviewer had in two surveys, where male and female interviewers were randomly assigned to interview male and female respondents. With the first survey; gender of interviewer had more of an effect on less educated and younger respondents. However these results were not replicated in the second survey. Yang and Yu (2008) argues that well educated people are not affected by gender as much because they are more use to inter-gender relations. Huddy et al (1997) also attribute it to the fact that people that are more educated are more confident in the company of the other gender. WHAT IS EDUCATION IN OLDHAM? Many researchers have suggested that the gender of the interviewer only has an effect on certain topics. Huddy et al (1997) suggests that the gender-of-interviewer is more predominant when; politics and views on feminism are discussed. Bellou and Del Boca (1980) found stronger gender-of-interviewer effects among women respondents on questions about the existence of gender inequality whereas men tend to be more affected when questions about women movements arose. Flores-Macias and Lawson (2006) claim that in the past research has shown effect on social and political issues when interviewed by different gender. Using a survey on households in Mexico the research tries to add to the field, they found gender effects were confined to sensitive questions, they concluded gender-interviewer effects are limited to gender topics. TOPIC OF RECYCLING In contrast Kane and Macauley (1983) note the opposite; Women were most effected by questions on womens movements for example collective action and women shared interest, while men were more effected by the interviewers gender when answering work-related gender equalities. Gender bias was highest with questions related to controversial politics and womens movements. Kane and Macaulay (1993) research looks at the effects of interviewer gender on responses in particular on gender-related survey questions. They look at if gender effects are present and how it differs from male and female. Huddy et al (1997) argue respondents are susceptible to gender-of-interviewer effects across a broad spectrum of gender-linked items. Groves and Fultz (1983) found that economic indicators receive more optimistic responses when interviewed by a male interviewer rather than a female interviewer. Landis et al (1973) reported that when women were interviewed by male interviewers they gave more feminist responses on womens roles. Kane and Macaulay (1993) summarise stating after analysing gender-attitude it is clear that interviewer-gender bias is present, it tends to include respondents giving a critical response to female interviewers than to male. On standard debate topics men are more likely to be effected by the gender of the interviewer and are less likely on less familiar topics. Womens responses vary dramatically in their responses to male and female interviewers on various issues. They did not see a vast difference in interviewer gender effects for example respondents to male respondents. It is therefore questionable on it social power effects conversational power in the interview process. Both male and female respondents are at times affected by interviewer gender. In contrast Herod (1993), who is a geographer, believes that the gender-of-interviewer can effect responses on any topic discussed. He argues that gender relations are an important aspect that can shape the interview process, gender can shape the type of data collected especially when carrying out interviews. Backing this up is McDowell (1992) who explains how interviews raise the issue of gender, Schaenberger (1992) agrees gender makes a difference (p.217). In the Oldham case study gender.. look at results! Herod (1993) gender can shape the use of interviews as a research tool (p.306). Even when all respondents are of the same gender, gender bias still shapes the interactions between interviewer and interviewee. Feminists support this statement gender is significant in society it is always going to effect gender relations in the research process (Keller 1985). Herods paper looks at work conducted across different disciplines on gender and its effect on interviewing. Turner and Martin (1984) in the classic work discuss how the gender-of-interviewer and the respondent has significant effect, the different options (male interviewer, female respondent/ male interviewer male respondent etc) have different effects in influencing opinions and feelings. Eagly and Carli (1981) showed a statistical relationship between the gender of the interviewer and outcome of the interviews showing both; respondents giving different answers to male and female researchers, but also researchers interpreting it differently. Thus this demonstrates that an interviewers gender can affect respondents answers. Looking at the Oldham case this can be demonstrated through interpretation of answers, when looking at how the answers were interpreted it is completely a subjective task, when a male was interrupting it, the results appeard whereas when a female was interrupting it is seemed. Even when it is the same gender there is an effect, Aries (1976) suggested that men tend to be more aggressive and macho to a male interviewer. Herod (1993) explains whereas a male interviewer may display one type of behaviour with female researcher he may show a different one to a male therefore obtaining different results. Oldham case study.. Piliavan and Martin (1978) found that in a group setting men and women acted differently, in the Oldham council case study, researchers went out in pairs often a man and women researcher, Aries (1976) explains that she observed women were less likely to interact than men in a mixed group. This could have affected female respondents answers when being interviewed by a male and female researcher in the Oldham case study. Moreover Herod (1993) notes the difference in the way male and female genders interpret information, on an interview he refers to the type of language used. Carli (1991) claims that women and men use language differently. Lakoff (1975) argues that women have to be socialised to use language that is less assertive then men and womens expressions are tentative. Herod (1993) puts forward that these stereotypes have implications when men and women interpret language. Sociolinguist, Deborah Tanen (1990) claims that men and women have different beliefs of how conversations are meant to work, as well as different views on the role of conversational interaction and building relationships (Wolfram Schilling-Estes, 1998). Herod (1993) explains that there is a danger in trying to generalise about gender relations in such broad categories. Arguing that they themselves did not look at race or class and how these shape gender. There is a need to look at how gender can mean different things in different context. Interviewing is about how interviewers generate meanings and understandings. Are men or women more affected by gender-of-interviewer? Whelcher (1987) and Ballou and Del Boca (1980) both argue that male respondents show more effect from gender-of-interviewer. Whelcher (1987) documents that men give more democratic responses to male interviewers as they try to give the response that they feel the male interviewer wants to hear. Ballou and Del Boca (1980) states how men give more democratic responses to female interviewers. Landis et al (1973) explain that it is expected that during an interview relationships are formed between respondent and interviewer and thus the behaviour of the respondent is influenced by their perception of the circumstances. Warren (1988) argues that women are better at building a rapport when interviewing. Landis et al (1973) found from their results that the women interviewed gave a more feminist response to the male interviewer, noting that the statistics were significant. They summarise that the gender of the interviewer does have a marked effect on response to women. Hyman et al (1954) found that gender of interviewer effected female respondents results when a male asked the question; 61% agreed with the statement, but when they were interviewed by women only 49% agreed. Hyman concluded women felt more obliged to give conventional opinions to a male interviewer. Benny et al (1956) note that both men and women act differently in the company of the other gender; acting more formally and expressing less. Benny et al (1956) and Hyman (1954) both argue that women in the presence of men talk more traditionally are more formal and tend to give the expected answer. Oldham Case study then this >It could be argued that as both these papers are dated, the findings may be less relevant. Macaulay (1993) claim the more egalitarian answers are more persuasive among male respondents when interviewed by a women. Flores-Macias and Lawson (2006) found that men are more likely to be effected rather than women. Furthermore that the social context has an effect, culture for example in Mexico City men were more susceptible to gender bias backing this up. Approximately 30% of men interviewed by men felt women rights were urgent however 40% interviewed by women felt it an issue. They also found women were more progressive when interviewed by men. Holbrook et al (2003) argue that effect from respondents believe they try to answer what interviewers want. Oldham Case study Davis et al (2010) argue that interviewer effects can impact the data obtained. They looked at measuring and controlling interviewer effects. Effects can occur from interviewer related issues such as the way questions are read, probes are used, instructions to survey etc (OLDHAM CASE study difference between male and female). Davis et al (2010) discuss how gender is the most noticeable characteristic of an interview and therefore is most susceptible to having an effect. In the past women were considered better interviewers because they are seen as less threatening and therefore there has not been as much research on this topic. But since telephone interviews gender has become more of an issue as no longer can the respondent see socioeconomic status, physical attractiveness, personal demeanour (Huddy et al 1997, p.197). Huddy et al (1997) note that there is growing evidence that respondents are more likely to give a feminist view to a female interviewer as the respondent seeks to give the answer they think the interviewer wants to hear. OLDHAM CASE Huddy et al (1997) had two goals from their study to test for the existence of gender-of-interviewer effects across a range of gender related questions. And to explore the characteristics of respondents most liable to gender-of-interviewer. Huddy et al (1997) wanted to test to see if the existence of gender-of-interviewer effected a range of topics or just gender related questions to achieve this they used two surveys both containing questions that dealt with womens issues and womens movements. Their results showed respondents were more likely to give a feminist view to a female interviewer on 11/13 gender related topics. However the difference obtained by male and female interviewers was small and consistent and was only significant for a minority of questions. The topics that showed gender-of-interviewer effects differed from the two surveys in the first, carried out in 1991 the largest gender-of-interview effects occurred on questions relating to feminist identity whereas in the second, obtained in 1993 they were on topics on abortion and anti-sexual harassment legislation. In both surveys a female interviewer collected more feminist views then a man. They did find, however that gender bias occurred most on both surv eys when topics on controversial politics were broached. With Huddy et al (1997) second goal they discovered significant interaction between interviewer gender and education less-well educated respondents were more influenced then well educated by the interviewers gender. Despite this the same results were not emulated in the second survey but they argue this could be because the gender bias was not as affluent either. To reinforce this Huddy et al (1997) assessed the statics of education and effect of gender on respondents with 12 and 17 years of education. They found that gender-of-interviewer effects were more prevalent with less educated respondents. Overall respondents with less formal education were more likely to be effected by the gender-of-interviewer and on gender related questions. Huddy et al (1997) note that gender bias decreases with age and income was the only demographic characteristic that did not increase. But how important is it, does it have a large enough effect to matter? Huddy et al (1997) found that small differences in their study. They conclude that it depends on the survey being administered. If it will effect then it is crucial that an equal number of men and women are randomly assigned to respondents. Finally Huddy et al (1997) believe that from their results it can be seen that gender could effect any type of survey and use the beginning of their first survey to demonstrate this point; where gender bias is present and the topic of the survey has not been disclosed. Huddy et al (1997) argue the view gender-of-interview effects questions is premature because; rarely have researcher controlled the individualism of interviews when examining gender-of-interviewer effects, few studies have measured the size of effects across a broad spectrum of questions to see if the effect is on feminist questions or all topics. Bellou and Del Boca (1980) did look into this in their 1980 study. Huddy et al (1997) continue explaining that effects are not standard even for questions on the same topic and few studies have tested the statistical significance across several variables with the same respondent. Huddy et al (1997) suggest that not enough research on which gender is most prone to gender-interviewer-bias as there is a contrast in theories. Lueptow, Moser and Pendleton (1990) argue women are more likely to give feminist views to a female interviewer, which they proved through telephone interviews. In contrast Ballou and Del Boca (1980) contrasted stating male respondents are more vulnerable to female interviews and appear more feminine. McDowell (1988) disagrees arguing that there is no gender split in research methods but rather a stereotyping in gender characteristics. Little work has been done on the effect of the interviewers gender; as traditionally interviewing was a female occupation Williams (1964) in his classic paper hypothesised that the greater the amount of social difference between interviewer and respondent the more likely of gender bias. Demonstrates the importance of the gender of interviewer and that the subject can have an effect.

Friday, September 20, 2019

The Good, the Bad, and the Apathetic Essay -- Voting Election Voter Vo

The Good, the Bad, and the Apathetic Another presidential election year rolls around for America and what will the vote decide? Sometimes equally debated and foretold, another issue exists that does not appear on the ballot. How many people will turnout at the polls to cast their vote for their governmental representatives? The patterns of American history would say that not very many will show up. â€Å"Indeed, voter turnout has fallen from its peak of 63 percent in 1960 to just below half during the last presidential election, in 1996. As a result, the world's leading democracy ranks 140th in voter turnout among democratically elected governments (Cooper).† They make this point at what seems like every election in recent years and the problem has existed off and on for the entire history of the United States. No easy solution exists to lead more people to the polls without enacting a law requiring the vote, but a few things could help in a small way. Some of the influence for addressing this problem stems from my own personal experience with trying to register for voting in my first presidential election. Complicating my situation is the fact that I go to school in Pennsylvania, but am an Ohio resident. I found it very difficult to complete my registration forms. My first trouble encountered appeared when I found out that no matter what I looked up on the internet, I still had to send away for a registration form and then send it back in. It said that I could print out a form, but that it required me to print the form on number 40 cardstock. What a hassle? This seemed like a lot of effort for such a simple form. Secondly, I have to vote by absentee ballot and thus am required to let the el... ...ection." Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica. 2004. Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica Online. 22 Mar. 2004 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=115182>. Hobby, Bill. â€Å"So maybe low voter turnout isn't always a bad thing?† The Houston Chronicle. (7 Dec. 1997). 22 March 2004 < http://www.swt.edu/cpm/hobbyscorner/voter.html>. Removing obstacles to voting. (2001). In Moore J. L., Preimesberger J. P., & Tarr D. R. (Eds.), Guide to U.S. elections (Vol. 1). Washington: CQ Press. Retrieved March 31, 2004, from CQ Electronic Library, CQ Voting and Elections Collection: gusel1-152-7218-392799. Shesgreen, Deirdre. â€Å"Internet Could Upend Michigan Race.† St. Louis Post – Dispatch. 9 Nov. 2003, pg. A.7. Utley, Garrick. â€Å"Low voter turnout expected on Election Day.† CNN.com. (3 Nov. 2000). 22 March 2004 < http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/02/voter.turnout/>.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Making Money When the Market is Mistaken! :: essays research papers

Making Money When the Market is Mistaken! Part 1.) I did my program review on a one-hour show I watched straight through. It was called, â€Å"Making Money when the Market is Mistaken.† The lead man basically running the show was Conrad De Aenlle. He is also a writer for the New York Times and is an expert on making money. The show was basically on Stocks and how J.P. Morgan runs their company. Now nobody has ever gone broke by thinking others where stupid. There are many managers that work for J.P. Morgan and many of them agree that there is good money to be made underestimating others ability to get the job done right. Now what does that mean? Sounds wrong to me, I was taught to never underestimate others. Now during the entire show they would focus in on this point and try to prove that J.P. Morgan could and would make me money off others mistakes. The funds in most companies are run according to principles of behavioral finance, which means they are run according to behavior repetition. They believe that people are illogical, yet predictable. Followers of this approach do not ignore the nuts and bolts of business - profits, sales, cash flow and so forth. Basically all the functions of the daily business, But they say that investors consistently have errors in evaluating such information, and that professional portfolio managers, wink, wink (J.P. Morgan) can profit from the ways that others make mistakes. Conrad would constantly remind the viewers that he was a part of J.P. Morgan and he was trying to make me money. "Traditional finance theory tells us markets are efficient and rational," said Silvio Tarca, one of the managers of the Morgan funds and one of two people interview live on the show. And basically she says that human behavior leads to irrational decisions and that J.P. Morgan makes a lot of money off of and so should you or me. People when wrapped up in the stock investment life, start to invest based on feelings and emotions instead of logically reasoning. She said J.P. Morgan is practicing sociology instead of just stock investments to become a step ahead of everybody else. The five Morgan portfolios sold under their own brand all produced better than the Standard & Poor 500-stock index over the 12 months through March. Which would mean their theory is working. The flagship Intrepid America a stock of J.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

The Necessity of Autonomy (Free Will) in Society Essay -- Autonomy Fre

The Necessity of Autonomy (Free Will) in Society   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.† John Stuart Mill explicitly describes the necessity of autonomy or free will in society to insure the happiness of all. From this perspective one can recognize that autonomy should not only be unconditionally allowed, but also as an aspect of man that was developed along with the ability to reason. In accordance with the natural evolution of man as a rationale being, to limit one’s autonomy would be to deny the very ability that has allowed man’s development to occur. Although the topic of autonomy is prevalent in the field of psychology, the ramifications of limits to, spread throughout all aspects of society as a whole.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There have been criticisms to the necessity of autonomy from the beginning of philosophical thought. However, it can be recognized that these criticisms are often developed with a limited viewpoint. One such critic, B.F. Skinner who stressed the influence of the environment over the individual, argued against autonomy from that particular view. Skinner stated, â€Å"It is clear now that we must take into account what the environment does to an organism not only before but after it responds. Behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences.† Althou...

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

The DaVinci Code

The Da Vinci Code is creation of Dan Brown’s mental regime or a fact. It is for the people to decide whether these theories belong to Brown's imagination or the skeleton of ‘facts' that supports the book. The early church history just can't stay out of the news. The DaVinci Code contains many more claims about Christianity's historic origins and theological development. Almost every thing our fathers told about Christ is false. Brown argues a single meeting of bishops in 325, at the city of Nicea in modern-day Turkey.There, church leaders who wanted to consolidate their power base created a divine Christ and an infallible Scripture-both novelties that had never before existed among Christians. One of the key points put forward by Brown as Da Vinci code truth is that the Bible cannot be trusted. Certain portions of the literature that Brown proclaimed as ‘Bible' do have fallacies. The early books called the Gnostic Gospels often disagree with the inspired gospels of God’s Word. The Da Vinci Code novel involves a conspiracy by the Catholic Church to cover up the â€Å"true† story of Jesus.In the book, the Vatican knows it is living a lie but continues to do so to keep itself in power. The novel has helped generate popular interest in speculation concerning the Holy Grail legend and the role of Mary Magdalene in the history of Christianity. Fans have lauded the book as creative, action-packed and thought-provoking. Critics have attacked it as poorly written, inaccurate and creating confusion between speculation and fact. From a religious point of view, some critics consider it sacrilegious, and decry the many negative implications about the Catholic Church and Opus Dei.Negating any deep rooted belief after 20 centuries is very difficult, if we see the other side of story. It is more difficult for those who have attained certain level in spiritual world through Christianity. It is a matter of debate as who were the gainer-Bishops or society. Christianity is just a path or media to gain spiritualism. It is not important which path you choose to gain spiritualism. Christianity or any religion in the world is for betterment and to provide a clean society. Sanctity of the Bible; Incomplete input gives out a wrong outputThe Bible's composition and consolidation may appear a bit too human for the comfort of some Christians; Brown claims â€Å"the Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven† In The Da Vinci Code, Brown apparently adopts Arius as his representative for all pre-Nicene Christianity. In reality, early Christians overwhelmingly worshipped Jesus Christ as their risen Saviour and Lord. Before the church adopted comprehensive doctrinal creeds, early Christian leaders developed a set of instructional summaries of belief, termed the â€Å"Rule† or â€Å"Canon† of Faith, which affirmed this truth.With the Bible playing a central role in Christianity, Brown claims that Constantine commissioned a nd bankrolled a staff to manipulate existing texts and thereby divinize the human Christ.. But some people may argue; at this stage, it is impossible to collect sufficient input to arrive on any concrete conclusion. It’s a universal fact that none of us has seen Jesus Christ. It is hard to believe unless we witness. We draw a conclusion based on available inputs, which may further have many variables. Bible's composition and consolidation was necessary to communicate many and into its correct form.Bible draws a line between rights and wrongs, Do’s and Don’ts or in other words it provides a proven track for the people to follow and help them to take their own judgment in day to day life. People are wondering if Brown’s book contains Da Vinci truth. The introductory note of the book says, â€Å"all descriptions of documents and secret rituals are accurate. † Is this a true statement? Is there such a thing as Da Vinci Code truth? So how much of The Da Vinci Code is truth? When asked how much of his book is based on â€Å"reality in terms of things that actually occurred,† author Dan Brown said, â€Å"Absolutely all of it.Although Brown claims that the book is filled with truths, the people must keep in mind that this claim is included in the first paragraphs of a fiction book. Even claims that something is true, when found in a fiction book, are still fiction. If Brown had truly wanted to enlighten the world about his true nature of Jesus and the Catholic Church, he would have done so in a non-fiction setting. Why then did Brown assert in interviews that the information contained within his book was true? Booming of ‘The Da Vinci Code' and Christianity; A logical analysisThe Da Vinci Code proves that some misguided theories never entirely fade away. They just reappear periodically in a different disguise. Brown's claims resemble those of Arius and his numerous heirs throughout history, who have contradicted the uni ted testimony of the apostles and the early church they built. Those witnesses have always attested that Jesus Christ was and remains God himself. It didn't take an ancient council to make this true. And the pseudo historical claims of a modern novel can't make it false.Some Christians have optimistically hoped that The Da Vinci Code might provide a potential opportunity for dialogue and discussion about Jesus with people who might not otherwise be open to such discussions. Booming of Da Vinci code may have many reasons. It may not be wise to correlate its sale to acceptance of the people- for some people it’s a novel, some want to analyze and do the self assessment of their faith and for some it may be of academic interest. Threat to Christianity is beyond imagination. The reason being; the very first question is about existence of God.If the answer is ‘No' then there may arise millions of questions to which today’s world still in search of an answer. If the ans wer is ‘Yes’ then there has to be certain rule and requires source and some media to communicate. Unless, the source is either ‘Supernatural' or ‘Super human', it is hard for the people to rely on it. We find Jesus Christ exactly fits into this place. Therefore The Da Vinci code can never ever be a threat to Christianity. References 1) Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code; Doubleday (USA); 2003 2) The Da Vinci Code, Special Illustrated Edition, Doubleday; November 2, 2004,

Monday, September 16, 2019

How successfully did Weimar governments deal with Germany’s problems in the years 1920-1924 Essay

The Weimar governments were reasonably successful when it came to dealing with Germany’s problems within those four years. The government being taken over by Gustav Stresemann, in August 1923, made a huge, positive difference to Germany. Because of Stresemann, Germany was able to recover a lot quicker with his help. One of Germany’s major problems was hyperinflation. Germany having no more goods to trade, resulted in the government printing more money. There ended up being so much money, but not enough goods to buy with it, so prices and wages went up by a tremendous amount. This made the money worthless. The majority of Germany was ‘rich’. Stresemann dealt with this problem in a very helpful way. He immediately called off passive resistance and ordered the workers in the Ruhr to go back to work. He then burned all of the worthless marks and created, then replaced a new currency, known as the ‘Rentenmark’. The Dawes Plan of 1924 was formulated to take Weimar Germany out of hyperinflation and return Weimar’s economy to some form of stability. The main points of the Dawes Plan were simple in their effort to re-float Weimar Germany’s economy. The first main point of the Dawes plan was to return the Ruhr to Germany so that it was in their full control. Stresemann negotiated to receive American loans under the Dawes Plan, which also renegotiated the reparations bill from the Treaty of Versailles. For example, in 1924, the figure was set as fifty million in British pound sterling, as opposed to two billion of 1922. These were the first issues Stresemann dealt with as Chancellor, and due to his success, it was clear that Germany’s governments were in good hands. Another one of Germany’s problems was the attempts to overthrow the government. Luckily, for the government, they were unsuccessful. Spartacists week in 1919, the Kapp Putsch, and the Munich Putsch are all examples of attacks, from the left and right wing, which failed in the early years of the Weimar Republic. The fact that all of these attacks failed, shows that  Weimar governments were yet again successful, when it came to dealing with their problems. Although Weimar governments had many successes, before Stresemann and under his power, these problems still occurred and it was irresponsible of Weimar governments to allow these problems to get out of hand and out of their control, even if they did manage to recover. For starters, hyperinflation started. That, in itself, is a problem that could have been prevented, which caused major issues for Germany. It took a lot of work to recover from it and having a new currency was a big deal. It was as if a new currency was the only way to recover from that disaster. As well as this, pensioners on fixed incomes and people with savings were the most badly hit as they lost all of their money when the Rentenmark was introduced and the money was not returned to them. There was so much violence to fight against and so many attempts to overthrow the Weimar Republic. This also should have been prevented at an earlier stage. As a result of these attacks, there were deaths and severe injuries which were in the hands of the Weimar Republic, all because groups from the left wing and groups from the right wing didn’t agree with the way the government was running Germany. They could have found a way to avoid so much crime and violence. Another mishap from the Weimar Republic was the fail to pay back the reparations bill from the Treaty of Versailles. Although it was an extremely difficult bill to pay, considering the economic situation in Germany, they still failed. Their failure resulted in the French and Belgian troops going into the Ruhr and Germany couldn’t do much to stop them. In conclusion, Weimar Governments were overall successful when it came to dealing with Germany’s problems. Stresemann’s solutions resulted in Germany’s economy becoming stable again, so they dealt with the issues very successfully.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Chef Satisfaction

African Journal of Business Management Vol. 4(18), pp. 4118-4134, 18 December, 2010 Available online at http://www. academicjournals. org/AJBM ISSN 1993-8233  ©2010 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Drivers of hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance Ming-Chun Tsai1, Ching-Chan Cheng2* and Ya-Yuan Chang3 Department of Business Administration, Chung Hua University, No. 707, Sec. 2, WuFu Road, Hsinchu City, Taiwan 300, Republic of China. 2 Department of Food and Beverage Management, Taipei College of Maritime Technology, No. 212, Sec. , Yen Ping N, Taipei City, Taiwan 111, Republic of China. 3 Department of Business Administration, National Chung Hsing University, No. 250, Kuo Kuang Road. , Taichung City, Taiwan 402, Republic of China. Accepted 18 November, 2010 1 This study aims to combine empowerment, internal marketing, leadership and job stress to propose an integrated model of hospitality industry employees ’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance. The subjects of this study were hospitality industry employees from Taipei City, and the structural equation modeling was adopted to validate path relationships in integrated model.The findings showed that employees’ job satisfaction directly and positively influences organizational commitment, but does not directly influence job performance. Employees’ job satisfaction enhances job performance only through organizational commitment. Internal marketing, empowerment and leadership also positively influence job satisfaction. Empowerment and leadership enhance employees’ organizational commitment. Internal job stress negatively influences employees’ job satisfaction and external job stress enhances employees’ job performance.According to the findings, this paper realized the main factors which influence hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction, organizational comm itment and job performance, which can function as criteria for human resource management in the hospitality industry. Key words: Hospitality industry, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job performance. INTRODUCTION With the change of the industrial structure in recent years, the output value of the service industry has become more than 70% of the GDP in most advanced countries (CIA, 2009). Thus, the service industry plays a significant role in national economic development.In 2008, as the world encountered a financial tsunami, the governments of different countries selected potential service industries and supported them with resources, in order to energize economic development. The hospitality industry is a typical service industry, and it is critical service industry around the world. In Taiwan, the scale of the hospitality industry has been increasing year by year. According to the Statistics Department, Ministry of Economic Affairs, in 2001 the business volume of the hospitality industry in Taiwan was NTD 261. 3 billion.In 2006 it passed NTD 300 billion and in 2009 it reached NTD 321. 7 billion. However, the hospitality industry refers to labor services and relies on manpower in areas such as production, delivery and restaurant service. Thus, the hospitality industry is mainly based on services. As mentioned in Bitner’s (1995) framework of the service marketing triangle, service providers play a critical role in the service industries. In service industry management, regarding the importance of employees, Heskett et al. (1994) proposed the framework of service profit chain.In the service profit chain, there are critical linkages among internal service *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email  protected] tcmt. edu. tw. Tel: +886-2-28102292 ext. 5009. Fax: +886-2-2810-6688. Tsai et al. 4119 quality, employee satisfaction/productivity, the value of services provided to the customer, customer satisfaction and company’s profits. This cha in shows that internal service quality can enhance employee satisfaction, which will enhance employee productivity and further result in external service value and enhanced customer satisfaction. Finally, the company can make a profit (Zeithaml et al. , 2009).Therefore, satisfied employees make satisfied customers. Service personnel satisfaction significantly influences organizational commitment and job performance on customer satisfaction and corporate operational performance (Ladkin, 2002; Dunlap et al. , 1988; Tansuhaj et al. , 1988; Chowdhary, 2003; Yang and Chen, 2010). How to enhance service personnel satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance is a critical issue in service industry management. In past research on employee satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance, many scholars (Babin and Boles, 1998; Bernhardt et al. 2000; Van Scotter, 2000; Koys, 2003; Testa, 2001) have validated that employees’ job satisfaction positively influence s job performance and organizational commitment. In studies on factors of employees’ job satisfaction, job performance and organizational commitment, the service profit chain proposed by Heskett et al. (1994) and service marketing management model indicated by Tansuhaj et al. (1988) on overall service industry both demonstrated that management's internal marketing activities produce job satisfaction and commitment to the organization.In addition, many studies have found close relationships between leadership, employee satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance (Billingsley and Cross, 1992; Yammarino and Dubinsky, 1994; Burton et al. , 2002; Avolio et al. , 2004; Chen and Silverthorne, 2005). The above studies have mainly focused on the educational service industry, retail industry, manufacturing service industry, medical service industry and governmental institutions, but have not conducted indepth explorations on the hospitality service industry.Hopfl (1994) indicated that in the service delivery, firstline employees must be empowered to some degree in order to cope with customers’ special demands. Thus, job empowerment can be treated as important management to encourage first-line service personnel and immediately solve customers’ differential demands. Avolio et al. (2004), Caykoylu et al. (2007) and Chen et al. (2008) respectively conducted empirical studies on medical personnel and employees of the telecommunication industry, banking industry and postal industry, and found that empowerment positively influences employee satisfaction and organizational commitment.One issue worthy of further study is the extent of how empowerment positively influences hospitality industry employee satisfaction and organizational commitment. In addition, first-line employees face different customer demands and supervisor requirements, therefore job stress is a critical issue for them. Jamal (1990) and Jex (1998) suggested that reducing em ployees’ job stress could enhance employees’ job satisfaction and job performance. Williams and Cooper (2002) and Ouyang (2009) indicated that proper job stress would enhance employees’ job performance.In the hospitality industry, the influence of job stress from external customers and internal supervisors on employees’ job satisfaction and job performance is an issue worthy of further exploration. Based on the above, internal marketing, leadership, empowerment and job stress are possible factors of service industry employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance, and these factors are validated in various service industries.However, the outcomes in different service industries are not the same. For the hospitality industry, it is important to validate and analyze the influences of the above factors on employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance. Thus, this study intended to combine i nternal marketing, leadership, empowerment and job stress and proposed an integrated model of hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance.Hospitality industry employees in Taipei City were treated as the subjects, and the researcher probed into factors of hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance in order to function as criteria for management in the hospitality industry. LITERATURE REVIEW Job satisfaction The term â€Å"job satisfaction† was proposed by Hoppock (1935) who suggested that job satisfaction means employees’ emotions and attitude toward their jobs, and is their subjective reaction toward their jobs.The definition of job satisfaction is generalized into three categories: (1) Definition of generality: Job satisfaction refers to the affective reaction to one’s job as the most (Ozer and Gunluk, 2010). Job satisfaction, which is one of the most important necessities for an individual to be successful, happy and productive, is a feeling of satisfaction, that is, an outcome of the perception of what the job provides for an individual (Ay and Av aro lu, 2010); (2) Definition of difference: This refers to the degree of satisfaction and the difference between ndividual actual returns and required returns. For instance, Porter and Lawler (1968) suggested that the degree of satisfaction depends on the difference between a person’s actual returns and expected returns; (3) Definition of criterion framework: Peoples' subjective perception and interpretation on objective traits of organizations or jobs would be influenced by individual criterion framework. According to Smith et al. (1969), job satisfaction is the outcome after a person interprets the job traits according 4120 Afr. J. Bus. Manage. o the criterion framework. The influence of certain work situations on job satisfaction is related to many factors, such as comparisons between good and bad jobs, comparisons with others, personal competency and past experience, etc. Job performance Kane and Lawler (1976) suggested that job performance refers to the record of the results when employees have practiced a job for a certain period of time. According to Schermerhorn (1989), job performance refers to the quality and quantity accomplished by individuals or groups after fulfilling a task.After a certain period of time, measurements of employees’ job performance could serve as criterion for promotions, wage adjustments, rewards, punishments and evaluations. Cascio (2006) suggested that managers must specifically define performance to allow the teams or employees to recognize the organizational expectations in order to fulfill the organizational goals. In other words, managers must set concrete goals, trace the fulfillment degree and evaluate the teams’ or employees’ performance.Van Scotter and Motowidlo (1996) suggested that employees with a high degree of job enthusiasm will demonstrate extra effort and devotion, and will actively seek out solutions to problems at work in order to enhance their job performance. Robbins (1998) divided the measurement of job performance into job result, job behavior and personal traits. Lee et al. (1999) divided job performance into efficiency, efficacy and quality. Efficiency refers to the employees’ output rate and is the ability to accomplish tasks before deadline.Efficacy refers to the employees’ goal accomplishment rate and proposals. Quality refers to the employees’ error rate and complaint rate, supervisor satisfaction, customer satisfaction and colleague satisfaction. This study suggested that in the application of this construct to measure hospitality industry employees’ job performance, efficiency should refer to the employees’ speed in customer service, efficacy should mean the accomplishment of tasks assigned by customers, and quality should mean the employees’ performance in customer service.As to measurement, Shore and Thornton (1986) indicated that self-evaluation allows individuals to participate in performance evaluation and serves as a criterion. Based on the above, according to the views of Lee et al. (1999), this study divided job performance into efficiency, efficacy and quality, and measured hospitality industry employees’ job performance using employee self-evaluation. Smith et al. (1969) proposed the Job Description Index (JDI) to measure job satisfaction, with the constructs including wage, promotion, job, supervisors and colleagues.Black and Gregersen (1997) found a positive correlation between job satisfaction and job performance. Organ (1990) suggested that when employees are satisfied with their work, they are willing to sacrifice themselves and devote to their organization. Organizational commitment From the perspective of attitude, Porter et al. (1974) indicated that o rganizational commitment is a person’s active and positive intention to identify with and internalize organizational goals and value.According to Reyes and Pounder (1990), organizational commitment is the strong belief and intention to identify with organizational value, devote to and stay with the organization. Mathews and Shepherd (2002) suggested that organizational commitment refers to workers’ attitude, behavior and connection between individuals and the organization. Guest (1995) indicated that organizational commitment is at the core of human resource management. It transforms traditional manpower management into the core of human resources.Organizational members’ attitude or intentions particularly indicate the importance of employees’ organizational commitment. Dee et al. (2006) suggested that organizational commitment is a person’s intention to devote to and be loyal to the organization. Lambert et al. (2006) suggested that organizational commitment is the structural phenomenon of trading between individuals and organizations. It increases with time, but it does not lead to a transferable investment outcome. Thus, in theoretical study and practical use, scholars have valued organizational commitment in human resource management.In recent years, many scholars have probed into organizational commitment from the view of Porter et al. (1974). Thus, this study also followed the above view and divided organizational commitment into value commitment, effort commitment and retention commitment. This study further treated these three constructs as criteria to measure hospitality industry employees' organizational commitment. Definitions of these constructs are thus shown: (1) Value commitment: a strong belief and identification with organizational goals and values. 2) Effort commitment: the intention to devote more to the organization. (3) Retention commitment: a strong intention to continue being part of the organization. I nternal marketing Internal Marketing (IM) is the process of handling staff as internal customers and projects as internal products that satisfy the needs and desires of the customers and adhere to the company’s goals (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991). Rafiq and Ahmed (1993) suggest that internal marketing involves â€Å"a planned effort to overcome organizational resistance to change and to align, motivate Tsai et al. 4121 nd integrate employees towards the effective implementation of corporate and functional strategies†. Joseph (1996) suggested that internal marketing is can be applied to marketing and human resource management, combining theoretical techniques and principles in order to encourage, recruit and manage all employees in the organization and constantly improve external customer service and mutual services. In addition, Ahmed et al. (2003) defined internal marketing as the employees’ evaluation of the reward system, internal communication, training and development of the company.Internal marketing empirical research in the service sector has proven that internal marketing has influenced on internal customers (that is, employees) satisfactions. Berry and Parasuraman (1991) suggested that the advantages of internal marketing implementation in organizations are as follows: (1) To acquire and keep excellent talent; (2) to provide a common vision so that employees have job purpose and meaning; (3) to give employees the ability and knowledge to accomplish the work; (4) to encourage employees to share the results of teamwork; (5) to create job designs be based on the findings of marketing studies.The aforementioned views reveal that corporate implementation of internal marketing allows employees to enhance service quality, which increases the production and profits of the companies. The implementation of internal marketing in the organizations results in an internal service culture, raises service consciousness and increases profits (Par asuraman et al. , 1985). Based on the views of these scholars, internal marketing is critical for organizations and influences external marketing to further enhance customer satisfaction.According to the these definitions and based on the views of Rafiq and Ahmed (1993) and Ahmed et al. (2003), this study treated employee evaluations of reward systems, internal communication, and training and development of companies as criterion for measuring internal marketing of the hospitality industry. Leadership Leadership refers the process of influencing the team to accomplish the goals (Robbins and Coulter, 2005). Leaders are key success factors of an organization (Bass, 1985; Daft, 2002).Skillful leaders recognize and use the interpersonal relationships of the team and strengthen the members’ loyalty and morale. Effective leaders must learn skills such as patiently sharing information, trusting others and recognizing the timing of interventions (Steckler and Fondas, 1995). In recent years, numerous scholars have tried to discuss leadership from new perspectives. New studies of leadership theory have particularly stressed the influences of demands between leaders and subordinates, the interaction of personality traits and situational factors on leadership (Bargal and Schmid, 1989).Corporate leaders must select a proper leadership according to their subordinates’ different demands for supervision, in order to enhance employee satisfaction and fulfill expected goals. Bass and Avolio (1997) divided leadership into transformational leadership and transactional leadership. In transformational leadership, subordinates trust, respect and are loyal to their leaders. Leaders can develop their subordinates’ potential and enhance their confidence by changing their values and beliefs in order to increase their organizational commitment, intention and motivation to create exceptional outcomes.Transformational leadership can be divided into ideal traits, ideal behavior, the encouragement of inspiration, and the stimulation of wisdom and individual care. In addition, transactional leadership means leaders and members remain in the process of negotiation and mutual benefit instead of a persistent one-purpose relationship. Social exchange theory is treated as the theoretical base. When subordinates act according to their leaders’ expectations, they will have returns with a specific value. Transactional leadership can be divided into contingent rewards, and active and passive exceptional management.Most quantitative studies on leadership have created questionnaires using the MLQ scale designed by Bass and Avolio (1997). The MLQ scale includes two constructs (transformational leadership and transactional leadership). This study also designed a leadership questionnaire for the hospitality industry according to the MLQ scale. Empowerment Empowerment signals a transition away from traditional development that confined people’s role to that of passive recipients, effectively rendering them dependent on handouts in the form of foreign aid (O’Gorman, 1995).Bowen and Lawler III (1992) define empowerment as sharing with frontline employees four organizational ingredients: (1) Information about the organization's performance; (2) rewards based on the organization's performance; (3) knowledge about contributing to organizational performance; (4) power to make decisions that influence organizational direction and performance. Murat and Thomas (2003) suggested that empowerment does not simply refer to telling employees that they are empowered, but aims to allow the employees to recognize what power has been authorized.Boudrias et al. (2004) suggested that in managerial circles, empowerment application includes two types: (1) Empowering the responsibility of decision-making to subordinates while emphasizing rich work environments 4122 Afr. J. Bus. Manage. and diverse authority, information, resources and support, and providing the opportunity to learn in order to improve performance; (2) psychological empowerment, which refers to employees’ experiences of empowerment that are inferred as a mediating variable of empowerment and expected results.According to Sherman (1996), empowerment acknowledges that employees have the power to change in order to encourage employees to increase their competency. Kanter (1993) suggested that empowerment can keep employees from feeling helpless. Organizations could thus reduce negative effects such as low morale. The most significant effect of empowerment is to enhance employees’ abilities and self-efficacy (Conger and Kanungo, 1988).Bowen and Lawler III (1992) suggested the advantages of empowerment for organizations below: (1) To rapidly respond to customer demands and questions; (2) a high degree of employees’ job satisfaction; (3) positive interactions with consumers; (4) employees with creative thoughts; (5) the creation of loyal cu stomers. About the definition of psychological empowerment, Spreitzer (1995) defines this concept as the psychological state that employees must experience for managerial empowerment interventions to be successful.Spreitzer's (1995) measure of empowerment was used to define psychological empowerment and comprises four components: Self-determination, competence, impact, and meaning. (1) Self-determination reflects autonomy in the choices and decisions an individual can make regarding work allocations. (2) Competence refers to self-efficacy specific to work or the task—the confidence that one can perform well within a particular work domain. (3) Impact is the degree to which an individual can influence strategic, informational, or administrative decisions made at the organizational level. 4) Meaning involves the fit between a person’s values and beliefs and work role requirements. Job stress Blau (1981) defined stress as the incompatibility between a person’s comp etency and environment. Job stress extends upon the general definition of stress and is a kind of conceptual process that implies a person’s cognition and reaction to danger or threats (Fleming et al. , 1984). Pearson and Moomaw (2005) suggested that job stress is caused by work situations and people will have unpleasant feelings such as anger, tension, frustration, worry, depression and anxiety. Cooper et al. 1988) attributed job stress to factors intrinsic to the job, management's role, relationships with others, career and achievement, organizational structure, home and work. The sources of stress influence job performance. When an employee can no longer handle the stress, he will fail in his work (Jamal, 1990). Blau (1994) suggests that stress source can divided into external stressors and internal stressors. In addition, stress in the workplace frequently hits you with a double whammy of two-way pressures that come from a combination of both internal and external stresso rs (Stress management tips, 2010).Matteson and Iancevich (1982) suggested that proper stress results in sense of challenge or satisfaction for people. Without such stress, a person will lack motivation and originality. In past research on the influence of stress on job performance, the Yerkes-Dodson principle indicated a reverse U relationship between job stress and job performance (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908). In other words, an increase in work stress will enhance job performance. However, after work stress reaches a certain degree, the increase will reduce job performance. An Empirical study by Huber (1981) also reached a similar finding.However, excessive job stress will increase employee turnover rate (Parasuraman and Alutto, 1984) and further enhance the personnel and training costs of firms. Based on the view of Blau (1994) and characteristics of the hospitality industry, this study divided employees’ job stress in the hospitality industry into external pressure and inter nal stress thus: (1) Organizational external stress: an excessive workload, business stress and load. (2) Organizational internal stress: a lack of participation in job decision-making, without supervisory support, health advantages after changing jobs, anxiety, tension, etc.METHODOLOGY Construction of theoretical model Testa (2001) suggested that job satisfaction is the antecedent variable of organizational commitment and there is positive correlation. The research of Slattery and Selvarajan (2005) indicated that job satisfaction positively influences organizational commitment. In addition, Babin and Boles (1998) treated hospitality service personnel as subjects, and found a positive correlation between job satisfaction and job performance. In other service industries, it has been proved that there is a positive relationship between employees’ job satisfaction and job performance (Chen and Silverthorne, 2005).In addition, Mowday et al. (1982) pointed out that organizational commitment positively influences employees’ job performance. Powell (2000) also validated that organizational commitment positively influences employees’ job performance. Based on the above, the hypotheses are proposed as follows: H1: Job satisfaction positively influences organizational commitment. H2: Job satisfaction positively influences job performance. H3: Organizational commitment positively influences job performance. Regarding the exogenous variables of job satisfaction, Tsai et al. 4123 rganizational commitment and job performance, the service profit chain proposed by Heskett et al. (1994) argued that management’s internal marketing activities produce job satisfaction and commitment to the organization. Tansuhaj et al. (1988), Heskett et al. (1994) and Rafiq and Ahmed (2000) indicated that internal marketing positively influences employees’ job satisfaction, and internal marketing further results in better employees’ customer-oriented beh avior (Arnett et al. , 2002). In addition, corporate implementation of internal marketing positively influences employees’ organizational commitment (Tansuhaj et al. 1991; Heskett et al. , 1994; Chang and Chang, 2007). Based on the above, the hypotheses are proposed as follows: H4: Internal marketing positively influences job satisfaction. H5: Internal marketing positively influences organizational commitment. Besides internal marketing, Morris and Sherman (1981) suggested that leadership can integrate team relationships at work in order to enhance organizational commitment. Leaders’ leadership and support positively influences the employees’ organizational commitment (Billingsley and Cross, 1992; Burton et al. , 2002).The research of Bass (1985) and Hughes and Avey (2009) showed that transformational leadership significantly and positively influences job satisfaction and employee performance. The study of Dubinsky (1994) indicated that leadership (transactional leadership and transformational leadership) positively influences employees’ job satisfaction. The research of Chen and Silverthorne (2005) found a positive correlation between the leaders’ leadership score and employees’ job satisfaction. Based on the above, the hypotheses are proposed as follows: H6: Leadership positively influences organizational commitment.H7: leadership positively influences job satisfaction. H8: leadership positively influences job performance. In addition to internal marketing and leadership, Bowen and Lawler III (1992) suggested that empowerment can enhance employees’ job satisfaction. According to Blanchard et al. (1996), the empowered teams can increase job satisfaction and employees’ identification with their jobs. Based on the research of Fulford and Enz (1995), and Caykoylu et al. (2007), service industry employees’ cognition of empowerment positively influences job satisfaction.Wilson and Laschinger (1994), Mc Dermott et al. (1996), Avolio et al. (2004) and Chen et al. (2008) found that there is a positive correlation between empowerment and employees’ organizational commitment. Lee et al. (2006) studied hotel employees and found that empowerment has a significant effect on organizational commitment. Based on the above, this study developed the following two hypotheses: H9: Empowerment positively influences job satisfaction. H10: Empowerment positively influences organizational commitment. Finally, the studies of Jamal (1990), Borg and Riding (1993), Chiu et al. 2005) and Chen and Silverthorne (2005) pointed out that there is a significant and negative correlation between employees’ job stress and job satisfaction. In addition, Jex (1998) suggested that a reduction of employees’ job stress will increase their job performance. Mughal et al. (1996) argued that anxiety caused by job stress is the main factor of job performance. However, according to the Yerkes-Dodson pri nciple, there is a reverse U nonlinear relationship between job stress and job performance (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908; Huber, 1981).In addition, there can be a positive or negative relationship between job stress and job performance. Williams and Cooper (2002) and Ouyang (2009) also suggested that proper job stress can enhance employees’ job performance. However, according to the view of Blau (1994), job stress can be divided into external and internal job stress. Therefore, according to the above theory, this study divided job stress into internal and external job stress and constructed the following two hypotheses: H11: Job stress negatively influences job satisfaction.H11-1: External job stress negatively influences job satisfaction. H11-2: Internal job stress negatively influences job satisfaction. H12: Job stress significantly influences job performance. H12-1: External job stress significantly influences job performance. H12-2: Internal job stress significantly influences job performance. From H1 to H12, this study constructed an integrated model of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance, as shown in Figure 1. Data collection Taipei City is the largest international city in Taiwan, and it has numerous international chain hotels.This study treated employees of well-known hotels and hospitality companies in Taipei City as its subjects. From February 1 to April 15, 2010, the researcher targeted 13 well-known hospitality companies (including Grand Hyatt, The Westin Taipei, Howard Hotel, Grand Formosa Regent, Royal Hotel, K-Hotel, The Grand Hotel, Caesar Park Hotel, Landis Hotel, Ambassador Hotel, La Marche, Wang Steak and Tasty) and conducted a survey on their employees using stratified sampling. There were 50 questionnaires distributed to each hotel or restaurant.A total of 650 questionnaires were distributed with 604 valid returns; the valid return rate was 92. 92%. Measurement The questionnaire content included job performanc e, job satisfaction, leadership (transformational and transactional), internal marketing, organizational commitment, empowerment and job stress (external and internal stress). The operational definitions of the construct items are shown in Table 1. This study conducted the survey using a closed questionnaire, and the participants were anonymous.A five-point Likert scale from â€Å"strongly disagree† to â€Å"strongly agree† was used. According to result of 50 pretest questionnaires, Cronbach’s of the constructs were above 0. 7, indicating a high degree of consistency in the constructs of the questionnaire. Statistical methods The study first applied SPSS version 12. 0 to process the descriptive statistic analysis, reliability analysis and related analysis on the effective questionnaires, and understand the sample structure and the internal consistency and relation between various variables.Second, this study assessed the properties of measurement scales for conv ergent validity and discriminant validity, and constructed composite reliability by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using maximum likelihood to estimate parameters. Finally, it applied Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to verify the path relationship of the research model, and applied LISREL 8. 70 software as the SEM analysis tool. RESULTS Profile of the respondents This study targeted hospitality industry employees in Taipei 4124 Afr. J. Bus. Manage.External job stress Internal job stress Empowerment Job satisfaction Job performance Internal marketing Organizational commitment Leadership Figure 1. Research framework. Taipei, Taiwan as subjects and successfully collected 604 valid questionnaires. Subsequently, the study applied the frequency distribution table to show the sample characteristics of this study. The sample structure attribute distribution is shown in Table 2. As shown in Table 2, there are more female employees (53. 6%) and most of the subjects are 21 to 30 years o ld (49. %), followed by below 20 years old (42. 1%). Most of the subjects have a college degree or above (81. 0%), and most have worked for 1 to 5 years (52. 5%). In addition, most of the subjects are part-time employees (70. 2%). The structure of the samples is similar to the structure of the human resources of the hospitality industry in Taiwan as investigated by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan (2009). In the hospitality industry, most employees have worked for 1 to 5 ears, are young, and have a senior high school, vocational school or college educational level. Descriptive statistics, reliability and validity analysis Analysis of descriptive statistics According to Table 3, the employees’ perceived internal marketing degree was only slightly higher than ordinary (median = 3). As to the leadership, the transformational leadership degree was higher and the transactional leadership degree was lower. The employees’ perceived competency empowerment was higher and their decisionmaking empowerment was lower.The employees’ external job stress was higher and internal job stress was lower. The employees’ job satisfaction with the perceived relationship with colleagues was higher, and their satisfaction with wages, welfare, promotions and growth was significantly lower. As to organizational commitment, the effort commitment was higher whereas retention commitment was lower. As to job performance, hospitality industry employees’ job performance with their perceived efficiency and efficacy was higher but their job quality was lower.Reliability and validity analyses In accordance with accepted practice (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988; Fornell and Larcker, 1981), this study assessed the properties of measurement scales for convergent validity and discriminant validity, and construct Composite Reliability (CR) (that is, construct reliability). Table 3 lists the measurement items of the construct sc ales, standardized coefficient loadings of the confirmatory factor analysis results, construct CR and AVE (Average Variance Extracted) for each multi-item construct in our research model.The measurement model of this study provided a good overall fit with the 2 data (GFI and AGFI 0. 85, CFI, NFI and NNFI;0. 9, ? / d. f ;3, RMR and RMSEA 0. 08). Composite reliability for all constructs in our research model were more than 0. 7, respectively. In general, the measurement scales used in this study were found to be reliable. The AVE for all constructs were more than 0. 5, respectively, all Tsai et al. 4125 Table 1. Operational definitions. Constructs Internal marketing Definitions Employees’ evaluation on reward system, internal communication, training and development.Leadership is divided into transformational and transactional leadership and are defined thus: (1)Transformational leadership: In order to meet employees’ demands, leaders care and encourage employees, includi ng ideal traits, ideal behavior, encouragement of inspiration, stimulation of wisdom and individual care. (2) Transactional leadership: the relationship between leaders and subordinates is based on exchange, mutual benefit, fairness degree of contribution and return, including contingent rewards and active and passive exceptional management. Managers empower employees to make daily decisions.It is the degree of employees’ perceived empowerment, including meaning, ability, self-decision-making and influence. Incompatibility between individual ability and environment. It includes external job stress (such as workload, performance stress and job objective loads) and internal job stress (including lack of participation in job decision-making, without supervisory support, health advantages after changing jobs and tension). A person identifies with the organizational goals and values and internalizes them to show positive and active intention, including effort commitment, value com mitment and retention commitment.Degrees (including efficiency, efficacy and quality) of employees’ accomplishment of organizational goals. Source Rafiq and Ahmed (1993) Ahmed et al. (2003) Leadership Bass and Avolio (1997) Empowerment Spreitzer (1995) Job stress Blau (1994) Organizational commitment Porter et al. (1974), Brooke et al. (1988) Borman and Motowidlo (1993); Shore and Thornton III (1986) Lee et al. (1999) Job performance exceeding the benchmark of 0. 50 for convergent validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).Discriminant validity is established if the AVE is larger than the Squared Multiple Correlation (SMC) coefficients between constructs (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Our results demonstrate that the AVE values for all constructs were more than SMC coefficients in Table 4. This result indicates sufficient discriminant validity for all constructs in this study. Analysis and hypothesis testing Path analysis of research model According to the reliability and validity an alysis above, the model of this study involved convergent validity, discriminant validity and internal consistency.Thus, this study validated the path relationships of the model using SEM. First of all, according to model fit analysis, the fit measures were acceptable (GFI, AGFI ; 0. 85, CFI, NFI, IFI 2 ; 0. 9, RMR and RMSEA; 0. 08 and ? /d. f ; 3). In 2 the research model, the R of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance were respectively 0. 65, 0. 75 and 0. 72, which were all above 60%. Thus, the overall research model revealed the relative explained power. Regarding the causal relationships among latent variables of 4126 Afr. J. Bus. Manage. Table 2.Profile of the respondents (n=604). Background variable Gender Male Female Age Below 20 years old 21 – 30 years old 31 years old Educational level Below senior high and vocational school Above college Frequency Percentage Background variable Seniority 280 46. 4 Below 1 year 324 53. 6 1 – 5 years A bove 6 years 254 300 50 42. 1 49. 7 8. 3 Position High and medium level supervisors Basic level supervisors Basic level employees (full-time) Part-time employees Frequency Percentage 255 317 62 37. 3 52. 5 10. 2 26 42 112 424 4. 3 7. 0 18. 5 70. 2 115 489 19. 0 81. 0 Table 3.Measurement scales and properties. Constructs Internal marketing Variables Reward system Internal communication Training and development Transformational leadership Transactional Leadership Meaning Ability Self decision-making Influence Job loading Performance stress Job objectives Lack of participation in decision-making Without supervisors’ support Influence of job on health Tension Salary and welfare Promotion and growth Job content Relationship with colleagues Relationship with supervisors Value commitment Effort commitment Retention commitment Efficiency Efficacy Quality Mean (S.D. ) 3. 38 (0. 81) 3. 44 (0. 77) 3. 43 (0. 77) 3. 51 (0. 77) 3. 34 (0. 84) 3. 38 (0. 89) 3. 53 (0. 89) 3. 36 (0. 90) 3. 13 (0. 89) 3. 22 (0. 85) 3. 17 (0. 88) 3. 12 (0. 82) 3. 01(0. 90) 2. 79 (0. 95) 3. 29 (0. 97) 2. 93 (0. 99) 3. 04 (0. 93) 3. 16 (0. 73) 3. 39 (0. 83) 3. 56 (0. 85) 3. 32 (0. 90) 3. 39 (0. 87) 3. 79 (0. 87) 3. 27 (0. 94) 3. 54 (0. 84) 3. 60 (0. 82) 3. 41 (0. 80) Loading 0. 79 0. 85 0. 78 0. 87 0. 73 0. 81 0. 75 0. 64 0. 60 0. 81 0. 83 0. 81 0. 65 0. 76 0. 67 0. 79 0. 60 0. 81 0. 71 0. 66 0. 75 0. 75 0. 71 0. 74 0. 82 0. 84 0. 70 CR 0. 85 AVE 0. 65 Leadership 0. 78 . 64 Empowerment 0. 79 0. 50 External job stress 0. 86 0. 67 Internal job stress 0. 81 0. 52 Job satisfaction 0. 83 0. 50 Organizational commitment 0. 78 0. 54 Job performance 0. 83 0. 62 X2/d. f 2. 78, GFI = 0. 92, AGFI = 0. 85, CFI = 0. 96, NFI = 0. 95, NNFI = 0. 95, RMR = 0. 074, RMSEA = 0. 08. Tsai et al. 4127 latent variables of the research model, ? is the standardized path coefficient representing the direct effect among latent variables. A higher value indicates a stronger path relationship. According to the result of path analysis (Figure 2), organizational commitment (? 0. 70, P;0. 001) and external job stress (? =0. 10, P;0. 05) were shown to positively and significantly influence hospitality industry employees’ job performance. Organizational commitment was the most influential on job performance. Influences of job satisfaction (? =0. 09, P;0. 05), internal job stress (? =-0. 02, P;0. 05) and leadership (? =-0. 03, P;0. 05) on job performance were insignificant. Therefore, the higher the organizational commitment and external job stress, the better the employees’ job performance.On the contrary, job satisfaction did not directly influence hospitality industry employees’ job performance, and would only influence the employees’ job performance by organizational commitment. Therefore, in order to enhance hospitality industry employees’ job performance, it is critical to enhance employees’ organizational commitment. In addition, regarding the variables of organizational commitment, empowerment (? = 0. 5, P;0. 001), leadership (? = 0. 36, P;0. 001) and job satisfaction (? =0. 24, P;0. 01) were shown to positively and significantly influence organizational commitment.However, the influence of internal marketing (? = 0. 07, P;0. 05) on organizational commitment was insignificant. It indicates that the higher the empowerment, leadership evaluation and job satisfaction, the higher hospitality industry employees’ loyalty to the organization. Finally, regarding the variables of job satisfaction, empowerment (? = 0. 17, P;0. 01), internal marketing (? = 0. 45, P;0. 001) and leadership (? = 0. 21, P;0. 01) were shown to significantly and positively influence hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction. Internal marketing is the key factor which enhances employees’ job satisfaction.Internal job stress (? = -0. 19, P;0. 001) significantly and negatively influenced job satisfaction. However, external job stress (? =0. 06, P;0. 05) did not significantly influence job satisfaction. It indicates that the higher the empowerment, the higher internal marketing. As the leadership is more significant and the internal job stress is less, the employees’ job satisfaction is higher. Hypothesis testing According to the above analytical result, this study reorganized path coefficient and the results of hypothesis testing, as shown in Table 5.Analysis of overall effects This study further analyzed the total influences of exogenous variables on dependent variables, and the result is shown in Table 6. It indicates that the most influential exogenous variables of job satisfaction are in this order: internal marketing, leadership and internal job stress. Internal job stress revealed a negative effect. The key exogenous variables of organizational commitment were the same as those for job performance: the first were empowerment, followed by leadership and internal marketing.Analysis of the difference of sampl es with different characteristics This study probed into the difference of latent variables of hospitality industry employees with different attributes (example, gender, age, educational level, seniority and position) using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) as the criterion for improving human resource strategies in the hospitality industry. According to the analytical result shown in Table 7, as to gender, the means of different constructs did not reveal significant differences (p;0. 05).As to age, older employees tended to perceive internal marketing, leadership, empowerment, organizational commitment and job performance higher. Regarding educational level, employees with a higher educational level had significantly more internal job stress than those with a lower educational level. As to perceive internal marketing, leadership, empowerment, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance, employees with a lower educational level revealed a significantly higher degree than those with a higher educational level. As to seniority, only perceived empowerment revealed a significant difference.Employees with higher seniority tended to perceive empowerment higher. Regarding positions, part-time employees’ external job stress, empowerment, internal marketing, leadership, organizational commitment and job performance were significantly lower than other fulltime employees and supervisors. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The influence of service industry employees’ performance on customer satisfaction and corporate operational performance has been broadly discussed and validated in past research (Tansuhaj et al. , 1988; Bitner, 1995; Chowdhary, 2003).However, in comparison to employees in other service industries, those in the hospitality industry have long working hours and low incomes. Thus, the employees have low employment intentions and a high turnover rate (Kao and Lin, 2004). Therefore, how to effectively enhance employee satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance is a critical issue in hospitality industry management. This study combined exogenous variables, such as internal marketing, leadership, empowerment and job stress, and proposed an integrated model of hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment 128 Afr. J. Bus. Manage. Table 4. Discriminant validity of each construct. Internal marketing Internal marketing Leadership Empowerment External stress Internal stress Job satisfaction Organizational commitment Job performance a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h Leadership 0. 64 0. 15 0. 00 0. 04 0. 30 0. 33 0. 18 b Empowerment External stress Internal stress Job satisfaction Organizational commitment Job performance 0. 65 0. 42 0. 24 0. 01 0. 03 0. 39 0. 31 0. 18 a 0. 50 0. 01 0. 01 0. 21 0. 28 0. 30 c 0. 67 0. 26 0. 00 0. 01 0. 01 d 0. 52 0. 08 0. 02 0. 02 e 0. 50 0. 34 0. 4 f 0. 54 0. 30 g 0. 62 h represent the AVE of each construct. Other numbers represent the SMC coefficie nts between constructs. External job stress Internal job stress 0. 06 -0. 19*** Empowerment 0. 17** 0. 45*** Job satisfaction 0. 21** 0. 24** -0. 02 0. 09 0. 70*** 0. 1* Job performance -0. 03 Internal marketing 0. 07 0. 50*** Organizational commitment 0. 36*** Leadership Figure 2. Path analysis of the research model. *p;0. 05; **p;0. 01; ***p;0. 001. Tsai et al. 4129 Table 5. Path coefficients of SEM analysis and results of hypothesis testing.Hypothesis and path H1 Job satisfaction organizational commitment H2 Job satisfaction job performance H3 Organizational commitment job performance H4 Internal marketing job satisfaction H5 Internal marketing organizational commitment H6 Leadership organizational commitment H7 Leadership job satisfaction H8 Leadership job performance H9 Empowerment job satisfaction H10 Empowerment organizational commitment H11-1 External job stress job satisfaction H11-2 Internal job stress job satisfaction H12-1 External job stress job performance H12-2 Intern al job stress job performance * p;0. 5; ** p;0. 01; *** p;0. 001. Path coefficients 0. 24** 0. 09 0. 70*** 0. 45*** 0. 07 0. 36*** 0. 21** -0. 03 0. 17** 0. 50*** 0. 06 -0. 19*** 0. 1* -0. 02 Hypothesis testing Support Not support Support Support Not support Support Support Not support Support Support Not support Support Support Not support Table 6. Overall effects of exogenous variables.Path Empowerment job satisfaction Internal marketing job satisfaction Leadership job satisfaction External job stress job satisfaction Internal job stress job satisfaction Empowerment organizational commitment Internal marketing organizational commitment Leadership organizational commitment External job stress organizational commitment Internal job stress organizational commitment Empowerment job performance Internal marketing job performance Leadership job performance External job stress job performance Internal job stress job performance Overall effects 0. 7 0. 45 0. 21 0. 06 -0. 19 0. 541 0. 178 0. 410 0. 014 -0. 046 0. 394 0. 165 0. 306 0. 115 -0. 069 4130 Afr. J. Bus. Manage. Table 7. Analysis of the mean difference of employees with different attributes. Organizational commitment Empowerment Internal stress Attributes Gender Male Female F value Below 20 years old 21-30 years old Above 31 years old F value Below senior high school Above college F value Below 1 year 1 – 5 years Above 6 years F value High and medium level supervisors Basic level supervisors Basic level employees Part-time employees F valueCategory 3. 430 3. 407 0. 168 3. 471 3. 346 3. 578 3. 817* 3. 560 3. 385 6. 107* 3. 496 3. 369 3. 383 2. 350 3. 386 3. 544 3. 567 3. 368 3. 024* 3. 416 3. 428 0. 044 3. 474 3. 342 3. 646 4. 868** 3. 597 3. 381 8. 167** 3. 488 3. 366 3. 469 1. 987 3. 467 3. 585 3. 558 3. 368 2. 814* 3. 405 3. 303 3. 272 3. 336 3. 318 3. 615 4. 089* 3. 489 3. 317 5. 802* 3. 266 3. 356 3. 625 6. 699*** 3. 596 3. 637 3. 493 3. 268 7. 289*** 3. 214 3. 125 2. 156 3. 182 3. 118 3. 373 2. 6 03 3. 229 3. 151 0. 997 3. 130 3. 164 3. 306 1. 343 3. 423 3. 365 3. 92 3. 097 4. 299** 3. 029 2. 989 0. 456 3. 018 2. 994 3. 035 0. 115 2. 880 3. 037 4. 513* 2. 969 3. 023 3. 069 0. 627 2. 981 3. 065 2. 984 3. 009 0. 144 3. 279 3. 309 0. 328 3. 341 3. 236 3. 412 2. 732 3. 401 3. 270 3. 895* 3. 338 3. 275 3. 235 0. 992 3. 250 3. 338 3. 388 3. 268 1. 137 3. 461 3. 504 0. 503 3. 495 3. 422 3. 800 5. 571** 3. 652 3. 444 7. 223** 3. 499 3. 440 3. 656 2. 244 3. 744 3. 841 3. 708 3. 373 11. 177*** 3. 519 3. 510 0. 023 3. 591 3. 412 3. 740 7. 354*** 3. 661 3. 480 6. 196* 3. 489 3. 506 3. 651 1. 330 3. 615 3. 46 3. 598 3. 463 3. 000* Age Educational level Seniority Position * p;0. 05; ** p;0. 01; *** p;0. 001 Job performance Job satisfaction Leadership Internal marketing External stress Tsai et al. 4131 organizational commitment and job performance. In the 2 model, the explained power (R ) of the exogenous variables on endogenous variables such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance was above 50%, indicating that the relation model constructed by this study revealed positive prediction validity.In the relationship between employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance, this study found that hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction directly and positively influences organizational commitment. The results meet the statement that service industry employees’ satisfaction can enhance employees’ organizational commitment (Testa, 2001; Slattery and Selvarajan, 2005; Yiing and Ahmad, 2009). However, job satisfaction does not directly influence hospitality industry employees’ job performance. This finding is different from the research results of other scholars (Babin and Boles, 1998; Bernhardt et al. 2000; Van Scotter, 2000; Koys, 2003; Chen and Silverthorne, 2005). In addition, organizational commitment directly and positively influences hospitality industry employees’ j ob performance. The result demonstrates that organizational commitment can enhance employees’ job performance (Huber, 1981; Mowday et al. , 1982; Gregson, 1992; Powell, 2000). Based on the above findings, although hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction does not directly influence job performance, it enhances their job performance through organizational commitment. Therefore, there is n indirect relationship between job satisfaction and hospitality industry employees’ job performance. Organizational commitment is the moderator. â€Å"In practice, hospitality industry employees have low income,† cohesion and loyalty upon hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction will further enhance job performance. Regarding the factors of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance, this study found that hospitality industry employees’ positive perception of internal marketing, leadership and empowerment strengthen their job satisfaction.Internal marketing is the major factor of hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction, followed by leadership, internal job stress and empowerment. The findings meet other scholars’ suggestions that leadership (Yammarino and Dubinsky, 1994), job stress (Jamal, 1900; Jex, 1998; Chen and Silverthorne, 2005), empowerment (Bowen and Lawler III, 1992; Fulford and Enz, 1995; Dickson and Lorenz, 2009) and internal marketing (Rafiq and Ahmed, 2000; Hwang and Chi, 2005; Gounaris, 2008) significantly affect service industry employees’ satisfaction. In practice, employee training can give them greater problem-solving abilities and encourage employees and care about employees can give them pleasant working environment. The internal marketing will enhance cohesion and loyalty of employees and will further enhance job performance of employees. † Based on the above, in order to enhance employees’ job satisfaction, the hospitality industry sho uld first make efforts on internal marketing and satisfy employees’ demands and desires by reinforcing internal communication, implementing reward systems, increasing educational training and reducing employees’ errors at work.Supervisors’ leadership is also a key factor which enhances hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction. Therefore, the employees’ perceived supervisors’ leadership is an important issue for the hospitality industry to enhance job satisfaction. In hospitality service, there are usually a number of unexpected problems for customers and employees. Thus, sufficient empowerment is critical. The employees can not only solve problems immediately, but also be encouraged. Regarding employees’ organizational commitment, it is influenced by employees’ job satisfaction.Hospitality industry employees’ positive perception of empowerment and leadership enhance employees’ organizational commitment. Th is finding meets the findings of other service industries (Morris and Sherman, 1981; Burton et al. , 2002; Avolio et al. , 2004; Lee et al. , 2006; Chen et al. , 2008). â€Å"In practice, supervisors should sufficiently empower their employees according to different jobs and profession. Thus, employees would properly demonstrate their competency and be more autonomic at work and more flexible when dealing with emergencies.This will enhance cohesion and loyalty of employees. † However, internal marketing does not significantly influence employees’ organizational commitment. This finding is different from the results of other service industries (Tansuhaj et al. , 1991; Tansuhaj et al. , 1998; Naude et al. , 2003; Chang and Chang, 2007). However, this study also found that empowerment, leadership and internal marketing increase employees’ organizational commitment through job satisfaction, suggesting that internal marketing indirectly influences organizational comm itment.Based on the above, in order to enhance employees’ organizational commitment, sufficient empowerment is the key strategy for the hospitality industry. Through empowerment, hospitality industry employees recognize value and trust from the organization, and their identification with the organization would be enhanced. However, the influence of supervisors’ leadership on organizational commitment is only second to empowerment; thus, employees’ perceived supervisors’ leadership is the critical measure to enhance employees’ organizational commitment.The influence of internal marketing on organizational commitment is lower than empowerment and leadership; however, it relatively increases hospitality industry employees’ organizational commitment. In terms of the influences of job stress on job satisfaction and job performance, this study found that internal stress and external stress reveal different effects. Internal job stress negatively i nfluences hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction. This result meets the findings related to other service industries. Job stress reduces employees’ job satisfaction (Jamal, 1990; Borg and 4132Afr. J. Bus. Manage. and Riding, 1993; Jex, 1998; Chiu et al. , 2005; Chen and Silverthorne, 2005). For this study, it is possibly because most hospitality industry employees have a heavy workload. When in a stressful work place over a long term, they tend to have internal pressure, such as tension and being without supervisory support. Thus, how to reduce employees’ internal job stress is an important issue for the hospitality industry. In addition, although external job stress will not influence job satisfaction, it is a key factor for enhancing hospitality industry employees’ job performance.The results meet the statement that proper job stress might enhance employees’ job performance (Williams and Cooper, 2002; Ouyang, 2009). Therefore, although the construction of a proper workload and performance objectives will result in some external job pressure for employees, it is relatively effective for enhancing job performance. Regarding the overall effect, empowerment is the most critical factor of hospitality industry employees’ organizational commitment and job performance, followed by leadership and internal marketing.Internal marketing is the most important factor which enhances hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction, followed by leadership and empowerment. In addition, internal job stress negatively influences employees’ job satisfaction, and external job stress positively affect employees’ job performance. According to the above results, empowerment, leadership, internal marketing, external and internal job stress influence job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance differently.Therefore, it is necessary to consider focusing on the types of employees that can enhan ce (or reduce) the exogenous variables in order to increase hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance. Thus, this study further conducted difference analysis using attributes of the subjects, and found that younger parttime employees with lower seniority and a higher educational level revealed a lower perceived empowerment degree.Younger part-time employees with a higher educational level have a lower degree of perceived leadership, and younger part-time employees with a higher educational level have a lower degree of perceived internal marketing. Thus, in order to enhance hospitality industry employees’ overall degree of perceived empowerment, leadership and internal marketing, managers should first target younger part-time employees with a higher educational level. In addition, employees with a higher educational level perceive relatively more internal job stress, but part-time employees’ xternal job stress is relatively less. The results can serve as references for human resource management and job distribution. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS According to the research findings, hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction positively influences organizational commitment. However, many employees are unsatisfied with their wages, welfare, promotion and growth. Thus, it is suggested that the hospitality industry should re-evaluate the fairness of wages and benefits and further enhance promotion and growth systems in the organization in order to strengthen employee satisfaction.In addition, organizational commitment is the most critical factor to enhance job performance. Job satisfaction should enhance job performance only through organizational commitment. It indicates that the enhancement of organizational commitment is an important strategy of human resource management in the hospitality industry. It should particularly allow employees to accept organizational objectives, values an d beliefs, and enhance the employees’ loyalty and devotion.Empowerment (in particular) and leadership are key factors for increasing hospitality industry employees’ organizational commitment. In addition, internal marketing is the most important factor to enhance hospitality industry employees’ job satisfaction, followed by leadership and empowerment. This study suggests that hospitality industry supervisors should sufficiently empower their employees according to different jobs and profession. Thus, employees would properly demonstrate their competency, and be more autonomic at work and more flexible when dealing with emergencies.As to younger part-time employees with lower seniority and a higher educational level, it is suggested to enhance educational training and flexibility, giving them greater problem-solving abilities and sufficient empowerment. In addition, this study suggests supervisors to select transformational leadership or transactional leadership according to the attributes of the employees’ jobs so that employees, particularly younger part-time ones with a higher educational level, will perceive their supervisors’