I.T. Assesment of ABC Inc Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

I.T. Assesment of ABC Inc - Essay Example The firm that is analyzed in the paper is ABC Inc., a multinational corporation based in the United States of America and deals with the designing and selling of computer software, personal computers as well as consumer electronics. The company has produced some of the well-known types of computers that are being used allover the world. The company has more the four hundred retail stores in fifteen nations, together with an online store. The company is the largest publicly traded worldwide by market capitalization. Whereby it overtops the Exxon Mobil by about sixty billion dollars, and also the largest and most popular technology corporation in the world in terms of profit and revenue, making it worth more than Microsoft and Google put together. As of November 20, 2011, the corporation had more than sixty five thousand permanent employees working around the clock and three thousand temporary full-time workers all over the world; its total annual sales hit the sixty five billion dolla r mark, moving up to one hundred and eight billion dollars in the year 2011. The company was even in the year 2008 named by the Fortune magazine as the most admired company in the United States of America. Therefore, this means that this is the biggest company in the industry of the production of computer-related products. The assessment of the company’s general control environment should be done determining the level at which the General Accounting Office management control standards are included in the plans, strategies, procedures and guidance that govern operations and programs. In its assessment, the following have been ensured (English 87). Compliance with the law: All costs, obligations and operations adhere to the applicable regulation and law. The allocation of resources is effectively and efficiently done for the rightly authorized purposes. Reasonable safeguards and assurance: The management controls give rational assurance that the company’s assets are prot ected or safeguarded against misappropriation, loss and waste. The management controls are rationally complete, logical, efficient and effective in the accomplishment of the objectives of management. Competence, attitude and integrity: Personal integrity is encouraged among the workers and managers. All personnel are compelled to support the programs of agency ethics. There is also effective communication between and within offices. GAO Specific Management Control Standards The following specific control standards have been addressed: Delegation of Organizational responsibilities and Authority: The management has ensured that there is appropriate definition and delegation of responsibility, accountability and authority in accomplishing the company’s mission statement. The company also has an appropriate organizational structure for the purposes of effectively carrying out the program responsibilities. Supervision and Separation of Duties: The key responsibilities and duties i n authorization, recording, reviewing and processing of official agency operations are separated or delegated among different individuals. There is proper managerial supervision for the purposes of ensuring that duties and responsibilities assigned to various individuals are not abused or exceeded (Albrecht and Albrecht 63). Accountability for and Access to Resources: There are some measures in place for limiting

Initiative 200 :: essays research papers

Affirmative Action Under Attack by Initiative 200?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Affirmative action is under heavy attack by initiative 200, and it should not be. It should not be under fire because it serves as an act of restitution for the discrimination and hurt that we have caused African-Americans and other minorities throughout this century. It is our job to repair and repay blacks because our performance in the past has immediately affected their present status.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Americans, especially white males until late, were not opposed to affirmative action. This is only because affirmative action primarily benefited white males. It was the privileges our colonial fathers established on the basis of race and gender that allowed white males to dominate the job market with little or no contention. Some even believe that affirmative action is preferential treatment for white males.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  White males have used race consistently in two ways since the Civil War: for the purpose of inclusion and exclusion. They have used race inclusively to benefit themselves and exclusively to deny opportunity to others. In the past, white males were preferred. In the present, however, affirmative action, though still based on race and gender, is used to include those who in the past were excluded. In more precise terms, with today’s affirmative action, or preferential treatment, we are attempting to adjust for the imbalances of the past that have been carried on into the present.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  All of this seems so intuitively obvious, so why then can’t most Americans understand why affirmative action is obligatory? I believe the answer is as follows: Americans have refuse to recognize that there is and empirical relationship between the past and the present. They refuse to recognize that understanding the effects of past discrimination on the present is the key to explaining why affirmative action is not only needed in the present, but is the moral and political responsibility of so-called Christian nation. A recognition such as this would also demonstrate the inadequacies of present-day affirmative action. Affirmative action is a cheap price for blacks to settle for, given he way America has systematically discriminated against them in order to preserve and protect white male, and increasingly, white female privilege.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Since the Civil War and up to the 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education decision, African Americans have been denied equal access to higher education and the labor market, and they have been denied by law.

Coming of Age in New Jersey by Michael Moffat Essay

Michael Moffat studied the life of college students in a co-ed dormitory living environment at Rutgers University in the late 1970’s and mid 1980’s. His book, Coming of Age in New Jersey: College and American Culture draw on writings of actual students and provide detailed accounts of the sexual histories and activities of both male and female students living in the dorm. He writes what he learned as an actual resident living with the students who understood that he was researching their habits and experiences. He lived with them and studies them as an anthropologist would. The book focuses largely on sexual life of students but also touches upon race, work ethic, gender and community living. It seems that all of these issues are related and Moffat is able to tie much of the actions and attitudes together. A common theme throughout the book is that the life of college students is not quite as wild and sex filled as society in general might assume. In fact, the experience may be less wild that the prospective students themselves expected. This was likely a relief to many of them and in fact, is likely that the family values and morals that they brought to college with them were responsible for the reality of life in the dorms. It seems that new college students do not leave all of their past experiences of knowledge at home when the come to college. They apparently have learned and formed opinions and come with a set of expectation for acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. The book also discusses the difference between expectations of general college living and the actual experience. The societal expectation or assumptions of student life, and what actually occurs is discussed. Relating the sexual activity and romantic relationship to student’s morals and prior learning is interesting. While some of the stories are disturbing, many of them lead one to believe that children actually do listen to and learn from their parents. The morals and beliefs of home follow these students to the college dorm.   Moffat notes the difference between living in a dormitory like environment such as an apartment or even boarding home, and living in a college dorm. In the college dorm there is an expected sense of community and commradery and the university does much to encourage the friendships and support that this living arrangement offers. Adolescents are transitioning from home to the life of an independent adult and the community living is meant to offer a degree of supervision and support. The effects of this arrangement on the actual experiences of students in interesting to the reader. Chapters 5 & 6 are titled â€Å"Sex† and â€Å"Sex in College† respectively. These chapters provide the details on the relationships and sexual experiences and habits of the students. Moffat found that students fell into several groups including those who were involved with more conservative and traditional monogamous, heterosexual relationships that involved love and affection. This was the largest group. Others fell in to the groups of experiments and those having some casual relationships that involved sex. This group, for the most part included those who arrived at college more experienced sexually.   Moffat grouped the students into several distinct types in terms of sexual activity. These included; neotraditional, romantic, experimental, radical, liberal and the nonheterosexual population. He was clear to note however, that every student or pair of students involved with a relationship were different, with their own set of idiosyncrasies. Most however, were interested in committed, consensual, heterosexual relationships. Orgies, no matter what the movies and pop culture may imply, were not at all the norm on the college campus. E also found that for most students, their schedule was o busy and the conflicting schedules of their partner or potential partners made sex a rarity for many. Roommates and social issues of community issue further hampered the free love environment one might have expected. The students that reported experimenting with locations such as outside or in classrooms, the library or on the bus seemed driven as much by the lack of privacy as by the desire to be an exhibitionist. The book note that the 1980’s came with the ability to easily prevent pregnancy with the availability of birth control so sex could be enjoyed more freely than in the past. Still, traditional values and the need for committed relationships held out. The fact that the college dorm was set up like a pseudo family, seems to have resulted in some degree of modesty and restraint. Moffat talks about how students would surely not walk around naked or provocatively in front of each other on the floor openly. Students or dorm mates related to each other to at least some degree, as they would act around siblings and family members in general. Those who did dare to walk to the shower wearing only a towel, for example were made fun of and the comments made were much like the comments one would make to a sibling. These relationship similarity likely resulted n some curbing of the sexual behavior at least among floor mates. Moffat’s book reports the facts and shows data and bell curves and comparisons from the 1970’s to the 1980’s. He does not draw a lot of conclusions or cause and effect relationships. That is left for the reader to do if he wishes. The book does seem to indicate that college students are more focused and serious than movies such as Animal House would have one believe. Unfortunately, this book does not address at all the realities of the effects of drugs and alcohol use on college campuses. Living with the students, Moffat did not want to report on issues of substance abuse as he was concerned about the openness of his subjects if they felt that he was potentially a â€Å"narc†. This dimension however is so important to the living experiences of college students that a glaring hole is the result. Anyone familiar with college living will notice the missing piece of information, particularly for those who lived in college dorms during the 19070’s and 1980’s when drug and alcohol use was so much less regulated than it is today The relationship between substance use and sexual activity would have been interesting to note. The issue of traumatic sexual experiences and events linked to alcohol use would likely have been linked. A study today of sexuality on campus, looking at he issue of substance abuse as well as the increased awareness of sexually transmitted diseases would be very interesting to compare to Moffat’s original study.   One would expect that the outcome would be similar to the original study in terms of understanding the relationships between values, morals, family environments and sexuality.

Talcott Parson s Theory Of Pattern Variables - 1490 Words

Individuals often utilize stereotypes as an easy mechanism to organize and understand different people. Many of these stereotypes are unfortunately negative and are degrading toward a group of people. Further, stereotypes not only overgeneralize this, but can improperly evaluate the group based on ascribed traits (i.e. race, gender, age) and the impact it has on other areas of life, such as academics or work ethic. For example, African Americans are frequently stereotyped as having a lower IQ, performing poorer in academic settings, but being more athletic oriented; they face this stereotype because of their ascribed trait of skin color, or race (which is already a socially constructed phenomenon), even as it has little to no actual impact upon these aspects of life (what correlation there often is can be attributed to less opportunities, differential treatment, stereotype threat, and other factors). One way of understanding how this works is through Talcott Parson’s theory of pattern variables. As summarized by Delaney (2014 ), pattern variables help categorize the expectations of a relationship, are paired, on a spectrum, and involve three ‘rules’: 1. they are general so as to allow utilization and -comparability across cultures 2. be relevant to action frames and 3. be relevant across all social systems. There were five pattern variables often articulated: affectivity-affective neutrality, diffuseness-specificity, universalism-particularism, achievement-ascription, andShow MoreRelatedFunctionalism from Classical to Contemporary Theory787 Words   |  4 PagesFunctionalism is a social theory that has its foundations in the birth of the discipline called sociology (Adams Sydie, 2002 p.05). Angste Comte, considered the founder of sociology, believed that sociological matters should be explained through scientific study. 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