Hcl Project Report Essay Example for Free

Hcl Project Report Essay Before I begin my documentation I must thank all the people behind the successful completion of my project. I am especially thankful to my industry guide Mr. Vinod Rai for his valuable and enlightened guidance. I am highly grateful to him for providing me an opportunity to undergo the project in his presence. Despite his hectic schedule he showed a keen interest in my research and helped a lot in broadening my vision for the topic. My thanks again go to him for providing me all the required help to compile the data and other information to materialize the study. I am also grateful to my faculty mentor Mr. Tarun Kumar Vashisth for his guidance and kind support throughout the project. I must also not forget to mention the names of people in the organization who pumped me with immense confidence and support without which it would have been impossible to complete the project, hence with warm regards I would like to thank Mr. Sunil Bhatt Mr. Shammi S. Bhatia Ms. Priyanka Ms. Parbhaker PREFACE This project is based on the study of working capital management in HCL Infosystems. An insight view of the project will encompass – what it is all about, what it aims to achieve, what is its purpose and scope, the various methods used for collecting data and their sources, including literature survey done, further specifying the limitations of our study and in the last, drawing inferences from the learning so far. HCL Infosystems Limited (HCL) is a leading domestic computer hardware services company. HCL is engaged in selling manufactured (like PCs, servers, monitors and peripherals) and traded hardware (like notebooks, peripherals) to institutional clients as well as in retail segment. It also offers hardware support services to existing clients through annual maintenance contracts, network consulting and facilities management. The working capital management refers to the management of working capital, or precisely to the management of current assets. A firm’s working capital consists of its investments in current assets, which includes short-term assets— cash and bank balance, inventories, receivable and marketable securities. This project tries to evaluate how the management of working capital is done in HCL Infosystems through inventory ratios, working capital ratios, trends, computation of cash, Inventory and working capital, and short term financing. DECLARATION I Ajay hereby declare that research project submitted to punjabi university, patiala in partial fulfillment of the degree of BBA on Working Capital is the result of my own hard work under continues guidance of Mr. Vinod Rai , HCL CDC Chandigarh.

Ethical Responsibility Of The Airline Industry Management Essay

Ethical Responsibility Of The Airline Industry Management Essay The internal and external environment of an organization is related to managerial ethics and also corporate social responsibility in the process of management. This report focuses on the airport industry. In my report, there is the meaning of all factors and also an analysis of the airport industry. I expect that this report will help us know more about some key areas that need to be improved and understand key management. Ethical Responsibility of the Airline Industry Introduction The business of international airline has developed as businesses progressively are rotating worldwide in periods of their investments, provide and output chains and their consumers. The fast development of world business in items and services and worldwide direct buying have furthermore supplemented in the development of enterprise travel? One thing that actually influenced people about the industry of airline was their proficiency to sustain high earnings and sustain high clientele groundwork even after the September 11 attacks and the 2002 recession (John, 2005). The worldwide charges have expanded due to advanced security methods while localized or nationwide charges are very inexpensive to consumers. Discussion Airlines achievement is mainly due to their pointed aim. This is apparent through their no-frills, low-cost model; their aim is to supply the safest and cheapest pattern of air travel between two destinations. Driven through the concept that consumers can be persuaded without having costly choices accessible for them, International Air Transport Association, IATA, outlooks a boost in worldwide air travel through an mean 6.6% a year to the end of the ten years and over 5% a year from 2000 to 2010 (John, 2005). These rates are alike to those of the past 10 years. According to the last four years, outcomes of airlines economic advancement have sustained stable snare sales. In 1999, they had a mean snare sale of $6,739 million, which is an increase to $7,565 million. Their minor fall in 2002 to $7,225 million was due to the September 11th occurrence (Graham, 2010). However, this is not anything contrasted to other foremost commerce that had lost so much more. Since then, numerous airline s and airports have filed for insolvency and have been compelled to close down. In detail, airlines are the only foremost US carrier to stay money-making since then; airlines were influenced through the poor financial situation (John, 2005). A number of components are compelling airlines to become more proficient. In Europe, the European Union (EU) has directed that authorities must not be permitted to sponsor their loss-making airlines. In several other countries, governments anxieties over their own investments and acknowledgement of the advantages of privatization have directed to a stepwise move of possession of airlines from the state to the personal area. In alignment to apply to potential shareholders, the airlines have become more effective and aggressive. There are other causes as to why there has been a boost in air travel. Firstly there has been a decline in employed time since 1971 producing and boost in free time. Emerging trends Fast rising volumes of traffic and estimations of continued expansion into the next decades has damage on the airport capability. Industries of Airbus, for instance, expects a standard yearly traveler traffic development rate of 5.0 percent throughout the next 20 years, which means that throughout this time traffic will raise by 168 percent. At the same time, tolerance of the public environmental effects of air traffic around airports like noise, air contamination and third party danger would emerge and have to be reduced. These contradictory styles of direct airlines, airports , organizations of air traffic control and the industry of equipment and aircraft to plan latest innovative ways and technologies of working aircraft and airports in order to gather both the capacity demands and the environmental limitations. Safety is not the objective of these developments; it is a mere constraint. Consequently, new hazards emerge and accessible dangers become complicated to maintain unless proper concentration is given to security features in this arrangement of rising trends. A latest aspect, third party danger, presented itself as a security distress in a rising number of European states. Airports are centers in the system of air transport. Therefore, their attendance causes a junction of air traffic over the region nearby the airport. For the people living in the surrounding area of an airport this involves unintentional experience to the danger of aircraft mishaps. Even though the possibility of a mishap per flight is extremely small (normally in the order of 1 in one million), local danger levels around airports are higher than one may think. The resulting yearly possibility of a mishap at a distinctive large airport is so much larger than the small possibility of being concerned in an aircraft mishap as a passenger. In addition, mishaps have a propensity to happen throughout the landing and take-off stages of flight and therefore close to an airport. Security information from researches describes that approach and landing stage mishaps account for a major part of fatal air transport mishaps. It can be observed that 82 percent of the accidents of world jet aircraft fleet 1988-1997 happened in these flight stages and recorded for 58 percent of every wounded. Historical information verifies that accidents of aircraft relating significant numbers of third party sufferers happen numerous times a year. Perhaps the best recognized example is the terrible mishap of a Boeing 747 in suburban Amsterdam in 1992. Latest mishaps happened in Taiwan (Taipeh), Russia (Irkoetsk), Paraguay and Zaire (219 3rd party victims). This environmental effect is of rising consequence to airports security liability and decision making on airport improvement and land-use development for airports. Airports play a significant function in the security of air travel. A current study of mishaps described that around 30 percent of these mishaps related at least one airport concerned aspect in the fundamental chain leading up to the accident. Airport related factors in this case are taken as those factors which are specific to the airport environment but are not necessarily owned by the airport (and can therefore include concerns like fog, snow, inadequate ATC guidance, etc.). The comparative value of airport fundamental aspects can be anticipated from their comparative frequency of incidence in fundamental series of mishaps in the dataset. To this end, the 76 various airport connected fundamental aspects discovered, were grouped into seven groups. These groups are:  · Marking and Lighting  · Taxiways and runways  · Information  · External dangers  · Ramp and apron and  · ATC procedures and operations  · Aerodrome Definition of social responsibility Social responsibility is the managerial obligation to take action that protects and improves both the welfare of society as a whole and interests of the organization means, not an end. To be socially responsible, the airline industry must have a clear, rational definition of social purpose, a system of setting priorities based on their social implications, and a structured, integrated approach to financial and social action (Graham, 2010). Implicit in social responsibility is a new definition of success for small business. Area of Social Responsibility When defining its sense of social responsibility, airline industries typically confronts four areas of concern: responsibilities toward the employees, environment, customers and its investors (John, 2003). Social responsibility towards employees In the best tradition of participative management, the airline industries invited all its employees to join in forging a new statement of values to avoid massive layoffs. These included teamwork, mutual respect, and professionalism, all duly inscribed on, among other places, coffee cups at office, so that, every time you had some coffee, you drank the values, too (Gurpreet, 2003). Employees needs must be met if the business itself is to prosper. Relationships of decency and trust are central to the achievement of the airline industries aim. Employees who in the form of dirty lavatories, lack of privacy or unjust wage structures, will be unwilling to contribute to the airline industries. Do people imagine a worker might be inclined to maximize his/her profits by stretching out the work to get more overtime or perhaps even a little Sunday double time? And just as employees need to believe in the companys commitment to treating them with decency, they expect to be treated justly and fai rly, not be used and then arbitrarily rejected. If they can strike a fair deal with people theyll come back for more. In the long run, airline industries will do that much better. Social responsibility towards investors The views of shareholders / investors might have encouraged responsibility in the airline industries. Stockholders want the company to make as much money for them as possible (Gurpreet, 2003). Their objectives differ and they are not confined to furthering the strictly economic role of companies. Indeed, recent developments in the area of ethical investment trusts would seem to indicate that many investors, like employees, are very keen to feel good about the firms in which they are involved. Certainly not all of them are simply after a quick financial return and they are often clear about areas like tobacco, alcohol, gambling, or arms into which they do not want to, put their money (John, 2003). Social responsibility towards customers Obviously, a company should act responsibility towards its customers and provide quality products and pricing product fairly based on consumer rights (Graham, 2010). Consumers have a right to safe products, most completed instruction and product testing. Consumers have a right to be informed about all relevant aspects of a product. Social responsibility towards environment Good environmental management can improve employee morale and help attract better quality staff, cut costs by eliminating waste and saving energy, and bring competitive advantage by putting the company at the forefront of technical and regulatory development. Firms in numerous other industries have also integrated socially conscious thinking into their production plans and marketing efforts. The production of environmentally safe products, for example, has become a potential boom area, designing products to be environmentally friendly. Sales of vegetable-based cleaning products, recycled paper products and all natural toiletries are a few examples. Approaches to social responsibility There are four approaches to social responsibility. First is obstructionist approach. Second is defensive approach. Third is accommodative approach. And fourth is proactive approach. Advantages of behave social responsibility Using social responsibility to spot out new markets isnt a matter of recognizing that these opportunities exist. That means we may have to be content with a smaller profit margin in exchange for gaining a new market, and never make the mistake of assuming that a less-affluent market is any less choosy than the well off when it comes to buying habits. Disadvantages of behaving in an unsocial manor Unethical and irresponsibility business practices towards customers can result in government fines and loss of clientele. Collusion occurs when two or more firms agree to collaborate on such wrongful acts such as fixed pricing. However irresponsible behavior towards investors means abuse of a firms financial resources. In such cases, the ultimate losers are indeed the owners who did not receive there due earnings or dividends. Companies can act irresponsibility by misrepresent ting company resources such as improper financial management, check kiting, insider trading, and misrepresentation of finances (John, 2003). Case study There is an example of Malaysia Airlines System (MAS) as a case study. As an employer, insurer, consumer and investor, MAS has studied that the social responsible can be reflected in its environment, community, workforce, human rights, health and safety, suppliers, customers and standards of business practice. Every member is committed to continuous improvement in the corporate social responsibility program and this encourages those business partners to strive for matching performance. Thus, they recognize that the business activities have direct and indirect impacts on the society in which is operating all the time and carried out some policies as below: a) Employee appreciation and prizes: MAS realizes that workers are inclined to enlist in demeanor that is identified and paid and bypass demeanor that is punished. The system of employing, chartering, encouraging, reimbursing and openly respecting workers all may be conceived to encourage business communal duty. b) Communication, education and training: MAS identified that workers will not be held responsible if they are not cognizant of its significance and supplied with the data and devices they need to proceed properly in bearing their job requirements. They announce the significance of business communal blame internally, encompass it as a subject in administration teaching programs, and supply managers and workers with decision-making methods that support them accomplish to blame results. c) Environment: MAS has an encouraging dream of a cleaner, smarter development in aviation which maximizes the affirmative advantages for humanity facilitating prosperity, regeneration, local and UK competitiveness, heritage exchange and communal addition while minimizing contradictory communal and ecological influences (David, 2009). d) Practices of business: It has habitually integrating schemes, inducements and pay schemes to make sure that sustainable improvement main concerns are echoed in day-to-day conclusions and procedures at each of the airports. By advancing presentation through objectives, externally audited goals, key presentation signs and by mirroring these main concerns in connections with enterprise suppliers and partners. By looking through MAS past accomplishments, they have struggled to assist the buyer better and have obtained worldwide acclaim from numerous unaligned associations for diverse facets of their services. Their peak administration group obtained an accolade from the Asian Institute of Management and the World Executive Digest, for its excellence in general administration and achievement in positioning itself in the airline industry. Going as far back as 1957, they obtained the Cumber Batch Trophy for no misfortune record (John, 2003). In year 1995, the Boeing Commercial Aircraft Company provided Malaysia a Pride in Excellence Award in accomplishing reliability excellence for the B737-400 fleet (David, 2009). Malaysia Airlines performance has a crucial function in projecting Malaysia as a favored and worth for cash tourist place traveled to through comprehensive on-going junction advancements with tourism in Malaysia at main markets to boost tourist appearances into Malaysia. Conclusion Malaysia Airlines can play a role of leadership in influencing the behavior of others, from business partners to industry colleagues to neighboring businesses. The entire company has been acting conscientiously and thinking long term because they recognize that eventually it is in everyones best interests to have as several companies as possibly honoring the expectations and requirements of responsibility of corporate social. It endeavors to control every procedure in a responsible approach, believing that sound and provable performance in relation to business social responsibility rules and practices is a basic element of business success.

Rich Resource Countries and Economic Growth

Rich Resource Countries and Economic Growth Vikram Mashru Why have resource rich economies so frequently failed to achieve sustained economic growth? In the late 20th Century, Sachs and Warner extensively documented the negative correlation between a country’s resource endowment and their rate of economic growth.[1] They focussed on point-source natural resources because they can be easily traded and exploited by others. Their paper built upon previous research leading to the so-called resource curse being widely accepted. However, the explanations of the phenomenon are disputed with the constantly fluctuating prices of natural resources being a possible explanation. In addition to this, other industries could be crowded out by the export-based natural resource industry an appreciation of the real exchange rate could also be problematic. Yet, the quality of a country’s institutions could be a better explanation for low levels of economic growth because they determine the way in which natural resources are exploited and consequently the impact the natural resource shave on the economy as a whole. The revenue brought about by natural resources tends to be extremely volatile because natural resources have a low price elasticity of supply as production cannot be altered easily altered without incurring large costs.[2] Oil prices are particularly variable because they are often affected by political instability, natural disasters and economic downturns. This volatility is problematic because it leads to uncertainty in the country and exposes the country’s economy to changes in the world price in commodities. This problem may be exacerbated if the country has not economically diversified and the majority of a country’s foreign currency comes from exports of natural resources. The fluctuating prices can lead to a risky cycle where the government spends a lot when prices are high, but have to introduce harsh austerity measures when prices drop because they can no longer afford to maintain their expenditure.[3] The unpredictability of the government’s fiscal poli cy may make the country less attractive to foreign investors. A dependence on a volatile primary product has been shown to inversely correlate with investment in education, foreign direct investment and overall economic growth[4]. However, if fluctuating prices were the only cause of the low rates of economic growth there would certainly be periods of significantly higher growth when prices are high. Thus, fluctuating prices alone are not enough to explain the natural resource curse. Dutch disease is a theory that suggests the discovery of resources in a country may lead to a decline in export-oriented industries and particularly the manufacturing sector. The export of natural resources like oil could lead to an appreciation in the real exchange rate because of the increase in demand for the currency.[5] The high exchange rate could harm the manufacturing industry as their exports would consequently be more expensive than before. Thus, the manufacturing sector would be less competitive on the global market and could lead to lower economic growth in the country. The term itself was originally used to describe this process after it happened in the Netherlands after the discovery of natural gas in 1959, but it has since been observed elsewhere.[6] Russia, for example, is one of the largest exporters of natural resources in the world and has experienced an increasing real exchange rate. Oomes and Kalcheva demonstrate that Russia has also displayed the other three maj or signs of Dutch disease including a slowdown of the manufacturing industry, an increase in service sector growth and an increase in wage growth. While this may not be enough to conclusively state that Russia has fallen foul of Dutch disease, it does appear that likely that the country has experienced it to some degree. Furthermore, industries that compete with imports may be adversely affected as the stronger exchange rate would increase the purchasing power of consumers. The country’s labour and capital may be redistributed towards local non-tradeable sectors and the country may then lose out on the benefits of having a strong manufacturing sector such as technological progress and good management.[7] There were significant fears that the artificially high exchange rate from North Sea oil revenue would have this impact in the UK if corrective policies were not enacted.[8] On the other hand, Dutch disease appears to be an inadequate explanation for Nigeria’s poor economic performance because the sustained increase in price of tradable goods in the 1980s and early 1990s did not improve their economic performance and because the decline of the agricultural sector was offset by the growth of the public sector.[9] Furthermore, Norway’s extraction of oil from the early 1970s has hugely improved its economic growth and allowed it to catch up with Denmark and Sweden. Its rapid growth suggests that Dutch disease is not an economic inevitability and that there are other important factors. Larsen argues that Norway’s success where so many other countries have failed is indicative of the superior quality of its pre-existing institutions, an attribute that most primary product dependent countries do not have.[10] Norway’s government explicitly discussed the problems natural resources posed in parliament and used policies to counteract t hese negative impacts. For example, they tried to protect the economy from excessive demand and exchange rate appreciation by establishing a Petroleum Fund abroad and paying back foreign debts.[11] The discovery of natural resources often leads to disputes over the ownership of them and rent-seeking behaviour such as civil wars which may crowd out other beneficial behaviour. Nigeria demonstrates the institutional problems with the discovery of a large pool of natural resources. Corruption and waste has ruined the country and prevented the large quantity of oil in the country from making a positive contribution to the national economy. Conflicts over ownership of oil fields such as the Biafran war of the 1960s and successive military dictatorships have not only disturbed the extraction of oil but have disrupted unrelated economic activity.[12] Moreover, poor institutional quality leads to a lack of trust in government especially when corruption is widespread and widely known about. Multinational corporations respond to problems of corruption by taking part in enclave development where they minimise their activity in the country so that they can avoid all the problems associated with poor institutions. Large firms extract oil from these countries but process it elsewhere, which means that there is little value added in the resource rich country. Consequently, countries like Nigeria are forced to rely on exports of raw materials and there is little value added to commodities in their economies so little profit is made within the country. Overall, it seems that oil is not enough on its own to create economic and civil disturbances, but instead exacerbates pre-existing issues. In the Niger Delta, oil was discovered amidst a backdrop of weak institutions and thus conflicts and exploitation follows.[13] However, part of the prob lem is that the discovery of oil and consequent accumulation of wealth at the top of the political hierarchy, as Birdsall points out, may hinder the development and improvement of institutions that could have otherwise taken place.[14] The explanation for resource rich countries lack of growth is particularly complex. The volatility of raw material prices are in part to blame for this because they lead to uncertainty in the economy and exposes the country to price changes on the global market. This is made worse by the following unpredictability of government fiscal decisions. However, the volatility is not enough to truly understand why these countries have such slow rates of economic growth. The Dutch disease is a slightly better explanation, with the export of raw materials leading to an appreciation in the exchange rate. However, multiple examples like Norway show that Dutch disease can be avoided through careful macroeconomic planning on the part of the government. This demonstrates that the most important explanation is the quality of institutions at the time of resource discovery. If they are weak, like Nigeria’s, natural resources can lead to civil conflict and economic hardship. Yet a country with s trong institutions like Norway allows natural resources to boost prosperity and economic growth. BIBLIOGRAPHY Birdsall, N Subramanian, A. (2004) Saving Iraq From Its Oil. Foreign Affairs 83.4 Larsen, E.R. (2004) Escaping the Resource Curse and the Dutch Disease? Statistics Norway, Research Department Oomes, N. Kalcheva, K. (2007) Diagnosing Dutch Disease: Does Russia have the Symptoms? IMF Working Paper The Dutch Disease (1977) The Economist Sachs, J.D. Warner, A.M. (1995) Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Sala-i-Martin, X. Subramanian, A. (2003) Addressing The Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration From Nigeria. National Bureau of Economic Research Ramey, G. Ramey, V.A. (1995) Cross-Country Evidence on the Link Between Volatility and Growth. American Economic Review Watts, M. (2004) Resource Curse? Governmentality, Oil and Power in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. Geopolitics 1 [1] Sachs Warner, Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth [2] Oomes Kalcheva, Diagnosing Dutch Disease, p.7 [3] Birdsall Subramanian, Saving Iraq From Its Oil [4] Ramey Ramey, Cross-Country Evidence on the Link Between Volatility and Growth, pp.1138-1151 [5] Oomes Kalcheva, Diagnosing Dutch Disease, p.7 [6] The Economist, The Dutch Disease, pp.82-83 [7] Birdsall Subramanian, Saving Iraq From Its Oil [8] Forsyth Kay, The Economic Implications of North Sea Oil Revenues, p.17 [9] Sala-i-Martin Subramanian, Addressing The Natural Resource Curse, p. 16 [10] Larsen, Escaping the Resource Curse and the Dutch Disease? [11] Larsen, Escaping the Resource Curse and the Dutch Disease? P.13 [12] Sala-i-Martin Subramanian, Addressing The Natural Resource Curse, pp.12-15 [13] Watt, Resource Curse? pp.73-76 [14] Birdsall Subramanian, Saving Iraq From Its Oil

Can Writing Be Fun? Essay -- essays research papers

Writing and school work, to be honest, have always been at the bottom of my list for things that I enjoy doing. I can remember from as early as grade 1 having great difficulty in most areas of school work. I have always had a great anxiety about completing assignments or having to read the required books, I went through all of high school having never read a complete book. It’s not that I think I am stupid but just not interested in these types of activities. I find it hard to keep my attention focused on reading when there are so many great things, or maybe not so great things, out in the world to think about. Now don’t get me wrong, I could read all day long about how to make my car faster or my dirt bike jump higher but writing something uninteresting to me makes it hard to be creative...

expatriate failures :: essays research papers fc

EXPATRIATE FAILURES â€Å"The internationalization of business has proceeded at a rapid pace as the world has become a global economy.†(Mathis, Jackson 2000) This is the very reason why companies now have the need for international executives. As all aspects of a business spread worldwide, so must the employees. An expatriate by definition is a home-county national, usually an employee of the firm, who is sent abroad to manage a foreign subsidiary. (Rodrigues, 2001) A successful expatriate generally requires an extensive amount of time and money, however, a failed expatriate can be even more costly for an organization. A study of multinational corporations showed that 69% (of the firms surveyed) had recall rates of expatriates between 10 to 20 percent. Compared to Japan and their figures, (86% of firms had less than 5% recall rate) the United States has room for improvement. (Tung, 1981) There are many reason for expatriates to fail and many differences between Japan and United States’ hum an resource management planning.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the main reasons why expatriates fail is due to the social and physical environments of the foreign country. Adaptation problems can effect the on-the-job effectiveness of the expatriate. Different value systems and living habits are a main cause of adaptation problems and the inability to communicate only worsens the problem. Lack of communication verbally and nonverbally can affect every aspect of a persons career and person life. If someone can’t communicate, imagine the difficulty of going to the bank, dealing with customers, and even going grocery shopping. In addition to the new surrounding environments, if the expatiates family can not accompany them or is not happy with the new living arrangements then it could result in separation anxiety. Humans need to feel secure in their environments and with all of these downfalls it is extremely difficult to accomplish. When an expatiate is not happy with their situation, it will reflect on their job p erformance.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Some other reasons for expatriates to fail are differences in the managerial and organizational principles. If a foreign country has different principles than the home-country than implementation can be very difficult. This also applies to objectives and policies. With such differences the expatriate may need to conform to the local situation. â€Å"If the expatriate manager’s authority is visibly constrained, his or her opportunity to establish and maintain an effective relationship with local associates is diminished.† (Rodrigues, 2001) An expatriate’s authority can appear constrained if the home office overcentralizes the decision making.

Successful Military Innovation Essay examples -- Military History

The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and subsequently the collapse of the Soviet empire changed the political – military situation within Europe. Nearly five decades of Cold War between the Western Alliance and the Warsaw Pact countries, with relatively large standing armies and prepared mobilization plans, ended. The fight between large mechanized formations on European countryside became more and more improbable, and forced many Western countries to identify a new role for their armed forces as new threats emerged. Yet, those military organizations often struggle with such doctrinal innovations, especially in economic austere conditions combined with rapidly technological improvements. While such strategic situations determine the environment in which the military operates, ultimately people lay the foundations for a new approach. Therefore, successful innovation within a military organization depends on aligning political and military strategy, creating a learning organizati on, and assuring popular support to the military. This essay identifies principles that induce change on organizational level based upon examples from the interwar period, and has not the intention to discuss neither tactical nor technical changes in detail. Such an essay would require more in depth study that draws us away from the initial argument. Without a doubt, during the interwar period almost all military organizations reformed, based on their lessons learned from World War I, and each of them booked significant advances in certain domains. Nonetheless, some organizations as a whole proved to possess more adaptive skills than others. Above all, innovations within military organizations depend on the integration of political and military vision. ... ... The Challenge of Change: Military Institutions and New Realities, 1918-1941†. Edited by Harold R. Winton and David R. Mets (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 37-41. Williamson, Murray. â€Å"Armored Warfare: The British, French, and German Experience†, in Military Innovation in the Interwar Period. Edited by Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millet (Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 22-24. Eugene, C. Kiesling in The Challenge of Change: Military Institutions and New Realities, 1918-1941†. Edited by Harold R. Winton and David R. Mets (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 3 and 10-11. Murray, op. cit., 14-15. Ibid, 9. Ibid, 13. House. Towards Combined Arms Warfare: A Survey of Tactics, Doctrine and Organization in the 20th Century. 66. Murray, op. cit., 17. Ibid, 24-25. Murray, op. cit., 125-127 and 139.

All of our Choices are Predetermined Essay

The Universe appears to be governed entirely by laws, studies of physics seem to show that atoms follow an extremely predictable pattern of cause and effect. This presents a difficult problem for philosophy; if all physical matter is governed by the laws of cause and effect, and we ourselves are comprised of physical matter, how could it be so that any choices we make could be seen to be free? The suggestion that our choices are set out by cause and effect is known as Determinism. Philosophers such as Ted Honderich have argued for determinism and for the consequences that it cancels out free will. It seems insensible to argue that we are not in the least bit determined, and almost all people know from personal experience that people act in a relatively stable and predictable way. For example, if I were to ask my father if he wanted tea or coffee, I would know that he would want coffee based on his love of coffee, and hatred for tea. This preference could not be argued in any way to be a choice made by him, we do not choose what we like, but simply do. Whether our preferences are based on nature or nurture is an ongoing debate, but regardless of the final conclusion, as long as our opinions are based on either of the two options, we would be seen to be determined. Nature is not in our control, neither on the other hand, is nurture. If our personalities are based on environmental or genetic factors and nothing else then our actions are surely determined. This position is extremely convincing and was famously used by Clarence Darrow to prevent two murderers from receiving the death penalty, he argued that they where a product of their upbringing and as such could not be held morally responsible for their actions. This meant, while they could be jailed to prevent threat to society, they could not be punished with the death penalty. The viewpoint of Determinism, while convincing, is by no means universally accepted. The argument seems to go against our intuitions that we are free -although it is notable at this point that our intuitions themselves are philosophically worthless, we cannot argue for an element of truth on the grounds that we feel it is true- and is seemingly incompatible with the view of a God who punishes and rewards his creations with heaven and hell. If our actions are predetermined, then it seems that punishment in hell would be arbitrary. God would simply be creating people in a flawed way, and then punishing them for his poor skills of creation. Needless to say, this viewpoint is not accepted by many Christians and so there have been many arguments for a lack of determinism in philosophy. The belief of Libertarianism, is that we are completely free; in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre â€Å"I am not free not to be free†. Though Sartre’s beliefs on free will were more assertions than arguments of proofs, he summarises the Libertarian view point perfectly. All our actions are completely freely chosen, our only confinement is that we cannot be confined. Libertarianism has the difficult task of explaining how it is possible to defend non-determined choices in an environment where all things seem to be determined by cause and effect. As already stated, if our personality is held to be nothing but a result of nature of nurture, then determinism must be accepted as a matter of logical consistency. From this, many Libertarians would stipulate the existence of a â€Å"super-natural† element to our personality. For example, if one were to believe in a soul, then it is possible to argue the physical laws of cause and effect have no bearing on our actions. This does seem to contradict fairly obvious observable evidence. Psychology has frequently found causes for human behaviour, and it is difficult to explain the consistency and successes of this particular scientific discipline if we do not accept that our choices are determined in some way. One of the more successful attempts of Libertarianism to discredit Determinism is the pointing to laws of physics that do not seem to obey causality. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle shows distinct examples of elements of nature acting randomly, and not due to cause and effect. There are two main criticisms that can be made of this argument; One, that this principle only functions on an minute level, while actual objects such as people still obey determined laws of physics (although science has proven the principle can be amplified to affect people), and; Two, that even where actions random, there would still not be free will, while we would not live in a predetermined environment, we would still live in a (randomly) determined environment. If one was to roll a dice in order to decide the actions a prisoner should take, they would not be considered free by any means. The fundamental flaw of Libertarianism, is that when we examine how it would work, it seems to collapse. As all choices are made according to our personality, a serial killer, is only so because he has a serial killer’s personality. This statement would suggest determinism and could only be argued against in two ways: Firstly, we could state that the serial killer has no personality, this however, seems nearly impossible to uphold. Without personality, we would have no preferences and without preferences we could not make any choice at all. Asking someone who has no preference of good over evil, or pleasure over pain, to make a moral decision would be rather like asking someone whether they prefer white to white. Without personality, we would not be able to make any choice at all, as no options would appeal to us over others. It could be argued, that decisions can still be made according to rationalism, but as rationalism and logic are consistent discipline this would make our actions even more predictable and un-chosen than determinism suggests. So this argument cannot be used to defend Libertarianism. Secondly, we could suggest that the Serial-Killer was in some way in control of his personality. That he chose his preference of evil over good. This again fails. As we have already stated, choices cannot be made without personality, so to choose a personality we would require a personality for us to choose, this initial personality would determine the personality we chose. We could attempt to argue that this initial personality was chosen, but very soon we would have to give way to infinite regression. With this in mind, Libertarianism and the suggestion that our choices are anything but pre-determined or random, is not only completely incompatible with the current model of physics and psychology, but more importantly is incompatible with choice itself (as choice requires preference, preference designates personality which in turn suggests determinism). Libertarianism is a self defeating system in that it requires an absence of will to prove free will, which would be rendered useless without will. There is also a logical argument against Libertarianism. J.J.C Smart points out that there are two possible states of things, i.e. determinism or indeterminism. Either determinism is true, or indeterminism is true, these exhaust all possible philosophical options. Determinism would prevent a Libertarian view as our choices are predetermined, indeterminism would seem to prevent Libertarian view also, as our choices are random and thus not controlled or free. From this argument, we can see that a Libertarian argument for free will is impossible. It seems undeniable therefore, that all our choices are pre-determined -or in the least part random, whether our choices are in fact pre-determined or random is largely down to physicists to discover, currently it seems to be that we are in fact pre-determined, but this cannot be assured without knowledge of all physics. Even if our choices are not predetermined, what they are not -as has been argued in the course of this essay- is freely chosen, at least according to the viewpoint of free will presented by libertarianism. But what would the effects of this be? Hard determinism would argue that we cannot claim to possess free will in a deterministic environment. The problem with this position seems to be that we have defined free will incorrectly. The view of free-will as indifference, has in the course of this essay been demonstrated as problematic, and if we adopt this view of free-will then hard determinism would seem an agreeable viewpoint, the problem is, that this seems an utterly meaningless way of discussing free will. Free will does not appear to refer to the ability of will to change itself, when we refer to a free lion, we do not mean it is free to change to a tiger or a bird, we simply mean it is free to act according to its nature. It would therefore seem to be more useful to discuss free will in the sense of â€Å"a will being able to act itself out†, we are free if we could have chosen otherwise HAD our will been different. This Compatibilist approach adopted by David Hume seems to allow us to discuss free will in a meaningful way, within what seems to be a predetermined environment.