What Were the Goals of 1960s/1970s Feminism

Feminism changed womens lives and created new worlds of possibility for education, empowerment, working women, feminist art and feminist theory. For some, the goals of the feminist movement were simple: let women have freedom, equal opportunity and control over their lives. For others, though, the goals were more abstract or complex. Scholars and historians often divide the feminist movement into three waves. First-wave feminism, rooted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is closely related to the womens suffrage movement, as it focused primarily on legal inequalities. In contrast, second-wave feminism was mainly active in the 1960s and 70s and focused on inequalities embedded in social norms more than in laws. Here are some specific feminist movement goals from the â€Å"second wave† of feminism. Rethinking Society With Feminist Theory This was accomplished by, among other disciplines, women’s studies, feminist literary criticism, gynocriticism, socialist feminism and the feminist art movement.  Looking through a feminist lens at history, politics, culture, and economics, feminists developed insights in just about every intellectual discipline. To this day, the fields of womens studies and gender studies are major presences in academia and in social criticism. Abortion Rights The call for â€Å"abortion on demand† is often misunderstood. Leaders of the women’s liberation movement were clear that women should have reproductive freedom and safe access to legal abortion, making the choice for her reproductive status without interference by the state or paternalistic medical professionals. Second-wave feminism led to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, which legalized abortion in most circumstances. De-Sexing the English Language Feminists helped spark debate over assumptions embedded in our language that reflect the assumption of a male-dominated patriarchal society. Language was often centered around males, assuming that humanity was male and women were exceptions.  Use neutral pronouns? Identify words with gender bias? Invent new words?  Many solutions were tried, and the debate continues into the 21st century. Education Many women went to college and worked professionally in the early 20th century, but the mid-20th century ideal of the middle-class suburban housewife and the nuclear family downplayed the importance of women’s education. Feminists knew that girls and women must be encouraged to seek an education, and not just as â€Å"something to fall back on,† if they were to become, and be seen as, fully equal.  And within education, access by women to all programs, including sports programs, was a major goal. In 1972, Title IX forbade gender discrimination in education-related programs that received federal funding (such as school athletic programs). Equality Legislation Feminists worked for the Equal Rights Amendment, the Equal Pay Act, the addition of sex discrimination to the Civil Rights Act and other laws that would guarantee equality.  Feminists advocated for a variety of laws and interpretations of existing laws to remove impediments to womens professional and economic achievements, or full exercise of citizenship rights (such as having women on juries on an equal basis to men).  Feminists questioned the long tradition of protective legislation for women which often ended up sidelining women from being hired, promoted, or treated fairly. Promoting Political Participation The League of Women Voters had existed since just after women won the vote, and the LWV had supported educating women (and men) in informed voting, and had done some work in promoting women as candidates.  In the 1960s and 1970s, other organizations were created and the LWV extended its mission to promote even more participation in the political process by women including by recruiting, training, and financially supporting women candidates. Rethinking Womens Roles in Nuclear Family Households Although not all feminists called for collective mothering or went so far as to urge â€Å"seizing the means of reproduction,† as Shulamith Firestone wrote in The Dialectic of Sex, it was clear that women should not have to bear the sole responsibility for raising children.  Roles also included who does the housework.  Research showed that even full time working wives did the majority of housework, and various individuals and theorists proposed ways of changing the proportion of who did which household chores, and who held responsibility for those chores as well. â€Å"I Want a Wife† No, this essay from the first issue of  Ms.  magazine  did not mean that every woman literally wanted a wife. It did suggest that any adult would love to have someone to play the â€Å"housewife† role as it had been defined: the caretaker and the one who runs things behind-the-scenes. Supporting Women as Parents While feminism re-examined the maternal role expected of women, feminism also worked to support women when they were the primary caretaker of children or the primary custodial parent.  Feminists worked for family leave, employment rights through pregnancy and childbirth including covering pregnancy and newborn medical expenses through health insurance, child care, and reform in marriage and divorce laws. Representation in Popular Culture Feminists critiqued the presence (or non-presence) of women in popular culture, and popular culture expanded the roles which women held.  Television shows gradually added women in more central and less stereotyped roles, including some shows featuring single women who wanted more than just to find a man.  Movies also expanded roles, and female-driven comics saw a resurgence and widened audience, with Wonder Woman leading the way.  Traditional womens magazines fell under critique, with the result of both some change in how women were depicted there, and specialty magazines like  Working Woman  and Ms. Magazine  created to meet the new market demands -- and to reshape the market. Expanding the Voice of Women in Other Movements An example: women had often been shut out of unions or relegated to a Ladies Auxiliary through much of the 20th century. As the feminist movement gained momentum, pressure on the union movement to represent more jobs that were pink collar jobs (mostly held by women) increased.  Organizations like Women Employed were created for representing women in offices where unions were not strong.  And the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) was created to help women in leadership roles within unions develop solidarity and support in getting the union movement to be more inclusive of women, both among those represented, and in leadership.

Analysis Of Frank Sargeson s Short Stories Conversation...

Connections One might have heard about Frank Sargeson many times, but never really had the opportunity to know more about him. This text offers the chance to learn about his contribution to New Zealand literature. Frank Sargeson was one of New Zealand’s most important short story writers. He was born in Hamilton on the 21st, March 1903 and died in Auckland, the first of March of 1982. His peculiar works contributed to creating a special language. Like Katherine Mansfield, who is considered to be the first who used New Zealand’s modernist writing style, Sargeson has been responsible for placing New Zealand’s literature on the world map. Because he lived in the years when New Zealanders were still looking for their own identity, as most Pakeha at that time considered Britain their motherland, it was complicated for him to distinguish himself from the rest of them. My aim in this essay is to identify, analyse and critique the similarities and differences of four Frank Sargesonà ¢â‚¬â„¢s short stories: ‘Conversation with my Uncle’, ‘Cats by the Tail’, ‘A Piece of Yellow Soap’ and ‘Chaucerian’. Many things intrigued me about Sargeson such as: the development of anecdotes into short stories, the transcript of the New Zealand colloquial language, and the use of simple words leading to a breathtaking level of complexity in his stories. But what impressed me the most was the fact that he almost never referred to himself in his workings, keeping a low, mysterious profile. In every story we

Harley Davidson Erp Vendor Selection free essay sample

Harley-Davidson, Inc. Contents Introduction Problem Statement Supply Management Strategy Project Scope Project Execution Software Vendor Finalists Recommendations 2004 update References Harley-Davidson is an American motorcycle manufacturer with a rich history and cultural tradition. Founded in 1903 in Milwaukee, WI, Harley Just celebrated its 100th anniversary with a series of events around the world that culminated in hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists rallying last summer on the shores of Lake Michigan. In 1929, there were 241 motorcycle manufacturers in the US. After the Depression, only two remained: Harley and Indian. By 1953, Indian went out of business, leaving Harley-Davidson as the only American motorcycle manufacturer. Financial difficulties in the 1970s led to the parent company, AMF putting the motorcycle division up for sale. Without a buyer, a group of Harley managers bought out the company and rescued it with a business turnaround that included brand extensions into licensed goods, such as apparel and related accessories. Now a publicly owned company, Harley has scored double digit growth for eighteen consecutive years. Harley ransformed itself into a strong marketing company with a focus on lifestyle image and product quality. The case took place in retrospect from 1997-1999. The purpose of the case was to management for this large manufacturing company. Recognizing that the purchasing process for obtaining materials and parts was out of control, management coordinated a project to understand its purchasing process and activities, solicit feedback from the 800 people who would be affected by the new system, and create a complete transformation in thinking and action regarding the procurement and management of incoming supplies. In addition, management wanted to move the company from a short-term transaction purchasing basis to a long-term relationship with suppliers. In addition to selecting an ERP system, Harley Davidson was interested in developing supplier relationships with key vendors. They wanted the new system to facilitate this development. In the case, the managers went as far as making the distinction between vendor and a supplier indicating that a vendor is someone selling on the street corner and a supplier was an extension of the primary business. The company had highly fragmented purchasing functions. Even though all product development and manufacturing remained in the US, materials represented nearly 75% of product cost. They used different invoices, schedules and procedures in every facility. Suppliers complained that they were dealing with three different companies, sometimes receiving orders from various facilities in the same day. Harley had hundreds of suppliers and no system of coordination or relationship management. Because the company was steeped in cultural traditions of gradual improvement and quality ideology, dramatic change was an unlikely outcome. As n any major software project, the company faced three types of risk with this endeavor; size, experience, and structure. The size of the project determined how much risk was involved in terms of cost, time, and supplier relationships. Switching over to a centralized purchasing system may have resulted disruptions in supplies and production flow, costing the company in lost sales and dealer/customer relationships. Failure of the system to meet the expectations of users would cost the management credibility with employees and suppliers. We do not know the selection process cost. Because this project consisted of only two ERP modules in collaboration and delivery management, it was not as large in size and posed only moderate organizational risk. Harley employees had experience with many different software systems to support various activities. They did not have an ERP system, so there was some risk involved in the coordination of all purchasing activities among facilities under one program. Because the managers understood the strong culture and history of the company, they structured the project carefully to create a change in thinking before creating a change in software. The methods they used to survey purchasing people, involve representatives from all areas of the company, understand the process, work with suppliers, and select an ERP provider to grow with company and its future needs. All of these components helped to reduce the risk of the project. To get a better understanding of the scope of their problem and to plan the project, managers decided to survey those who were responsible for purchasing. They intended to discover what activities purchasing people carried out and how much time and effort went into procuring materials. Everyone was surprised to learn hat 85% of purchasing time was being spent in non-strategic activities, such as counting inventory, data entry and expediting. While the company had 200 purchasing staff, the survey revealed that over 2,000 people were issuing purchase orders. Quantitative estimates provided a potential savings of an ERP implementation for purchasing at $34 million. Data like these helped to get people committed to making the project a success. The project scope had to identify the purchasing activities, the stakeholder groups (owner, driver, or participant), and the target audience (800 people). In addition, the scope had to fine tune the details needed to create a software quote request and a list of supplier selection criteria. This helped to answer the following questions: Who will use the system? What will the system have to do? How can we make the implementation a success? Which vendor can best provide the functionality, support, and scalable potential? Even though the process took over two years, Harley managers did a comprehensive Job of selecting the ERP solution. It appears that the Silk team did a good Job preparing for the project evidenced by the careful mapping of the as is rocess and of the to be process. This helped to reduce and manage project scope creep. Typical of lower risk, low technology projects, the details in planning generally pay dividends in the form of reduced implementation time at a cut over to a new system. Poor planning can lead to huge cost over runs and delays in system implementation. More serious problems can occur if the system can not deliver on promises made in initial project Justification. These are the kinds of problems over which project managers can lose their Jobs. We think that external consultants could have helped with the initial ssessments. This may have helped Harley Davidson get a broader picture of the purchasing organization and allowed for the use of best practices from other industries. They may have done this†we do not know from the case. Great planning that is myopic does not necessarily lead to the best solutions. The time Harley Davidson spent on the initial phase of the project is much longer compared to either Tektronix or Cisco. In the case of Tektronix, they were happy throwing more money at implementation problems to stay on schedule. Tektronix also suffered from their lack f planning with previous implementation failures. Cisco succeeded in meeting the short, implementation schedule through the use of a very standard, off-the-shelf system. Less customization of any ERP system leads to lower costs and quicker implementation schedules. A standard system is easier to upgrade also. Customizations are often required to ensure systems can meet a companies reengineering and ERP customization when implementing an ERP system. The successful ERP selection at Harley Davidson was not a result of planning alone. The case paints the picture of the culture of HD well. This culture is brought ut in the style of management and the approach to the project and the selection process. Their use of their internal business integration (81) of process, people and technology was consistent. It would send a good message to the organization. Their definition of full time members as a Tuesday through Thursday was interesting. This is contrary to our experience of Monday through Friday being full time. The reason they gave does have merit. Full time members can lose track of the day-to-day business and not realize the impact of pending changes. Seemingly small obstacles can turn out to be the biggest problems of system acceptance. There are some people that think a new ERP system can fix all of an organizations ailments. This is simply not true, as bad processes are often the root cause of many ERP installation failures. The last paragraph of the case mentions the question of linking the Supply Management Strategy (SMS) and procurement system. Without the link, this process could have failed. The risks of not linking were higher than with linking because the procurement system should be looked at as an enabler of the SMS process. Harley Davidson also developed additional standards before embarking on the ERP selection process. One was that of platform standardization. The case did not mention the standard but made note of the disqualification of one vendors product due to architectural incompatibility. IT does need to lead and develop standards as part of the ERP and other operational strategies. Scalability of the purchasing system must also be considered. They had a basis to work from for future growth and development. An example here would be to standardize on Oracle for the database and Java script language for the web-enabled application development. The group selected three finalists based on a number of variables. By allowing the software vendors to rate themselves quantitatively on functional variables, the team had some hard data, biased as it was. Each vendor wanted the opportunity and the business†of course they would rate their functionality as high as possible! There may have been no statistical differences among any of them. Clearly the motivation for the vendor was to win the contract, not be accurate in their capability assessment and potential fit for that organization. Software vendors are notorious for assuring any potential large customer that their system will be great for them! The qualitative cale of fuzzier attributes (low, medium, high) was perhaps useful to the selection team, but again, held rater bias. Finally, three software vendors made it to the final round. The case was written such that there appeared to be a close tie between two, with a confounding variable for number three. The reference to provider threes existing project was interesting. There is reference to the political and economic advantages. It appears that having an existing project was a consideration. This may explain the poor first-run performance by the group as they may have thought they would get the work. The team tried to be objective. Ultimately, the company largest client bases of Supply Chain Management in the world. Harley is using their Collaborate and Delivery Management modules. The modules provide Harley with a web-based private trading network that provides visibility and transaction execution through a portal. In retrospect, we would have recommended that Harley do a few things differently. First, they could have researched the literature on what types of problems mechanistic manufacturing organizations face when they try to implement an ERP system in a highly inflexible environment. There was enough research and case analysis available to do this. While they were clearly aware of potential change resistance and the need to get all stakeholders involved, the amount of time their search and selection process required was ridiculous in todays business environment. We speculate that the sheer demand and high prices of their product allowed them to wallow in their inefficiencies a few more years before they had to bite the bullet. Second, obtaining the advice of experienced software and supply chain consultants earlier in the process probably could have saved some time and created a defined focus. Often, managers use the discipline and recommendations of onsultants to reinforce the need for organizational change. With the purchasing process out of control, they could have brought in some purchasing expertise to clean up some of the mess before selecting a software system to help organize the Third, we questioned the research methods and bias of the data. process. However, if Harley eventually got what they wanted and it turned out to be a success for them, then perhaps their methods were valid. We do not know final cost fgures and messier details of implementation (schedule, support, etc. ). There are many technical details that we also know nothing about. Three out of five comments in the making the decision section suggest the people side was more important that the functional side. In reality, the functionality of any finalist should not be questioned. To get to the final round, the product has to work. It is analogous to having to have a certain quality level to sell products. The team was looking at the project from the implementation and buy-in standpoint of the end users, which was appropriate. They tried to remain close to the end users from the start. Harley was successful in transforming its scattered purchasing functions into a supplier relationship management program. The supplier portal now serves 300 of its 695 suppliers. In 2004, the company will be extending portal access to its accessories and merchandise suppliers. This year, Harley will have about 300 IT employees.

Nike Wacc free essay sample

The definition of WACC Weighted average cost of capital(WACC), is a weighted-computational method of analyzing the cost of capital based on the whole capital structure of a firm. The result of WACC is the rate a firm use to monitor the application of the current assets because it represents the return the firm MUST get. For example this rate could be used as the discount rate of evaluating an investment, and maintaining the price of firm’s stock. . 2 Analysis of Johanna Cohen’s calculation We analyzed the process of Johanna Cohen’s calculation, and found some flaws we believe caused computational mistakes. i. When using the WACC method, the book value of bond is available as the market value since bonds are not quite active in the market, but the book value of equity isn’t. Instead of Johanna’s using equity’s book value, we should multiply the current price of Nike’s stock price by the numbers of shares outstanding. We will write a custom essay sample on Nike Wacc or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page ii. When calculating the YTM of the firm’s bond, Johanna only used the interest expense of the year divided by the average debt balance, which fully ignored the discounted cash flow of the cost of debt. 2. If you do not agree with Cohen’s analysis, calculate your own WACC for Nike and be prepared to justify your assumptions. Combining the analysis above, we now give our own WACC calculation as following. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each method? 3. 1 Calculating the costs of equity by CAPM, and its advantages amp; disadvantages i. Calculation: According to 2. 4, we have already got the result of CAPM, which is 10. 46%. ii. Advantages First, because CAPM is a theory based on the whole market, it obviously includes the effects between the market as the integrity and each individual stock. Second, with the counterbalance among each stock in the entire market, CAPM only needs the consideration of systematic risk, which much simplifies the calculation. Third, CAPM also bypasses the specific values of future cash flow because the equation is actually the relation between systematic risk and return rate, which is also another simplification of calculating. Fourth, merely depending on the systematic risk, CAPM could offer the investors a reliable discounting rate to assess the value of a certain investment. iii. Disadvantages: First, involving the counterbalance among the entire market, CAPM acquiesces an effective, active and healthy market environment. Second, comparing the consideration of market risk, CAPM may omit the subtle risk differences among each single firm. Third, the crucial systematic risk, the beta coefficient, is obviously hard to calculate. 3. 2 Calculating the costs of equity by DDM, and its advantages amp; disadvantages i. Calculation (based on EXIHIBIT 4):: Based on the dividend discount model, P0 = D0 * (1+g) / (k – g), then we get the return rate (the cost of equity) k = D0 * (1+g) / P0 + g = 0. 48 * (1 + 0. 055) / 42. 09 + 0. 055 = 6. 7% ii. Advantages First, DDM fully considers the time value of consistent cash flow of an investment. Second, it is pretty easy to get the necessary historical data. Third DDM is flexible enough for the adjustment of any future situation. Fourth, once the growth pattern is confirmed, it is very straightforward to get the discount rate of assessing an investment. iii. Disadvantages First, without enough consideration of risk cost, DDM may underestimate the equity cost. Second, all of the data is based on historical record, so the result is not reliable considering of the future situations. Third, with the predetermined growth rate, it is obviously practical for the stock investors to estimate the possible profit, but may mislead the stock issuing firm from a better budgeting decision to a comparatively unsubstantial investment. 3. 3 Calculating the costs of equity by the earnings capitalization ratio, and its advantages amp; disadvantages i. Calculation (based on EXIHIBIT 1amp;4) According to the earnings capitalization model, we have cost of equity = E1 / P0 = 2. 16 / 42. 09 = 5. 13% ii. Advantages First, it’s very easy to calculate and understand. Second, it’s easy to get the necessary accounting data iii. Disadvantages Without any consideration of the risk and the growth of the firm, it doesn’t reflect the true value of an investment or the cost of the budgeting at all. 4. What should Kimi Ford recommend regarding an investment in Nike? According to EXIHIBIT 2, the market’s forecasting sensitivity of equity value of Nike is 11. 17%. But based on our own analysis by WACC, we believe the discount rate of Nike is around 9. 85%. That means the market underestimated the value of Nike. So we recommend the Northpoint to purchase the stock of Nike.