Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Earnings Misstatements Research Paper

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Earnings Misstatements - Research Paper Example The Fraud This section describes the business activities of Fannie and Freddie before the fraud occurred. Since the 1990s, lenders have been increasingly using automated underwriting systems (AUSs), a technology that changed the mortgage industry (DiVenti, 2009, p.236). These systems executed underwriting criteria and statistical algorithms to foresee the default likelihood of loan applications (DiVenti, 2009, p.236). GSEs became industry leaders in the growth and adoption of these systems, which they used to appraise their loan purchases. Fannie Mae’s system, Desktop Underwriter, and Freddie Mac’s system, Loan Prospector, significantly decreased the expenses and time linked with loan approvals (DiVenti, 2009, p.236). In 2000, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac broadened their procurements to comprise â€Å"Alt-A,† A-minus, and subprime mortgages, aside from private-label mortgage securities (Blackburn & Vermilyea, 2010, p.5). In order to expand their mortgage purchases, Fannie Mae used the Expanded Approval system and Freddie Mac enlarged its Loan Prospector system to contain risk-based pricing (DiVenti, 2009, p.236). ... ly, Fannie and Freddie bought, packaged, securitized, and re-traded residential mortgages into mortgage-backed securities, with an assurance that the principal and interest payments would be paid to investors, thus, making a profit from the disparity between the sales price of the mortgage-backed securities and their first cost of funding (Bonander, 2013, p.843). Since 2004, Fannie and Freddie abandoned their stern underwriting standards and started to purchase and guarantee subprime mortgages, while also investing in subprime-mortgage-backed securities (Bonander, 2013, p.844). They bought more than $434 billion of subprime mortgages from 2004 to 2006 (Bonander, 2013, p.844). Their greatest purchase occurred from 2004 to 2005, when altogether they bought â€Å"$175 billion (44% of the market) and $169 billion (33% of the market) of subprime-mortgage-backed securities, respectively† (Bonander, 2013, p.844). In 2006, lax standards and actions affected Fannie and Freddie, when th e housing bubble burst, thereby pushing them to insolvency (Bonander, 2013, p.844). The problems of Fannie and Freddie are not over yet though. In 2003, Freddie revealed that it used unacceptable accounting practices to inflate its earnings. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise (OFHEO), its regulator during this time, discovered that the company had â€Å"misstated earnings by $5 billion between 2000 and 2003† (DiVenti, 2009, p.237). Freddie underreported its earnings, however, which is the â€Å"interesting† part of the fraud (DiVenti, 2009, p.237). The OFHEO investigated Fannie Mae too, where it learned in 2004 that Fannie overstated earnings â€Å"between 2000 and 2003 by $6.3 billion† (DiVenti, 2009, p.237). OFHEO discovered significant accounting, disclosure, and management concerns that

Sex and Violence in movies Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Sex and Violence in movies - Research Paper Example There are various different genres of movies that show an increased sexual content and violence. For example, horror movies, crime based movies and war movies have increased levels of violence and similarly romantic comedies have been bordering towards showing increased sexual content. Additionally, movies that are considered to be avant-garde and cult, instead of mainstream also have an increased display of both sexual content and violence. Even though the Motion Picture Association of America’s Classification and Ratings Administration has set down the various ratings that determine suitable viewing, it is important to understand that the level of acceptance of violence and sex is much higher (Abraham and Basuroy, 2004). To illustrate, movies like Stuart Gordon’s unrated Re-animator (1985) and the films of Larry Clark have received criticism for being extremely violent and for showing excessive sexual content. It is also interesting to note that how the levels of acceptance among the audience have also been increasingly slowly. For instance, when the young audiences watch a movie like The Exorcists, instead of being terrified and shocked, they watch it more like a comedy movie (Curti and Selva, 2003). Therefore, the definition of what is considered to be extreme and what is considered to be acceptable keeps on changing generation after generation. Effects of Sex and Violence on Movie audience The high level of sexually explicit content along and violence does indeed have an effect on the audience. It is a universally accepted fact that movies have the capacity to influence people and their actions. In this scenario, it is necessary to highlight some of the negative influence that both sex and violence in movies have on their audience. 1. Desensitizing – Constant exposure to violence as well as sexual content can reduce the sensitivity among the viewers. This can create a notion that such behavior is acceptable in the society. In some cases, it can result in the distortion of world view. Therefore, crimes related to sex or violence may lose perspective as real crimes in the vision of the people (Williams, 1995). By increasing the extremity of the element of violence in movies, the tendency would be that the audience will not react strongly if and when they encounter or hear about such instances in real life. Therefore, increasing the realism of movies to make it extreme by adding higher sounds and bigger screens such as in the beginning of the movie Saving Private Ryan (1998), does have a tendency to desensitize the audience. In today’s society, that is replete with increasing instances of violence and terrorism, it is very important for individuals to be se nsitive and to understand the impact of such acts. Therefore, it is really unfair to desensitize an audience. 2. Negative effects on children and youth – The categories of individuals that get most affected by acts of violence and sex in the movies are children and youth. For them, everything that they see on the big screen is glamorized and is something that they can imitate in their real life. Extreme scenes of violence as well as high level of sexual content can attract the youth and make them imitate it as a part of their hero worship. For some others, witnessing such scenes can have traumatic experiences and affect psychologically. The genre of movies that came to be known as the slasher movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), and Urban Legend (1998) were criticized for

MA as a Growth Strategy

MA as a Growth Strategy Introduction: Project Management (BS 6079, 1996) is the planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all those involved in it to achieve the project objectives on time and to the specified cost, quality and performance. For any project to become a success, team work plays a major role. One of the most renowned and widely used practical and management team developments is the Belbin team roles. The argument from Belbin is that team composition plays a major factor in influencing the performance of the team (Water et al, 2008). The fundamental aspect of human existence is the working together as groups. The main purpose of this is to survive, adapt and thrive to different situations by using individuals intellect and co-operation (Riding and Rayner, 2001). The team roles are classified into organisational roles and the functional roles (Atkinson, 1999). A team role is a set of behaviours grouped in a cluster (Belbin, 1993). The main objective of this essay is to evaluate the teams performance based on the Belbin self perception theory discussing the teams roles, team life cycle and other aspects with respect to the project management exercise. Belbin Team Roles: Team roles are defined as a pattern of behaviour characteristic of the way in which one team member interacts with another (Belbin, 1981). Every individual will take preferred roles in the management exercises and the outcome purely depends on the balance in the team (Riding and Rayner, 2001). It is always a good team with a good balance of individuals will result in a good outcome and vice versa (Belbin, 1993). Belbin has differentiated nine team roles based on the behaviour of people and is classified by feeling, will power, thinking and decisiveness. In the Belbin later research, he added one more role called as SP (Specialist) which refers to single mindedness, acting always alone and dedicated to specialism. The main function of this role is that people will behave in a extremely silent, introvert and will not contribute other than their special interest areas. This is considered as the negligible contribution to the team (Atkinson, 1999). Belbin uses an instrument for quantifyi ng the team role preferences which is called as the Self Perception Inventory. This consists of 70 points by evaluating seven statements in each questions. For each question 10 statements are given and can be prioritised based on the individual behaviour in which 10 points can be distributed. In predicting the performance of the team Belbin succeeded based on the information from the role profiles of each member. In this view a team is balanced when each role appears in atleast one team members profile as high-scoring role (Atkinson, 1999). From the Henley workshops, Belbin was able to specify the composition of the team and arrived at conclusions. This was characterised by (Furnham, 1992): attributes of a leader are similar to chairman profile (CH) now called as Co-ordinator (CO) and the team should have a range of mental abilities which includes a person generating creative ideas and giving practical solutions to the problems encountered. The team should include one Completer Finisher (CF), Implementer (IM) and the members can suit the other team roles based on their personal characteristics and ultimately the team which can identify and improve on their competencies by doing mistakes is considered as the best team (Riding and Rayner, 2001). Teams Belbin profiles: For the project management exercise, the teams were divided based on the Belbin team roles. As said earlier, in a team it is must to have a Completer Finisher (CF) and Implementer (IM). The team were asked to choose from Team Workers (TW). Person having primary reference as Team Workers are few and so persons having secondary and tertiary references as Team Workers were called for choosing the team. Evaluating the team roles and functions: First, from the team balance sheet it is clear that the team has no primary references for SH, PL, RI, TW, CF and can be considered as scarce for the team. This team has three implementers (IM) which is good in terms of delivering the project fast. Having more implementers is not a problem in any team as they move towards implementing the project. But having more shapers is a problem because of their characteristics. Person 1 who is ME can act as a CF and TW because of his secondary and tertiary preferences. Person 1 shows major characteristics of ME because of the feasibility characteristics. In this exercise, person 1 is very much interested in calculating the Critical path, always analysing the situations, showing temperament and whenever anything goes out of plan again doing the critical path whether there is feasibility of completing the project on time. The main advantage with person 1 is that he maintains good temperament in all the situations even if it is good or bad. The disadvantages is that in some situations person 1 whose Belbin profile shows weakness as decision making is very true. Sometimes person 1 took some hasty decisions which have affected the teams profit (decision of choosing the manufacturing subcontractor). Always took more time in making next moves since the basic nature of ME is analysing situations. Sometimes person 1 also did the role of CF when it comes to planning the project. The project plan was for 140 days with 7 periods of 20 days. One of the persons in the team were modifying the plan for days and the person striked the number of resources and wrote the new allocation of resource. Person 1 thought that this can make confusions and he acted as a CF by rubbing of the resources and wrote the allocation as clear as possible so that everybody can understand. Person 2 who is CO acted as a RI and PL in the initial phase of the exercise. As depicted by Belbin, RI used to interact a lot with the external environment is very true. Person 2 whenever any problems are faced by the team, he used to interact more with the teacher understanding the problem and gives new ideas to solving the problem. Person 2 organises well with the resource facilities for the game with the flip charts, pens and other requirements for smooth functioning of the game. At only one stage person 2 acted as a CO in the decision of choosing suppliers. Person 2 behaves more as RI and PL in this exercise. Person 3 who is IM, SP and has two tertiary references as CO and ME has shown good characteristics of implementer role in this exercise. Sometimes person 3 behaves more as ME than CO which is good for the team, because one or more COs have different approaches for the project. Person 3 is always striving hard to implement the project on time and sometimes showed good character for team worker. Person 3 always strives hard to stick to the plan and whenever plan changes, organises well for implementing the plan. The disadvantage is that this person lacks flexibility sometimes when it comes to implementation. Person 4 who is IM, secondary is CF and tertiary is SH initially has shown SH characteristics by challenging and arguing the facts that were made by the team. Person 4 is always interested in results and sometimes behaved as CO by taking decisions. Person 1 and 4 since showed shaper characteristics sometimes had difference of opinion but were well managed by team members. Person 4 showed good implementer characteristics in the final stages of the exercise. Person 5 who is IM, ME as secondary and CF as tertiary initially were helping the team with PL characteristics, sometimes RI when CO has to take decisions by going to the external world and discussing with people. Very sincere, hard working when it comes to implementation. Main advantage is that very well organised in implementing things, interested in sticking to the plan and sometimes resources were provided by him. Person 5 showed a major of Team Worker in many aspects because of the fact that TW always want to harmony among the teams. The team Belbins profiles helped a lot in choosing a balanced team and are 60% accurate with respect to our team. For a project to become a success, it is always helpful with people taking new roles under a good leadership. Finally, good team work will always succeed and makes the project success. Persons took roles which are not their primary, secondary or tertiary references sometimes worked out well and made benefits to the team but many of the times it failed. The people showed majority of the characteristics as depicted by Belbin and is helpful in the teams success. One important learning with Belbin self perception theory is that having two or more shapers in a team is dangerous and will lead to poor project management. It is always helpful to have one PL and one CO as their primary reference. Team Life Cycle: The basic behaviour of any team is that they are dynamic. As an individual, they can perform effectively but as a team they can fail and vice versa. Attention and maintenance are always required for the teams. The first person to bring a chart for teams progression is Tuckman. He has identified four stages in a teams development which are forming, storming, norming and performing (Kakabadse et al, 2004). In the forming stage, team members got to know about each other and started establishing their relationships. The learnings are based on the organisations culture and standards. Project task behaviours and interpersonal relationships are very important in binding the team together. In the storming stage, a person starts expressing the views and there is a chance of difference in opinion. Leadership challenges occur and may lead to rivalry between people because of their behaviours. Because of these conflicts, the main objective of the organisation cannot be met which lead to separation of groups. In the norming stage, groups will start gelling towards one another and each strengths and weaknesses can be known. The teams will set their standards and roles can be clearly defined at this stage. In the performing stage, actual team working takes place and people starts performing their tasks together. If the team loses the energy or support, then a stage called restoring or declining stage may follow. Further in this stage, the strengths, weaknesses of the team is analysed with respect to the task is discussed and learnings are recorded for effective project management in future. Evaluating the teams life cycle: In the project management exercise, different sets of problems are encountered by the team and creative solutions are identified to solve these problems. Some of the solutions clicked and some lead to major failures for the team. The forming stage provided opportunities for the new team to understand each other and gave different settings. When first given the exercise, some team members easily understood the process and some found difficult to understand the process. In the initial stages it took more time for the team to decide the strategy for proceeding with the project. Person 1, 3 expressed their views which were not agreed by the team whereas person 2, 4 had expressed their concerns which again not accepted by the team members. Finally, a conclusion has been made with the project plan and the identification of first, second and third critical paths are identified. This stage is all about trusting and building confidence on other team members. The team lacks leadership in this phase. A leader is clearly needed in this phase to provide direction and guidance (Lee, 2008). The storming stage provides openness for feelings and the team discusses the issues very seriously even if the point is not valid. The existing plan with respect to the actual working is modified and refined well. Person 1, 4 had conflicts in choosing the suppliers whether to go for delivery or quality. Person 2, 3 and 5 also contributed but a single decision has to be taken by the team. The team debated on these issues and finally person 1 compromised person 4 for going to a quality supplier by explaining with the fact which will not affect the delivery of the product. The teams weaknesses are that for first three periods did good jobs but didnt celebrate any success. The other weaknesses are builds, integration points between team members, conflicts within the team and sometimes role conflicts. In the norming stage, the teams had fewer conflicts and started communicating more effectively with others. The team emerged with good practices; loop integration exists because of better communication, the person understands their balance and develops their required skills and role clarity is clearly defined. Person 1 decision will be treated as final since some of the decisions worked out well in the earlier periods and didnt analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the decision which lead to a disaster in period 4, 5. The team didnt properly review the operation in a regular basis which also leads to a failure (not delivering the product on time). The team didnt celebrate success in this stage also. In the performing stage, since person 1 decision went wrong it is important for the team members to chip in with leadership and person start taking responsibilities for leadership which is a very good sign for the team. This allows rotation of leadership and helps team members to grow their own skills. The team started to treat seriously the views from team members as well as outside members which is done for the betterment of the project work. Finally, the team made a little profit and starts celebrating the success which has to be done earlier. In this stage it is always good to have an outsider to comment on the teams performance which helps in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the team. In the last stage, the team learnt their mistakes and starts working on improving individual competencies and the advantages of team work. Every individual is important for a team and it is the individuals who are building the team. The project management exercise can be done more effectively if the same team is given one more chance based on their learnings. The output required from this phase is the prevention of failures for a future project. Decision making procedures: The teams success depends on the decision making and it is the key factor in project management. The working definition of decision making (Ullman, 2006) is that Decision making is a process that commits resources to resolving an issue. Making a decision is not an event; it is a process for arriving at the correct decisions based on uncertain, incomplete, incomplete, inconsistent and evolving information. It is important for the team to get the best out of these results. In practice, every decision the team trying to make must address two issues: Merit decision quantitative way of taking the decision based on merits Acceptance decision acceptance by the people by the decision taken by the team. A decision is a choice made from several alternatives (Lewis, 2004). The decision is going to be effective when merit and acceptance are considered. For any decision the important criteria is to understand the problem and issues are to be clarified. Then as a team alternatives are generated and criteria are developed for robust decision making. The next important step is the evaluation part which tells the importance of the criteria. This also generates value to the alternatives that are developed for the criteria. Fuse is the next step in decision making which generates decision measures by evaluating process. The last stage is what to do next which reduces consensus, uncertainty, criteria and further revising the alternatives. Hence, (Ullman, 2006)A robust decision is the best possible choice, one found by eliminating all the uncertainty possible within available resources and then choosing with known and acceptable levels of satisfaction and risk. Some of the problems that are encountered during the decision making are team members have different judgement and their outcomes may be different due to different knowledge level, preferences. In order to evaluate a decision, managers have to choose a proper method (Fan Fu-Rong et al, 2008). Consultative approach is the most widely used approach for decision making. For handling group decision, the rules are shown in the below table 2. Evaluating the decision making procedures: Decisions taken in project management exercise by the team sometimes based on merit and sometimes based on acceptance and sometimes a combination of both. A consultative approach is followed when taking a decision. Initially for the first two decisions, it took more time for the team to understand the problem and team is not clear in the issues. The project delivery time is 140 days and the CPM shows that there is 285 days for the product to come out. A project plan is made for getting the product on time and it is always difficult to stick to the plan. Team members initially found difficult to generate alternatives for the decision and initially the team followed a consensus with team members. The first decision is based on merit as to reduce the lead time from 285 to 140 days. The teams weaknesses in the understanding phase are took more time for taking a decision, no clarity on problems, no criteria developed for taking the decision. Also, initially since team members are of diffe rent competencies it took time for gelling together. Then after the decision the team started to develop criteria for the decisions. The team in evaluating phase started to understand the importance of criteria developed and started generating alternatives for the criteria. One important thing is that decisions are always subject to change and it is important to review the earlier decisions. In the exercise, the team decided to go for good quality suppliers which actually paid very well for the team. When it comes to manufacturing sub contractors, due to cost pressure some compromise has to be made by the team and went ahead with the cheap sub contractor. The team took a risk but didnt work out well. The teams decision is partially a combination of merit and acceptance. The teams weakness in this stage is that it never had a backup plan till the failure has happened. In this stage, the resources are shuffled inorder to deliver the product on time which is a good move based on earlier decisions. But in actual practice it is difficult to execute as per the plan and is important to review the decisions as a team by d iscussing the merits and demerits of the team. In Fuse stage, the result from the earlier decisions gives the team of measuring the decisions. In the initial stage, Person 1 took the decision of going ahead with the good quality suppliers and convinced the team members, since it clicked the team went ahead with that persons decision for the future also. Every time when a decision is taken it is important to discuss as a team by evaluating the results of the decision and have a backup plan if that decision went wrong. During the periods 4, 5, 6 the teams took decisions in a fast, accurate way by learning from the mistakes earlier. It is important to learn from mistakes as a team. Finally, in the decide stage, the team started looking at the future in what has to be done next by reducing the uncertainty, refining the interpersonal skills. In this stage, the team started to work on a consensus basis. Even a single member points are taken seriously and started discussing the merits and demerits with refining the criteria. The team started to work on the alternatives and focus more towards for addressing the next issues. The team weakness in this stage, it is important to document the deliberation so that these failures cannot happen in the future. The key learning from the decision making procedures are decisions are subject to change and have to be reviewed consistently. Consensus approach has to be followed inorder to make a decision which can be based on merit and acceptance. Conflict within the team: Many organisations have changed to project management structures because of their inability to resolve conflicts. In a project life cycle, conflicts are part and parcel of life and can happen at any levels of the organisation. The project manager is often described as a conflict manager (Kerzner, 2001, 2009). Conflicts generally happen because of misunderstanding between team members and have different interpretations of companys objective. Inorder to avoid that, projects have to be defined in a clear way so that it can be understood by all the team members. Some people use SMART criteria for defining the project which says; S- Specific M- Measurable A- Attainable R- Realistic or Relevant T- Tangible or time bound (Kerzner, 2009). Time management is crucial in any project and it is important to manage time by avoiding conflicts. Some conflicts are relevant and provide valuable results. Most common types of conflict involve in the allocations of manpower resources, using the equipments and facilities, expenditure on capitals, cost and technical opinions and trade offs (Kerzner, 2001, 2009). Moreover the seven potential sources of conflicts are shown in the Fig 4. Goal, Plan and Belief conflicts are the three types of conflicts (Jain et al, 2007). If a conflict happens in a project, there are five different ways of resolving the conflicts which are shown in fig 5 which are confrontation, compromise, smoothing, forcing and withdrawal. Evaluation of conflicts: The team initially had conflicts in allocating the man power resources like employing in design, assemblers and testers. The team had a conflict over schedules in attaining the project on time. The team members person 1, 2 and 4 had difference of opinions in schedules and the resolution mode of compromise is used to resolve that issue. Person 1, 3, 4 had conflicts in priorities in choosing the suppliers. Person 1 suggested a supplier part can be taken just before the assembly but the team members took a decision by smoothing mode. In case if anything fails the team need to reorder again this may take time. Inorder for the project manager to be effective an understanding of how to work with various employees who must interface with the project is necessary (Kerzner, 2001, 2009). The various members in the team include upper management, functional managers etc and it is important to understand the sub ordinate and functional conflicts. The relationship between conflict causes and sourc es is shown in the figure 6. The teams strength is that none of the members in the team had personality conflict which is very important for project success. When deciding the manufacturing sub contractor person 1 suggested for a reliable sub contractor, but all the other members in the team are cost conscious in which person 1 and other members had a conflict over cost. The teams choice of choosing a good quality supplier had a conflict with other members which is a functional conflict provides good benefits for the team in terms of quality, time and cost. During the period 3, 4 the team members had a conflict of allocating the inspectors which is the conflict over schedule and had a good result during the period. But during the period 5, the team had a conflict on schedule in resource allocation of assemblers but not with the inspectors. All the five resolution modes of conflicts are used for resolving conflicts in almost all the stages. The team weaknesses include conflicts have to happen and has to be resolv ed systematically. But as a team, conflicts at the initial stages of the project give good results and when it comes to final stages conflicts started coming down. The figure 7 shows the conflict intensity in the team during the project life cycle. The key learnings from the project management exercise are that time management is important and the conflicts have to be resolved within the time. Team members have to understand the sub ordinate and their opinions and have to be evaluated inorder to get a good result in the project. It is important to have a plan for resolving conflicts in the planning phase itself. Constant communication of the project objectives to the team members will help in minimising or even eliminating the conflicts. Sometimes direct contact with people will reduce the conflicts. In project management hierarchical issues are to be resolved and there shall not be any domination from the project manager or the functional mangers. Companywide policies can be adapted for resolving the conflict issues for smooth functioning of the project. Role clarities have to be clear which will reduce the conflicts. Team Leadership: Team leadership is one of the main aspects in the project success. In any projects, leadership becomes a problem because project management involves group of people who are frequently in interaction for a specific project. The following tasks are required for a leader to achieve the tasks; Tasks are defined and shall be achieved Team shall be build and can be properly co-ordinated Leader shall satisfy individual team members Task needs It is important for the leader to clearly define the objectives of the project and leadership shall aim at achieving these goals. Team needs The element of leadership shall hold the team together inorder to produce efficient results for the project. If the team have conflicts, then it is the leader who has to convince the team members effectively. Individual needs The performance and contributions of the project by every member of the team have to be understood by the leader and sometimes can reward for good work (Reiss, 1995). From the moment the leadership is taken it is important for the leader to ensure that the project is heading in correct direction (Heerkens, 2002). The biggest problem that a leader is facing in the project management is that managing the anxieties which were developed by the team members. Sometimes if it is not evaluated may lead to slow down the project and work output. The anticipation by the leaders when questioned by the team members are: Whats in it for me? What will be expected out of me? What will life on your team like? (Heerkens, 2002) Evaluation of team leadership: In the project management exercise, the team leadership was with no one and totally a team effort. But it is always important to have a leader for the team for the above reasons stated. Sometimes Person 1 took the leadership in choosing the suppliers, sub contractors, person 2 took the leadership in periods 4, 5 of the project. Person 4 took the leadership in the periods 6, 7 and person 3 during the period 2 of the project. The teams strength is that everybody in the team understands the leadership attitudes which are important for project success. The anxieties by the team members can be reduced by having conversations within the team. The team members frequently had meeting openly for achieving the following: Project objectives were reviewed (the true need for the project) and the justifications were explained as a team (benefits). Project planning and its proposal were reviewed (the solution) and the team leader took a decision for the preferred approach. Initially the team faced problems of leadership and all members expressed their views and constraints. Roles and responsibilities are not clarified clearly by functional categorisation which leads to some problems within the team. This is considered as one of the teams weaknesses. It is important to honestly characterise the style of leadership (free, open, trusting, reacting to situations) The leader has to explain the expectations that are required from the team members regarding the delivery by frequent conducting of meetings. Communication plays a major role in leadership and the leader has to explain the behaviour style. (Adopted from Heerkens, 2002 Modified for Project Management exercise). The team initially went ahead with no leader and later person characterised by Belbin as CO started taking leadership which was helpful for the team. The team had good mutual relationships with other members and used visual charts when sketching the plan, reviewing the plan. Professional ethics are maintained throughout the project which is the biggest advantage for the project success. Celebration of project milestones and its success are very important to improve the morale of the members is considered to be one of the team weaknesses. Any team before starting the project must have a leader and it is the leader who assigns the roles and responsibilities of the team members clearly. One of the main leadership qualities is the flexibility in their approach, style in adapting to the situations, communications with the team members. It is not always necessary that leader should have technical skills, but a little amount of knowledge in the particular field is sufficient for managing the project. Conclusion: Organisational behaviour is very important for project management and using Belbin profiles in dividing the organisation is helpful in achieving the objectives. Team work is important for the project to succeed and lies on every individual of the team. It is important for the leader to motivate the members and constantly encourage them for the effective functioning of project teams. Belbin team life cycle shows that evolution of teams and tells the effective functioning of teams. The decision making procedures are important for projects success and has to be reviewed consistently. Project planning is considered to be the important phase in project management and plan gives only the direction. It is important for the team to learn from mistakes. Introduction TVS Motors is the third largest two wheeler manufacturers in India and one among the top ten in the world with annual turnover of more than USD 1 billion 2008-2009 and is the flagship company of the USD 4 billion TVS group. The company has four plants located in Hosur and Mysore in South India, Himachel Pradesh in North India and one in Indonesia. The company has a production capacity of 2.5 million units per year. TVS strength lies in the design and development of new products. TVS delivers total customer satisfaction by anticipating customer needs and presenting quality vehicles at the right time and right price. The customer and his ever changing need is our continuous source of imspiration.TVS always stood for innovative, easy to handle, environment friendly products, backed by reliable customer service. TVS manufactures a wide range of products as shown below. Motorcycles Apache RTR, Flame DS 125, Flame, Jive, Star City, Sport Variomatic Scooters Wego, Scooty Streak, Pep+, Teenz Mopeds TVS XL Super, TVS XL Heavy Duty Step thrus TVS Neo, Rockz (TVS Motors, 2010). The main objective of this essay is to evaluate the project management of a sub system (Fit and Finish Engineering section part of RD) in the TVS Motors and suggesting improvement points for betterment of the project management. Organisation Structure Any organisation exists to achieve the objectives by maintaining good relationships with its customers and its employees. The main objective of organisation is profitability. TVS Motor Company Mission Statement We are committed to being a highly profitable, socially responsible, and leading manufacturer of high value for money, environment friendly, life time personal transportation products under the brand, for customers predominantly in Asian markets and to provide fulfilment and prosperity for employees, de MA as a Growth Strategy MA as a Growth Strategy Introduction: Project Management (BS 6079, 1996) is the planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all those involved in it to achieve the project objectives on time and to the specified cost, quality and performance. For any project to become a success, team work plays a major role. One of the most renowned and widely used practical and management team developments is the Belbin team roles. The argument from Belbin is that team composition plays a major factor in influencing the performance of the team (Water et al, 2008). The fundamental aspect of human existence is the working together as groups. The main purpose of this is to survive, adapt and thrive to different situations by using individuals intellect and co-operation (Riding and Rayner, 2001). The team roles are classified into organisational roles and the functional roles (Atkinson, 1999). A team role is a set of behaviours grouped in a cluster (Belbin, 1993). The main objective of this essay is to evaluate the teams performance based on the Belbin self perception theory discussing the teams roles, team life cycle and other aspects with respect to the project management exercise. Belbin Team Roles: Team roles are defined as a pattern of behaviour characteristic of the way in which one team member interacts with another (Belbin, 1981). Every individual will take preferred roles in the management exercises and the outcome purely depends on the balance in the team (Riding and Rayner, 2001). It is always a good team with a good balance of individuals will result in a good outcome and vice versa (Belbin, 1993). Belbin has differentiated nine team roles based on the behaviour of people and is classified by feeling, will power, thinking and decisiveness. In the Belbin later research, he added one more role called as SP (Specialist) which refers to single mindedness, acting always alone and dedicated to specialism. The main function of this role is that people will behave in a extremely silent, introvert and will not contribute other than their special interest areas. This is considered as the negligible contribution to the team (Atkinson, 1999). Belbin uses an instrument for quantifyi ng the team role preferences which is called as the Self Perception Inventory. This consists of 70 points by evaluating seven statements in each questions. For each question 10 statements are given and can be prioritised based on the individual behaviour in which 10 points can be distributed. In predicting the performance of the team Belbin succeeded based on the information from the role profiles of each member. In this view a team is balanced when each role appears in atleast one team members profile as high-scoring role (Atkinson, 1999). From the Henley workshops, Belbin was able to specify the composition of the team and arrived at conclusions. This was characterised by (Furnham, 1992): attributes of a leader are similar to chairman profile (CH) now called as Co-ordinator (CO) and the team should have a range of mental abilities which includes a person generating creative ideas and giving practical solutions to the problems encountered. The team should include one Completer Finisher (CF), Implementer (IM) and the members can suit the other team roles based on their personal characteristics and ultimately the team which can identify and improve on their competencies by doing mistakes is considered as the best team (Riding and Rayner, 2001). Teams Belbin profiles: For the project management exercise, the teams were divided based on the Belbin team roles. As said earlier, in a team it is must to have a Completer Finisher (CF) and Implementer (IM). The team were asked to choose from Team Workers (TW). Person having primary reference as Team Workers are few and so persons having secondary and tertiary references as Team Workers were called for choosing the team. Evaluating the team roles and functions: First, from the team balance sheet it is clear that the team has no primary references for SH, PL, RI, TW, CF and can be considered as scarce for the team. This team has three implementers (IM) which is good in terms of delivering the project fast. Having more implementers is not a problem in any team as they move towards implementing the project. But having more shapers is a problem because of their characteristics. Person 1 who is ME can act as a CF and TW because of his secondary and tertiary preferences. Person 1 shows major characteristics of ME because of the feasibility characteristics. In this exercise, person 1 is very much interested in calculating the Critical path, always analysing the situations, showing temperament and whenever anything goes out of plan again doing the critical path whether there is feasibility of completing the project on time. The main advantage with person 1 is that he maintains good temperament in all the situations even if it is good or bad. The disadvantages is that in some situations person 1 whose Belbin profile shows weakness as decision making is very true. Sometimes person 1 took some hasty decisions which have affected the teams profit (decision of choosing the manufacturing subcontractor). Always took more time in making next moves since the basic nature of ME is analysing situations. Sometimes person 1 also did the role of CF when it comes to planning the project. The project plan was for 140 days with 7 periods of 20 days. One of the persons in the team were modifying the plan for days and the person striked the number of resources and wrote the new allocation of resource. Person 1 thought that this can make confusions and he acted as a CF by rubbing of the resources and wrote the allocation as clear as possible so that everybody can understand. Person 2 who is CO acted as a RI and PL in the initial phase of the exercise. As depicted by Belbin, RI used to interact a lot with the external environment is very true. Person 2 whenever any problems are faced by the team, he used to interact more with the teacher understanding the problem and gives new ideas to solving the problem. Person 2 organises well with the resource facilities for the game with the flip charts, pens and other requirements for smooth functioning of the game. At only one stage person 2 acted as a CO in the decision of choosing suppliers. Person 2 behaves more as RI and PL in this exercise. Person 3 who is IM, SP and has two tertiary references as CO and ME has shown good characteristics of implementer role in this exercise. Sometimes person 3 behaves more as ME than CO which is good for the team, because one or more COs have different approaches for the project. Person 3 is always striving hard to implement the project on time and sometimes showed good character for team worker. Person 3 always strives hard to stick to the plan and whenever plan changes, organises well for implementing the plan. The disadvantage is that this person lacks flexibility sometimes when it comes to implementation. Person 4 who is IM, secondary is CF and tertiary is SH initially has shown SH characteristics by challenging and arguing the facts that were made by the team. Person 4 is always interested in results and sometimes behaved as CO by taking decisions. Person 1 and 4 since showed shaper characteristics sometimes had difference of opinion but were well managed by team members. Person 4 showed good implementer characteristics in the final stages of the exercise. Person 5 who is IM, ME as secondary and CF as tertiary initially were helping the team with PL characteristics, sometimes RI when CO has to take decisions by going to the external world and discussing with people. Very sincere, hard working when it comes to implementation. Main advantage is that very well organised in implementing things, interested in sticking to the plan and sometimes resources were provided by him. Person 5 showed a major of Team Worker in many aspects because of the fact that TW always want to harmony among the teams. The team Belbins profiles helped a lot in choosing a balanced team and are 60% accurate with respect to our team. For a project to become a success, it is always helpful with people taking new roles under a good leadership. Finally, good team work will always succeed and makes the project success. Persons took roles which are not their primary, secondary or tertiary references sometimes worked out well and made benefits to the team but many of the times it failed. The people showed majority of the characteristics as depicted by Belbin and is helpful in the teams success. One important learning with Belbin self perception theory is that having two or more shapers in a team is dangerous and will lead to poor project management. It is always helpful to have one PL and one CO as their primary reference. Team Life Cycle: The basic behaviour of any team is that they are dynamic. As an individual, they can perform effectively but as a team they can fail and vice versa. Attention and maintenance are always required for the teams. The first person to bring a chart for teams progression is Tuckman. He has identified four stages in a teams development which are forming, storming, norming and performing (Kakabadse et al, 2004). In the forming stage, team members got to know about each other and started establishing their relationships. The learnings are based on the organisations culture and standards. Project task behaviours and interpersonal relationships are very important in binding the team together. In the storming stage, a person starts expressing the views and there is a chance of difference in opinion. Leadership challenges occur and may lead to rivalry between people because of their behaviours. Because of these conflicts, the main objective of the organisation cannot be met which lead to separation of groups. In the norming stage, groups will start gelling towards one another and each strengths and weaknesses can be known. The teams will set their standards and roles can be clearly defined at this stage. In the performing stage, actual team working takes place and people starts performing their tasks together. If the team loses the energy or support, then a stage called restoring or declining stage may follow. Further in this stage, the strengths, weaknesses of the team is analysed with respect to the task is discussed and learnings are recorded for effective project management in future. Evaluating the teams life cycle: In the project management exercise, different sets of problems are encountered by the team and creative solutions are identified to solve these problems. Some of the solutions clicked and some lead to major failures for the team. The forming stage provided opportunities for the new team to understand each other and gave different settings. When first given the exercise, some team members easily understood the process and some found difficult to understand the process. In the initial stages it took more time for the team to decide the strategy for proceeding with the project. Person 1, 3 expressed their views which were not agreed by the team whereas person 2, 4 had expressed their concerns which again not accepted by the team members. Finally, a conclusion has been made with the project plan and the identification of first, second and third critical paths are identified. This stage is all about trusting and building confidence on other team members. The team lacks leadership in this phase. A leader is clearly needed in this phase to provide direction and guidance (Lee, 2008). The storming stage provides openness for feelings and the team discusses the issues very seriously even if the point is not valid. The existing plan with respect to the actual working is modified and refined well. Person 1, 4 had conflicts in choosing the suppliers whether to go for delivery or quality. Person 2, 3 and 5 also contributed but a single decision has to be taken by the team. The team debated on these issues and finally person 1 compromised person 4 for going to a quality supplier by explaining with the fact which will not affect the delivery of the product. The teams weaknesses are that for first three periods did good jobs but didnt celebrate any success. The other weaknesses are builds, integration points between team members, conflicts within the team and sometimes role conflicts. In the norming stage, the teams had fewer conflicts and started communicating more effectively with others. The team emerged with good practices; loop integration exists because of better communication, the person understands their balance and develops their required skills and role clarity is clearly defined. Person 1 decision will be treated as final since some of the decisions worked out well in the earlier periods and didnt analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the decision which lead to a disaster in period 4, 5. The team didnt properly review the operation in a regular basis which also leads to a failure (not delivering the product on time). The team didnt celebrate success in this stage also. In the performing stage, since person 1 decision went wrong it is important for the team members to chip in with leadership and person start taking responsibilities for leadership which is a very good sign for the team. This allows rotation of leadership and helps team members to grow their own skills. The team started to treat seriously the views from team members as well as outside members which is done for the betterment of the project work. Finally, the team made a little profit and starts celebrating the success which has to be done earlier. In this stage it is always good to have an outsider to comment on the teams performance which helps in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the team. In the last stage, the team learnt their mistakes and starts working on improving individual competencies and the advantages of team work. Every individual is important for a team and it is the individuals who are building the team. The project management exercise can be done more effectively if the same team is given one more chance based on their learnings. The output required from this phase is the prevention of failures for a future project. Decision making procedures: The teams success depends on the decision making and it is the key factor in project management. The working definition of decision making (Ullman, 2006) is that Decision making is a process that commits resources to resolving an issue. Making a decision is not an event; it is a process for arriving at the correct decisions based on uncertain, incomplete, incomplete, inconsistent and evolving information. It is important for the team to get the best out of these results. In practice, every decision the team trying to make must address two issues: Merit decision quantitative way of taking the decision based on merits Acceptance decision acceptance by the people by the decision taken by the team. A decision is a choice made from several alternatives (Lewis, 2004). The decision is going to be effective when merit and acceptance are considered. For any decision the important criteria is to understand the problem and issues are to be clarified. Then as a team alternatives are generated and criteria are developed for robust decision making. The next important step is the evaluation part which tells the importance of the criteria. This also generates value to the alternatives that are developed for the criteria. Fuse is the next step in decision making which generates decision measures by evaluating process. The last stage is what to do next which reduces consensus, uncertainty, criteria and further revising the alternatives. Hence, (Ullman, 2006)A robust decision is the best possible choice, one found by eliminating all the uncertainty possible within available resources and then choosing with known and acceptable levels of satisfaction and risk. Some of the problems that are encountered during the decision making are team members have different judgement and their outcomes may be different due to different knowledge level, preferences. In order to evaluate a decision, managers have to choose a proper method (Fan Fu-Rong et al, 2008). Consultative approach is the most widely used approach for decision making. For handling group decision, the rules are shown in the below table 2. Evaluating the decision making procedures: Decisions taken in project management exercise by the team sometimes based on merit and sometimes based on acceptance and sometimes a combination of both. A consultative approach is followed when taking a decision. Initially for the first two decisions, it took more time for the team to understand the problem and team is not clear in the issues. The project delivery time is 140 days and the CPM shows that there is 285 days for the product to come out. A project plan is made for getting the product on time and it is always difficult to stick to the plan. Team members initially found difficult to generate alternatives for the decision and initially the team followed a consensus with team members. The first decision is based on merit as to reduce the lead time from 285 to 140 days. The teams weaknesses in the understanding phase are took more time for taking a decision, no clarity on problems, no criteria developed for taking the decision. Also, initially since team members are of diffe rent competencies it took time for gelling together. Then after the decision the team started to develop criteria for the decisions. The team in evaluating phase started to understand the importance of criteria developed and started generating alternatives for the criteria. One important thing is that decisions are always subject to change and it is important to review the earlier decisions. In the exercise, the team decided to go for good quality suppliers which actually paid very well for the team. When it comes to manufacturing sub contractors, due to cost pressure some compromise has to be made by the team and went ahead with the cheap sub contractor. The team took a risk but didnt work out well. The teams decision is partially a combination of merit and acceptance. The teams weakness in this stage is that it never had a backup plan till the failure has happened. In this stage, the resources are shuffled inorder to deliver the product on time which is a good move based on earlier decisions. But in actual practice it is difficult to execute as per the plan and is important to review the decisions as a team by d iscussing the merits and demerits of the team. In Fuse stage, the result from the earlier decisions gives the team of measuring the decisions. In the initial stage, Person 1 took the decision of going ahead with the good quality suppliers and convinced the team members, since it clicked the team went ahead with that persons decision for the future also. Every time when a decision is taken it is important to discuss as a team by evaluating the results of the decision and have a backup plan if that decision went wrong. During the periods 4, 5, 6 the teams took decisions in a fast, accurate way by learning from the mistakes earlier. It is important to learn from mistakes as a team. Finally, in the decide stage, the team started looking at the future in what has to be done next by reducing the uncertainty, refining the interpersonal skills. In this stage, the team started to work on a consensus basis. Even a single member points are taken seriously and started discussing the merits and demerits with refining the criteria. The team started to work on the alternatives and focus more towards for addressing the next issues. The team weakness in this stage, it is important to document the deliberation so that these failures cannot happen in the future. The key learning from the decision making procedures are decisions are subject to change and have to be reviewed consistently. Consensus approach has to be followed inorder to make a decision which can be based on merit and acceptance. Conflict within the team: Many organisations have changed to project management structures because of their inability to resolve conflicts. In a project life cycle, conflicts are part and parcel of life and can happen at any levels of the organisation. The project manager is often described as a conflict manager (Kerzner, 2001, 2009). Conflicts generally happen because of misunderstanding between team members and have different interpretations of companys objective. Inorder to avoid that, projects have to be defined in a clear way so that it can be understood by all the team members. Some people use SMART criteria for defining the project which says; S- Specific M- Measurable A- Attainable R- Realistic or Relevant T- Tangible or time bound (Kerzner, 2009). Time management is crucial in any project and it is important to manage time by avoiding conflicts. Some conflicts are relevant and provide valuable results. Most common types of conflict involve in the allocations of manpower resources, using the equipments and facilities, expenditure on capitals, cost and technical opinions and trade offs (Kerzner, 2001, 2009). Moreover the seven potential sources of conflicts are shown in the Fig 4. Goal, Plan and Belief conflicts are the three types of conflicts (Jain et al, 2007). If a conflict happens in a project, there are five different ways of resolving the conflicts which are shown in fig 5 which are confrontation, compromise, smoothing, forcing and withdrawal. Evaluation of conflicts: The team initially had conflicts in allocating the man power resources like employing in design, assemblers and testers. The team had a conflict over schedules in attaining the project on time. The team members person 1, 2 and 4 had difference of opinions in schedules and the resolution mode of compromise is used to resolve that issue. Person 1, 3, 4 had conflicts in priorities in choosing the suppliers. Person 1 suggested a supplier part can be taken just before the assembly but the team members took a decision by smoothing mode. In case if anything fails the team need to reorder again this may take time. Inorder for the project manager to be effective an understanding of how to work with various employees who must interface with the project is necessary (Kerzner, 2001, 2009). The various members in the team include upper management, functional managers etc and it is important to understand the sub ordinate and functional conflicts. The relationship between conflict causes and sourc es is shown in the figure 6. The teams strength is that none of the members in the team had personality conflict which is very important for project success. When deciding the manufacturing sub contractor person 1 suggested for a reliable sub contractor, but all the other members in the team are cost conscious in which person 1 and other members had a conflict over cost. The teams choice of choosing a good quality supplier had a conflict with other members which is a functional conflict provides good benefits for the team in terms of quality, time and cost. During the period 3, 4 the team members had a conflict of allocating the inspectors which is the conflict over schedule and had a good result during the period. But during the period 5, the team had a conflict on schedule in resource allocation of assemblers but not with the inspectors. All the five resolution modes of conflicts are used for resolving conflicts in almost all the stages. The team weaknesses include conflicts have to happen and has to be resolv ed systematically. But as a team, conflicts at the initial stages of the project give good results and when it comes to final stages conflicts started coming down. The figure 7 shows the conflict intensity in the team during the project life cycle. The key learnings from the project management exercise are that time management is important and the conflicts have to be resolved within the time. Team members have to understand the sub ordinate and their opinions and have to be evaluated inorder to get a good result in the project. It is important to have a plan for resolving conflicts in the planning phase itself. Constant communication of the project objectives to the team members will help in minimising or even eliminating the conflicts. Sometimes direct contact with people will reduce the conflicts. In project management hierarchical issues are to be resolved and there shall not be any domination from the project manager or the functional mangers. Companywide policies can be adapted for resolving the conflict issues for smooth functioning of the project. Role clarities have to be clear which will reduce the conflicts. Team Leadership: Team leadership is one of the main aspects in the project success. In any projects, leadership becomes a problem because project management involves group of people who are frequently in interaction for a specific project. The following tasks are required for a leader to achieve the tasks; Tasks are defined and shall be achieved Team shall be build and can be properly co-ordinated Leader shall satisfy individual team members Task needs It is important for the leader to clearly define the objectives of the project and leadership shall aim at achieving these goals. Team needs The element of leadership shall hold the team together inorder to produce efficient results for the project. If the team have conflicts, then it is the leader who has to convince the team members effectively. Individual needs The performance and contributions of the project by every member of the team have to be understood by the leader and sometimes can reward for good work (Reiss, 1995). From the moment the leadership is taken it is important for the leader to ensure that the project is heading in correct direction (Heerkens, 2002). The biggest problem that a leader is facing in the project management is that managing the anxieties which were developed by the team members. Sometimes if it is not evaluated may lead to slow down the project and work output. The anticipation by the leaders when questioned by the team members are: Whats in it for me? What will be expected out of me? What will life on your team like? (Heerkens, 2002) Evaluation of team leadership: In the project management exercise, the team leadership was with no one and totally a team effort. But it is always important to have a leader for the team for the above reasons stated. Sometimes Person 1 took the leadership in choosing the suppliers, sub contractors, person 2 took the leadership in periods 4, 5 of the project. Person 4 took the leadership in the periods 6, 7 and person 3 during the period 2 of the project. The teams strength is that everybody in the team understands the leadership attitudes which are important for project success. The anxieties by the team members can be reduced by having conversations within the team. The team members frequently had meeting openly for achieving the following: Project objectives were reviewed (the true need for the project) and the justifications were explained as a team (benefits). Project planning and its proposal were reviewed (the solution) and the team leader took a decision for the preferred approach. Initially the team faced problems of leadership and all members expressed their views and constraints. Roles and responsibilities are not clarified clearly by functional categorisation which leads to some problems within the team. This is considered as one of the teams weaknesses. It is important to honestly characterise the style of leadership (free, open, trusting, reacting to situations) The leader has to explain the expectations that are required from the team members regarding the delivery by frequent conducting of meetings. Communication plays a major role in leadership and the leader has to explain the behaviour style. (Adopted from Heerkens, 2002 Modified for Project Management exercise). The team initially went ahead with no leader and later person characterised by Belbin as CO started taking leadership which was helpful for the team. The team had good mutual relationships with other members and used visual charts when sketching the plan, reviewing the plan. Professional ethics are maintained throughout the project which is the biggest advantage for the project success. Celebration of project milestones and its success are very important to improve the morale of the members is considered to be one of the team weaknesses. Any team before starting the project must have a leader and it is the leader who assigns the roles and responsibilities of the team members clearly. One of the main leadership qualities is the flexibility in their approach, style in adapting to the situations, communications with the team members. It is not always necessary that leader should have technical skills, but a little amount of knowledge in the particular field is sufficient for managing the project. Conclusion: Organisational behaviour is very important for project management and using Belbin profiles in dividing the organisation is helpful in achieving the objectives. Team work is important for the project to succeed and lies on every individual of the team. It is important for the leader to motivate the members and constantly encourage them for the effective functioning of project teams. Belbin team life cycle shows that evolution of teams and tells the effective functioning of teams. The decision making procedures are important for projects success and has to be reviewed consistently. Project planning is considered to be the important phase in project management and plan gives only the direction. It is important for the team to learn from mistakes. Introduction TVS Motors is the third largest two wheeler manufacturers in India and one among the top ten in the world with annual turnover of more than USD 1 billion 2008-2009 and is the flagship company of the USD 4 billion TVS group. The company has four plants located in Hosur and Mysore in South India, Himachel Pradesh in North India and one in Indonesia. The company has a production capacity of 2.5 million units per year. TVS strength lies in the design and development of new products. TVS delivers total customer satisfaction by anticipating customer needs and presenting quality vehicles at the right time and right price. The customer and his ever changing need is our continuous source of imspiration.TVS always stood for innovative, easy to handle, environment friendly products, backed by reliable customer service. TVS manufactures a wide range of products as shown below. Motorcycles Apache RTR, Flame DS 125, Flame, Jive, Star City, Sport Variomatic Scooters Wego, Scooty Streak, Pep+, Teenz Mopeds TVS XL Super, TVS XL Heavy Duty Step thrus TVS Neo, Rockz (TVS Motors, 2010). The main objective of this essay is to evaluate the project management of a sub system (Fit and Finish Engineering section part of RD) in the TVS Motors and suggesting improvement points for betterment of the project management. Organisation Structure Any organisation exists to achieve the objectives by maintaining good relationships with its customers and its employees. The main objective of organisation is profitability. TVS Motor Company Mission Statement We are committed to being a highly profitable, socially responsible, and leading manufacturer of high value for money, environment friendly, life time personal transportation products under the brand, for customers predominantly in Asian markets and to provide fulfilment and prosperity for employees, de

U.S./Mexico Relations: Surviving the War in Iraq? Essay -- Essays Pap

U.S./Mexico Relations: Surviving the War in Iraq? In the United States’ current state of war with Iraq, its relationships to other world powers have become increasingly important. The U.S.’s relationship with Mexico, in particular, has emerged as one of the most crucial relationships that the U.S. must work to maintain in this state of war. In recent years, the U.S. and Mexico have established and developed a famously strong relationship, and the friendship between U.S. President Bush and Mexico President Vicente Fox has continued to solidify the connection between the two countries. Bush was quoted in the Economist as saying, back in 2001, â€Å"America has no closer relationship† . The closeness of this relationship has placed both countries in precarious, high-pressure positions relative to one another with regard to the war in Iraq. In particular, negotiations between the two leaders on issues of trade and immigration laws have shaped the current relationship between Mexico and the U.S. and have consequ ently contributed to the strain that both leaders have felt, and continue to feel, as they struggle to maintain this close relationship in the face of the war. More specifically, recent developments, or lack thereof, with regard to these issues have significantly influenced Fox’s decision of whether or not to support the U.S. in the war against Iraq. Furthermore, media portrayal both of negotiations between the two countries and of the effects that the negotiations are having on U.S./Mexico relations is influencing public perceptions of the relationship in both countries, and, as a result, may even be affecting the relationship itself in the process. As America prepared to attack Iraq, Mexico faced the difficult decisio... ...urrent issues that strain the crucial bond between Mexico and the United States. Works Cited 1.) http://www.economist.com/cities/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1608395 2.) http://aztlan.net/mexicounsc.htm 3.) http://larouchein2004.net/pages/interviews/2002/021119excelsior.htm 4.) http://www.rense.com/general48/tue.htm 5.) http://english.pravda.ru/world/2003/01/07/41704.html 6.) http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americas/04/13/venezuela/ 7.) http://www.socialistaction.org/news/200207/show.html 8.) http://usembassy.state.gov/mumbai/wwwhwashnews810.html 9.) http://www.guardian.co.uk/wto/article/0,2763,1019250,00.html 10.) http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Mar/03172003/utah/38978.asp 11.) http://aztlan.net/mexicounsc.htm 12.) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/05/national/main604190.shtml 13.) http://eatthestate.org/07-19/ItsAboutMexicos.htm U.S./Mexico Relations: Surviving the War in Iraq? Essay -- Essays Pap U.S./Mexico Relations: Surviving the War in Iraq? In the United States’ current state of war with Iraq, its relationships to other world powers have become increasingly important. The U.S.’s relationship with Mexico, in particular, has emerged as one of the most crucial relationships that the U.S. must work to maintain in this state of war. In recent years, the U.S. and Mexico have established and developed a famously strong relationship, and the friendship between U.S. President Bush and Mexico President Vicente Fox has continued to solidify the connection between the two countries. Bush was quoted in the Economist as saying, back in 2001, â€Å"America has no closer relationship† . The closeness of this relationship has placed both countries in precarious, high-pressure positions relative to one another with regard to the war in Iraq. In particular, negotiations between the two leaders on issues of trade and immigration laws have shaped the current relationship between Mexico and the U.S. and have consequ ently contributed to the strain that both leaders have felt, and continue to feel, as they struggle to maintain this close relationship in the face of the war. More specifically, recent developments, or lack thereof, with regard to these issues have significantly influenced Fox’s decision of whether or not to support the U.S. in the war against Iraq. Furthermore, media portrayal both of negotiations between the two countries and of the effects that the negotiations are having on U.S./Mexico relations is influencing public perceptions of the relationship in both countries, and, as a result, may even be affecting the relationship itself in the process. As America prepared to attack Iraq, Mexico faced the difficult decisio... ...urrent issues that strain the crucial bond between Mexico and the United States. Works Cited 1.) http://www.economist.com/cities/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1608395 2.) http://aztlan.net/mexicounsc.htm 3.) http://larouchein2004.net/pages/interviews/2002/021119excelsior.htm 4.) http://www.rense.com/general48/tue.htm 5.) http://english.pravda.ru/world/2003/01/07/41704.html 6.) http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americas/04/13/venezuela/ 7.) http://www.socialistaction.org/news/200207/show.html 8.) http://usembassy.state.gov/mumbai/wwwhwashnews810.html 9.) http://www.guardian.co.uk/wto/article/0,2763,1019250,00.html 10.) http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Mar/03172003/utah/38978.asp 11.) http://aztlan.net/mexicounsc.htm 12.) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/05/national/main604190.shtml 13.) http://eatthestate.org/07-19/ItsAboutMexicos.htm

A Walk To Remember Compare Amp Contrast

Both involve a Story Of a boy and a girl, almost completely different in their views, which slowly fall in love n Barefoot, North Carolina. Throughout the movie the struggles of the characters are awfully similar to the struggles of the characters in the book, with a few changes here and there. Although the book and movie are similar, there are still differences between the two such as how the two got to know each other, how the characters are portrayed, as well as how certain events occurred and how the characters reacted to them.The first major difference between the novel and the movie of A Walk to Remember is how different the characters are portrayed in each. For example, throughout the novel the leading girl, Jamie Sullivan, was the shy daughter of the towns Pastor. She was one of the kindest girls anyone had met, she would help anyone whether she was asked or not. She had a big part in the town's orphanage, and she had worshiped God more than anyone had seen. Jamie was an inte lligent conservative girl who wore her blonde hair put in a tight bun all the time.She wasn't known to have many friends, or even do ‘normal' teenager things, and she usually spent her time at school, at the orphanage, or with her father. In comparison, in the movie, Jamie was quite similar to these qualities; she was smart, very religious, shy, kind, and conservative showed by how she had dressed. However, even though Jamie was kind and seemed to be gentle, in the movie it didn't portray how religious she actually was as well as I thought they could've. In addition, don't believe that it showed how much she actually cared for others and wished to help them.For example, Jamie would help younger kids and tutor and do things like that, but in the novel she also worked at an orphanage and would even elf little animals in the middle of the road, but in the movie you didn't truly see that side of Jamie as much. Now on the other hand, the main character, Logan Carter, is quite diffe rent in the movie than how he was described in the novel. F-or example, the very first scene of the movie is Logan playing a mean trick with his friends on a boy.In this scene you can already tell that Logan is supposed to be a â€Å"bad boy' and that h?s supposed to be trouble. In the novel Logan was somewhat of a trouble maker when he was younger, which is possibly what gave the writers the idea to make him a bad boy in the movie. But in reality, Logan is just your average confused teenage boy. He likes to hang out with his friends, go on dates, and didn't enjoy school all that much. Still, in the movie it portrays him as being careless and self centered until Jamie made him realize that he was making some bad choices.Another difference between the novel and the book of A Walk to Remember is how Jamie and Logan actually got to know each other. For example, in the novel they first become a little closer after Logan asks Jamie to the homecoming dance, only because he needed a date and she was the only one aft. But in the movie, they both get cast to do the annual town play, which does happen in the book but it wasn't their first encounter. As the story goes on Logan, as a punishment for his prank in the beginning of the movie, he must participate in the play which he ends up getting the lead role in.He starts to care a little more about the play as the movie progresses and he practices his lines more and more, and eventually asks Jamie to help him with his lines and she agrees to help but on one condition â€Å"he has to promise not to fall in love with her†. Now that line may be cute and seem not that important, but its an incredibly significant quote to the story in my opinion. This quote was used in the novel as well when London had asked Jamie to go to the homecoming dance with her, which I believe shows a little importance that the movie writers had kept such a specific quote.In addition to that, a considerable difference from the book to the movi e would, in my opinion, be the fact that in the novel they fell in love slowly and hung out at one another's house, while in the movie they fell in love faster and did more ‘romantic' or public outings. Also Logan seemed to do more things to â€Å"win† her over in the book such as him visiting the orphanage with her and getting a great deal of money without her knowledge so she could get the orphans Christmas presents, while in the movie they both seemed to just fall in love with each other.Lastly, certain events and reactions differed from the book to the movie. For instance, in the book Lagan's friends would make fun of and tease him for his attraction to Jamie and for spending time and being friends with her. But they never would have dared make fun of Jamie to her face, mainly because they let like she was on Gods â€Å"good side† or had it â€Å"in† with God. Even if they had made fun of her to her face you could tell, just from what you have read tha t she wouldn't have done anything about it and she wouldn't have had a comeback for them.But on the contrary, in the movie Logan and his friends would make fun of her to her face and ridicule her. Even though she was supposed to be Godly and kind, she still remained above it all and even had some types of comebacks. For example, in one scene one Of Lagans friends had said â€Å"If there is a higher power, why is it He can't get you a new sweater? And Jamie replies, â€Å"Because He's too busy looking for your brain†.The last difference between the book and the movie is that in the book when Logan found out about Jamie illness he felt uncomfortable and didn't know what to do. But on the other hand in the movie he seemed to be devoted to her and would do anything for her and he knew exactly what to do, even if he was in denial for a little bit after he heard the news. To conclude, there are differences between the book and the movie, some may be minor some more noticeable, but overall the book and the movie are Mathew similar to each other.

Why President Hindenburg Gave Hitler Chancellorship in 1933

Throughout this essay, I will be aiming to explain why President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi party, as Chancellor in 1933. There were many factors that affected Hindenburg’s appointment however, from a behind-the-scenes power struggle between Germany’s leading politicians, the fear of Communism, and the fact that the Nazi’s were indeed the largest party represented in the Reichstag, having previously gained a large 37. 5% of the votes in 1932. Under normal circumstances, Hitler would have been made Chancellor as he came from the largest party represented.However, backstage politics and a dislike towards him from Hindenburg stalled Hitler’s hopes of becoming Chancellor. But firstly, before going into detail into some of the factors, I will set the scene regarding the state of Germany and indeed the world, post WW1, leading up to 1933. Following defeat in WW2, and the abdication of the German Kaiser, Germany was in crisis, lacking l eadership and support from its people. There was no support for the Provisional Government who had just signed the Armistice, despite the German people believing they were on the brink of winning the war, prompting the ‘stab in the back theory’.The following year, the new Republic, the Weimar Government signed the Treaty of Versailles, something else that angered the German people as it made Germany pay astronomical reparation sums in compensation and have its army drastically reduced to 100,000 men. Hitler used both of these stories in building support for the Nazi’s in the early 30’s. What followed was a period of hyperinflation in 1923 as Germany couldn’t keep up with the reparation demands of the Allies; many German people suffered with poverty and lost life savings.What followed however were years of prosperous fortune for the German people, known as the ‘Golden Twenties’. Gustav Stresemann led the recovery, restoring Germanyâ€⠄¢s international reputation, rebuilding a troubled economy, and seeking help from the US through the Dawes Plan in 1924, before his untimely death in 1929. 1929 saw Wall Street, the US stock exchange crash, kicking off the Great Depression. Germany was hit hard and faced mass unemployment, rising to 6 million people by 1932. It was around this time that people started taking Left Wing parties seriously, voting for the Communists and the Nazi’s.The conditions gave Hitler ammunition to gain support from the people. Hitler was a renowned public speaker and would make up any lie to please the people of Germany at any time, in any place. Coupled with his Nazi propaganda and the fear of Communism in Germany, Hitler had the perfect platform to gain votes in the Reichstag, and would soon be on his way to becoming Chancellor. Now, having looked at the history behind the years leading up to 1933, I can now look deeper into the individual factors behind Adolf Hitler cementing his posit ion as Chancellor.In my opinion, the main reason as to why Hindenburg made Hitler Chancellor in 1923 was because the Nazi’s had indeed become the largest party in the Reichstag. As mentioned previously, the party had gained 37. 5% of the votes in the previous election, and although this wasn’t a majority politically, it had become a majority psychologically, in the fact that the Nazi’s could no longer be ignored as they had been in previous years. This was proven when Franz Von Papen, much to Hitler’s distress was given Chancellorship in late 1932.He was the leader of the Catholic Centre Party but as the Nazi’s controlled over a third of the Reichstag, he failed to gain full support. General Von Schleicher was in the same boat, as he also failed to gain full support. Enter Adolf Hitler, the only man who could truly get anything done, as he was the only man who could unite the Reichstag, making him the obvious choice for Chancellor. Another factor l eading to Hitler’s rise to Chancellorship was the popularity of himself, the party, and the policies they promoted.The Nazi’s policies seemed to suit all of the German people, and he would even lie to the people in order to gain their full support. Policies such as rebuilding the army, abolishing mass unemployment, and his attitude towards ‘inferior’ races would not have gone un-noticed by Hindenburg, as he would have seen this drastic rise in support, as well as the rise in seats in the Reichstag. Coupled with the policies of the Nazi’s are Hitler’s inspiring, heart-felt speeches.Widely-regarded as one of the greatest public speakers of all time, alongside people such as Martin Luther King, he had the ability to tug on the heartstrings of people who didn’t even support the Nazi’s, especially when he spoke of making Germany great again and restoring a broken country to its former stature. This was a quality that President Hinden burg certainly wanted in his Chancellor, someone who could connect with the nation and address them with such power and belief, provided it could be controlled. Other factors leading to Hitler becoming Chancellor was the fear of Communism throughout Germany.In the years 1930-1932, the support for the German Communist party increased astronomically, due to support from the working class. It was also well documented that the German Communist Party was the largest in Europe (outside of the Soviet Union). However, not all people liked the Communists, and many large business owners and farmers chose to vote for the Nazi’s. In fact, many of the votes that the Nazi’s received were actually gained because people didn’t want to vote for the Communists and because of Hitler’s publicized hatred towards them.If the Communists had ceased to exist, many would question if the Nazi’s would have received many votes at all? In summary, there was very weak opposition to the Nazi’s, with the Democrats and Communists refusing to work together and stop the Nazi’s, no one offered a stern resistance and seemed more content with arguing than resolving Germany’s political issues. This would have also been recognised by Hindenburg, and even though he disliked Hitler he couldn’t afford to appoint a Chancellor that didn’t offer strong, effective leadership.Hitler seemed to be the perfect choice at that moment in time. Another considerable factor which helped Hitler in his rise to power was the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which eventually led to the Great Depression, something that rocked the entire world. Germany had been struck with its second economic crisis of the decade, and without Gustav Stresemann, the Weimar Government didn’t have the brain they needed to ‘steady the ship’. This led to mass unemployment, starvation, German Firms going bankrupt and people lost the confidence to invest.Mass unem ployment left the Government short on money, as workers were no longer paying taxes; therefore they were unable to do anything to help the poor, making them extremely unpopular. Enter the extremist parties, and as unemployment figures rose over the coming years, so did the votes for the Nazi’s and by January 1932, the Nazi party had received 13. 4 million votes. In this time of hardship, Hindenburg had to go with who the people wanted. The Weimar Government had run its cause, and Germany needed a new Chancellor, someone who they could look at with optimism and belief.Hindenburg realised that this man was Adolf Hitler. My final reasons as to why I believe Hitler was made Chancellor in 1933, is due to the belief of Hindenburg and Von Papen that they could ultimately control Adolf Hitler, and act as puppet-master’s behind the scenes, having Hitler, the public idol, transfer their messages. They believed that if they conveyed their ideology through Hitler, the public would be more respectful of the decisions. At this point, only 3 of the 12 politicians who made up Hitler’s cabinet were actually Nazi’s, and with Von Papen as Vice-Chancellor, Hindenburg believed he could be controlled.In the following months, Hitler blamed the Reichstag Fire on the Communists and with the Presidents help, banned them from future elections and threw major Communist leaders into jail. He then forced the Nationalist party to join the Nazi’s and create a Coalition, giving him the majority he needed to pass the Enabling Law, which meant he could now do as he wished, and after President Hindenburg’s untimely death in August 1933, he became dictator of Germany.Although Von Papen and Hindenburg originally believed they could control him, Hitler had obtained way too much power over the course of 1933, in complete contrast to what they wanted him to achieve. Overall, I do not believe that there was one decisive factor that cemented Hitler’s pos ition as Chancellor, instead, it was a mixture of a variety of circumstances that all seemed to fall in to place at the right time for the Nazi’s.Hypothetically speaking it was like a giant row of dominoes, with each domino resembling a factor, all toppling in unison. However, remove a factor, such as the Wall Street crash or the fear of Communism, and you break the chain that Hitler needed to become Chancellor. Therefore I believe that along with parts of political genius, Hitler also received numerous strokes of fortune on the road to becoming one of the most powerful leaders the world had ever seen.