Business Process Reengineering

Describe each of the four kinds of organizational change that can be promoted with information technology. What is business process reengineering? What steps are required to make it effective? How does it differ from business process management? Explain with example. In an organization, there are major risks and uncertainties in systems development that need to be addressed by the management. Determining when new systems and business processes can have the greatest impact is involved in these challenges.This may be the reasons why organizational change and development is becoming a common scenario to talk about involving management, organizations, business, and leadership. With the fast-changing environment, business conditions bring consequences in management both in inner and outer factors. That is why in most cases, most of the managerial activities revolve around decision – making. Knowledge plays a major role in organizational development.Organizational changes are also u sually described, including management and employee training requirements, recruiting efforts, changes in business processes and changes in authority, structure or management practices. Information technology can promote various degrees of organizational change, ranging from incremental to far-reaching. There are actually four types of organizational change enabled by information technology: automation, rationalization, reengineering, and paradigm shifts. [pic] This figure shows the four degrees of organizational change.Automation is the easiest and the most common form of change. Being the most common form of IT-enabled change, the using of computer to speed up the performance of existing tasks is an example of automation. This involves assisting employees perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively. AUTOMATION Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of ind ustrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization.Although automation speeds up performance of tasks, it does not guarantee a very high effectivity in business success. It is just the same as repeating the old manual way of disorders but in a faster way. However, this type of change, although common, is slow – moving, thus producing slow returns. Organizations using automation produce the same products and services as before but changes the way the organization functions. Example of automation in business are calculating paychecks and payroll registers, automated checkout and inventory system employed by many supermarkets. nd giving bank tellers instant access to customers deposit records. RATIONALIZATION Rationalization of procedures causes the organization to examine its standard operating procedures, eliminate those no longer needed, and make the organization more efficient. It is the streamlining of existing operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient. Rationalization follows quickly from automation. Both types of change cause some disruption, but it's usually manageable and relatively accepted by the people.BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING A more powerful type of organizational change is business process reengineering, in which business processes are analyzed, simplified and redesigned. Using information technology, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service and quality. Business reengineering reorganizes work flows, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper intensive tasks. It is usually much more ambitious than rationalization of procedures, requiring a new vision of how the process is to be organized.Business process reengineering in simpler words is Radical redesign of processes to improve cost, quality, and service, to maximize the benefits of technology. Process reengineering have been used by many companies to deal with a wide variety of problem. For example, the EMI Records Group was having difficulty filling orders for its most popular CDs. Retailers and recording stars were rebelling–it took the company as much as 20 days to deliver a big order for a hit CD, and then nearly 20% of the order would be missing. Small, incremental improvements would not have been adequate, so the company reengineered its entire istribution process with dramatic effects on on-time delivery and order fill rates. In business process reengineering, the organization can develop the business vision and process objective. It can identify the processes to be redesigned (core and highest payback) and understand and measure the performance of existing processes. It can also identify the opportunities for applying information technology and build a prototype of the new process. PARADIGM SHIFT It is about changing the very nature of the business and the structure of the organization itself, whole new products or services that didn't even exist before.In other words, paradigm shifts deals with major disruption and extreme change. Paradigm is a complete mental model of how a complex system works or functions. In other words, a paradigm shift involves rethinking the nature of the business and the organization. It is a complete re-conception of how the systems should function. For example, higher education is undergoing a major paradigm shift in the online delivery of education. Classes are now offered through the Internet so that students don't even go to classrooms. Many tried-and-true teaching methodologies are being radically altered to accommodate this shift in how education is offered.Paradigm shift is a radical re-conceptualization of the nature of the business and the nature of the organization. Deciding which business process to get right is half the challenge to the management. It is said that seventy percent of time programmatic reengineering efforts fail. But still o rganizations change. The reason is because the rewards are high. Paradigm shift involves great risks, but great returns too. The Internet is causing all kinds of industries and businesses to alter their products, their services, and their processes in radical ways.Entire organizations are being created to handle the paradigm shifts involved in e-commerce. Look at the automobile industry as an example of this type of change: Traditional dealerships are being disrupted by auto malls and online buying opportunities. BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING In today’s ever-changing world, the only thing that doesn’t change is ‘change’ itself. In a world increasingly driven by the three Cs: Customer, Competition and Change, companies are on the lookout for new solutions for their business problems.Recently, some of the more successful business corporations in the world seem to have hit upon an incredible solution: BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING (BPR). Business Process Re engineering (BPR) involves the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed. A reengineered organization is process oriented, where: 1) Processes are identified and named, 2) Everyone is aware of the processes they are involved in, 3) Process measurement, i. e. onitoring and control, is performed BPR advocates that enterprises go back to the basics and reexamine their very roots. It doesn’t believe in small improvements. Rather it aims at total reinvention. As for results: BPR is clearly not for companies who want a 10% improvement. It is for the ones that need a ten-fold increase. BPR focuses on processes and not on tasks, jobs or people. It endeavors to redesign the strategic and value added processes that transcend organizational boundaries. According to many in the BPR field reengineering should focus on processes and not be limit ed to thinking about the organizations.After all the organization is only as effective as its processes. Processes are currently invisible and unnamed because people think about the individual departments more often than the process with which all of them are involved. So companies that are currently used to talking in terms of departments such as marketing and manufacturing must switch to giving names to the processes that they do such that they express the beginning and end states. These names should imply all the work that gets done between the start and finish. For example, order fulfillment can be called order to payment process. Steps to an effective BPR are as follows – . Prepare for reengineering – Planning and Preparation are vital factors for any activity or event to be successful, and reengineering is no exception. Before attempting reengineering, the question ‘Is BPR necessary? ’ should be asked. There should be a significant need for the proce ss to be reengineered. Preparation activity begins with the development of executive consensus on the importance of reengineering and the link between breakthrough business goals and reengineering projects. A mandate for change is produced and a cross-functional team is established with a game plan for the process of reengineering.While forming the cross functional team, steps should be taken to ensure that the organization continues to function in the absence of several key players. As typical BPR projects involve cross-functional cooperation and significant changes to the status quo, the planning for organizational changes is difficult to conduct without strategic direction from the top. The impact of the environmental changes that serve as the impetus for the reengineering effort must also be considered in establishing guidelines for the reengineering project.Another important factor to be considered while establishing the strategic goals for the reengineering effort, is to make it your first priority to understand the expectations of your customers and where your existing process falls short of meeting those requirements. Having identified the customer driven objectives, the mission or vision statement is formulated. The vision is what a company believes it wants to achieve when it is done, and a well-defined vision will sustain a company’s resolve through the stress of the reengineering process. 2.Map and Analyze As-Is Process – Before the reengineering team can proceed to redesign the process, they should understand the existing process. Although some BPR proponents argue against analyzing the current enterprise, saying that it inhibits the creative process, that might not always hold true. It varies from case to case. While some organizations which are in dire straits might attempt a new process design while totally ignoring the existing processes, most organizations need to map the existing processes first, analyze and improve on it to de sign new processes.The important aspect of BPR is that the improvement should provide dramatic results. Many people do not understand the value of an As-Is analysis and rather prefer to spend a larger chunk of their valuable time on designing the To-Be model directly. The main objective of this phase is to identify disconnects (anything that prevents the process from achieving desired results and in particular information transfer between organizations or people) and value adding processes. This is initiated by first creation and documentation of Activity and Process models making use of the various modeling methods available.Then, the amount of time that each activity takes and the cost that each activity requires in terms of resources is calculated through simulation and activity based costing (ABC). All the groundwork required having been completed, the processes that need to be reengineered are identified. 3. Design To-Be process – The objective of this phase is to produc e one or more alternatives to the current situation, which satisfy the strategic goals of the enterprise. The first step in this phase is benchmarking.The peer organizations need not be competitors or even from the same industry. Innovative practices can be adopted from anywhere, no matter what their source. Having identified the potential improvements to the existing processes, the development of the To-Be models is done using the various modeling methods available, bearing in mind the principles of process design. Then, similar to the As-Is model, we perform simulation and ABC to analyze factors like the time and cost involved. It should be noted that this activity is an iterative process and cannot be done overnight.The several To-Be models that are finally arrived at are validated. By performing Trade off Analysis the best possible To-Be scenarios are selected for implementation. 4. Implement Reengineered Process- The implementation stage is where reengineering efforts meet the most resistance and hence it is by far the most difficult one. When so much time and effort is spent on analyzing the current processes, redesigning them and planning the migration, it would indeed be prudent to run a culture change program simultaneously with all the planning and preparation.This would enable the organization to undergo a much more facile transition. But whatever may be the juncture in time that the culture change program may be initiated, it should be rooted in our minds that ‘winning the hearts and minds of everyone involved in the BPR effort is most vital for the success of the effort. Once this has been done, the next step is to develop a transition plan from the As-Is to the redesigned process. This plan must align the organizational structure, information systems, and the business policies and procedures with the redesigned processes. 5.Improve Process Continously- A very vital part in the success of every reengineering effort lies in improving the reen gineered process continuously. The first step in this activity is monitoring. Two things have to be monitored – the progress of action and the results. The progress of action is measured by seeing how much more informed the people feel, how much more commitment the management shows and how well the change teams are accepted in the broader perspective of the organization. This can be achieved by conducting attitude surveys and discrete ‘fireside chats’ with those initially not directly involved with the change.Communication is strengthened throughout the organization, ongoing measurement is initiated, team reviewing of performance against clearly defined targets is done and a feedback loop is set up wherein the process is remapped, reanalyzed and redesigned. Thereby continuous improvement of performance is ensured through a performance tracking system and application of problem solving skills. An intense customer focus, superior process design and a strong and mot ivated leadership are vital ingredients to the recipe for the success of any business corporation.Reengineering is the key that every organization should possess to attain these prerequisites to success. BPR doesn’t offer a miracle cure on a platter. Nor does it provide a painless quick fix. Rather it advocates strenuous hard work and instigates the people involved to not only to change what they do but targets at altering their basic way of thinking itself. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to improving an organization's business processes.BPM activities seek to make business processes more effective, more efficient, and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment. BPM is a subset of infrastructure management, the administrative area of concern dealing with maintenance and optimization of an organization's equipment and core operations. BPM Vs. BPR If BPM is a system software, then BPR is a method. BPR re-eval uates the processes used by the enterprise from the very basics and thoroughly redesigns them, enabling enterprises to have significant breakthroughs in cost, service, and speed.BPR can enable enterprises to reform from deep within, and create a new organization structure. Therefore, BPR is for the whole enterprise and may even include basic organization structures in its large modifications. BPM is a concept built internally in an enterprise that continuous to manage business processes. In an environment that stores internal and external events, BPM starts from a group of dependent processes, that describes, understands, indicates, and manages the whole process.BPM can integrate internal resources in an enterprise, automatically linking each department, enabling the enterprise to become a single united special forces team. As well, establishing standardized business processes through a single portal, the system can automatically make decisions based on rules and processes of the en terprise to satisfy the management needs of the enterprise, creating comprehensive core competitive force. Key aspects on which BPM differs from BPR are as follows: – Marked difference between BPR and BPM | |Aspect |BPR |BPM | |Level of change |Radical, one step change |Evolutionary & continuous | |Time taken for implementation |Long |Short time and smooth takeover | |Starting point |Drawing board |Current processes and automation levels | |Implementation |Huge effort required for the |Incremental | | |disruptive change | | |Expanse |One major process at a time |Flexible – simultaneously across one or more / | | | |small or major processes | |Methodology |Redesigning of business |Process and decision models | | |processes | | |Enabling technology |Primarily IT |Primarily process technology | |Involvement |Business and process experts |Process experts and all related people | |Risk |High |Low | |Outcome |Drastic |Incremental improvement | |Cultural issues |Major concern |Not much concern | |Implementation stress and concern|High |Low | BPM tools have taken the advantage of the BPR experience and conceptually are more flexible in terms of expanse and intensity.Unlike BPR which targets end-to-end process by radically redesigning it, BPM tools can be applied part by part to the whole enterprise at a time, by adopting much more manageable and smaller changes in the process. This way the investments, risks and amount of change are minimized but at the same time the tangible impact is much more modest than what was a possibility with BPR. Yet BPM tools for automating processes have their basis on the fundamental concepts that were emphasized by BPR, such as: †¢ Simple processes delivering on the metrics of quality, service, flexibility †¢ Focus on eliminating non-value adding activities †¢ Decisions becoming integral part of the processBPM unifies discrete tools through extension of technologies like BPR, EAI, Workflow automation and any other business application package in such a form where the implementation and upgradation is much easily handled and underlying business process are efficiently managed. In addition to the strength inherited from BPR that BPM is built around business processes and not business applications per se, yet another promising feature of BPM is that it is based on mathematical process models. For example: – BPM helps you improve predictability and repeatability. For example, it will help you identify and recruit 10 candidates for a specified position in 8 weeks. BPR helps you study this and reduce this 8 weeks to 6 weeks or 4 weeks , depending on the context. Once this is done, we need to again use BPM to stabilize this and get back to predictability. Business Process Reengineering Describe each of the four kinds of organizational change that can be promoted with information technology. What is business process reengineering? What steps are required to make it effective? How does it differ from business process management? Explain with example. In an organization, there are major risks and uncertainties in systems development that need to be addressed by the management. Determining when new systems and business processes can have the greatest impact is involved in these challenges.This may be the reasons why organizational change and development is becoming a common scenario to talk about involving management, organizations, business, and leadership. With the fast-changing environment, business conditions bring consequences in management both in inner and outer factors. That is why in most cases, most of the managerial activities revolve around decision – making. Knowledge plays a major role in organizational development.Organizational changes are also u sually described, including management and employee training requirements, recruiting efforts, changes in business processes and changes in authority, structure or management practices. Information technology can promote various degrees of organizational change, ranging from incremental to far-reaching. There are actually four types of organizational change enabled by information technology: automation, rationalization, reengineering, and paradigm shifts. [pic] This figure shows the four degrees of organizational change.Automation is the easiest and the most common form of change. Being the most common form of IT-enabled change, the using of computer to speed up the performance of existing tasks is an example of automation. This involves assisting employees perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively. AUTOMATION Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of ind ustrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization.Although automation speeds up performance of tasks, it does not guarantee a very high effectivity in business success. It is just the same as repeating the old manual way of disorders but in a faster way. However, this type of change, although common, is slow – moving, thus producing slow returns. Organizations using automation produce the same products and services as before but changes the way the organization functions. Example of automation in business are calculating paychecks and payroll registers, automated checkout and inventory system employed by many supermarkets. nd giving bank tellers instant access to customers deposit records. RATIONALIZATION Rationalization of procedures causes the organization to examine its standard operating procedures, eliminate those no longer needed, and make the organization more efficient. It is the streamlining of existing operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient. Rationalization follows quickly from automation. Both types of change cause some disruption, but it's usually manageable and relatively accepted by the people.BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING A more powerful type of organizational change is business process reengineering, in which business processes are analyzed, simplified and redesigned. Using information technology, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service and quality. Business reengineering reorganizes work flows, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper intensive tasks. It is usually much more ambitious than rationalization of procedures, requiring a new vision of how the process is to be organized.Business process reengineering in simpler words is Radical redesign of processes to improve cost, quality, and service, to maximize the benefits of technology. Process reengineering have been used by many companies to deal with a wide variety of problem. For example, the EMI Records Group was having difficulty filling orders for its most popular CDs. Retailers and recording stars were rebelling–it took the company as much as 20 days to deliver a big order for a hit CD, and then nearly 20% of the order would be missing. Small, incremental improvements would not have been adequate, so the company reengineered its entire istribution process with dramatic effects on on-time delivery and order fill rates. In business process reengineering, the organization can develop the business vision and process objective. It can identify the processes to be redesigned (core and highest payback) and understand and measure the performance of existing processes. It can also identify the opportunities for applying information technology and build a prototype of the new process. PARADIGM SHIFT It is about changing the very nature of the business and the structure of the organization itself, whole new products or services that didn't even exist before.In other words, paradigm shifts deals with major disruption and extreme change. Paradigm is a complete mental model of how a complex system works or functions. In other words, a paradigm shift involves rethinking the nature of the business and the organization. It is a complete re-conception of how the systems should function. For example, higher education is undergoing a major paradigm shift in the online delivery of education. Classes are now offered through the Internet so that students don't even go to classrooms. Many tried-and-true teaching methodologies are being radically altered to accommodate this shift in how education is offered.Paradigm shift is a radical re-conceptualization of the nature of the business and the nature of the organization. Deciding which business process to get right is half the challenge to the management. It is said that seventy percent of time programmatic reengineering efforts fail. But still o rganizations change. The reason is because the rewards are high. Paradigm shift involves great risks, but great returns too. The Internet is causing all kinds of industries and businesses to alter their products, their services, and their processes in radical ways.Entire organizations are being created to handle the paradigm shifts involved in e-commerce. Look at the automobile industry as an example of this type of change: Traditional dealerships are being disrupted by auto malls and online buying opportunities. BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING In today’s ever-changing world, the only thing that doesn’t change is ‘change’ itself. In a world increasingly driven by the three Cs: Customer, Competition and Change, companies are on the lookout for new solutions for their business problems.Recently, some of the more successful business corporations in the world seem to have hit upon an incredible solution: BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING (BPR). Business Process Re engineering (BPR) involves the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed. A reengineered organization is process oriented, where: 1) Processes are identified and named, 2) Everyone is aware of the processes they are involved in, 3) Process measurement, i. e. onitoring and control, is performed BPR advocates that enterprises go back to the basics and reexamine their very roots. It doesn’t believe in small improvements. Rather it aims at total reinvention. As for results: BPR is clearly not for companies who want a 10% improvement. It is for the ones that need a ten-fold increase. BPR focuses on processes and not on tasks, jobs or people. It endeavors to redesign the strategic and value added processes that transcend organizational boundaries. According to many in the BPR field reengineering should focus on processes and not be limit ed to thinking about the organizations.After all the organization is only as effective as its processes. Processes are currently invisible and unnamed because people think about the individual departments more often than the process with which all of them are involved. So companies that are currently used to talking in terms of departments such as marketing and manufacturing must switch to giving names to the processes that they do such that they express the beginning and end states. These names should imply all the work that gets done between the start and finish. For example, order fulfillment can be called order to payment process. Steps to an effective BPR are as follows – . Prepare for reengineering – Planning and Preparation are vital factors for any activity or event to be successful, and reengineering is no exception. Before attempting reengineering, the question ‘Is BPR necessary? ’ should be asked. There should be a significant need for the proce ss to be reengineered. Preparation activity begins with the development of executive consensus on the importance of reengineering and the link between breakthrough business goals and reengineering projects. A mandate for change is produced and a cross-functional team is established with a game plan for the process of reengineering.While forming the cross functional team, steps should be taken to ensure that the organization continues to function in the absence of several key players. As typical BPR projects involve cross-functional cooperation and significant changes to the status quo, the planning for organizational changes is difficult to conduct without strategic direction from the top. The impact of the environmental changes that serve as the impetus for the reengineering effort must also be considered in establishing guidelines for the reengineering project.Another important factor to be considered while establishing the strategic goals for the reengineering effort, is to make it your first priority to understand the expectations of your customers and where your existing process falls short of meeting those requirements. Having identified the customer driven objectives, the mission or vision statement is formulated. The vision is what a company believes it wants to achieve when it is done, and a well-defined vision will sustain a company’s resolve through the stress of the reengineering process. 2.Map and Analyze As-Is Process – Before the reengineering team can proceed to redesign the process, they should understand the existing process. Although some BPR proponents argue against analyzing the current enterprise, saying that it inhibits the creative process, that might not always hold true. It varies from case to case. While some organizations which are in dire straits might attempt a new process design while totally ignoring the existing processes, most organizations need to map the existing processes first, analyze and improve on it to de sign new processes.The important aspect of BPR is that the improvement should provide dramatic results. Many people do not understand the value of an As-Is analysis and rather prefer to spend a larger chunk of their valuable time on designing the To-Be model directly. The main objective of this phase is to identify disconnects (anything that prevents the process from achieving desired results and in particular information transfer between organizations or people) and value adding processes. This is initiated by first creation and documentation of Activity and Process models making use of the various modeling methods available.Then, the amount of time that each activity takes and the cost that each activity requires in terms of resources is calculated through simulation and activity based costing (ABC). All the groundwork required having been completed, the processes that need to be reengineered are identified. 3. Design To-Be process – The objective of this phase is to produc e one or more alternatives to the current situation, which satisfy the strategic goals of the enterprise. The first step in this phase is benchmarking.The peer organizations need not be competitors or even from the same industry. Innovative practices can be adopted from anywhere, no matter what their source. Having identified the potential improvements to the existing processes, the development of the To-Be models is done using the various modeling methods available, bearing in mind the principles of process design. Then, similar to the As-Is model, we perform simulation and ABC to analyze factors like the time and cost involved. It should be noted that this activity is an iterative process and cannot be done overnight.The several To-Be models that are finally arrived at are validated. By performing Trade off Analysis the best possible To-Be scenarios are selected for implementation. 4. Implement Reengineered Process- The implementation stage is where reengineering efforts meet the most resistance and hence it is by far the most difficult one. When so much time and effort is spent on analyzing the current processes, redesigning them and planning the migration, it would indeed be prudent to run a culture change program simultaneously with all the planning and preparation.This would enable the organization to undergo a much more facile transition. But whatever may be the juncture in time that the culture change program may be initiated, it should be rooted in our minds that ‘winning the hearts and minds of everyone involved in the BPR effort is most vital for the success of the effort. Once this has been done, the next step is to develop a transition plan from the As-Is to the redesigned process. This plan must align the organizational structure, information systems, and the business policies and procedures with the redesigned processes. 5.Improve Process Continously- A very vital part in the success of every reengineering effort lies in improving the reen gineered process continuously. The first step in this activity is monitoring. Two things have to be monitored – the progress of action and the results. The progress of action is measured by seeing how much more informed the people feel, how much more commitment the management shows and how well the change teams are accepted in the broader perspective of the organization. This can be achieved by conducting attitude surveys and discrete ‘fireside chats’ with those initially not directly involved with the change.Communication is strengthened throughout the organization, ongoing measurement is initiated, team reviewing of performance against clearly defined targets is done and a feedback loop is set up wherein the process is remapped, reanalyzed and redesigned. Thereby continuous improvement of performance is ensured through a performance tracking system and application of problem solving skills. An intense customer focus, superior process design and a strong and mot ivated leadership are vital ingredients to the recipe for the success of any business corporation.Reengineering is the key that every organization should possess to attain these prerequisites to success. BPR doesn’t offer a miracle cure on a platter. Nor does it provide a painless quick fix. Rather it advocates strenuous hard work and instigates the people involved to not only to change what they do but targets at altering their basic way of thinking itself. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to improving an organization's business processes.BPM activities seek to make business processes more effective, more efficient, and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment. BPM is a subset of infrastructure management, the administrative area of concern dealing with maintenance and optimization of an organization's equipment and core operations. BPM Vs. BPR If BPM is a system software, then BPR is a method. BPR re-eval uates the processes used by the enterprise from the very basics and thoroughly redesigns them, enabling enterprises to have significant breakthroughs in cost, service, and speed.BPR can enable enterprises to reform from deep within, and create a new organization structure. Therefore, BPR is for the whole enterprise and may even include basic organization structures in its large modifications. BPM is a concept built internally in an enterprise that continuous to manage business processes. In an environment that stores internal and external events, BPM starts from a group of dependent processes, that describes, understands, indicates, and manages the whole process.BPM can integrate internal resources in an enterprise, automatically linking each department, enabling the enterprise to become a single united special forces team. As well, establishing standardized business processes through a single portal, the system can automatically make decisions based on rules and processes of the en terprise to satisfy the management needs of the enterprise, creating comprehensive core competitive force. Key aspects on which BPM differs from BPR are as follows: – Marked difference between BPR and BPM | |Aspect |BPR |BPM | |Level of change |Radical, one step change |Evolutionary & continuous | |Time taken for implementation |Long |Short time and smooth takeover | |Starting point |Drawing board |Current processes and automation levels | |Implementation |Huge effort required for the |Incremental | | |disruptive change | | |Expanse |One major process at a time |Flexible – simultaneously across one or more / | | | |small or major processes | |Methodology |Redesigning of business |Process and decision models | | |processes | | |Enabling technology |Primarily IT |Primarily process technology | |Involvement |Business and process experts |Process experts and all related people | |Risk |High |Low | |Outcome |Drastic |Incremental improvement | |Cultural issues |Major concern |Not much concern | |Implementation stress and concern|High |Low | BPM tools have taken the advantage of the BPR experience and conceptually are more flexible in terms of expanse and intensity.Unlike BPR which targets end-to-end process by radically redesigning it, BPM tools can be applied part by part to the whole enterprise at a time, by adopting much more manageable and smaller changes in the process. This way the investments, risks and amount of change are minimized but at the same time the tangible impact is much more modest than what was a possibility with BPR. Yet BPM tools for automating processes have their basis on the fundamental concepts that were emphasized by BPR, such as: †¢ Simple processes delivering on the metrics of quality, service, flexibility †¢ Focus on eliminating non-value adding activities †¢ Decisions becoming integral part of the processBPM unifies discrete tools through extension of technologies like BPR, EAI, Workflow automation and any other business application package in such a form where the implementation and upgradation is much easily handled and underlying business process are efficiently managed. In addition to the strength inherited from BPR that BPM is built around business processes and not business applications per se, yet another promising feature of BPM is that it is based on mathematical process models. For example: – BPM helps you improve predictability and repeatability. For example, it will help you identify and recruit 10 candidates for a specified position in 8 weeks. BPR helps you study this and reduce this 8 weeks to 6 weeks or 4 weeks , depending on the context. Once this is done, we need to again use BPM to stabilize this and get back to predictability.

Media Impacts on Children’s Rights Essay

Child abuse gives most people a vision of the faults and blunders of the society. Child mistreatment is one of the most common crimes committed in the present. As for the Philippines, one can find vital statistics to certain crimes at the Bantay Bata 163 website (http://www.abs-cbn.com/bantaybata163). According to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), 6,494 cases of child abuse were reported for the year of 2006 alone. Indeed, the government and certain non-government organizations must deal with these incidents of child abuse particularly the mass media. This paper examines the role of the media in relation to child abuse and child protection and argues that the media have been essential to the task of placing the problem of child abuse in the minds of the public and on the political agenda. THE MASS MEDIA According to YourDictionary.com, Mass Media is those means of communication that reach and influence large numbers of people, especially newspapers, popular magazines, radio, and television. Mass Media are those media that are created to be consumed by immense number of population worldwide and also a direct contemporary instrument of mass communication. Nonetheless, Mass Media is considered as the fourth estate of the society as well. It is the fourth branch of the government. It is the voice and weapon of the people and the society as whole. Mass media has various purposes, first is for entertainment, traditionally through performances of acting, music, and sports, along with light reading but since the late 20th century it can also be through video and computer games. Next is for public service announcement which is intended to modify public attitudes by raising awareness about specific issues like health and safety. And lastly is for advocacy. This can be for  both business and social concerns. This can include advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations and political communication. MEDIA AND HUMAN RIGHTS As stated by the Secretary- General of the United Nations in 1998, Human Rights are ‘what reason requires and what conscience commands’ (Mizuta, 2000). It is commonly recognized that human rights are firm foundations of human existence and co-existence. It is for these human rights that the United Nations is engaged in securing the basic conditions of life, in ensuring peace, development, a safe environment, food, shelter, education, participation, equal opportunities and protection against intolerance in any form. The Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights expicitly states that: ‘every individual and every organ of the society, keeping this Declaration constatly inmind, shall strive by teaching education to promote respect for these rights and freedom’ (Hamelink, 2000). With this, we can say that all (including different institutions) are responsible in promoting human rights. Mass media present the opportunity to communicate to large numbers of people and to target particular groups of people. As observed by Gamble and Gamble (1999), mass communication is significantly different from other forms of communication. They note that mass communication has the capacity to reach ‘simultaneously’ many thousands of people who are not related to the sender. It depends on ‘technical devices’ or ‘machines’ to quickly distribute messages to diverse audiences often unknown to each other. Thus, media in relation to human rights shows a exceptional characteristic in promoting it. CHILD ABUSE In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child. The physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect of children have a long recorded history. In the mid to late 1800s, it was reported that children were often sexually assaulted, that children reported honestly about their abuse, and that the perpetrators of abuse were often the children’s fathers and brothers (Olafsen, Corwin and Summit 1993). Every year, millions of children across the world are becoming innocent helpless targets of atrocities. They are the sufferers of ill-treatment, exploitation, and brutality. They are part of human trafficking to induce into prostitution rackets. In terror prone regions, they are kidnapped from their homes and schools and their innocent childhood is forced into the army to witness the brunt of cruelty. They are enforced into debt repression or other kinds of slavery. In Metro Manila, according to Australian study, urbanization and migration continuously increase, children are often forced by circumstances to help their families earn a living. Most street children are of poor parents who have migrated from rural areas to find better job opportunities in the city, but lack of education renders them ill-equipped to earn or survive in the city. Street children have a bleak present and an uncertain future. Life in the street is a constant struggle to overcome the various negative elements that threaten to overtake and destroy the hope for survival. The street child works under the heat of the sun or in the dark of the night from 6 to 16 hours, seven days a week, often in a combination of â€Å"occupations† each considered their only means to survive. In the cities, neglected and abandoned children find themselves in the streets fending for themselves and vulnerable to the various evils of the urban jungle such as drug addiction, crimes and commercial sexual exploitation. Children who are neglected or abandoned are easy prey not only to accidents but to commercial sexual exploitation, drugs, crime and unwanted pregnancies. Incidents of child abuse is still on the rise especially  child sexual abuse. Also on the rise are reports of physical abuse and maltreatment of children. According to the statistics, there are approximately 40,000 to 50,000 street children of all categories in Metro Manila. Studies conducted reveal that the number of street children range from 2 to 3% of the child and adult population. The national project on street children estimated the number of street children at over 220,000 in 65 major cities as of 1993. There are now about 350 government and non government agencies that are responding to street childre n and their families. The government has given special focus on helping street children with programs focused on health and nutrition, educational assistance, parenting sessions, livelihood and skills training, residential care, foster care and adoption. However for as long as there would be squatter colonies sprouting in urban areas and for as long as there are not enough jobs, street children will continue to dominate in the streets. In a 1993 survey of households, some 16% of households surveyed have children below 12 years old who are left unattended with no supervising adult in the house. This translates to one in six households where children are without adult supervision. The consequences of child abuse are overwhelmingly disturbing. It denies a child its basic right-education. While violence and abuse pose a threat to their life, it also offers more devastating adverse effects on their mental and physical health. Often it leads to homelessness, resulting in increased number of cases of vagrancy giving birth to a feeling of depression. To worsen the scenario, these victims are more likely to abuse their own children in future, thanks to the deep impact on their mind and the cycle will continue forever. Though the agony and the plight of these children remain suppressed in silence, the brunt of their exploitation is very real. Although, the whole world is morally fuming at the abuse children endure. Yet, protection laws against child abuse commonly meet with confrontation at all strata of society. Like the protection of human rights, child protection can also be effectively promoted through media. MEDIA ON CHILD PROTECTION The media have been essential to the growth of society’s awareness of child abuse and neglect, not so much from specific community education campaigns as through ongoing news and features reporting on specific cases, research and intervention initiatives (Gough 1996). Media representations are the primary source of information on social problems for many people (Hutson and Liddiard 1994). Specifically, it is apparent that the media’s conceptualization of children and young people, and media reporting on both physical discipline of children and child abuse, is significant in reflecting and defining society’s perceptions of children and young people (Franklin and Horwath 1996), and what is and what is not acceptable behavior towards children. In addition to news stories, feature articles, and investigative journalism, sporadic mass media education and prevention campaigns are launched. These campaigns usually endeavor to broaden community knowledge of child abuse and neglect, to influence people’s attitudes towards children and young people, and to change behaviors that contribute to, or precipitate, the problem of child abuse and neglect in our communities (Goddard and Saunders, 2002). The constructive use of mass media can assist in teaching children and young people socially desirable ways of dealing with conflict, knowledge of their rights to integrity and protection from harm, healthy eating habits and lifestyles, and ways to assert themselves and their rights in a positive, acceptable manner. In an Inquiry into the Effects of Television and Multimedia on Children and Families in Victoria, Australia, evaluations of educational television programs, designed either for pre-schoolers or for older children, have suggested their effectiveness in ‘heightening a range of social behaviors’ (Friedrich and Stein 1973), diminishing ‘the effects of stereotyping’ (Johnston and Ettema 1982), increasing ‘preparedness for adolescence’ (Singer and Singer 1994), and stimulating the discussion of ‘solutions to general social issues’ (Johnston et. al 1993). The Convention of the rights of the child provides for the right of children to access information and material to those that aimed the promotion of his or her rights. (Hamelink, 1999).Therefore, mass media as a  primary source of these information should provide the children proper knowledge of his or her rights. Also, mass media education and prevention campaigns may be designed to target children and young people, providing them with useful information and alerting them to avenues for further information, help and support. Campaigns can also use regular television programs for children. Research suggests that, at least in the short term, television viewing of such programs may increase children’s and young people’s knowledge and positively change attitudes and behaviors. Unfortunately, longitudinal studies exploring sustained effects are rare and thus inconclusive. It further notes that television ‘is one of the most popular forms of mass communication and entertainment in has been under-utilized as an educative tool’, and suggests that perhaps narrow vision has meant that the deliberate use of television simultaneously to entertain and educate has not been fully recognized. Despite this, Postman (1994) has argued that television is rapidly becoming ‘the first curriculum’, with educational institutions such as schools following behind. Further, campaigns may be designed to give children and young people an opportunity to express their views on issues that affect them, specifically targeting adult audiences that habitually ignore the views and experiences of children and young people. The UK Children’s Express is one example, as is Youth Forum in Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper. .Research on the physical punishment of children suggests, for example, that adults may be interested to hear children’s views on the issue of physical discipline, and children interviewed in the research were keen for adults to hear their views. To date, however, the media rarely, if ever, consults children and takes their views into account before reporting on the physical punishment for children (Goddard and Saunders, 2000) MASS MEDIA CAMPAIGNS †¢ EVERY CHILD IS IMPORTANT (Australia, May 2000) This primary prevention campaign used a ‘comforting’ approach and incorporated a significant mass media component (Tucci et. al2001). As outlined in ‘More action – less talk! Community responses to child abuse prevention’ (Tucci, et. al 2001), the campaign sought to: elicit a commitment from adults to adults to develop safe and non-abusive relationships with children; persuade adults to stop behaving in ways which are harmful to children; educate adults about the important needs of children; and better inform adults about the causes and consequences of child abuse. The campaign encouraged all adults to: think and view children as a source of hope; understand the developmental variables of children; respect the meaning children give to their experiences; engage positively with the principles of children’s rights; and appreciate more fully the capacities and contribution of children to the cultural and emotional life of families and communities. The campaign also addressed: the commonly held belief that children are a cost to society; the perceived suspicion that any application of the notion of children’s rights will mean an erosion of parent’s rights; and the public’s lack of understanding about the extent and nature of child abuse in Australia. The campaign continued until the end of 2001. A song, written by Van Morrison and performed by Rod Stewart, ‘Have I Told You Lately That I Love You’, was the focus of a television advertising campaign that aimed to stimulate people’s thoughts about the importance and value of children and how this is communicated to them. Television commercials were backed up by press and radio advertisements. In addition to advertising, the campaign sought media attention by involving Tracy Bartram, FOX FM radio personality, as an ambassador for the campaign. Media attention was drawn to the campaign’s launch. A free information kit for parents was made available, parent’s seminar sessions, featuring Michael Grose, were conducted, and a website made readily available to the public. The campaign did not receive state or federal funding but relied heavily on in-kind support from individuals and Victorian businesses. Quantum Market Research monitored the effectiveness of the campaign. In  May 2000 and October 2000 telephone interviews were conducted with a representative sample of 301 adults. Public dissemination of research outcomes formed part of the campaign strategy. Tucci et al. (2001) report that the initial research findings, five months into the campaign, revealed that: ‘Child abuse is as serious social problem that is poorly understood by the Victorian public while fifty one per cent of respondents believed the community recognized child abuse as a serious social problem and another twenty one per cent believed they accurately understood the extent and nature of child abuse in Australia, this is clearly not the case. Fifty nine per cent were unable even to guess the number of reports of child abuse received annually. Only four per cent of respondents accurately estimated the size of the problem. Twenty-nine per cent of respondents underestimated the problem by at least 90,000 reports. The idea that adults can hurt children is disturbing and likely underpins the belief by fifty one per cent of respondents that the community treats this issue seriously, but when asked to account for the extent to which children are being abused by adults, community awareness is sadly lacking.’ Eighty per cent of respondents strongly supported the need for a campaign against child abuse. Australians Against Child Abuse thus feels confident that the ‘Every Child is Important’ campaign will significantly influence public attitudes and responses to children and to child abuse. Ongoing research into the impact of the campaign will in itself be valuable in contributing to the debate about the educative and cost effectiveness of mass media campaigns aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect. †¢ NSPCC Full Stop Campaign – Primary Prevention (United Kingdom, May 1999) It has the ambitious aim of ending cruelty to children within 20 years. Costing three million pounds, it proposes to change attitudes and behaviour towards children, to make it everybody’s business to protect children, and to launch new services and approaches (Boztas, 1999). The campaign is supported by Prince Andrew, popular personalities such as the Spice Girls, the English football star Alan Shearer, and companies such as British Telecom and Microsoft. As Rudaizky (quoted in Hall 1999) explains, a pictorial theme of the campaign is people covering their eyes: ‘The theme of the eyes being covered is about people not facing up to the reality of what is happening. Our intention was not to shock but to move people into doing something about it. Child abuse is not nice to talk about. It is an upsetting subject but unless we talk about it, we will not end it.’ This objective highlights the suppression/awareness phenomenon mentioned above, and draws attention again to the need for ongoing rather than intermittent prevention campaigns. FAMILIES’ – University of Queensland Sanders et al. (2000) evaluated Families – a 12-part prevention-focused television series ‘designed to provide empirically validated parenting information in an interesting and entertaining format. The series presented a parenting model, suggesting strategies parents could use with their children. It aimed to reassure parents that it is normal for parenting to be challenging, and it hoped to increase parents’ confidence that positive changes in children’s behavior were achievable. The series also aimed to increase awareness in the community of the importance of ‘positive family relationships’ to the positive development of young people (Sanders et al. 2000). This ‘media-based television series’ was considered to be successful, specifically in relation to its impact on increasing the parenting confidence of mothers. However, Sanders et al. (2000) concluded that the impact of the series could have been increased: ‘by the strategic provision of service support systems, such as telephone information contact lines or parenting resource centers, which could be advertised as part of a coordinated media strategy planned to coincide with the airing of the television program. These services could provide information and back-up resources, such as parenting tip sheets, to parents seeking further advice after viewing the program. Staff at these centers could also identify and  refer families who may need more intensive help. †¢ BEYOND BELIEF (United Kingdom, 1992) A documentary claimed to show new evidence of satanic/ritual abuse in Britain. Following the program, helplines were overloaded with calls from people who had experienced sexual or ritual abuse. Counsellors noted that: ‘The program appeared to have given callers permission to speak of their experiences and their gratitude that someone, somewhere took what they said seriously.’ (Scott 1993) Henderson, a fellow at Glasgow University’s mass media unit, as quoted by Hellen (1998) commented that: ‘A lot of people who have suffered child abuse quite simply lack the vocabulary, because of shame or fear, to come to terms with what has happened. Provided a drama does not place blame on the child, it can be very helpful.’ †¢ BBC Screenplay It has been suggested that sometimes ‘drama reaches the parts the documentary cannot’ (Campbell 1989). Writing about Testimony of a Child, a BBC screenplay that presents ‘the other side of the Cleveland child sexual abuse saga – the story of an abused child going home to [the] abuser’, Campbell argues that sexual assault ‘presents television with terrible problems. Television is about seeing. But it censors what we need to see if we are to understand because it bows to propriety and thus contains what is knowable’ (Campbell 1989).Despite this, Campbell (1989) notes the power of fictitious drama based on fact to: ‘ invite you to think: what would you do if faced with that child’s face, his fantasies full of terror and death, his starvation, his stubborn silences, his sore bum. †¢ COLD HANDS- (New South Wales, 1993) Armstrong (1993) argued that the play portrays a week in the life of a 12 year-old girl sexually assaulted by her father and got pregnant. The  play’s focus allows the audience to gain an insight into the child’s fear and trauma, the father’s feeble rationalization and defense, and the mother’s fear of confronting the truth. Armstrong noted that the New South Wales Child Protection Council showed professional interest in the play and that plays have been used as part of child abuse awareness campaigns. The play’s director, Ritchie (as quoted by Armstrong 1993) remarked that: ‘The play is powerful, dramatic, presenting practical and emotional reality. It is confronting, but it emphasizes the fact that there is no excuse. †¢ QUESTIONS 2: Killing Tomorrow – New Zealand A documentary, screened in New Zealand in 2001, graphically depicts the lives and abuse of three children. During the documentary, a Detective Inspector informs the audience that the drama is based on the lives of real people, and the audience is told how life turned out for the children and their abusers. ‘Only those with ice in their veins could fail to be moved – and there lies the problem. In each case, one adult or more had failed to take responsibility for the safety of a defenseless child’ (Herrick 2001). Reporting in The New Zealand Herald, Herrick asks what can programs like this possibly expect to achieve. Twenty years ago, polite society didn’t even acknowledge abuse existed, let alone talk about it. So shows like this, which provoke thought and discussion, must be a sign of progress, even if the statistics say otherwise. Killing tomorrow was punishing if compelling viewing. Supported by New Zealand’s child protection authority, Child Youth and Family Services (CYFS), consider documentaries like ‘Killing Tomorrow’ to be a powerful way of educating people about the issues and what can be done to protect children. ‘We want to create an environment where child abuse is less able to exist and we’re pleased Screentime-Communicado has decided to help raise these serious issues’ (Brown, CYFS chief executive quoted in The  New Zealand Herald 28/11/01). After the program was screened there was a panel discussion of the issues presented in the documentary and CYFS booklets that provide tips on parenting were made available to the public. Child protection received 211 phone calls during the documentary and on the night it was screened. Fifty-three child abuse investigations resulted, five of which cases were considered ‘very urgent [and were] assigned immediately to social workers for investigation’ (Ward, CYFS spokesperson, quoted in The New Zealand Herald 30/11/01). Also quoted in the New Zealand Herald 30/11/01 was Simcock, the National Social Services spokesperson: ‘The documentary showed community groups were doing their best on the issue but government measures were sadly lacking the most helpful thing the government could do was to change the law that allowed parents to hit children. While the documentary appears to have raised awareness of child abuse and prompted some people to act on their suspicions of abuse and neglect, Henare, a Child Abuse Prevention Services spokesperson, noted that ‘the objective of the documentary would not be reached without enough money for community providers’ (quoted in The New Zealand Herald 30/11/01). These are only some examples of media campaigns. There were still lots more evidences the media protecting children around the globe from abuse. Though media shows a remarkable effort in the child protection system, people can not stay away from the fact that there are still several problems these media campaigns face. MEDIA PROBLEMS IN CHILD PROTECTION CAMPAIGN Journalists willing to advocate for children and young people face the challenge of counterbalancing negative images or ‘demonisation‘(Franklin and Horwath 1996) of children and, particularly, of adolescents, in print, television and film. Starkly contrasting with once popular views of  childhood as a time of innocence, less than positive images of children and young people in the media may place obstacles in the path of attempts to prevent their abuse and neglect. In 1968, 11-yearold Mary Bell murdered two boys, aged three and four in the UK. Twenty-five years later, in 1993, two ten-year-old boys murdered two-year-old Jamie Bulger in the UK, and in Australia in 1998, a ten-year-old boy was charged with drowning a six-year-old playmate. In such cases, a child being able to open his or her mind in abusive acts might be the perpetrator of maltreatment to his or her fellow. Psychologically, the Social Information Processing Theory of Aggression, comes here. According to Strasburger (1995), the central tenet of social information processing theory is that children create their own rationales to explain the behavior of others during social during social encounters. In turn, these self- generated interpretation influence children’s responses in their ongoing social interaction. Given that mental state operate in a feedback loop, it is possible that all social experiences, including those involving violent media, could influence social information processing. CONCLUSION Society sometimes fails to recognize that children are the most vulnerable group in our community, and are thus in need of the greatest protection. The social and economic costs to societies that have not prioritized children’s needs, especially the prevention of child abuse and neglect, are well documented. This paper focused on news stories, feature articles and investigative journalism. In this, we have concentrated on mass media education and prevention campaigns, television series, documentaries, and live theatre productions. It demonstrate the media’s potential power to positively influence child welfare policies, community responses to children and young people, and societal acknowledgement of, and reaction to, child abuse and neglect. It challenges those who are involved in child welfare and child protection to make greater efforts to understand media influences and to use  the media constructively. Sustained community education and prevention campaigns, using mass media communication, are integral to the prevention of child abuse and neglect. These campaigns continually confront communities with the reality of child abuse. They challenge people, institutions, and governments to listen to children and to respond to the needs of all children and families, and particularly the special needs of children who have been abused or neglected. Further, sustained mass media exposure of child abuse and neglect may publicly censure and shame perpetrators, many of whom are relatives and adults well known to the victimized child. According to Tucci (2002), the agenda for our community – and the government which represents us – should be clear. The prevention of child abuse should be a priority. However, to be effective, mass media campaigns will need to be part of a broader prevention program that includes the provision of supports and services for all children and families. There are limitations to what the media can achieve. REFERENCES: Armstrong, M. (1993), ‘The cold realities of child sex abuse’, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November Boztas, S. (1999), Prince Andrew launches crusade against child cruelty. The Daily Telegraph, 23/3/99. Franklin, B. and Horwath, J. (1996). The media abuse of children: Jake’s progress from demonic icon to restored childhood. Child Abuse Review. Friedrich, L. and Stein, A. (1973). Aggressive and prosocial television programs and the natural behaviour of preschool children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Gamble, T. and Gamble, M. (1999). Communication works. McGraw Hill Publications. Goddard, C. and Saunders, B.J. (2000), The role of the media, in Project Axis – Child Sexual Abuse in Queensland: Selected Research Papers. Goddard, Chris. , Saunders, Bernadette. (2002). The role of mass media in facilitating community education and child abuse prevention strategies. Child Abuse Prevention Issues Number 16. Gough, D. (1996), â€Å"Defining the problem† Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 20. Hall, C. (1999), ‘NSPCC shock tactics to tackle child abuse’, The Daily Telegraph. Hamelink, Cees. (2000). Media and Human Rights. Media and Human Rights in Asia: an AMIC Compilation. Singapore: AMIC. Hellen, N. (1998), ‘Bennett pens TV child sex drama’, Sunday Times, 5 October. Herrick, L. (2001), ‘Truth of abuse too powerful to ignore’, The New Zealand Herald, 21 December Hutson, S. and Liddiard, M. (1994). Youth homelessness: The construction of a social issue. Macmillan Publication Johnston, J. and Ettema, J. (1982). Positive images: Breaking stereotypes with children’s television. Sage Publications. Johnston, J. Bauman, J. Milne, L. and Urdan, T. (1993). Taking the measure of talking with TJ: An evaluation of the first implementation of ‘talking with J’ Series 1, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan Publishers. Mizuta, Kayoko. (2000). Human Rights and Media. Media and Human Rights in Asia: an AMIC Compilation. Singapore: AMIC. Olafsen, R., Corwin, D. and Summit, R. (1993). Modern history of child sexual abuse awareness: Cycles of discovery and suppression. Child Abuse and Neglect. Postman, N. (1994). The disappearance of childhood. Vintage Books. Sanders, M.R., Montgomery, D.T. and Brechman-Toussaint, M.L. (2000), The mass-media and the prevention of child behavior problems: The evaluation of a television series to promote positive outcomes for parents and their children, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Singer, D. and Singer, A. (1981). Television, imagination and aggression: A study of preschoolers Sage Publications. Strasburger, Victor. (1995). Adolescents and the Media: Medical and Psychological Impact. Sage Publications. Tucci, J. Goddard, C. and Mitchell, J. (2001). More Action – Less Talk! Community responses to child abuse prevention, Australians Against Child Abuse. Ringwood.

Human equality (Man & Woman) Essay

Introduction Human Equality means the state of being equal before the eyes of God. All have equal responsibilities, equal rights, and equal parts in the society they belong. In ancient times men did not treat the woman – folk with justice and fairness, they show arrogant in that time and show to the woman that they are more intelligent and more knowledgeable from them. The inferiority complex from which woman suffers has its roots in the remote past. The social framework which has remained basically unchanged assigned to her a status much lower than that of man. According to the scriptures that woman was created for the man to be a â€Å"helpmeet† for him. Woman got its named because she was â€Å"taken out of man†. Her obligations were for marriage, procreation, establishing and maintaining a home, providing for the family, and as personal companionship of a husband. In ancient times man made society, the dice were heavily loaded against her. The powerful forces of custom, law and religion were ranged against her. Woman in ancient times could not own property in her own right. She could not choose her own mate. Woman had no right in anything around her. This research paper will discuss about the human equality happen to woman in the different places and to the different cultures they have. Body of the Paper Human Equality has been experience even since during ancient times, it is the practice of the people in the past that woman is not a high regard individual, the focus of the people at that time merely on the man who they think will be a great help for them. Human rights for the woman were being neglected. It is their belief that when a mother gives birth to a baby girl it is a bad luck for the family especially when it is the first born baby in the family. But when the mother gives birth to a baby boy the whole family well rejoice for the coming of the baby because they believed that it is a sign of good luck for them. Women rights refer to the social and human rights being an individual. From women’s involvement within the abolition movements, women became aware of the male dominance and oppression (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) in ancient times women are struggling for the equality treatment they get from their parents and from the people in the community. In ancient times in Athens woman role is to live controlled by the man in their lives and they are controlled by their father when they are not yet married. They are forced to marry in their teen’s period to a man whose age is 30s with the choose of their father, Once a woman was married her husband controlled all her property. Any property that she might have inherited would go directly to her husband, her obligations is just to follow what her husband wants and be a slave to him for the rest of her life. In Athens, woman had no rights to wander around the town, without a valid cause. Because they believed that any respectable woman would not be seen roaming in public. Athens women had virtually no political rights they don’t have the right to vote or to take part in the operation of the state. Woman was controlled by men at all stages of their lives they don’t have all the rights to go against the well of their husbands. They are totally the property of their husband. In Athens, the men usually spent most of their time away from their houses, women dominated their home life. In the absence of their husband the wife was in charge of raising the children and making clothes for the family. She’s responsible in supervising the daily running of the household chores. Athens is a totally slave based economy, where plentiful numbers of female slaves was their available for cooking, cleaning and carrying water from the fountain for the middle class families. In the poorest homes of Athens, the wife was expected to do all the household chores. At present times, Athenians women have already freedom from their husband. They can give birth normally and raise their child as what the other mother is doing. Women now can participate in all the activities in the society they belong. Some of the women now have a high position in their chosen career. In ancient China women lived under the rules set by Confucius. His doctrine stated that women weren’t equal to men, because according to him women were unworthy or incapable of a literary education they are just fitted to be a servant. Throughout ancient Chinese history women were in a position of servitude from birth until death. They were actually considered woman as a man’s private property (Heng) this was justified because they believed that â€Å"disorder of this world is not sent down by heaven, it is produced by women† (women in world history. com pg. 3). Women were subject from birth to their fathers and brothers. They had to obey them without question. Women were often despised by their fathers, so much so that many Chinese women had no name. They were simply called daughter No. 1, Daughter No. 2 and so on. At present government in China, Women are already recognized. They have an equal rights with the men in the society, The father can only suggest and recommend what is good for their children’s but the final decision come from the children. At this time in China after giving birth to the child they already got their names and they are already a part of the community. In the Islam concept, they propagate a concept of equality between man and woman because they believed that Allah has created both man and woman for their own specific purposes. Both have their own right to be respected and honored. But it is in their traditions that woman has no right to choose the right man for them to marry, it is the parents who will decide whom they will spend the rest of their lives. In this modern times, Islam women still agreed the decision of their parents in terms of their marriage, but some of them especially the educated ones choose whom they want to married not looking what might be the risk that they will get for their decisions. In these modern times the females enjoy their freedom to have quality education. Now they are free to go anywhere they want to travel. They can wear any styles of dresses and they can have anything’s they want to own. In Egypt, the woman were consistently concluding some contracts, including marriage and divorce settlements, purchase of property and even arrangements for self – enslavement, Under self – enslavement the servitude was stipulated for a limited number of years. And on the duration of self enslavement, women often received a salary of their labor. In regards to the occupation status of the woman the upper and middle class was limited only for the home and for the family for the reasons of the customary role of being the mother and the bearer of the children. In Egypt woman were not entrusted to any major religious task and any primary position in the government sector. At this present times in Egypt. Woman has already the rights to acquire quality education. And they have all the rights for a good job in the community. Some of the Egyptian women at this time have a good position in the government. They have all the rights to vote and can participate in any activities in the state. In Ancient Israel some of the liberal feminists believe that women were simply the property in Ancient Israel, and it is the men who have the complete control of female sexuality and fertility. In their society woman have had an inferior status in the law, their main obligations focus on their roles in the family, especially in the reproduction and upbringing of the children. The Jewish and Christian communities downgraded the place of the woman in the community. Because they believed that woman is only a part and they considered them as an outcast in the society. Today, Israel acknowledges the great participation of women in their success. Some of the women in their country at present serve in the government; they are now well respected and honored. Some of them get high positions in their chosen career; they have all the freedom to exercise their rights in the society. In 1950’s women were blamed for creating the ills of the society by just leaving their husbands and children to go to work, critics of the working mother maintained the view that if the woman were to ignore their deepest needs of domesticity and motherhood, it would lead to emotional instability. In that year equality reveal because men held the vast majority of the position in the work place and job opportunities offered to woman is only in the clerical positions. Despite the rapid success of recent years women still face many challenges in life. While they are equal under the law, Because of recent moves towards capitalism women have found it harder to find well paying jobs. Factories and businesses prefer to recruit men more because of women’s traditional responsibilities of having kids and maintaining households. Women are not seen as efficient as men are. So many women have gone into low-paying jobs or are receiving lower pay for the same work this though has had unfortunate side effect. Families, especially those in the country, want to have a boy to do heavy farm work and to continue the family line. If they get a girl it isn’t uncommon for her to be killed. Fewer girls than boys are enrolled education in some countries today, especially in poor areas. More than 70 percent of school dropouts are girls, some because many fathers want them to take a traditional role and look after the house. In ancient Romans, most women deal with the aristocracy. In the upper class families it was the men who got the best education and the best positions in the society. The women in their society shared over one overwhelming and pervasive role and responsibility as child bearer of the family. Roman women were usually married by the time they were twelve years old, sometimes even younger. Girls married very young and often died in childbirth because they were weakened from having many children without reprieve. Women were expected to have as many babies as they could because they were never sure how many of the children would reach the age of maturity. In Roman, women have no choice between having children or not, because they could not overrule their husband if he want to have a newborn baby from her. It is in their law that female infants could not bring the family name of the father and they are required to ask for a dowry in time of their marriage. The earliest power of the father was exercised over the exposure of the families, at birth, in a highly symbolic rite, newborns were be displayed – males and females – it is deposited at the feet of the father. He – without explanation or justification – either recognized the child as his by picking it up, or withheld his recognition by leaving it where it was, The recognized child will became the member of the family; and the unrecognized child was abandoned to the river or left to die by starvation. Roman Woman did have some personal freedom, but they had a little chance for individuality or personal choice. They were always the constant supervision of their fathers, husbands, male relatives, who regularly kissed them on the mouth to find out if they had drunk wine. It is their law that woman who drink wine, and to commit adultery will be punish by death. By their father or guardians. In Roman society the woman certain prescribed roles was a child bearer, mother, daughter, and wife. They are considered citizens but they were not permitted to vote or participate in the government functions. In Japan, in the early feudal period, samurai women were expected to exhibit loyalty, bravery, and take on the duty of revenge. As her warrior husband was often absent, the samurai wife also had important duties at home. Her responsibility was to cook food for the family and to do all the household chores. She was in charged to oversee the harvesting of crops, and managed of all the servants, and she’s responsible over all financial business in terms of earnings disorder. In all the matters concerning the well-being of the family, her advice was accepted and her opinions were respected. On her, custody fells the burden of providing the proper education of her children. She was required to instill a strong sense of loyalty to the samurai ideals of courage and physical strength. And the woman is required to obey and follow all the government procedures without any questions. Over the years, the independent samurai woman was replaced by an image which depicted the ideal samurai women as humble, obedience, self-controlled and above all subservient to men. Respecting one’s husband and family’s customs and tradition, and the rule of bearing a male child becomes one of the ideal woman’s most important tasks. By the later feudal ages, the law of primogeniture prevailed as increasing disputes over the claiming of the property that resulted that girls was being debarred from their rights to inherits properties from their parents and husbands. Supporting the deterioration in women’s position were both the Confucian doctrine and Buddhism which denigrated women’s intellectual and moral capacities to own a property of their own. After the 15th century, the teachings of the â€Å"Three Obedience’s† reigned. Stated as follows that; â€Å"A woman has no way of independence through life. When she is young, she obeys her father; when she is married, she obeys her husband; when she is widowed, she obeys her son. † A hundred years ago, women had little standing in the Church, like in society in general. Women were not allowed to receive communion during their monthly periods; and after giving birth to a child they needed to be ‘purified before re-entering a church building. Women were strictly forbidden to touch sacred objects such as, the chalice, the paten or altar linen†¦ They certainly could not distribute Holy Communion. In church, women needed to have their heads veiled at all times. Women were also barred from entering the sanctuary except for cleaning purposes reading Sacred Scripture from the pulpit, preaching, singing in a church choir, being Mass servers, becoming full members of confraternities and organizations of the laity, and the most important than all this that women were barred from receiving Holy Orders. In our time, a new awareness has arisen of human rights: of the basic equality of men and women, and of the need to secure equal opportunities to all. On account of this the attitude to women has also begun to change in the Church. Women may now be ‘temporarily deputed’ to be readers, Mass servers, cantors, preachers, leaders of prayer services, ministers of baptism and of Holy Communion. But the ban on ordination remains in place. Conclusions Human Equality in the Ancient times are difficult to achieved, the Woman in that times are maltreated and known to be an overcast of the society. They can’t fight for their rights because they are under the power of their father whom to be powerful for the control of their lives. Some of them suffered and died without any justice in their lives. In these modern times, Women are smarter than man, they have all the right before the laws, and they are free to do what is right for them. Some woman of today civilizations was holding high position in the government; they are exposed to any skills and works that only man can do. Since those early years, much progress has been made for women in developed and developing countries alike: in many countries, provisions guaranteeing the enjoyment of human rights without discrimination on the basis of sex have been included in constitutions; legal literacy and other measures have been introduced to alert women to their rights and to ensure their access to those rights; the world community has identified violence against women as a clear violation of women’s rights; incorporating gender perspectives into regular programmers and policies has become a priority at the United Nations and in many member states. Although much remains to be done to achieve full equality, the voices of women are being heard. There is a saying that goes, because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, â€Å"She doesn’t have what it takes. They will say, â€Å"Women don’t have what it takes. † (Clare Boothe Luce). Today generations, woman can already compete or surpass the accomplishments of the man in terms of work and positions in the government. Woman of today can do mush well than the man in all aspects of technology. Authorities have to realize those women are not going to face discrimination because they are only women. This world must realize that women of today are fighting for their rights because they want to be equal to men because they want to join their hands together to utilize potentials to the fullest of their abilities. In this expanding world it is important for all the people to be united to firmly stand despite of all the trials with the help of a common goal to express our own right and concern for life. Through all the successes of women’s in the 70’s and 80’s women began to dream big dreams. Crossing all the economic, social, psychological and political barriers we the women of the present times want to tell the male chauvinist world that we are not merely a commodity found in the advertisements. This is a wake up call for both the genders that the elimination or the decreasing number of either sex will pose greater threat to the future generations. In one of the scriptures, says a reminder for all the people concern that, â€Å"Be careful if you make a woman cry because god sees her tears. A woman came out of man’s rib not from his feet to be walked on, not from his head to be superior over, but from his side to be equal†. Finally and most important, that women of today are giving back to work and not simply taking, knowing that they are privileged to any aspects of life but mostly these women use their knowledge, money, and power to make the lives of the less fortunate a better one.. As women have fought a constant battle toward equality and opportunity, and the world was benefited by their works and accomplishments for the progress of all. References: Bains Kaur Gurmanjot, Because I am a Woman, Retrieved December 3. 2006 from http://www. livepunjab. com/node/1954/print Jacobw500, Role of Women in China – Ancient times and Today, Retrieved December 3, 2006 From http://www. planetpapers. com/Assets/4637. php Lewis Jone Johnson, Women and Marriage in Ancient Rome – Chapter 1, Retrieved December 3, 2006 from http://womenshistory. about. com/cs/ancientrome/a/roman_wm_10101b. htm Mason K. Moya, Ancient Roman Women: A Look at their Lives, Retrieved December 3, 2006. From http://www. moyak. com/researcher/resume/papers/roman_women. html Modern Times 1950-Present Day, Retrieved December 3, 2006 from http://www. angelfire. com/ca/HistoryGals/Elisa. html Samurai Sisters: Early Feudal Japan, Retrieved December 3, 2006 from http://www. womeninworldhistory. com/sample-08. html Walsh John W. Women in Ancient Israel, Retrieved December 3, 2006 from http://www. crystalinks. com/egyptianwomen. html What is it all about – in a nutshell? Retrieved December 2, 2006 from http://www. womenpriests. org/summary. asp.

Business law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Business law - Essay Example There are three main factors to be considered in securing a safe venue; getting a proper developing, implementing and managing (D.I.M.) process, obeying standards of practice and dealing with crowd management (Matt 2012). The D.I.M. process begins with identification of risks and categorizing them followed by classifying the risks depending on their severity and lastly selection of a risk treatment method. Treating risks is done in four ways; risk avoidance, risk transfer, risk retention and risk reduction (Matt 2012). Risk avoidance is done through discontinuation of the program or lack of inclusion of the content. Risk transfer is done through hiring of a third party and ensuring they sign a waiver thus limiting liability .Risk retention is carried out through the company retaining the risk and taking up responsibility for compensation of injuries or financial risks occurred. Risk reduction is done through immediate implementation which is crucial since it is done after risk identi fication to lessen the impact of a lawsuit. Employee involvement is recommended together with written documentation on the happenings.in large scale venues, it is cost effective to hire a risk manager to oversee the plan so as to reduce liabilities resulting in repeat customers. Standards of practice are safety codes representing opinion consensus with the approval of an industry’s professional segment. They are requirements needed of an establishment and minimize liability associated with negligence when adhered to and increase liability when disregarded by the defendant. Crowd management is a fundamental aspect of risk management since it helps in the provision of a safe and enjoyable event. This means management of guests’ movement, emergency assistance and accommodation of special needs guests. There are six elements in crowd control and handling; clear signage for ease of movement, staff training on dealing with any happening, good communication system, emergency action plan, written policies regarding intoxicated patrons with disruptive behavior and implementation and evaluation of plans after every event (Matt 2012). These steps help in maximizing risk reduction when implemented correctly. Negligence has been the root cause of risk management cases causing ripples in the sport industry like the example below was due to failure to provide a secure and safe environment. In the December of 2002,Michelle Heenan, a single 39 year old North Philadelphia resident who worked as an administrative assistant at a local hospital, together with company went to attend a Guns n Roses concert at the Wachovia center, previously known as the First Union center. Slightly after 11pm, after a few curtain raising acts an announcement was made that the main act would not perform thus the show was cancelled. The irate fans vented their anger by throwing food and drinks from the upper decks everywhere (Matt 2012). On sensing the lurking danger, this being a rock c rowd, Heenan ran towards the nearest exit and in the process, got caught up in the frenzy, fell and ended up injuring her ankle which got a plate and three screws inserted. Her injuries cost her two months of work and permanent inability to participate in activities such as skiing and rollerblading. Heenan filed a suit against Comcast Spectator and Spectrum Arena

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Case analysis Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Analysis - Case Study Example , they have not managed to make significant inroads into the rapidly expanding Indian economy which despite being Asian and sharing a common border with them practiced a different culture. In recognition of this scenario, Haier launched in India in 2004 and appointed Banerjee T. K., an Indian National as its president for the country’s operations. They adopted the three-in-one strategy that had been successfully adopted in other global markets like America and Europe. The first step of the strategy involved exportation with no fixed distributor. The second step introduced a centralized distributor. The third step saw the company set up a manufacturing plant in the country. Their market analysis determined that for Haier to break into the top three home appliances brands in India the company had to adopt a localization strategy and an aggressive marketing campaign. They adopted this measures but despite their efforts the company only managed a 7.7 percent turnover increase within India in the 5 years of Banerjee’s presidency. With respect to the situation and the fact that the Indian investment was not paying off Erick Braganza was appointed as president in 2009. The company’s human resource underwent an overhaul, operations streamlined and a new marketing strategy adopted. In response to this measures the company experienced a period of growth and increase in turnover, though the sustainability of this growth was questioned. Determining the sustainability of Haier’s growth in India necessitates a market and situational analysis. A situational analysis of Haier’s position in India shows that they; had a bad reputation as low quality electronics imitators whose only advantage was low product prices; cultural differences, most of India’s population residing in rural areas meant that there was a cultural clash between the Chinese owned company and rural Indian market; high Indian government imposed tariffs on foreign owned business establishments that

Media ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Media ethics - Essay Example Danger in so many ways is and continues to be one of the hazards of the trade. The advent of technology has brought forth a new media that allows for and searches for a new definition of press freedom. In this new avenue, censorship is becoming a mere obstacle that can be hurdled. This is not to say that oppressive governments cannot find their way into the loop but admit it or not, it has opened up a number of possibilities that allows for creativity. In the same way that administrations found alternative ways to deal with the issue and avert from the muckraking that is ruinous to them. The Asian region remains the front line in terms of censorship. The communist nations of China and Vietnam records the most number of jailed web radicals to date. The issue of censorship will never seem to elude the continent as oppressive governments are persistent upon their unruly implementation or lack thereof of press freedom. The World Wide Web has turned into a battlefield where journalists, guised in anonymity, can express themselves and expose subsequent governments. But in a number of times, this is not without its undue consequences entailed (Kushner, par. 1-2). The current trend, as Adam B. Kushner of Newsweek said is that, â€Å"governments dont just censor, they scare.† With the 210 million users of Internet in China, the government has long realized that it will be impossible to police all of them, and so in a last ditch effort for control, text messages have circulated that aims to jolt fear in common and oftentimes apolitical masses. This is a type of surveillance wherein authorities make it seem they are scattered all over to prevent and taunt those who desire to search for materials online. On a regular basis, China denies access to 19,000 websites that are considered threatening by the Chinese government according to a study conducted by the Harvard Law School. The study found out that the capital, Beijing, blocks