Friday, January 24, 2020

What is Worldview? Essay examples -- Christian Worldview, Biblical Wor

After reading the fourth chapter heading of Consider, the first definition of worldview that came to my mind was â€Å"view of the world† just from a literary perspective. The co-authors defined worldview as â€Å"a framework a person brings to decision-making† (Weider & Gutierrez, 2011, p.51). Everyone has a worldview with main characteristics that are ever changing. Different sources influence this framework such as parenting, friendship, telecommunication or internet media, educational and religious sectors. Hindson and Caner (2008) propose standardization methods of worldview are measured either by emotions and feelings, socialism, or the truth (Hindson & Caner, 2008, p.499). Recognition of a person’s worldview can be found based on ones answer to several reality questions surrounding God (origin), human nature (identity), reality (meaning/purpose), after life (destiny), values (morality or ethics). My own definition of worldview is set of beliefs about the most important issues in life and my reaction to it. While in agreement with Jeff Baldwin’s eyeglass concept, I choose to compare my Christian worldview to an internal navigational system. When I am lost and need to be found, Christ is omnipresent. He knows my location and guides me into another direction. â€Å"It’s a roadmap, a guide for getting around in life, for interpreting reality, and for making choices† (The Importance of Worldview, 2011, p.11). Hopefully my final destination will be in the â€Å"city of gold, as clear as glass† (NLT, Revelation, 21:18). â€Æ' BIBLICAL/CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW The Question of Origin As the first book of the Old Testament convey, Genesis, and its Greek meaning â€Å"in the beginning,† life originated with God in the Garden of Eden. Accor... ...concerns that I have for others. Work Hard From Genesis throughout the New Testament, God put us humans to work. The Bible condemns laziness (Proverbs 19:15) and every man or woman should be providers of their household through hard work (Proverbs 14:23). Personally, I cannot find anything in the Scripture that will guide me towards a certain career path. However, in all jobs Christians must work wholeheartedly by exceling in performance not for the employer but for Christ (Colossians 3:23) â€Æ' References A Sure Foundation. SMI Healthcare Bible Study (The Importance of Worldview, 2011, p.11) Retrieved from http://www.thesmi.org/HCBS/hcbs2.PDF Hindson, E., & Caner, E. (2008). The Populer Encyclopedia of Apologetics. Eugene: Harvest House Publishers. Weider, L., & Gutierrez, B. (2011). Consider. Virginia Beach: Academx Publishing Services, Inc

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Enager Industries

Enager Industries, Inc. Accounting Consultant’s Report  · Introduction Enager Industries, Inc. was a relatively young company that consisted of three divisions with distinct services and products. At the urging of CFO Henry Hubbard, Enager’s president, Carl Randall, had decided to begin treating each division as an investment center, so as to be able to relate each division’s profit to the assets the division used to generate it profits.  · Analysis However, several issues arose regarding this performance evaluation method and other management control choices. First of all, profitable new project at Consumer Products Division, whose return was 13% calculated from Exhibit 3, could not get approved from upper management because it could not reach the pre-determined universal target return of at least 15 percent, even if all the divisions had completely different line of business. This could potentially discourage product development managers’ incentive to engage in new projects. More importantly, the company could miss out the opportunity on new products in the long-run, although it might not have a large return right away in the short-run. Secondly, the president of the company, Carl Randall, was both puzzled and disappointed at the discrepancies among the performance evaluation parameters of the company in 1993. Both ROA and gross return dropped from 1992, while return on sales and return on owners’ equity increased. There were also discrepancies across different divisions, as Professional Service easily exceeded the 12% gross return target; while other two divisions, especially the Industrial Product division had a ROA that was only 6. 9%. These discrepancies could increase the difficulties for the top management to understand the performance, thus hindered manager’s ability to make good decisions. Last but not least, general manager of Industrial Product Division was put much pressure by Randall, the president, because the division â€Å"fell behind† compared to the other two in terms of ROA. The divisional general manager argued that they could have achieved a higher ROA if they had older assets as Consumer Products Division did, but Randall could not understand the relevance of the argument. This is not only a communication problem, but also an evaluation problem caused by the inappropriate treatment of the assets value that is used in calculating ROA. By analyzing the management problems mentioned above, in can be concluded that these problems are the consequences of several management control mistakes, including unreasonable target setting, inefficient method of performance evaluation, and problematic treatment of assets value. Top management of Enager should not set an identical goal for all the divisions since all the divisions engaged in distinct service or production. The nature of those distinct businesses certainly required different amount of assets to operate, and they would face different levels of competition, and they would surely have different profit margins. Therefore, it was unreasonable only using one single target return to evaluation all the new projects from all three divisions to determine if the projects were profitable. In the case, McNeil’s proposal was rejected because it did not meet the 15% target return. However, the new project did have a favorable residual income and demonstrated the a return of 13%, which can increase the EPS for the company. If any benchmark were to be set to evaluate the profitability of new projects, it should be carefully engineered according to specific situation that can be applied to specific division, with the comparison to other competitors in the industry or to past performance. For example, Enager can establish a standard costing system based on historical and external information (including financial information, market information, etc) that can allows management to create a standard profit level. A standard costing system can further allows cost and profit variance analysis, which can be a very powerful tool for management control later on. There were also too many confounding factors in calculating ROA in Enager’s case. Firstly, using net book value of assets (as shown in Exhibit2) in calculating the ROA would surely put those divisions with newer assets in disadvantage. With less depreciation, divisions with newer assets will have lower ROA due to a larger denominator of assets value. The more reasonable way in this case is to use the fair market value, which can better represent the assets’ value in producing profit. Secondly, it is unreasonable to allocate corporate expenses and assets to certain divisions based on divisional revenue. Since each division had different services and products, revenue could not be the basis of allocating those corporate expenses and assets that did not reflect performance of each division. These confounding factors may be able to explain those discrepancies Randall was confused about. As such, the use of ROA in this case is an ineffective method of performance evaluation.  · Recommendation Based on the previous analysis, the solution to this case is to implement a new method of performance evaluation since ROA is such an ineffective method of performance evaluation. One alternative worth perusing is to use the Balanced Scorecard method to evaluate division performance. Instead of measuring the performance only using financial data, Balanced Scorecard methods requires business units to be assigned goals and then measured form the perspectives of financial, customer, internal business and innovation and learning. For example, Enager can evaluate the divisions based on the quality of the products, level of innovation, employees’ contribution to the whole company, etc. Balanced Scorecard can be a very critical supplement to financial data because it is part of strategy planning. The Industrial Products group may no longer be under evaluated because of less-than-perfect financial data. Essentially, a Balanced Scorecard method allows the manger to see the big picture on the strategic level. A Balanced Scorecard method can also promote balances among different strategies in an effort to achieve goal congruence, thus encouraging employees to act in the organization’s best interest. Profitable new projects, like the one that McNeil had proposed, would have a chance of getting approved because it would benefit the company as a whole since it could increase Enager’s EPS. Another advantage of implementing Balanced Score card is that it promotes comparability among different divisions with distinct line of business. Unlike ROA, Balanced Scorecard taken in to accounts of different perspective of the business into account, since the comprehensive value of the division is reflected in the Balanced Score card design. By implementing Balanced Score card method, the upper management of Enager can obtain a broad-base view of the company in terms of goals and strategy. Although it requires additional work for executives to choose a mix of measurement that accurately reflect the critical factors that will determine the success of the company, it is a better alternative here than ROA as a performance evaluation method.

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Famous Latin Americans in History

The history of Latin America is packed full of influential people: dictators and statesmen, rebels and reformers, artists and entertainers. How to pick the ten most important? My criteria for compiling this list were that the person had to have made an important difference in his or her world, and had to have international importance. My ten most important, listed chronologically, are: Bartolomà © de Las Casas  (1484–1566) Although not actually born in Latin America, there can be no doubt about where his heart was. This Dominican friar fought for freedom and native rights in the early days of conquest and colonization, placing himself squarely in the way of those who would exploit and abuse the natives. If not for him, the horrors of the conquest would have been immeasurably worse.Simà ³n Bolà ­var  (1783–1830) The George Washington of South America led the way to freedom for millions of South Americans. His great charisma combined with military acumen made him the greatest of the different leaders of the Latin American Independence movement. He is responsible for the liberation of the present-day nations of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.Diego Rivera (1886–1957) Diego Rivera may not have been the only Mexican muralist, but he was certainly the most famous. Together with David Alfaro Siquieros and Josà © Clemente Orozco , they brought art out of the museums and into the streets, inviting international controversy at every turn.Augusto Pinochet  (1915–2006) Chiles dictator between 1974 and 1990, Pinochet was one of the leading figures in Operation Condor, an effort to intimidate and murder leftist opposition leaders. Operation Condor was a joint effort among Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Brazil, all with the support of the United States Government.Fidel Castro  (1926–2016) The fiery revolutionary turned irascible statesman has had a profound effect on world politics for fifty years. A thorn in the side of American leaders since the Eisenhower administration, he has been a beacon of resistance for anti-imperialists.Roberto Gà ³mez Bolaà ±os (Chespirito, el Chavo del 8) (1929–2014) Not every Latin American youll ever meet will recognize the name Roberto Gà ³mez Bolaà ±os, but everyone from Mexico to Argentina will know el Chavo del 8, the fictional eight -year-old boy portrayed by Gà ³mez (whose stage name is Chespirito) for decades. Chespirito has worked in Television for over 40 years, creating iconic series such as El Chavo del 8 and el Chapulà ­n Colorado (The Red Grasshopper).​Gabriel Garcà ­a Mà ¡rquez (1927–2014) Gabriel Garcà ­a Mà ¡rquez did not invent Magical realism, that most Latin American of literary genres, but he perfected it. The winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature is Latin Americas most celebrated writer, and his works have been translated into dozens of languages and have sold millions of copies.Edison Arantes do Nascimento Pelà © (1940–) Brazils favorite son and arguably the best soccer player of all time, Pelà © later became famous for his tireless work on behalf of Brazils poor and downtrodden and as an ambassador for soccer. The universal admiration in which Brazilians hold him has also contributed to a decrease in racism in his home country.Pablo Escobar (1949–199 3) The legendary drug lord of Medellà ­n, Colombia, was once considered by Forbes Magazine to be the seventh-richest man in the world. At the height of his power, he was the most powerful man in Colombia and his drug empire stretched around the world. In his rise to power, he was greatly aided by the support of Colombias poor, who viewed him as a sort of Robin Hood.Rigoberta Menchà º (1959–) A native of the rural province of Quichà ©, Guatemala, Rigoberta Menchà º and her family were involved in the bitter struggle for indigenous rights. She rose to prominence in 1982 when her autobiography was ghost-written by Elizabeth Burgos. Menchà º turned the resulting international attention into a platform for activism, and she was awarded the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. She continues to be a world leader in native rights.