High School and Kyle

Being rich, famous and good looking has its up and downs. Kyle Kingsbury is a high school student who is currently in the ninth grade at Tuttle. He has the total package he has blonde hair blue eyes, he is good looking, tall, and rich. Kyle is the most popular boy at his high school. He is very rude to people that he considered were ugly. In his mind he thought that no ugly people should have a conversation with him. Kendra Hilferty decided to teach Kyle a lesson by punishing him for being rude to people. Kendra cast a spell on Kyle. The spell turned Kyle into an ugly hairy beast. This spell would last for two years. Kyle had to find someone who loved him for his personality because he now looks like a beast. She must also prove her love through a kiss to break the spell. He would not be able to use his money or his good looks to help him out in this situation. If Kyle does not find someone to love him for his personality within two years he would live a beast for the rest of his life. Kyle appearances as a beast are just as they seem. He walks upright almost as if he were a human. His teeth are now fangs. His fingers were now claws. Kyle hair was all over his body. I can’t touch Kyle in person, but I imagine that he would feel like a furry dog or monkey. Kyle voice became deeper as a beast. He would roar from time to time when he became upset. He would more than likely to have the smell of an animal such as a dog, monkey, or bear. I wouldn’t know what he taste like because he is a human beast that is not edible. Kyle would be treated differently as a beast because he was ugly and hairy. Most people wouldn’t want anything to do with him. They would be afraid of how big he was. His own father disowned him so you could imagine what a stranger would do for him. This spell will teach Kyle not to go around treating people differently just because they looked different, didn’t have any money, or didn’t fit into the particular popular crowd. Kyle is a young man that thinks that the world revolves around him. He was rich, good looking, and popular. He did not associate with people who he thought was ugly. He was rude to people on a regular basis. Kendra thought she would teach Kyle a lesson by casting a spell on him to turn him into a beast. He would now see and know firsthand what it feels like to be ugly and unpopular.

12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose

The movie â€Å"Twelve Angry Men† by Reginald Rose is a drama that displays twelve jurors' in-depth reasoning to decide a unanimous decision on the defendant's sentence. There are many assets and liabilities of the group that play a role in their decision making. The jurors are all defined in terms of their personalities, backgrounds, prejudices and emotional tilts. This paper will argue that when pride, jealousy, frustration and prejudice all emerge we see irrational and rational decision making methods.The assets of group is shown when juror#8 starts a different approach to evidence by showing the knife that was thought to be rare. It starts the process of participation in problem solving by other jury members who may have made up their mind or were just feeling conformity pressure. Greater sum of individual's total information starts to helps jury make a better decision. Liabilities of a group are show when every one except juror# 8 raise their hand feeling conformity press ure. There is desire of individual shown by juror# 3 to dominate and win the argument rather than finding a best solution.Lack of interest is shown by juror# 7 to reason or spend time to solve problem. There are prejudice feelings shown by juror# 10 and 7, they think juror# 5 and 11 do not know much because of their backgrounds. Each group determines assets and liabilities of their group's problem solving. As long disagreement is not personal and is in interest of best solution it's healthy. Time required to solve a problem is uncertain, members might get impatient and solve problem without reasoning. Risk taking is either good or bad depending on how a group uses it.Each group has a different problem to solve and different personalities to work with which is why each group can use assets and liabilities positively and negatively. Throughout the film, Juror Ten is violently prejudiced against anyone who comes from a slum. â€Å"You can't believe a word they say,† he declares – take note that Juror Ten does not say â€Å"he,† meaning the defendant, but â€Å"they,† the group of slums as a whole. This proves that he cannot make a fair judgment about individual guilt.Juror Nine, the senior man with accumulated life experience, notices this and rebukes immediately saying â€Å"Since when is dishonesty a group characteristic? † The intolerance of Juror Ten continues before finally erupting in a long speech that leads the other jurors to reject him. The message is clear that such irrational prejudice is incompatible with justice. Juror Four also shows signs of such prejudice, though he couches it in more acceptable words: â€Å"The children who come out of slum backgrounds are potential menaces to society. When a person hears the word prejudice, he or she might think it only refers to the racial prejudice often found between those with light skin and those with dark skin. However, prejudice runs much deeper than a person's color. Prejudice is found between gender, religion, cultural and geographical background, and race. People have discriminated against others based upon these attributes from the beginning of time. Prejudice has become a complex problem in our society; for example, if someone were to walk in a secluded area at night and pass a group of senior citizens, he or she will, most likely, not feel threatened.However, if instead of senior citizens, three teenagers dressed in ripped jeans and t-shirts wearing metal chains around their necks passed the person is more likely to feel threatened. Prejudice is the sad truth of today’s society. Whether it’s from watching the local news or reading the newspaper, many people base stereotypes on the media or personal experiences. Although these are the most convenient ways to judge someone, they are also the worst. Whenever dealing with the media, events are dramatized and slowly build into the subconscious. The affects of prejudice then influen ce our decisions without us even realizing it.

Arrogance in Oedipus the King and Job

In this article I will explain how arrogance plays an important role in literature. Before you begin, you need to fully understand what arrogance is. Pride does not allow you to think or listen to important things if it does not differ from your ideas or ideology. When becoming arrogant, they are better than others, and eventually immerse themselves in the real nature of the situation. To illustrate this point we compare the Biblical text Job with the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex written by two literary works, Sophocles. Among the kings of Sophocles' Oedipus, Oedipus was in charge of his tragedy. From his arrogance and stubborn character he was urged to make an impulsive decision, which ultimately led to his disappointment. Edipus and the people around it thought that fate was the root of Edipus 's problem, but Edepus' decision showed the audience he was responsible for. Edips is a constantly moving person. When the priests began seeking his help, he was sending Kryon to God to find God 's advice. When chorus is displayed ... Show details The quality of King Oedipus is fine, but he has many weaknesses leading to his disappointment. King Oedipus was drawn as a relatively unstable and arrogant ruler and he accused Teiresias that he plans to immediately acquire the throne in Kryon. As a man, Edeps is depicted as overconfidence and arrogance. Edips first fleeed Corinth to change his fate and confidently believed that he avoided his unhappy prophecies. The fact that he murdered an unknown man on the road to Thebes also revealed his temper. The main weakness of Oedipus as her husband is that he accepts his wife's advice and no longer asks for answers. Excessive self confidence and persistence in finding the truth of Edips, learned that he had fulfilled the prophecy, which ruined his life. King Oedipus is a drama about his struggle between the famous king and free will and his so-called fate. Edeps is predicted to kill his father and marry his mother. After learning the p rophecy, Edeps had acted immediately and left home Collins to avoid so-called parents. In King Oedipus, Sophocles showed that the action of Oedipus contributed to his downfall; this was his innocence and was very proud. At this point the speaker noticed that the foundation of his travel is the desire to find his house in heaven. Sailors are one of the most poems written in English. As I have seen, there are many discussions in the situation of the speaker, many people oppose it. This is almost certainly not agreed, but speakers always think that they are the same person.

Medicare, Medicaid Billing and Equipment Fraud Essay

Medicare, Medicaid Billing and Equipment Fraud - Essay Example However, according to anonymous (3), the Congressional Budget Office estimated total Medicare spending in 2010 to be $528 billion, giving a rough estimate of approximately 9% waste. The Medicare and medic aid are fraud targets as they are founded on the billing system of â€Å"honor†. They were initially set-up as an aid to honest doctors who could help the needy access medical services. Medicare fraud is evident in phantom billing, patient billing, and upcoding unbundling scheme. Durable medical equipment is also pruned to medical fraud. Examples of this equipment include oxygen supplies and wheelchairs. In equipment fraud, scammers charge Medicare for a similar wheelchair for many times without actually giving the chair to actual persons. The most recent cases of Medicare fraud focuses on infusion injections on HIV/AIDS. These injections are very expensive but patients are normally injected with common liquids or saline solutions (Anonymous 5). However, Medicare is billed in such way that shows that the expensive injection was really given. With current trends in such frauds, only law and ethical issues can stop the practice.

Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 9

Marketing - Essay Example Cervo & Allen (2011 p.67) revealing the client information may not only raise ethical concerns, but also alienates the customers from the business. In attempt to unravel this dilemma, business critics have suggested a number of possible effects that would occur if a firm opts to disclose such information. The case study illustrates the above problem and provides a suggestion on how to handle the problem. Marketing issues at stake The primary marketing issue at stake is the leaking of customer secret information. IFA marketing executives have sought confidential information of customers of ShopSense. The marketing executives of IFA believe that confidential information about consumers of foodstuffs would be useful in developing products for their customers. However, extracting such information from another company such as ShopSense is not easy. A major concern raised against the idea is the detrimental effects that leaking such information may have on the reputation of the company. Es tablishing confidence of the consumers as well as maintaining a consistent customer takes long. The two firms seem to acknowledge this fact. The relationship between the business and the firm hangs on respects to the mutual agreement consented to by both parties (Russo, 2010 p.167). The deal seems lucrative, but poses serious challenges to ShopSense. Arguably, clients of this firm have demonstrated their trust to the firm. In addition, they have maintained trust to the firm by consistently buying their products from the firm. This means that disclosing the information is an attempt to break the bond between the firm and the clients. The nagging question is who should allow the dissemination of the client’s private information. Compare and contrast the advice provided by different critics. A common observation made by the marketing critics is the sensitivity of the information kept by ShopSense. ShopSense values the customers’ information more than IFA. In this sense, i t means that disclosing information about the client would affect their business adversely. Clients of ShopSense seem to confide in the company. However, disclosing such information for financial benefit seems to have a short-term benefit to ShopSense. In business, the benefits derived from any decision dictates the present and the future of the business. The critics have demonstrated their stands concerning the idea. George L Jones for instance argues that the engagement between IFA and ShopSense is valid provided that the clients of ShopSense do not feel the reverberations of the leaked information. Katherine Lemmon argues that the issue in this case is disclosing unintended information to another party. She believes that the consumers are likely to lose the trust they have to the company an aspect that might Influence the overall performance of the ShopSence. In essence, she believes that the decision about disclosing or not disclosing the non intended information would be valid if it would not spark any concerns that would have a negative impacts to the company. Norton and McCallister share the similar information that the scorecard of the ShopSense is the confidence that they have built from their customers. This means that the activity is not only risky, but also attracts ethical concerns. All the critics seem to suggest that the opportunity may not be fruitful at the long run. In all the cases cited, the integrity of the company disclosing this information would

The Hazards of taking childeren out to eat Essay

The Hazards of taking childeren out to eat - Essay Example McDonalds, for example, has a clown as its mascot, Ronald McDonald. It has playgrounds for children and special toys that come with its food. Given a choice, children will clamour to go to these special places. The food they will eat there, unfortunately, will not be good for them. These restaurants know that if they can lure children into their restaurants they will get money from the parents. Pandering to children is a good business model for many restaurants. Additionally, it is important to note that children like sugar and junk food. These restaurants ensure that they have these things on their menus. This food is not good for children. Parents who do not take their children out to eat have much more control over their childrens diets. They can cook with fresh food and will know exactly what is in each meal. They can avoid sugary and fat foods and make sure that their children are eating properly. Food packed with vitamins and nutrients notably helped boost mental performance as youngsters got older, the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reports. Researchers said toddlers diets could change IQ levels later in childhood, even if eating habits improve with age. "This suggests that any cognitive/behavioural effects relating to eating habits in early childhood may well persist into later childhood, despite any subsequent changes to dietary intake," the authors wrote (Guardian). The fix is in. Many fast food restaurants have very low standards when it comes to food, and yet their food is incredibly attractive to children. We have to remember just how hazardous this kind of food is to childrens health. As one report recently put it: â€Å"One out of three children will come down with diabetes. One out of five children now has hypertension. Doctors are seeing children as young as 2 and 3 years old with the beginnings of heart disease† (Ringle). Nothing is more

With reference to a specific firm, discuss the role of different Essay

With reference to a specific firm, discuss the role of different sources of knowledge in the innovation process - Essay Example Interactive learning mainly takes place between companies and other organizations like technology service providers, knowledge providers, and customers. This paper aims to discuss the role of sources of knowledge in innovation process of Coca-Cola Company. The Coca-Cola Company has highly benefited from its sources of innovation knowledge, which has highly enabled the company to venture almost in the entire globe (Mazzarol, Elena, and Delwyn 2014, p. 84). Sourcing international innovation knowledge enables Coca-Cola Company to engage in continuous process of innovation that enables the company to stay ahead of its competitors. When there are barriers in the local markets, the company is able to expand into oversea markets hence overcoming these barriers. It is only through external avenues and sources of innovation knowledge that has enabled Coca-Cola Company to dominate many markets around the world (Rothwell 1994, p. 13). However, innovation knowledge sources do not always generate pecuniary benefits to Coca-Cola. Nevertheless, these external sources of innovation knowledge play a vital role of ensuring that the company sustains its innovation process and gives the company a reputation of being the leading soft drinks company in the world (Masegosa, Villacorta, & Cruz-Corona 2014, p. 72). Building relationships and networks with other successful companies is clearly the key to Coca-Cola success since this enables the company to sustain access of international innovation knowledge (Uecke 2012, p. 60). Therefore, companies should not underestimate the significance of their informal networks. The innovation knowledge sources have enabled Coca-Cola Company to define its market dominance ensuring the firm’s success through the implementation of significance global operations that enable the company to control its programs in a unified approach. Secondly, Coca-Cola defines the international quality and regulatory

Youth and drugs Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Youth and drugs - Research Proposal Example health, how education institution can influence this trend, and what addicted persons can do to get help, which gender is the most vulnerable, and many other questions. In order to get an answer to these questions it is necessary for a research to be carried out. This is a research proposal for a research on youth and drugs. Youth and drugs is not a new thing, as it has been mentioned and studied a number of times before by other researchers. However, it should be noted that there have always been a difference in findings in these studies. Furthermore, most of these researches focus on specific aspects or questions relating to youth and drugs. This makes it easier to carry out a research on this topic because of the fact that there are relevant findings that had already been availed in the reports written after the various studies and researches were carried out by different people with different perspectives and missions. It should be noted that drug abuse among the youth is a social, health, and economic concern. This is because it can hinder the performance of the youth who form a significant part of the total population of human beings globally. This implies that it is a problem that in many occasions has been undermined, but should be looked into with the seriousness that it deserves. Michelle Miller†Day looked at the role of parenting strategies on late adolescent and drug abuse. She asserts that the strategies used in talking to the youth about drugs sometimes are effective because parents do not want to be straight about the issue. Vardakou, Pistos, and Spiliopoulou assert that the use of the internet by the youth can be said to one of the factors that lead to the high rates of drug abuse among the youth. Duff (2003) carried out a research on the contribution of the youth culture to the rate of drug abuse in Australia. They found out that the youth culture was a significant contributor to drug abuse among the youth in Australia. Wilens and Biederman

How does online shoppers' behaviour differ from traditional shoppers Essay

How does online shoppers' behaviour differ from traditional shoppers (see full queation attch on folder) - Essay Example This essay examines the various factors that influence the differences between traditional shoppers and online shoppers, namely, price awareness or sensitivity, size preference, brand perception or loyalty, economic and non-economic motivations, information availability, impulsiveness, and the buying process. Contents Page Section Title Page Number I. Introduction 5 1.1. Problem Statement 6 1.2 Research Rationale 6 II. Review of Related Literature 7 2.1.Differences between Traditional Shoppers and Online Shoppers 7 2.2. The Buying Process 8 2.3. Impulse Buying 9 2.4. Information Availability and Search Costs 10 2.5. Non-Economic Motives 15 2.6. Economic Motives 19 2.7. Brand Loyalty and Size Preference 21 2.8. Price Awareness/Consideration 23 III. Conclusions 24 I. Introduction In reaction to the rapidly changing and enlarging online business activities, scholarly studies on electronic commerce, or e-commerce, is increasing dramatically, as well. A wide range of research topics has b een studied by scholars from a variety of disciplines. Digital technology has generated new ideas and led to major transformations in people’s communication, interaction, and behaviour. The concept of ‘e-commerce’ mainly denotes the process of information exchange and transactions between commercial entities and consumers (Kim et al., 2002). E-commerce provides retailers new ways of reaching consumers and penetrating markets previously inaccessible. A particular area of research on e-commerce is the difference between consumers’ behaviour online and in traditional shopping contexts. In spite of the dramatic increase of online businesses and well documented rivalry between traditional and online stores, there is a surprising lack of empirical research on behavioural differences between online shoppers and traditional shoppers. According to Close (2012), research subjects on this field are primarily interested in identifying disparities in shoppers’ p urchase behaviour and decision-making processes, and providing interpretations of the discovered behavioural differences. 1.1. Problem Statement Traditional shopping and online shopping have numerous differences, as well as similarities. Online shopping could offer interactive activities, convenience, and expediency, and the traditional or, also referred to as brick-and-mortar, shopping could offer customers actual experience with products and/or services and a more relaxing shopping environment (Hoyer & MacInnis, 2008). Both online and traditional stores are exerting considerable efforts enhancing their services. This essay investigates how online shoppers’ behaviour differs from traditional shoppers. In order to provide a comprehensive analysis of the issue, this essay examines the various factors that influence the differences between traditional shoppers and online shoppers, namely, price awareness or sensitivity, size preference, brand perception or loyalty, economic and non-economic motivations, information availability, impulsiveness, and the buying process. 1.2. Research Rationale This investigation is carried out due to the continuous expansion of e-commerce, which, consequently, influences consumer behaviour. It is important to understand the behavioural differences between traditional shoppers and online shoppers, especially for marketers and entrepreneurs, because such differences are indicative of the strengths and weaknesses of each shopping medium. II.

Diversity in Work and Organisation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Diversity in Work and Organisation - Essay Example It must change to reflect the said diversity and in so doing, partially contribute towards the amelioration of cross-cultural, transnational and cross-linguistic paradigms (Hon and Brunner, 2000; Grin and Korth, 2005; Morrison, 2006). If they are to effectively perform within the bounds of multicultural societies and ethnically diverse markets, organizations must hire a diverse pool of talented people who bring skills such as language and cultural expertise to the equation. Changing demographic realties, whether on the local or the global level, have brought a plethora of challenges and opportunities to the fore. As regards opportunities, people who previously have been denied the opportunity for full development of their talents may achieve greater opportunities. However, these opportunities to minorities and diversity have been created through struggle, particularly opposition from the dominant majority. To alleviate these issues, organisations commonly talk about implementing diversity programs and other initiatives to increase understanding of different cultures and to help acclimate foreign individuals into society and, herein, lies the greatest challenge (Hon and Brunner, 2000; Grin and Korth, 2005; Morrison, 2006). The challenge to the positive and constructive exploitation of the opportunities which diversity promises lies in the management of diversity through the adoption of employee diversity training programmes, ultimately lending to the de velopment of an organisation's human resources. While the majority of Western companies have openly expressed their commitment to diversity management within an HRD context, Morrison (2006) argues that commitment has been largely limited to rhetoric, as opposed to action and HR training. Diversity rhetoric, as opposed to action, abounds. This does not imply, however, that the rhetoric is without value or does not have the potentially to constructively inform the design of diversity training programmes. As Edelman, Riggs, and Drita (2001) point out, the diversity rhetoric which pervades management and HR journals positively directs organisations towards the management of diversity, the value of diversity and the real-time benefits which organisations may accrue from adopting flexible management styles which are willing to defer to the interests of individuals, and able to resolve new types of conflicts that arise from various cultural backgrounds. Moreover, this new management style needs to be supportive of various lifestyles, able to match different types of people to appropriate jobs, and willing to accommodate different methods of accomplishing work and evaluating people (Edelman, Riggs and Drita, 2001). Diversity rhetoric has, in some cases, translated into a recipe for action. Companies have begun providing diversity training, particularly to managers. As early as 1991, a study of 406 organizations showed that 63% provided diversity training for managers, 50% provided a statement on diversity from top management, 39% provided diversity training for employees, and 31% had a diversity task force (Winterle, 1992). According to Gilbert and Ivancevich (2000), as organisations and societies have become

Ongkas Big Moka Essay Example for Free

Ongkas Big Moka Essay His moka as the culmination of feasts ending a particularly bitter war Lessons from the Film: *Illustrates the Big Man as hero but also as persuader, not commander *Complexity of competitive feasting, rival Big Men on all sides *The guests are not transformed, they remain enemies or rivals *The huge quantities of goods given away – does it seem strange to you? *Both redistribution and balanced leading to negative reciprocity here. General Notes: *Headmen can only persuade, not order people around. If he pushes too hard, people will not go along with him. *Ongka lives in the mens house which is communal. He has 4 wives and 9 children. Each wife has her own residence in which she lives with her children. *Cassowary – birds captured in the forest – given in Moka much like the Chinese give pandas to foreign dignitaries *Sweet potatoes are the food of humans and pigs. Food/shelter/clothes/tools come from the gardens and the forest, but to get ahead in life, one must have pigs. *Only 8-10 full grown pigs can be taken care of at a time. so, one must invest in other peoples pigs to gather together enough for a Moka. *Ongkas great skill is his speech-making abilities. He also has $1800 Australian dollars in a Mt. Hagen Savings Bank from the sale of coffee that comes from the mountains and the Kawelka. *Dressing up for Ongka meant to put on traditional garments, Bird of Paradise feathers, Cassowary feathers, etc. *What do they need money for? False teeth; transportation services; some clothes *Before the Moka, Ongka found an extra wife just because of her capacity for work to help Rumbicore with the pigs for the final Moka. *Riema upset the date for the Moka by saying that he and his group had done sorcery on a neighboring headman that caused him to die suddenly. Some of his pigs were killed and he had to go into hiding. The Moka finally happened and included:Ongka says it is the biggest Moka ever given.

Gender Identity Essay Example for Free

Gender Identity Essay There are a couple factors that determine gender identity; like genetic factors, environmental situations, psychosocial factors, and even sexual hormones. â€Å"Gender identity is almost always consistent with chromosomal sex. † (Rathus, S. A. , Nevid, J. S. , and Fichner-Rathus, L. 2005). From the moment sperm fertilized an ovum, our destiny to be a girl or a boy is chosen. Usually at this point; 23 chromosomes from the male donor and 23 from the female come together and combine to make a â€Å"zygote†. Starting about six weeks into the pregnancy, our bodies began to form and create into what they are meant to be, and after the seventh week, our genetic code (XY or XX) begins to really assert itself. Gender identity is not always a term referring to a person’s anatomic sex, â€Å"sex assignment† is now the correct term to ask a person their anatomic sex that occurred at birth. It is said that by 36 months old, most children are said to have a firm sense of their gender identity. Our genes play an important role in determining our gender identity. The SRY gene (which is the gene that determines the Y male gene) will bind to DNA and distort, and alter it, creating the testes. The gene called Sox 9 is the gene that regulates the expression of SRY. If Sox 9 did not get to regulate the SRY gene; it would turn into a male fetus. We without help from the SRY gene, female reproductive organs would form instead of male organs. Recent research suggests that as many as one in every hundred individuals may have some intersex characteristics. † (Domurat, 1998). Some people do not believe that their gender identity corresponds with their biological sex (mainly transgender people, but also including; transsexuals and inter-sexed individuals as well. ) Difficulties can begin because society maintains that a person must accept a manner of social gender roles, which is based on their sex, and the person may feel that it is not consistent with their gender identity. This is known as â€Å"gender identity disorder†, and by definition means that the individual is uncomfortable with their anatomic gender, and presents themselves or act like a member of the opposite sex. Masculinity and femininity are terms that we hear every day in our lives. For example, we hear that Shawn is so secure in his masculinity that he is comfortable being a house-husband or that Wendy’s mastectomy is threatening her sense of femininity. Even though most people think of masculinity and femininity on opposite ends of one continuum, it does not make it true. Just because an individual may possess some traits of both categories does not make them too masculine or feminine. Where a person should be placed on the masculinity and femininity continuum, all depends on the degree to which the show or report specific gender-linked qualities, and behaviors. The midpoint on this hypothetical continuum is known as the zero point, and if a person has failed to develop gender-role identification, or they have transcended it, then they would be placed at this point of the line. Those who show strong sex-role identifications would go at either one end or the other of the hypothetical continuum. One of the factors in my life that have helped determine my gender identity is; by nature I am a female because I have the sexual reproduction system of a female. That is not what makes me a female though. What makes me a female is how I carry myself in everyday life. I am secure in my womanhood, and have never felt like I should have been a male instead. I like to dress like a woman, talk like a woman, and even use manners that are considered â€Å"womanly†. I chose to keep long, pretty, unpolished fingernails, and I wear make-up on special occasions, but since I do not wear it all the time that does not make me masculine. I was raised in an environment that my parents, teachers, and any other important figures in my life treated me like a female; therefore, I act like a typical societal female. I even grew up with toys that were specifically designed for female use like; dolls and make-up, and cooking toys. The masculine and feminine traits that I attribute to myself using the hypothetical continuum are kind of split in some ways. I can identify with both points of view regarding females and males. My mother thought it best to teach me things that most of the time need a man. She taught me these â€Å"manly† activities because she believes that women should be independent and never need a man for anything. Women are just as good as men (she used to tell me), and women should never be made to feel differently on the subject. I whole-heartedly agree. In conclusion, gender identity and gender roles can cause some conflicts in some people within their daily lives. These disputes can be lessened when the individual is able to develop a secure masculine or feminine gender identity about how they perceive themselves. There are rites of passages that help young female into womanhood, or a young male into manhood, depending on the culture around you as to what the rite of passage may include. Once an individual has figured out what identifies them as either masculine or feminine, they will be able to progress their own positive feelings about masculinity and femininity.

Code of Ethics in Childcare

Code of Ethics in Childcare Ethical dilemma Ethical dilemma is a situation involving issues of right and wrong, duties, or obligations that have more than one defensible resolution, each of which can be justified in moral terms. It makes us think to choose what is right and wrong. Early childhood educators are faced with daily ethical dilemmas and moral conundrums that challenge our view of ourselves and the support we offer. The NZTC Code of Ethics is a tool that urges educators to privilege relationships with children, their families and the communities of which they are a part, and articulate these in terms of childrens growth and learning, just as New Zealand Code of Ethics is a tool that guides the educators to find their sense of what they ought to do. My 1st reaction I believe that we should follow the Curriculum. I accept that there is no Maori child in the centre but the children in the centre going to grow up and going for primary and higher studies and the situations in higher schools and colleges never going to be same like our centre. In early age children minds are fresh and accepting the morals and values what we are teaching them. If we not teaching them according to the curriculum at ECE centre then it going to be hard expecting respect from them for other cultures especially Maori. In respect of making them responsible citizens, I think us not playing our best role by not teaching them Maori at early age. It’s going to be new and hard for children to accept the bi-cultural curriculum at primary school level. They might not happily accept the Maori language in curriculum plus they might not be respectful toward the Maori culture. I agree that some parents might not happy with introducing their children with Maori language at centre. But my intentions is to introduce the language now to the children rather then they have to struggle in the future. Ethically I try to convince the teachers and parents to stick to the curriculum, which is more important. We all got to understand that Maori is the Native language of New Zealand and we can’t avoid it. Teach and model those positive values which are widely accepted in society and encourage learners to apply them and critically appreciate their significance. http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/required/ethics/coe-poster-english.pdf Identifying the stakeholders Teachers who want to implement Te Reo: Teachers are the main stakeholders in this situation. They are in a situation where it’s hard to choose what to do. 1st they have to think about the curriculum then about the opinions of staff members and the parents of children they teach. It’s more hard when other staff members justifying not to implement Te Reo and tikanga maori. Teachers who justifying don’t need to implement Te Reo: Teachers who are happy not to implement Te Reo. Even though they are right too in doing so in some stages, when they don’t have maori child in the centre. Teachers attend to the needs of children first and put children ahead of their own needs. They putting children ahead then the government agency. Parents who are happy with current situation: Those parents who are happy with not teaching maori to their children. Teachers have to consider their interests too when they don’t want their children to learn Maori. Gonzalez-Mena (2002) discusses the differences in individualism and collectivism with regard to early childhood education, and the difficulties that can arise when caregivers and family are at different ends of the continuum (Sarah Hartstone, personal communication Saturday, 23 January 2014, 10:35 AM) Parents who challenge the situation: Those parents who want to stick to the curriculum. Ministry of education: Ministry of education sets up the curriculum for early childhood which is bi-cultural and guide us to implement Te Reo. Children: Children at early stage learn through what they see. Children at that stage can’t make choices what they want to learn and what they don’t, especially if we talk about implementation of Te Reo. They learn about right and wrong not so much by what we say, but by what we do (Freeman,1997). Identifying the issues Personal Morality: We learned the differences between right and wrong through our life long experiences. We judge the things and situations on our decisions. Our personal moral decisions could be differ from social morality. Like in this situation my personal moral opinion is that we should be implementing the Te Reo and Tikanga Maori in centre even though if we don’t have maori children in centre. But the personal opinion of other educators could be totally different. They might don’t feel necessary to implement Te Reo when we don’t have any Maori child. Their 1st preference could be only best care for child and then curriculum or any other government agency is the second most preference. Ethical issues: Is it ethically necessary to implement Te Reo in the centre when we don’t have any Maori child in the centre? When we answering this question lots of issues comes to our mind like other staff member opinions, parents opinion, curriculum. We might not easily get the right idea what exactly is ethical acceptable. At this stage we need to follow the code of ethics. Cultural issues: The major problem in this situation is cultural issue. Staff members who wants to stick to the curriculum and wants to implement Te reo and tikanga Maori facing the major cultural issue. When they don’t have any Maori child in the centre. It’s quite pointless for some staff members and parents to teach Maori to non-Maori children. But if we look at wider picture the children just not going to stay in that centre they are going to explore themselves in further studies. Maori culture is a rich culture and heritage that have lot of moral values which is necessary for our children to learn when they are going to live in New Zealand. It’s important to learn about the history and native language of our country. Social issues: We are living in a society with majority of European and Maori in it. If Maori’s have learnt the English language then at least we should be knowing little bit of Maori culture and language. Our main responsibilities to make our children responsible citizens. To live with peace and love, it’s important that our children should have respect for other culture. If what we teaching children at home and what we teaching them at pre-school is same, then what is the benefit to send them to pre-schools!!? Actually we should be making them socially aware by teaching them about the native culture and language of New Zealand. Brainstorm solutions without evaluating them Early childhood services care for and care about children. The significance of caring and relationship both as an educational goal, and as a fundamental aspect of what the ECS does is recognised. We should stick to the Te Whariki which is bi-cultural and strictly pointing us to teach children both languages. ECS decisions do not conflict with what is in the best and appropriate interests of children and their parents/caregivers. Actions are not taken that could result in harm to any child and family associated with the ECS. A supportive, non-threatening and non-judgemental environment for children and parents/caregivers is provided. The ECS management and staff or contractors are conscious of their own biases and are careful not to let their personal and cultural views influence how they treat any child, parent, or group of children and families. It is important that our children should have knowledge of New Zealand native culture and language. If we follow the code of ethics even it tells us to teach Maori language in ECE centres. Code of Ethics for registered teachers Application of the Code of Ethics shall take account of the requirements of the law as well as the obligation of the teachers to honour The Treaty of Waitangi by paying particular attention to the rights and aspirations of Maori as tangata whenua. http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/required/ethics/coe-poster-english.pdf So, according to the Code of Ethics it is clarified that we should teach Maori language at centres. Our setting should be same, who knows when a Maori child get enrolled to the centre. We can’t say to the parents that sorry we have only European children studying in here. Even we can’t immediately start teaching Maori language, then other children going to find it difficult to understand and that why we changing the daily routine. According to Code of Ethics the professional interactions of teachers are governed by four fundamental principles: Autonomy Justice Responsible Care Truth Teacher should treat people with honour. They should share and prevent the abuse of power. Need to protect each and every ethnicity. They should be honest with their profession. As teacher we should be committed to these four code of ethics: COMMITMENT TO LEARNERS COMMITMENT TO PARENTS/GUARDIANS AND WHANUA COMMITMENT TO SOCIETY COMMITMENT TO THE PROFESSION The Sections a, b and c of Code number 3 Commitment to society a) actively support policies and programmes which promote equality of opportunity for all b) work collegially to develop schools and centres which model democratic ideals c) teach and model those positive values which are widely accepted in society and encourage learners to apply them and critically appreciate their significance. http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/required/ethics/coe-poster-english.pdf Help me to find good solutions that we need to promote equality of opportunity for all. We should support democratic ideas. We should be teaching positive values which are widely accepted. However, we have Maori children in our centre or not, but we need to stick to the Te Whariki. And we don’t know when new Maori child get enrolled to the centre. References New Zealand Code of Ethics for registered Teachers (NZTC,2004) Freeman,N.(1997, September). Using NAEYC’s code of ethics Mama and daddy Taught me Right from Wrong- Isn’t that enough?(pp.65) Sarah Hartstone (2014,January 23) Te Kea Kaha Day 9/10. (online forum comment) retrieved from Moodle: TEPS 751-14C (NET). New Zealand Code of Ethics for registered Teachers (NZTC,2004)

Beowulf Characters :: Epic of Beowulf Essays

Beowulf Characters Schyld Scefing: He is the first great king of the Danes, and upon his death he is given a remarkable burial at sea. He eventually becomes the great-grandfather of Hrothgar who is king during Grendel's attacks upon the Danes. Beowulf: A thane of the Geat king Hygelac and eventually becomes King of the Geats. Hrothgar: King of the Danes at the time of Grendel's constant attacks. During is reign as king he builds the hall (Heorot) as a tribute to his people and his peaceful reign. Heorot: The great hall that Hrothgar builds in celebration of his reign. Grendel: A descendant of Cain and a man/monster, Grendel attacks Heorot after Beowulf's arrival. Beowulf eventually kills him, with his severed arm hung as a trophy in Heorot. Wulfgar: A loyal thans of Hrothgar, Wiglaf is a watchman for the Danes and the first to greet Beowulf and his men to the land of the Danes. He also deems the Geat visitors as people worthy enough to meet with Hrothgar. Ecgtheow: He is Beowulf's father. He is a Waegmunding by birth and a Geat by marriage. When he was younger. Unferth: Unferth's name means "discord". He is a thane of Hrothgar's who taunts Beowulf in the hall about his swimming contest with Breca. However, Beowulf shames him in the boasting match. Wealhtheow: She is Hrothgar's queen and the mother of his two sons. Her name comes from the Anglo-Saxon words for "treasure bearer." She actually has the duty of presenting necklaces and mead-cups at court. Sigemund: Known as a famous dragon slayer, he is an ancient Germanic hero whose story is recounted after the fight with Grendel. Heremond: An ancient Danish king who fell from grace and became ruthlessly evil king. He is used by Hrothgar as a bad example of bad kingship for Beowulf. Hildeburh: She is an ancient Danish princess who was married into the Frisian royalty. Her story is recounted during the second feast for Beowulf at Heorot. Her brother and her son were both killed in a war with the Frisians at Finnesburh. Hrothulf: Hrothulf is Hrothgar's younger brother. Wealhtheow calls upon him to protect her young sons if it necessary to do so. Grendel's Mother: The of the man/monster Grendel she comes to Heorot seeking vengeance for the death of her son, and is killed by Beowulf. Aeschere: He is one of Hrothgar's important officials and trusted thanes.

Dance Quotes :: Drama

Dance Quotes "Dance isn't a form it's a way of life." ~anonymous "Dancers are the athletes of God." ~Albert Einstein "To tap or not to tap...silly question!!" ~anonymous "We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams." "Whatever you want to do, do it. There are only so many tomorrows" "Imagination is more important than knowledge" ~Albert Einstein "To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking." ~Agnes De Mille "If dancing were any easier it would be called football." ~anonymous "Quitters never win and winners never quit." ~anonymous "Try to be fearless, because fear can inhibit you and keep you from a life." ~Miranda Weese (NYCB) "If ballet was easy then everyone would be doing it." ~anonymous "Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another." ~anonymous "The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing... there are times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfill the function of a volume of words. There are movements which impinge upon the nerves with a strength that is incomparable, for movement has power to stir the senses and emotions, unique in itself. This is the dancer's justification for being, and his reason for searching further for deeper aspects of his art." ~Doris Humphrey, 1937 "Behind each victory is a long train of suffering!" ~anonymous "I don't have an attitude, I'm just REALLY good!" ~Dance Caravan "The people who do not dance are the dead." ~Jerry Rose of Dance Caravan "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels." ~anonymous "If you say you can you can, but if you say you can't your right!" ~anonymous "You know you're dancing when tears of pain and happiness blend in with your sweat" ~anonymous "We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams." "Artists lead unglamorous daily lives of discipline and routine, but their work is full of passion. Each has a vision and feels responsibility to that vision." ~Merryl Brockway "Dancers are an admirable bunch of people. The way they work. The stress is extraordinary. It's a difficult career. I think it's hellish; the fact that they are over the hill as they're emotionally

Elian Gonzalez :: essays research papers

The swarms of rumors and tons of media coverage form a shaded cloud around one boy, his name Elian Gonzalez. Elian has been crowded by cameras , flashes and political leaders all poking at his future. I believe that Elian should go home to Cuba where he could live peacefully out of the American media's blood hound reporters camera flashes and editorials. Elian's father and his family should be able to come to terms and decide on the fate of this young child. He is just being used as a puppet in the political war between Castro's Communism and Clinton's Democracy.I wish that the people of Miami would realize that Elian should not be given special rights to gain entrance to America. Since I have been to Cuba I am sure that there are many other people that would like to be able to travel and stay in America. That is not possible for them they are not cute enough or the center of a political debate therefore , Elian should be sent back to prove that he is a normal citizen and that every one in society is an equal.This debate over his location has gone much to far. The boy was taken out by force because the Miami residents would not give him up with out a fight. There were riots in the streets where senseless behavior the smashing cars and destruction throughout the streets of Little Havana. What does this solve? Nothing only people's valuables being destroyed which has nothing to do with the fight for Elian. That is exactly what it is no longer a peaceful discussion but a verbal and physical fight to decide this child's life.If this boy who is almost looked upon as a so called gift from god had been dealt with like every other illegal immigrant he would be merely sent back across the ocean he came across back to his native home of Cuba.

Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel Essay

Recipes in Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel The kitchen has long been associated with the mandatory or compulsory servitude of women. â€Å"Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen† remains the most limiting of the stereotypically masculine preferred roles for women. Cecilia Lawless contends that culinary endeavors, like cooking and creating or following recipes â€Å"is traditionally considered a gendered discourse – the woman’s domain, hence marginalized – and therefore not a discourse of empowerment† (Lawless 262). However, women writers around the globe are finding newfound power in the domestic domain of the kitchen by creating a truly feminine discourse replete with recipes, cooking, and therapeutic female-to-female communication. Janice Jaffe claims that in particular, â€Å"a number of Hispanic American and Latina women writers seem to be reclaiming the kitchen† (Jaffe 218). Jaffe’s statement, validated by a 1984 conference dedicated to the writings of Latin American and Latina women entitled The Frying Pan by the Handle, supports the proclamation of the importance of the kitchen for all women writers. She goes on to describe the naming of The Kitchen Table Press in 1981, an U.S.-based organization for women of color. She explains that â€Å"the name was chosen ‘because the kitchen is the center of the home, the place where women in particular work and communicate with each other† (219). The commonality among the above-mentioned works of women writers around the globe is that they are â€Å"reclaiming the kitchen as a space of creative power rather than confinement† (219). The remarkable prominence of female authorship in culinary narratives can be attributed in part to the acknowledgement of a tradition: recipe fiction provides a means by which women authors can pay homage to what they have received from their foremothers. That lineage becomes especially important for today’s society that has allowed for the mass exodus of women from the kitchen. Today’s economy demands that to achieve and maintain a comfortable standard of living, women must enter the workforce, alongside their mates. This migration ultimately leaves little time for the culinary arts, as the experience of food is largely reduced to the acquiring of basic sustenance. As a result, for many people, food has lost its pleasure and intimacy, transposed as it is to fast-food restaurants and microwave miracles. Once convenience foods had become the â€Å"order of the day,† however, culinary romances could function in a contrary action as a means of preserving the Epicurean arts and affirming a matriarchal realm. For both writers and readers, then, these narratives develop a means of both remembering and honoring the lives of our foremothers as most of us hurry about from one meeting to the next, a Big Mac on a food tray, in our cars. (Lawless) In Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel begins each chapter with a list of ingredients for one particular recipe. She, however, does not index them, or any of the other recipes that she includes, and thus ensures that her book more closely resembles a true cookbook journal than do those written by culinary writers. As the kitchen has traditionally been of little concern to men, very few of them have written or participated in the creation of receipt collections and subsequently in culinary narratives. Their domain was, and largely still is, that of labour,6 though noticeable exceptions to this avoidance are the many world-class chefs who are male. Typically, throughout patriarchal history, men would go to work, while women would stay at home and prepare the food. Until recently, this pattern has been fairly constant, men have functioned outside the home, and women have tended to function inside it. It is my opinion, then, as a consequence, when men wrote, they wrote about things they knew about or desired—often as not, those things outside the kitchen. This paper discusses such an example of the kind of culinary empowerment and creative reclamation in Laura Esquivel’s magical realist novel, Like Water for Chocolate. In this text, Esquivel creates a character that has the ability to induce emotional and physical reactions with the food she prepares. By means of mystical subconscious desires and commands. Esquivel’s protagonist affects the minds, hearts and bodies of those around her, and she also elicits physical responses from her own body. Denied the possibility of emotional love and physical, sexual experiences due to family tradition, Tita struggles to repress the desires of her body and heart by means of mental fortitude. By pitting her mind against her body, Tita suffers internal chaos and turmoil, but her subconscious and her body doesn’t let her submit or surrender. Only by freeing herself from familial restrictions that forced her to negate her physicality can Tita begin to develop to a sense individual agency and self. By breaking out of her cultural confines, she creates a new site of power for herself, one that will eventually unite her body, heart and mind into one complete and whole being, exercising total control of her life, her love and her destiny. Laura Esquivel’s novel of recipes and romance, a parody of the mid-nineteenth century women’s magazines that included â€Å"recipes, home remedies, and. often, sentimental novels in monthly installments† (Ibsen 137), chronicles the birth, life and death of Josefita â€Å"Tita† de la Garza. Like Water for Chocolate begins with the story of how Tita precipitated her own birth, a strong indication of her power as an individual. Tita was so sensitive to onions, any time they were being chopped, they say she would just cry and cry; when she was still in my great-grandmother’s belly her sobs were so loud that even Nacha, the cook, who was half-deaf, could hear them easily. Once her wailing got so violent that it brought on an early labor. And before my great-grandmother could let out a word or even a whimper, Tita made her entrance into this world, prematurely, right there on the kitchen table amidst the smells of simmering noodle soup, thyme, bay leaves, and cilantro, steamed milk, garlic, and of course, onion. (Esquivel 5-6) However, shortly after her birth, the reader learns of Tita’s utter lack of power to direct her destiny. The book postulates that the reason Tita â€Å"was already crying as she emerged,† results from the fact that â€Å"maybe†¦she knew then that it would be her lot in life to be denied marriage† (6). Her mother decreed that as the youngest daughter, Tita was destined to remain unmarried and care for her mother, Mama Elena, until her death. Unfortunately for Tita this meant that she must resist her body and heart’s desire to â€Å"experience love† (12). The novel, most frequently categorized as a parody, can also be classified as both Postmodern and Post-Revolutionary. It is Postmodern in its attempt to subvert and undermine the epigraph addressed to Latina women: â€Å"To the table or to bed: You must come when you are bid† (Esquivel). Maria Elena de Valdes elaborates on the statement in this way: A verbal image emerges of the model Mexican rural middle class woman. She must be strong and far more clever than the men who supposedly protect her. She must be pious, observing all the religious requirements of a virtuous daughter, wife, and mother. She must exercise great care to keep her sentimental relations as private as possible and. most important of all, she must be in control of life in her house, which means essentially kitchen and bedroom, or food and sex. (de Valdes 86) In a similar vein. Joanne Saltz describes the historical context of the Post-Revolutionary novel by claiming that, the text is one in which the Mexican Revolution reverberates, overturning literary and social conventions of form, the position of women in society, their social conduct and the regulation of their bodies, and at the same time debunking the feminist myth of the superwoman. (Saltz 30-1) In this atmosphere of change for Latina women in Mexican history, one must align oneself with either the traditional view of women and their place in society described by de Valdes, or the more modern position toward women as depicted by Saltz. The opening pages of Like Water for Chocolate follow a Postmodern/Post-Revolutionary. Mexican literary tendency to ascribe â€Å"the fundamental aspects of the liberal hero/heroine as living a life of ‘sacrifice, abnegation (denial of one’s desires), martyrdom’ in the hope of vindication at some time in the future† (Schaefer 83). That sacrifice and abnegation will be forever present in Tita’s life is evident by Mama Elena’s decree, but Esquivel cues her reader that the character of Tita will also achieve martyrdom and vindication with her statement that. â€Å"Tita did not submit† (Esquivel 11). Her subtle hint that Tita would not quietly agree with her mother’s â€Å"family tradition† (11). promises to create underlying tension and open conflagration between the two as Tita attempts to redefine the stifling traditional roles for women which Mama Elena so closely follows. In addition to the â€Å"enforced celibate destiny† (Lawless 262) of Tita, Mama Elena dominates and dictates almost every aspect of her children’s lives, as well as the management of the ranch house.   Several examples of the matriarch’s total domination and unquestionable authority appear throughout the novel. Tita remarks that, â€Å"in the De la Garza family, one obeyed -immediately† (Esquivel 12). When met with any form of disobedience. Mama Elena is quick to â€Å"correct† the offender, who is usually Tita. When presents with a suspiciously unruly look on her daughter’s face, â€Å"Mama Elena read the look on her face and flew into a rage, giving Tita a tremendous slap that let her rolling in the dirt† (27). Instances of her physical and mental abuse consistently permeate the entire work, and the character of Mama Elena is portrayed as efficiently violent and destructive. Tita relates that, â€Å"unquestionably, when it came to dividing, dismantling, dismembering, desolating, detaching, dispossessing, destroying, or dominating. Mama Elena was a pro† (97). Tita reveals the feelings of defeat and domination she experiences at the hands of her mother in the following passage. Mama Elena was merciless, killing with a single blow. But then again not always. For Tita she had made an exception; she had been killing her a little at a time since she was a child, and she still hadn’t quite finished her off. (49) Tita despairingly attempts to please her mother to no avail â€Å"no matter how hard Tita tried she always got an infinite number of things wrong† (94). Mama Elena’s strict adherence to cultural, traditional and familial mores, like those taught to all young Mexican girls from â€Å"Carreno’s manual of etiquette† (39), serves as the primary source of Tita’s servile confinement in the ranch house. Her mother is linked with the traditional. Europeanized version of middle class women in Mexico, a model that Tita cannot follow. In Mama Elena’s defense, the reader later learns of the possible source of her tyrannical reign in the household. After her death, Tita discovers some old love letters, while going through her mother’s possessions. Apparently, the true love of Mama Elena’s life was not her husband. Mama Elena had loved a black man, but propriety forbid their relationship. Upon learning the real reason for her mother’s perpetual anger, Tita begins to understand what a wretched existence her mother led. Esquivel describes Tita’s newfound sympathy for her mother: â€Å"During the funeral Tita really wept for her mother. Not for the castrating mother who had repressed Tita her entire life, but for the person who had lived a frustrated love† (138). Enforcing her will upon her daughters is Mama Elena’s attempt to compensate for her own lack of sexual agency. When Tita learns of the source for her mother’s anger and frustration, she sympathizes with her mother’s plight. Unfortunately, this discovery comes only after Mama Elena’s death. During her lifetime, Tita’s relationship with her mother is less like mother/daughter and more like master/servant. Faced with this unsatisfactory relationship with her mother, Tita turns to the indigenous Indian cook. Nacha, as a substitute mother, a natural turn of events given that Nacha’s domain was the kitchen where Tita was born and cared for as an infant. Esquivel writes that, â€Å"thanks to her unusual birth, Tita felt a deep love for the kitchen, where she spent most of her life from the day she was born† (6). When Mama Elena’s milk dries up, it is Nacha who takes over the feeding of the baby girl who â€Å"grew vigorously and healthy on a diet of teas and thin corn gruels† (7). The narrator maintains that this â€Å"explains the sixth sense Tita developed about everything concerning food.† and that the kitchen â€Å"was Tita’s realm† (7). When she is no longer allowed to play in the kitchen with her sisters, Nacha became her only friend and playmate. Through her time in the kitchen with Nacha, Tita receives the unconditional love that should have been provided by her mother. Indeed, Tita’s fondest memories of her time spent with Nacha include such maternal activities as â€Å"the way she braided her hair and tucked Tita in at night, took care of her when she was sick, and cooked what she craved†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (168). Nacha also serves as an invaluable teacher to Tita, who benefits from her culinary expertise, prowess with herbal remedies, and inventiveness with household tips. Within the narrative of the novel â€Å"Nacha serves as the good mother substitute in contrast to the bad biological mother† (Lawless 264). This binary serves to support Kristine Ibsen’s claim that â€Å"the narration privilege: the ancient oral tradition of female knowledge bequeathed to Tita by Nacha over the artificial rules of conduct, upheld by Mama Elena and reproduced by Rosaura† (Ibsen 140). This oppositional relationship between the â€Å"female knowledge† of Nacha and Tita and â€Å"artificial rules of conduct† followed by Mama Elena and Rosaura produces numerous conflicts and volatile situations throughout the narrative, beginning with Rosaura’s wedding in February’s installment. From her magical realist birth episode in January’s installment of the novel, Tita subconscious powers increase in potency during the February chapter. In this chapter the reader first learns of Tita’s ability to influence the minds and bodies of others subconsciously through the food she prepares. Tita helps Nacha with the cooking, and obligingly assists with the preparation of the wedding feast for her older sister, Rosaura. Forbidden by Mama Elena to marry his true love (Tita), Pedro agrees to marry her older sister just to be near Tita. In despair and suffering from a broken heart, Tita weeps into the cake batter and later into the bowl of icing. Nacha tastes the icing to ensure that Tita’s salty tears have not affected the flavor. The flavor was unaffected, but surprisingly, â€Å"Nacha was overcome with an intense longing† (Esquivel 34). She went to bed crying and was unable to get out of bed the next morning. Later that day, after eating the wedding cake, everyone at the reception was â€Å"flooded with a great wave of longing† (39), then they began weeping. Inexplicably, under some sort of â€Å"strange intoxication† all of the guests began â€Å"collective vomiting† (39). Rosaura accuses Tita of ruining her wedding day by poisoning her cake, but only Tita knows that â€Å"she had added only one extra ingredient to the cake, the tears she had shed while preparing it† (41). There was no corroboration for her story because Nacha dies overnight from remembered sorrow; her heart broken years before when Mama Elena refused to allow her to marry her own true love. The emotional state of Tita, made corporeal by her tears, transferred itself through the cake and into the hearts and bodies of those who ate it. As Lawless describes it, â€Å"Tita herself has become incarnate in the food† (Lawless 265). Tita’s ability to cause emotional and sexual longing in others subversively serves as a reminder of the bodily urges and corporeality that have been denied Tita. Yet, this preliminary experience of affecting other people†s emotions and bodies through her cooking appears to go unrecognized by Tita, who continues to prepare the family’s meals. When her body is burning with unrequited love and lust for Pedro, she prepares quail in rose petal sauce using the roses that Pedro had given her as a gift. While handling the roses, Tita pricks herself on a thorn and her blood mixes with the sauce. As the family eats the dish that evening, Tita’s sister Gertrudis is sent into a state of overwhelming lust akin to spontaneous combustion. What follows equates to a psychological sexual experience between Tita and Pedro. On her the food seemed to act as an aphrodisiac: she began to feel an intense heat pulsing through her limbs. An itch in the center of her body kept her from sitting properly in her chair. She began to sweat, imagining herself on horseback with her arms clasped around one of Pancho Villa’s men. She got her handkerchief and tried to wipe these sinful thoughts from her mind as she wiped away the sweat. But it was no use, something strange had happened to her. She turned to Tita for help, but Tita wasn’t there, even though her body was sitting up quite properly in her chair; there wasn’t the slightest sign of life in her eyes. It was as if a strange alchemical process had dissolved her entire being in the rose petal sauce, in the tender flesh of the quails, in the wine, in every one of the meal’s aromas. That was the way she entered Pedro’s body, hot, voluptuous, perfumed, totally sensuous. With that meal it seemed they had discovered a new system of communication, in which Tita was the transmitter. Pedro the receiver, and poor Gertrudis the medium, the conducting body through which the singular sexual message was passed. Pedro didn’t offer any resistance. He let Tita penetrate him to the farthest corners of his being, and all the while they couldn’t take their eyes off each other. He said, â€Å"Thank you. I have never had anything so exquisite.† (Esquivel 51) In this rose petal episode, Tita’s powers to invade and affect the bodies of others bears a striking resemblance to the Catholic tradition of communion, de Valdes notes the significance of the encounter in this way: â€Å"This is clearly much more than communication through food or a mere aphrodisiac; this is a form of transubstantiation whereby the rose petal sauce and quail have been turned into the body of Tita† (de Valdes 87). When the â€Å"body of Tita† enters Pedro and Gertrudis, they are powerless to stop its effects on their own bodies. Gertrudis continues to suffer an internal burning heat, and she exudes the heavy, heady scent of roses. When she attempts to take a shower in order to quell her burning desires, she sets the shower stall on fire. By coincidence, as she runs naked from the flaming shower stall, a rebel soldier in a nearby city following an irresistible scent of roses, rides in on horseback and sweeps her away with him. Gertrudis and Juan passionately and skillfully make love on galloping horseback, enacting what Tita and Pedro could only dream of doing together. Held to strict cultural and familial standards that neither could breach, the two lovers continue to suppress their physical attraction for each other. The rose petal episode marks the escalation of Tita’s mystical subconscious ability to transfer her emotions into the food she prepares, which produces psychological and physical reactions in the bodies of the people who consume her culinary products. The episode also serves as a subversive parody of Catholic discourse, which is historically associated with the hierarchical dualism of mind and body, devaluing carnal appetites. Esquivel instead â€Å"both acknowledges the authenticity of the female sex drive in women, who according to tradition, are asexual, and highlights the social conventions that punish women for acting on that drive† (Saltz 35). In April’s installment, Tita subconsciously influences her body’s reproductive processes when she miraculously produces breast milk for Pedro and Rosaura’s baby. Tita actually birthed Roberto as â€Å"she was the only one present at the birth of her nephew† (Esquivel 71), and she instantly falls in love with the child. Esquivel writes that, â€Å"the baby’s cries filled all the empty space in Tita’s heart. She realized that she was feeling a new love: for life, for this child, for Pedro, even for the sister she had despised so long† (73). Rosaura falls very ill from the childbirth and cannot nurse Roberto. Unfortunately, the wet nurse they found for the child is killed after one month’s time. The baby desperately needs milk, and although â€Å"she knew it was completely dry† (76), Tita offers her sister’s child her supposedly empty breast. Incredibly, the child sucks happily at Tita’s milk-giving breast, despite Tita’s incapacity to understand or believe what was happening. After all, â€Å"it wasn’t possible for an unmarried woman to have milk† (76), but mysteriously, it was possible for Tita. In another subversive stab at Catholicism, Esquivel depicts the virgin Tita as the virgin mother Mary, able to produce a child and breast milk for that child without ever having â€Å"known† a man. Tita subconsciously wishes to be the child’s mother so badly that her body responds rather appropriately by magically providing her with breast milk for the baby. In the same manner in which Nacha had taken over the maternal duties of Tita, so Tita acts as a substitute mother to Rosaura’s child: â€Å"it was as if the child’s mother was Tita, not Rosaura. That’s how she felt and acted† (78). Tita cares for Roberto as if he were her own child, hers and Pedro’s. After all, without her mother’s interference, she would be the wife of Pedro and the mother of Roberto. Having Roberto in her life made her subservient confinement to her mother bearable. She thinks to herself, â€Å"What did her fate matter, when she had this child near her, this child who was as much hers and anybody’s? Really, she did a mother’s work without the official title, Pedro and Roberto were hers and that was all she needed† (79). However, due to her mother’s control, Tita fails to empower herself through her substitute motherhood. Mama Elena suspects that Pedro and Tita secretly have an indecent relationship, and she sends Pedro, Rosaura and Roberto away from the ranch. Without Tita’s breast milk, the child dies, and Tita is overcome with grief. She has nursed and mothered the child, but then she loses him completely. Interestingly, Tita equates the loss of the child with the destruction of the only place she feels an element of control – the kitchen. When she learns of Roberto’s death, she â€Å"felt the household crashing down around her head† and hears â€Å"the sound of all the dishes breaking into a thousand pieces† (99). When Mama Elena scolds Tita for having a reaction to the news and commands, â€Å"First work, then do as you please, except crying, do you hear?† (99). Tita brazenly confronts her mother for the first time in her life. Tita felt violent agitation take possession of her being: still fingering the sausage, she calmly met her mother’s gaze and then, instead of obeying her order, she started to tear apart all the sausages she could reach, screaming wildly. â€Å"Here’s what I do with your orders! I’m sick of them! I’m sick of obeying you!† (99) Suffering greatly from grief and depression and a broken nose at the angry hands of Mama Elena, Tita crawls up into the dovecote and has a breakdown. The entire June installment describes her time of healing with the help of Dr. John Brown. Tita refuses to speak for six months, and when questioned by the doctor as to why she wouldn’t speak to him, Tita uses a piece of phosphorus to write the words, â€Å"Because I don’t want to† (118). The narrator applauds Tita’s initial efforts at selfhood when she informs the reader that, â€Å"With these words Tita had taken her first step toward freedom† (118). Only by breaking the stifling rules of conduct and doing what she wants to do instead of what she should do, will Tita develop a sense of self and control over her life. John proves to be of invaluable assistance to Tita during her period of convalescence in his home. His saintly patience with her. coupled with the comforting presence of his grandmother’s ghost, a Kikipu Indian, help Tita regain a sense of stability, inner strength, and an eagerness to live outside the confines of her mother’s convent-like ranch house. â€Å"Her first step toward freedom,† away from her mother and toward selfhood, appears to be short-lived when Tita, who has recently agreed to marry John, leaves the safety and security of his home and returns to the ranch to care for her ailing mother. Mama Elena is so embittered by what she considers to be Tita’s blatant disobedience and dishonor to the family that every morsel of food prepared by Tita leaves an unbearably bitter taste in her mouth. To counteract the supposed poisoning of her food, Mama Elena drinks large quantities of ipecac syrup every day, which soon brings about her death. Knowing the misery of her mother’s life of unrequited love and unfulfilled corporeal desires. Tita â€Å"swore in front of Mama Elena’s tomb that come what may, she would never renounce love† (138).   Little did she know that Tita would soon test her own proclamation. Mama Elena’s death brings Pedro and Rosaura, who is pregnant with her second child, back to the ranch.   Tita, engaged to John, still madly loves Pedro, who confesses his love for her. Pedro rationalizes with Tita that now that Mama Elena was dead, they could have a relationship. Tita and Pedro do consummate their love, despite Pedro’s marriage to Tita’s sister and despite Tita’s engagement to John Brown. Soon after their first lovemaking encounter in the bathing room of Mama Elena, Tita begins to suspect that she is pregnant. At this point in the novel, Tita again exercises incredible subconscious influence and control over her body when she causes her body to spontaneously abort the lovechild. Corresponding to the condition of her pregnancy, the ghost of Mama Elena appears to berate Tita and her behavior. Mama Elena’s ghost curses Tita, her behavior and the unborn child she carries: â€Å"What you have done has no name! You have forgotten all morality, respect, and good behavior. You are worthless, a good-for-nothing who doesn’t respect even yourself. You have blackened the name of my entire family, from my ancestors down to this cursed baby you carry in your belly!† (173) Tita’s problems are only compounded when she tells Pedro of her pregnancy, who is thrilled to learn that he and Tita would soon have a child together. He proposes that they run away together, but Tita cannot bring herself to hurt her sister and niece by abandoning them that way. She also felt perpetual fear that â€Å"any minute some awful punishment was going to descend on her from the great beyond, courtesy of Mama Elena† (198). Indeed, the spirit of Mama Elena again descends on Tita to mock her situation and remind her of her indecency and unthinking immorality. When Tita confronts the ghost of her mother, she finally rids herself of her mother’s presence and her antiquated traditional ideals of propriety by telling the ghost that she hates her. As soon as Tita frees herself from the confining restrictions of her mother’s domination, she experiences a spontaneous and sudden miscarriage/menstruation. As the ghost faded away, a sense of relief grew inside Tita’s body. The inflammation in her belly and the pain in her breasts began to subside. The muscles at the center of her body relaxed, loosing a violent menstrual flow. The discharge, so many days late, relieved all her pains. She gave a deep peaceful sigh. She wasn’t pregnant. (200) The act empowers her in two ways. First, by eradicating the remnants of her mother’s dominion over her. Tita has simultaneously provided herself with a temporary reprieve from the impending disastrous effects that her pregnancy would have had on the rest of her family. Secondly. Tita rejects the biological maternity of Mama Elena, in essence aborting herself from her dead mother’s womb. Her psyche directed her corporeal reproductive functions by eliminating the problems associated with her pregnancy.   Without this impediment, Tita and Pedro continue their relationship, under an agreement made with her sister to keep their relationship hidden from Esperanza, the second child of Pedro and Rosaura, and the rest of the community. Their love affair lasts for many years, and culminates on the wedding day of Esperanza and Alex, the son of Dr. Brown. As usual, Tita prepares the meal for the feast, and labors terrifically to make chiles in walnut sauce. After many clandestine and secretive years, Tita and Pedro have finally fulfilled their portion of the terms of discretion now that Mama Elena and Rosaura were dead, and Esperanza would be leaving the family home. Upon her departure, Tita and Pedro would be free to love each other openly. This thought plays upon Tita’s mind as she prepares the chiles, and after eating them, the guests at the reception become incredibly amorous toward their partners. Tita and Pedro especially felt this condition. They knew that â€Å"for the first time in their lives† they could â€Å"make love freely† (242). Entering the â€Å"dark room,† which has been prepared for the lovers by the caring ghost of Nacha, the two are overcome with passion. For Tita, their lovemaking brings her to the brink of the â€Å"brilliant tunnel† that John had warned her about. During her stay with Dr. Brown. Tita learns of his grandmother’s theory concerning the â€Å"spark of life† in each of us in which she said that, each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves; we need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen, for example, would come from the breath of the person you love: the candle could be any kind of food, music, caress, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches. (115) This theory comes with a strong caution from Dr. Brown in which he warns against lighting all the matches at once because â€Å"they would produce a splendor so dazzling†¦and then a brilliant tunnel would appear before our eyes, revealing the path we forgot the moment we were born, and summoning us to regain the divine origin we had lost† (117). If an individual were to light all the matches, see the tunnel, and follow its path, the body would die. Because she wanted to â€Å"explore these emotions many more times,† Tita â€Å"checked her passion† (243). Unfortunately, the lovemaking so consumes and enthralls Pedro that he â€Å"died at the moment of ecstasy† (244). Determined not to be left alone, Tita decides to join him. She remembers the lesson taught to her by John and exercises mental control to bring about the desired physical condition – death. She eats candles and envisions the times she and Pedro spent together, â€Å"their first kiss, the first caress, the first time they made love† (245). Engaging in this suicidal mental masturbation, she reignites the flame inside of herself achieving an â€Å"amorous climax† (245), and joins Pedro who stands waiting for her in a tunnel of light. Love triumphs in death because, â€Å"Never again would they be apart† (245). Just as she induced her own birth, Tita instigates her own death, exercising total control over her body, her love and her destiny. She unites the emotional, mental and physical factors of her being in order to achieve a self-determined level of happiness in her life. The struggle for Tita’s has been arduous and exacting to the point of her death, but she acknowledges that fulfilling one’s desires was an effort worth taking. Life had taught her that it was not easy; there are few prepared to fulfill their desires whatever the cost, and the right to determine the course of one’s own life would take more effort than she had imagined. That battle she had to fight alone, and it weighed on her. (168) In this statement, Esquivel echoes the historical Post-Revolutionary realization of many Latina women writers that â€Å"social change so often requires individual sacrifice† (Schaefer xiv). The realization followed social disillusionment with â€Å"Utopian promises for ‘healing’ both physical and psychological wounds† (xiii). Through her powerful and empowered presence in the kitchen, Tita creates a lasting narrative, which becomes a sort of recipe, â€Å"a how-to book on surviving a mother’s tyranny, or finding love in the midst of familial and social struggle, or returning to the paradiscal home† (Lawless 263). Once denied the body and its pleasures, Tita ultimately owns and controls her body and its functions, refusing to quietly submit to cultural constructs and restraints. Through the use of magical realism’s blurred boundaries, Esquivel creates for Tita â€Å"a new terrain†¦not a room of one’s own, not a merely public or private self, or a domestic realm – it is a space in the imagination which allows for the inside, the outside, and the liminal elements of in between† (268-9). For Tita, it is a space that allows her to be a whole, unified, balanced woman. In this way, Tita creates a new self, one comprised of equilateral elements of mind, heart and body, which contribute to a condition of self-satisfaction as a being of both corporeal and psychological desires. However, the fact that her self-creation can only be found in death negatively impacts the suggested availability of personal freedoms for women. Is it only in death that women can be truly free of cultural and familial restrictions and demands? Some would agree, but others envision alternatives. Ibsen claims that by â€Å"proclaiming women as a source of energy in their own right, the absolute of the dominant order are undermined and an alternate order is posited† (Ibsen 143). In Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, the dominant order of the hierarchy of mind versus body is displaced, and replaced with a balanced, fulfilled, and whole woman who refuses to submit passively to rules that don’t apply to her. By including recipes within texts such as Like Water for Chocolate, authors invite the reader to become a part of a specialized community. By sharing her secrets with the audience, the author establishes a level of communication and trust that rises above mere reader response, permitting the reader potentially to take what the author has written and prepare the very meal described in the text s/he has just read. In this recipe sharing, audience participation can move to a whole new level. If the reader were to prepare one of the prescribed dishes and to enjoy the food, one could argue that she would perhaps appreciate the book more because its sensory pleasure would then have transcended the limitations of the written text and moved onto the palate and provoked further association. Conversely, should the reader be disappointed with the meal, it is also possible that the reader’s enjoyment of the text could be significantly diminished. Thus in allowing the text to become inter-active, the author redefines the boundaries between text and reader. As the majority of culinary narratives are written by women and are by and large for women, a distinctive feminine voice emerges from these texts, allowing for the creation of a female literary vehicle. This vehicle provides a means to tell the female experience and combined with its inclusion of recipes and cooking instructions, is gradually becoming a popular and innovative new form of writing. References Esquivel, Laura. (1992). Like Water for Chocolate. A Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies. Trans. Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen. New York: Doubleday. Ibsen, Kristine. (1995). â€Å"On Recipes, Reading, and Revolution: Postboom Parody in Como agua para chocolate.† Hispanic Review 63.2: 133-46. Jaffe, Janice. (1993). â€Å"Hispanic American Women Writer’s Novel Recipes and Laura Esquivel’s Como agua para chocolate† Women’s Studies 22.2: 217-30. Lawless, Celia. (1997). â€Å"Cooking, Community, Culture: A Reading of Como agua para chocolate† In Recipes for Reading. Community, Cookbooks, Stories, Histories, ed. Anne L. Bower. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Saltz, Joanne. (1995). â€Å"Laura Esquivel’s Como agua para chocolate: The Questioning of Literary and Social Limits.† Chasqui: 30-37. Schaefer, Claudia. (1992). Textured Lives: Women, Art and Representation in Modern Mexico. Tuscon and London: U ARIZ Press. Valdà ©s, Marà ­a Elena de. (1995). â€Å"Verbal and Visual representation of Women: Como agua para chocolate/Like water for Chocolate. † World Literature Today 69.1: 78-82.

Legitimacy Theory Essay

â€Å"Legitimacy is a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions† (Suchman, 1995, p. 574, emphasis in original) Legitimacy theory has become one of the most cited theories within the social and environmental accounting area. Yet there remains deep scepticism amongst many researchers that it offers any real insight into the voluntary disclosures of corporations. This brief paper outlines responses to two specific concerns identified in the literature. It will eventually form part of a much larger project addressing a range of issues associated with legitimacy theory. First, the paper brings some of the more recent developments in the management and ethical literature on legitimacy and corporations to the accounting table. Second, there are contributions to the theory that have already been made by accounting researchers that are yet to be fully recognised. The author believes that legitimacy theory does offer a powerful mechanism for understanding voluntary social and environmental disclosures made by corporations, and that this understanding would provide a vehicle for engaging in critical public debate. The problem for legitimacy theory in contributing to our understanding of accounting disclosure specifically, and as a theory in general, is that the term has on occasion been used fairly loosely. This is not a problem of the theory itself, and the observation could be equally applied to a range of theories in a range of disciplines (see for example Caudill (1997) on the abuse of Evolutionary Theory). Failure to adequately specify the theory has been identified by Suchman (1995, p. 572, emphasis in original), who observed that â€Å"Many researchers employ the term legitimacy, but few define it†. Hybels (1995, p. 241) comments that â€Å"As the tradesmen [sic] of social science have groped to build elaborate theoretical structures with which to shelter their careers and  disciplines, legitimation has been a blind man’s hammer.† This paper begins to address these issues. Not One Theory but Two (at least) An important issue which needs to be acknowledged is that there are in fact two major classes of legitimacy theory. These are graphically presented in Figure 1 below. The ‘macro-theory’ of legitimation, known as Institutional Legitimacy Theory, deals with how organisational structures as a whole (capitalism for example, or government) have gained acceptance from society at large. â€Å"Within this tradition, legitimacy and institutionalization are virtually synonymous. Both phenomena empower organizations primarily by making them seem natural and meaningful† (Suchman, 1995, p. 576, emphasis in original). In terms of accounting research, given the time frames involved and questions generally being considered, the current business environment, including the capitalist structure, democratic government, etc. are generally taken as a given, a static context within which the research is situated. This assumption would, however, need to be carefully considered for a longitudinal study of any significant length. Figure 1: Layers of Legitimacy Theory INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL GOVERNMENT RELIGION SOCIETY CAPITALISM ORGANISATIONAL LEVEL (IN THIS CASE: COMPANY LTD BY SHARE) Establishment Defence Extension Maintenance From the Moral to the Measurable One layer down from the Institutional Level is what in Figure 1 is called the â€Å"Organisational Level† (sometimes referred to as Strategic Legitimacy Theory). â€Å"Underlying organizational legitimacy is a process, legitimation, by which an organization seeks approval (or avoidance of sanction) from groups in society† (Kaplan and Ruland, 1991, p. 370). It is from this level  that most accounting research tends to draw its understanding of legitimacy. Mathews (1993, p. 350) provides a good definition of legitimacy at this level: Organisations seek to establish congruence between the social values associated with or implied by their activities and the norms of acceptable behaviour in the larger social system in which they are a part. In so far as these two value systems are congruent we can speak of organisational legitimacy. When an actual or potential disparity exists between the two value systems there will exist a threat to organisational legitimacy. At its simplest, within the Organisational view â€Å"legitimacy [is] an operational resource †¦ that organizations extract – often competitively – from their cultural environments and that they employ in pursuit of their goals† (Suchman, 1995, p. 575 6, emphasis in original). Legitimacy, just like money, is a resource a business requires in order to operate. Certain actions and events increase that legitimacy, and others decrease it. Low legitimacy will have particularly dire consequences for an organisation, which could ultimately lead to the forfeiture of their right to operate. Although we can describe a firm as being legitimate, and conceive of ‘amounts’ of legitimacy, it becomes a very subjective exercise to try and directly measure legitimacy. Although it has concrete consequences, legitimacy itself is an abstract concept, given reality by multiple actors in the social environment. For a researcher to try and directly establish, or even rank, the legitimacy of various organisations would seem to be a necessarily subjective undertaking, preferencing the researcher’s own views. As Hybels (1995, p. 243) argues, â€Å"I reject this view because it is based on a conflation of the roles of observer and participant in social science†. As an alternative, rather than trying to subjectively measure a firm’s legitimacy directly it can instead be inferred from the fact that being legitimate â€Å"enables organizations to attract resources necessary for survival (e.g., scarce materials, patronage, political approval)† (Hearit, 1995, p. 2). Hybels (1995, p. 243) develops this in some detail: Legitimacy often has been conceptualized as simply one of many resources that organizations must obtain from their environments. But rather than viewing legitimacy as something that is exchanged among institutions, legitimacy is better conceived as both part of the context for exchange and  a by-product of exchange. Legitimacy itself has no material form. It exists only as a symbolic representation of the collective evaluation of an institution, as evidenced to both observers and participants perhaps most convincingly by the flow of resources. †¦ resources must have symbolic import to function as value in social exchange. But legitimacy is a higher-order representation of that symbolism – a representation of representations. Hybels (1995, p. 243) argues that good models in legitimacy theory must examine the relevant stakeholders, and how â€Å"Each influences the flow of resources crucial to the organizations’ establishment, growth, and survival, either through direct control or by the communication of good will†. He identifies (p. 244) four critical organisational stakeholders, each of which control a number of resources. These are summarised in Table 1 below. Table 1: Critical Organisational Stakeholder STAKEHOLDER RESOURCES CONTROLLED Contracts, grants, legislation, regulation, tax (Note that the (1) The state last three of these could be either a ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ depending on the implementation) (2) The public (3) The financial community (4) The media Few ‘direct resources’; however, can substantially influence the decisions of stakeholders (2) & (3) (if not (1)) Patronage (as customer), support (as community interest), labour Investment The last of these has received considerable attention. The power of the media has been noted by a number of researchers, including Patten (2002, p. 153), who states â€Å"that while increased media attention can certainly lead to the potential for increased pressures from any of the three sources [dissatisfaction of public; new or proposed political action; increased regulatory oversight], increases in pressure can  also arise, particularly with respect to regulatory oversight.† See also Deegan et al. (2000, 2002). Companies try to manage their legitimacy because it â€Å"helps to ensure the continued inflow of capital, labour and customers necessary for viability†¦ It also forestalls regulatory activities by the state that might occur in the absence of legitimacy†¦ and pre-empts product boycotts or other disruptive actions by external parties†¦ By mitigating these potential problems, organizational legitimacy provides managers with a degree of autonomy to decide how and where business will be conducted† (Neu  et al., 1998, p. 265). Researchers need to move away from trying to directly assess legitimacy, and instead focus on measuring it in terms of the resources relevant stakeholders provide. â€Å"Rather than engage in the further development of entirely abstract constructions of the legitimation process†¦ researchers should investigate the flow of resources from organizational constituencies as well as the pattern and content of communications† (Hybels, 1995, p. 244). But Wait†¦ There’s More As shown in Figure 1 Organisational Legitimacy Theory suggests that a firm may be in one of four phases with regard to its legitimacy. These phases are outlined below, some examples of industries/firms that might be considered to be operating in each of these phases are included (further research needs to be undertaken in this area). Establishing Legitimacy. (E.g. Stem Cell based bio-tech). This first phase represents the early stages of a firm’s development and tends to revolve around issues of competence, particularly financial, but the organisation must be aware of â€Å"socially constructed standards of quality and desirability as well as perform in accordance with accepted standards of professionalism† (Hearit, 1995, p. 2). Maintaining Legitimacy. (The majority of organisations). This is the phase that most firms would generally expect to be operating in, where their â€Å"activities include: (1) ongoing role performance and symbolic assurances that all is well, and (2) attempts to anticipate and prevent or forestall potential challenges to legitimacy† (Ashford and Gibbs, 1990, p. 183). However the maintenance of legitimacy is not as easy as it may at first appear. Legitimacy is a dynamic construct. â€Å"Community expectations are not considered static, but rather, change across time thereby requiring organisations to be responsive to the environment in which they operate. An organisation could, accepting this view, lose its legitimacy even if it has not changed its activities from activities which were previously deemed acceptable (legitimate)† (Deegan et al., 2002, p. 319 – 20). Extending Legitimacy. (E.g. Alternative Health Providers). There may come a point where an organisation enters new markets or changes the way it relates to its current market. This can give rise to a need to extend  legitimacy which is â€Å"apt to be intense and proactive as management attempts to win the confidence and support of wary potential constituents† (Ashford and Gibbs, 1990, p. 180). Defending Legitimacy. (E.g. Uranium Mining). Legitimacy may be threatened by an incident (internal or external), and therefore require defence. â€Å"Legitimation activities tend to be intense and reactive as management attempts to counter the threat† (Ashford and Gibbs, 1990, p. 183). Even barring a major incident it is likely in the Western Capitalist system that almost every corporation will regularly need to defend its legitimacy, by the mere fact that â€Å"corporations must fulfil both a competence and community requirement to realize legitimacy†¦ Satisfaction of stockholder interests often occurs at the expense of community concerns (e.g., the despoiling of the environment, the use of labour) while, conversely, responsibility to the larger community often occurs at the expense of the stockholder† (Hearit, 1995, p. 3). It is this last phase that has tended to be the main focus of accounting researchers. It also provides us with the clearest opportunity to examine the crucial link between legitimacy and resources. Lindblom (1994), a key paper cited by many Social and Environmental Accounting researchers, also seems relevant specifically to this phase only. An example of work in this area is Deegan et al.’s (2000) study of five major incidents (including the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the Bhopal Disaster) which provided a context to examine the annual reports of related (in industrial terms) Australian firms to see if there had been a significant change in their social or environmental reporting. They concluded: The results of this study are consistent with legitimacy theory and show that companies do appear to change their disclosure policies around the time of major company and industry related social events. †¦ These results highlight the strategic nature of voluntary social disclosures and are consistent with a view that management considers that annual report social disclosures are a useful device to reduce the effects upon a corporation of events that are perceived to be unfavourable to a corporation’s image (Deegan et al., 2000, p. 127). The Diagnosis Needs Refinement This is where the traditional legitimacy model stops. However my own  research, into the tobacco industry, Tilling (2004), and that of other researchers, including experimental research undertaken by O’Donovan (2002), suggest a further development of the Organisational Legitimacy Level, as depicted in Figure 2 below. Added to the model is the possibility that a firm may not successfully (or may be unable to) defend the threat to its legitimacy and actually start to lose legitimacy. Figure 2: Refinement of the Organisational Level of Legitimacy Theory Establishment Loss Defence Disestablishment Extension Maintenance In this model the defence phase is usually entered by an organisation after some form of one-off ‘incident’ or ‘accident’ which threatens its legitimacy. This phase could be characterised as being ‘acute’, it can be serious, some times even fatal, but usually, with proper management, the organisation can maintain, or at least recover, its legitimacy. However should there be an ongoing series of events, indicative of a systemic issue, e.g. the nuclear power industry, or a single event with permanent consequences which cannot be effectively managed, e.g. realisation that the organisation’s product is not safe such as the tobacco industry, an organisation is likely to have its legitimacy eroded over a period of time (the ‘loss’ phase), which can be characterised as ‘chronic’. The issue can be difficult to manage, and generally leads to declining legitimacy, however the loss may be managed and slowed over a long period of time, or significant change could lead to reestablishment of legitimacy. The ‘loss’ phase is most likely to be preceded by sustained media and NGO scrutiny, and accompanied by increasing government regulation, monitoring and possibly taxation. Within this phase there are likely to be periods where the company will increase its voluntary social and environmental disclosure in an effort to meet specific threats (such as to postpone or defeat proposed regulations) or to communicate systemic corporate change  (similar to the defence phase). However, with each new restriction average total disclosure can be expected to decrease. This idea is alluded to by O’Donovan (2002) who argues, based on experimental evidence, that the lower the perceived legitimacy of the organisation, the less likely it is to bother providing social and environmental disclosure. Watch This Space Legitimacy theory offers researchers, and the wider public, a way to critically unpack corporate disclosures. However the understanding and study of the theory must become more sophisticated, drawing on developments both within the accounting literature and beyond. Only then will the full potential of legitimacy theory for examining a wide range of disclosures be fully realised. Areas that would provide useful insights include at the moment the asbestos industry (as it goes through the disestablisment phase), brothels (as they become much more legitimate within the Australian context), and the forestry industry (as it tries to defend its legitimacy), to name but a few. The knowledge gained will then be used to provide better and more useful information to inform decision making by stakeholders. In this way society is empowered to have greater control and oversight over the way resources are allocated. References: Ashford, B. E. and B. W. Gibbs (1990) â€Å"The Double-Edge of Organizational Legitimation†, Organization Science, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 177 – 194. Caudill, E. (1997) Darwinian Myths: The Legends and Misuses of a Theory, Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press. Deegan, C., M. Rankin and J. Tobin (2002) â€Å"An Examination of the Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosures of BHP from 1983-1997: A Test of Legitimacy Theory†, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 312 – 343. Deegan, C., M. Rankin and P. Voght (2000) â€Å"Firms’ Disclosure Reactions to Major Social Incidents: Australian Evidence†, Accounting Forum, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 101 – 130. Hearit, K. M. (1995) â€Å"‘Mistakes Were Made’: Organizations, Apologia, and Crises of Social Legitimacy†, Communication Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1-2, pp. 1 – 17. Hybels, R. C. (1995) â€Å"On Legitimacy, Legitimation, and Organizations: A Critical Review and Integrative Theoretical Model†, Academy of Management  Journal, Special Issue: Best Papers Proceedings, 1995, pp. 241 – 245. Kaplan, S. E. and R. G. Ruland (1991) â€Å"Positive Theory, Rationality and Accounting Regulation†, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 361 374. Lindblom, C. K. (1994), â€Å"The Implications of Organizational Legitimacy for Corporate Social Performance and Disclosure†, Critical Perspectives on Accounting Conference, New York. Mathews, M. R. (1993) Socially Responsible Accounting, UK, Chapman & Hall. Neu, D., H. Warsame and K. Pedwell (1998) â€Å"Managing Public Impressions: Environmental Disclosures in Annual Reports†, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 265 – 282. O’Donovan, G. (2002) â€Å"Environmental Disclosures in the Annual Report: Extending the Applicability and Predictive Power of Legitimacy Theory†, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 344 – 371. Patten, D. M. (2002) â€Å"Media Exposure, Public Policy Pressure, and Environmental Disclosure: An Examination of the Impact of Tri Data Availability†, Accounting Forum, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 152 – 171. Suchman, M. C. 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