King Henri IV Essays - Dauphins Of France, Knights Of The Garter

King Henri IV King Henri IV was born at Pau in Bearn on December 13, 1553. Raised by his mother, Jeane d'Albret (Queen of Navarre), Henri was brought up in a remote castle in the Pyrenees. He grew up amongst the peasant children of that area and raised on a diet of bread, cheese, and garlic. As a youngster Henri was brought up in the Protestant faith, which was the opposite of his father's wishes. As result, Henri was taken to Paris on his father's orders and given a Catholic tutor. However, he stubbornly refused to attend Mass. Consequently, after the death of his father, Henri was once again instructed by a Protestant tutor. By the age of ten, Henri had already changed religions twice. Remaining in Paris, Henri attended classes at the College de Navarre. Gradually he learned to speak and write fluent Latin and Greek, and he had managed to attain some Spanish and Italian. In 1567 Henri reestablished himself in Pau, reuniting with his mother and sister Catherine. His education was continued, this time including fencing and military arts. Five years later, after an outbreak of several religious wars, the marriage between Henri and the reining king's sister, Marguerite de Valois (a Catholic), was arranged so as to bring temporary peace to France. After Henri's mother's death, the wedding took place. The two were wed on August 18, 1572 at Notre-Dame. Little did the new king know, that day would mark the prelude of a great tragedy. During the wedding, Catherine de Medici consented to the assassination of Admiral de Coligny. On August 22 he was shot at from a window but was merely injured. The Huguenots (French Protestants) were enraged. Queen Medici finally agreed that a general massacre was the only solution to terminate Admiral de Coligny. Before dawn on Sunday, August 24, 1572, the Duc de Guise's swordsmen broke into the Admirals bedroom. He was brutally skewered with a pike, then his corpse was thrown out of a window and hanged by the ankles from the public gibbet. The signal was given and the Paris mob was unleashed. The mob was totally merciless, savagely slitting the throats of all possible Protestants without the willing pity unto children and pregnant women. The Louvre was transformed into a slaughterhouse; the bodies of dead and tortured Huguenot bodies gathered along staircases and piled up against walls. Henri and his cousin Conde were spared only for the sake that they beheld royal blood within their vanes. After that, Henri was forced to change his religion for a third time. In addition, he remained prisoner at court for four years. After the death of King Charles IX, Henry of Navarre's cousin, Henri III became king. King Henry made peace with the Huguenots. After being defeated multiple times by superior Catholic armies, King Henri III turned to Henri of Navarre for help. The help of Henri of Navarre made it once again possible for Henri III to recover his lost powers. Together the pair soon controlled the entire area between the Loire and the Seine. On July 30 he besieged Paris with an army of 40,000. On the peak of this achievement, the king was stabbed by Dominican friar, Jacques Clement. Henry III died that night after ordering his followers to take an oath of allegiance to Henri of Navarre. As result, Henri by name became king of France. However, Henri was refused loyalty by most of his subjects on account that he had been excommunicated and that he was Catholic. Only a mere sixth of France supported Henri. His only source of the reconciliation of loyalty, he soon found, would to be to appeal to those who preferred peace rather than religious war. After victoring numerous accounts of battle with Catholics, Henry IV eventually managed to besiege Paris with 15000 men in May. Unfortunately, Paris remained totally Catholic. Henri then decided to starve the city into submission rather than cause war. By July Paris was pathetically hungry. Cannibalism was a common case?children could be seen chased through the streets by starving elders. People resorted to eating dead dogs (including the skin), rats, garbage, and flour made from bones (those who ate the flour died). Thirteen thousand French died of starvation. Paris did not give up. They were by far too proud to surrender to a heretic king. That September Paris was saved by the Duke of Parma who shipped food across the Sine to the city. Henri revoked as winter drew near. In the summer of 1591 Henri was reinforced

The British Inventor and Industrial Designer Sir James Dyson

The British Inventor and Industrial Designer Sir James Dyson British industrial designer, Sir James Dyson is best known as the inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner, which works on the principle of cyclonic separation. In laymans terms, James Dyson invented a vacuum cleaner that wouldnt lose suction as it picked up dirt, for which he received a  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹U.S. patent  in 1986 (U.S. Patent 4,593,429). James Dyson is also well known for his manufacturing company Dyson, which he founded after failing to sell his vacuum cleaner invention to the major manufacturers of vacuum cleaners. James Dysons company now outsells most of his competition. James Dysons Early Products The bagless vacuum cleaner was not Dysons first invention. In 1970, while he was still a student at Londons Royal College of Art, James Dyson co-invented the Sea Truck, with sales amounting to 500 million. The Sea Truck was a flat-hulled, high-speed watercraft that could land without a harbor or jetty. Dyson also produced: the Ballbarrow, a modified wheelbarrow with a ball replacing the wheel, the Trolleyball (also with a ball) which was a trolley that launched boats, and the land seafaring capable Wheelboat. Inventing Cyclonic Separation In the late 1970s, James Dyson began inventing cyclonic separation to create a vacuum cleaner that would not lose suction as it cleaned, inspired by his Hoover brand vacuum cleaner that kept clogging and losing suction as it cleaned. Adapting technology from the air filter in his Ballbarrow factorys spray-finishing room, and supported by his wifes art teacher salary, Dyson made 5172 prototypes to perfect his bright pink G-Force cleaner in 1983, that was first sold by catalog in Japan. (see additional images for photo) Say Goodbye to the Bag James Dyson was unable to  sell his new bagless vacuum cleaner design to an outside manufacturer or find a UK distributor as he originally intended, in part because nobody wanted to rock the huge market for replacement cleaner bags. Dyson manufactured and distributed his own product and a brilliant television advertising campaign (Say Goodbye to the Bag) that emphasized the end to replacement bags sold Dyson vacuum cleaners to consumers and sales grew. Patent Infringement However, success often leads to copycats. Other vacuum cleaner manufacturers began to market their own version of a bagless vacuum cleaner. James Dyson had to sue Hoover UK for patent infringement winning $5 million in damages. James Dysons Latest Inventions In 2005, James Dyson adapted the wheel ball technology from his Ballbarrow into a vacuum cleaner and invented the Dyson Ball. In 2006, Dyson launched the Dyson Airblade, a fast hand dryer for public bathrooms. Dysons most recent invention is a fan without external blades, the Air Multiplier. Dyson first introduced Air Multiplier technology in October 2009 offering the first real innovation in fans in more than 125 years. Dyson’s patented technology replaces fast-spinning blades and awkward grilles with loop amplifiers. Personal Life Sir James Dyson was born on May 2, 1947, in Cromer, Norfolk, England. He was one of three children, whose father was Alec Dyson. James Dyson attended Greshams School in Holt, Norfolk, from 1956 to 1965. He attended the Byam Shaw School of Art from 1965 to 1966. He attended the Royal College of Art in London from 1966 to 1970 and studied furniture and interior design. He went on to study engineering. In 1968, Dyson married Deirdre Hindmarsh, an art teacher. The couple has three children: Emily, Jacob, and Sam. In 1997, James Dyson was awarded the Prince Phillip Designers Prize. In 2000, he received the Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Award. In 2005, he was elected as a Fellow at The Royal Academy of Engineering. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the New Years Honours December 2006. In 2002, Dyson set up the James Dyson Foundation to support design and engineering education among young people. Quotes I just want things to work properly.A lot of people give up when the world seems to be against them, but thats the point when you should push a little harder. I use the analogy of running a race. It seems as though you can’t carry on, but if you just get through the pain barrier, youll see the end and be okay. Often, just around the corner is where the solution will happen.

Rivington Hospital Laundry Department Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Rivington Hospital Laundry Department - Essay Example The existing budget is more than enough to demoralize her. This budget may cause some serious changes in the apparent behaviour of the laundry supervisor as she is not happy and satisfied with the way she has been held responsible for every cost of the laundry department. Different kinds of behaviours can be displayed by the laundry supervisor, the details of some of them are provided below: Quality Compromise The biggest change in the behaviour of the laundry supervisor would be shown in terms of the quality that she provides. After this performance report, her aim and objective would be to cut the cost and meet the targets specified in the budgets, and in doing so, if the quality of laundry service is compromised, she would not focus on it too much. After all, the administrators are more concerned with meeting the budgets, in this way the overall quality of the department may likely be hampered by such move of the administrators. Restricting the Activity Level Since the major cause of adverse variances in the existing budget is the increase in the activity level due to which more laundry services were provided and as a result the level of costs also increased in every manner, including the excessive cost of hiring an additional worker, therefore, the laundry supervisor would try to restrict the activity level to the budget level and may not provide the laundry services to the additional activity level so that the budgeted activity level should not be crossed. In this way, the excessive cost can be reduced which occurred as a result on increasing the actual activity level. This move would surely decrease the overall activity level of the hospital but result in meeting the budgeted costs. Falsification and Misrepresentation The laundry supervisor may also use some negative tactics in order to provide a better picture to the administration by reporting the falsified and misrepresented figures of the activities of the laundry department so that budgets can be ful filled accordingly. This step would cause the likelihood of frauds in the hospital. On a concluding note, if the administration is quite keen in getting the budgets fulfilled by the laundry department, it would have to include the laundry supervisor in budget setting activity so that a unanimous budget can be established which would surely be challenging but at the same time achievable to the laundry supervisor. b) Criterion for Variance Investigation The investigation of variance is undoubtedly an important objective of the organization such that the organization is more interested to find out the root cause of such variances. The variances may be either favorable or adverse in nature. The organization should focus on investigating both types of variances because generally the favorable variances are considered as good and they are not investigated but they have serious negative implications behind them. Managers normally try variances to be more favorable because in this way their performance would be marked high and they would be appraised on a better note. But on the other side of the picture, the favorable variances are pulled out deliberately by those managers such as hiring the low-skilled workers or even unskilled workers and purchasing the poor quality raw material etc. In this way, the favorable variances leave negative impacts and harm the overall organizational goals. The overall criteria to examine the variances should be based on the nature and

Gender, sexuality, and race are less biological facts than the outcome Essay

Gender, sexuality, and race are less biological facts than the outcome of contextually-specific discourses and discursive practices. Explain with reference to no more than two aspects of identity - Essay Example al., 1998). Gender discrimination also implies that the people of opposite sex, generally the female section of the society, are more often discriminated as compared to their male counterparts. However, feminists have argued with lieu to the modern phenomenon that professional potentialities and abilities do not differ within the modern society among the two genders. It is rather that gender based or racial discrimination existing in the society restricts them to become at par with the male members that has been affecting communities in their healthy developments (Mottier, 1999). Racism has been a common phenomenon since the past generations, wherein people of different nations have been experiencing the harmful impacts of racial discrimination, especially in their workplaces (Caluya, 2013; Books, 1992). Emphasising these facts, the essay aims at elaborating on the trends of gender, sex and race discriminations prevailing in the society in context to individuals’ identity rela ted aspects. Gender inequality/discrimination has emerged as one of the major issues in this society, which has commonly targeted the female section of the society. Discrimination between the two genders has been prevailing since the early generations affecting a particular section of the society (Alsop et. al., 1998). However, due to the continuous modernization of the society, gender/sexual discrimination has reduced to a certain extent, although such trends are still prevalent in some societies (Weeks, n.d.). According to the past studies, the root cause triggering such discrimination has been related to people having limited concern regarding the biological differences, but emphasise more on the arbitrary dissimilarities between the two genders, considering the outcome as a discursive practice. Undoubtedly, gender inequality/discrimination imposes strong negative impacts on the society, as females are often not considered equal to that of their male counterparts and

Final-44 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Final-44 - Essay Example the annexation of Texas took place in 1845 when the white settlers fought for freedom from Mexico and petitioned the newly formed Republic of Texas for the Union for statehood. Then the western border between the US and the Canada was agreed to be situated at 49o of north latitude. Later, US won the Mexican war in 1848 and thereby conquered California and New Mexico through the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty. Afterwards, by the Gadsden Purchase, the southern Arizona was taken in 1853 from Mexico1. Thus, by the 1853 agreement, the US achieved the Manifest Destiny that constitutes the contiguous states. Annexing Texas was so important that the Manifest Destiny could have ended without it. Texas was neither part of US nor an independent state since 1836 as Mexico did not affirm Texas’s independence and also, they threatened America of war in case of providing any assistance to Texas. Thus, Texas had to acquire help from other countries in order to pay for their military expenses. Subsequently, Texas signed treaties with France, Belgium and Holland in 1839 and 1840. Moreover, the Great Britain was also looking forward to Texas so as to control or acquire the United States. Hence, the US annexed Texas so that the foreign powers can be inhibited from harming America. Annexation of Texas led to the war with Mexico that further brought additional territory under US control2 as discussed above. Americans settled the great western frontier after crossing the Mississippi River. A massive westward movement evolved after the discovery of gold in California. The annexation of the southw est territories played a significant role in the expansion of US without which the Manifest Destiny was unachievable since this annexation resulted in to an inchoate union of the conflict territories in to a successful democracy stretching throughout a continent full of fertile land, natural resources and

Hrm approaches in different work systems

Hrm approaches in different work systems HRM Approaches in different Work systems: A comparison between manufacturing plant and call centre of high street bank Ting Wang As Peter Boxall and John Purcell (2008) mentioned in literature, work system refers to â€Å"choices about what work needs to be done, about who will do it, and about where and how they will do it†. Each work system contains its features to interact with operation choices as well as HR management. This paper mainly focus on the relationship between work systems and strategies of HR, especially in comparing 2 different types of work systems and their corresponding approaches to HR. I will explain this in the main 2 parts follow a 3-step-way: environment analysis, work system and HR approaches. Approaches to in manufacturing plant Assume there is a new, high technology and capital intensive manufacturing plant in York. Since the plant is a new entrant in the industry, its aim is basically cost control and expending market share. The capital intensive, high technology feature and cost control demand determine the plant has to limit the number of employees and enhance their abilities and efficiency in work. As we can see, the plant is a typical model of manufacturing firms. Manufacturing industry initially employed low paid labors to accomplish simply, repeated work and without a basic knowledge requirement. It was argued by Watson (1986) that workers were machines using motor not mental skills. As the technology developed rapidly these years in manufacturing industry, machines can mostly take over the jobs done by labors and push the employees to another level called â€Å"high involvement† (Lawler, 1986), and other similar approaches as â€Å"high commitment† (Arthur, 1992), â€Å"high performance† (Huselid, 1995) or â€Å"sophisticated† (Koch and McGrath, 1996). James, Chester and Robert (2002) concluded former literatures and described high involvement work systems (HIWSs) being utilized by provide employees skills, information, motivation, and latitude to gain the work forces competitiveness. The high involvement approaches was discussed by Vandenberg, Richardson and Eastman (1999) based on Lawler (1986) high-involvement work processes, which contains 4 factors as â€Å"PIRK† model. In â€Å"PIRK† model â€Å"P† stands for power, â€Å"I† means information, â€Å"R† refers to reward and â€Å"K† is defined as knowledge. By this means, a set of HR approaches can be generated through enhance each variable of â€Å"PIRK† to achieve final outcomes. For instance, training opportunities can be used as a HR approach to enhance employees knowledge and directly improve their abilities to solve problems. This is a direct way of using the model as Batt (2002) mentioned in his work, and the indirect way influence employees motivation and satisfaction to make them feel comfort and safe at work. In general, the HR approaches can be used in a manufacturing plant includes the following key practices: 1. Teamworking. As we mentioned before, the plant is highly concentrated on making use of technology and capital resources, teamworking is a chance for employees to get involved in important events in the plant. It can affect workers in organizational commitment, work satisfaction as well as knowledge improvement. 2. Advanced training. The plant has needs on innovation and product design to compete in the market as a new comer, therefore the training has to be of some technical level which is firm-related and more difficult than general training. Advanced training can better helps employees to gain information and knowledge, and reduce the chance of turnover. 3. Incentive practices. In a newly plant, if there is extra budget can be used on rewards, there should have some incentive practices. Not only this method can motivate employees to devote more, but also it can enhance their responsibilities to the plant, if the rewards are actually shares of the plant. There are much more approaches can be used in this plant to improve performance, however, the effectiveness still becomes an uncertain question, since there is no measurements to evaluate the whole process. Approaches to call centre for a high street bank In comparison, we imagine there is a call centre to be established for a high street bank. Bank industry is more of service-oriented, call centre in a high street bank is not expected to bring about profit directly. The employees responsibilities are to solve problems that already happened in the past or expected to be happened in the future. They give the answers from a wide-ranging question bank which contains the frequent asked questions and edgy questions. All of them attached answers below so that the operators on the phone can answer different questions with in a short time. Besides the answers, operators from the call centre also needs to be use properly words, expressions, tunes, and strictly follow a standardized formula to do the whole telephone communications. The features of call centre determined the employees they wanted are more general background, better in communication just like a good listener with excellent understanding and ability of oral expression. Service market is more labor intensive compared to manufacturing industry, and call centre can be categorized into the â€Å"Tightly Constrained† work systems, according to Herzenberg (1998)s typology of work systems. Herzenberg describe this type of service as â€Å"high volume, low cost, standardised quality, tight task supervision, low to moderate formal education of workers, and limited training†. Boxall (2003) followed Herzenbergs work and defined 3 types of competition and work organization in private sector services. Based on his definition, call centre belongs to â€Å"Massive service firms† which related to a mix of mass markets and higher value-added segments. There are significant differences in HR strategies between a high-tech manufacturing plant and a high street call centre. Though Boxall (2003) pointed out that firms aim for high-valued segments in services are more likely to use HIWSs approach in HRM, a call centre still can not fit the HIWSs very well. One of the reasons as I mentioned before is that call centre â€Å"is not expected to bring about profit directly†. In this case, even if using HIWSs to improve service quality and enhance employees happiness index can be worked out, that wont generate extra profit for the bank. Customers may choose another bank since they discover their current bank really disappointed because of a poor quality telephone service, but they are less likely to choose a bank just based on its perfectly high level of telephone service. After examined the features and work system of call centre, a figure (Figure 1) will be given out to illustrate the properly approach of HRM which is suggested to be adopted by a call centre manager. The figure contains both the approaches and requirements. Left side stands out the key approaches of HR which match the middle and right features of employees. Key HR approaches Employee competency Employee commitment General training; Communications; Performance appraisal; Standardized behavior; Communication skills Stress level; Work balance; Figure 1: Approaches used in call centre The HR approaches are used to enhance either employee competency or commitment to achieve further outcomes. They looks much simpler compared with manufacturing plant, that is because the two firms have different features and outcomes. Conclusion It is obviously that a manufacturing plant adopts different HR approaches compared with a call centre. The reasons are various and hard to distinguished, since there are so many factors inside or outside the firms and interact with each other all the time. However, there are three main reasons affect the HR management within different work systems. First one is production factor. Whether the firm is capital intensive or labor intensive determines the scale and cost of employees as the former tends to hire fewer employees with high requirement and the latter tends to keep adequate employees with general knowledge backgrounds. The second factor is product differentiation. An industry which requires highly differentiation product the information and knowledge is needed all the time therefore the HR approach in training is intensive and specialized so that the worker can apply it to work and enhance performance. By contrast, a call centre offers almost the same service to different custo mers; therefore the training approach is more basic and contains rules, regulations to achieve consistency and homogeneity. The third factor is profitability. Profitability differs in specific types of positions; a research department manager in manufacturing plant usually generates more profits than a telephone operator in call centre. In that case the manager will gain job satisfaction through rewards and involvement in business decision making, whereas the telephone operator may feels less satisfied in work and has turnover intention. The reason is simply because firms need to keep profitable employees stable and ignore or pay less attention on the common employees without competitive advantage. The 3 factors reflects how the work system and HR aims combined together to affect HR approaches. These approaches, however, meet a major challenge of measures. Previous literatures like Arthur (1992, 1994), Huselid (1995), James, Chester and Robert (2002) did empirical work on measures to evaluate effectiveness of HR approaches. James, Chester and Robert (2002) state the relationship between a differentiation-oriented competitive strategy and its performance is positive. Whether all these approaches and measurements can be trusted in the bounds of good sense or practicality is a big issue we should focus on the future.

Mobilize Leaders to Accelerate Results :: essays research papers

Mobilize Leaders to Accelerate Results http://www.iveybusinessjournal.com/view_article.asp?intArticle_ID=538   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In this article coauthors, Brian Brittain, John Swain and Janice Simpson outline three tactics that have succeeded in unleashing productive energy and accelerating business results for organizations that have used them in a conscious and disciplined manner. Moreover, the ideas discussed in the writing are heavily related to the concepts confered by Chapter 12 in the textbook referring to strategic leadership. Specifically, Figure 12.4 shows a diagram of an exercise for gaining effective leadership. The author's ideology for their 3 common practices of strategic tactics known as; Beyond the cascade, Live the Story, and Implement a Sustaining Leadership Strategy are easily reflected by the materials are similar to the 3 directions of the exercise.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the fast-changing global workplace, there is no longer one organizational structure that can be used universally to increase organizational performance. Change is the only constant in today's global, knowledge-based economy. Leaders need skills necessary to think and act strategically in translating mission into objectives, developing plans and programs to accomplish objectives, and to implement plans and programs. Each organization, department, and division must define the best systems and structures for its specific vision, mission, strategies, and competencies. The leader must get input and support from the experts who are busy doing the work of the organization and create alignment with customers and stakeholders. The International manager/executive as well as public sector executives and manager should create a road map to build organizational systems that are dynamic, flexible, and outcome focused that are successful in creating high performance. Some pra ctical results I found to be important include:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1) Link organizational competencies to outcomes and results defined in your   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  strategic plan.