Study On The Effects Of Ipo Underpricing Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 17 Words: 5065 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Economics Essay Type Research paper Did you like this example? Underpricing is the difference between the issue price of a new share and the first trading price on the secondary market. It is a worldwide phenomenon of almost each capital market that has been well documented in different markets. Numerous empirical studies find evidence that the first trading price is about 20 per cent higher than the issue price of the shares on average.This phenomenon has been experienced in almost every country with a stock market, although the degree of underpricing varies from country to country. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Study On The Effects Of Ipo Underpricing Finance Essay" essay for you Create order The study of Loughran, Ritter and Rydqvist (1994) confirmed this IPO underpricing phenomenon in 25 countries, with higher IPO underpricing in developing than in developed markets. For example, the level of underpricing in the US was 15.3% (for 10,626 IPOs during 1960-92), in France was 4.2% (for 187 IPOs during 1983-92) and in Malaysia was 80.3% (for 132 IPOs during 1980-91). Lowry and Schwert (2000) find that the number of IPOs and the average initial returns are highly auto correlated and that both price update and the initial return are predictable based on publicly available information. They suggest that these differences are highly significant and provide strong evidence favoring the asymmetric information theory. Su and Fleisher (1999) analyze Chinese IPOs during the period of 1985-1987 and find that the level of underpricing for a share is 948.6%. Arosio et al (2000) analyze a survey of Internet stock IPOs, listed on the Euros secondary Stock Exchanges and find an in itial average return equal to 76.43%. They document that this huge underpricing is strongly related to the information gathered during book-building activity in the pre-selling period, which drives the revision of the prospectus price range and signals the IPO quality to uninformed investors. Chowdhry and Sherman (1996) document that the average first-day return varies systematically with the mechanism used to price and distribute IPOs. Ritter (2001) points out that fixed price offerings are more underpriced than offerings built by the book. Ljungqvist et al (2000) analyze 2105 IPOs in 61 non-US markets during the period 1992-1999 and document that the direct costs of book-building are twice as large as direct costs for fixed-price offers, but the book-building leads to substantially less underpricing. On the other hand, Derrien and Womack (2000) analyze the French IPOs market during the period 1992-1998 and find that auctions IPOs are less underpriced (9.7%) than book-building I POs (16.9%). For Taiwan, Liaw et al (2000) find that the degree of underpricing for price-fixed IPOs is 34.6% and 7.8% for auctions IPOs. Kutsuna and Smith (2000) also point out that in Japan, auctions IPOs are less underpriced (11.50%) than book-building IPOs (70.81%). Several explanations are possible for these countrys differences. Institutional differences probably play an important role, as underwriters follow different price setting and allocation strategies across country. On the following table we can see a detailed list of different studies about this phenomenon in financial markets worldwide and the different levels of underpricing of the IPOs accordingly to country and period of time. Country Authors Sample size Period Underpricing Germany Ljungqvist 170 1978-92 10,9% Australia Lee, Taylor Walter 266 1976-89 11,9% Austria Aussenegg 67 1964-96 6,5% Brazil Aggarwal, Leal Hernandez 62 1980-90 78.5% Canada Jog 383 1971-948 43% Chilli Aggarwal, Leal Hernandez 19 1982-90 16,3% China Su and Fleisher 308 1987-95 948,5% United States Ritter 13,308 1960-96 15,8% Finland Keloharju 85 1984-92 9,6% France Derrien Womack 264 1992-98 13,2% Hong Kong McGuinness 334 1980-96 15,9% Italy Giudici Paleari 135 1985-98 23,9% Japan Hebner Hiraki 472 1970-91 32,5% Malaysia Paudyal, Saadouni Briston 95 1984-95 61,8% Mexico Aggarwal, Leal Hernandez 37 1987-90 33,0% New Zealand Firth 149 1979-87 25,8% Holland Eijgenhuijsen Buijs 72 1982-91 7,2% United Kingdom Levis 2,133 1959-90 12,0% Singapore Lee, Taylor Walter 128 1973-92 31,4% Suede Rydqvist 251 1980-94 34,1% Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) Formulated by Eugene Fama in 1970, the Efficient Market Hypothesis that suggests that at any given time price fully reflect all available information on a particular stock or market is highly controversial and often disputed theory concerning the market efficiency by the economists. Thus, accordingly to the EMH, no investor has an advantage in predicting a return on a stock price since no one has access to information not already available. A market is said to be efficient if prices adjust quickly and, on average, without bias, to new information. As a result, the current prices of securities reflect all available information at any given point in time. Consequently, there is no reason to believe that prices are too high or too low. For Fama, there are three primary conditions that must be true to validate the EMH: 1. There are no transaction costs in trading securities. 2. All available information is available to all market participants at no cost. 3. All actors on th e market fully agree on what the implications of current and future information has on the price of a security. The conditions above is a picture of the perfectly efficient market, but the capital markets worldwide today are so far away from the perfect market, which does not necessarily means that the securities traded on these market are wrongly priced. According to the kind of information available, we can distinguish three version of the EMH: The Weak Form The weak form is the degrees of efficient market hypothesis (EMH) that claims all past prices of a stock are reflected in todays stock price. Therefore, future prices cannot be predicted by analyzing price from the past. It is named weak form because prices are arguably the most public as well as the most easily available pieces of information. Thus, one should not be able to profit from using something that everybody else knows. However, while EMH predicts that all price movement in the absence of change in fun damental information is random many studies have shown a marked tendency for the stock markets to trend over time periods of weeks or longer. The Semi-Strong Form The Semi-Strong form suggest that only information that is not publicly available can benefit investors seeking to earn abnormal returns on investments; the current price fully incorporates all publicly available information (past prices, data reported in financial statements, earnings and dividend announcements, announced merger plans, the financial situation of companys competitors, expectations regarding macroeconomic factors as well as non-financial factors). Semi-strong efficiency of markets requires the existence of market analysts who are not only financial economists able to comprehend implications of vast financial information, but also macroeconomists, experts adept at understanding processes in product and input markets. The Strong Form In strong-form efficiency, share prices reflect all informati on, public and private, and no one can earn excess returns. Not even insider information could give an investor the advantage. This degree of market efficiency implies that profits exceeding normal returns cannot be made, regardless of the amount of research or information investors have access to. The main difference between the semi-strong and strong efficiency hypothesis is that in the latter case, nobody should be able to systematically generate profits even if trading on information not publicly known at the time. The rationale for strong-form market efficiency is that the market anticipates in unbiased manner future developments and therefore the stock price may have incorporated the information and evaluated in a much more objective and informative way than the insiders. However, the January effect, the weekend effect, the month effect, small firm effect and the IPO underpricing effect constitute some of the anomalies documented about the EMH. Some past events have feed arguments against the EMH; a look on the historical returns of some investment funds show that some investors, like Warren Buffet or Peter Lynch, have been beating the market year after year. The IPO underpricing anomaly shows that new shares appear to be issued with a discount on its true value. Ibbotson (1975) was the first to test this kind of anomaly, and after applying some test, he found that new issues were underpriced 16.8% in average. Later, this anomaly was also tested by Ibbotson and Jaffe (1975). This anomaly therefore constitutes the subject of this thesis; considering the Cyprus Stock Exchange. Valuation The valuation and pricing of an initial public offer is a difficult and contentious issue. Trying to gauge market sentiment and setting a price that does not spell disaster in terms of the desired objectives is a real challenge. IPOs will be valued using a variety of method. Studying 49 IPOs conducted in Brussels between 1993 and 2001, finance professors Marc Deloof and Wouter De Maeseneire and researcher Koen Inghelbrecht isolated the valuation models used to set initial share prices and determined which provide the most realistic snapshot of market prices. Underwriters in the study never employed just one valuation method. In all 49 of the IPOs studied, the underwriters used discounted free cash flow (DFCF); in 24, they also used the dividend discount model (DDM), and in 40, they added price-to-earnings, price-to-cash flow, or other multiples valuation methods. However, Kim and Ritter (1999) find only a modest ability to explain the pricing of IPOs using accounting multiple s, even when using earnings forecasts. Purnanandam and Swaminathan (2001) construct a measure of intrinsic value based on industry matched Price/Sales and Price/Ebitda from comparable publicly traded firms (comps) for a sample of over 2,000 IPOs from 1980-1997. They find that, when offer prices are used, IPO firms are priced about 50% above comparables, which is an enormous difference. The Capital Asset Pricing Model In 1964 William F. Sharpe published a theory that explains the relationship that exists between the risk and return expected. This model, the Capital Asset Pricing Model is applied to price securities that present risk. According to Investopedia, the CAPM says that the expected return of a security or a portfolio equals the rate on a risk-free security plus a risk premium. If this expected return does not meet or beat the required return, then the investment should not be undertaken. The security market line plots the results of the CAPM for all different risks (betas). In other words, it is an equilibrium model that explains how assets are priced in an efficient market, taking into consideration their risk, providing a benchmark for evaluating if securities are at a fair price given their level of risk, serving also as a tool for pricing new securities not traded before. The CAPM is one of the most used investment model to determine risk and return despite it is only valid unde r special set of assumptions; some being unrealistic, met or not valid (investor: are rational and risk-averse, are price takers; that means that it is impossible for them to influence prices, but they can lend and borrow unlimited amounts without interest rate risk, trade with no costs, perfect Competitive Markets). There are three steps to build an intuition for the CAPM model: We first consider an asset that has no volatility, no risk; with returns that do not vary with the market. As a result, the asset has a beta equal to zero, producing an expected return equal to the risk-free rate. Then, an asset with beta one should be considered. It has to move in lock-step with the market. The result of this perfect correlation with the market is a return on the asset equal to the return of the market. At the end, we think about an asset with a beta greater than one that experiences greater swings in periodic returns than the market. As a result, we would expect that this asse t will give returns superior to those of the market, as compensation for this extra risk. Investopedia present the following formula: Where: is the expected excess return on the capital asset is the risk-free rate of interest such as interest arising from government bonds (the beta coefficient) is the sensitivity of the expected excess asset returns to the expected excess market returns is the expected excess return of the market is sometimes known as the market premium or risk premium (the difference between the expected market rate of return and the risk-free rate of return). Using the Capital Asset Pricing Model  under the assumptions above it is possible to calculate the expected return of a stock. However, there are some concerns about the overall efficacy of the CAPM. Several academic researches in recent years have made the CAPM true predictive power questionable. When realized returns are compared to what the CAPM would have expected, the model is often incorrect. Many researchers believe that other risk factors have significant impact on expected returns in the market. Moreover, to correctly test how well the CAPM prices securities we must assume that the market is efficient, which means that we are testing two hypothesis simultaneously, which raise a doubt if the inconsistency is due to a bad asset-pricing asset model or due to a inefficient market. Furthermore, Richard Roll (1977) has claimed that the model cannot be tested since the market portfolio cannot be observed because it consists of all risky assets. He has said that the only way to test it is using a market index, what would be able to serve as a market portfolio, but the problem is that a market index does not include all risky assets. The Arbitrage Pricing Theory The Arbitrage Pricing Theory developed by Stephen Ross (1976) and based on the idea that identical assets in different market should be priced identically is often viewed as an alternative to the Capital Asset Pricing Model since the APT  has  more flexible assumption requirements. Tradetaxfree.com define the APT as an asset pricing  model  based on the idea  that an assets returns can be predicted using  the relationship between that same asset and many common risk factors;   it predicts a relationship between the returns of a  portfolio and the returns of a single asset through a linear combination of many independent macro-economic variables. Whereas the CAPM formula requires the markets expected return, APT uses the risky assets expected return and the risk premium of  a number of  macro-economic factors. Arbitrageurs use the APT  model to profit by taking advantage of mispriced securities. A mispri ced security will have a price that differs from the theoretical price predicted by the model. The economic factors in the model are not specified in the original APT model, but Roll and Ross (1980) have identified five factors that affect the price, as follow: changes in the expected inflation, unanticipated changes in inflation, unanticipated changes in industrial production, unanticipated changes in the default-risk premium and unanticipated changes in the term structure of interest rates. Since the anticipated factors are already reflected in the price of an asset, the unanticipated factors cause a change in the price of the asset. For example, if we consider a bond with a fixed coupon interest, which current price is the net present value of expected interest and principal payments, discounted at some rate that reflects the time value of the money, the uncertainty of these future cash flows and the expected inflation rate. If there is an unanticipated increase in inflatio n, what will happen to the price of the bond? It will go down, since the discount rate increases as inflation decreases. This mechanism is similar to all other economic factors in the determination of the price of an asset along the time. The APT Model is not without drawbacks. The sensitivities must be estimated, since the model is based on the sensitivities of expected returns to unanticipated changes in the factors; the best we can do is to look at historical relationships (like in the CAPM). Also, some financial researchers argue that a single factor, namely the market portfolio, does just as good a job in explaining security returns as the more complex multiple factor approach of the APT Model. Why Do Firms Go Public? A companys main motivation for going public is to raise funds. For a better understanding of the IPOs underpricing phenomenon, is important also to understand why firms go public. Basically there are two theories related to IPO underpricing that cover why do firm go public: Life Cycle Theories and Market Timing Theories. Life Cycle Theories According to the Life Cycle Theories, as a firm grows and become sufficiently large, it will reach the optimal conditions to go public. Some authors related this theory to the IPO underpricing. For Zingales (1995), for a potential acquirer, public targets are easier to spot than private targets. Entrepreneurs can facilitate the acquisition of their company for a higher value after the IPO. By going public, entrepreneurs can get a higher value for their company if it is acquired by diversified investors than if the company was privately owned and sold in an outright sale. For Chemmanur and Fulghieri (1999), Early in its lifecycle a fi rm will be private. As it grows and faces profitable investment opportunities, the costs of going public are worth incurring. It does so to allow for greater dispersion of ownership. Pre-IPO angel investors and VCs hold undiversified portfolios and, therefore, are not willing to pay as high a price as diversified public-market investors. The same subject is approached under another perspective by Maksimovic and Pichler (2001), providing another explanation. They point out that by going public, the owners of the company attract a market competition, generating an increased demand for the shares of the company, and consequently, increasing the value price of the company. By trading at a price under fair value for the company, it keeps competition at a low level. Market Timing Theories Lucas and McDonald (1990) while discussing about asymmetric information model state that firms postpone (seasoned) equity issue if they know they are currently undervalued. If there are common m isevaluations, aggregate issue volume will increase following bull markets. Welch and Ritter (2002) propose a semi-rational theory without asymmetric information to explain increased IPO volume following bull markets: Entrepreneurs sense of value derives more from their operations perspective and underlying business fundamentals than from public markets. Ljungqvist and Wilhelm (2002) also supported and confirmed it by measuring the underpricing of firms going public during the dot-com bubble. Explanations literature 3. Asymmetric Information Models 3.1 The Winners Curse The winners curse, developed by Rocks (1986) is probably the best-known asymmetric information model. The winners curse provides the explanation for the information asymmetry between the investors. In this model, some investors are assumed to be better informed about the shares real value than underwriter, issuing firm and other investors. Uninformed investors are the losers, as they do not know which issues will be underpriced and so they are allocated large fraction of overpriced shares while investors that possess information call only for good priced IPOs. Beatty and Ritter (1986), Barry and Jennings (1993) support this hypothesis by providing evidence from U.S. market. Rock assumes that all IPOs must be underpriced in expectation considering that the demand of informed investors is not enough to fill all shares on offer even at good price. He also assumes that firms going public benefit from underpricing. Underpricing ensure that uninformed investor will continue to partici pate and bring capital to the IPO market. However, underpricing is clearly costly to certain firm that going public; it results in a lost capital that could have been raised in the case if the offering price had been set higher. In wikipedia page about IPO, we have the example of theglobe.com IPO during the IPO mania of the late 90s internet era. Underwritten by Bear Stearns on November 13, 1998 the stock had been priced at $9 per share, and famously jumped 1000% at the opening of trading all the way up to $97, before deflating and closing at $63 after large sell offs from institutions flipping the stock . Although the company rise about $30 million from the offering it is estimated that with the level of demand for the offering and the volume of trading that took place the company might have left upwards of $200 million on the table. 3.2 Information Revelation Theories (or informational cascade (to check and choose)) Rocks (1986) winners curse has lead to book-building; method that give underwriters wide discretion over allocations. It refers to underwriters extracting indications of interest from investors. The formations collected are then used for set the offer price. Following the Rock assumption that some investors are better informed than the company and other investors, Benveniste and Spindt (1989), Benveniste and Wilhelm (1990), and Spatt and Srivastava (1991) demonstrate that underwriters now elicit information before setting the price of the share for company doing an IPO. They state that book-building can be such a technique under certain conditions. However, the underwriters have to manage to find a way to lead investors to reveal the truth information. Underwriters do not allocate shares or only few to any investor who bid conservatively after they have collected investors indications of interest. By doing so, they reduce the incentive for informed investor to misrepresent po sitive information. On the other hand, investors who reveal favorable information are rewarded with important allocations of shares. More investors bids, more the offer price goes up. However, to make sure to gather the truth from investor, the shares allocated need to be underpriced. Even though the shares are underpriced, the firm has benefit to take on these deals. By repeating this process, underwriters and investors achieve a reduced cost of information acquisition. Repetition also allows underwriters to bundle offerings across time. Some extension goes with the Benveniste and Spindt (1989) theory. Benveniste and Wilhelm (1990) examine the interaction of their theory with Rocks (1986) winners curse. They argued that if book-building succeeds in extracting the informed investors private information, the informational asymmetry among investors will be reduced. This, in turn, reduces the winners curse and thus the level of underpricing required to ensure the uninformed inves tors break even. Busaba et al(2001) demonstrate the level of required underpricing can be reduced by the underwriters in the case where reliable withdraw option is proposed on if the offering. Ljungqvist (2006) states, in the Benveniste and Spindt framework, investors incur no cost in becoming informed. If information production is costly, underwriters need to decide how much information production to induce. Sherman and Titman (2002) explore this question in a setting where more information increases the accuracy of price discovery, resulting in a trade-off between the benefit of greater pricing accuracy and the cost of more information production. In short, with book-building, a preliminary offer price range is set, and then underwriters and issuers go on a road show to market the company to prospective investors. This road show helps underwriters to gauge demand as they record indications of interest from potential investors. If there is strong demand, the underwriter wi ll offer a higher price. The information gathering perspective of book-building is certainly useful, but the theory also suggests that the information provided by one incremental investor is not very valuable when the investment banker can canvas hundreds of potential investors. Thus, it is not obvious that this framework is capable of explaining average underpricing of more than a few percent. 3.3 Principal-Agent Models Loughran and Ritter (2004) insist on the inconvenient of the book-building theories by examining the possibility of agency problems to occur between the underwriters and the issuing company. Early models linking agency conflict and initial public offering are more on the way that the informational advantage that underwriters have over issuing companies might allow them to not use the maximum of their capacity to promote and distribute the stock. Baron and Holmstrà ¶m (1980) and Baron (1982) build a model that focus on the banks benefit from underpricing. In that model, the issuer firms assign the pricing decision to the bank in order to generate efficient use of the banks superior information concerning the demand. Biais et al (2002) combine the agency cost setting of Baron (1982) with Benveniste and Spindts (1989) assumption that some investors hold pricing-relevant information worth extracting before the offer price is set. In such a setting, the investment banker could collu de with the informed investors, to the potential detriment of the issuing company. Biais et al (2002) derive an optimal IPO mechanism that maximizes the issuers proceeds. In this mechanism, the IPO price is set higher the fewer shares are allocated to (uninformed) retail investors. Allocating more to institutional investors when their private signals are positive (i.e. when the IPO price should be set higher) is consistent with Benveniste and Spindts information. 3.4 Signaling of Firm Quality Theory Allen and Faulhaber (1989), Welch (1989) et al (1989) consider underpricing of IPOs as a tool used by firms to signal their quality. Investors through underpricing become aware of the true value of firm so the market expects less money on the table in the future subscriptions. To distinguish themselves from the pool of low-quality issuers, high-quality issuers may attempt to signal their quality. In these models, better quality issuers deliberately sell their shares at a lower price than the market believes they are worth, which deters lower quality issuers from imitating. With some patience, these issuers can recoup their upfront sacrifice post-IPO, either in future issuing activity, favorable market responses to future dividend announcements, or analyst coverage. signaling models have in common that high quality firms demonstrate that they are high quality by throwing money away. One way to do this is to leave money on the table in the IPO. However, on theoretical grounds, it is unclear why underpricing is a more efficient signal than, say, committing to spend money on charitable donations or advertising. The evidence in favor of these signaling theories is, at best, mixed: there is evidence of substantial post-issuing market activity by IPO firms (Welch (1989)), and it is clear that some issuers approach the market with an intention to conduct future equity issues. However, there is reason to believe that any price appreciation would induce entrepreneurs to return to the market for more funding. Jegadeesh, Weinstein, and Welch (1993) find that returns after the first day are just as effective in inducing future issuing activity as the first-day returns are. Michaely and Shaw (1994) outright reject signaling: in a simultaneous equation model, they find no evidence of either a higher propensity to return to the market for a seasoned offering or of a higher propensity to pay dividends for IPOs that were more underpriced. Still, aside from the pers istence of the signaling explanation on the street, its most appealing feature is that some issuers voluntarily desire to leave money on the table to create a good taste in investors mouths. As such, it is relatively compatible with higher levels of IPO underpricing. If investors are more informed than the issuer, for example about the general market demand for shares, then the issuer faces a placement problem. The issuer does not know the price the market is willing to bear. In other words, an issuer faces an unknown demand for its stock. A number of theories model a specific demand curve. One can simply assume that all investors are equally informed, and thus purchase shares only if their price is below their common assessment. Observed (successful) IPOs thus are necessarily underpriced. There are, however, some overpriced IPOs going public, which would not be predicted because all investors are assumed to know that these would be overpriced. A more realistic assumption is that investors are differentially informed. Pricing too high might induce investors and issuers to fear a winners curse (Rock (1986)) or a negative cascade (Welch (1992)). 4. Institutional Explanations 4.1 Legal Liability Tinic (1988) states that IPOs are underpriced by firm in order to decrease the probability of lawsuit by investors. Indication of a legal liability can create negative impression for an IPO and can cause the failure of the issue. This idea goes back to Logue (1973) and Ibbotson (1975) whose believe companies intentionally sell their stock under the price to reduce the chance of lawsuits by future shareholders frustrated by the performance of their shares after the introduction. This theory concerns mostly the united state because differently to the IPOs underpricing, strict liability laws are not a worldwide phenomenon. Research have shown that law suit is not significant in some country. Tinic (1988), Hughes and Thakor (1992), and Hensler (1995) argue that intentional underpricing may act like insurance against securities litigation. Lawsuits are costly to the firms in term of legal fees, diversion of management time and potential damage to their reputation capital. Hughes and Thakor (1992) state that the change of law suit increases with offer price. 4.2 Price Stabilization Benveniste et al (1996) confirmed the price stabilization of Smith (1986) as a mechanism use by banks and investors. After a book-building, they could exaggerate the investors interest and overprice the IPO. For them, institutional investors who are active in book-building should be advantaged during the allocation. Chowdhry and Nanda (1996) instead consider retail investors as the principal beneficiaries of the price support. Schultz and Zaman (1994) and Hanley et al (1993) show evidence of general price support; and that price support seem to be accentuate for the weak IPOs. 5. Ownership and Control Two models analyze the link between underpricing of initial public offering and ownership and control. First, Booth and Chua (1996) and Brennan and Franks (1997) support the ownership dispersion hypothesis. They argue that firms are willing to underprice in order to have a diffuse ownership base and create a liquid market for their shares. Underpriced IPOs generate excess demand and create a large number of small shareholders. This is crucial for all IPOs as they aim for high participation of public in order to make difficult for outsiders to challenge management. They consider underpricing as a way to trespass managerial control by avoiding monitoring by an important outside shareholder. In contrary to the authors above, Stoughton and Zechners (1998) analysis suggests that underpricing is used to reduce agency costs by promoting monitoring. They observe in contrast to Booth, Chua, Brennan and Franks that the value can be ameliorate by allocating shares to a voluminous extern al investor that has the capacity to monitor managerial process. Stoughton and Zechner, model a book building regime with discretionary allocations; they assume managers keep intern the agency costs imposed to outside investors by lowering the price they are willing to pay for the shares. 6. Behavioral Explanations Loughran and Ritter (2002) suggest an explanation for IPO underpricing that emphasize on behavioral distortion between the decision-makers of the IPO Company, rather than between investors. They argue those issue firms accept the money left on the table during the large first-day returns because they summate the money loss due to underpricing with the wealth gain when prices rise in the after-market. They also assume that the decision-makers initial valuation beliefs are reflected in the mean of the indicative price range reported in the issuing firms IPO registration statement. This belief serves as a reference point against which the gain or loss from the outcome of the IPO can be assessed. The offer price for an IPO routinely differs from this reference point, either because the bank manipulated the decision makers expectations by low-balling the price range, or in reflection of information revealed during marketing efforts directed at institutional investors.

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I want to make sure that I am preparing for nursing school in every way. Taking Nursing School Success course has educated me on several different areas that are important to succeed nursing school. Making sure that I am organized and prepared for class early are two tasks out of several that are important as I major in nursing. I have a few weaknesses when it comes to school. One of my weaknesses is nervousness. I tend to get nervous when it’sRead MoreReflection Paper On Nursing Exams1492 Words   |  6 PagesJournal 2 – Maren Lewallen Nursing Exams These new experiences of nursing exams was an interesting time for me. I found out more about my testing, studying and many other skills to help my in excelling in 111 and other classes on campus. At first, I was very scared at just the word â€Å"exam†. I didn’t feel that I was going to do well on the first nursing exam. I didn’t have the studying habits created for myself yet. I didn’t believe I had the confidence for that first nursing exam. I began to put myselfRead MoreA Brief Note On Nursing And Self Care1131 Words   |  5 Pages Nursing and Self Care Leslie Hunter University of Central Missouri â€Æ' Nursing and Self Care Introduction On the front page of the American Nurses Association’s webpage, you see their complete definition of what being a professional nurse is, â€Å"Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities

Does Social Media Cause Psychological Problems free essay sample

Anybody who has access to this social media website can reveal news of engagements and breakups, job gains and losses, or even news of life and death; its easy to become overwhelmed especially when you need to keep up with friends and families from a distance or in a different geographical location. Social media comes in many forms including blogs and micro-blogs, forums and message boards, social networks, wikis, virtual worlds, social bookmarking, tagging and news, writing communities, digital storytelling and scrapbooking, and data, content, image and video sharing, podcast portals, and collective intelligence. All of these forms makes majority of individuals keep up with technology and be a part of the information hi-way. Since social media website becomes part of the majority of individual’s life, there is an enormous amount of studies that has been made to identify the benefit of utilizing social media. An example of this study is the one made by Maurizio Mauri, Ph. D. , Pietro Cipresso, Ph. D. , Anna Balgera, M. A. Marco Villamira, Ph. D. , M. D. , and Giuseppe Riva, Ph. D. and made an article titled â€Å"Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking† and in the article it stated that the use of social media website can have a positive and negative effect on the individual; however, the increasing use of social media website reveal that people continue to use this because they have a positive experience when they use them. A study made by Researcher Jeffrey Hancock at Cornell University revealed that one positive effect of using a social media website is the boost of self esteem since majority of people choose what they reveal about themselves and filter anything that might reflect badly on a social media websites, feedbacks from friends and family posted publicly on peoples profiles tends to be overwhelmingly positive which can help boost one’s self-esteem. According to Jeffrey Hancock, Unlike a mirror, which reminds us of who we really are and may have a negative effect on self-esteem if that image does not match with our ideal, social media website can show a positive version of ourselves. Since both studies showed a positive effect of using social media websites, one may ask about the other side of it. What about those studies that have been made to show the negative effect of using social media website? The Australian Psychology Society created a survey and according to their findings, twenty eight percent of the participants experienced negative effects that can lead to psychological problems. These participants were asked to provide further information about the negative experience and for the most correspondents revealed that unwanted contact or people posting inappropriate or upsetting information online and specified having online bullying and provided examples such as abusive messages and harassment that can soon lead to low esteem. This kind of negative experience from social media website can be compared to what happened to Megan Meier, a thirteen years old resident of Dardenne Prairie, Missouri who ended her own life by hanging herself inside her room that was later investigated that it was a result of cyber bullying. There is also another cause of low self esteem that does not involve abusive messages and harassments like what was mentioned earlier and this is comparing one’s self to another. As what Jeffrey Hancock at Cornell University mentioned earlier that most people reveal only the good side of themselves or their life to boost their self esteem, this gives the opportunity for other people to compare their lives with other people who have more fun and lead more exciting lives. Since social media give people opportunity to post pictures and comments about their lives like vacations, perfect children, family outings, their promotions at work, how their love life, how they are always eating fabulous meals and busy social lives, other people see this as a comparison to their own life and develop frustrations and look at their life as imperfect. Comparing with other people is a natural tendency that we all do to some extent. It can be normal as long as you only evaluate similarities and differences. It’s also productive if you’re inspired to emulate another’s impressive traits but there are instances that this becomes dysfunctional when it develops envy and jealousy, if a person judges themselves as less fortunate than others, and then there is a greater chance that low self esteem will develop. Another study about social media website and other technology that can have negative effects on the mental health of children and teenagers was conducted by Dr. Larry D. Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University. In the 119th Annual Convention of the American Psychology Association in Washington D. C. on August 4-7, 2012, he revealed that in his study entitled â€Å"Poke Me: How Social Networks Can both Help and Harm Our Kids†, teenagers and young adults who are continuously logged on to Facebook are more often to show psychological disorders, like mania, paranoia, aggressive tendencies, antisocial behavior and increased alcohol use. These teens also more often displayed narcissistic tendencies, which are fed by their ability to constantly broadcast information about themselves through Facebook. This study can closely be related to the researched done by Jeffrey Hancock at Cornell University where some individual uses social media website to boost their self esteem. Dr Larry D. Rosen’s study also revealed that children, pre-teens and teenagers who used Internet and social media websites on a regular basis  have more stomach aches, sleeping problems, anxiety and depression and because of this, they miss school more often. Young adult experience the same effect but instead of missing school, they miss work and often call-out on work. This study can be associated to the study made by Dr. Michael Fenichel, Ph. D. that is named â€Å"Facebook Addiction Disorder† where based on his clinical study reveals that vast amount of time and energy are spent at work, at home, at school, and now while even on the move, that people are engaging and/or log on to Facebook thus creates the chain of effect. Missing school means missing out on class and school activity that can somehow affect their school performance creating insecurities towards their peer groups that can eventually lead to anxiety and depression. In addition to Dr. Rosen’s study, 48 percent of 18-34-year-olds check Facebook when they wake up and 28 percent before they get out of bed, this habit drives them to lose focus on the workday ahead of them. Since young adults that are so much engage in a social media website spend the most of their time on it, they even do this at work which makes them less productive and missing out on great opportunities to promote themselves at the work place thus again creating insecurities towards their co-workers who are performing better and will eventually lead to low self esteem and depression. Another result to Dr. Rosen’s study was targeted to middle school and high school and not surprisingly, middle school and high school students who logged into Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study session received lower grades. Rosen and his team found that most students were only able to maintain focus on their studies for two or three minutes before distracting themselves with the Web and spend more time on it than their studies. Although social networking sites provides some positive effects to its users, the negative effects of these social networking sites overweigh the positive ones. These sites, according to each and every study that was conducted, have not only caused some negative psychological effect to an individual, but to a group or society itself considering the huge amount of users of a social networking sites. The students and young adults become victims of social networks more often than anyone else. This is because of the reason that when they are studying or searching their course material online or at work, they get attracted to these sites to kill the boredom in their current situation, diverting their attention from their studies and work. http://www. enichel. com/pokeme. shtml http://www. chabad4israel. org/tznius4israel/newdisorder. pdf http://www. psychology. org. au/Assets/Files/Social-and-Psychological-Impact-of-Social-Networking-Sites. pdf http://online. liebertpub. com/doi/abs/10. 1089/1094931041291295? journalCode=cpbamp; http://www. commonsensemedia. org/research/social-media-social-life/key-finding-2%3A-teens-more-likely-to-report-positi ve-impact http://online. liebertpub. com/doi/abs/10. 1089/cyber. 2010. 0377? journalCode=cyberamp; http://www. news. cornell. edu/stories/2011/03/facebook-walls-boost-self-esteem-finds-study

World War 2 Essays - Presidency Of Franklin D. Roosevelt

World War 2 When war broke out, there was no way the world could possibly know the severity of this guerre. Fortunately one country saw and understood that Germany and its allies would have to be stopped. America's Involvement in World War two not only contributed in the eventual downfall of the insane Adolph Hitler and his Third Reich, but also came at the precise time and moment. Had the United States entered the war any earlier the consequences might have been worse. Over the years it has been an often heated and debated issue on whether the United States could have entered the war sooner and thus have saved many lives. To try to understand this we must look both at the people's and government's point of view. Just after war broke out in Europe, President Roosevelt hurriedly called his cabinet and military advisors together. There it was agreed that the united states stay neutral in these affairs. One of the reasons given was that unless America was directly threatened they had no reason to be involved. This reason was a valid one because it was the American policy to stay neutral in any affairs not having to with them unless American soil was threatened directly. Thus the provisional neutrality act passed the senate by seventy-nine votes to two in 1935. On August 31, Roosevelt signed it into law. In 1936 the law was renewed, and in 1937 a "comprehensive and permanent" neutrality act was passed (Overy 259). The desire to avoid "foreign entanglements" of all kinds had been an American foreign policy for more than a century. A very real "geographical Isolation" permitted the United States to "fill up the empty lands of North America free from the threat of foreign conflict"(Churchill 563). Even if Roosevelt had wanted to do more in this European crisis (which he did not), there was a factor too often ignored by critics of American policy-American military weakness. When asked to evaluate how many troops were available if and when the United States would get involved, the army could only gather a mere one hundred thousand, when the French, Russian and Japanese armies numbered in millions. Its weapons dated from the First World War and were no match compared to the new artillery that Germany and its allies had. "American soldiers were more at home with the horse than with the tank" The air force was just as bad if not worse. In September 1939 the Air Corps had only 800 combat aircraft again compared with Germany's 3600 and Russia's 10,000. American military Aviation (AMA) in 1938 was able to produce only 1,800, 300 less than Germany, and 1,400 less than Japan. Major Eisenhower, who was later Supreme commander of the Allied forces in the second World War, complained that America was left with "only a shell of military establishment" (Chapman 234). As was evident to Roosevelt the United States military was in no way prepared to enter this European crisis. Another aspect that we have to consider is the people's views and thought's regarding the United States going to war. After all let us not forget that the American government is there "for the people and by the people" and therefore the people's view did play a major role in this declaration of Neutrality. In one of Roosevelt's fireside chats he said "We shun political commitments which might entangle us In foreign wars...If we face the choice of profits or peace-this nation must answer, the nation will answer ?we choose peace' ", in which they did. A poll taken in 1939 revealed that ninety-four per cent of the citizens did not want the United States to enter the war. The shock of World War one had still not left, and entering a new war, they felt, would be foolish. In the early stages of the war American Ambassador to London was quoted saying "It's the end of the world, the end of everything" ( Overy 261). As Richard Overy notes in The Road to War, this growing "estrangement" from Europe was not mere selfishness. They were the values expressed by secretary of state, Cordel Hull: "a primary interest in peace with justice, in economic well-being with stability, and conditions of order under the law". These were principles here on which most Americans (ninety-four percent as of 1939) agreed. To promote these principles the United States would have to avoid all "foreign entanglements", or as Overy puts it "any kind of alliance or association outside the Western Hemisphere". Instead the United States

How to Use $_SERVER in PHP

How to Use $_SERVER in PHP $_SERVER is one of the PHP global variables- termed Superglobals- which contain information about server and execution environments. These are pre-defined variables so they are always accessible from any class, function or file. The entries here are recognized by web servers, but there is no guarantee that each web server recognizes every Superglobal. These three PHP $_SERVER arrays all behave in similar ways- they return information about the file in use. When exposed to different scenarios, in some cases they behave differently. These examples may help you decide which is best for what you need. A full list of $_SERVER arrays is available at the PHP website. $_SERVER[PHP_SELF] PHP_SELF is the name of the currently executing script. yoursite.com/example/ /example/index.phpyoursite.com/example/index.php   /example/index.phpyoursite.com/example/index.php?atest   /example/index.phpyoursite.com/example/index.php/dir/test   /dir/test When you use $_SERVER[’PHP_SELF’], it returns the file name /example/index.php both with and without the file name typed in the URL. When variables are appended at the end, they were truncated and again /example/index.php was returned. The only version that produced a different result has directories appended after the file name. In that case, it returned those directories. $_SERVER[REQUEST_URI] REQUEST_URI refers to the URI given to access a page. yoursite.com/example/   /yoursite.com/example/index.php   /example/index.phpyoursite.com/example/index.php?atest   /example/index.php?atestyoursite.com/example/index.php/dir/test   /example/index.php/dir/test All of these examples returned exactly what was entered for the URL. It returned a plain /, the file name, the variables, and the appended directories, all just as they were entered. $_SERVER[SCRIPT_NAME] SCRIPT_NAME is the current scripts path. This comes in handy for pages that need to point to themselves. yoursite.com/example/   /example/index.phpyoursite.com/example/index.php   /example/index.phpyoursite.com/example/index.php?atest   /example/index.phpyoursite.com/example/index.php/dir/test   /example/index.php All cases here returned only the file name /example/index.php regardless of whether it was typed, not typed, or anything was appended to it.

How to Create Cool and Unique Character Names (And Ones to Avoid)

How to Create Cool and Unique Character Names (And Ones to Avoid) Throughout history, naming a child was an act that took on special significance. Whether it is a name that means something important, a name that carries on a family heritage, or a name that is as unique as the baby in their arms- naming has always been an important ritual for parents.In fact, this article in Fatherly.com discusses naming rituals around the world, noting that name choice across cultures is far from arbitrary. For example, consider this Nigerian practice:The ethnic Yoruba, who make up about 21 percent of the population of Nigeria, name their babies based on the circumstances of their birth, of which there are many. Consider Aina - a girl born with the umbilical cord around her neck. Or Ajayi - a boy born with his head facing downwards. Places also matter, as is the case with Tokunbo - a boy or girl born overseas.Fatherly.comOr this practice in India:The influence of the horoscope on Indian culture is tremendous. Here, a child often receives the name of the constell ation they were born under. In the Northern part of India they will take a name that begins with the first letter of the constellation. In Southern regions a child will take the name of the entire constellation.Fatherly.comIn other countries such as Bali and Ireland, birth order of the child determines his or her given name. Specifically in Ireland, children are named after family members and based on their birth order.The first born boy, for instance, will receive the name of their grandfather on their fathers side. The next brother will get the name of their mothers father. The third brother will get the fathers name, and the fourth will get their eldest uncles name. Its the same order with daughters, but starting with the grandmother on their mothers side.Fatherly.comNow, you might be asking- what do parents naming practices have to do with me naming my characters. Well†¦a lot, actually. If youre an author, your characters are your babies. Theyre your darlings, your creation - and often one that has been born through agony, sweat and tears.But is a name really so important? William Shakespeare wrote:Whats in a name? that which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet.William Shakespeare, Romeo and JulietRomeo asks, Whats in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Photo by Ricky Kharawala on UnsplashIs it true that the names you choose for characters are arbitrary and inconsequential, as Romeo mused?History begs to differ. In fact, theres even a branch of study called onomastics, which is a field that is equal parts linguistics, history, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and philology. One glance at this website reveals the extent to which linguists and historians have studied names, including their meaning, origin, and popularity among groups of people.One article on the site discusses the effect a name can have on a persons behavior. The author, H. Edward Deluzain, writes:The process that gives names the ir influence is the so-called self-fulfilling prophecy. Briefly explained, the self-fulfilling prophecy works this way. A man introduces himself to us as Percy. Immediately, our unconscious mind goes to work dredging up all the images and associations we have with that name. Without realizing it, we develop a mental picture- a set of expectations- of what a Percy is like. This mental picture causes changes in our own behavior that are so subtle that we are not aware of them. However, Percy picks up on the messages we are sending by our actions, and he makes unconscious changes in his own way of acting to satisfy what he thinks we expect of him. In other words, we set up a situation which forces Percy to behave the way we think Percys are supposed to behave.From Behindthename.comEven in the literary sense, can you envision the characters of Holden Caulfield, Scout Finch, or even Harry Potter by any other name? If you assume that their chosen character names played a large role in mak ing them memorable characters, its definitely a safe assumption to make.So, now that you understand the enormous significance humans have placed on naming someone, you should recognize the importance of taking your time in determining the names of characters in your story or novel. Youd be surprised at the difference a name can make, so before you decide a name for your character, consider these important steps to take.1. Dont decide at the planning stages of your novelThinking of a character name as you outline your book? Not so fast! The best names likely wont come to you until you have fleshed out the character more and written extensively on him or her. In the same sense that many cultures wait until the circumstances surrounding a babys birth- or even longer, as the baby develops a personality- you should wait to see what kind of personality your character takes on before you decide on a name for him or her.Thats not to say its impossible to know your characters name right from the beginning. However, considering the care that should go in to naming your characters (your babies), deciding on a name right from the beginning could stifle your naming creativity and leave you with a character who is poorly named (and therefore, not memorable).The best way to avoid this is to begin your planning and writing with an initial. As you write more about J. or L., the best name will likely come to you as the story progresses. You could even use a keyword such as protagonist or antagonist as you write, then run a simple Find + Replace function to replace that word with the characters name once youve had some time to find the perfect one.2. Consider the root meaning of the names you chooseAnyone who has ever taken a literature class understands the extent to which readers can dive into symbolism and metaphor as they read a good book or story. In fact, this is what English majors and literature professors do best. In doing so, they love to seek out the root meaning of n ames to find even more Easter eggs that the author has left for his or her readers throughout the story.Take, for instance, the heroine of the Hunger Games trilogy- Katniss Everdeen. Do you think Suzanne Collins randomly chose that name? Think again. All it takes is a look at this page to understand how deeply Collins researched to find the perfect name for her memorable heroine. Not only is Katniss (Sagittaria sagittifolia) a plant that is also known as arrowhead, most plants in the species have arrow-shaped leaves. Beyond that, the Latin name of the genus calls to mind Sagittarius, the archer in astrology.Still think Collins arbitrarily chose that name?There are many online resources that allow you to find the perfect name for your character. I dont know how Collins arrived at the information on the Katniss plant, but Id like to think she simply Googled arrows or arrowhead and eventually came upon the name Katniss. Whether this is how she did it or not, its a good method for you t o use to find a cool, unique, and fitting name for your character.Here are a few other great sites that show name meanings:Nameberry.comNames.orgBabyCenter.comAnother great option is to find a Wikipedia page about a certain topic based on your characters history or abilities, and search throughout it for links and other complementary sources that could lead you to the perfect, unique character name.Considering the root meaning of a name is an important step in naming your characters. Photo by Clint McKoy on Unsplash3. Use anachronistic names carefullyLiterarydevices.com offers the following definition of an anachronism in literature:An anachronism is something or someone that is not in the correct chronological time period. Anachronism examples can be intentional or unintentional, and involves the incorrect temporal placement of any person, event, object, custom, slang word, animal, or belief system which was not present at that time. The most common type of anachronism is to find s omething placed in an earlier time than it existed, such as having characters in the 18th century driving around in a car. However, it is also possible to find anachronisms in which the thing is placed later in time after it no longer existed, such as finding dinosaurs coexisting with humans in The Flintstones.From literarydevices.orgSome great examples of anachronisms in literature are William Shakespeares mention of a mechanical clock in Julius Caesar and fireworks in Mark Twains novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court. Obviously, great authors have used anachronisms in their work. However, I advise against naming characters with names that are anachronistic to the storys setting and time period.While this is certainly not an unbreakable rule, you should at least be careful with choosing names that dont fit well with the setting and time period of your story. For example, a novel set in the 19th century with a character named Courtney doesnt really work and will destroy y our readers suspension of disbelief. Likewise, if your story is about a wealthy, aristocratic family and their children, naming one of the children something highly unusual certainly wouldnt fit logically. It just isnt something that aristocrats have tended to do.One thing I like about this name generator provided by Point Park University is the ability to narrow generated names down by time period. The drop-down menus allow you to choose between ancient, old-fashioned, modern and futuristic, ensuring that the names that are generated are not anachronistic.You can also run a search online for popular names during a certain time period, such as Elizabethan England names. Such a search will offer results of websites or name generators specifically focused on the setting and time period of your story. The search I performed for the above search string returned multiple websites that were specific to the criteria I needed.4. Make sure it sounds good when spoken aloudEven though a novel is generally read, there are several marketing options that would require the book to be spoken aloud. Audiobooks are a big selling point and your book made into a movie is a pretty attractive prospect, especially in terms of the money you could make from it.Beyond audiobooks and movie rights, there are always author readings and discussions that will inevitably take place in the process of marketing your book. You will also (hopefully) have a lot of readers discussing your book and its characters in reading circles, or in recommendations to their friends and family, so keep in mind that the character names you choose will be said aloud in certain circumstances and should have a nice ring to it (and not be misheard as something else, unless its intentional).Consider how the character name sounds when spoken aloud.5. Consider character names in the context of other charactersUnless youre writing a short story with one character, your character does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, he o r she plays off of other characters within the story, and is (in some way) affected by details surrounding those other characters- including their names.With this in mind, remember that in naming your main characters, there should be a good mix of sounds, initials and number of syllables. In other words, avoid repetitive practices in assigning names to your characters. Giving every character in your book a name that begins with G will get confusing for your readers, just as giving every character a two-syllable name will sound repetitious. Variety is indeed the spice of life, and nowhere is this truer than in assigning character names.The more variety in syllable count and initials you can offer, the easier it will be for your characters to be distinguished from others in the story. This is especially true if you give the important characters unique names, while leaving standard popular names for your secondary characters. The uniqueness will offer an entirely new level of distincti on.6. Use alliterative initialsTheres a reason why characters like Bilbo Baggins and Severus Snape stand out. In fact, J.K. Rowling enjoyed alliteration so much that she used the technique for many names in her books, including the founders of Hogwarts: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin.Alliteration puts a unique spin on a characters name, making it more memorable. While some writers (J.K. Rowling, especially) use alliterative first names and surnames often, you can also use the technique to differentiate your protagonist from all the other characters.7. Use name generatorsIf your search for a meaningful name comes up empty, another option is to use a name generator. These are websites and programs that generate various and random names based on criteria you include. For example, The Fantasy Name Generator is a great site for names that would work well in the fantasy genre. This site also has options to generate real names and names of plac es based on country of origin and gender.A website mentioned earlier that provides the root meanings behind names (Behindthename.com) also offers an option to discover translations and/or alternate versions of certain names across languages. This type of search gives writers the opportunity to find an alternate version of a well-known name that might be more unique. For example, when I ran a search for my first name (Tonya), the following list was generated:AKONI m HawaiianANAKONI m HawaiianANĈJO m EsperantoANDON m Bulgarian, MacedonianANDONI m BasqueANTAL m HungarianANTANAS m LithuanianANTE (1) m CroatianANTEA f Croatian (Modern)ANTHONY m EnglishANTà A f GalicianANTICA f CroatianANTO m Croatian, SerbianANTOINE m French, African AmericanANTOINETTE f FrenchANTÓN m GalicianANTON m German, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Dutch, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Slovene, Macedonian, Croatian, Romanian, Estonian, Finnish, EnglishANTONELA f CroatianANTONELLA f ItalianANTONELL O m ItalianANTONETTE f EnglishAnother useful name generator Ive found is Masterpiece Generator, which allows you to fill in specific information and have a name generated based on those details. The specifications and details included along with drop-down menus are:How many examples would you like to generate? (10-100)Which gender would you like?Whats your characters title?What type of character is he/she?Birth year?How would you describe his/her nationality?How would you describe his/her parents nationalities?Which best describes your characters religious background?Alliterative names only? (yes/no)Given Name or Begins with and/or Ends inFamily Name, Popularity, Begins with and/or Ends inYoure also given the option to fill in all of the above with random responses to create a unique, computer-generated name that might be the perfect one. When you generate names on these programs and websites, be sure to generate several to find multiple options youll want to narrow down later.8. Co nsider a name that creates a meaningful anagramFor those lit majors and English professors I mentioned earlier, an anagram is such a fun detail to discover about a character- especially if that anagram reveals some hidden detail or symbolic reference to the character. Teachers love anagrams in character names because it allows them to offer their students an ah-ha moment when studying the work and while discussing aspects of a character. And have no doubt, English literature students at the university will discuss a characters aspects for hours at a time, seeking meaning in the smallest of details, whether the author intended meaning to be there or not.For example, lets say I wanted to create a character who was a loner but also a stellar physician. In playing with the words lone healer, I came up with the name Lorae Henel. Not only is this a unique name- its also an anagram of a descriptive phrase representing my character. In simply creating an anagram, Ive achieved two goals in n aming the character: 1) Ive created a unique, memorable name; and 2) Ive given my character a name that has hidden meaning (one that is a great Easter egg for a reader to discover).9. Get feedbackOnce youve narrowed down name choices to a list of a few possible names per character, enlist the feedback of a voracious reader that you know and whose opinion you trust. It would be even better to find a reader with a lot of experience reading the genre in which youre writing. Without giving details of your character (such as he is the protagonist, hes a warrior, etc.), write down the name(s) youre deciding between and ask the reader the following questions:How would you pronounce this?When you read this characters name, what kind of person do you envision? Include physical details as well as details about what they might do for a living.Do you think this character is good or bad? Why?Does it remind you of another character name or real-life persons name?After receiving feedback from a re ader (or readers), re-evaluate the name in consideration of the readers responses. Just because a reader guesses wrong (for example, thinks a name is for the protagonist vs. an antagonist) doesnt mean you have to change it. It will just be valuable feedback for you to consider when trying to decide between two or more different names for a character. Ultimately, youre the parent and your child can be named anything you choose.A final thought on naming charactersNaming the characters of your story is one of the most exciting steps youll take as an author in the writing process. Although it might be tempting to determine a characters name immediately in the pre-planning stages of writing your novel, try to resist the urge and give yourself time to learn more about the character as you write. Rather than randomly choosing a name that you think fits, spend time researching meanings, anagrams, alliterations and name generators before making a final decision. Theres so much in a name!

Global warming Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Global warming - Research Paper Example Global warming is the buzzword echoing around the world. Global warming is a topic which finds its place in the news headlines, on TV, every alternate day. Global Warming is an overall augmentation in the surface temperature of the planet consequently leading to climatic changes. These changes are owing to heat ensnared by various green house gases encompassing carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, CFCs and ozone. This has lead to various repercussions such as increased flooding, hot summers, rise in diseases, etc, etc. However, the other perspective is, it might not be as serious an issue as believed to be. There has not been sufficient evidence to prove the direct link of global warming with natural calamities. So, this paper will discuss both the pros and cons of this global warming argument. Background The "Greenhouse Effect" is entirely a natural process which takes place on an everyday basis. However, the trouble only begins, when there are heightened emissions from man creat ed industries and other automobile forms, generating amounts of carbon dioxide which are far higher than the permissible levels. The list of greenhouse gases includes water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone and nitrous oxide. ... They contribute to more than 20% of the carbon dioxide emission in the atmosphere, a contribution is far more then the contribution by vehicles. Deforestation is also on rise to create space for these set ups and to procure fuel by burning wood, again contributing to Global Warming. The trouble happens when the large scale combustion of fossil fuels happen everyday in the industries and in automobiles, and results in generating high amounts of the main GHG, carbon dioxide. The level of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has shown an uphill path, again due to human initiated industrialization. â€Å"Humans have been modifying the environment through processes associated with industrialization...One of the most important results of these activities has been increased emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)† (Berliner 32). Cons of Global Warming Sceptics consider global warming as a myth, a fantasy or a Western agenda, but they might have no answer for the various nat ural calamities all over the world particularly the floods in Australia or the frequent droughts in any other parts of the world. The effects of global warming are tremendous as well as very hazardous. One of the first things we may probably notice is the fluctuation of extreme weather conditions. Very hot summers and extremely cold and chilly winters are its first indication. The effects and the resultant damages of global warming were what that concerns the people. It is taking its toll on the polar ice caps, in the form of a sudden meltdown, with the glaciers in the Arctic region disappearing at much a faster rate. â€Å"The Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world and the sea ice

Improving Performance and Commitment in the Workplace Assignment

Improving Performance and Commitment in the Workplace - Assignment Example In essence, Google was one of those companies that had put its people first by putting the company heavy emphasis on organizational behavior in its practices. In an industry where the dynamism was high and one with a very fast-changing environment, it had been apparent how its people had been one of the company's competitive resources (Idinopulos & Kempler). Googles people constituted a high resource value—they were rare and inimitable. The company's heavy emphasis on its corporate practices had been directly linked to its profitability—one of the main arguments of OB; organizational behavior being linked to profitability. According to John Sullivan in his article entitled â€Å"Google,† the companys profitability had a direct correlation to its employees productivity (42). According to him, the average Google employee contributed around $1 million dollar to the companys revenues annually (42). With this figure, the companys stocks had traded from an initial offer price of $85 in 2004 when it went public, up to $700 in 2007 (42). This job performance and organizational commitment, according to the integrative model in the chapter was potentially influenced by a set of individual mechanisms that include â€Å"job satisfaction, stress, motivation, trust, ethics and justice, and learning and decision-making (Colquitt, LePine, & Wesson, 7)†. In Googles case, these individual mechanisms were favorable to the employees. The companys 70-20-10 policy, where the 20% was as mentioned in the case was part of a time for learning--the time for the next big Google project; as well as the 10% which was dedicated to creativity, innovation, and freedom to think (Sullivan, 42).  

Learning Agreement Essay Example for Free

Learning Agreement Essay In R Tours, I was assigned in the Inbound Department and I learned a lot from there. One of the main duties in the department is the inbound operation. The inbound operation consists of several tasks. First to create interesting and excellent tour packages, then, promote them locally and internationally and finally handling them. We may receive request or booking by telephone, fax, letter or email from individuals, local and international groups. Most of the time a normal booking will have information on the type of tour package chosen, the length of stay, the number of people and additional services required such as a buffet set up instead of an a la carte menu or providing the welcome drink in the airport instead of the hotel. Normally we reply by thanking the person or the foreign company involves and we include all the necessary information such as the detailed itinerary, the cost of the tour and most important our confirmation for handling the tour. Then we will wait to get a confirmation from them before starting to make all arrangements and preparations. The confirmation includes the date and time of arrival, the flight number if they are arriving by airplane, names plus passport numbers of clients and the rooming list. It is only after receiving the confirmation that we begin to work on arranging and preparing the booking of hotels, restaurants, transportation vehicles, museum tickets and sometimes airlines tickets if they are intend to fly to the south of the country. We also, arrange the visas and prepare the travel insurance. We assign people who are going to take care of the group such as tour leader, tour guide and driver. Then we prepare the reservation forms and we send them to our suppliers. The reservation form includes the services requested and the number of pax and sometimes more information according to the kind of supplier. In a case of a hotel for example, the reservation form will include extra information such as the date of checking in and out, the number and what type of room and type of payment. Suppliers may be hotel, resort, motel, museum, restaurant, theme park, car rental, motor-coach company, a marina, a diving center or anything else. During peak season we have difficulties in getting the right accommodation or some other services that was mentioned in the tour package, in this kind of situation we, must think of an alternative and inform the client about the changes and finally when both of us agree we proceed with the arrangement. The next task is to handle the group from the first day to the last day. The most important rule with the western group is being punctual because they are used to it and they do not like to wait for anything or anybody even from their own group. Make sure everything goes according to the itinerary timing. All the employees and suppliers involve must take this into consideration. In case of lateness they may complaint and even ask for refund for that particular service. All the time make sure that everything is ready in advance. For example, during the arrival day, the tour guide and the motor coach must be present at the airport at least one hour before the plane lands and provide the tour guide with a small board having the name of the group to make it easier for the group to find him. We need to monitor the group every single day and keep in touch with the tour leader. All the international groups have their tour leader and building an excellent communication or relation with him or her is really important because the tour leader is the one in charge of the entire group and he or she plays a very important role to insure that the tour is conducted as planned. Carrying daily briefing with him or her helps to find out what happened the day before and if any change has to be done for the next day. In the department we need to carry meetings to resolve any kind of problem during the tour. I learned to build strong relation with our suppliers to minimize the problem and complications. In the beginning I was facing many problems of getting what I wanted and it used to take days of negotiation before getting it. I realized that certain suppliers such as five star hotels or dine dining restaurants were not responding positively to our request because they were preferring to deal directly with the customers or with reputed tour operator company. According to their opinion, we were not qualified or capable of bringing much business and I was really disappointed by their discrimination and behavior but my personal and communication skills helped me to accomplish whatever I wanted from them. It is sad to realize that they are used to work this way, they dont easily cooperate with small companies and I needed to win their trust. Finally they decided to really do business with me and everything was working smoothly after that. I think and believe that these hotels or any other suppliers should cooperate and build a better relationship with the small tour operators in order to benefit from each other. I definitely agree that we were not in the same level as those large tour operators such as Z Tours but we proved to these hotels income as well. However, I was pleased that after many months of hard work, we were able to increase the number of bookings with them month after month. During my time spent in R Tours, I learned to better understand the procedure of handling tour packages. Now I am more confident of myself and well prepared due to all the experience that I had acquired while working there. I would like to conclude by saying that inbound operation is about using your capabilities, trying your strength in all the different tasks involves and be able to solve any problem happening during the tour by relating to your learning experience at the work place.

Effect of Female Principals Management Styles on Teachers Job satisfaction in Isfahan- Iran, Girls High Schools :: Education, Educational Systems, Nurturing

Nowadays, Education has changed and developed fundamentally due to cultural, social and political changes. Education is under intense scrutiny by public and private interests who question the systems ability to fulfill its goals of teaching basic skills, instilling values, preventing dropouts, and producing a productive workforce. Such an incredible responsibility requires high committed to fulfilling the high expectations .Nurturing and educating the new generation have assigned to educational systems. Today, educational administration means: leadership, directing, reform and change. Therefore, achievement to high level goal of education in each society, demand renovation and reorganization and new thinking in management of educational systems (Allahabad, 2004). Educational Administration either in supervision and monitoring of financial and official affairs, in education or others that involving directly with development and implementation of educational program , have responsibil ity and tasks in achievement of essential objectives of educational administration as named facilitating teaching-learning process. Schools must give more attention to teacher job satisfaction because it may promote efficiency and staff satisfaction. One of the important factors in improvement of psychological and spiritual energy for staff in the organization is promotion of job satisfaction in teachers. In fact, job satisfaction is a kind of emotional and affective coping with job and its conditions which it consists of two components: cognitive and behavioral. The cognitive aspect is indicator for staff believes about their job conditions and behavioral aspect means individuals trends to their job. Cognitive aspect has more validity than other behavioral aspects due to further relationship with individuals' attitudes. A successful education system is dependent upon a high quality teaching staff. In order to develop this high quality teaching staff, one must look at factors associated with teacher quality and retention. One of these factors is teacher job satisfaction. Job satisfaction can be defined as an ove rall feeling about ones job or career in terms of specifies, i.e. compensation, autonomy, coworkers; administration. Job satisfaction has been studied for many years. Happock (1935) was one of the first researchers to study job satisfaction. He found that workers were more satisfied with a supervisor who was understanding and helpful (as in cited, Bass, 1990). Frederick Herzberg (1959), psychologist and researcher studied job satisfaction because he believed higher satisfaction led to higher productivity, decreased absenteeism, and better working relations. He found that positive feeling about work, a sense of personal worth, and a sense of personal fulfillment were related to achievement and responsibility (Wetherell,2002).

Strategic Management and Swot Analysis

Contents: I. INTRODUCTION a. Brand Extension for L’OREAL II. LITERATURE REVIEW a. Ansoff Matrix b. SWOT Analysis c. BCG Matrix III. REFLECTIVE STATEMENT IV. REFERENCES Brand Extension for L’OREAL Brand extension takes place whenever a company wants to enter a new market by using the name of one of its existing brands, rather than using a new one. Especially the luxury sector takes advantage of its well-known brand names when it comes to launching new products into new markets (Kapferer, 2008, p. 295).The popularity of brand extension strategy is due to the belief that it leads to higher consumer trial than the use of a new brand name because of the awareness levels of the brand name being leveraged (Keller, 2003, p. 582). L’Oreal as a global brand is known for high quality cosmetic goods like make-up and hair care products for women, men and kids. Its mission â€Å"Beauty for all† connects with the company’s slogan â€Å"Because you're worth itâ₠¬ , which is used in nearly every single L’Oreal advertisement.To identify all the different products of the brand’s portfolio they utilize the same logo for all of their goods by adapting to the specific field (L’Oreal homepage, 2012). Considering L’Oreal’s image of good appearance we decided to extend the brand by entering a new market with a new product. The diversification L’Oreal shoes should be placed in the customer products area with a target group of professional women. The leather shoes should be available for middle to high income consumers. Though the price is affordable for this group of customers the quality is still high.With this strategy we want to cover the needs of the existing customers and reach out for new potential clients. On one hand we intend to increase our sales and profits; on the other hand we use the good reputation of L’Oreal to get our new product connected to the values of the umbrella brand. To make sure that we created a new logo keeping the traditional L’Oreal letters with a reference to the shoe sector as shown in (image 1). Meanwhile, we forecast that L’Oreal shoes can strengthen the global brand in future.Image 1: Traditional L’Oreal letters mentioning the new sector Brief Literature Review Before putting theory into practice every company needs to consider its internal and external situation. In this part, three marketing theories will be applied to L’OREAL. These are: The Ansoff matrix, the SWOT analysis and the BCG matrix. Ansoff matrix is a model that helps firms to outline the range of marketing options open to them (Riley, 2012). L’Oreal shoes classified as a diversification was made according to the Ansoff matrix.A diversification is described as a new product for a new market. L’Oreal added shoes to its existing product range, left the skin and hair care market and entered the new footwear area. Image 2: Ansoff matrix With the SWOT Analysis we could discover our strengths and weaknesses, and identify both the opportunities and the threats for L’Oreal. In other words, as Renault stated â€Å"A SWOT is to reveal positive forces that work together and potential problems that need to be addressed or at least recognized†.Comparing the strengths to the weaknesses for L’Oreal shoes we have to mention that the variety of suppliers and the competitive quality price relation of the product overweight the missing expertise in the shoe sector. The opportunity of using the strong image of L’Oreal and the fact that there are no other middle price shoes in our own umbrella brand product range can be used to attract new customers. Taking into account that the economic situation has changed and people are not willing to spend as much as they did before the recession took place (Price, 2012).Using the BCG Matrix a company can recognize if a product is profitable or not. It can be helpful if a company has to decide whether investing additional resources in a certain product or services. There are four categories developed to the relative market share and market growth rate: star, cash cow, poor dog, question mark (Lu ; Zhao, 2006). A star is a product with a high market share and a high market growth rate. With this kind of product the company gains revenue. Therefore, a star can be used to support weaker sectors. These products with a low market growth rate and a low market share are called poor dogs.Cash cows are well-established with a high market share but as the market growth rate is low the company has to be aware of limited opportunities. Those limitations do not exist for question marks as they are located in high growth markets with a low market share. These unknown new products like L’oreal shoes do have the potential to establish and become stars or even cash cows. In future they could be able to promote weaker sectors and create a trade-off (Lu ; Zah o, 2006) ;;; I found another website to reference these two paragraphs From which website did you get this?! gt;;;; According to the Internet Center for Management and Business Administration (2012) the BSG matrix is limited. The different products in a company’s portfolio cannot be taken as independent; they are related to each other. This has to be taken into consideration when it comes to the question whether you keep or you eliminate a product. Reflective Statement To develop the topic we firstly did some research about the definition of brand extension and L’Oreal as a company.We discovered that creating a brand extension for L’Oreal is a difficult task as the umbrella brand already covers a lot of sectors in the beauty and care area. We thought about a product that would fit into the enterprise’s image of beauty and decided to choose shoes for middle-aged professional women. We looked into several marketing theories to support our decision such as t he SWOT analysis, Ansoff matrix, and the BCG matrix. However, we discovered that The SWOT analysis is the most helpful theory for our research.Since L’OREAL shoes classified as diversification, the SWOT analysis helped us to discover our brand’s current strengths and weaknesses; as well as the potential opportunities and threats that we might find in the future. This made it easier for us to set our brand’s short term and long term goals. References: Collett, S. (1999). Business Planning, E-journal of SWOT Analysis, 33(29), 58. Retrieved November 05, 2012, from http://jr3tv3gd5w. search. serialssolutions. com/ Hussey, D. (1999). Strategic Change, E-journal of Igor Ansoff's Continuing Contribution to Strategic Management, 8(7), 05.Retrieved November 06, 2012, from http://onlinelibrary. wiley. com/doi/10. 1002/(SICI)1099-1697(199911)8:7%3C375::AID-JSC462%3E3. 0. CO;2-U/pdf Kapferer, J. N. (2008). The New Strategic Brand Management: Advanced Insights and Strategic Thinking. London: Kogan Page. Keller, Kevin L. (2003). Strategic Brand Management. (2nd ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Lu, H. & Zhao, L. (2006). INTEGRATING GIS AND BCG MODEL FOR MARKETING STRATEGIC PLANNING. 14(18), 02-04. Retrieved November 06, 2012, from http://iceb. nccu. edu. tw/proceedings/APDSI/2006/718-725. df Price, E. (2012). A reduction in European over-consumption will be undone by any Eurozone solution. Retrieved November 01, 2012, from http://blogs. lse. ac. uk/europpblog/2012/07/23/eurozone-over-consumption/ Riley, J. (2012). Ansoff Matrix. Retrieved November 07, 2012, from http://www. tutor2u. net/business/strategy/ansoff_matrix. htm Renault, V. (n. d. ). SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Retrieved November 08, 2012, from http://ctb. ku. edu/en/tablecontents/sub_section_main_1049. aspx

Dell Goes Back to its PC Roots Essay

Dell is a computer company that made its name by first selling personal computers directly to customers through their website, catalogs, and over the phone. As time passed, Dell expanded into related product lines while battling aggressive rivals such as Hewlett Packard and Apple, striving to be the number one consumer brand in the United States. Despite considerable research and marketing investment, Dell’s strategy to expand into other related product lines did not succeed, and the company was forced to regain its focus on PC sales. This case includes the steps taken by Dell to uphold its legendary PC roots. Key Marketing Issues †¢Brand – A name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that identifies one marketer’s product as distinct from those of other marketers. Dell is shining up its brand by improving customer service, which is especially important as PC sales grow more slowly throughout the industry and competitors dig in to defend market share. †¢Early Adopters – People who adopt new products early, choose new products carefully, and are viewed as â€Å"the people to check with† by later adopters. Dell is not looking to pioneer revolutionary new lines for early adopters, but has gone back to their PC roots, emphasizing related home office products. †¢Innovators – First adopters of new products. †¢Line Extensions – Development of a product that is closely related to existing products in the line but is designed specifically to meet different customer needs. Over the years, Dell has expanded into related product lines while battling rivals, hoping to obtain larger revenues. †¢Product Line – A group of closely related product items viewed as a unit because of marketing, technical, or end-use considerations. Over the years, Dell has expanded into related product lines while battling aggressive rivals, hoping to derive an ever-larger portion of revenues and profits from a wider mix of products for use beyond the home office. †¢Product Mix – The composite, or total, group of products that an organization makes available to customers. Dell has returned to its PC roots, emphasizing computers and laptops, inkjet and laser printers, networking equipment, and related products for home office use, after the failure of their consumer electronics strategy. †¢Product Life Cycle – The progression of a product through four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Dell introduced the Dell Digital Jukebox and Dell Music Store to compete with Apple’s iPods and iTunes store. However, Apple had so much momentum that Dell was forced to discontinue its own brand of music players. Personal Case Analysis I learned that Dell first made is name selling personal computers directly to customers through its website, catalogs, and phone orders. With a long history of marketing technology-based products, Dell has become a well-known U.S. brand. Despite considerable research, Dell’s attempt to enter the lucrative $100 billion world of consumer electronics did not succeed. Although Dell faces intense competition from other consumer electronics companies, they never stop looking for new ways to shine up its brand by improving customer service, an especially important step as PC sales grow more slowly throughout the industry and competitors dig in to defend market share. Case Questions 1-Why would Dell not pioneer revolutionary new products for innovators and early adaptors the way its competitor Apple does? According to wsu.edu, an early adaptor is a person who quickly adopts something new-usually a technological innovation. Our text defines innovators as first adopters of new products. Today Dell has gone back to its PC roots, emphasizing computers and laptops, inkjet and laser printers, networking equipment, and related products for home and office use. Because of its’ failed attempts to launch new products, the company is not looking to pioneer revolutionary new lines for innovators or early adopters. Instead it adds new features to products with a proven market, finds ways to make production more cost effective, and seeks to distribute both Dell and non-Dell products as efficiently as possible. 2-In what stage of the product life cycle do personal computers appear to be? How does this explain Dell’s attempt to expand into consumer electronics? According to answers.ask.com, a product’s life cycle describes the stages products experience when introduced to the market. There are four general stages including: introductory stage, when marketers raise awareness of the product; growth stage, when increase in market share is sought; mature stage, when producers of the product have maximized market share and minimized costs and the decline stage, when competitors entering the market erode market share and profits begin to decline (anwers.ask.com). The stage that Dell’s personal computers appear to be in is the maturity stage. With a long history of marketing technology-based products, Dell has become a well-known U.S. brand. Their management saw the brand as a strength to exploit in marketing new flat-screen televisions, tiny digital music players, and other non-computer products. Dell launched its consumer electronics items just as major technological developments were roiling the industry and changing how consumers buy and use such products. Dell was caught in the crossfire of intense competition. At the start of the consumer electronics initiative, the company introduced the Dell Digital Jukebox and the Dell Music Store, putting it on a competitive collision course with Apple’s popular iPods and iTunes store. Dell discontinued its brand and has been reselling products made by Samsung and other manufacturers. This allows Dell to satisfy customer demand for certain for consumer electronics without incurring the high cost of research and development. 3-How far can Dell widen its product mix without hurting the company’s credibility? For example, what might be the impact of new products such as Dell motorcycles or Dell frozen pastries? According to enotes.com, the product mix of a company, which is generally defined as the total composite of products offered by a particular organization, consists of both product and individual products. A product line is a group of products within the product mix that are closely related, either because they function in a similar manner, are sold to the same customer groups are marketed through the same types of outlets, or fall within given price ranges. Over the years, Dell has become a popular U.S. brand, which was viewed as a strength to emerge into the market of new flat screen televisions, digital music players, and other products. Although Dell did a considerable amount of research and development to make these products a success, the strategy did not succeed. For this reason, Dell should not attempt to widen its product mix, because it has been proven that doing so will hurt the company’s creditability. Dell motorcycles or Dell frozen pastries would definitely hurt the company’s creditability, because they are known as a number one computer company. Dell should continue to develop and emphasize computers, printers, and other home office related products to maintain its creditability. Conclusions For Dell to continue to successfully market to its consumers and uphold its legendary PC roots and name brand, they must develop the optimal product line by understanding buyers’ goals. The product life cycle is also an important concept to make sure the introduction, alteration, and termination of a product are timed and executed properly, helping to better maintain profitable products and drop unprofitable ones. Although Dell does not pioneer revolutionary new products for innovators and early adopters the way its competitors does, they stand strong in the PC market. Line extensions, however, are used to successfully take market share from competitors.