The New Union Of South Africa - 1379 Words

In 1910 the Independent Union of South Africa was formed of the four South African provinces. The formation of the union was spurred on by the discovery of precious minerals on the Rand between the two Afrikaner republics; this event is known as the Mineral Revolution. A result of this industrialization is a segregation that plagued South Africa’s transformation into an nation and climaxed into the institution of apartheid. This racial segregation lead to the suppression of black and colored South Africans. Though racial tension had a great influence of segregation it was not the motivating factor. The rise of segregation was the result of the economic aspirations of the elites who profited from the racial division. In this, the new union†¦show more content†¦The scale of the new wave of mining in South Africa became the major contributor to the South African economy, attracting prospectors from Europe and the United States. The areas in proximity to the mines quickly became urbanized hubs. Few people were able to obtain the capital needed to sustain the mines. For those who were able to bear the costs, the mining industry revealed great profits. Yet as the mining grew the owners needed to keep the wages of laborers down. At this point the South African government received mush of its revenue from taxes generated by mines, so it was receptive to the ideas of mine owners and their need for a supply of cheap labor. The government responded by placing taxes on the black communities in the countryside to create a black labor force. A series of many acts were sanctioned in order to drive blacks to the mines. In 1913 the government passed the Native Land Act which outlawed blacks from buying or renting land outside of the reserves. This restricted seventy percent of the population to only seven percent of the country’s land. Poll and hut taxes were also imposed on the black communities. Similarly, the emergence of the Mines and Works Act of 1911 excluded blacks from receiving skilled labor positions within the mines. The laws enabled the establishment of the â€Å"color bar† whichShow MoreRelatedImperialism in South Africa1078 Words   |  5 PagesDuring Imperialistic times South Africa was a region of great resources that was greatly disputed over (Ellis). Europe’s main goal during these times was to compete against each other and played a â€Å"game† of which country can imperialize more African countries than the other. Imperialism was a curse to South Africa, because many wars, la ws, and deaths were not necessary and would not have happened if South Africa were not imperialized. Imperialism is the domination by one country of political, economicRead MoreLabor Movements Of South Africa1275 Words   |  6 PagesFirst World War, South Africa became part of a major labor movement that involved many workers of mines, textile industries, agriculture and other major businesses that made up the economy. Labor movements played a big role in the South African society politically and economically. The movements took a major role in creating many unions and with that many protests, boycotts, and violence took place in various sectors of the South African society. Workers from regions of South Africa were discontentRead MoreCivil Society in South Africa Essay1562 Words   |  7 Pagesstate in South Africa. The first section will briefly summarize the emergence of civil society in South Africa. The next section will discuss transformations that occurred in civil society during South Africa’s transitional period from the Apartheid regime toward democracy in 1994. The third section will discuss some of the successes of civil society during and after the transitional period followed by the fourth section, which will discuss some challenges facing civil society as South Africa continuesRead MoreThe Roots of Apartheid: South Africa’s Colonial Experience Essay1673 Words   |  7 PagesIn recent years, there have been efforts to understand the institution of apartheid in South Africa. From the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to general study into the history of South Africa, much scholarship has been devoted to the study of the effects of apartheid and the atrocities committed in the post-World War II period. However, one topic remains largely un-researched—the origi ns of the vast apartheid structure instituted by the Herenigde (Reunited) National Party (HNP) in the late 1940’sRead More The Role of External Pressure in the Fight Against Apartheid and Minority Rule in South Africa1583 Words   |  7 PagesApartheid and Minority Rule in South Africa External pressure played a very important part in bringing about the end of the apartheid. The embodied rejection of White domination in South Africa, in formations of protests, strikes and demonstrations caused a decade of turbulent mass action in resistance to the imposition of still harsher forms of segregation and oppression. The Defiance Campaign of 1952 carried mass mobilisation to new heights under the banner ofRead MoreTrade Unions Role within the South African Economy1424 Words   |  6 PagesTrade unions play a significant role within the South African economy and have been active in responding to the fiscal policies of government. COSATU has played an influential role in South Africa since its conception in December 1985, and is aimed at improving their members working conditions and ensuring participation in the struggle for peace and democracy. COSATU has provided various proposals regarding changes to the National Budget, aimed at economic growth and job creation support. As a leadingRead MoreEssay on The Legacy of Apartheid in South Africa1635 Words   |  7 Pagesdisintegration of civilizations. Sadly, such tragic events have been a prevalent part in the history of Africa. Perhaps, one of the most blatant forms of racism occurred in South Africa, during the period of Apartheid. From 1948 to 1994 non-white Africans were subjected to horrific treatment, enfor ced by the South African National Party. The repulsive forms of racial segregation in South Africa, resulting from race and color, not only oppressed the colored majority group, but also denied them ofRead MoreSouth Africa: Battling Unemployment. QUESTION 1 1.1) Unemployment: Occurs when those people who are1000 Words   |  4 Pages South Africa: Battling Unemployment. QUESTION 1 1.1) Unemployment: Occurs when those people who are busy seeking and searching for work are not able to find job and those who are not patient enough stopped looking for work. ï‚ § Types of unemployment: ïÆ'Ëœ Structural unemployment having an increased number of unskilled workers to fill the many positions that are currently vacant for skilled workers. ïÆ'Ëœ Seasonal unemployment many of the new jobs added are more active in theRead MoreE Commerce And The Internet Essay1226 Words   |  5 Pagessales in South Africa during 2016. Although e-commerce is still in its starting phases, it is expected to reach a total market size of R7.5 billion in 2015 (Goldstuck:2015). During 2015 there was a survey and 22 percent of South African internet users said that they have made purchases on the internet and 48 percent plan to do this again. E-commerce in South Africa is still low in comparison with global standards; however the number of e-commerce users is set to triple in the future, making South AfricaRead MoreHiv / Aids : A Huge Complication Around The World1562 Words   |  7 PagesHIV/AIDS in Russia versus South Africa HIV/AIDS is becoming a huge complication around the world. More and more countries that are not commonly known to have an issue with AIDS/HIV are developing epidemics. It is common knowledge that South Africa struggles with an HIV/AIDS epidemic, but a lesser known country affected would be Russia. The epidemic spread in Russia because of drug users, prostitutes, and cultural shame. It spread in South Africa because of African men’s refusal to use condoms and

The Importance Of Effective Communication For Health...

The importance of effective communication for health professionals cannot be overemphasised as communication skills are crucial foundation of health professionals. Communication extremely influences not only the successful patient health treatment outcomes but also the safety, satisfaction and relationship of both the profession and the patient (Kirby, 2010) The context of the recorded video for this essay is about the conversation between a physiotherapist and a young woman who feels pain from her wrist for 1 week. They discuss the patient’s concerns about the process she will be going through to recover her painful wrist. The two communication skills, demonstrated in the video, discussed in this essay are sending congruent verbal and non-verbal messages, and reflecting and paraphrasing of content and feeling to check understanding which both significantly contributed to improve the effectiveness of communication in the video. Congruent communication is a communication type in which the sender delivers verbal and non-verbal messages to the receiver in a manner that the words, the tone of voice, body language, time and space all convey the same message and respects each other. The use of congruent communication skill is very significant to build up trust, respect and rapport between the health profession and patients. The uses of congruent communication skills are demonstrated through the video. For example, at the opening of the video, the physiotherapist holds out her handShow MoreRelatedThe Delivery Of Health Care1233 Words   |  5 PagesThe delivery of health care services in contemporary society relies on a diverse multidisciplinary network of professional’s working together to deliver optimal patient outcomes. These outcomes are reliant upon the communication and interaction of numerous professional. This reliance on communication between health care professionals, has underlined the importan ce of professional relationships in the health care environment. The purpose of this essay is to highlight that importance in these relationshipsRead MoreThe Importance Of Identifying And Adapting Health Literacy967 Words   |  4 PagesThe Importance of Identifying and Adapting to Patient Health Literacy in Effective Workplace Communication Name: Georgia Pearson Student Number: n9994769 Course Code Name: PYB007 Communication for Healthcare Professionals Tutor: Michael Rowlands Tutorial: Wednesday, 1500 – 1700, N518 Word Count: Date: 10/04/2017 Queensland University of Technology The Importance of Identifying and Adapting to Patient Health Literacy in Effective Workplace Communication Effective communication playsRead MoreEssay on Personal and Professional Healthcare Communication1456 Words   |  6 Pages Personal and Professional Health Care Communication Dorcas Gray HCS/350 October 14, 2013 Tracy D. Andrews Personal and Professional Health Care Communication Communication is a skill learned and developed overtime and is used to convey various information, express emotions, and desires. In the health field, it not only important to have a continual line of communication but also one that is effective. According to Brashers and Babrow (1996) â€Å"Communication in health and illness constitutesRead MoreHealth Care Communication1357 Words   |  6 PagesPersonal and Professional Health Care Communication Paper HCS/350 Health Care Communication University of Phoenix Personal Professional Healthcare Communication Paper Professional and effective communication is a vital ingredient to safe and high quality nursing practice. Proper communication with other co-workers, physicians, ancillary staff, patients, and their families is a required skill necessary for all practicing, professional healthcare professionals. Communicating with others hasRead MoreHealth Literacy And Effective Communication1229 Words   |  5 Pagesnon-indigenous population, low level of health literacy has been considered as negative factor that impacting on the delivery of effective care and health professionals’ performances on medical treatment. With integrated health literacy program, culturally competent and appropriate communication at individual, systemic and organisational level would enhance health outcomes for consumer’s welfare. Most importantly, improved health literacy and effective communication skills would plays an important partRead MoreEssay on Why Effective Communication Is Important for Nursing1 620 Words   |  7 PagesWhy Effective Communication is Important for Nursing This essay is set to explore the importance of developing effective communication skills in nursing. It will give a short overview on what communication is and what it involves. Then it will explain the importance of effective communication in nursing. Furthermore, the essay will briefly present some challenges surrounding communication in nursing and suggestions on how they can be addressed before it concludes by summarising the needs for nursingRead MoreEffective Communication As A Health Care Professional1313 Words   |  6 PagesCommunication is about more than just exchanging information. It s about understanding the emotion and intentions behind the information. Effective communication is how you convey a message so that it is received and understood by someone in exactly the way you intended (L. Robinson, J. Segal, Ph. D., M. Smith. 2015). This paper looks at the requirements of effective communication as a health care professional and the essential concepts to have as a reg istered nurse. Effective communication assistsRead MoreEffective Communication For The Nursing Profession1493 Words   |  6 PagesEssay on Effective Communication Skills in the Nursing Profession. Name: Carmela Alitin Student Number: n9713271 Unit: PYB007 Communication for Health Professionals Tutor: Aleana Green Tutorial: Thursdays 11am-1pm, Z-607 Word Count: 1,380 A Reflective Essay on Effective Communication Skills in the Nursing Profession â€Å"Effective communication is integral in every profession, but in nursing, it could mean the difference between life and death,† (E.S Alitin, personal communication, 31 MarchRead MoreSkills and Competencies818 Words   |  4 PagesPatricia Rosemond Elms College Skills and Competencies Nurses for the future-Communication Many people refer to their strong communication skills, but communication is really a competency that relies on a combination of certain skills, behavior and knowledge. To communicate effectively a person may need to understand cultural diversity, have advanced language skills, and behave with patience. Interpersonal communication is essential in every area of life, but it especially critical in the fieldRead MoreEffective Communication When Working Closely With Others1539 Words   |  7 Pagesfocuses on effective communication when working closely with others in a health and social care setting. Firstly, the essay identifies the importance of effective communication, when working closely with others, and the different forms of communication. Secondly, it explains the factors that affect communication with health and social care service users, and how to overcome these factors. Last of all, influences on cultural responsibilities will be discussed, as well as the importance of main taining

Universities should prepare students better to work Free Essays

Newest reports are not certain if students are prepared to work. Job market isn’t getting any easier for them and too many students are graduating from college unprepared. Reason for this situation is that universities aren’t giving students the right guidance. We will write a custom essay sample on Universities should prepare students better to work or any similar topic only for you Order Now Colleges should have better qualified career-center staff gulled their students and help them with future choices. However those people should have some experience hen it comes to giving advice. Having inexperienced people in career-center is a huge problem for students who end up getting advice from not qualified people who have never done any actual hiring themselves and don’t have a first-hand understanding of what employers are looking for. On the other hand In colleges students can have work placement during their studies and unalterably can provide them or support students during them. What colleges really need is talking about careers before graduation in order to get dead for Job and be sure what they’re going to do. Many people pick their major without nothing anything about it or not fully understand it and they don’t have a clear view about their obligations in workplace. On the other hand students can learn those things during Internship and experience It by themselves and start to learn from simple things at the begging and then be fully Independent and skilled. Practice Is the best form of learning and gives many advantages for the future career. Help students understand that a degree alone won’t get them a Job. Too many students graduate with the belief that their degree will lead straight to a Job-setting the stage for a painful wake-up call when they realize that In most fields, a degree Is simply a Romulus qualification, not an Instant pass to easy employment. Nowadays more and more people have a degree (in our country 48,5 % odd population) , in order to get a Job graduates should have other additional abilities for example : foreign languages . On the other hand if student is really good in that one thing he can get a bob without graduating and potential employer can contact him and offer an interesting Job offer. Sometimes abilities speak for themselves and students can receive a Job offer without any experience. Some people will claim that universities should better prepare students to work and it is not only up for students what they are going to carry out from college and how effective it will be . Students should have good take care of them and should have support how they need to ,because college Is only a beginning of entire journey for How to cite Universities should prepare students better to work, Essays

Training and Development for State Authority-myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theTraining and Development for State Authority. Answer: Training plan Training to be undertaken Customer service is one of the most important things that every manager of an organisation needs to focus on. This is mainly because of the fact that the customers are an important stakeholder for a business organisation (Pollock, Jefferson and Wick 2015). Hence, training needs to be provided to the employees about the ways by which quality customer service can be maintained. The training process that is to be undertaken involves helping the employees to identify the customer assessment factors that are involved in improving the level of service provided in an organisation. The training is to be provided by the HR manager of the company assisted by the marketing manager in-charge of identifying the needs of the customers. Place, time and process to deliver training The training needs to be delivered to the premises of the office building. This is because the convenience of the employees is taken into consideration while planning for the training programme. Moreover, an extra cost of travelling can be saved by implementing the training method within the organisation. In this regard, it can be said that the training is to be scheduled within the working hours. This can open up opportunities to provide training based on shifts in case any urgent work is required to be dealt with by the employees. The training process will be on the job training process. This can provide employees with an opportunity to gain a practical experience by interacting with the customers. Compliance with national standards and state authority The training that is provided to the employees complies with the Contract law 1980 and the Employment and labour law 2017. Both these acts suggest that for the safety of the employees at the workplace and for enhancing their talents, required training can be provided as long as it does not violate any codes. According to Sung and Choi (2014), Standards for Registered Training Organisations 2015 can be followed that highlights the codes and ethics that need to be followed. Apart from this, it is also essential that the organisation maintain certain policies and procedures so that employees can have a proper training method. Thus, the compliance with the national standards and organisational standards are required for a proper training facility. Understanding of the workplace task required to be taken As stated by Ford (2014), the training provided to the employees need to be such that the effectiveness of the programme is understood by the employees. Moreover, the workplace task and requirement need to be clearly briefed to the employees so that they have a proper idea about the training method that needs to be undertaken. This needs to be provided by the induction officer at the initial stage of the training process. To ensure that the employees understand the requirement of training, managers can provide a lecture on the topic and the effectiveness of the topic with the employees. This can help to gain the attention of the employees. Technique to solve problems Van Aken and Berends (2018) stated that the problem-solving skill is important as it defines the ability of a manager to remain calm under pressure situation. Problem-solving can be used to solve the issues that exist in an organisation. The problem needs to be defined, measured and goals need to be set to determine the root cause of the problems. Based on it the best strategy can be implemented and the results can be evaluated. For example, in the case of customer behaviour, the problem-solving skill of an employee can help in providing a solution to the grievances of the employees (Baker 2017). Principles involved Customer needs research The principle involved in meeting the needs of a customer includes creating opportunities for possibilities. This needs to be mastered by an individual so that the value proposition can be matched that can have a significant impact on the success of an organisation. Customer relations Maintaining relationship with customers involves the knowing the customers. Assessment of the customers needs to be done by identifying the target market of the organisation. This can help in treating the customers with the required demands. Consequently, the loyalty of the customers will increase and the brand image of an organisation along with its reputation can have an elevation in the business market. Ongoing product and/or service quality According to Vigo (2015), the current product and service quality of an organisation can be maintained by consistently updating the services and product. The current method adopted cannot be repeated on a regular basis, as customers require a wide range of products to choose from. Hence, innovation is one of the most principles that can be undertaken by an organisation. Quality customer service delivery The customer service needs to be provided by maintaining the quality that precedes an organisation. One of the most important factors that need to be done is excel at the delivery process, Customers want the delivery of the items to be quick and spontaneous so that the level of expectation can be controlled. Record keeping and management methods Record keeping helps in identifying any flaws that exist within an organisation. The principle of maintaining records and managing the methods is by daily and immediate update any transaction that exists within an organisation. The management method, in this case, can be continuous monitoring of the activities of an organisation. Strategies for monitoring, managing and introducing ways to improve customer service relationships Customer service relationships can be monitored and managed by maintaining regular interaction with the customers. This can be done by ensuring that the feedbacks of customers are taken into consideration and accordingly changes are implemented. Strategies to obtain customer feedback Customer feedbacks can be obtained by conducting a survey either in social media platform or by personally encountering the customers (Vigo 2015). This need to be done by the marketing manager as the feedbacks of the customers is useful in enhancing the performance of an organisation. Reference Baker, R., 2017. Problem-solving. InAgile UX Storytelling(pp. 107-116). Apress, Berkeley, CA. Dabholkar, P.A., 2015. How to improve perceived service quality by increasing customer participation. InProceedings of the 1990 academy of marketing science (AMS) annual conference(pp. 483-487). Springer, Cham. Ford, J.K., 2014.Improving training effectiveness in work organizations. Psychology Press. Heikka, E.L., Frandsen, T. and Hsuan, J., 2018. Matching value propositions with varied customer needs: The role of service modularity.Knowledge and Process Management. Pollock, R.V., Jefferson, A. and Wick, C.W., 2015.The six disciplines of breakthrough learning: How to turn training and development into business results. John Wiley Sons. Sung, S.Y. and Choi, J.N., 2014. Do organizations spend wisely on employees? Effects of training and development investments on learning and innovation in organizations.Journal of organizational behavior,35(3), pp.393-412. Van Aken, J.E. and Berends, H., 2018.Problem solving in organizations. Cambridge University Press. Vigo, D., 2015. Optimizing Desk Customer Relations Services.Impact,1(2), pp.13-17.

British Literature Flashcard

British Literature

Writing for research Essay Example

Writing for research Essay Example Writing for research Essay Writing for research Essay Prompt 1: It could be that the bathroom scale has not yet been properly calibrated. Based on personal experience, new scales tend to give more consistent readings than older scales because the mechanisms of scales tend to wear out over time. However if the scale is not yet calibrated, that means that it will likely give consistently wrong results. All that needs to be done is to calibrate the scale and then it should give accurate as well as reliable output already. Prompt 2: Yes, a measurement procedure can be reliable but not valid. However, a measurement procedure that is valid is automatically reliable as well. If the procedure is consistent but gives wrong output, then it is reliable but not valid (Brechner Brechner, 2008). However, validity means that the procedure is measuring what it intends to measure so that automatically assumes that the procedure is reliable as well (Brechner Brechner, 2008) since if it gives very diverse output, then it is obviously not measuring what it is supposed to measure.

Consumer Protection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Consumer Protection - Essay Example There were also certain ambiguities related to the actual people accountable for the faulty transaction. Hence, the author stresses on the need for stringent laws to protect the consumers' interests in business transactions. In addition, there appears to be an urgent need for a watchdog which would ensure that all laws are adhered to, in turn facilitating fair business practises. In the language of ecology, consumers are defined as those organisms who survive by depending on others around them (Consumer, AbNature, n.d.). This dependence could be for any day to day necessity, which they themselves are incapable of producing. And there are instances when triggered by the acute need of the consumer, this dependence on the producer has transformed into a form of exploitation, thus giving a freehand to the producers to make a kill. This definition and example might seem a little far fetched at the moment, but surprisingly both are in a way applicable in our day to day lives. There appears to be no end to our needs - material or spiritual and there are providers for all our needs. From the time we wake up each morning till the time we go back to sleep, knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly, all of us tend to depend on one fellow human being or other for various reasons - hence, in a sense of speaking we all are consumers. Till the time all transactions happen in good faith and to the satisfaction to all parties involved, the world is a dreamland! However, the problem arises when the transactions do not happen in the true sense of fair practises. And considering that there are so many transactions happening, the possibility of exploitation cannot be ruled out. So, if we agree that we have advertently or inadvertently involved ourselves in one business transaction or the other, there have been at least one or two instances in our lives when we have felt that we as consumers have been given an unfair deal by the providers/salesman and the deal has not been concluded in the manner it should have been; in other words, our rights as customers have been infringed. The deal could be anything ranging from sale of faulty products, refusal to replace faulty products, unsatisfactory post-sales maintenance to poor service. And most often than not, in spite of continuous follow ups we have failed to get our issues addressed or resolved and the inconvenience compensated. Consumer protection is the current buzz word worldwide. There has been an increased awareness about the enormity of this need and there has been an increase in awareness among customers about their rights. Policies are being formulated, traders practising their trade unfairly are being implicated and there is a worldwide movement towards ensuring that the consumers get their due in all business transactions. However, in the absence of clear directions, policies and guidance on the grievance redressal systems, it is not always that the consumer is protected from unfair business practises. b. Objectives The need for consumer protection persists worldwide and it is no

Financial Services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Financial Services - Essay Example The paper tells that economic activities, financial services, and banking have experienced quite a few changes in the last couple of decades. As the industrial activities see an upsurge on the global scale, it requires more funds to sustain the upsurge together with enough money with the consumer, for being able to use those products and services from the industry. The institutions, in turn, are supposed to make their operations and services attractive enough for the industry and the customer. The value that is addition done by both operations management and operations strategy happens to be fundamental to any organization. The articles mentioned in the paper have one thing in common; they underline the need for effective management of financial aspects of a business. Providing services or goods are the basic forms of operational activities. All organizations try to provide a combination of products and services, using available sources with them. Opening a bank account, taking a mea l in a restaurant, visiting a hospital, buying pair shoes, ensuring a vehicle, a hotel stay etc. are all operations activities and their management is central to the successful provisioning of goods and services. Such value addition helps the banks and financial institutions help in making them friendly institutions to the customer base at large. Marketing consists of the strategies and tactics used to identify, create, and maintain satisfying relationships with customers that result in value for both the customer and the marketer. Relationship management, the very basis of running financial services, asks for earning the loyalty of customer. This in turn calls for keeping the workforce motivated enough, while extending valuable services to the customers. The global economy has made it almost mandatory for retail stores, banks, financial institutions etc. that an effective strategy is adopted for managing the workforce and the diversity at the organisation so that everybody is able to enjoy a better working environment and the customer too feels valued. This helps the company in taking on the competitors with fullest potential. The bank (or any company for that matter) can acquire competitive advantage on its rivals on account of marketing efforts, brand building, value creation, innovation, supply chain management, operational efficiencies etc. But more important is to sustain the advantage. The value configuration helps in sustaining the advantage. It describes how value is created in a company for its customers, how the most important business processes function to create value for customers and the way a particular company/ organization conducts its business. In this study

Optimization methods in Linear programming Lab Report

Optimization methods in Linear programming - Lab Report Example SABIC, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, is one among the mainstream manufactures of metals, plastics, chemicals, and fertilizers (SABIC, 2014). The manufacturing of metal and plastics indicates that the company is one among the busiest in the world as the consumption of metal and plastics is in the increase due to demand for building/construction materials, packaging, and insulation material (SABIC, para. 1-5). However, while the company also manufactures chemicals and fertilizers, it is expected that the management of all activities can be hectic. Nevertheless, the company has a variety of technical solutions that provide automated management of resources. However, where automated machinery is required, it is expected that supervision regarding functionality of the system is minimal and at times seasonally fluctuating. Thus, one among the major problems that the company is currently facing include the management of resources to yield the best results. Regarding this problem, the company is not doing anything wrong to limit its capacity capabilities; on the contrary, the company appreciates the need to optimize the current system such that it can lead to minimized costs of production and holding inventory. The overall performance of the company is determined by how well configured an automated systems in making optimal use of the allocated resources. In the production of the products identified above, SABIC is faced with two levels of problems that require linear programming to solve; such that the output of the company meets the fluctuating demand. Firstly, the company produces different types of products whose demand varies seasonally – the company in this case is unable to accurately predict how much demand it would be facing in the coming financial period. Secondly, provided that demand fluctuates with reference to the type of products such as fertilizers which are

IKEA Marketing Analysis

IKEA Marketing Analysis The purpose of marketing is making sure that the effort of separate parts of the company, such as research, selling, sales promotion, and after sale service are working as closely together as possible. To understand such dual rule successfully their need to be a clean understanding of organisational responsibility and a clear program showing deters timing. In my academic session, I wish to analyse the market research of IEKA which is one of the largest and superior furniture store in the UK. The IKEA concept builds on a relationship with the consumer. Nine key messages are used within the IKEA marketing communication to build this relationship and give an understanding of how we can fulfil our customers needs. They have managed to make their products and services more popular based not only on price but by creating a unique shopping experience for the customers. The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of the IKEA experience. Definition of marketing: Marketing is a complex series of process by which demand for goods and services is identified, supplied, anticipated or manipulated by a producer. While new often regarded as part of the responsibility of every aspect of the business and indeed every employee it realize heavily on such functions as advertising, marketing, research and new product development. There are huge number of definitions are provided by different persons and institutes such as. *According to Philip Kotler satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process *The Chartered Institute of Marketing define marketing as The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably Compare between the definitions: The given definitions by Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and Philip Kokler are not same. They provide their Meaning of marketing in the different way. If we analyse their speech we can fine the compare of the definition. There are some comparisons in my point of view: a. The main differences between the definitions are changing of the customer need and want which are mentioned in the Philip definition CIM did not give any idea about it. b. On the other hand, Chartered Institute of Marketing Definition with benefit process but Philip Kotler did not focus any theory of benefit. c. Besides that Kotler ignore the identification and anticipating what customer will need in the future but CIM was effort that will be happened in the customer view. In fine, it is clear from the above discussion that, CIM provides its definition is more elaborately then the Philip Kotler proved. But both of the definitions are depend on marketing approach. Characteristics of marketing oriented organisation: The main structure of marketing oriented organisation is the always deal to the customer and try to bit their competitors. They try to attract and empress the customer to improve their sale. There are various types of characteristics is appear in the market oriented organisation. But five important feathers are mentioned bellow: The organisation consider to the customer first. What product customer wants and how product should developed for customer satisfaction. The needs of the customer have got a great importance in the market oriented business. A market oriented business identifies the needs of the customer and will start the process of production of that service or goods which will fulfil the customer needs. In todays business environment, the company gives much importance to the consumer and will try to identify the needs and wants of the customer. Another feather, structure and culture of these organisations are easy and flexible because they can change this structure according to the situation. One most important issue is long-term process. This is a valuable process because any business sometime passes critical moment and then it automatically overcome crisis so if they got long-term target they may not be affected by this way. Last but not least character is stockholder. They give priority to stockholder before making decision because they bear profit and loss of the company. IEKA is a market oriented organisation because all of the above mentioned character are found in the IKEA. They always try to the keep satisfied customer by the providing good product and service. Element of marketing concept: The marketing concept is The achievement of corporate goals through meeting and exceeding customer needs better than the competition. There are three types of marketing concept such as: Customer orientation. Integrated effort and Goal achievement. Customer orientation: Customer orientation means supply best customer service for gaining their satisfaction. It is less important to provide customer convenience then the customer satisfaction. The selling theory is based on the belief that customers need to be persuaded to buy through aggressive selling and promotions. Integrated effort: Company have to improve both internal and external capacity which is important element of marketing. External means customer need, staff motivation, and production. Many individuals within the organisation have a responsibility for creating value not just staff and a marketing orientation requires that an organisation draws upon and integrate its human and physical resources effectively and adapt them to meet customer needs. Goal achievement: Every company must be believed the universal truth role is customer satisfaction for gaining supreme success. Communicating successfully with customers is about supporting the product you are trying to sell. In the market, high levels of promotional support are required for the product to be recognised. Marketing approach: http://kona.kontera.com/javascript/lib/imgs/grey_loader.gif Marketing approach is the process by which companies determine what products and service may by satisfy to consumer, and the strategy to use in sales, communication, and business development. It is also an integrated method which is can build up strong relationship with customer. Every company expense lots of money for marketing purpose. To get success of the business in the competive world company apply different marketing approach for improving sales. There is some of the effective cost and benefit point of marketing approach: Cost: Making a proper marketing structure for attracting customer. To improve the quality of products those are manufacture by the company. Develop the service method. Creating strong relationships with customer, supplier and distributor. Benefit: Almost all of the company stand on profit. Without profit any company cannot survive long time, so main marketing approach should be profitable. One most important point of benefit is gaining customer loyalty. So that customer can realize that the products and service are actually well. Another valuable benefit is achieving reputation. Only by the customer Satisfaction Company can achieve this benefit. Micro environmental factor of IKEA: The word of Micro means small or limited something. But in the business section, micro environmental element means some of the internal factors which are directly control or effect on the business. The micro environmental factors of the company are customer, suppler, and its stockholder those are strongly related each other. So company can directly affected by these element or factors. If the supplier of IEKA do not provide good manner to customer or do not give them proper service customer may divert to another company because it is competitive market as a result the stockholder do not wish to invest capital because company became profitless. But the customer of IEKA are always satisfied because its service and product. The relationship between supplier and stockholder of IKEA excellent that is why they were effort to gain success. Another important factor of IKEA is staff, they are always tried to keep customer happy by providing their best service. Macro environmental factor of IKEA: The word of Macro means bigger or unlimited something. But in the Business world, macro environmental factor means some of the external issue which are indirectly leads or control on the company. The macro environmental factors are national and international economy, politics, society, and technology. The factor of macro environment do not affect on the company it first effect to the country and then society and finally company. We know that IKEA is a worldwide company which deal more than 29 countries. In the recent world economic recession destroys most of companies are going to be baseless but IEKA does effecting by this crises. Because IKEA always sales sale worldwide design product which impress to the customer. Market segmentation: The analysis of buyer or potential buyer in a given market along various dimensions. These usually include demographers like age, sex, and socio-economic status, buying patterns with respect to price and quality and personality factors like conservatism radicalism, need for achievement or need for affiliation. The objective is to divide a market into segments comprising similar kind of people so that marketing efforts eon be targeted more precisely and the most effectively approach used with each segment for specific form of market segmentation. The concept of IKEA that people are famous for working hard, living on small means and using their heads to make the best possible use of the limited resources they have. This way of doing things is at the heart of the IKEA approach to keeping prices low. But quality is not compromised for the sake of cost. Sweden has an international reputation for safety and quality you can rely on, and IKEA retailers take pride in offering the right qualit y in all situations. There are two common product of IEKA bellow which is available in market I am going to analyse market segmentation. DVD CD furniture: This is very essential product for every persons daily life thats way most of the Company want to manufacture this product. We know that before manufacture product IKEA always try to understand which raw materials are environmental healthy and all ages accept it. Starting to the demographical view of the customer, children whose age fewer than 18 they will choose this product for its design comfort. Young men choose the IKEAS DVD CD furniture because the low price then other brand. Some of the large family want to buy this product thinking about its raw materials which make it heavy and sustainable price. In t he geographically views, the urban people will use DVD CD furniture than the country side people. Another status of customer social-economy, the poor people may not unable to buy DVD or CD so they no need to buy this furniture. In this case rich a middle class people can effort to buy this product. Table lamp: The important Product of IKEA which is used people in every category. There is huge colour and shade of table lamp is available in the super market. That is why all generated people chose this product. If we segment this product than we can say the children may be prefer it as a variety of colour. Most of the young people will attract to use it for decorating room with verity of size. In case of old generation they will prefer this product for price because it is low price than other company. Geographically, urban area will be more business proper than the rural area. Another impotent factor for family groups is environmental friendly and sustainable price. Target Marketing: Target marketing involves breaking a market into segments and then concentrating your marketing efforts on one or a few key segments. Target marketing can be the key to a small businesss success. The beauty of target marketing is that it makes the promotion, pricing and distribution of your products and/or services easier and more cost-effective. Target marketing provides a focus to all of your marketing activities. There are five target strategy described below: Identifying competitors: Once you have identified your target market, then you need to understand who your competitors are. The more knowledge you have about you competitors, the more equipped you will be to market and sell your services effectively to their clients. The knowledge you have about your competitors and how you use that knowledge will be either to your advantage or disadvantage, depending on how you market your services. Advertising Avenues: The key to telling your story in the marketplace is to advertise effectively. Conduct necessary research to ascertain where your customers are reading about the latest trends in the marketplace, and ensure your advertising methods meet your customers where they are. Direct mail, email, fax blasts, trade magazine advertising, radio, TV, collateral pieces, and trade shows are some of the many examples that companies can use to advertise themselves effectively. Marketing Campaign and Strategy Develop a marketing strategy that will carry your message to the streets and support your sales teams selling efforts. An effective marketing campaign both brings leads and enables your sales representatives to sell to more qualified leads proactively. Sit down and determine the message that will bring the biggest impact to your target customers, and develop an effective, long-term marketing campaign that will carry that message to the marketplace. Product Knowledge Understanding your own products and the value they bring to the marketplace is critical to developing effective marketing practices. Your product line is your best offense when facing your competition, so it is critical that your marketing department positions your products to their best selling advantage. Your marketing department needs to make sure that the key benefits of your product or service line are well-known to the sales department, and that they are the focus of all marketing campaigns. Industry Knowledge Understanding your industry is critical to marketing effectively to the marketplace. Staying on top of industry trends will enable you to create newer, fresher products that hit the market more quickly and impact-fully than your competitors. Also, knowing the resources to use such as trade magazines, industry-focused websites, trade forums, and industry experts will help you most effectively keep abreast of all that is going on in the industry. Behaviour of buyer: An important part of the marketing process is to understand why a customer or buyer makes a purchase. Without such an understanding, businesses find it hard to respond to the customers needs and wants. For a marketing manager, the challenge is to understand how customers might respond to the different elements of the marketing mix that are presented to them. If management can understand these customer responses better than the competition, then it is a potentially significant source of competitive advantage. Research helps find the real reasons why we buy what we buy. This requires time, money and expertise. Surprisingly many other organisations dont really know exactly why their customers buy or dont buy from them. Yet understanding customers is at the heart of marketing. Once the reasons why people buy or dont buy are discovered, the marketing mix can be changed to suit the buyers needs and wants. HOW CUSTOMER BUY: The psychology of each individual considers the product or service on offer in relation to their own culture, attitude, previous learning, and personal perception. The consumer then decides whether or not to purchase, where to purchase, the brand that he or she prefers, and other choices. A customers approach to purchasing a product or service is influenced by their situation whether they have money and how important, frequent, risky or urgent the purchase is to them in their situation. Imagine the difference between someone with plenty of money who can afford to make a mistake when buying as opposed to someone who has scraped her last few pounds together. They might both be buying the same product but their financial situation suggests that their approach to buying will be very different. Customers make more of an effort, and become more involved, if the purchase is relatively important to them particularly if they have no previous experience of buying such a product or service. Product developing: Before starting this point we should know what is product? Well, if anything able to fulfil customer need with fully satisfying which they buy for specific reason this is called product. The major quality or feather of product is tangibility. Off course, intangible anything not counts as a product such as reputation of company because it is one kind of service. One important way, to make product developed is brand and design. But product and brand is not same thing. A product is made by factory while brand is something which customer buys for consumption. So to develop the product factory should improve the quality and design of brand that people buy. Therefore, the management of product and brand should be aware about marketing process. It is not easy way to achieve customer loyalty and high market sale without product development. It is also not possible if brand and quality of product are not accepted by customer. IEKA got it high market and customer loyalty in the world not only by its quality and brand but also its marketing policy. Product distribution: Distribution is an important section of marketing. It can increase sales by providing proper way of distribution with achieving customer satisfaction. There are distributions Factors which make customer comfort: Market factors. Producer factors. Product factors. Market factors: An important market factor is buyer behaviour how do buyers want to purchase the product? Do they prefer to buy from retailers, locally, via mail order or perhaps over the Internet? Another important factor is buyer needs Information and servicing of product. Intermediaries are often best placed to provide servicing rather than the original producer for example in the case of motor cars. The willingness of channel intermediaries to market product is also a factor. Retailers in particular invest heavily in properties, shop fitting etc. They may decide not to support a particular product if it requires too much investment (e.g. training, display equipment, warehousing).Another important factor is intermediary cost. Intermediaries typically charge a mark-up or commission for participating in the channel. This might be deemed unacceptably high for the ultimate producer business. Producer Factors: A key question is whether the producer has the resources to perform the functions of the channel? For example a producer may not have the resources to recruit, train and equip a sales team. If so, the only option may be to use agents and/or other distributors. Many channel intermediaries focus heavily on the customer interface as a way of creating competitive advantage and cementing the relationship with their supplying producers. If a manufacturer sells via a retailer, they effective lose control over the final consumer price, since the retailer sets the price and any relevant discounts or promotional offers. Similarly, there is no guarantee for a producer that their products are actually been stocked by the retailer. Direct distribution gives a producer much more control over these issues. Product factor: Large complex products are often supplied direct to customers (e.g. complex medical equipment sold to hospitals). By contrast perishable products (such as frozen food, meat, bread) require relatively short distribution channels ideally suited to using intermediaries such as retailers. Price setting process: From the ancient time it was controversial section to setting price of the appropriate product. According to Shapiro and Jackson, every company should follow one of the three methods for price setting such as cost oriented, competitors oriented, and marketing oriented. In generally company set price of the considering the cost of product manufacturing and marketing which up to reach consumer hand. These costs depend on quality of product, label, and distribution and so on. For marketers selling through resellers the pricing decision is complicated by resellers need to earn a profit and the marketers need to have some control over the products price to the final customer. In these cases setting price involves more than only worrying about what the direct customer is willing pay since the marketer must also evaluate pricing to indirect customers. Another important way of price setting is competitors oriented which is the faction of the present world. In the Competitors oriented process need to compare with other company and always try to increase sale anyway. But most of the customer does not like these criteria because they think about quality and brand not price. In case of IKEA, It follows the marketing oriented and cost oriented process because it is a renowned and worldwide company. They no need to competition with other because it manufactured its own brand so that they thing about the manufactured cost and increasing sale. Promotion activity: One important p among the 4p is promotion. In general way, Promotion actually means improving interpersonal capacity. But in the business world, this word used to gaining business prosperity as a reputation company like IEKE, TESCO, TOYOTA, etc. Normally a company can change situation by achieving promotion in various way like sowing public relationship with customer, improving personal selling, advertising and many others way. Personal selling is important way to improve individual customer relationship. Besides sale persons are important rule for the company because all of the action depends on them. IEKA Provide range of promotion activity for improving sales which lead it to gain company rank or promotion. In recent, From 10 to 24 March 2010, IKEA develops an interesting event in four important metro stations in Paris. Furniture collections are currently displayed in high-traffic spots, giving the potential customers a chance to interact with the brand by checking out the product s. The subway walls are also filled with prints that showcase IKEA interiors. What a creative way to do advertising! Moreover, this action completely changes the way the Paris subway station look and creates a cool atmosphere. Marketing mix: The marketing mix is probably the most important marketing term. It describes the basic, tactical components element of a marketing plan. In generally known, as the Four Ps , the marketing mix elements are price, place product, and promotion. Price: IKEAs Price strategy is completely based on cost oriented. Across the markets where it currently has a presence, products are sold at low prices. Prices are 30 to 45% lower than competing products which is a crucial technique of IEKA. Price variations are only a result of fluctuations in exchange rates. This penetration pricing enables IKEA to gain significant market share in the world. Low prices are a result of large-quantity purchasing, low-cost logistics, store location in suburban areas and a DIY approach to marketing. IKEA also benefits from economies of scale and healthy supplier-firm relationships. IKEA enters into long-term contracts, provides leased equipment and technical support in exchange for exclusive, low-cost manufacturing from suppliers. For new markets, IKEA should retain its price-image to maintain the brands positioning. Product: The value chain of IKEA is unique in that customers are also suppliers and suppliers are also customers. There are valuables transactions between the supplier and IKEA and on to the customer which help them to each stage. One another important criteria of the IKEA, is Product differentiation that exists in the value-added dimension. But sometimes IKEAs consumers are treated as presumes with most of its products requiring assembly after purchase. While this is well accepted in areas where IKEA now operates, it may be a point of consideration when entering new markets. Should IKEA encounter a market where DIY is not favoured, IKEA may include the cost of the service to the products price. Place: The third market mix criteria are place or location. In this case all of the IKEAs stores are located in suburban areas. This is a factor in the achievement of IKEAs low pricing. While it may appear as a disadvantage, this fits IKEAs target market of customers willing to transport their own purchases and requiring less assistance in assembly. Promotion: IKEA Have proposed variety of option to providing promoting in the purpose of encouraging people one of them is Work At Home promotion aimed at boosting sales of home office-related merchandise. Realizing the potential of our online database, the decision was made to utilize electronic mail as the primary medium of communication with the public, which required that we identify and utilize the optimum e-mail list management solution. Expended marketing mix: We already discuss about marketing mix which is consist 4p (Price, Product, Place, and Promotion). But without 4p there are more 3p such as People, process, and Physical evidence. Basically, these 3p used to service related industry or organisation. And these are also intangible product which is not appearing in physically like, reputation of company and achieving promotion. The main target of this marketing to making consumer satisfy by providing best service not quality of product. The consumers of the marketing can be segmented into different way. There are 3p below those are providing service to the consumer: People: People mean staff of the organisation that helps to the customer directly. Peoples are important factor in the consumer market of organisation for gaining success. The provide service into the different market segmented organisation. Process: Process is one kind of technique and mechanical strategy of the marketing these are help consumer by given them essential modern facility. For example, more of the cash point provides service to the consumer here people get money instantly. Physical evidence: another most important element is Physical strength that means help to the consumer in the field label. We know that some of the companys work in field like, day labour, Driver, and mailing, packaging here need physical strength to achieve customer satisfaction. Consumer in every age and category want to service physically from the organisation. Different between product and service: The most important distinguish between the product and service is tangibility. Product is a tangible element in any kind of organisation or industry while service show is fully opposite scenery of the organisation which is intangible and appear less just only evaluate by the consumer satisfaction. Another characteristic of product is fixed measurable but service not measurable at any time. Because if a customer have bought any product yesterday and now today he/she want to buy again, at is possible to get same product but in case of service it is almost impossible to get same service from the organisation he may get better or poor once because it is intellectual habit. On the other hand, in term of consumer every organisation evaluates its consumer in the same eye it does not differ into poor and rich consumer. This is the way of marketing. Although market segmentation divide consumer by the demography and geographically. So consumers are less difference than the difference between p roduct and service. Different between international and domestic market: International market means researching market according to the international view of people. While domestic market only analyse the own countrys marketing where it situated. It is sophisticated discussion to find out that why and how international and domestic market is not same. It will be crystal to us if we PEST (Political, Economical, socio-cultural, and technical) analyse in the current world business. In the political factor, one country does not give permeation to enter another country easily for business purpose thinking about it domestic business may lose. We know that the economical status of all country in the world not same that is why the developed country does not wise to business with poor country. Another important factor is culture, religion, and society these are not same in the world so it is main obstacle in the international market. For example, the Bangladeshi people take tea or coffee after meal while British people like drink or alcohol. But now a days, in the technological arena which attract people to involve international business. In case of IKEA how it gain international market, this was only because of IKEAs worldwide service. Conclusion: As mentioned in the case study, UKs furniture market is very brightness. So in the view of increasing share market, IKEA needs to focus on positioning itself as the one stop centre for all home furnishing needs. IKEA should have target their marketing effort on middle-upper, educated segment of UKs people, as they are the one that will be more open to accept new ideas and concept that has to offer. Also IKEA should different itself, focus on the experience it offers to shopper, not just the low price products.

Global Warming: Fact Vs. Fiction Essay -- Environmental Global Climate

Global Warming: Fact Vs. Fiction Global Warming -- the gradual increase in planet-wide temperatures -- seems to be accepted by many scientists and people now as fact. Generally, this warming is attributed to the increase of green-house gases in the Earth's upper atmosphere. However, some solar scientists are considering whether the warming exists at all. And, if it does, might it be caused, wholely or in part, by a periodic but small increase in the Sun's energy output. An increase of just 0.2% in the solar output could have the same affect as doubling the carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. What is the Problem? What is the evidence for global warming? Certainly, there are considerably more green-house gases (e.g. carbon dioxide) in our atmosphere than in previous times. And there appears to be some evidence that global temperatures are rising. But, how accurate and correct are our global warming statistics? And, do we really know what role, if any, the Sun might play in any global warming patterns? These issues are currently being debated, and may significantly affect you for the rest of your life. Would you like to do some research to find out more about global warming? We suggest here some research topics and places to begin looking for information. But these are all controversial issues, and there are no definitive answers (yet). As an informed, and voting, citizen of the next millenium, you will need to keep listening, looking, and being alert to new research and evidence. Science Is global warming occurri... ... reside with chapter Lead Authors... Some Lead Authors ignored valid critical comments or failed to... reflect dissenting views..." The report was therefore the result of a political rather than a scientific process. Claim: The majority of scientists believe global warming is a process underway and that it is human-induced. Fact: A 1992 Gallup survey of climatologists found that 81 percent of respondents believed that the global temperature had not risen over the past 100 years, were uncertain whether or not or why such warming had occurred, or believed any temperature increases during that period were within the natural range of variation. Further, a 1997 survey conducted by American Viewpoint found that state climatologists believe that global warming is largely a natural phenomenon by a margin of 44% to 17%.

Health Benefits of Coffee Essay

â€Å"Overall, research shows coffee is more healthful than harmful. For most, a lot of good comes from drinking it, more so than a lot of bad. † Tomas DePaulis, PhD states. In fact, drinking a few cups a day may be healthy according to Harvard’s Women’s Health Watch. People who drink coffee on a regular basis appear to acquire some advantages compared to those who don’t drink it at all. These benefits include but are not limited to: a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, reduced risk of gallstones, lower colon cancer risk, and reduced risk of parkinson’s. â€Å"I think on average, the consumption of caffeine probably does create a public health risk. † Dr. Jim Lane claims. â€Å"Coffee drinkers put themselves at greater risk of hear attack, stroke, or early death. † Health risks linked to coffee consumption include: worsening of PMS symptoms in some women, reducing fertility in women while trying to conceive, insomnia, anxiety, and irritability. Section 2 Tomas DePaulis , PhD, is a research scientist at Vanderbilt University’s Institute for Coffee Studies. Dr. Jim Lane is a researcher at the Duke University Medical School. Both of their opinions are for the general public, anyone who’s interested in finding out about benefits, or risks of coffee drinking. They both give valuable information for any reader, the good and the bad. Both DePaulis’ and Lane’s research seems to agree with what their opinion is, both research opposes the other. Section 3 I love everything about coffee, the taste, the smell, and the effect. I hadn’t really thought about risks or advantages of drinking it until I had to start researching coffee. I found both sides to the research very interesting, and it’s definitely hard to know which one proves to be true, and which proves to be incorrect. I’m no scientist but as much as I love coffee I find it hard to believe there would be any risks in drinking it, and was a bit startled when I came across research to show health risks.

Women of the Eighteenth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt

Women of the Eighteenth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt Hatshepsut was not the first queen regent in the Eighteenth Dynasty. It is possible that Hatshepsut knew of several reigning Egyptian queens before the Eighteenth Dynasty, but there is no evidence of it. There were some images of Sobeknefru that survived into Hatshepsuts time. But she surely knew of the record of the women of the Eighteenth Dynasty, of which she was a part. Ahhotep The founder of the dynasty, Ahmose I, is credited with re-unifying Egypt after the time of the Hyksos, or foreign, rulers. He recognized publicly his mothers central role in holding power until he could reign. She was Ahhotep, sister and wife of Taa II. Taa II died, probably fighting against the Hyksos. Taa II was succeeded by Kamose, who seems to have been a brother of Taa II, and thus an uncle of Ahmose I and brother of Ahhotep. Ahhoteps coffin names her as Gods Wife the first time this title is known to have been used for the wife of a pharaoh. Ahmes-Nefertiri (Ahmose-Nefertari) Ahmose I married his sister, Ahmes-Nefertiri, as Great Wife, and at least two others of his sisters. Ahmes-Nefertiri was the mother of Ahmose Is heir, Amenhotep I. Ahmes-Nefertiri was given the title Gods Wife, the first time its known that the title was used during a queens lifetime, and implying a major religious role for Ahmes-Nefertiri. Ahmos I died young and his son Amenhotep I was very young. Ahmes-Nefertiri became the de facto ruler of Egypt until her son was old enough to rule. Ahmes (Ahmose) Amenhotep I married two of his sisters, but died without an heir. Thutmose I then became king. Its not known whether Thutmose I had any royal heritage himself. He came to the kingship as an adult, and one of his two known wives, either Mutneferet or Ahmes (Ahmose), could have been sisters of Amenhotep I, but the evidence for either is slim. Ahmes is known to have been his Great Wife, and was the mother of Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut married her half-brother, Thutmose II, whose mother was Mutneferet. After Thutmose Is death, Ahmes is shown with Thutmose II and Hatshepsut, and is believed to have served as regent for her stepson and daughter early in Thutmose IIs short reign. Hatshepsuts Heritage of Woman Power Hatshepsut thus came from several generations of women who ruled until their young sons were old enough to take power. Of the Eighteenth Dynasty Kings through Thutmose III, perhaps only Thutmose I had come to power as an adult. As Ann Macy Roth has written, women effectively ruled Egypt for almost half of the approximately seventy years preceding Hatshepsuts accession. (1) Hatshepsut in assuming the regency was following in a long tradition. Note: (1) Ann Macy Roth. Models of Authority: Hatshepsuts Predecessors in Power. Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh. Catharine H. Roehrig, editor. 2005. Sources consulted include: Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. 2004.John Ray. Hatshepsut: the Female Pharaoh. History Today. Volume 44 number 5, May 1994.Gay Robins. Women in Ancient Egypt. 1993.Catharine H. Roehrig, editor. Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh. 2005. Article contributors include Ann Macy Roth, James P. Allen, Peter F. Dorman, Cathleen A. Keller, Catharine H. Roehrig, Dieter Arnold, Dorothea Arnold.Joyce Tyldesley. Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt. 2006.Joyce Tyldesley. Hatchepsut the Female Pharaoh. 1996.

Theory of Psychosexual Development Essay Essay Example

Theory of Psychosexual Development Essay Essay Example Theory of Psychosexual Development Essay Paper Theory of Psychosexual Development Essay Paper In order to measure the extent to which Freud’s theory can assist to understand a client’s showing issue. an apprehension of the theory will be discussed. I shall so look at the unfavorable judgments in order to do my rating. before coming to my concluding decision. The Theory behind Psychosexual Development Born on May 6. 1856 in Moravia. Sigmund Freud was an Austrian brain doctor who in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries. developed the field of depth psychology. Freud developed many theories including those that focus on the unconscious. the reading of dreams. Id. self-importance. and ace self-importance. and what is referred to as the psychosexual development theory. Freud saw the unconscious head as the existent beginning of mental energy. which determined behavior. and as many psychological attacks still assert ; behaviors is directed by an individual’s ends. Freud believed that behavior is the direct consequence of influence of all anterior experience. and these influences have greater consequence if from childhood. Harmonizing to Freud these experiences formed solid foundations on which a development kid would construction the remainder of its life. Adult personality was formed from childhood. harmonizing to the experience and intervention as a kid. Freud formed the sentiment that the early experiences of childhood were responsible for the development of personality. particularly during the first five old ages of life. He so went further and divided the infant’s development into phases associating to the comparative importance of zonary parts of the organic structure. which were relevant to the baby at a peculiar point in clip. Oral Phase The unwritten phase occurs in an infant’s life from birth to 18 months. During this clip. an baby is focused with having unwritten pleasance. This occurs through chest or bottle eating. or sucking on a conciliator. It is believed that if an infant receives excessively much or excessively small unwritten stimulation. they may develop a arrested development or a personality trait that is fixated on unwritten satisfaction. It is believed that these people may concentrate on activities that involve the oral cavity such as over feeding. seize with teething the fingernails. smoke. or imbibing. The theory states that these people may develop personality traits such as going highly fleeceable or naif. ever following others and neer taking the lead. and going highly dependent upon others. Anal Phase The anal phase is straight related to a child’s consciousness of intestine control and gaining pleasance through the act of extinguishing or retaining fecal matters. Freud’s theory puts the anal phase between 18 months and three old ages. It is believed that when a kid becomes fixated on having pleasance through commanding and extinguishing fecal matters. a kid can go haunted with control. flawlessness. and cleanliness. This is frequently referred to as anal retentive. while anal expulsive is the opposite. Those who are anal expulsive may be highly disorganized. unrecorded in pandemonium. and are known for doing musss. Phallic Phase Freud believed the phallic phase or the Oedipus or Electra composites occurs during a kid is three to six old ages of age. The belief is that male kids harbour unconscious. sexual attractive force to their female parents. while female kids develop a sexual attractive force to their male parent. Freud taught that immature male childs besides deal with feelings of competition with their male parent. These feelings of course resolve one time the kid begins to place with their same sex parent. By placing with the same sex parent. the kid continues with normal. healthy sexual development. If a kid becomes fixated during this stage. the consequence could be sexual aberrance or a baffled sexual individuality. Latency Stage The latency phase is named so because Freud believed there weren’t many overt signifiers of sexual satisfaction displayed. This phase is said to last from the age of six until a kid enters puberty. Most kids throughout this age signifier same sex friendly relationships and drama in a mode that is non-sexual. Unconscious sexual desires and ideas remain pent-up. Genital Phase Freud believed that after the unconscious. sexual desires are repressed and remain hibernating during the latency phase. they are awakened due to puberty. This phase begins at pubescence and develops with the physiology alterations brought on through endocrines. The anterior phases of development consequence in a focal point on the genitalias as a beginning for pleasance and teens develop and explore attractive forces to the opposite sex. The venereal phase is the last phase of the psychosexual development theory. Freud besides divided the head. the PSYCHE. into three parts: 1. The unconscious – stuff which can non be brought into witting consciousness 2. Preconscious – stuff non presently in witting consciousness but can be brought up to that degree easy. 3. Conscious – stuff that is present at that point in clip. These constructs can be equated to the ID. Ego. and Super-ego. These are abstract constructs which relate to the subconscious forces of the head which dominate human behavior. The Id The Idaho is the lone constituent of personality that is present from birth. This facet of personality is wholly unconscious and includes of the natural and crude behavior. Harmonizing to Freud. the Idaho is the beginning of all psychic energy. doing it the primary constituent of personality. The Idaho is driven by the pleasance rule. which strives for immediate satisfaction of all desires. wants. and demands. If these demands are non satisfied instantly. the consequence is a province anxiousness or tenseness. For illustration. an addition in hungriness or thirst should bring forth an immediate effort to eat or imbibe. The Idaho is really of import early in life. because it ensures that an infant’s demands are met. If the baby is hungry or uncomfortable. he or she will shout until the demands of the Idaho are met. However. instantly fulfilling these demands is non ever realistic or even possible. If we were ruled wholly by the pleasance rule. we might happen ourselves catching things we want out of other people’s custodies to fulfill our ain cravings. This kind of behavior would be both riotous and socially unacceptable. Harmonizing to Freud. the id attempts to decide the tenseness created by the pleasance rule through the primary procedure. which involves organizing a mental image of the coveted object as a manner of fulfilling the demand. The Ego The self-importance is the constituent of personality that is responsible for covering with world. Harmonizing to Freud. the ego develops from the Idaho and ensures that the urges of the Idaho can be expressed in a mode acceptable in the existent universe. The ego maps in the witting. preconscious. and unconscious head. The self-importance operates based on the world rule. which strives to fulfill the id’s desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways. The world rule weighs the costs and benefits of an action before make up ones minding to move upon or abandon urges. In many instances. the id’s urges can be satisfied through a procedure of delayed gratification–the self-importance will finally let the behavior. but merely in the appropriate clip and topographic point. The self-importance besides discharges tenseness created by unmet urges through the secondary procedure. in which the self-importance tries to happen an object in the existent universe that mat ches the mental image created by the id’s primary procedure. The Super-ego The last constituent of personality to develop is the superego. The superego is the facet of personality that holds all of our internalized moral criterions and ideals that we get from both parents and society–our sense of right and incorrect. The superego provides guidelines for doing judgements. Harmonizing to Freud. the superego begins to emerge at about age five. There are two parts of the superego: 1. The ego ideal includes the regulations and criterions for good behaviors. These behaviors include those which are approved of by parental and other authorization figures. Obeying these regulations leads to feelings of pride. value and achievement. 2. The scruples includes information about things that are viewed as bad by parents and society. These behaviors are frequently out and lead to bad effects. penalties or feelings of guilt and compunction. The superego Acts of the Apostless to hone and educate our behavior. It works to stamp down all unacceptable impulses of the Idaho and struggles to do the self-importance act upon idealistic criterions instead that upon realistic rules. The superego is present in the witting. preconscious and unconscious. The Interaction of the Id. Ego and Superego With so many viing forces. it is easy to see how struggle might originate between the Idaho. self-importance and superego. Freud used the term self-importance strength to mention to the ego’s ability to work despite these duelling forces. A individual with good self-importance strength is able to efficaciously pull off these force per unit areas. while those with excessively much or excessively small ego strength can go excessively dogged or excessively disrupting. Harmonizing to Freud. the key to a healthy personality is a balance between the Idaho. the self-importance. and the superego. Criticisms of the theory The book Human Development ( D. A. Louw. 1998 ) states that Freud’s theory is the consequence of an inventive reading of the memories and dreams of grownup neurotic patients instead than the consequence of a systematic observation of kids. This methodical failing is one of the most serious unfavorable judgments of his work. Memory is non a dependable beginning of scientific information. since it is frequently uncomplete. faulty. vague. and can be interpreted in many ways. In add-on. many of Freud’s patients became cognizant of his theories. and it is possible that they unconsciously changed and coloured their dreams and memories to match to his theories. Another unfavorable judgment is that Freud’s database was biased in the sense that he relied chiefly on the memories of his neurotic patients. instead than those of normal. well-balanced people. His attack was besides biased because in Freud’s clip. sexual tabu were much stricter that they are today. So it is possible that his strong accent on pent-up sexual thrusts is the consequence of the morality of that clip. A farther serious unfavorable judgment of his theory is that he saw the individual’s development as practically complete by the age of six. The accent on early childhood has prevented the proper survey of farther development for several decennaries. The concluding unfavorable judgment in this book is that Freud dealt with merely a few facets of human development. viz. psychosexual development. and to a limited grade. the development of aggression. The development of of import facet of human working such as thought. linguistic communication. societal relationships. emotions and motive were either wholly ignored or seen through the screen of his psychosexual theory. Other texts ballad claim to the same unfavorable judgments along with others ; that conclude that the theory is about wholly on male development with small reference of female psychosexual development. Such constructs as libido are impossible to mensurate. and hence can non be tested. and that Future anticipations are excessively obscure. How can we cognize that a current behavior was caused specifically by a childhood experience? The length of clip between the cause and the consequence is excessively long to presume that there is a relationship between the two variables. However. we can non deny that yesteryear has a important function to play in the presenting issue of a client and in the intervention of that issue. The neurotic behavior will necessarily come from a clients past. and I have no uncertainty that we become the people we are today because of our yesteryears. You could associate Freud’s theory to a sociopath. as they neer seem to germinate beyond the ID phase. They refer to others as objects. as they have neer have been able to develop to the latency phase where a lovingness and apprehension of others is acquired. so worlds are simply objects. So. for illustration. a consecutive raper has a demand to fulfill his sexual impulses. his self-importance is non at that place to guarantee that although he may hold that idea it is non socially acceptable to transport out the act. and there is no super-ego to do him experience guilty about his actions. However. it could besides be suggested that said individual was abused as a kid. and in bend. because of the hurting suffered as an abuse-e. they became the maltreater. In footings of moralss. if a healer was to result the psychosexual development as a complete procedure in their analysis of a clients issues. from research. they would hence be seeking through a clients past for the cause of the issues entirely through those phases. and would necessarily hold the demand to happen something within that clip cross to be the cause of the clients issues. This could either. conveying the healer to the decision that there can non be anything incorrect with the client. or could do the client believe that the cause of their issues was related to something that was of no existent relation to their presenting issue at all. therefore doing more emphasis and anxiousness within the client. We all remember certain phases of our life. good and bad. but those phases may be of no importance to us. but if person in authorization is discoursing these issues with you. they come to the surface ( into you witting ) . and so you could easy get down to believe that this cou ld be the cause. Decision Freud’s theories form the footing of all of today’s psychological theories and patterns. whether they are based from an understanding or struggle to his work. The best signifier of pattern is to handle a client’s presenting issues as to no others. but embracing tools from the work of Freud and others. and to integrate those into the pattern of deciding the presenting issues. The unconscious is a really powerful influence. and a good practician will understand this. but they must besides understand how each single interprets past state of affairss an molds them into something that their encephalon can understand. A client’s memory depends on non merely their upbringing. but their societal environment. their beliefs. faith and their coevals. Freud’s phases can easy be discredited all of these factors.

McDonald's Organizational Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

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Isaiah Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Isaiah - Essay Example To illustrate, Isaiah is the outstanding proponent of justice we find in the Old Testament. What makes Isaiah different from others is his exceeding concern on political issues of Judea. He is the sole individual who advises the kings to rely on God’s infallible justice instead of seeking assistance from Assyria or Egypt in order to encounter the invaders. He interprets all foreign invasions as Yahweh’s interference that persuades his people to repent. According to him, sufferings and injustice will not prevail, instead only the eternal justice will sustain ultimately. He also condemned all sorts of social injustice like oppression of widows and orphans (Isaiah 1: 11-17), corruption and bribery (5:23), and disposition of the poor (5: 8-10). There was not even a single area of political or spiritual significance that he left out. He observed the pertaining discrepancy between actual religious beliefs and practices. â€Å"Is that what you call fasting; a day acceptable t o Yahweh?† (58:5) (cited in Gray, 2006, p.73). He convinced them of the fallacy of performing rituals with little understanding of the real virtue of justice. For instance, he asks, â€Å"What need have I of your sacrifices, says the lord, put your evil deeds away from my sight† (1:11). While comparing with other prophets, Isaiah can be called a political prophet for he had a key role in the political events of Judea between 740-681 BC. Amos and Jeremiah also focus on the injustice prevailing among the aristocrats whom they found greedy and unreasonably exploiting the poor. Jeremiah reminds them to be loyal to Yahweh otherwise inevitable punishment would come upon them as part of the divine justice (Jer: 1, 2). Jeremiah also predicts the Babylonian captivity which they would undergo to compensate their injustice (Jer: 27). The major injustice the prophets like Jeremiah, Amos and Josiah find with Israel was their

Environment and Health Speech or Presentation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Environment and Health - Speech or Presentation Example The most advisable way to produce quality food is to grow our crops and animals in an organic manner in our farms. Meaning, we will grow our crops and animals without using GMOs, chemicals and antibiotics in this country (www.gov.uk nd). It may be more expensive to do this but the government can help by providing financial assistance to our farmers. The public can help by willing to buy these quality organic food at a slightly higher price so that it would be economically viable for farmers to grow quality organic crops and animals. The second option is to import quality foods in countries from our neighbouring countries. We have to set our expectation that we cannot import from far flung countries because quality foods that are organic have shorter shelf life. Fruits can be imported as they have longer shelf life compared to vegetables. Making the food and farming industry more competitive while protecting the environment. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2015, from

Education on health promotion Essay Example for Free

Education on health promotion Essay

Dividend Payout Decision Making Process

Dividend Payout Decision Making Process CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Background: Dividend policy is an important component of the corporate financial management policy. It is a policy used by the firm to decide as to how much cash it should reinvest in its business through expansion or share repurchases and how much to pay out to its shareholders in dividends. Dividend is a payment or return made by the firm to the shareholders, (owners of the company) out of its earnings in the form of cash. For a long time, the subject of corporate dividend policy has captivated the interests of many academicians and researchers, resulting in the emergence of a number of theoretical explanations for dividend policy. For the investors, dividend serve as an important indicator of the strength and future prosperity of the business, thereby companies try to maintain a stable dividend because if they reduce their dividend payments, investors may suspect that the company is facing a cash flow problem. Investors prefer steady growth of dividends every year and are reluctant to investm ent to companies with fluctuating dividend policy. Over time, there has been a substantial increase in the number of factors identified in the literature as being important to be considered in making dividend decisions. Thus, extensive studies have been done to find out various factors affecting dividend payout ratio of a firm. However, there is no single explanation that can capture the puzzling reality of corporate dividend behavior. Ocean deep judgment is involved by decision makers to resolve this issue of dividend behavior. The decision of companies to retain or pay out the earnings in form of dividends is important for the maximization of the value of the firm (Oyejide, 1976). Therefore, companies should set a constructive target dividend payout ratio, where it pays dividends to its shareholders and at the same time maintains sufficient retained earnings as to avoid having raise funds by borrowing money. A tough challenge was faced by financial practitioners and many academics, when Miller and Modigliani (MM) (1961) came with a proposition that, given perfect capital markets, the dividend decision does not affect the firm value and is, therefore, irrelevant. This proposition was greeted with surprise because at that time it was universally acknowledged by both theorists and corporate managers that the firm can enhance its business value by providing for a more generous dividend policy and that a properly managed dividend policy had an impact on share prices and shareholder wealth. Since the MM study, many researchers have relaxed the assumption of perfect capital markets and stated theories about how managers should formulate dividend policy decisions. Problem Statement: Dividend policy has attracted a substantial amount of research by many researchers and theorists, who have provided theoretical as well as empirical observations, into the dividend puzzle (Black, 1976). Even though researchers and theorists have extended their studies in context to dividend decisions, the issue as to why corporations distribute a portion of their earnings as dividends is not yet resolved. The issue of dividend policy has stimulated much debate among financial analysts since Lintners (1956) seminal work. He measured major changes in earnings as the key determinant of the companies dividend decisions. There are many factors that affect dividend decisions of a firm as it is very difficult to lay down an optimum dividend policy which would maximize the long-run wealth of the shareholders resulting into increase or decrease of the firms value, but the primary indicator of the firms capacity to pay dividends has been Profits. Miller and Modigliani (1961), DeAngelo and DeAngelo (2006) gave their proposition on the dividend irrelevance, but the argument made by them was on assumptions that werent practical and in fact, the dividend payout decision does affect the shareholders value. The study focuses on identifying various determinants of dividend payout and whether these factors influence the dividend payout decision. Research Objective: There are many theories in the corporate finance literature addressing the dividend issue. The purpose of study is to understand the factors influencing the dividend decision of companies. The specific objectives of this study are: To analyze the financials of the company, to draw a framework of factors such as Retained earnings, Age of the company, Debt to Equity, Cash, Net income, Earnings per share etc. responsible for dividend declaration. To understand the criticality of a companys profitability (in terms of Earnings per share) component in declaration of dividends. To measure each factor individually on how it affects the dividend decision. Research Questions: RQ1. What is the relation between dividend payout and firms debt? RQ2. What is the relation between dividend payout and Profitability? RQ3. What is the relation between dividend payout and liquidity? RQ4. What is the relation between dividend payout and Retained Earnings? RQ5. What is the relation between dividend payout and Net Income? Contribution of the Study: Dividend decision is an important financial decision made by firms, managers, and investors. This study aims to contribute to the corporate finance literature, by looking at the Dividend puzzle. An attempt is made to make a valuable contribution in two major ways: Theoretical and Empirical approach is taken to provide a comprehensive view on the subject. The empirical Approach taken in this study will definitely leave some promising future ideas. The empirical findings and conclusions contained in this study can be used by financial managers to inform dividend decisions. Limitations of Study: The areas of concern to investigate in this study are extensive. Due to the Time constraint and accessibility of data, the research will be limited to the following: The period of study is only three years 2006 to 2008. The research has considered only those firms who pay dividends. The study is focused only on firms trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Structure of the Paper: The remaining chapters will be organized as follows: Chapter Two: Literature Review This chapter discusses the different theories laid down in context to dividend policy and explains the relationship between dividend payout and its determinants as concluded by the study of different researchers and theorists. Chapter Three: Research Methodology This chapter explains the research hypothesis and gives a descriptive study of the techniques and the model used for data analysis. The application of the statistical tests used are explained thoroughly. Chapter four: Data Analysis and Findings To address the research questions, results obtained from the regression analysis will be evaluated and discussed in this chapter. Chapter five: Recommendations and Conclusion. This chapter Concludes the entire study and provides recommendations based on the findings and analysis done in the previous chapter and recommendations for future research. CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW Dividend remains one of the greatest enigmas of modern finance. Corporate dividend policy is an important decision area in the field of financial management hence there is an extensive literature devoted to the subject. Dividends are defined as the distribution of earnings (present or past) in real assets among the shareholders of the firm in proportion to their ownership. Dividend policy refers to managements long-term decision on how to utilize cash flows from business activities-that is, how much to plow back into the business, and how much to return to shareholders (Khan and Jain, 2005). Lintner (1956) conducted a notable study on dividend distributions, his was the first empirical study of dividend policy through his interview with managers of 28 selected companies, he stated that most companies have clear cut target payout ratios and that managers concern themselves with change in the existing dividend payout rather than the amount of the newly established payout. He also states that, Dividend policy is set first and other policies are then adjusted and the market reacts positively to dividend increase announcements and negatively to announcements of dividend decreases. He measured major changes in earnings as the key determinant of the companies dividend decisions. Lintners study was expanded by Farrelly et al. (1988), who, mailed a questionnaire to 562 firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange and concluded that managers accept dividend policy to be relevant and important. Lintners view was also supported by the study results of Fama and Babiak (1968) and Fama (1974) who suggested that managers prefer a stable dividend policy, and are hesitant to increase dividends to a level that cannot be supported. Fama and Babiaks (1968) study also concludes that Net income appears to explain the dividend change decision better than a cash flow measure. The study by Adaoglu (2000), Amidu and Abor (2006) and Belans et al (2007) stated that net income shows positive and significant association with the dividend payout, therefore indicating that, the firms with the positive earnings pay more dividends. Merton Miller and Franco Modigliani (1961) made a proposition that the value of a firm is not affected by its dividend policy. Dividend policy is a way of dividing up operating cash flows among investors or just a financial decision. Financial theorists Martin, Petty, Keown, and Scott, 1991 supported this theory of irrelevance. Miller and Modiglianis conclusion on the irrelevance of dividend policy presented a tough challenge to the conventional wisdom of time up to that point, it was universally acknowledged by both theorists and corporate managers that the firm can enhance its business value by providing for a more generous dividend policy as investors seem to prefer dividends over capital gains (JM Samuels, FM.Wilkes and R.E Brayshaw). Benartzi et al. (1997) conducted an extensive study and concluded that Lintners model of dividends remains the finest description of the dividend setting process available. Baker et al. (2001) conducted a survey on 630 NASDAQ-listed firms and analyzed the responses from 188 CFOs about the importance of 22 different factors that influence their dividend policy, they found that the dividend decisions made by managers were consistent with Lintners (1956) survey results and model. Their results also suggest that managers pay particular attention to the dividend policy of the firm because the dividend decision can affect firm value and, in turn, the wealth of stockholders, thus dividend policy requires serious attention by the management. E.F Fama and K.R French (2001) investigated the characteristics of companies paying dividends and concluded that the top most characteristics that affect the decision to pay dividends are Firm size, Profitability, and Investment opportunities. They studied dividend payment in the United States and found that the proportion of dividend payers declined sharply from 66% in 1978 to 20.8% in 1999, and that only about a fifth of public companies paid dividends. Growth companies such as Microsoft, Cisco and Sun Microsystems were found to be non-dividend payers. They also explained that the probability that a firm would pay dividends was positively related to profitability and size and negatively related to growth. Their research concluded that larger firms are more profitable and are more likely to pay dividends, than firms with more investment opportunities. The relationship between firm size and dividend policy was studied by Jennifer J. Gaver and Kenneth M. Gaver (1993). They suggested t hat A firms dividend yield is inversely related to the extent of its growth opportunities. The inference here is that as cash flow increases, the coefficient of dividend decreases, indicating that smaller firms that have greater investment opportunities thus they tend not to make dividend payment while larger firms tend to have proactive dividends policy. Ho, H. (2003) undertook a comparative study of dividend policies in Japan and Australia. Their study revealed that dividend policies in Australia and Japan are affected by different financial factors. Dividend policies are affected positively by size in Australia and liquidity in Japan. Naceur et al (2006) examined the dividend policy of 48 firms listed on the Tunisian Stock Exchange during the period 1996-2002. His research indicated that highly profitable firms with more stable earnings could afford larger free cash flows and thus paid larger dividends. Li and Lie (2006) reported that large and profitable firms are more likely to raise their dividends if the past dividend yield, debt ratio, cash ratio are low. A study was conducted by Norhayati Mohamed, Wee Shu Hui, Mormah Hj.Omar, and Rashidah Abdul Rahman on Malaysian companies over a 3 year period from 2003-2005. The sample was taken from the top 200 companies listed on the main board of Bursa Malaysia based on market capitaliza tion as at 31December 2005. Their study concluded that bigger firms pay higher dividends. For the purpose of finding out how companies arrive at their dividend decisions, many researchers and theorists have proposed several dividend theories. Gordon and Walter (1963) presented the Bird in Hand theory which suggested that to minimize risk the investors always prefer cash in hand rather than future promise of capital gain. This theory asserts that investors value dividends and high payout firms. As said by John D. Rockefeller (an American industrialist) The one thing that gives me contentment is to see my dividend coming in. For companies to communicate financial well-being and shareholder value the easiest way is to say the dividend check is in the mail. The bird-in-hand theory (a pre-Miller-Modigliani theory) asserts that dividends are valued differently to capital gains in a world of information asymmetry where due to uncertainty of future cash flow, investors will often tend to prefer dividends to retained earnings. As a result the value of the firm would be increased a s a higher payout ratio will reduce the required rate of return (see, for example Gordon, 1959). This argument has not received any strong empirical support. Dividends, paid by companies to shareholders from earnings, serve as an important indicator of the strength and future prosperity of the business. This explanation is known as signaling hypothesis. Signaling is an example factor for the relevance of dividends to the value of the firm. It is based on the idea of information asymmetry between managers and investors, where managers have private information about the firm that is not available to the outsiders. This theory is supported by models put forward by Miller and Rock (1985), Bhattacharya (1979), John and Williams (1985). They stated that dividends can be used as a signaling device to influence share price. The share price reacts favorably when an announcement of dividend increase is made. Few researchers found limited support for the signaling hypothesis (see Gonedes, 1978 , Watts, 1973) and there are other researchers, who supported the hypothesis, for example, in Michaely, Nissim and Ziv (2001), Pettit (1972) and Bali (2003). The tax-preference theory assumes that the market valuation of a firms stocks is increased when the dividend payout ratios is low which in turn lowers the required rate of return. Because of the relative tax liability of dividends compared to capital gains, investors need a large amount of before-tax risk adjusted return on stocks with higher dividend yields (Brennan, 1970). On one side studies by Lichtenberger and Ramaswamy (1979), Poterba and Summers, (1984), and Barclay (1987) have presented empirical evidence in support of the tax effect argument and on the other side Black and Scholes (1974), Miller and Scholes (1982), and Morgan and Thomas (1998) have either opposed such findings or provided completely different explanations. The study by Masulis and Trueman (1988) model dividend payments in form of cash as products of deferred dividend costs. Their model predicts that investors with differing tax liabilities will not be uniform in their ideal firm dividend policy. As the tax l iability on dividends increases (decreases), the dividend payment decreases (increases) while earnings reinvestment increases (decreases). According to Farrar and Selwyn (1967), in a partial equilibrium framework, individual investors choose the amount of personal and corporate leverage and also whether to receive corporate distributions as dividends or capital gains. Barclay (1987) has presented empirical evidence I support of the tax effect argument. Others, including Black and Scholes (1982), have opposed such findings or provided different explanations. Farrar and Selwyns model (1967) made an assumption that investors tend to increase their after tax income to the maximum. According to this model corporate earnings should be distributed by share repurchase rather than the use of dividends. Brennan (1970) has extended Farrar and Selwyns model into a general equilibrium framework. Under this, the expected usefulness of wealth as a system of barter is maximized. Despite being more robust both the models are similar as regards to their predictions. According to Auerbachs (1979) discrete-time, infinite-horizon model, the wealth of shareholders is maximized by the shareholders themselves and not by firm market value. If there does, infact, exist a difference between capital gains and dividends tax; firm market value maximization is no longer determined by wealth maximization. He states that the continued undervaluation of corporate capital leads to dividend distributions. The clientele effects hypothesis is another related theory. According to this theory the investors may be attracted to the types of stocks that fall in with their consumption/savings preferences. That is, investors (or clienteles) in high tax brackets may prefer non-dividend or low-dividend paying stocks if dividend income is taxed at a higher rate than capital gains. Also, certain clienteles may be created with the presence of transaction costs. There are several empirical studies on the clientele effects hypothesis but the findings are mixed. Studies by Pettit (1977), Scholz (1992), and Dhaliwal, Erickson and Trezevant (1999) presented evidence consistent with the existence of clientele effects hypothesis whereas studies by Lewellen et al. (1978), Richardson, Sefcik and Thomason (1986), Abrutyn and Turner (1990), found weak or contrary evidence. There is an assumption that the managers do not always take steps which would lead to maximizing an investors wealth. This gives rise to another favorable argument for hefty dividend payouts which shifts the reinvestment decision back on the owners. The main hitch would be the agency conflict (conflict between the principal and the agent) arising as a result of separate ownership and control. Therefore, a manager is expected to move the surplus funds from the high retained earnings into projects which are not feasible. This would be mainly due to his ill intention or his in competency. Thus, generous dividend payouts increase a firms value as it reduces the managements access to free cash flows and hence, controlling the problem of over investment. There are many more agency theories explaining how dividends can increase the value of a firm. One of them was by Easterbrook (1984); he proposed that dividend payments reduce agency problems in contrast to the transaction cost theory which is of the view that dividend payments reduce the value as it forces to raise costly finances from outside sources. His idea is that if the dividends are not paid, there is a problem of collective action that tends to lead to hap-hazard management of the firm. So, dividend payouts and raising external finance would attract auditory and regulatory measures by financial intermediaries like investment banks, respective stock exchange regulators and the potential investors as well. All this monitoring would lead to considerable reduction of agency costs and appreciate the market value of t he firm. Moreover, as defined by Jenson and Meckling (1976), Agency costs=monitoring costs+ bonding, costs+ residual loss i.e. sum of agency cost of equity and agency cost of debt. Hence, Easterbrook (1984) noted that dividend payments and raising new debt and its contract negotiations would reduce potential for wealth transfer. The realization for potential agency costs linked with separation of management and shareholders is not new. Adam Smith (1937) proposed that management of earlier companies is wayward. This problem was highly witnessed during at the time of British East Indian Companies and tracking managers was a failure due to inefficiencies and high costs of shareholder monitoring (Kindleberger, 1984). Scott (1912) and Carlos (1922) differ with this view point. They agree that although some fraud existed in the corporations, many of the activities of the managers were in line with those of the shareholders interests. An opportune and intelligent manager should always invest the surplus cash available into those opportunities which are well researched to be in the best interest of the shareholders. Berle and Means (1932) was the first to discover the insufficient utilization of funds which are surplus after other investment opportunities taken by the management. This thought was further promoted by Jensens (1986) free cash flow hypothesis. This hypothesis combined market information asymmetries with the agency theory. The surplus funds left after all the valuable projects are largely responsible for creation of the conflict of interest between the management and the shareholders. Payment of dividends and interest on other debt instruments reduce the cash flow with the management to invest in marginal net present value projects and for other perquisite consumptions. Therefore, the dividend theory is better explained by the combination of both the agency and the signaling theory rather than by any o ne of these alone. On the other hand, the free cash flow hypothesis rationalizes the corporate takeover frenzy of the 1980s Myers (1987 and 1990) rather than providing a clear and comprehensive dividend policy. The study by Baker et al. (2007) reports, that firms paying dividend in Canada are significantly larger and more profitable, having greater cash flows, ownership structure and some growth opportunities. The cash flow hypothesis proposes that insiders to a firm have more information about future cash flow than the outsiders, and they have incentivized motives to leak this to outsiders. Lang and Litzenberger (1989) check the cash flow signaling and free cash flow explanations of the effect of dividend declarations on the stock prices. This difference between permanent and temporary changes is also explored in Brook, Charlton, and Hendershott (1998). However, this study is based on the hypothesis that dividend changes contain cash flow information rather than information about earnings. This is the cash flow signaling hypothesis proposing that dividend changes signal expected cash flows changes. The dividend decisions are affected by a number of factors; many researchers have contributed in determining which determinant of dividend payout is the most significant in contributing to dividend decisions. It is said that the primary indicator of the firms capacity to pay dividends has been Profits. According to Lintner (1956) the dividend payment pattern of a firm is influenced by the current year earnings and previous year dividends. Pruitt and Gitmans (1991) survey of financial managers of 1000 largest U.S companies about the interplay among the investment and dividend decisions in their firms reported that, current and past year profits are essential factors influencing dividend payments. The conclusion derived from Baker and Powells (2000) survey of NYSE-listed firms is that the major determinant is the anticipated level of future earnings and continuity of past dividends. The study of Aivazian, Booth, and Cleary (2003) concludes that profitability and return on equity positi vely correlate with the size of the dividend payout ratio. The study by Lv Chang-jiang and Wang Ke-min (1999) on 316 listed companies in China that paid cash dividends during 1997 and 1998 by using modified Lintner dividend model, suggested that the dividend payout ratio is due to the firms current earning level. Other researchers like Chen Guo-Hui and Zhao Chun-guang (2000), Liu Shu-lian and Hu Yan-hong (2003) also concluded their research on the above stated understanding about dividend policy of listed companies in China. A survey done by Baker, Farrelly, and Edelman (1985) and Farrelly, Baker, and Edelman (1986) on 562 New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) firms with normal kinds of dividend polices in 1983 suggested that the major determinants of dividend payments were the anticipated level of future earnings and the pattern of past dividends. DeAngelo et al. (2004) findings suggest that earnings do have some impact on dividend payment. He stated that the high/increasing dividend concentration may be the result of high/increasing earnings concentration. Goergen et al. (2005) study on 221 German firms shows that net earnings were the key determinants of dividend changes. Baker and Smith (2006) examined 309 sample firms exhibiting behavior consistent with a residual dividend policy and their matched counterparts to understand how they set their dividend policies. Their study showed that for the matched firms, the pattern of past dividends and desire to maintain a long-term dividend payout ratio elicit the highest level of agreement from respondents. The study by Ferris et al. (2006) found mixed results for the relation between a firms earnings and its ability to pay dividends. Kao and Wu (1994) used a time series regression analysis of 454 firms over the period of 1965 to1986, and showed that there was a positive relationshi p between unexpected dividends and earnings. Carroll (1995) used quarterly data of 854 firms over the period of 1975 to 1984, and examined whether quarterly dividend changes predicted future earnings. He found a significant positive relationship. Liquidity is also an important determinant of dividend payouts. A poor liquidity position would generate fewer dividends due to shortage of cash. Alli et.al (1993), reveal that dividend payments depend more on cash flows, which reflect the companys ability to pay dividends, than on current earnings, which are less heavily influenced by accounting practices. They claim current earnings do no really reflect the firms ability to pay dividends. A firm without the cash flow back up cannot choose to have a high dividend payout as it will ultimately have to either reduce its investment plans or turn to investors for additional debt. The study by Brook, Charlton and Hendershott (1998) states that, Firms expecting large permanent cash flow increases tend to increase their dividend. Managers do not increase dividends until they are positive that sufficient cash will flow in to pay them (Brealey-Myers-2002). Myers and Bacons (2001) study shows a negative relationship between the liquid ratio and dividend payout. For companies to enable them to enhance their dividend paying capacity, and thus, to generate higher dividend paying capacity, it is necessary to retain their earnings to finance investment in fixed assets. The study by Belans et al (2007) states that the relationship between the firms liquidity and dividend is positive which explains that firms with more market liquidity pay more dividends. Reddy (2006), Amidu and Abor (2006) find opposite evidence. Lintner (1956) posited that the level of retained earnings is a dividend decision by- product. Adaoglu (2000) study shows that the firms listed on Istanbul Stock Exchange follow unstable cash dividend policy and the main factor for determining the amount of dividend is earning of the firms. The same conclusion was drawn by Omet (2004) in case of firms listed on Amman Securities Market and he further states that the tax imposition on dividend does not have the significant impact on the dividend behavior of the listed firms. The study by Mick and Bacon (2003) concludes that future earnings are the most influential variable and that the past dividend patterns as well as current and expected levels are empirically relevant in explaining the dividend decision. Empirical support for Lintners findings, that dividends were indeed a function of current and past profit levels and were negatively correlated with the change in sales was found by Darling (1957), Fama and Babiak (1968). Benchman a nd Raaballe (2007) discovered that the propensity to pay out dividends is positively correlated to retained earnings. Also, the study by Denis and Osobov (2006) states that retained earnings are a significant dividend characteristic for non- US firms including UK, German, and French firms. One of the motives for dividend policy decision is maintaining a moderate share price as poor stock price performance mostly conveys negative information about firms reputation. An empirical research took by Zhao Chun-guang and Zhang Xue-li et al (2001) on all A shares listed companies listed in Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchange, states that the more cash dividends is paid when the stock prices are high. Chen Guo-Hui and Zhao Chun-guang (2000) undertook a research on all A shares listed before 1996 and paid dividend into share capital in 1997 as their sampling, and employed single-factor analysis, multifactor regression analysis to analyze the data. Their research showed a positive stock price reaction to the cash dividend, stock dividend policy. Myers and Bacon (2001) discussed that the debt to equity ratio was positively correlated to the dividend yield. Therefore firms with relatively more investment opportunities would tend to be more geared and vice versa (Ross, 2000). The study by Hu and Liu, (2005) declares that there is a positive correlation between the cash dividend the companies pay and their current earnings, and a inverse relationship between the debt to total assets and dividends. Green et al. (1993) questioned the irrelevance argument and investigated the relationship between the dividends and investment and financing decisions. Their study showed that dividend payout levels are decided along with investment and financing decisions. The study results however do not support the views of Miller and Modigliani (1961). Partington (1983) declared that firms motives for paying dividends and extent to which dividends are decided are independent of investment policy. The study by Higgins (1981) declares a direct link between growths and financing needs, rapidly growing firms have external financing needs because working capital needs normally exceed the incremental cash flows from new sales. Higgins (1972) suggests that payout ratios are negatively related to firms need top fund finance growth opportunities. Other researchers like Rozeff (1982), Lloyd et al. (1985) and Collins et al. (1996) all show significantly negative relationship between historical sales growth and dividend payout whereas D, Souza (1999) however shows a positive but insignificant relationship in the case of growth and negative but insignificant relationship in case of market to book value. Jenson and Meckling (1976) find a strong relationship between dividends and investment opportunities. They explain, in some circumstances where firms have relative uptight disposable Dividend Payout Decision Making Process Dividend Payout Decision Making Process CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Background: Dividend policy is an important component of the corporate financial management policy. It is a policy used by the firm to decide as to how much cash it should reinvest in its business through expansion or share repurchases and how much to pay out to its shareholders in dividends. Dividend is a payment or return made by the firm to the shareholders, (owners of the company) out of its earnings in the form of cash. For a long time, the subject of corporate dividend policy has captivated the interests of many academicians and researchers, resulting in the emergence of a number of theoretical explanations for dividend policy. For the investors, dividend serve as an important indicator of the strength and future prosperity of the business, thereby companies try to maintain a stable dividend because if they reduce their dividend payments, investors may suspect that the company is facing a cash flow problem. Investors prefer steady growth of dividends every year and are reluctant to investm ent to companies with fluctuating dividend policy. Over time, there has been a substantial increase in the number of factors identified in the literature as being important to be considered in making dividend decisions. Thus, extensive studies have been done to find out various factors affecting dividend payout ratio of a firm. However, there is no single explanation that can capture the puzzling reality of corporate dividend behavior. Ocean deep judgment is involved by decision makers to resolve this issue of dividend behavior. The decision of companies to retain or pay out the earnings in form of dividends is important for the maximization of the value of the firm (Oyejide, 1976). Therefore, companies should set a constructive target dividend payout ratio, where it pays dividends to its shareholders and at the same time maintains sufficient retained earnings as to avoid having raise funds by borrowing money. A tough challenge was faced by financial practitioners and many academics, when Miller and Modigliani (MM) (1961) came with a proposition that, given perfect capital markets, the dividend decision does not affect the firm value and is, therefore, irrelevant. This proposition was greeted with surprise because at that time it was universally acknowledged by both theorists and corporate managers that the firm can enhance its business value by providing for a more generous dividend policy and that a properly managed dividend policy had an impact on share prices and shareholder wealth. Since the MM study, many researchers have relaxed the assumption of perfect capital markets and stated theories about how managers should formulate dividend policy decisions. Problem Statement: Dividend policy has attracted a substantial amount of research by many researchers and theorists, who have provided theoretical as well as empirical observations, into the dividend puzzle (Black, 1976). Even though researchers and theorists have extended their studies in context to dividend decisions, the issue as to why corporations distribute a portion of their earnings as dividends is not yet resolved. The issue of dividend policy has stimulated much debate among financial analysts since Lintners (1956) seminal work. He measured major changes in earnings as the key determinant of the companies dividend decisions. There are many factors that affect dividend decisions of a firm as it is very difficult to lay down an optimum dividend policy which would maximize the long-run wealth of the shareholders resulting into increase or decrease of the firms value, but the primary indicator of the firms capacity to pay dividends has been Profits. Miller and Modigliani (1961), DeAngelo and DeAngelo (2006) gave their proposition on the dividend irrelevance, but the argument made by them was on assumptions that werent practical and in fact, the dividend payout decision does affect the shareholders value. The study focuses on identifying various determinants of dividend payout and whether these factors influence the dividend payout decision. Research Objective: There are many theories in the corporate finance literature addressing the dividend issue. The purpose of study is to understand the factors influencing the dividend decision of companies. The specific objectives of this study are: To analyze the financials of the company, to draw a framework of factors such as Retained earnings, Age of the company, Debt to Equity, Cash, Net income, Earnings per share etc. responsible for dividend declaration. To understand the criticality of a companys profitability (in terms of Earnings per share) component in declaration of dividends. To measure each factor individually on how it affects the dividend decision. Research Questions: RQ1. What is the relation between dividend payout and firms debt? RQ2. What is the relation between dividend payout and Profitability? RQ3. What is the relation between dividend payout and liquidity? RQ4. What is the relation between dividend payout and Retained Earnings? RQ5. What is the relation between dividend payout and Net Income? Contribution of the Study: Dividend decision is an important financial decision made by firms, managers, and investors. This study aims to contribute to the corporate finance literature, by looking at the Dividend puzzle. An attempt is made to make a valuable contribution in two major ways: Theoretical and Empirical approach is taken to provide a comprehensive view on the subject. The empirical Approach taken in this study will definitely leave some promising future ideas. The empirical findings and conclusions contained in this study can be used by financial managers to inform dividend decisions. Limitations of Study: The areas of concern to investigate in this study are extensive. Due to the Time constraint and accessibility of data, the research will be limited to the following: The period of study is only three years 2006 to 2008. The research has considered only those firms who pay dividends. The study is focused only on firms trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Structure of the Paper: The remaining chapters will be organized as follows: Chapter Two: Literature Review This chapter discusses the different theories laid down in context to dividend policy and explains the relationship between dividend payout and its determinants as concluded by the study of different researchers and theorists. Chapter Three: Research Methodology This chapter explains the research hypothesis and gives a descriptive study of the techniques and the model used for data analysis. The application of the statistical tests used are explained thoroughly. Chapter four: Data Analysis and Findings To address the research questions, results obtained from the regression analysis will be evaluated and discussed in this chapter. Chapter five: Recommendations and Conclusion. This chapter Concludes the entire study and provides recommendations based on the findings and analysis done in the previous chapter and recommendations for future research. CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW Dividend remains one of the greatest enigmas of modern finance. Corporate dividend policy is an important decision area in the field of financial management hence there is an extensive literature devoted to the subject. Dividends are defined as the distribution of earnings (present or past) in real assets among the shareholders of the firm in proportion to their ownership. Dividend policy refers to managements long-term decision on how to utilize cash flows from business activities-that is, how much to plow back into the business, and how much to return to shareholders (Khan and Jain, 2005). Lintner (1956) conducted a notable study on dividend distributions, his was the first empirical study of dividend policy through his interview with managers of 28 selected companies, he stated that most companies have clear cut target payout ratios and that managers concern themselves with change in the existing dividend payout rather than the amount of the newly established payout. He also states that, Dividend policy is set first and other policies are then adjusted and the market reacts positively to dividend increase announcements and negatively to announcements of dividend decreases. He measured major changes in earnings as the key determinant of the companies dividend decisions. Lintners study was expanded by Farrelly et al. (1988), who, mailed a questionnaire to 562 firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange and concluded that managers accept dividend policy to be relevant and important. Lintners view was also supported by the study results of Fama and Babiak (1968) and Fama (1974) who suggested that managers prefer a stable dividend policy, and are hesitant to increase dividends to a level that cannot be supported. Fama and Babiaks (1968) study also concludes that Net income appears to explain the dividend change decision better than a cash flow measure. The study by Adaoglu (2000), Amidu and Abor (2006) and Belans et al (2007) stated that net income shows positive and significant association with the dividend payout, therefore indicating that, the firms with the positive earnings pay more dividends. Merton Miller and Franco Modigliani (1961) made a proposition that the value of a firm is not affected by its dividend policy. Dividend policy is a way of dividing up operating cash flows among investors or just a financial decision. Financial theorists Martin, Petty, Keown, and Scott, 1991 supported this theory of irrelevance. Miller and Modiglianis conclusion on the irrelevance of dividend policy presented a tough challenge to the conventional wisdom of time up to that point, it was universally acknowledged by both theorists and corporate managers that the firm can enhance its business value by providing for a more generous dividend policy as investors seem to prefer dividends over capital gains (JM Samuels, FM.Wilkes and R.E Brayshaw). Benartzi et al. (1997) conducted an extensive study and concluded that Lintners model of dividends remains the finest description of the dividend setting process available. Baker et al. (2001) conducted a survey on 630 NASDAQ-listed firms and analyzed the responses from 188 CFOs about the importance of 22 different factors that influence their dividend policy, they found that the dividend decisions made by managers were consistent with Lintners (1956) survey results and model. Their results also suggest that managers pay particular attention to the dividend policy of the firm because the dividend decision can affect firm value and, in turn, the wealth of stockholders, thus dividend policy requires serious attention by the management. E.F Fama and K.R French (2001) investigated the characteristics of companies paying dividends and concluded that the top most characteristics that affect the decision to pay dividends are Firm size, Profitability, and Investment opportunities. They studied dividend payment in the United States and found that the proportion of dividend payers declined sharply from 66% in 1978 to 20.8% in 1999, and that only about a fifth of public companies paid dividends. Growth companies such as Microsoft, Cisco and Sun Microsystems were found to be non-dividend payers. They also explained that the probability that a firm would pay dividends was positively related to profitability and size and negatively related to growth. Their research concluded that larger firms are more profitable and are more likely to pay dividends, than firms with more investment opportunities. The relationship between firm size and dividend policy was studied by Jennifer J. Gaver and Kenneth M. Gaver (1993). They suggested t hat A firms dividend yield is inversely related to the extent of its growth opportunities. The inference here is that as cash flow increases, the coefficient of dividend decreases, indicating that smaller firms that have greater investment opportunities thus they tend not to make dividend payment while larger firms tend to have proactive dividends policy. Ho, H. (2003) undertook a comparative study of dividend policies in Japan and Australia. Their study revealed that dividend policies in Australia and Japan are affected by different financial factors. Dividend policies are affected positively by size in Australia and liquidity in Japan. Naceur et al (2006) examined the dividend policy of 48 firms listed on the Tunisian Stock Exchange during the period 1996-2002. His research indicated that highly profitable firms with more stable earnings could afford larger free cash flows and thus paid larger dividends. Li and Lie (2006) reported that large and profitable firms are more likely to raise their dividends if the past dividend yield, debt ratio, cash ratio are low. A study was conducted by Norhayati Mohamed, Wee Shu Hui, Mormah Hj.Omar, and Rashidah Abdul Rahman on Malaysian companies over a 3 year period from 2003-2005. The sample was taken from the top 200 companies listed on the main board of Bursa Malaysia based on market capitaliza tion as at 31December 2005. Their study concluded that bigger firms pay higher dividends. For the purpose of finding out how companies arrive at their dividend decisions, many researchers and theorists have proposed several dividend theories. Gordon and Walter (1963) presented the Bird in Hand theory which suggested that to minimize risk the investors always prefer cash in hand rather than future promise of capital gain. This theory asserts that investors value dividends and high payout firms. As said by John D. Rockefeller (an American industrialist) The one thing that gives me contentment is to see my dividend coming in. For companies to communicate financial well-being and shareholder value the easiest way is to say the dividend check is in the mail. The bird-in-hand theory (a pre-Miller-Modigliani theory) asserts that dividends are valued differently to capital gains in a world of information asymmetry where due to uncertainty of future cash flow, investors will often tend to prefer dividends to retained earnings. As a result the value of the firm would be increased a s a higher payout ratio will reduce the required rate of return (see, for example Gordon, 1959). This argument has not received any strong empirical support. Dividends, paid by companies to shareholders from earnings, serve as an important indicator of the strength and future prosperity of the business. This explanation is known as signaling hypothesis. Signaling is an example factor for the relevance of dividends to the value of the firm. It is based on the idea of information asymmetry between managers and investors, where managers have private information about the firm that is not available to the outsiders. This theory is supported by models put forward by Miller and Rock (1985), Bhattacharya (1979), John and Williams (1985). They stated that dividends can be used as a signaling device to influence share price. The share price reacts favorably when an announcement of dividend increase is made. Few researchers found limited support for the signaling hypothesis (see Gonedes, 1978 , Watts, 1973) and there are other researchers, who supported the hypothesis, for example, in Michaely, Nissim and Ziv (2001), Pettit (1972) and Bali (2003). The tax-preference theory assumes that the market valuation of a firms stocks is increased when the dividend payout ratios is low which in turn lowers the required rate of return. Because of the relative tax liability of dividends compared to capital gains, investors need a large amount of before-tax risk adjusted return on stocks with higher dividend yields (Brennan, 1970). On one side studies by Lichtenberger and Ramaswamy (1979), Poterba and Summers, (1984), and Barclay (1987) have presented empirical evidence in support of the tax effect argument and on the other side Black and Scholes (1974), Miller and Scholes (1982), and Morgan and Thomas (1998) have either opposed such findings or provided completely different explanations. The study by Masulis and Trueman (1988) model dividend payments in form of cash as products of deferred dividend costs. Their model predicts that investors with differing tax liabilities will not be uniform in their ideal firm dividend policy. As the tax l iability on dividends increases (decreases), the dividend payment decreases (increases) while earnings reinvestment increases (decreases). According to Farrar and Selwyn (1967), in a partial equilibrium framework, individual investors choose the amount of personal and corporate leverage and also whether to receive corporate distributions as dividends or capital gains. Barclay (1987) has presented empirical evidence I support of the tax effect argument. Others, including Black and Scholes (1982), have opposed such findings or provided different explanations. Farrar and Selwyns model (1967) made an assumption that investors tend to increase their after tax income to the maximum. According to this model corporate earnings should be distributed by share repurchase rather than the use of dividends. Brennan (1970) has extended Farrar and Selwyns model into a general equilibrium framework. Under this, the expected usefulness of wealth as a system of barter is maximized. Despite being more robust both the models are similar as regards to their predictions. According to Auerbachs (1979) discrete-time, infinite-horizon model, the wealth of shareholders is maximized by the shareholders themselves and not by firm market value. If there does, infact, exist a difference between capital gains and dividends tax; firm market value maximization is no longer determined by wealth maximization. He states that the continued undervaluation of corporate capital leads to dividend distributions. The clientele effects hypothesis is another related theory. According to this theory the investors may be attracted to the types of stocks that fall in with their consumption/savings preferences. That is, investors (or clienteles) in high tax brackets may prefer non-dividend or low-dividend paying stocks if dividend income is taxed at a higher rate than capital gains. Also, certain clienteles may be created with the presence of transaction costs. There are several empirical studies on the clientele effects hypothesis but the findings are mixed. Studies by Pettit (1977), Scholz (1992), and Dhaliwal, Erickson and Trezevant (1999) presented evidence consistent with the existence of clientele effects hypothesis whereas studies by Lewellen et al. (1978), Richardson, Sefcik and Thomason (1986), Abrutyn and Turner (1990), found weak or contrary evidence. There is an assumption that the managers do not always take steps which would lead to maximizing an investors wealth. This gives rise to another favorable argument for hefty dividend payouts which shifts the reinvestment decision back on the owners. The main hitch would be the agency conflict (conflict between the principal and the agent) arising as a result of separate ownership and control. Therefore, a manager is expected to move the surplus funds from the high retained earnings into projects which are not feasible. This would be mainly due to his ill intention or his in competency. Thus, generous dividend payouts increase a firms value as it reduces the managements access to free cash flows and hence, controlling the problem of over investment. There are many more agency theories explaining how dividends can increase the value of a firm. One of them was by Easterbrook (1984); he proposed that dividend payments reduce agency problems in contrast to the transaction cost theory which is of the view that dividend payments reduce the value as it forces to raise costly finances from outside sources. His idea is that if the dividends are not paid, there is a problem of collective action that tends to lead to hap-hazard management of the firm. So, dividend payouts and raising external finance would attract auditory and regulatory measures by financial intermediaries like investment banks, respective stock exchange regulators and the potential investors as well. All this monitoring would lead to considerable reduction of agency costs and appreciate the market value of t he firm. Moreover, as defined by Jenson and Meckling (1976), Agency costs=monitoring costs+ bonding, costs+ residual loss i.e. sum of agency cost of equity and agency cost of debt. Hence, Easterbrook (1984) noted that dividend payments and raising new debt and its contract negotiations would reduce potential for wealth transfer. The realization for potential agency costs linked with separation of management and shareholders is not new. Adam Smith (1937) proposed that management of earlier companies is wayward. This problem was highly witnessed during at the time of British East Indian Companies and tracking managers was a failure due to inefficiencies and high costs of shareholder monitoring (Kindleberger, 1984). Scott (1912) and Carlos (1922) differ with this view point. They agree that although some fraud existed in the corporations, many of the activities of the managers were in line with those of the shareholders interests. An opportune and intelligent manager should always invest the surplus cash available into those opportunities which are well researched to be in the best interest of the shareholders. Berle and Means (1932) was the first to discover the insufficient utilization of funds which are surplus after other investment opportunities taken by the management. This thought was further promoted by Jensens (1986) free cash flow hypothesis. This hypothesis combined market information asymmetries with the agency theory. The surplus funds left after all the valuable projects are largely responsible for creation of the conflict of interest between the management and the shareholders. Payment of dividends and interest on other debt instruments reduce the cash flow with the management to invest in marginal net present value projects and for other perquisite consumptions. Therefore, the dividend theory is better explained by the combination of both the agency and the signaling theory rather than by any o ne of these alone. On the other hand, the free cash flow hypothesis rationalizes the corporate takeover frenzy of the 1980s Myers (1987 and 1990) rather than providing a clear and comprehensive dividend policy. The study by Baker et al. (2007) reports, that firms paying dividend in Canada are significantly larger and more profitable, having greater cash flows, ownership structure and some growth opportunities. The cash flow hypothesis proposes that insiders to a firm have more information about future cash flow than the outsiders, and they have incentivized motives to leak this to outsiders. Lang and Litzenberger (1989) check the cash flow signaling and free cash flow explanations of the effect of dividend declarations on the stock prices. This difference between permanent and temporary changes is also explored in Brook, Charlton, and Hendershott (1998). However, this study is based on the hypothesis that dividend changes contain cash flow information rather than information about earnings. This is the cash flow signaling hypothesis proposing that dividend changes signal expected cash flows changes. The dividend decisions are affected by a number of factors; many researchers have contributed in determining which determinant of dividend payout is the most significant in contributing to dividend decisions. It is said that the primary indicator of the firms capacity to pay dividends has been Profits. According to Lintner (1956) the dividend payment pattern of a firm is influenced by the current year earnings and previous year dividends. Pruitt and Gitmans (1991) survey of financial managers of 1000 largest U.S companies about the interplay among the investment and dividend decisions in their firms reported that, current and past year profits are essential factors influencing dividend payments. The conclusion derived from Baker and Powells (2000) survey of NYSE-listed firms is that the major determinant is the anticipated level of future earnings and continuity of past dividends. The study of Aivazian, Booth, and Cleary (2003) concludes that profitability and return on equity positi vely correlate with the size of the dividend payout ratio. The study by Lv Chang-jiang and Wang Ke-min (1999) on 316 listed companies in China that paid cash dividends during 1997 and 1998 by using modified Lintner dividend model, suggested that the dividend payout ratio is due to the firms current earning level. Other researchers like Chen Guo-Hui and Zhao Chun-guang (2000), Liu Shu-lian and Hu Yan-hong (2003) also concluded their research on the above stated understanding about dividend policy of listed companies in China. A survey done by Baker, Farrelly, and Edelman (1985) and Farrelly, Baker, and Edelman (1986) on 562 New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) firms with normal kinds of dividend polices in 1983 suggested that the major determinants of dividend payments were the anticipated level of future earnings and the pattern of past dividends. DeAngelo et al. (2004) findings suggest that earnings do have some impact on dividend payment. He stated that the high/increasing dividend concentration may be the result of high/increasing earnings concentration. Goergen et al. (2005) study on 221 German firms shows that net earnings were the key determinants of dividend changes. Baker and Smith (2006) examined 309 sample firms exhibiting behavior consistent with a residual dividend policy and their matched counterparts to understand how they set their dividend policies. Their study showed that for the matched firms, the pattern of past dividends and desire to maintain a long-term dividend payout ratio elicit the highest level of agreement from respondents. The study by Ferris et al. (2006) found mixed results for the relation between a firms earnings and its ability to pay dividends. Kao and Wu (1994) used a time series regression analysis of 454 firms over the period of 1965 to1986, and showed that there was a positive relationshi p between unexpected dividends and earnings. Carroll (1995) used quarterly data of 854 firms over the period of 1975 to 1984, and examined whether quarterly dividend changes predicted future earnings. He found a significant positive relationship. Liquidity is also an important determinant of dividend payouts. A poor liquidity position would generate fewer dividends due to shortage of cash. Alli et.al (1993), reveal that dividend payments depend more on cash flows, which reflect the companys ability to pay dividends, than on current earnings, which are less heavily influenced by accounting practices. They claim current earnings do no really reflect the firms ability to pay dividends. A firm without the cash flow back up cannot choose to have a high dividend payout as it will ultimately have to either reduce its investment plans or turn to investors for additional debt. The study by Brook, Charlton and Hendershott (1998) states that, Firms expecting large permanent cash flow increases tend to increase their dividend. Managers do not increase dividends until they are positive that sufficient cash will flow in to pay them (Brealey-Myers-2002). Myers and Bacons (2001) study shows a negative relationship between the liquid ratio and dividend payout. For companies to enable them to enhance their dividend paying capacity, and thus, to generate higher dividend paying capacity, it is necessary to retain their earnings to finance investment in fixed assets. The study by Belans et al (2007) states that the relationship between the firms liquidity and dividend is positive which explains that firms with more market liquidity pay more dividends. Reddy (2006), Amidu and Abor (2006) find opposite evidence. Lintner (1956) posited that the level of retained earnings is a dividend decision by- product. Adaoglu (2000) study shows that the firms listed on Istanbul Stock Exchange follow unstable cash dividend policy and the main factor for determining the amount of dividend is earning of the firms. The same conclusion was drawn by Omet (2004) in case of firms listed on Amman Securities Market and he further states that the tax imposition on dividend does not have the significant impact on the dividend behavior of the listed firms. The study by Mick and Bacon (2003) concludes that future earnings are the most influential variable and that the past dividend patterns as well as current and expected levels are empirically relevant in explaining the dividend decision. Empirical support for Lintners findings, that dividends were indeed a function of current and past profit levels and were negatively correlated with the change in sales was found by Darling (1957), Fama and Babiak (1968). Benchman a nd Raaballe (2007) discovered that the propensity to pay out dividends is positively correlated to retained earnings. Also, the study by Denis and Osobov (2006) states that retained earnings are a significant dividend characteristic for non- US firms including UK, German, and French firms. One of the motives for dividend policy decision is maintaining a moderate share price as poor stock price performance mostly conveys negative information about firms reputation. An empirical research took by Zhao Chun-guang and Zhang Xue-li et al (2001) on all A shares listed companies listed in Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchange, states that the more cash dividends is paid when the stock prices are high. Chen Guo-Hui and Zhao Chun-guang (2000) undertook a research on all A shares listed before 1996 and paid dividend into share capital in 1997 as their sampling, and employed single-factor analysis, multifactor regression analysis to analyze the data. Their research showed a positive stock price reaction to the cash dividend, stock dividend policy. Myers and Bacon (2001) discussed that the debt to equity ratio was positively correlated to the dividend yield. Therefore firms with relatively more investment opportunities would tend to be more geared and vice versa (Ross, 2000). The study by Hu and Liu, (2005) declares that there is a positive correlation between the cash dividend the companies pay and their current earnings, and a inverse relationship between the debt to total assets and dividends. Green et al. (1993) questioned the irrelevance argument and investigated the relationship between the dividends and investment and financing decisions. Their study showed that dividend payout levels are decided along with investment and financing decisions. The study results however do not support the views of Miller and Modigliani (1961). Partington (1983) declared that firms motives for paying dividends and extent to which dividends are decided are independent of investment policy. The study by Higgins (1981) declares a direct link between growths and financing needs, rapidly growing firms have external financing needs because working capital needs normally exceed the incremental cash flows from new sales. Higgins (1972) suggests that payout ratios are negatively related to firms need top fund finance growth opportunities. Other researchers like Rozeff (1982), Lloyd et al. (1985) and Collins et al. (1996) all show significantly negative relationship between historical sales growth and dividend payout whereas D, Souza (1999) however shows a positive but insignificant relationship in the case of growth and negative but insignificant relationship in case of market to book value. Jenson and Meckling (1976) find a strong relationship between dividends and investment opportunities. They explain, in some circumstances where firms have relative uptight disposable