Dystopia In Film | Metropolis Vs Utopian Art Deco

Dystopia In Film | Metropolis Vs Utopian Art Deco The 1920s in Germany were a transition time, World War I had recently ended, and it was precisely the war that showed the destructive potential of modern technology. Invented and first used by the Germans in 1915, machine guns and poison gas showed the deep split between technology and humanity, it was the first modern war in which machines decided the outcome. In this time in history, it was the embracement of technology in other parts of the world, the Art Deco movement was the Utopian new way of living. After the war in Germany, American modernity became a powerful agent in the economic and cultural modernisation. America represented the New World, since Germany had a lack of national identity, the idea that mass culture might be a secret American weapon, one that would enslave the world by distracting it made sense according to Isenberg (2009, p.182-183). Combining these two facts, the German loss of dignity during the first World War, and modernity rising, it created a certain c omfort for the German culture to accept the modern movement, since it represented the ideal of living in the present which made it easier to forget about the harsh past. At first America was seen as a good idea, but by the mid-1920s Germany faced a stability in politics and economy, which questioned American way of living, its technological progress began to be seen as inhuman. Germany was beginning to feel threatened by America, with its focus on materialism and mechanisation of life, seeing it as a way to kill the human side of humankind. In 1927, the German film director Fritz Lang, created a movie analysing just that, our future with machines and its possible outcome. It was a film created to show the comfort Germany first took in accepting modernity but in a way where humanity would lose it all to it. The Art Deco movement at the time, stood for the modern world and the evolution of people through the new inventions of machines. Metropolis, still believed in this Utopian life but created its own, showing how human and machines can work as long as one important factor is not forgotten, which the modern world seemed to have already done. In comparison to the Art Deco modern views, Metropolis created its own view, which can be seen as its own naà ¯ve Utopian world, but also showed the Dystopia that could occur from this fast modern movement. In order to see how the two go hand in hand, one must look at important elements which happened at this time, the introduction of new technologies which affected almost all the aspects of life. From architecture to fashion, people and their ways were changing, since freedom was now praised upon, everything that used to be taboo or conservative was now in the open. Taking into consideration that the major elements, which make up Art Deco, are present in the film; this is to show how they were used to portray the negative side of this modern vision. We all believe in a Utopian way of life, in perfection, but the consequences are most of the time overlooked, and the film Metropolis was that vision, showing the effects of the new technologies people were praising and how it would forever change people, life and the world. Without further ado, lets see how the film has proven itself to be a masterpiece but most importantly how a purely imaginative vision may have foretold our future, from began as a Utopian idea to what may have changed the fundamentals of humankind. The late teens and early twenties in Germany was a time of rampant inflation, decadence, personal liberty, violence and insecurity. It was followed by the unfortunate rise of the Nazis during the late twenties and early thirties, which saw a severe clampdown on freedom of expression is all walks of life, especially the arts and politics according to Organ (2009). The central theme of Metropolis is that of a separation between working class and higher-ups and the need for a mutual understanding of each is presented both abstractly and directly through the image rather than the word. This theme of workers revolting against domination by exploitative management, their soulless machines, and new technologies, also struck a chord with reviewers and the general public, though many critics in America and Britain objected strongly to this anti-Fordism / anti production-line tale. As such, Metropolis, with its many themes and sub-texts, including the almost obligatory boy meets girl, boy loos es girl, boy finds girl was a controversial film from day one It garnered both positive and negative comment wherever it was shown, and generated much critical discussion in the press upon release according to Organ (2009). In order to understand the importance of the visual work accomplished in the film, on must look at different scenes from the movie where this is proven, such as the opening shot of line upon line, file upon file, of workers marching down the hallway towards the elevator that takes them down into the depths of the citys machines and inner workings. Each worker wears the same uniform, shuffles their feet in the same manner as if they were a military unit, and each slouch and hold their heads down in unison according to Simon M (2010). Such images as workers being fed to a giant monster, masses upon masses of slave labor building the biblical Tower of Babel, and Death itself swinging its scythe indicate the possible fall of this turbulent society in a stark and shocking way not possible through ordinary images or even the written word. They give this story something of a mythic and fantastic property, portraying its message through symbolism rather than realism, exaggeration rather than realism according to Simon M (2010). The pleasure garden in which Freder (the main character) indulges in the most hedonistic of pleasures, providing a stark contrast with the metallic, grimy world of the workers. This fluid and happy-go-lucky world is immediately interrupted by the entrance of Maria and the worker children. Here is the direct conflict and contrast between workers and elites, high and low, heaven and hell. Later on in the film Freder witnesses one of these machines at work, each worker mechanically pushing buttons and pulling levers in uniform, fixed motions. It is as if these workers are themselves machines, as Lang uses the image of uniform, unnatural motion to represent a lack of humanity, hopefully inspiring repulsion in the audience according to Simon M (2010). Such exaggeration is arguably necessary in the case of a silent film in order to make up for the lack of proper dialogue, but it also may add to the raw symbolism of it all, going to every last length t o show the divide between worker and elite. This exaggeration practically defines Metropolis in many instances. Along with the aforementioned portrayals of Freder and Maria, there is the near-comically evil Rotwang, who inspired just about every mad scientist portrayed in popular culture since then according to Simon M (2010). Another important factor is the characteristics of the appearance and behaviour of Rotwang which does not fit the stereotype of a modern scientist, and there are indications that he may be in league with the devil. The personality of the scientist Rotwang belongs to one of the most interesting antagonists of the screen. The possibility of an ambivalent interpretation of his character, he is a scientist, but also something of a sorcerer allied with satanic forces, which gives him greater complexity according to Urgosà ­kovà ¡ (2009). In 1924, Fritz Lang visited New York City, where the big-city architecture struck him, and the luminous cityscape influenced the visual design and electrifying energy for the film. Originally an architect, Lang was a man of unusually sensitive visual perceptions. His films of those years show an expressionistic sense for the plastic and the lighting, which emphasized architectonic lines and conveyed a sense of geometric construction that not only extends to the sets and the depicted milieu but even influenced the positioning of the actors in individual shots. In keeping with the conventions of expressionism, the inhabitants of the subterranean city have no individuality, and the crowd represents a compact mass from which personality projects only as a stark exception and only in a definite rhythm according to Urgosà ­kovà ¡ (2009). The introductory sequences present this social organization in a very attractive light. In a magnificent, gigantic city with gleaming skyscrapers, suspension bridges, and bustling street, people live in comfort and plenty, with every possibility for intellectual and physical development. However, Metropolis is not a city of freedom and equality. Below ground, working for the chosen elite, are masses of nameless workers who have no more value within the social order than a cog in a machine or a tool or production. It is for this reason that the workers revolt and almost destroy the city; only then is there a reconciliation and an equalization of rights for the two strata, the elite and the workers. Lang honestly believed in this idea of reconciliation, and his attitude to a certain extent reflected the German reality, in which there were growing indications of stabilization and attempts to resolve social problems. The uneven lines, contrasts of light and dark, half-shadows and silhoue ttes, which serve to suggest mysterious and menacing actions, events, and emotions. Lang applied these techniques effectively and successfully to one of the varieties of the fantasy genre, what he created to be utopian work, or in modern words influenced the genre of Science Fiction according to Urgosà ­kovà ¡ (2009). What can also be factored is the importance of architecture in the Art Deco movement, where the advanced of technology was introduced, which made the construction of skyscrapers possible. This new way of building up rather than out, gave the illusion that we could reach the sky, giving a high expectation for our future. In the film Metropolis, the main building is the Babel tower, where the legend is told that it was made to reach the stars and on the top it would be written Great is the world and its Creator! And great is Man! but in the sequence of the film where this is explained, it shows how in order for a building or any structure to be built, one must first think of the idea, which is not always possible. Once the idea is put on paper or into small scale, it needs labour to be produced and this is when the hands come in, and it is shown that in order for the Babel tower to be built, it would take a lot of man power and therefore some blood would have to be shed in order for th e man who had thought of this building, could see it built. This is Metropoliss view on the built of skyscrapers, since they were using new techniques, which were not already perfected, and what it would take to build such things, the cost of human lives? That it is great for such ideas to ever be thought up, but is it necessary? At the time yes, since it showed the greatness of man and what he could achieve. When a director creates a film, its main purpose it to communicate a message through visuals and dialogue, which can be expressed in different ways, such as speech, facial expressions and written words. Its main focus is to make the audience feel exactly what the director has in mind, therefore when Fritz Lang created this film, these elements could not be forgotten or not be taken seriously, or else the film would have not gotten so much attention or gained so much success. In a way if unprofessional work had been done, we would not even talk about this movie today, but the push for a different genre in film and the motivation to build a realistic set and using the right lighting, made this film not only a work or art but a movie that will continue to affect people in generations to come. Interiors How does one judge anothers financial status? by the furniture and interior of their home, it is not always true, but when exposed to someone elses lifestyle and home, one can easily put a social status on the other. In Metropolis, the interiors of both the upper and lower worlds are very distinct. The upper shows a high usage of Art Deco elements and the lower is very cold and style-less. The Art Deco elements showed the high class, therefore representing the people who could afford such extravaganzas. The Utopian concept is very much present, from using such interiors, which were very popular with the American style of the time, showing how the exploiters can manage to hide the bad and only show the good, or in other words the output. As seen in the office of Joh Fredersen and in Freders bedroom, all the highest technology was available for their usage. From the bed shape to the lamps, as well as the desk, all the geometric elements can be seen. This was done to show how the upper class were able to live, compared to the lower class, which lived under ground, with not much to rely too, since their living space was limited to brick walls and constant work, were the luxurious Art Deco furniture would serve no purpose to them, since they did not have the time to appreciate it. All these elements were to show, the Utopian life lived by the people who ran the city, compared to the Dystopia it created by asking such a request from other human beings, it analyses the two points of society and how people live. Based on the concept of capitalism and materialism, where it can only be reached by the officers and not the workers, which tends to be a common theme in any point in history. The main point of using such distinct style or interiors and exteriors, was to show the freedom and lack of appreciation from the upper class, since they had everything, they forgot to think about what it took to give them this luxury. It is an important factor in the film, since the whole point is to show, how and why workers would revolt against their superiors, and making such a big contrast between the quality of life between the two made the impact of the workers revolt more powerful, since it showed what they were deprived from and how it affected them. Running a city and taki ng all the profits can only generate unfairness, therefore creating a created desire of unneeded things to people who do not pocess them. If the interior design had not been considered for this movie the different views of both classes would have not been so powerful, and taking into consideration that the film depended a lot on visual and not words, such things needed to be accentuated to create its full point, to be clear to the viewer, what people were being targeted and illustrated. For her all 7 deadly sins Many biblical references can be seen in this film, one of the most important element in Metropolis is the robot version of Maria, which carries on her all 7 deadly sins. This image of the woman can be interpreted on many levels, one can be to show how women were acting in the 1920s since it was a time where more open behaviours were accepted, their dresses got shorter, they started to smoke and drink in public and freely exposed their sexuality, a way for them to celebrate the modern woman. The emergence of emancipated and sexually liberated women, as well as organised feminist activities in the mid-1920s. The robot Maria, stylised as the New Woman, rips the social fabric asunder, inciting the workers to rebel and seducing them into self-destructive acts. Her punishment, once she is uncovered as an agent provocateur, is to be burned at the stake according to Isenberg (2009, p.181). The most important scene is when the robotic doppelgà ¤nger of Maria , with her twitchy eye, sexually dances in front of the upper class men, this behaviour was meant to distract and manipulate them, done in an exaggerated way, when all the mens eyes are seen, their mouths are open, they become more violent to the point where they all run to the podium on which she dances, she tricks them to be a temptress who is out to deceive those who fall for the illusion of a replica. This nexus of technology, visual pleasure, and fantasy also lay at the core of modern American mass culture, which, according to some cultural critics, had seduced Germany into renouncing its classical canon of high culture according to Isenberg (2009, p.181). This robotic Maria was meant as metaphors, one being the threat the modern woman would have on men and community with her new sexual manipulating techniques, second she represents America and how it first seduced Germany into mass culture, through the same kind of pleasurable ways. The artistic beauty which Lang made the robot, with its glittering female bod y, stylised breasts and inhuman mask instead of a face perfectly represents this theory, it was made on purpose to be sexual, since it needed to represent the power of womans new sexual behaviour and how it could impact communities. She is treated as being a witch when she is discovered to be an imposter, which again shows how this new act is unnatural and dangerous to the evolution of people and if practiced a woman is as good as dead and should be burned alive for her sins of manipulation. The beauty of woman was openly recognised, therefore women seemed to take advantage of this new attention they were getting and getting away with it, showing how soon women could have the same rights as men, since they could manipulate them, showing an unbalance to how people use to live and statuses between men and women were already established. Visual Communication Typography and movie poster Art Deco typefaces are composed of geometric forms, an influence from the geometrical formal language of the Constructivists, but the love for elegance at the time gave it a decorative touch. With this new style of type design, readability sometimes wasnt too clear, since the letters seemed flat and ornamental, where they received additional spacial and graphic embellishments. One characteristic change was type going from narrow to wide, sometimes the lower cases were completely ignored to embrace the thin, long stroked capital letters, but antique and fractured scripts remain the standard despite the eras prevailing tastes. At times they were the mouthpiece of twenties modernism, with its technology, communication, transportation and its dynamism; at other times, of mundane elegance and luxury transposed into a fantastical world of unadulterated glamour that takes precedence over typography according to Stawinski (2009, p.131). This became a graphic language of exotic cultures, whic h embodied themes of modern technology and ways of life. One distinct font of the Art Deco movement, is Broadway; designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1925: (show type) Comparing it to the font used for the Metropolis title, one can see where the Art Deco elements of type are visible but how they have been altered to create the feel for the movie. This obvious alteration, created a sort of horror feel, but how? The descenders of the M, T, R, P and S have elongated, the bowls of the O have been evenly distributed, the I, L and E have been distorted, an also distorted dot has been added to the I, but all the most important factor is that each letter finishes with a point as can be seen in all the descenders and the arm of the T. These strong angles, visible in all the letters, even on the O since it not perfectly round but mostly choppy lines formed into a circle, have given this title its unique character, where it is only composed of angles, no smooth lines are present, respecting the geometric language of the time but going against elegance. Taking into consideration that Fritz Langs 1927 film Metropolis is a silent film, the written word used in intertitles played a large role in story comprehension. Intertitles are important in silent films, since they need to give the audience information through text, which should be both appealing and readable, to clearly express to the audience what is being visually shown. Metropolis would be particularly hard to understand without the on-screen narration, since the actors faces and movements can express only so much. The font chosen for the Metropolis intertitles is very artistically stylized, which goes against the futuristic city storyline, where a more straight-lined font may have been more appropriate. Even though Metropolis inspired the Science Fiction film style, it was not meant to be one, but rather an art film, therefore it makes sense to use artistic intertitles, as a way to make the movie balanced in the style it was creating. Throughout the films city the same stylise d font it used as well as numbers, which indicate the style used throughout Metropolis, which shows that typography played a big part in the films mood, is was careful placed and used to make sure all the information needed was clear and stylised accordingly. All these traits put together have created an abstract version of typical Art Deco font, but on purpose, in order to catch someones attention, one must stimulate that sense, the way to promote the art form of film was through making a poster for it, what better way to give it an identity and a feel. When a poster is designed, it is composed of information for its viewer, which is also targeted, to inform them of what is happening, this information is read through the usage of words, which is where typography comes in. This powerful tool of type design, is the cherry on top of a poster design, since it is also composed if imagery to trigger another kind of feel, but type when used correctly can automatically create the ambience to describe the art form as a whole. In the case of Metropolis, this alteration of type was used just for that purpose, to trigger the imagination of its viewer, to show something different then the typical Art Deco posters created at the time of its production . Since the films theme was also an alteration of the life views of the time, if a typical Art Deco font had been used, it would have not shown the effect the film as a whole was trying to reach. So going back to 1927, as someone is walking in the streets and sees the Metropolis poster advertising the film on a wall, one can imagine the attention it must have gotten, since everything else around was produced to support positivity and evolution, here comes something scary and negative, therefore triggering the curiosity of people to see why it was so different. In order for a poster or any other sort of advertising elements to be successful, they need to properly represent what it is symbolising, which the one of a kind font used for the title of Metropolis did, it was the introduction to the movie before someone went to the theatre to see. Going to the next visual element, posters are a very powerful advertising tool, since they can be placed literally anywhere, therefore making them reachable to any eyes and to any audience. Typography as said before is one of the most important elements of a poster, since it makes the audience aware of what the poster is about, since it will surely cary a title. The other element is imagery, which is usually the background, and is used to go along with the title, to create a unified theme and helps the viewer reach a conclusion of their own to what the poster may mean. Posters are an art, since they need to work in a way where they need to be noticed at first glance, and briefly inform the viewer with all the important information in a couple of minutes. For such a film as Metropolis, which is in fact a two hour viewing of moving images, the poster had to illustrate all of that into one image, basically giving away the whole movie in a single view. Typical Art Deco posters were colourful, vibrant, energetic, showed a lot of movement, basically they illustrated and embraced the new technologies being introduced. They were drawn and printing with the latest techniques invented, showing people living in this new modernity, such as travel, fashion, drinking and smoking. What used to be taboo, was now in the open and people were showing off this new lifestyle full of luxury and advancement, which had never been seen before. This perfect lifestyle, mostly only affordable by the higher class, was praised upon, everyone had to be part of this new movement, exposing their inner desires, or letting all hell break lose. This new freedom of expression, and new possibilities had to be reflected, mostly through abstract views, such as people were usually drawn through geometric forms, almost not real, like this movement was too good to be true, in a way it showed the fear of people, since it used fantasy images to show what was really going on, things were moving too fast and the population did not really have time to digest all of this, therefore showing people though geometric elements, was a easier way to accept it. The imagery of the Metropolis poster distributed at the time, was duotone, illustrating only buildings in the background and the robot in the foreground, the title of the film at the top and all the information at the bottom. The duotone, was against all the colourful posters at the time, since the movie was showing the dark side of the Utopian philosophy of Art Deco, the robot in the middle represented the most important part of the film, but also to show people how they would evolve, but the answer to how lied in watching the movie. The information at the bottom, gave the regular film info; who directed it, the main actors, music composer, production house and writer. The drawing of the robot used a lot of curved lines, and showed an emotionless face, making it obvious that humans were being interpreted as robots. Conclusion Lets start with the quote The mediator between head and hands must be the heart taken from the film Metropolis, from this analysis it can be said that Art Deco is the head and the hands and Metropolis is the heart. The Utopian idea of Art Deco was a way to celebrate the new world and its technologies whereas Metropolis was the Dystopian view hidden behind this philosophy. It can be seen through all the elements stated, as a warning or a reality to what the world may evolve to be, that without the heart a life cannot function, but without the head and the hands a world cannot evolve. Therefore they both go hand in hand, but never one without the other, that humans may never forget their real values. This is the message that the film portrayed, that there is beauty in evolving, but we must never forget who we really are and our true powers, that if we rely too much on machines (technology) then what is left of us? Art Deco, was a time when everything was changing, the excitement of a n ew life, the embracing of a freedom given to people by machines doing jobs for them. These two art forms, have proven themselves through history and have shaped the world we now live in, but without art, how could anyone in the future know how a community evolved or lived, this is why it is important to analyse all the details of one element and how it fits into the time period it was produced, to better understand its message and value. The naà ¯ve way people were living during the 1920s, was in a way beautiful and pure, they had no worries except live and explore their new identities, Metropolis showed the difference between the high class or in other words the heads versus the lower class, the hands, and how they would live in two different worlds, one above and one below. This shows, that once an idea is conceived, the inventor takes all the credit, whereas the hands who built it, are never recognised for the hard work and risks it took to construct it. People in the higher class would be the only one to appreciate the hands work, since they would be the only ones would could afford it, they would be the only ones who could have the luxury to live in such buildings reaching the stars and afford such extravaganzas in their homes. But where did the workers fit in, in all of this? This is what Metropolis, was showing, that for such a Utopia to exist fairness should be placed between the heads who conceive ideas and the hands who built them, and yes in order to do that, the only power is our hearts. When speaking about art, the philosophy behind it must always be talked about, since it explains why it was created and what it was meant to represent, without one, you cant have the other, which is also another strong point about the quote, since people tend to concentrate on the most important facts but forgetting how it became important. Metropolis also created its own Utopia, where as long as the heart is present and the human side in humankind is never lost, we can live in an harmonious world. The hand shake in the end, also could represent the labour giving in again to capital. Metropolis inaugurated a series of utopias on film that attempted to resolve the difficulties of the contemporary state of society by projecting them into a story with a futuristic setting according to Urgosà ­kovà ¡ (2009).

Social Class in George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion and Heartbreak House Es

Social class can be thought of as a very important indicator of who a person is. Social class is defined as a broad group in society having common economic, cultural, or political status. Where somebody comes from can effect somebody's decision to become involved with that person or not, can effect whether that person will be hired for a job or not and can often effect they way one is looked at and treated by society. Either way, class distinction is always evident within society. Using two plays by George Bernard Shaw, the relevance of the statement, ?class distinction is always evident within society,? will be shown through the use of examples, from both texts. The specific categories of examples are, character, style and setting. In these categories, Pygmalion and Heartbreak House will prove to be more different to each other than they are similar. In the plays, Pygmalion and Heartbreak House, it is shown through character?s speech, actions and mannerisms, that class distinction is always evident within society. The characters, Henry Higgins, the Eynsford Hill family, and Colonial Pickering, all show how social class and economic rank are important in the play, Pygmalion. Henry Higgins shows discrimination towards the lower class Eliza Doolittle by addressing her not as a lady but as a ?draggletailed guttersnipe? (Shaw, Pygmalion, 26). When Eliza Doolittle enters the Higgins/ Pickering residence, Henry Higgins is not sure what to do with such a dirty lower class girl, he asks Pickering, ?shall we ask this baggage to sit down, or shall we throw her out the window (Shaw, Pygmalion, 23). These comments towards Eliza Doolittle greatly hurt her self esteem and show that even when somebody is being as polite as they possi... ...plimentary. Using the style of naturalism it was shown that in Pygmalion, current environment is the true indicator of what social class one belongs, whereas in Heartbreak House it was shown that heredity is the more accurate indicator. In the category of style, Pygmalion and Heartbreak House are more different than they are similar. In exploring the setting of nineteenth century England, that was used for both plays, it was shown that even in times of revolution and in times of war, class distinction is always present. In the category of setting, Pygmalion and Heartbreak House prove to be more alike than different. Since two out of three categories show that the two plays are more different, the previous hypothesis proves true: Pygmalion and Heartbreak House are more different than they are alike when it comes to social class and the role that it plays in both texts.

Comparing A Thousand Acres and King Lear :: comparison compare contrast essays

A Thousand Acres and King Lear: A New Twist When Jane Smiley wrote A Thousand Acres, she consciously made the story parallel to Shakespeare's King Lear for several reasons. The novel's characters and basic storyline are almost direct parallels to King Lear, but Smiley's dissatisfaction with the traditional interpretation of King Lear is showcased in her modern day version (Berne 236). The story of the Cook family is almost a carbon copy of the saga of Lear's family. The ruler, or father, possesses so much power that he is driven to insanity. Both divide up their kingdoms and land, giving the largest portion to the most "loving" daughter: "In spite of that inner clang, I tried to sound agreeable. 'It's a good idea.' Rose said, 'It's a great idea.' Caroline said, 'I don't know.'" (Smiley 19). In each family, one daughter, the youngest, rebels against her father's wishes and is not given any land. Cordelia: Nothing, my lord. Lear: Nothing? Cordelia: Nothing. Lear: Nothing will come of nothing: speak again. Cordelia: Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty/ According to my bond; nor more nor less. (Shakespeare I. i. 89-94) Shortly after giving up his power, the father realizes that he is nothing without it and appears to be slowly becoming insane. In both instances, the father, in a crazed moment, wanders off and puts himself in a life-threatening situation. In the end the youngest daughter comes to the fathers' rescue. With so many basic plot similarities, Smiley manages to convey a new take on an old-fashioned story. At the end of King Lear, Lear traditionally is believed to be a changed man. Smiley doesn't buy into this common belief; therefore Larry Cook remains a static character throughout the novel. He never changes his attitude towards his possessions, his daughters and his land. Another difference that contributes to Smiley's new interpretation is the point of view from which the story is told. King Lear is told from a strictly male point of view. A Thousand Acres is told through the viewpoint of Ginny, Smiley's parallel to Goneril. Through Ginny's self-revelation, the reader is made aware of many circumstances that would cause a daughter to hate her father. Smiley believes that Lear's daughters must have had some reason for hating him. This is why, in her novel, she includes a childhood of incest.

Krispy Kreme Case Analysis Essay

Krispy Kreme does not have one particular target market and are not  categorized as one business type; they have various tactics to appeal to various markets. They also target school, local organizations and businesses. He primary market, those ranging from the ages 20-30 years old, are Krispy Kreme’s main focus. This is where the majority of their business comes from. These are your everyday commuters who desire a sweet treat, or coffee to help outlast a long day at work. Their purchases may be small or cheap, but business is usually consistent, as are sales. Krispy Kreme appeals to schools as a fundraising opportunity. Doughnuts are very inexpensive when purchased in bulk, and easy to sell. Krispy Kreme offers certificates, coffee, partnership cards, and doughnuts to schools to raise money. Gift certificates are less of a burden, and those selling them don’t have to deal with ordering and delivering doughnuts after you’ve made the sale. This makes things easi er for both the customer and fundraiser. Offering fundraisers to schools increases awareness of Krispy Kreme, serves as sales promotion, whilst building a relationship with schools and the community. The money earned from these fundraisers are usually used to improve the school or purchase uniforms as shown on Krispy Kreme’s â€Å"Fundraising† page on their site. Local organizations and businesses purchase Krispy Kreme’s products for retailing. Competitors Competitors Competitors Starbucks McDonalds Nestles Dunkin Donuts Einstein Bagels Panera bread Starbucks Bruegges Enterprise Dunkin Donuts Yum! Brand Starbucks International Dairy Queen Starbucks target Audience- Affluent customers Well educated customers White Collar Patterns The age of the target market was between 25 and 44. Eventually, the company decided to expand its target market to include young, less-educated and low-income consumers. A large portion of coffee drinkers is found in urban areas of the United States. It is because most of educated and working professionals live in the urban areas. It is because most of educated and working professionals live in the urban areas. With the rapid expansion, Starbucks targeted customers of every age group. Einstein Bagels That target market is younger than other coffee shops and is aimed at people between age 25 and 50. Dunkin Donuts Dunkin Donuts target market is the blue collar workers (18-60) of America who likes the quick service that Dunkin Donuts provides. Also within its target market are kids, highly due to its name. Recently Dunkin Donuts has been targeting the market of affluent women and professionals Krispy Kreme Strengths 1. Company brand image and reputation. 2. Proprietary doughnut-making equipment, and capability to supply to  franchises at profitable prices. Krispy Kreme Weakness 1. Competitors are larger and well established in their markets, tougher to compete head to head once newness is over. 2. Core product does not incorporate health/weight conscious consumers. Krispy Kreme Opportunities 1. Add more stores in current target markets to make it convenient for all areas. 2. Attract a broader range of customers and sell more products to existing customers by enhancing present menu offerings, esp in coffee and coffee drinks. Krispy Kreme Threats 1. Competitors concerned about KK rapid growth and market share gains and erosion of their own market positions, may well be compelled to rejuvenate their product menus, this would be costly battle for KK. 2. Consumer habits changing One strategy alternative in each cell matrix would be One strategy in strengths/ Opportunity would be to increase marketing, incorporating social networks One strategy in Weakness/Opportunity would be growing new markets or increase the product line to incorporate healthier choices. One strategy in Strength/Threats promoting healthier product line One strategy in Weaknesses/Threats would be to avoid developing existing markets by existing products Strategic issues with supporting data: 1. Krispy Kreme management should meet with franchisees and explore again the  plans for opening new stores, it would seem to make sense to accelerate the pace of new stores openings at least in those areas where the enthusiasm for the products has been so great. 2. Adapt to consumer desires. Increase product development, i.e., healthier choices. 3. Lack of corporate governance. Matching the Strengths of franchise opportunities, Krispy Kreme is highly favorable. Its resource strengths and competitive assets easily outweigh its resource weaknesses and competitive liabilities. The company has plenty of opportunities it can pursue to continue to grow more rapidly, the company should have little difficulty opening several hundred more stores, Dunkin Donuts has 3,600 in the US alone versus just over 180 for KK. Their strategy is a solid one, with competitive advantages in product quality, product appeal, brand reputation, and ability to attract high caliber franchises because of vertical integration into doughnut making equipment, doughnut mixes and coffee. The threats are still in the foreground, the product excitement being created by Krispy Kreme could end up helping grow the market for doughnuts and help over come the relatively flat demand for doughnuts that has prevailed. A costly battle for market share can be avoided. #4 Three of Krispy Kreme’s strategic issues using SMART format: According to Return on Assets, there has been an increase from 1998, with a slight decrease due to further investment of assets in 2002. The company is converting money into net income, therefore, quickly enough to add more stores in the mix. Return on Equity offers a profit generating efficiency for investors. The decrease in 2002 is because of improvements in company’s operations. Intangible assets are also excluded like the brand name. SMART goal: Specific: To create shareholder wealth through an ambitious growth strategy meanwhile, using a thorough marketing strategy Measurement: increasing brand awareness through strong positioning and optimizing distribution channels, therefore, creating brand loyalty Aggressive: maintain a healthy increase in net sales, 10-20%, while optimizing efficiency. Realistic: Increase the number of franchise stores to bring brand awareness and loyalty Time-bound: capitalizing on the growth of the market, increase store  franchises over the next three years

What Makes You What You Are

Personality: What makes you the way you are? – Science News – The Independent At some point in your life, you've probably filled in a personality questionnaire (â€Å"Do you see yourself as†¦.? â€Å"), and wondered as you ticked the boxes if there can really be any validity to such a simplistic way of assessing people. Surely the scores just reflect your mood on the day, or what you want the investigator to think. Surely everyone gives the same answer, which is â€Å"it depends†.Or even if the scores measure something, surely it is how the person sees themselves, rather than how they actually are. In a new book, I examine what the extent of the science underlying personality psychology really is. The answer is: more than you would think. While it has always been popular in business and pop psychology, and within academic psychology, personality research has been a poor relation to the parts of the discipline with experiments and hard objective measures. H owever, this is changing fast.The field of personality is undergoing a renaissance. The reasons for the renaissance are several. Academics now have some really good long-term studies of the same individuals, and it turns out that those brief, simplistic, pencil-and-paper questionnaires have surprisingly useful properties. They produce a wide range of selfdescriptions. The responses are fairly repeatable over intervals of many years. They also correlate quite well with ratings of the person given by their spouse, friends or colleagues.Much more importantly, though, the responses turn out to predict objective events. For example, in a famous cohort of gifted Californian children recruited in the 1920s, and who are elderly or deceased now, personality â€Å"scores† – numerical representations of answers to questions – are significant predictors of life expectancy. In another long-term study, this time of American married couples, the quality and duration of the mar riage is predicted by the personality scores of both parties prior to marriage.There are many other examples, with personality scores predicting substance addiction, problem gambling, and the onset of psychological illnesses. Of course the prediction is a statistical one – you can assign odds, not make oracular pronouncements – but this is how it always is in psychology. Humans are such complex systems that you are happy to explain a portion of the variation in outcomes, and never expect to explain it all. In recent years there has been renewed interest in personality assessment. This has been greatly aided by the fact that there is now a consensus on what the key variables are.Its early development, the field was greatly hampered by every investigator having his or her own scales, often using different names and measures for what turned out to be the same thing, or indeed the same names for what turned out to be different things. But over the last 20 years, many studi es in several different cultures have shown that much of the systematic variation in personality can be reduced to scores along five dimensions (the â€Å"Big Five†): Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness. It's important to stress that these are all continuous dimensions.That is, there are no discrete important to stress that these are all continuous dimensions. That is, there are no discrete â€Å"types† of person. Personality dimensions are like height or weight, which vary continuously, not like being a left- or a right-hand writer. Your score on one dimension is independent of your scores on all the others, so there is an almost infinite diversity of different overall profiles possible. If developments within psychology have facilitated the renaissance of personality studies, it is at the interface with biology where the exciting developments are beginning to come.Neuroscientists have shown, mainly using the increasingly sophisti cated brain imaging techniques that are now available, that those simple pencil-and-paper personality scores correlate significantly with the size or neurophysiological reactivity of specific regions of the brain. Moreover, these turn out to be the very regions that other types of evidence (evidence from brain damage, for example) would lead us to expect would be involved in that particular area of psychological function. Geneticists, too, are getting involved in personality research.It has recently become apparent that more of the human genome differs from individual to individual, even within our rather genetically homogenous species, than was previously thought. We know this inter alia from the complete sequence of Dr Craig Venter's genome, which was published earlier this month. About 0. 5 per cent of the genetic information in his maternallyinherited genome is different from his paternally-inherited one. Variant sequences affect nearly half his genes, and it is likely that in m any cases those variants will have some functional effect on body, brain or behaviour.In a few cases, we even know which genetic variants have effects on personality. There is a gene that encodes a receptor molecule for the neurotransmitter dopamine, and which contains a repeating sequence whose length varies from person to person. A number of studies have found that the length of this sequence correlates with self-reported extraversion and reward-seeking behaviour. In another gene, the serotonin transporter, individuals with one variant are more likely to develop depressive symptoms in response to stressful life events than bearers of the other version.In a few years, we may be in the position of actually understanding the molecular bases of the differences in nature that we observe between healthy humans. (But note that genetic effects will not turn out to be the whole story; only around half of the variation in personality looks like being heritable, with the rest probably shaped by early environmental exposures and other developmental processes. ) The other group of researchers getting interested in personality is evolutionists. Personalitylike variation has been found in organisms as diverse as fish, mammals and birds.Indeed, Darwin's whole theory of evolution rests on the observation that individuals vary from one another. Without such variation there can be no natural selection and no evolutionary change. The question for evolutionists is why you would find variation persisting in populations, when selection always reduces diversity in favour of the optimal type. In fact, it turns out that there are often multiple optima, even within a single habitat, with individuals of one type doing well under certain conditions, while faring less well than their competitors under others. Thus, nder certain conditions, while faring less well than their competitors under others. Thus, selection rarely narrows the population to uniformity because individuals with diffe rent qualities flourish in different contexts. I rather like this as a guiding framework for thinking about personality in modern humans. Rather than imagining that there is some personality profile that is uniformly good to have, let's assume that all have their strengths and all have their pitfalls. Indeed, the failure of any one profile to dominate the human population attests to their roughly equal fitness in the long run.So, whatever your score on the Big Five, the point is not to try to change it, or fight it. The point is to establish which niche within the complex ecology that is modern society will be a good one for you to ply your trade in, and which of the diverse dangers (social isolation, addiction, depression†¦ ) that lurk in our both beneficent and hazardous habitat are the ones against which you should be most vigilant. This is where self-knowledge comes in, and taking the personality test overleaf can be part of that. Scoring your personality won't tell you any thing you don't know.It's based on how you see yourself, so logically it couldn't. But it can reveal to you how you compare to other people, and can also tap you into a wealth of accumulated psychological knowledge about the strengths and liabilities that other people similar to you have experienced. This is what the questionnaire and the interpretation overleaf are designed to do. Daniel Nettle is the author of Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are (? 12. 99), published by Oxford University Press. To order a copy for the special price of ? 11. 69 (with free P) call Independent Books Direct on 0870 079 8897, or visit www. ndependentbooksdirect. co. uk What kind of personality are you? Take this test to discover the truth Introducing the big five Once you have completed the questionnaire and added up your scores, you should have an indication of whether you score low, medium-low, medium-high, or high on each of the Big Five dimensions of human personality. But what do these sco res mean? Here, I explore the Big Five to examine their effects on our lives. Extraversion This is a familiar concept. High-scorers are fun-seeking and cheerful, but they are not necessarily immediate hedonists; they are often ambitious and hard-working.They are also sexually adventurous and love to be the centre of attention. Low-scorers are not necessarily shy so much as aloof; they can take or leave success, praise and pleasure. The best way to think about this dimension is in terms of response to reward. Society offers certain incentives; money, power, fame, attention, sex, thrills, and so on, and some people certain incentives; money, power, fame, attention, sex, thrills, and so on, and some people pursue them full-out, while others have a more muted response and thus won't work so hard to capture them.The strengths of high-scorers: energy, charisma, drive, the ability to make things happen. The weaknesses: a tendency to get bored, restlessness, infidelity, risky decisions. Str engths of lowscorers: detachment, pursuit of intrinsic goals, prudence, fidelity. The weaknesses: not thrusting themselves forward, not having fun, a flat emotional tone. There is no value-judgement about which of these is better from the point of view of a potential employer or spouse, but is certainly worth being aware of the likely pitfalls and most suitable habitats for your particular level of Extraversion.Conscientiousness Conscientiousness measures how good people are at setting themselves goals and sticking to them. High-scorers are disciplined, efficient and systematic. They can resist temptation and stick to priorities they have set themselves. In most modern occupations, and particularly those where you have to manage your own time and priorities, fairly high Conscientiousness is advantageous. Low-scorers are more likely to get distracted from tasks, renege on plans, and succumb to weaknesses of the will. Indeed, low Conscientiousness is a risk factor for developing addic tions of all kinds.Being high in Conscientiousness is not always an unalloyed benefit, though. Sometimes it is indeed important to stick to plans. But at other times it is important to be able to change them on a sixpence. Very high scorers are perceived as grim, pedantic, unspontaneous, even miserly. There is even a name for excessive Conscientiousness – obsessive-compulsive personality disorder – and this is a very socially disabling condition. There are many human activities, including, crucially, social relationships, where it is essential to be able to respond in the moment to your environment as it changes.Highly conscientious people are rigid, often sticking to tasks and plans even when the point of them has been overtaken by events, or when the needs of others around them require spontaneous reorganising of priorities. Thus, if you are very low in Conscientiousness, for the sake of your career, your health, and your wellbeing, you may need to work effortfully a t seeing your plans through, and being selfdisciplined. If you are a very high scorer, you may need to learn to be more spontaneous and intuitive, again for the benefits that this will bring in terms of flexibility and improved social relationships.Neuroticism I would like to dispel the notion that Neuroticism is always a bad thing, a kind of pathology, and that the best level of Neuroticism to have is a very low one. The evidence for the prosecution: yes, high-scorers live their lives under the Damoclean swords of depression, anxiety, stress, and disappointment. Whatever the world says about them, they are often uncomfortable in their inner lives, and go through life either with bouts of difficult times, or with a constant vague feeling that something is not quite right.However, if we think logically, negative emotions, such as worry, are always going to be there for a reason. One would not want to be entirely without worry. It would be as damaging to life decisions as the inabilit y to feel physical pain is to peripheral physiology. High Neuroticism scorers can bring to bear enormous powers of deep thought, detailed analysis, novel insight. They care about the details that others can't be bothered to follow up. Under some circumstances they do well academically. If you are a high-scorer, you may well be a member of a thinking profession such as an academic or a writer.High Neuroticism scorers, then, have hidden advantages. The challenge for them is to find ways to deal with the negative sequels of their personality. Some people respond well to cognitivebehavioural therapy, some to meditation, many to exercise. Low-scorers, too, have disadvantages. You probably don't suffer much in life, which is good, but maybe you are not thoughtful enough. Maybe you let details go, and don't think deeply enough about future drawbacks or problems. Maybe you are too carefree or rose-spectacled to see every potentiality. Agreeableness Agreeableness is a dimension of empathy to wards others.High-scorers are often found in caring professions such as nursing and counselling.. They have larger-than-average social networks, and their relationships with others are harmonious. They don't get into fights and are generally slow to anger. By contrast, the very lowest-scorers are sociopaths; they callously use others for their own ends. So far so good. It is better to be well-liked than to be a sociopath. However, in many fields, high Agreeableness reduces occupational attainment. Nice guys really do finish last, and moreover, plenty of our leaders have something of the sociopath about them.Successful artists and executives, though, tend to be rather low in Agreeableness. This means that the high Agreeableness scorer may not be prepared to be hard-headed. You may stay in relationships that do you no good out of empathy for the others involved. Agreeableness is the most sexually-patterned of the Big Five, with – no prizes for guessing – women scoring mo re highly on average than men. This adds an interesting new perspective on the paucity of women in positions of power. Many of them find it difficult to be callous enough.Should we be encouraging them to be more callous, or trying to change what we reward? Openness Openness is a dimension of imagination. High-scorers make mental associations that go beyond what is given to the senses, or what is logically deducible. They are keen on poetry and the arts, and often have metaphysical or esoteric ideas. Nobody wants to be called unimaginative, but when you stop and think about it, it is not evident Nobody wants to be called unimaginative, but when you stop and think about it, it is not evident that being imaginative in this sense is necessarily useful in life.Low-scorers can be very intelligent and capable, though they will be oriented towards the practical and the soluble. High-scorers will be more able and willing to venture into the domains of the aesthetic. However, they can also de velop eccentric, paranormal or even delusional beliefs, and fail to solve simply resolvable practical problems. Neither a high nor a low score is inherently desirable; it is simple a matter of harnessing the strengths that you have. www. independent. co. uk ht:/w. needn. ou/essinepro tp/wwidpnetc. knw/cec/es nlt-htmksyutewyyuae426. tl aiywa-ae-o-h-a-o-r-069hm ht:/o. lfg tp/gog/fS

WorldCom Accounting Failure

This research paper will seeks to discuss accounting failure at WorldCom by trying to understand the nature of fraud committed, the perpetrators who caused the failure, the lacking controls that may have caused all these problems and the intentions of the perpetrators as would be revealed by the extent and frequency of manipulation done in the financial reports of the company. This paper hopes to find the lesson of the story for the guidance of people who may be involved the same way or the other. . Analysis and Discussion 2. 1 Brief background of the company. WorldCom was part the Telecommunication Company before its name it was eventually named to MCI in 2003, Inc after several events including its merger with LDDS and later with MCI Communications as part of its strategy to get out from bankruptcy caused by the scandals that the company went through. MCI, Inc was purchased by Verizon Communication and now part of Verizon Division. What happened at WorldCom, what caused them to commit fraud? WorldCom’s stocks were used as means to enrich its chief executive officer (CEO) Ebbers and other officers basically from finance and accounting departments at the expensed of many investors by making the company’s to look more profitable than what is real. The fake profitability has caused the price of the company’s stock to rise significantly but only to be used by certain people to take advantage with malice against the investors. As to what caused them to commit fraud may be clearly blamed on the apparent greed of these people for more wealth with of the involvement of many of officers or from another point of view, by the laxity of the system of control that allowed things to happen so easily. As to which is more believable would be subject to analysis in the following sections and subsections. 2. 1. b. What kind of fraudulent accounting practices were used to manage earnings, describe the specifics of how it was accomplished? The two fraudulent practices could be classified into two. The first one the underreporting of â€Å"line costs† by capitalizing them rather than recording as expenses for the period and the second one is inflating or overstating the revenues. In accounting profitability is measured by the excess of revenues over expenses every period. The company in effect deferred the recognition of the expenses so that company appeared more profitable that what is real when expenses are recognized properly. The other fraudulent practice is therefore logical and would have the same effect as the first since inflating or increasing the revenues would cause to the company’s profitability to look better. Each of the fraudulent practice is described in detail below. The overall objective of efforts was to keep reported line costs to approximately 42% of revenues which is far from having actually reached levels in excess of 50%, and to maintain in its report to investors double-digit revenue growth when the truth is that actual growth rates were so much lower substantially. People became rich because of the frauds including the company’s CEO Bernard as derived from the increasing price of his shareholdings with the company. The start of the fraudulent accounting was found to be 1999 when the company wanted to paint a good financial condition contrary to what the company was actually in after the downturn in the telecommunication industry shortly after WorldCom has acquired MCI in 1998. By painting a different picture investors were plainly deceived into investing. 2. 1. b. 1) Underreporting ‘line costs’ (interconnection expenses with other telecommunication companies) by capitalizing these costs on the balance sheet rather than properly expensing them The first fraud committed is the reduction of reported line costs, which represents the company largest category of expenses. It is a good thing its internal audit personnel were the ones which alerted about improperly transfer of $3. 852 billion from line cost expenses to capitalized a ccounts during 2001 and the first quarter of 2002. It was latter announced by company about the additional line cost accounting fraud which when combined with the first $ 3. 8 billion would total at $6. 412 billion in improper reductions to line costs. These and other manipulations of line cost caused fraudulent jumping up of pre-tax income by over $7 billion. The fraud actually started as line cost adjustments in the form of accruals in 1999 and 2000 but when it was not possible to make more large accruals, the next scheme as to capitalized or defer 2001 and 2003 operating line cost as assets . Capitalizing will cause the assets to be bigger than actual and would also make the financial structure of the company which would make it attractive to investors while improving its profitability position because of understatement of expenses that would bloat the income. Line costs could be defined charges for carrying a voice call or data transmission from one point to anther point which represents the company’s largest single expense from 1999 to 2001. Being the largest, it was in reality approximately more than 50% of total expenses. This was taken particular focus by company management and other parties particularly outside analysts to find out the trends by the use of ratio of line cost expense to revenue (E/R ratio) as a way to measure the trend of behaviour of the cost to revenues . The company’s manipulation in accrual could be found in releasing the same with the required analysis even it was in excess of the amount required. Even in case of excess accruals, the company did not cause them to be effected at the time of identification. What happened rather was for certain line cost accruals to have been kept as rainy day funds and managers caused only their release when needed. It appears that everything was really in the control of the perpetrators which included key accounting and finance officers since the accounting information was almost being manipulated to serve their selfish purpose as when there is a felt need to improve results. There could only be malice for this kind of behavior since accounting information as supposed to be reported because standards require them to be such. Another manipulation in the accrual as found by investigators was the release of accruals that are applicable for other purposes thus further again understating the expenses to attain the targeted level of profitability as promised to the investors by the manipulators. The inappropriate releases of had commonality in features since they appear directed Chief Finance Officer Sullivan, Controller Myers, and Accounting Yates who are incidentally part of the finance organization in the company. Another is the fact that released occurred not during ordinary or normal day to day operations but during adjustment periods after the end of each quarter and documentation are lacking and employees involved have raised concerns at time because they knew what was indeed happening to the company. The company has fundamentally worn out available accruals at the most possible means to address the needed manipulation of line costs as reported in its financial report by the end of 2000, The following quarter of 2001 and one year after in 2002, the reduction was reached $3. 8 billion from the capitalized $3. billion as directed by its Chief finance officer. It was a clear violation of company’s capitalization policy and the generally accepted accounting standards. Sullivan when asked about the violation commented that there is the plan to ultimately reduce these apparently bloated assets accounts with a hefty restructuring charge to be effected in 2002. The practice of capitalizing operating expense would produce the effect of shifting these costs to balance sheet from income statement and the effect was to bloat income and assets at the same time. Without the capitalization, there would have been losses instead of pre-tax gain as reported. Capitalization by reduction of line cost allowed the company to have E/R ratio of about 42% in every quarter while in reality the company has exceeded 50% E/R ratio. The message that it was bringing to the stock market was that the company’s have been able to sustain profitability despite the problem in the telecommunication industry. A capitalization strategy is in fact part of the internal control but was twisted by manipulators to serve their ends, and for this reason Chief Finance Officer Sullivan needed consent from a number of people from financial and accounting departments of WorldCom. The company had its General Accounting group that is based in Clinton, Mississippi, which made actual journal entries, but the system of the company allows the creation of a swell effect from the books by adjusting databases and reports from several finance-related groups. These groups include Property Accounting group which had its base from Texas which and which as tasked to tracked company’s capital assets. Due to non-passing through the ordinary capital expenditure process, the group was called to effect the capitalizations physically in its database and on its reports. Another group from Texas, called capital reporting group had also participated responsible since it was tasked to approve capital expenditures and to track the same capital spending. It was normal to have the employees within the General Accounting group since the problems on manipulation are basically done by journal entries and their adjustments that these people became concerned about the propriety of the practice causing them to express concern to each others and some even talked of looking for outside that given the risks that they were exposed to. Fortunately, something happened and the tilt of what is good eventually came to the rescue when the Internal Audit discovered the capitalization sometime in June 2002. 2. 1. b. (2) Inflating revenues with bogus accounting entries from ‘corporate unallocated revenue accounts’). WorldCom painted itself in the market as high-growth Company, and how its revenues is going to grow is a thing that should speak for a successful company. Company’s main business is to provide goods and service which are measurable by revenues. Since revenues increase was clearly critical factor of its success, WorldCom was able to convince investors what the company was above water even if market conditions throughout the telecommunications industry were not that good in 2000 and 2001. Since investors would like to make money, it would it was very easy to dupe them into believing that the company could sustain growth. Claiming to have successfully managed industry trends which on contrary were already hurting all of its competitors, the company was wonderfully deceiving people with the promises of double-digit growth rates. It would be asserted in addition to what was stated earlier, the higher the revenues, the higher also would be the profitability if all other things like the expenses are assumed equal. But the company has already bloated revenues and deliberated understated the expenses, so that the growth in profitability was indeed tremendous to attract people to invest in the company’s stocks. The manipulators behind the schemes were therefore focus on revenue enhancement. Ebbers was found by investigators intensely to have put much efforts on revenue performance, by his receiving and closely examining revenue reports which are given to him on a monthly basis by the company’s Reporting and Accounting Group. It was starting in 1999 that the company people made efforts to bloat revenues after the end of every reporting quarter to show to users of information that it was achieving high revenue growth targets that CEO Ebbers and Chief Finance Officer Sullivan had made or wanted to happen. The bloating of revenues was basically done by making adjustments between the differences of actual and â€Å"targeted revenues† and level the same as corporate unallocated revenue accounts. In simple means the company’ management announced a target in revenues to be attained and such must be attained and presented when reporting period comes that the same will require adjusting entries and level the same as unallocated. According to investigators, the questionable revenue entries found under the Corporate Unallocated accounts reached millions or tens of millions of dollars which appeared generally only in the quarter-ending month which were recorded weeks after the quarter has ended. Between Ebbers and Sullivan, it was the second one who became concerned since revenues recorded were already masking the result of the company’s operation. 2. 1. c. Who in the company perpetrated the fraud? Discuss also the fact that the corporations CEO, Bernard Ebbers, took millions of dollars in personal loans from the corporation’s funds. Very briefly discuss the outcome of the fraud and the whole WorldCom scandal, how it was discovered, what happened to the perpetrators. Ebbers persuaded the company’s board of directors to provide him loans amounting to over than $400 millions to cover his margin calls that he failed and was ousted as CEO in April 2002 by John Sidgmore. He and other perpetrators were eventually prosecuted and convicted of crimes in relation to corporate scandals. It was discovered by the internal audit group an announcement was made for the hefty understatement of line cost in the amount of more than $3 billion. This kind of fraud in additions other understatement of lines cost by capitalization and inflation of revenues caused their perpetrators caused their freedom and they are now serving the prison sentences. The fraud was the on the damaged caused to investors who lost their money because of the fake profitability and financial condition of the business. 2. 2) Discuss in detail what controls/ internal controls were missing and/or subverted in order for this fraud/accounting failure to occur. The needed controls/internal controls that were missing and/or subverted in order for this fraud/accounting failure to occur is the independence of the auditors and integrity of the officers of the corporation. The need for independent auditors to ensure reliability of the financial statements is paramount since management not independent in many instances of their engagements and the most probable thing to happen is for management to make self-serving representation in the preparation of financial statements. The practice of accounting profession where the independent auditors will have to attest to the reliability of the financial statements requires the auditor must indeed be independent, competent and with integrity. Lacking one of these requirements would really make a big difference. It appears that the auditor of WorldCom was Arthur Andersen which had involvement with Enron which also collapsed and Waste Management Company. In fact the Security and Exchange Commission had Mr Arthur Anderson convicted at lower court but said conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court sometime in May of 2005. Although he was acquitted of the charge eventually, the fact that he was already charge and convicted is a question of character which do not have a place in the accounting profession. The role of auditors between their client and the public is one vested with public interest so that auditors must have good moral character. Since the auditor should be independent the engagement must be purely auditing or attestation service. It was possible that Andersen was maintaining secretly a special relationship with the management of WorldCom thus Ebbers and company was courageous enough to do the fraudulent act as the very nose of the regulators and the investing public. Dependable information is essential to the very existence of our society. The investor making a decision to buy or sell securities, the banker deciding whether to approve a loan, the government is obtaining revenue based on income tax returns, all are relying upon information provided by others. In many of these situations, the goals of the providers of information run directly counter to those of the users of the information. The purpose of having an auditor is for attestation function or to provide assurance as to reliability of the financial statements. Arguing to have the external auditors to protect the company assets from fraud would be sounding too simple since more than the auditors the stockholders or owners of the corporation must have also the protective or preventive attitude. In addition therefore for the need to have independent, honest and competent external auditors, the company must have also the same independent and honest officers, particularly those who are members of the audit committee and those performing money related functions. The function of company officers are part of a good internal control that any normal or good company must have so that functions would be defined and duties would be segregated or separated in such way that would provide checks and balances. This system of checks and balances are part therefore of good internal control that a company must put into effect. A good internal control must also ensuring compliance with the GAAP is by having since the two are complementary. The GAAP is an external requirement to provide the needed characteristic of information to be reliable for decision making. It is faulty to argue that a company has an efficient and effective internal control over financial reporting if it not consistent with the requirements of GAAP. The underreporting of expenses and inflating of revenues are clear violations of the GAAP since GAAP works for fair presentation of financial statement which are governed by revenue recognition principles and expense recognition principles. Under the revenue recognition principles, revenues must be properly recognized when earned. The practice of inflating revenues by adjusting entries in creating corporate unallocated revenue accounts could easily be detected if there is an effort to do so since the name of unallocated accounts is very revealing but since the perpetrators are from the very people who are to ensure the reliability of the financial statements, the standard appeared to have no power over their criminal minds. But as found in the investigation, it was the internal audit which first calls for the alarm when there was a transfer of line costs amounting to more than $ 3 billion. This means that the system of internal control of the company still allows the working of revenue recognition principle to be noticed since they found that the ratio of expenses to revenue was already too low despite the transfer of big amount of expenses to assets. The revenue recognition principle could have guided them the simple minds of auditor that it was utterly impossible to have produced those ratios. To go back to internal control, it is management’s responsibility to have it in place but the people who were governed by the procedures did not all work together to protect the company assets since some are just evil while others are perhaps touched by their conscience especially the internal audit personnel who called the alarm on the transfer of more $3 billion line costs to assets. It appears that internal control must also have the characteristic of integrity as a system since if others are honest but others are dishonest, it will still malfunction because the company appeared to have two sets of values. Every practicing accountant and auditors will agree that the purpose of the internal control is to provide assurance that its financial statements are reliable and its preparation are in accordance with the accounting standards as issued by Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Since internal control policies and procedures for the maintenance of record in reasonable detail and reflecting the same in accurate and fair manner, first and foremost, the objective must be desired by management as a goal. In the case of WorldCom it is believable to assert that the company did have internal control but its implementation was clouded by the intention of the few who wanted to enrich themselves at the expense of investors. If the company has indeed proper values that are adopted and desired by its members, the company could have surmounted the internal control’s inherent limitations for its not to have prevented or detected the misstatement of revenues and expenses. 2. 3 Discuss in detail what a forensic accounting consultant (you) would have recommended or instilled to have prevented this fraud/accounting failure. pages As a forensic accounting consultant, what was needed was independence of the auditor from management. Auditors are to maintain their independence from the client as called for by their ethical standards but the moment that there is connivance, it goes pretty sure that fraud could easily happen. The work of an external auditor is separate from that of the company ac countant or even an internal auditor. Companies must reliable financial reporting system so that information should accurate and in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). One way of ensuring compliance with the GAAP is by having an efficient and effective internal control over financial reporting. Since it is management’s responsibility to do the same, the company must do the same with a sense of integrity as part of its defining values. . Since the purpose of the internal control is to provide assurance that its financial statements are reliable and its preparation are in accordance with the US GAAP must be become a necessity for the company to make it good. Internal control is policies and procedures for the maintenance of record in reasonable detail of information and should the reflection of the same in accurate and fair manner. This set of policies and procedure would provide assurance at reasonable level so that unauthorized acquisition or disposition of company’s asset that could materially affect financial statements are detected timely and prevented accordingly. Every company’s internal control has its own inherent limitations that may not prevent or detect the misstatement that must be watched. It is thus accepted by experts in accounting that projections of any effective evaluation to future periods could still have risk thus making the controls inadequate to respond to the needs for more reliable financial statements because of changing conditions as a necessary part of business and degree of compliance with establish procedures may decline as well. It is for this reason that the managements desiring to have the internal in effect must conduct its own evaluation of its existing internal control on its financial reporting. It cans use as framework the Internal Control – Integrated Framework as issued by the Committee of Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). 3. Conclusion The story of WorldCom is a story of how greed would cause damage to people and how the accounting profession could be used as an instrument to perpetrate fraud. Theoretically, accounting is considered as the language of business and that it should provide information to help users for decision making. The basic requirement of valid accounting information is that it must be accurate or truthful. This characteristic was absent in the case of WorldCom as the accounting information was twisted to serve the interest of few people. No wonder Ebbers and company have to go to jail to suffer for the accounting fraud they have committed against the investors and for other crimes which are connected to the act of fraud. The analysis revealed to have to good internal control as requirement for providing reasonable assurance of providing information that is reliable for decision making. Said purpose must be consistent in the company’s being subjecting itself to compliance with US GAAP for the preparation of its financial statements that are reliable. The company must put and serious stand on this since the standards are meant to reconcile conflicting interest of users to prevent one user from taking advantage at the expense of the other. The set of policies and procedures from the efficient and effective internal control would provide reasonable that unauthorized acquisition or disposition of company’s assets that could materially affect financial statements are detected one time and preventive efforts could be applied accordingly. In the final analysis however, between the good internal control and the people who would implement, more weight should be given in the need for integrity and honesty of people who will implement the internal control. The maker should control what it has made. By the same principle the good internal control will mean nothing if people do not have integrity and are only seeking their selfish interest at the expense of all other stakeholders. There is no cure for greed there is a way to discourage or minimize the same by threat of strict implementation of the law. The case of Anderson who became an auditor of WorldCom appears to have not resulted to his prosecution of any crime but the auditor’ case with Enron was different. However he got himself acquitted in the higher court. Government therefore has also a role to play. It has imprisoned the perpetrators of WorldCom hence it should be a warning for many who plans to cheat investors.

What Are the Political, Economic and Social Challenges of Women in the Assignment - 1

What Are the Political, Economic and Social Challenges of Women in the Developing World - Assignment Example By allowing women to have a voice with respect to the political process, a whole new range of political perspective is opened up for analysis. Conversely, culture itself oftentimes plays an even more powerful role than does the democratization of a nation. For this reason, in nations where the harsh constraints of a conservative interpretation of religion is the norm, it is likely that even if women have the right to vote, the traditional cultural understanding of gender roles and the female’s place within society will be primarily interpreted through such a cultural lens and therefore work to diminish the overall rights enjoyed by women on aggregate. Such examples of the constricting role of culture within the political sphere can aptly be recognized in multiple regions the world over; oftentimes the result of the prevalence of extreme adherence to a particular form of religious belief. 2. What are the political, economic and social challenges of women in the developing world ? (5pts) Such an impediment strongly reduces the competitiveness of society in terms of the global economy. Furthermore, as previously discussed, the key political challenge that women face within many developing countries is under-representation in the political process; either due to a systemic form of sexism or a cultural tradition that does not put a high level of emphasis on women in positions of authority and/or power. As such, without the requisite representation of women in the political process, it is hard to generate a degree of interest among the female electorate the commit to participation due to the fact that there is little interest in a process that they may otherwise see as completely male-dominated (Adjei et al 234).