ChEer In LiFe

人体24小时使用手册

2010-01-07T22:31:00.000+08:00

1∶00 人体进入浅睡阶段，易醒。此时头脑较清楚，熬夜者想睡反而睡不着。
2∶00 绝大多数器官处于一天中工作最慢的状态，肝脏却在紧张工作，生血气为人体排毒。
3∶00 进入深度睡眠阶段，肌肉完全放松。
4∶00 “黎明前的黑暗”时刻，老年人最易发生意外。血压处于一天中最低值，糖尿病病人易出现低血糖，心脑血管患者易发生心梗等。
5∶00 阳气逐渐升华，精神状态饱满。
6∶00 血压开始升高，心跳逐渐加快。高血压患者得吃降压药了。
7∶00 人体免疫力最强。吃完早饭，营养逐渐被人体吸收。
8∶00 各项生理激素分泌旺盛，开始进入工作状态。
9∶00 适合打针、手术、做体检等。此时人体气血活跃，大脑皮层兴奋，痛感降低。
10∶00 工作效率最高。
10∶00-11∶00属于人体的第一个黄金时段。心脏充分发挥其功能，精力充沛，不会感到疲劳。
12∶00 紧张工作一上午后，需要休息。
12∶00-13∶00是最佳"子午觉"时间。不宜疲劳作战，最好躺着休息半小时至一小时。
14∶00 反应迟钝。易有昏昏欲睡之感，人体应激能力降低。
15∶00 午饭营养吸收后逐渐被输送到全身，工作能力开始恢复。
15∶00-17∶00为人体第二个黄金时段。最适宜开会、公关、接待重要客人。
16∶00 血糖开始升高，有虚火者此时表现明显。阳虚、肺结核等患者的脸部最红。
17∶00 工作效率达到午后时间的最高值，也适宜进行体育锻炼。
18∶00 人体敏感度下降，痛觉随之再度降低。
19∶00 最易发生争吵。此时是人体血压波动的晚高峰，人们的情绪最不稳定。
20∶00 人体进入第三个黄金阶段。记忆力最强，大脑反应异常迅速。
20∶00-21∶00适合做作业、阅读、创作、锻炼等。
22∶00 适合梳洗。呼吸开始减慢，体温逐渐下降。最好在十点半泡脚后上床，能很快入睡。
23∶00 阳气微弱，人体功能下降，开始逐渐进入深度睡眠，一天的疲劳开始缓解。
24∶00 气血处于一天中的最低值，除了休息，不宜进行任何活动。

看完请转发给身边你关心的人。

永遠不要對父母說的十句話

2009-12-29T21:08:00.000+08:00

1、好了，好了，知道，真羅嗦！

2、有事嗎，沒事？那掛了啊。（父母打電話，也許只想說說話，我們能否理解他們的用意，不要匆忙掛了電話？）

3、說了你也不懂，別問了！

4、跟你說了多少次不要你做，做又做不好。（一些他們已經力不能及的事，我們因為關心而制止，但這樣讓他們覺得自己很無用）

5、你們那一套，早就過時了。（父母的建議，也許不能起到作用，可我們是否能換一種回應的方式？）

6、叫你別收拾我的房間，你看，東西找都找不到！（自己的房間還是自己收拾好，不收拾，也不要拂了父母的好意）

7、我要吃什麼我知道，別夾了！（盼著我們回家的父母總想把所有關心融在特意做的菜裡，我們默默領情就好）

8、說了別吃這些剩菜了，怎麼老不聽啊！（他們一輩子的節約習慣，很難改，讓他們每次盡量少做點菜就好）

9、我自己有分寸，不要老說了，煩不煩.

10、這些東西說了不要了，堆在這裡做什麼啊！（他們總想把跟我們成長有關的東西都收藏起來，也許佔滿房間，多年後，看到自己還是嬰兒時的小棉襖，難道不是很驚喜嗎？）

相信很多人都或多或少的說了這10句中的一句或幾句，但請體諒我們的爸爸媽媽，作為子女，我們都不要再說這樣的話，人生很短，一定要珍惜你身邊的親人，愛人，朋友。不要等到一切都無法挽回了，你才知道這些人對你是多麼的重要，善待生命，孝敬爸爸媽媽，要知道，不管你做錯了什麼，爸爸媽媽都會原諒你的，『家』才是你永久的港灣！！

Philips Electronics

2009-03-20T07:14:00.004+08:00

Introduction

The foundations of Philips were laid in 1891 when Anton and Gerard Philips established Philips & Co. in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The company begun manufacturing carbon-filament lamps and by the turn of the century had become one of the largest producers in Europe. By 1910, with 2,000 employees, Philips was the largest single employer in the Netherlands at that time. Philips' first research laboratory was established in 1914 and started introducing its first innovations in the x-ray and radio technology stimulated by the industrial revolution in Europe. Over the years, the list of inventions has only been growing to include many breakthroughs that have continued to enrich everyday lives of people.

HISTORY OF PHILIPS:

1891 - 1915 From Light Revolution to Product Evolution

1915 - 1925 Innovation and Diversification: X-rays and Radio Reception

1925 - 1940 First Televisions and Electric Shavers

1940 - 1970 Technology Breakthroughs: Introduction of Compact Audio Cassette

1970 - 1980 Continued Product Innovation for Images, Sound and Data

1980 - 1990 Technological Landmark: the Compact Disc

1990 - 2000 Changes and Successes:

Introduction of DV21st Century: Philips

TodayHeadquarter of Philips Electronics in the Netherlands. Philips is a diversified Health and Well-being company which is focused on improving the lives of the people through timely innovations. Philips integrates technologies and design into people-centric solutions based on fundamental customer insights and the brand promise of "sense and simplicity" as a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle and lighting.Philips employs approximately 121,000 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of EUR 26 billion in 2008, the company is a market leader in cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare, energy efficient lighting solutions and new lighting applications as well as lifestyle products for personal well-being and pleasure with strong leadership positions in flat TV, male shaving and grooming, portable entertainment and oral healthcare.

SWOT- Analysis of Philips

SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to assess the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture of Philips. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective.

(I) Strengths refer as an attributes of the organization that are helpful to achieving the objective. As stated in annual report of Philips, they was strengthening their position in emerging market by acquiring of India-based Meditronics which is a leading manufacturer of general X-ray systems for the economy segment in India. Besides, Philips also delivers innovation by investing in world-class strengths in end-user insights, technology, design and superior supplier networks. The company has identified a number of strategic initiatives to further strengthen the energy efficiency of their operations and reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions. In 2008, Philips took a significant step in strengthening its Home Healthcare Solutions business by acquiring Respironics which is a provider of innovation respiratory and sleep therapy solutions for hospital and use at home.

(II) Weaknesses refer as an attributes of the organization that are harmful to achieving the objective. The restructuring of Assembleon will adapt the Philips ongoing weakness in the semiconductor market. Inability of Philips to secure and retain the intellectual property rights for products whilst maintaining overall competitiveness could have a negatively impact the result of Philips. Furthermore, Philips has completed acquisition recently and may continue to do so in the future. Acquisition could expose Philips to integration risks and challenge management in continuing to reduce the company's complexity. The integration risks in areas such as sales and service force integration, logistics, regulatory compliance, information technology and finance. Difficulty and complexity of integration may adversely impact the realization of an increased contribution from acquisition. Significant acquisition, administrative and other costs in connection with these transactions may incur including costs related to the integration of acquired business.

(III) Opportunities refer as external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective. The reason of the global climate change and rising energy costs, there are the major issues that people care about. Philips electronic was embraced the energy challenge as a business opportunity that could help shape the future of lighting on global scale and benefit the society at large. Besides, the healthcare is one of the most pressing global issues in future, Philips are facing a global and growing lack of the healthcare professionals at the same time. These opportunities present Philips with an enormous opportunity and they focus their business on addressing the evolving needs of the healthcare market by developing innovative products and technologies that will contribute to improved the healthcare at lower cost around the world.

(IV) Threats refer as external conditions which could do damage to the performance of the business. The design and construction of modern homes is less effective in dispersing indoor pollutants because of the air quality of European under threat. The European air quality are being increasingly exposed to a whole range of pollutants from harmful gases, viruses and bacteria to fine dust, pollen and cooking waste. Philips may be unable to adapt swiftly the changed of circumstances of an industry and market such as the transition from traditional lighting to energy- saving and LED lighting may drastically change the environment of the business which could have a material adverse affect on its financial condition and results. Acquisitions may also lead to a substantial increased in long-lived assets including the goodwill. However, the write-downs of acquired assets due to unforeseen business developments may materially and adversely affect the earning of Philips.As a conclusion in this section, it is not simply enough to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Philips. In applying the SWOT analysis, it is necessary to minimize or avoid both weaknesses and threats. Weaknesses should be looked at in order to convert them into strengths. Likewise, threats should be converted into opportunities. Philips should try to minimize if the threats could not converted into opportunities. Lastly, strengths and opportunities should be matched to optimize the potential of Philips. Applying SWOT in this fashion can obtain leverage for a company (Marketing Strategy, 1998).

The Major Challenges Affecting Philips

There was a shift from industrial age to information age during late 1990s. In industrial age, most of the assets were equipment, plant and machinery. Financial accounting was played adequate role in valuing at that point of time. However, in information age most of the assets are looked in innovative process, customer relationship and human resources which more in intangible form. Due to those issues, Philips was facing a dismal financial performance during that period and even reported losses during the mid-1990s. During the late 1990s the changing in external environment forced Philips needed to respond quickly to these rapidly changes. Moreover, the existing structure of Philips did not support those kinds of changes. Besides, Philips' operations were spread across several countries, and the products were most often sold in the country in which they were manufactured.Especially with growing wage levels, selling and manufacturing in the same country led to Philips' major markets in Western Europe were cause of high manufacturing costs. On the other hand, the products of Philips could not be priced competitively and growing competition due to Asian manufacturers such as LG and Samsung made Philips realize the need to transform into a flexible organization and shift focus from high-volume business to high-value business, for instance to be more flexible, more innovative and value adding.

Management Accounting Techniques That Adopted

In order to bring in the desired change, Philips embarked on an improvement program was called Business Excellence through Speed and Teamwork (BEST). BEST described a set of methods and tools through which Philips aimed to improved business and financial performance. Philips used various tools and approached as a part of BEST. Some of these were business excellence model, process survey tools and balanced scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard was used to communicate the strategy across Philips' division around the world. The Balanced Scorecard enabled more than 120,000 employees spread across 150 countries understand the existing policies, and plans for the future. Peter Geelen of Philips Corporate Control, Responsible for the Balanced Scorecard Project stated that the aim of balanced scorecard strategy in Philips is to consistently communicate strategy deep down into Philips' 80 businesses and support more than 10,000 managers with tools to turn strategy into action by sharing knowledge, aligning actions, monitoring progress and learning.

Implementing Balanced Scorecard

Philips creating their balanced scorecard through understanding the drivers which present performance is the basis for determining how to achieve its future results. The tool has helped Philips focus on factors critical for their business success and align hundreds of indicators that measure their markets, operation, and laboratories.Critical success factors (CSFs) were identified in every department and divisions with the help of quality department at Philips. The below table is the main four CSFs for Philips which included the area will emphasize on each factor and some example of indicators that had been used.

Critical Success Factors Emphasize on Indicators

Competency " Knowledge "Leadership competence

" Technology "Training days per employee

" Leadership

" Teamwork

Process " Drivers for performance " Capital utilization

" Order response time

Customers " Value proposition " Market share

" Repeat order rate

Financial " Value "Economic profit realized

" Growth "Operational cash flow

" Productivity

Through those CSFs, Philips goal was to translate assumed relationship such as customer satisfaction and product sales into critical success factors to measure performance through identified which financial and customer critical success factors give a competitive edge, and then determined the process CSFs that have the greatest impact on the financial and customer CSFs giving required process, customer, and financial results. In order to express the strategy in measureable objective, Philips links short term actions with long term strategy for made its employees understand their day-to-day activities help achieve the company's stated goals. Top management initially deployed the balanced scorecard by setting annual operational targets, and then was brought down over organizational layers as goals for the divisions worldwide and objective at the business unit level.The balanced scorecard of Philips has four card levels. The levels in decreasing order are strategy review card, operations review card, business unit card and individual employee card. Philips created specific guidelines for metric linkage for the entire company. These guideline states that lower card levels must align with scorecard goals in upper card levels.These four main CSFs is the key balanced scorecard indicators to monitor the implementation of the business strategy at the business unit level. Philips established guideline for the deployment of CSFs at lower level in the company, stating that departments must select CSFs for which the department has a major control responsibility.The management team of each business unit agreed upon those CSFs distinguishes the business unit from competition. They used value map to analyze customer survey data that reflected perceived performance relative to the price for competing products. The outcome of the process CSFs were to determine improvement which can be bring to customer requirements. There competencies of human resources were required to deliver other three perspectives of the card. Financial CSFs used standard financial report metrics.The next step was for each business units to determine key indicators at the business unit level that measure it's CSFs. Assumptions about relationships between processes and results were identified. Afterward, performance drivers had been determined. The targets were set based on the gap between present performance and desired performance for the current year plus two and four years in the future. The targets set are derived from an analysis of market size, customer base, brand equity, world-class performance and innovative capability.Six key indicators consistently came to the forefront for all business units are profitable revenue growth, customer delight, employee satisfaction, drive to operational excellence, organizational development and IT support relate to each other as well as to the balanced scorecard in cascading the card down from the organizational level to the business unit level. Finally, on each quarter year, the balanced scorecard metrics are used as the reporting format for the review of each business unit's performance.

Cost Benefits from Balanced Scorecard

Philips share the metrics quarterly with all employees in order to succeed through traffic light reporting to indicate the actual performance compared with target. Traffic light system which includes red means is at problem area, green means target had been achieved and amber light means performance in with the target. That traffic light system was exemplifying the degree of progress made in the dimension. By implementing of balanced scorecard, Philips had found few cost benefits from it, such as:

i. Simultaneously guided a cultural change effort to increase accountability for results.

ii. The creation of an operational scorecard for action planning and tracking results in real time.

iii. An enhancement to customer service and satisfaction reporting were produced.

iv. Enables employees to understand exactly what they need to do on a daily basis in order to reach company goals.

v. Gaining commitment and participation of management and employees regarding company objective

vi. Promotes the sharing of best practices and creates a communication system worldwide. Balanced scorecard fosters communication, collaboration, and problem solving.

vii. Supports Philips' cultural change to a learning organization by creating a common knowledge base. For instance, if a metric is in the red zone, the employee can quickly access to solve potential problems and avoid repeating, others mistakes, saving time and cost in problem saving.

viii. Balanced scorecard represents an enhancement to the "Yellow Pages" in use at Philips. Roughly 22,000 employees have share knowledge and interest on a voluntary basis by using the pages. Employees who work on similar projects can communicate success and pitfalls using the Yellow Pages on the employee intranet.

Overall, through implementing a global balanced scorecard helped Philips in articulating and communicating their strategy, measuring the driver of their performance and detecting the superiority of one strategy over another. The keys results of balanced scorecard strategy in Philips are enabled employees understand the existing policies and future plans, succeeded in focusing in the diverse set of measures, commitment and initiative of top management made it a big hit in all the subsidiaries and in various line of businesses.

Others Management Accounting Techniques

In order to able compete in this global challenge, our group think that just-in-time (JIT) and total-quality management (TQM) are the two management accounting techniques that can help in Philips toward more success.

Just in time

According to Gill Mould and Maureen King (1995), the companies in the Scottish electronics industry have successfully implemented JIT systems. JIT is a system whose objective is to produce or to procure products or components as they are required by a customer or for use, rather than for stock. JIT is a "pull system" which responds to demand, in contrast to a "push system", in which stock act as buffers between the different elements of the system, such as purchasing, production and sales. JIT production is a system which is driven by demand for finished products whereby each component on a production line is produced only when needed for the next stage. JIT purchasing is a system in which material purchases are contracted so that the receipt and usage of material, to the maximum extent possible, concise.Production systems of Philips must be reliable and prompt, without unforeseen delays and breakdowns. Machinery of Philips must be kept fully maintained and so preventive maintenance is an important aspect of production. Workers at Philips within each machine cell should be trained to operate each machine within that cell and to be able to perform routine preventive maintenance on the cell machines (that means to be multi-skilled and flexible)JIT aims to eliminate all non-value added costs. Value is only added while product is actually being processed. Whilst it is being inspected for quality, moving from one part of the factory to another, waiting for further processing and held in store, value is not being added. Non value added activities within Philips should therefore be eliminated.

Total quality management

Quck Eng Eng and Sha'ri mohd Yusof stated that there is a success of implementation of TQM in the electrical and Electronic sectors in Malaysia. TQM is an integrated and comprehensive system of planning and controlling all business functions so that products or services are produced which meet or exceed customer expectations. TQM is a philosophy of business behavior, embracing principles such as employee involvement, continuous improvement at all levels and customer focus, as well as being a collection of related techniques aimed at improving quality such as full documentation of activities, clear goal setting and performance measurement from the customer perspective.

By implementing of BSC, JIT and TQM together, definitely Philips can be competitive in the global markets with requirement of well implementation.

PERCEPTION OF MALAYSIA SHAREHOLDERS ON THE USEFULNESS AND PERCEIVED INTERGRITY OF CORPORATE ANNUAL REPORTS

2009-03-20T07:11:00.005+08:00

Introduction

Annual report is regarded as the main, traditional and statutory formal communication medium between public listed company and shareholders by which companies disseminate information about its operations to the external users (Firth, 1979). The users of the corporate financial information include shareholders, bankers, financial analysts, and governments. So, shareholders need annual reports information to evaluate the performance or creditworthiness of a company. The corporate compulsory disclosure stated that a listed company’s annual report should consist of income statements, balance sheets, statements of cash flow, statement of changes in equity, and notes to accounts. Major corporate scandals or crises, such as Enron in the USA and Equitable Life in the UK, prompts more transparency in financial reporting (Hooper & Kearins, 2007). Thus, the purpose of this study is to enhance the understanding on the emerging issues and practices of financial accounting and reporting. Hence, the annual report has considerable value to shareholders of a company’s operation, performance and financial information.

Literature Review

A number of research studies have studied the usefulness and understanding of corporate information to the users and annual report is found to be the primary source of information in making the investment decision. Thus, the users should have a reasonable right in order to access to information and their information requirements should be recognized in corporate reports (Joshi and Abdulla, 1994; Cook and Sutton, 1995).

There are varying needs for specific information by a particular user group on the use of annual reports by several user groups based on prior studies. Thus, corporate annual report should be designed in the form and content according to the needs of the external users (Pijper, 1993). Moreover, Cook and Sutton (1995) also emphasized on the fact that companies should focus on the information required by the shareholders so that the annual report satisfies their needs.

Sterling (1972) stated that the provision of useful information to the users is the objective of financial reporting. Zairi and Letza (1994) concluded that the purpose of the annual report is to distribute information that is useful for the shareholders who have an active interest in the organizations. However, it is being argued that a summary format of information produced by the companies rather than engaging into information overload by providing a detailed annual report will add to the shareholders (Cook and Sutton 1995). This is due to the shareholders often found it difficult to get time to sit down and read annual reports (Scott and Smith, 1992). Thus, in communicating company information to shareholders, companies should disclose main pieces of information in a clear and understandable format in a summary annual report that will increase the relevance and value of annual reports.

Even though the information is considered necessary and useful, Daniels and Daniels (1991) concluded that the information contained in the financial statements is not sufficient to evaluate the financial condition of a company Dye and Bowsher (1987) found that most users demand other information in the annual report in order to increase their understanding. Anderson (1981) found that users insistent information about future prospects, company’s products, divisional performance, the provision of management audit reports, and publication of quarterly reports. Moreover, Haslem (1973) found that individual investors placed a great importance to the information about the future expectations of the company. Epstein and Pava (1993) document the individual investors’ demand for more financial disclosure in the annual reports such as pending litigation, unasserted claims, budgeted income for the coming year, and restating statement using current value.

Moreover, transparency is considered important in modern financial reporting in helping users to understand and reach their own conclusions about business. A more transparent financial reporting is desired by the regulators, investors, and business executives so that a company’s financial results will be more readily transparent when viewed by someone outside the company. According to Blanchet (2002), transparent financial information has to reflect the underlying business economic reality, highlight the different risks and opportunities the company is facing, and has to be understandable and comparable.

Forward looking disclosure defines as the information that helps the investor to predict the company’s future performance based on the current plans and future forecast, including strategies goals, outlook or other non historical matters, or project revenue, income, returns or other financial measures. Clarkson et al. (1999) stated that changes in the level of forward looking information will directly change the future corporate performance. These forward looking statement are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materiality from those contained in the statements. Barron et al. (1999) stated that a more accurate analyst forecasts will result in higher levels of forward looking information. Schleicher and Walker (1999) and Hussainey et al. (2003) stated that the high levels of forward looking disclosure in annual report narrative sections will improve the stock market’s ability to anticipate future earnings changes. However, it may be difficult to predict with accuracy and firms might leverage their performance towards the level of their forecasts if the future is uncertain (Kasznik, 1999). Clarkson et al. (1992, 1994) argued that managers prefer to publish favorable forward looking information in the annual report.

In summary, the users of annual reports generally regarded annual financial reports as important sources of information as shown by the results from previous studies. In order to allow the information to be more understandable and adequate for potential users, the literature review reveals a necessity to introduce some changes to the annual reporting.

Finding and Analysis

These questionnaires have been distributed to 10 shareholders of Malaysian Company. From the shareholders’ perspectives, they are more concerned about adequacy, transparency and predictive ability of information contained in annual reports. In the questionnaire, we found that most of the shareholders are male and are in age between 18-29 and 30-39 years old. Besides, most of them have accounting and financial work experience and involved in different types of occupation which included investment manager, IT customer support, tuition teacher, lecturer, secretary, bank officer and etc. Furthermore, most of the shareholders are willing to utilize 10-19% portion of their gross annual income for investment purpose. In addition, most of the shareholders are passive participation in share market and not a regular trader due to they are monitoring the shares movements less than 5 times a year.

Part A of the questionnaire examines the usefulness of information in the annual report. There are four shareholders who viewed less than 5 annual reports in a year, five shareholders have gone through less than 10 annual reports in a year and one shareholder viewed on an average of 20 annual reports in a year. Most of the annual reports which seen by the shareholders are in electronic format rather than published hard copy documents. However, most of the shareholders read both the concise and full annual reports. On the other hand, there are 6 shareholders prefer to obtain a concise annual report which is presented in a less technical term and shorter than the normal annual reports while another 4 shareholders have no preference. According to the data collected, there are 6 shareholders indicate only a little level of reliance on the annual report as a source of information for their investment and another 4 shareholders indicate some degree level of reliance on the annual report. Epstein and Pava (1993) found that individual investor rely more heavily on the annual reports more than they did about 20 years ago.

Additionally, most of the shareholders tend to read the front narrative section only in the annual reports and followed by 2 shareholders who tend to read the financial section only. Subject to the information in annual reports sufficiently informative to access, the shareholders think that the compliance with regulation are more informative to assess compared with another 4 types of information in the annual report and some shareholders think the information of future development are less informative to assess. Furthermore, shareholders rank business review to be the most useful section in annual reports for predicting the future performance of the company while the other sections of annual report show less useful for predicting the future performance of the company. Contrary to the studies conducted by Ahmad (1998) and Hassan and Christopher (1999), the result shown that three most important parts of annual reports to the investment analysts were balance sheet, the profit and loss account, and the notes to account while the least important parts were the auditor’s report, profiles of the members of the board of directors, and profiles of senior management staff. Moreover, the shareholders are normally referred Business News aired over television and radio as other source of information in making the investment decisions, followed by the financial related literatures and the financial database. The informal or unverified information which is obtained through casual discussion with relatives and friend is the least source of information being referred in making investment decisions. Contrary to the attempts by Baker and Haslem (1973) in discovering the information needs and sources of such information, they found that the majority of the individual investors rely heavily on stockbroker’s advice as their main source of the company’s information.

Part B of the questionnaire assesses the integrity of the information in annual report. Most of the shareholders are not quite so confident with the information provided in the annual report of listed companies. In addition, most of the shareholders do not really have changed the level of confidence in the annual reports of listed companies compared with 12-18 months ago. However, it was found that one of the shareholders’ levels of confidence is decreased and another shareholder’s level of confidence is not at all confident. Furthermore, majority of the shareholders are agreed a little about annual reports are just another piece of company advertising. Half of the shareholders are neither agree nor disagree about the annual reports are too complex to be useful.

The last part of the questionnaire examines the adequacy of the information in annual report. Some of the shareholders suggest that the company should disclose more about the risk of the company may face, reasons of increases or decreases of revenue, details of company’s product and project, company lawsuit, details of company’s cash flow planning, non-financial information such as social responsibility, and more information being disclosed in the financial highlight. Based on the shareholder’s opinion about the annual report, they also commented that it should be more simple and easier to understand, more transparent, more disclosure of the bad aspect of the company, more attractive and more creative. However, they also demand for information about the term and condition of remuneration committee, information overload, corporate governance statement and outdated information to be eliminated in the annual reports. Anderson (1981) also stated that additional information such as company’s product, current value of long-term assets, and remuneration of directors to be provided in the annual report as desired by the external users. Epstein and Pava (1993) document the individual investors’ demand for more financial disclosure in the annual reports such as pending litigation, unasserted claims, budgeted income for the coming year, and restating statement using current value.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, annual reports have been considered to be the medium of communication between companies and shareholders (Stanton et al., 2004; Ahmed, 1994; Joshi and Abdulla, 1994; Cook and Sutton, 1995). Hence, it is suggested that, in order to make the annual report more useful, companies should disclose those information that are perceived significant by shareholders. The adequacy, transparency, predictive analysis information contain in annual report will enhance the usefulness of annual report and enhance the shareholders’ understanding. Based on our findings, most of the shareholders required annual report to be in summary, more concise and easier to understand since they often found it difficult to get time to sit down and read the annual reports (Scott and Smith, 1992). Finally, examining a larger sample of shareholders will further enhance our understanding as to whether the companies’ annual reports meet the needs of other shareholders.

Business Ethics

2009-02-22T11:46:00.004+08:00

What is “ethics”? At its most basic level, ethics is concerned with how we act and how we live our lives.

Business Ethics
o Comprises principles and standards that guide behavior in the world of business.
o Whether a specific behavior is ethical or unethical is often determined by stakeholders: Investors, employees, customers, interest groups, legal system and community.

Why study Business Ethics?
o Reports of unethical behavior are on the rise.
o Society’s evaluation of right or wrong affects its ability to achieve its business goals.
o Studying business ethics is a response to FSGO (Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations) and stakeholder demands for ethics initiatives.
o Individual ethics is not enough.
o Studying business ethic helps identify ethical issues to key stakeholders.
o Today, more concern on which ethics should guide business decisions and how ethic can be integrated within business, because ethics failures is equal to business failures.

Why care about ethics?
o Unethical behavior creates financial and marketing risks.
o A company can go out of business, and its employees can go to jail, if no one is paying attention to the ethical standards of the firm.
o A firm’s ethical reputation can provide a competitive advantage, or disadvantage.
o Consumer boycotts give even the most skeptical(怀疑的,多疑的) business leader reason to pay attention to ethics.
o Managing ethically can also pay significant dividends in organizational structure and efficiency.
o Trust, loyalty, commitment, creativity, and initiative(进取心) are just some of the organizational benefits that are more likely to flourish(繁荣,兴旺 ) within ethically stable and credible organizations.

Historical of BE
1. Before 1960: Ethics in Business
o Theological discussions of ethics emerged:
- Catholic social ethics included a concern for morality in business, workers’ rights and living wages.
- Protestants(新教的) developed ethic courses in their seminaries and schools of theology. (Also, the Protestant work ethic encouraged frugality(节约;朴素;节俭) and hard work.)

2. The 1960s: The Rise of Social Issues in Business
o Societal social consciousness emerged
- As well as an anti-business sentiment (eg boycott, not buying products)
o JFK’s Consumer Bill of Rights ushered in a new era of consumerism
- Right to safety, to be informed, to choose, and to be heard.
o Consumer protection groups fought (fight) for consumer protection legislation
- Ralph Nader

3. The 197os: Business Ethics as an Emerging Field
o Business professors began to write about social responsibility.
o Philosophers became involved in business ethics.
o Businesses became more concerned with their public image and addressed ethic more directly.
o Conferences were held and centers developed.
o Issues: Bribery, deceptive(虚伪的 ) advertising, product safety, environment (eg global warming), price collusion(共谋;勾结 ) (eg price war)

4. The 1980s: Consolidation
o Membership in business ethic organizations increased.
o Ethics centers provided:- Publications, courses, conferences and seminars.
o Firms established ethics committees.
o Defense Industry Initiatives emerged and became the foundation for the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations.
– Corporate support for ethical conduct

5. The 1990s: Institutionalization of Business Ethics
o The federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations set the tone for ethical compliance.
o These took preventative actions against misconduct; a company could avoid or minimize the potential penalties.
o The Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations
- Standards and procedures capable of detecting and preventing misconduct
- High level oversight (eg. People in the high level will look on everything happen in an organization)
- Care in delegation of authority (eg. Every department have an official will handle on the ethics issue in the organization)
- Effective communication (training)
- Systems to monitor, audit, and report misconduct
- Consistent enforcement. (eg continuously checking)
- Continuous improvement

6. The 21st Century: A New Focus
o A move from legally based ethics initiatives to culturally or integrity-based programs
- However, legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed to address the lack of confidence in financial reporting and corporate ethics.
o Realization that business ethics programs are good for business.
o Businesses working more closely together, globally, to establish standards of acceptable behavior.

Stakeholders Define Ethical Issues in Business
o Stakeholders are those who have a stake or claim in some aspect of a company’s products, operations, markets, industry and outcomes:
- Customers, employees, investors, suppliers, government agencies, communities
o Stakeholders provide tangible and intangible resources critical to a firm’s success.

Types of Stakeholders
o Primary stakeholders are those whose continued association is absolutely necessary for a firm’s survival.
- Employees, customers, investor, governments and communities
o Secondary stakeholders do not typically engage in transactions with a company and are therefore not essential to its survival.
- Media, trade associations, and special interest groups
Stakeholders
o Stakeholder orientation is the degree to which a firm understand and addresses stakeholder demands. Involves three activities:
- Generation of data about stakeholder groups
- Distribution of the information throughout the firm
- The responsiveness of every level of this to this intelligence. Eg how much the cost.
Relationship between Social Responsibility and Profitability
o Business ethic comprises principles and standards that guide behavior in business.
o Social responsibility is an organization’s obligation to maximize its positive impact on stakeholders and minimize its negative impact.
o Four levels of social responsibility
i. Economic
ii. Legal
iii. Ethical
iv. Philanthropic(博爱的)

Steps of Social Responsibility
1. Economic: maximizing stakeholder wealth value
2. Legal: abiding(持续的 ) by all laws and government regulations
3. Ethical: following standards of acceptable behavior as judged by stakeholders
4. Philanthropic: “giving back” to society

Corporate Citizenship
o Four interrelated dimensions of corporate citizenship:
- Strong sustained(持久的 ) economic performance
- Rigorous(精确的;严密的 ) compliance(顺从)
- Ethical actions beyond what is required by the law
- Voluntary contributions that advance reputation and stakeholder commitment
o How does the firm act on its commitment to the corporate citizenship philosophy? Does it measure the extent to which it follows through by implementing initiatives?

Corporate Governance
o The formal systems of accountability, oversight, and control
o Accountability: refers to how closely workplace decisions are aligned with a firm’s stated strategic direction
o Oversight: provides a system of checks and balances that limits employees and manages opportunities to deviate. (preventing something happen)
o Control: the process of auditing and improving organizational decisions and actions
o Corporate Governance Issues
1. Shareholder rights
2. Risk management
3. Executive compensation
4. Auditing and control
5. Organizational ethic programs
o Shareholder model- Founded in classic economic percepts, including the maximization of wealth for investors and owners
o Stakeholder model- Adopts a broader view of the purpose of business that includes satisfying the concerns of other stakeholders, from employees, suppliers, and governments regulators to communities and special interest groups
o Fiduciaries- Persons placed in positions of trust who use due care and loyalty in acting on the behalf of the best interests of the organization
o Both directors and officers of corporations are fiduciaries for the shareholders
o Issues related to corporate boards and directors
- Accountability, Transparency, Independence

The role of Boards of Directors
o Ultimate responsibility for their firms’ success or failure, as well as for the ethics of their actions
o Increased demands for accountability and transparency
o Trend toward “outside directors” chosen for their expertise, competence, and ability to improve strategic decision making
o Issue of executive compensation
- Evaluate the extent to which executive compensation is linked to performance
- Does performance-linked compensation lead to a short-term focus at the expense of long-term growth?

Implementing a Stakeholder Perspective
1. Assessing the corporate culture
2. Identifying stakeholder groups
3. Identifying stakeholder issues
4. Assessing organizational commitment to social responsibility
5. Identifying resources and determining urgency
6. Gaining stakeholder feedback

Employee rights
Three senses of employee rights are common in business
- There are legal rights granted on the basis of legal/judicial rulings
- There rights based on contractual agreements with employers
- There rights that exist as entitlements, resulting from out status as humans

The right to Work
o If work is necessary to secure such central primary goods as food, clothing and shelter(保护), a right to work seems a likely candidate for being a moral right.
o There are various understandings of the right to work
- Refers to a right to work without having to join a union
- Refers to employees right to a job
· Rationale 1: the instrumental value of work, providing means to acquire food and shelter, etc.
· Rationale 2: work is the expression of a meaningful life.
o Critics distinguish between rights and desirable states of affairs
· Right imply responsibility on the part of others to provide what is claimed by that right
· But does this perspective place an undue burden on private employers?
· If so, place the burden upon government to provide incentives and subsidies.
o But should government be placed in the position of providing jobs to any citizen who desires one?
o Wouldn’t placing government in this position produce too much inefficiency, thus creating economic and political turmoil(混乱 )?
o What if government supplied protection for jobs, rather than jobs?
o The belief seems to be that governments have a responsibility to encourage private sector employment for all its citizens. As a last resort, the government has a duty to supply jobs.
o There is another sense to a right to work: the right, once hired, to hold that job with some degree of security.
o This becomes a right to due process.
Defining the Parameters of Employment Relationship: Due Process
Philosophically, the right of due process is the right to be protected against the arbitrary use of authority
o In legal context, due process refers to the procedures that police and courts must follow in exercising their authority over citizens.
o Few dispute that the state, through its police and courts has the authority to punish citizens.
o This authority creates a safe and orderly society in which we all can live, work and do business.
o But that authority is not unlimited, it can be exercised only in certain ways and under certain conditions.
o Due process rights specify these conditions.
Due Process at Work
o Similarly, due process in the workplace acknowledges an employer’s authority over employees.
o Employers can tell employees what to do and when and how to do it.
o They can exercise such control because they retain the ability to discipline or fire an employee who does not comply with their authority. Because of the immense(极为) value that work holds for most people, the threat of losing one’s job is a powerful motivation to comply.
o However, basic fairness- implemented through due process- demand that this power be used justly.

Employment at Will
o Ironically, the law has not always clearly supported this mandate of justice.
o Much employment law within the US instead evolved in a context of a legal doctrine known as “Employment at Will.”
o Employment at Will (EAW) holds that, absent a particular contractual or other legal obligation that specifies the length or conditions of employment, all employees are employed “at will.”
o This means that, unless an agreement specifies otherwise, employers are free to fire an employee at any time and for any reason.
o In the words of an early court decision, “all may dismiss their employee at will, be they many or few, for good cause, for no cause, or even for cause morally wrong.”
o In the same manner, an EAW worker may opt to leave a job at any time for any reason, without offering any notice at all; so the freedom is theoretically mutual.

Reasons to Limit EAW
· Justice Argument: Even if EAW proved to be an effective management tool, justice demands that such tools not be used to harm other people.
· Property Argument: Even if private property rights grant managers authority over employees, the right of private property itself is limited by other rights and duties.
· Lack of Mutuality: Though the freedom to terminate the relationship is theoretically mutual, the employer is often responsible for the employee’s livelihood, while the opposite is unlikely to be true; so the differential creates an unbalanced power relationship between the two parties.

Due process: Other Employment Context
· Employees are under constant supervision and evaluation in the workplace, and such benefits as salary, work conditions, and promotions can also be used to motivate or sanction employees.
· Thus, being treated fairly in the workplace also involves fairness in such things as promotions, salary, benefits, and so forth.
· Because such decisions are typically made on the basis of performance appraisals, due process rights should also extend to this aspect of the workplace.
Downsizing
· Terminating worker- whether one or one hundred- is not necessarily an unethical decision.
· However, the decision itself raises ethical quandaries(窘境 ) since there may be alternative available to an organization in financial difficulty.
· Once the decision has been made, are there ways in which an organization can act more ethically in the process of downsizing?
· How might our earlier discussion on due process and fairness offer some guidance and/or define limitations in a downsizing environment?

Downsizing: The Legal Perspective
· The decision about whom to include in a downsizing effort must be carefully planned.
· If the firm’s decision is based on some criterion that seems to be neutral on its face, such as seniority, but the plan results in a different impact on one group than another, the decision may be suspect.
· To avoid this result, firms should review both the fairness of their decision-making process as well as the consequence of that process on those terminated and the resulting composition of the workforce.
· One of the most effective philosophical theories to employ with regard to downsizing decisions would be John Rawls’ theory of justice.
· Under his formulation, you would consider what decision you would make- whether to downsize or how to downsize- if you did not know what role you would be playing in the decision.
Health and Safety
· Within the US and throughout many other countries with develop economies; there is a wide consensus that employees have a fundamental right to a safe and healthy workplace.
· In some other regions, employees lack even the most basic health and safety protections, such as in working environments that are often termed “sweatshops”
· Even within the US, this issue becomes quite complicated upon closer examination.
· Not only is the very extent of an employer’s responsibility for workplace health and safety in dispute; there is also significant disagreement concerning the best policies to protect worker health and safety.

Health & Safety as “Acceptable Risk”
· Employers cannot be responsible for providing an ideally safe and healthy workplace.
· Instead, discussions in ethics about employee health and safety will tend to focus on the relative risks faced by workers and the level of acceptable workplace risk.
· In this discussion, “risk” can be defined as the probability of harm, and we determine “relative risks” by comparing the probabilities of harm involved in various activities.
· Therefore, both risks and relative risks are things that can be determined by scientists who compile and measure data.
· It is an easy step from these calculations to certain conclusions about acceptable risks.
· If it can be determined that the probability of harm involved in a specific work activity is equal to or less than the probability of harm of some more common activity, then we can conclude that this activity faces an “acceptable level of risk.”
From this perspective, a workplace is “safe” if the risks are “acceptable.”

Challenges with “Acceptable Risk” Approach
· This approach treats employees disrespectfully by ignoring their input as stakeholders. Such paternalistic decision-making effectively treats employees like children and makes crucial decisions for them, ignoring their role in the decision-making process.
· In making this decision, we assume that health and safety are mere preferences that can be traded-off against competing values, ignoring the fundamental deontological right an employee might have to a safe and healthy working environment.
· It assumes an equivalency between workplace risks and other types of risks when there are significant differences between them. Unlike many daily risks, the risks faced in the workplace may not be freely chosen, nor are the risks faced in the workplace within the control of workers.
· It disregards the utilitarian concern for the consequences of an unsafe working environment on the social fabric, the resulting product or service created, the morale of the workforce, the community and other large-scale results of an unhealthy workplace.
· Unlike some daily risks freely undertaken by each of us, the risks faced at work could be controlled by others and particularly by others who might stand to benefit by not reducing the risks.

Can we leave Health and Safety standards to the market?
· Individual bargaining between employers and employee would be the approach to workplace health and safety favored by defenders of the free market and the classical model of corporate social responsibility.
· On the account, employees would be free to choose the risks that they are willing to face by bargaining with employers.
· Employees would balance their preferences for risks against their demand for wages and decide how much they are willing to take for various wages.
· Those who demand higher safety and healthier conditions presumably(可能) would have to settle for lower wages; those willing to take higher risks presumably would demand higher wages.

Health and Safety as Market-Controlled
· In a competitive and free labor market, such individual bargaining would result in the optional distribution of safety and income.
· The market approach can also support compensation to injured workers when it can be shown that employers were responsible for causing the harms.
· The threat of compensation also acts as an incentive for employers to maintain a reasonably safe and healthy workplace.
Challenges to Market Control of Health and safety
· Labor markets are not perfectly competitive and free. Employees do not have the kinds of free choices that the free market theory would require in order to attain optimal satisfactions.
· Second, employees seldom, if ever, possess the kind of complete information required by efficient markets. If employees do not know the risks involved in a job, they will not be in a position to freely bargain for appropriate wages and therefore are not in a position to effectively protect their rights or ensure the most ethical consequences.

The Dialogue about Those Challenges
· Markets will, over time, compensate for such failures.
· Over time, employers will find it difficult to attract workers to dangerous jobs and, over time, employees will learn about the risks of every workplace.
· But this raises that we have previously described as the “first generation” problem. The means by which the market gathers information is by observing the harms done to the first generation exposed to imperfect market transactions.
· In effect, markets “sacrifice” the first generation in order to gain information about safety and health risks.

Government-Regulated Ethics
· In 1970, the US Congress establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and charged it with establishing workplace health and safety standards.
· Since that time, the dominant question has concerned the appropriateness of using cost-benefit analysis to set health and safety standards.
· Regulation are aimed at achieving the safest feasible standards, allowing a balancing approach between health and economics- industries are required to meet the highest standards attainable within technological and economic reason.
· Some critics charge that this approach does not go far enough and unjustly sacrifices employee health and safety. But the more influential business criticism has argued that these standards go too far.
· Critics in both industry and government have argued that OSHA should be required to use cost-benefit analysis in establishing such standards.
· From this perspective, even if a standard is technologically and economically feasible, it would still be unreasonable and unfair if the benefits did not outweigh the costs.
· These critics argue that OSHA should aim to achieve the optimal, rather than highest feasible, level of safety.
Challenges in the Cost-Benefit Approach to Government-Regulated Health and safety
· The use of cost-benefit analysis in setting workplace health and safety standards commits us to treating worker health and safety as just another commodity, another individual preference, to be traded-off against competing commodities.
· It treats health and safety merely as an instrumental value and denies its intrinsic value.
· Cost-benefit required that an economic value be placed on one’s life and bodily integrity.
Managerial Responsibility & Conflicts of Interest
· A kickback is an illegal payment that occurs when a portion of some payment is paid back to the payer as an incentive to make the original payment.
· Soft money occurs when financial advisor receive payments from a brokerage firm to pay for research and analysts services that should be used to benefit the clients of those advisors.
Trust and Loyalty in the Workplace
· To trust someone is to be confident in and rely upon their judgment when one is vulnerable to their decisions. –Trustworthy managers develop and maintain professional competence and expertise.
· Loyalty, in business, is understood as a willingness to make personal sacrifices in the interest of the firm.
- To what degree do employees have responsibility to make personal sacrifices for the firm?
- Ronald Duska argue employees have no responsibility
· Claim for loyalty by the firm can often be little more than a disguised way to exploit employees’ willingness to make sacrifices for the firm.
· However, until and unless the firm is willing to sacrifice for employees, those employees have little reason to demonstrate loyalty to the firm.
· Is the case different for managerial employees?
- Sherron Watkins
- Andrew Fastow
· If loyalty means willing to sacrifice one’s own interest by going above and beyond ordinary responsibility, then we ought(该 ) to be suspicious(可疑的 ) of calls for employee loyalty.
Honesty, Whistle blowing & Insider Trading
· Honesty: are there situations in which dishonesty is common and acceptable?
· There are three reasons to explain the ethical responsibility to be honest:
- Dishonesty undermines the ability of people to communicate
- Honesty and trust create essential preconditions for all cooperative social activities
- A dishonest person must have more than one identity, which undermines his integrity.
· A bluff can only work as a bluff if the person being bluffed believes that it is true (is being deceived).
· While a dishonest act can have beneficial social consequences, routine dishonesty erodes(磨损) the trust that seems essential to social cooperation.
· A whistleblower is an employee or other insider who informs the public or a government agency of an illegal, harmful, or unethical activity done by business or institution.
-Whistle blowing puts the employee at risk
- Whistle blowing pits(使对立 ) responsibilities to third parties at odds(额外的) with employees’ responsibilities to their employer
· Richard DeGeorge argues three conditions must be met before whistle blowing is ethically permissible:
- There must be a real threat of harm that needs to be addressed
- The whistleblower should first seek to prevent the harm through channels.
- The whistleblower, if possible, should exhaust all internal procedures for preventing the harm
· Insider Trading generally refers to the practice of buying or selling securities on the basis of nonpublic information that one has obtained as an “insider”.
· Three arguments are cited in ethical criticism of insider trading:
- Property rights
- Fiduciary duties
- Unfairness claims

Right and Responsibilities in Conflict: Discrimination, Diversity and Affirmative Action
· With regard to the above issues, we are discussing several matters that remain open to debate by scholars, jurists and corporate leaders.
· The focus is on those subtle areas where perhaps the law has not yet become so settled, where it remains open to diverse cultural interpretations, strong minority interest, and value judgments.
· Through the courts are often forced to render judgment, their decisions might result from a non-unanimous(一致同意的) vote or through the reversal(颠倒) of a strong lower court opinion representing a contrary(对立的) perspective.
Philosophical Application
· From a Kantian, deontological perspective, there is not yet universal agreement on the fundamental rights that are implicated by these issues, or on their appropriate prioritization.
· From a utilitarian viewpoint, neither do these reasonable minds always agree on which resolution might lead toward the greatest common good, or even what that good should be ultimately.
· Distributive justice does not provide a clear cut solution as there is often an argument for fairness from each camp and other theories provide similar quandaries(为难).
Discrimination
· The courts have carefully construed legal precedent in the decades since Title VII of the US Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and crested the prohibited classes of discrimination.
· Though several specific areas of delicate and subtle quandaries remain, many of the original legal and ethical debates have been fought, offering business decision-makers arguably clear guidance on appropriate behavior in the workplace (ie sexual harassment).
The Case of Child Labor
· As we begin to understand the circumstances facing children worldwide, we can see that a simple prohibition might not offer us the best possible solution.
· But what options exist?
· Of course, many economically develop countries currently employ child and juvenile(青少年) labor, albeit(尽管) with restrictions, and so one should carefully review the social and economic structure within which the labor exists.
· While the easy answer may be to rid(从...清除) all factories of all workers less than 18 years of age, that is often not the best answer for the children or the families involved.
· In developing countries, children begin work at ages as young as three years. Though children may work in unhealthy conditions, they also live in unhealthy conditions.
· The labor opportunities that exist almost always preclude(妨碍) children from obtaining an education as children often work on a full time basis.
· However, if children are not working, their options are not as optimistic(乐观的) as those for children in develop economies. There are not always sophisticated(高度发展的) education systems or public schools.
· Often children who do not work in the manufacturing industry are forced to work in less hospitable(易接受的) “underground” professions such as drug dealing or prostitution(卖淫) simply in order to provide for their own food each day.
· Moreover, notwithstanding the possible educational alternatives in some environments, recommending removal of the child from the workplace completely ignores the financial impacts of terminating the employment of a youth worker.
· The income generated by the youth worker may, at the very least, assist in supporting that particular youth’s fundamental needs (food, clothing and shelter); and, at the very most, it may be critical in supporting the entire family.

Lack of Global Agreement
· There remains widespread disagreement on a global basis as to the rights of employees with regard to discrimination, the extent of protected classes and the more specific sub-topics such as diversity and affirmative(赞成) action.
· Even in the US, the concept of discrimination is one that remains one of the most intensely debated issues today.
· Employers continue to advocate for their rights to manage the workplaces and to be permitted to hire, retain and terminate without external influence or control.
· Employees fear unfair treatment and a loss of power based on reasons completely outside their control.

Discrimination Persists…
· Discrimination persists in the US with regard to race, as well as gender.
· Women often face challenges that are distinct from those faced by man.
· For instance, women and men are both subject to gender stereotyping, but suffer from different expectations in that regard.
-A woman who is aggressive in the workplace is often considered to be a bully, while a man is deemed to be doing what he needs to do to get ahead.

Affirmative Action
· Does one person deserve a position more than another person?
· For instance, efforts to encourage greater diversity may also be seen as a form of “reverse discrimination”- in other words, discrimination against those individuals who are traditionally considered to be in power or the majority, such as white men.
· A business that intentionally seeks to hire a candidate from underrepresented group might be seen as discriminating against white males, for example.
· A policy or a program that tries to respond to instances where there has been some past discrimination by implementing proactive measures in order to ensure equal opportunity today.
· It may take the form of intentional inclusion of previously excluded groups in employment, education or other environment.
· The use of Affirmative Action policies in both business and universities has been controversial for decades.
· In its first discussion of affirmative action in employment, the US Supreme Court found that employers could intentionally include minorities (and thereby exclude others) in order to redress past wrongs.
· However, the holding was not without great restrictions, of course, thereby leaving most employers with a great deal of confusion.
· Even today, the law does not provide extraordinary clarity and we are thus left values systems to instead provide direction, which we will discuss shortly.

How Affirmative Action Arises in the Workplace
1. Much of the law relating to affirmative action applies only to about 20% of the workplace- those employees of federal contractors with 50 or more employees who are subject to Executive Order 11246, which required affirmative action efforts to ensure equal opportunity.
2. Where Executive Order 11246 does not apply, courts may also impose require efforts through what is termed “judicial affirmative action” in order to remedy a finding of past discrimination.
3. A third of affirmative action involves voluntary affirmative action plans that are undertaken by employers in order to overcome barriers to equal opportunity.
In order to justify affirmative action efforts under either of these latter two options, there must be a demonstrated under-representation or finding of past discrimination.

Sexual and Racial Discrimination
o US and European laws prohibit businesses from discriminating on the basis of sex, race, religion or disabilities in their hiring, firing and promotion decisions. –Australia, obrigines.
o Discrimination is sometimes justified on the basis of culture norms and values. For example, businesswomen are rare in the Middle East.
o Discrimination remains one of the more prevalent concerns in international business.

How Companies Might Address Discrimination Issues
o Develop a company policy on discrimination
o Communicate the policy internally and externally
o Determine benchmarks for activities in which discrimination can arise
o Determine indicators of possible non-compliance
o Establish methods to identifying non-compliance
o Develop a plan and implement the plan

Human Rights
o Opportunistic use of child labor, payment of low wages, and abuses in foreign factories are a few of the concerns.
o Relationships with subcontractors have proven problematic for some firms.
o MNCs should view the law as a floor of acceptable behavior and strive for greater improvements in workers’ quality of life.

Advancing Human Rights
o Engage in an open dialog with workers and management.
o Be aware of human rights issues and concerns in each country in which the company engages in business.
o Adopt the prevailing legal standard, but seek to embrace a ‘best practices’ approach and standard.

Price Discrimination
o Occurs when a firm charges different prices to different groups of consumers – Allowable if justified, based on costs.
o Price gouging- a price increase exceeding the costs of additional expenses (taxes, etc.)
Bribery and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
o Bribes(行贿;受贿) and facilitating payments are acceptable in many cultures.
o The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits American corporations from offering or providing payments to officials of foreign governments for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business abroad.
- This may place US businesses at a disadvantage
- This has been supported through global treaties(条约 ).

Bribery
o What constitutes bribery?
o Active bribery
o Passive bribery
o Facilitation payments
o Are some bribes acceptable?
Ø Bribery is the practice of offering something (usually money) in order to gain an illicit advantage.
Ø Therefore is defined as an unlawful act, but it can be a business ethic issue.
Ø Bribery can be defined differently in varying situations and cultural environments.
Ø Active Bribery/ active corruption- meaning that the person who promises or gives the bribe commits the offense.
Ø Passive Bribery- is an offense committed by the official who receives the bribe. It is not an offense, however, if the advantage was permitted or required by written law or regulation of the foreign public official’s country, including case law.
Ø Facilitation payments- made to obtain or retain business or other improper advantages do not constitute bribery payments.
Ø In some countries, such payments are made to induce public officials to perform their functions such as issuing licenses or permits.
Ø In many develop countries, it is generally recognized that employee should not accept bribes, personal payments, gifts, or special favors from people who hope to influence the outcome of a decision.

What is Marketing?
o The concept of an exchange between a seller and a buyer is central to the “market” and is the core idea behind marketing.
o Marketing involves all aspects of creating a product or service and bringing it to market where an exchange can take place
o Marketing ethics therefore examines the responsibilities associated with bringing a product to the market, promoting it to and exchanging it with buyers (method of payment).
The Four P’s
o All of the factors considered and each decision made throughout this process is an element of marketing.
- What, how, why, and under what conditions is something produced?
- What price is acceptable, reasonable, and fair?
- How can the product be promoted to support, enhance, and maintain sales?
- Where, when and under what conditions should the product be placed in the marketplace?
o These four general categories- product, price, promotion, placement- are sometimes referred to as the 4P’s of marketing.

The Ethical Questions raised by the 4P’s
Eg. MAS n AirAsia. MAS advertise prices compare with its competitor. Its name the competitors as X. Public know it is compared with AirAisa prices. Is this the right way to do so?
Eg. Target on vulnerable populations such as children or the elderly. Children want Chicky Meal is because the toys, not the meal, it is ethical?
Eg. The producer responsibilities when marketing products at foreign countries. McD not sell beef burger at India, it know Indian don’t eat beef, change all to chicken.

Responsibility for Products: Safety and Liability
Business has an ethical responsibility to design, manufacture, and promote their products in ways that avoid causing harm to consumers.

What do we mean by “responsibility?”
§ In one sense, to be responsible is to be identified as the cause of something.
- Thus, we say that hurricane(狂风) Katrina was responsible for millions of dollars in property damages in New Orleans.

§ In another sense, responsibility involves accountability.
- When we ask who will responsible for the damages caused by Katrina, we are asking who will pay for the damage.

§ A third sense of responsibility connected to but different from the sense of accountability, involves assigning fault or liability for something.

Responsibility
§ The hurricane example demonstrates how these three meanings can be distinguished.
§ Katrina was responsible for (caused) the damage, but cannot be held responsible (accountable for paying for the damages) nor can it be faulted for it.
§ Yet, many think that those who designed, built, or managed the levees in New Orleans were at fault and should be made to pay because their negligence caused much of the harm.
§ In other situations, an automobile crash for example, a careless driver would be identified as the cause of the accident and held accountable because he was at fault.

Responsibility in Business
§ The focus for much of the discussion of business’ responsibility for product safety in on assigning liability (fault) for harms caused by unsafe products.
§ The legal doctrine of strict liability is ethically controversial exactly because it holds a business accountable for paying damages whether or not it was at fault.
§ In a strict liability case, no matter how careful the business is in its product or service, if harm results from use, the business is liable.

Contractual Standard for Product Safety
§ The standard of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is in the background to many discussion of product safety.
§ The caveat emptor approach understands marketing on a simple model of contractual exchange between a buyer and seller.
§ This perspective assumes that every purchase involves the informed consent of the buyer and therefore it is assumed to be ethically legitimate.
§ Buyers have the responsibility to look out for their own interest and protect their own safety when buying a product.
From this perspective, business has only the responsibility to provide a good or service at an agreed-upon price.

Warranties
§ Even in the early years of product safety law, courts recognized an implicit promise, or implied warranty, that accompanies any product that is marketed.
§ What the law refers to as the “implied warranty of merchantability,” hold that in selling a product a business implicitly offers assurances that the product is reasonably suitable for its purpose.
§ Even without a verbal or written promise or contract, the law holds that business has a duty to insure that its products will accomplish their purpose.

Tort Standard for Product Safety
§ A second problem remains: If we hold business liable for only those promises made during the market exchange, then, as the consumer gets further separated from the manufacturer by layers of suppliers and retailers, there may be no relationship at all between the consumer who gets harmed and the ultimate manufacturer or designer who was fault.

Negligence
o Negligence, a concept from the area of law known as torts, provides a second avenue for consumers to hold producers responsible for their products.
o The distinction between contract law and tort law also calls attention to two different ways to understand ethical duties.
o Under a contract model, the only duties that a person owes are those that have been explicitly promised to another party. Otherwise, I owe nothing to anyone.
o Negligence is a central component of tort law.
o As the word suggests, negligence involves a type of ethical neglect, specifically neglecting one’s duty to exercise reasonable care not to harm other people.
o One can understand many of the ethical and legal issues surrounding manufacturers’ responsibility for products as the attempt to specific what constitutes negligence in their design, production, and sale.

The nature of Negligence
o Negligence can be characterized as a failure to exercise reasonable care or ordinary vigilance which results in an injury to another.
o In many ways, negligence simply codifies two fundamental ethical precepts: “ought implies can” (we cannot reasonably oblige someone to do what they cannot do) and “one ought not harm others”
o People have done an ethical wrong when they cause harm to others in ways that they can reasonably be expected to have avoided.
o Negligence includes acts of both commission and omission. Once can be negligent by doing something that one ought not (eg speeding in a school zone) or by failing to do something that one ought to have done (eg. Neglecting to inspect a product before sending it to market.)

Resolving Negligence
· Reasons such as these can lead us to interpret the reasonable person standard more normatively than descriptively.
· In this sense, a “reasonable” person assumes a standard of thoughtful (though what is the outcome after sell), reflective (made amendment on the product sold, eg Proton), and judicious decision making (made decision based on law).
· The problem with this, of course, is that we might be asking more of the average consumer than they are capable of giving. Particularly if we think that the disadvantaged and vulnerable deserve greater protection from harm, we might conclude that this is too stringent a standard to applied to consumer behavior.
· On the other hand, given the fact that producers do have more expertise than the average person, this stronger standard seems more appropriate when applied to producers than to consumers.

Strict Product Liability
o The negligence standard of tort law focuses on the sense of responsibility that involves liability or fault.
o But there are also cases in which consumers can be injured by a product in which there was no negligence involved.
o In such cases where no one was at fault, the question of accountability remains.
o The legal doctrine of strict product liability holds manufacturers accountable in such cases.
Ethical debates on Product Liability
o It is fair to say that the business community is a strong critic of much of the legal standards of product liability.
o Liability standards, and the liability insurance costs in which they have resulted, have imposed significant costs on contemporary business.
o In particular, the strict product liability standard is singled out as being especially unfair to business because it holds business responsible for harms that were not the result of business negligence.

The defense to the Strict Product Liability Standard
1. By holding business strictly liable for any harms their products cause, society creates a strong incentive for business to produce safer goods and services.
2. Given that someone has to be accountable for the costs of injuries, holding business liable allocates the costs to the party best able to bear the financial burden.
Each rationale is open to serious objections

Objections to the Strict Product Liability Standard
o The incentive argument seems to misunderstand the nature of strict liability. Holding someone accountable for harm can provide an incentive only if they could have done otherwise.
o But this means that the harm was foreseeable and the failure to act was negligent.
o Surely this is a reasonable justification for the tort standard of negligence. But strict liability is not negligence and the harms caused by such products as DES(Delivered Ex Ship 【商】目的地船上交货条件) and asbestos (【矿】石绒;石棉)were not foreseeable.
o Thus, holding business liable for these harms cannot provide an incentive to better protect consumers in the future.
o The second rationale also suffers a serious defect.
o This argument amounts to the claim that business is best able to pay for damages.
o Yet, as the asbestos case indicates, many businesses have been bankrupted by product liability claims.

Then, what to do? What is to pay?
o Yet, if it is unfair to hold business accountable for harms caused by their products, it is equally if not more unfair to hold injured consumers accountable.
o Neither party is at fault, yet someone must pay for the injuries.
o A third option would be to have government, and therefore all taxpayers, accountable for paying the costs of injuries caused by defective products.
o But this, too, seems unfair.

Ethics and Pricing
A fair price is a price that both parties to an exchange agree upon … …but a product’s price also affects third parties, thus… … fairness and equal opportunity are relevant to pricing ethic
o Informed consent can be missing in some pricing situations
- Price gouging
- Monopolistic pricing
- Price fixing
o Price gouging occurs when the buyer has few purchase options for a needed product and the seller uses this situation to raise prices significantly.
- Energy companies
- Gasoline station and 9/11 (one station set higher price, other station will do so, then consumer will affected.)
o Monopolistic pricing and pricing-fixing are similar
· Either individual companies or a group of conspiring companies use their market power to force consumers to pay a higher price than they would have if there were real competition in the marketplace
- Microsoft and Windows Operating System
- Prescription Drugs
- Credit Card Interest Rates
o Predatory (掠夺成性的)pricing occurs when a product is temporarily priced below the actual costs as a means of driving competitors out of business.
o The price of economic efficiency may involve social and political “costs” to the wider community.
Responsibility for products: Advertising and Sales
o A major element of marketing is sales promotion, the attempt to influence the buyer to complete a purchase.
o Target marketing and marketing research are two important elements of product placement, seeking to determine which audience is most likely to buy, and which audience is mostly likely to be influenced by product promotion.
The Ethical way and the Unethical Way
o There are, of course, ethically good and bad ways for influencing others.
o Among the ethically commendable ways to influence another are persuading, asking, informing, and advising.
o Unethical means of influence would include threats, coercion, deception, manipulation, and lying.
o Unfortunately, all too often sales and advertising practices employ deceptive or manipulative means of influence, or are aimed at audiences that are susceptible(易动感情的) to manipulation or deception(欺骗).
Manipulation: Good or bad?
o To manipulate something is to guide or direct its behavior.
o Manipulation need not involve total control and in fact it more likely suggests a process of subtle direction or management.
o Manipulating a person implies working behind the scenes, guiding their behavior without their explicit(清楚的) consent or conscious(觉察到的) understanding.
o In this way, manipulation is contrasted with persuasion and other forms of rational influence.
Deception
o One of the ways in which we can manipulate someone is through deception (perhaps through an outright lie). We can also manipulate someone without deception.
o The more one knows about psychology- your motivations, interests, and desires, beliefs, dispositions, and so forth the better able they will be to manipulate your behavior.
o Knowing such things about another person provides effective tools for manipulating their behavior.

Manipulation, Deception and Marketing
o Critics charge that many marketing practices manipulate consumers
o Clearly, many advertisements are deceptive, and some are outright lies.
o We can also see how marketing research plays into this. The more one learn about customer psychology, the better able one will be to satisfy their desires, but the better able one will also be to manipulate their behavior.
o Critics charge that some marketing practices target populations that are particularly susceptible to manipulation and deception.
Ethical issues in Advertising
o The general ethical defense of advertising reflects both utilitarian and Kantian ethical standards.
o Advertising provides information for market exchanges and therefore contributes to market efficiency and to the overall happiness.
o Advertising information also contributes to the information necessary for autonomous individuals to make informed choices.
o But note that each of these rationales assumes that the information is true and accurate.
Kant Meets the Ad World
o The deontological tradition in ethic would have the strongest objections to manipulation.
o When I manipulate someone, I treat them as a means to my own ends, as an object to be used rather than as an autonomous person in their own right.
o Manipulation is a clear example of disrespect for persons since it bypasses their own rational decision-making.
o Because the evil rests with the intention to use another as a means, even unsuccessful manipulations are guilty of this ethical wrong.

Marketing toward Greatest Happiness?
o As we might expect, the utilitarian tradition would offer a more conditional critique of manipulation, depending on the consequences.
o There surely can be cases of paternalistic (温和的专制主义的) manipulation in which someone is manipulated for their own good. But even in such cases, unforeseen harms can occur.
o Manipulation tends to erode bonds of trust and respect between persons.
o It can erode one’s self-confidence and hinder the development of responsible choice among those manipulated.
o In general, because most manipulation is done to further the manipulator’s own ends at the expense of the manipulated, utilitarian’s would be inclined to think that manipulation lessens overall happiness.
o A general practice of manipulation, as critics would charge occurs in many sales practices, can undermine the very social practices (eg sales) that it is thought to promote as the reputation of sales is lowered.

Marketing to the Vulnerable
o A particularly egregious(极坏的) form of manipulation occurs when vulnerable people are targeted for abuse.
o Cigarette advertising aimed at children is one example that has received major criticism in recent years.
o Marketing practices targeted at elderly populations for such goods and services as insurance (particularly Medicare supplemental insurance), casinos and gambling, nursing homes, and funerals(葬仪的), have been subjected to similar criticisms.
Marketing Ethics and Consumer Autonomy
o Defenders of advertising argue that despite cases of deceptive practices, overall advertising contributes much to the economy.
o The majority of advertisements provide information to consumers, information that contributes to an efficient function of economic markets.
o These defenders argue that over time, market forces will weed out deceptive ads and practices.
o They point out that the most effective counter to a deceptive ad is a competitor’s ad calling attention to the deception.

What does advertising do to People?
o People may well benefit from business’ marketing of its products.
o People learn about products that they may need or want, they get information that helps them make responsible choices, and they even sometimes get entertained.
o But marketing also helps shape culture, some would say dramatically so, and the individuals who develop and are socialized within that culture.
o Marketing can have direct and indirect influence on the very persons we become.
o How it does that, and the kind of people we become as a result, is of fundamental ethical importance.
o Critics of such claims either deny that marketing can have such influence or maintain that marketing is only a mirror of the culture of which it is a part.
Influence on Consumer Autonomy
o John Kenneth Galbraith’s Perspective: advertising and marketing creates the very consumer demand that production then aims to satisfy.
o Dubbed (译制)the “dependence effect,” this assertion holds that consumer demand depends on what producers have to sell.

Implications of the Dependence Effect
1. By creating wants, advertising is standing the “law” of supply and demand on its head. Rather than supply being a function of demand, demand turns out to be a function of supply.
2. Advertising and marketing tends to create irrational and trivial(无价值的) consumer wants and this distorts the entire economy.
· A society that cannot guarantee vaccinations(种痘;接种) and minimal health care to poor children, spends millions annual for cosmetic surgery to keep its youthful appearance.
3. By creating consumer wants, marketing practices violate consumer autonomy. Consumers who think themselves free because they are able to purchase what they want, are not in fact free if those wants are created by marketing.
In short, consumers are being manipulated by advertising.
Ethical Implications of the Dependence Effect
o Ethically, the crucial point is the assertion that advertising violates(违犯) consumer autonomy.
o The law of supply and demand is reserved, and the economy of the affluent society is contrived and distorted, only if consumer autonomy can be violated, and consumers manipulated, by advertising’s ability to create wants.

Marketing to Vulnerable Populations
o Consider two example of target marketing.
o In one case, an automobile retailer learns that the typical customer is a single woman, between the age of 30-40 old with annual income over $30,000 and who enjoy outdoor sports and recreation.
o Knowing this information, the dealer targets advertising and direct mail to this audience. Ads depict attractive and active young people using their product and enjoy outdoor activities.
o A second targeted campaign is aimed at selling an emergency call device to elderly widows who live alone.
o This marketing campaign depicts an elderly woman at the bottom of a stairway crying out “ I’ve fallen and can’t get up!”
o These ads are placed in media likely to been seen or heard by elderly women.
o Are these marketing campaigns on an equal ethical footing?
o The first marketing strategy appeals to the considered judgments which consumer purchases. Target marketing in this sense is simply a means for identifying likely customers based on common beliefs and values.

Can everyone be Vulnerable? “Stealth Marketing”
o One final form of marketing to vulnerable population involves potentially all of us as consumer targets.
o We are each vulnerable when we are not aware that we are subject to a marketing campaign.
o This type of campaign is called “stealth” or “undercover” marketing and refers to those situations where we are subject to directed commercial activity without our knowledge.

Stealth Marketing
o Certainly we are subjected to numerous communications on a regular basis without paying much attention, such as the billboards at which we might glance sideways as we speed past on a highway. That is not undercover marketing.

Ethic in the Supply Chain
o In creating a product, promoting it, and bringing it to the market, the marketing function of business involves a wide range of relationships with other commercial entities.
o In recent decades, the ethical spotlight has focused on the responsibility that a firm has for the activities of the other entities, what we shall refer to as supply-chain-responsibility.

Ethical relativism and Reasoning
o In Ethic the “right” answer is not found in books; it cannot be calculated like a math problem.
o One cannot prove the truth of an ethical judgment in the way that one can offer a proof in geometry.
o People differ about ethical judgments, and there seems to be no way to decide between competing conclusions.
o Ethical issues seem based on personal feelings and emotions
o Ethical relativism holds that ethical values and judgments are ultimately dependent upon, or relative to, one’s culture, society, or personal feelings.
o Relativism denies that we can make rational or objective ethical judgments.
o If relativism is correct there is no reason to continue our study of ethics. All opinions are equally valid.
o If relativism is correct, we cannot evaluate the culture or social values that the cultural or social values that underlie our ethical judgments.
o Consider child labor…
o Some Western businesses have been criticized for using supplier who relies on child laborers working under harsh conditions for long hours and very low wages.
o Response: Such working conditions are accepted in the host country; therefore Western critics have no justification for imposing their own cultural values/norms on others.
o The relativist would argue that values such as equality, fairness, integrity, self-respect, and freedom are all a matter of personal or social opinion.
o Let’s look at sexual harassment…
o Imagine a male manager telling a female job applicant that she would be hired IF she submitted to his sexual advances.
o The relativist may argue that criticism of harassment is merely a matter of opinion.
o While a woman may feel that harassment is wrong, the male manager may feel that it is right.
o Each opinion or feeling is equally valid.
Is there any way to defend the claim that harassment is unethical?
- We might argue that sexual harassment would subject a woman to unfair workplace discrimination.
- The inequality of power in this situation places a woman in the unacceptable position of having to choose between her livelihood and her own sexual integrity.
- Such a choice is coercive and threatening.
o We would explain the psychological good of self-respect.
o We could point out the crucial importance that jobs play in our lives.
o We could take a social perspective and consider the present status of women in the workplace.
o We would employ rules of logic in our reasoning.
o The cost of relativism-what you need to give up maintaining it- is very high: every principle, every belief, every logical reason we proposed.
o A conclusion that is reached through careful logical analysis and reasoning is better than one that is simply asserted.
o The traps of relativism
- We should be careful not to hold ethics to too high a standard of proof.
- Do not confuse the fact that there is wide disagreement about values with the conclusion that no agreement is possible.
- Do not confuse values such as respect, tolerance, and impartiality with relativism.

Teleology
o Considers acts as morally right or acceptable if they produce some desired result such as pleasure, knowledge, career growth, the realization of interest, or utility.
o Assesses moral worth by look at the consequences for the individual.
Categories of Teleology
o Egoism
- Right or acceptable behavior defined in terms of consequences to the individual
- Maximizes personal interest
Enlightened (有知识的) egoists take a longer term perspective and allow for the well being of others.
o Utilitarianism
- Concerned with consequences
- Considers a cost/benefit analysis
- Behavior based on principles of rules that promote the greatest utility rather than on an examination of each situation (greatest good for greatest number of people.)

Utilitarian Ethic
o Roots of utilitarian thinking can be found in Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), David Hume (1711-1776), and Adam Smith (1723-1790).
o Classic formulations of Utilitarianism are found in the writings of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).
o The theory tells us that we can determine the ethical significance of any action by looking to the consequences of that act
o Maximizing the overall good or The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number of People.
o Utilitarianism provided strong support for democratic institutions and policies.
o Government and social institutions exist for the well-being of all people, not to further the interest of the monarch- or the wealthy elite.
o The economy exists to provide the highest standard of living for the greatest number of people, not to create wealth for a privileged few.
o Utilitarianism looks at the consequences of actions.
o Utilitarianism is pragmatic(实际的): no one is ever right or wrong in every situation. It all depends on the consequences.
o Utilitarian’s knowledge two kinds of value: instrumental(有帮助的) value and intrinsic(固有的) value.
o If we judge our acts in terms of their consequences, then we must have some independent standard for deciding between good and bad consequences. There must be some intrinsic value by which we can judge the consequences of our acts.
o Utilitarianism differs from egoism: utilitarian acts are judge by their consequences for the general and overall good. The good includes the well-being of each individual affected by the action.
o Egoism focuses only on individual self-interest.
o Mill defended a different understanding of happiness:
o There is a qualitative dimension to happiness:
Ø Happiness is not hedonism(快乐主义). Humans are capable of enjoying a variety of experiences that produce happiness- social and intellectual pleasures in addition to physical.
o To decide which pleasures and what type of happiness is better we should consult with someone with the experience of both.
o Thus Mill acknowledges that not all opinions are equal. Some people are more competent to decide what is good than others.
o Mill’s utilitarianism does not support an uncritical majority rule in which every opinion is treated equally.
o The best way to develop competent judges is through experience and education
o Once people are educated and experienced, then majority-rule democracy is the best way to make decisions.
o Implications for Business and Economics: Economic transactions occur when people seek their own happiness. If people make mistakes and buy products that fail to bring them satisfaction, they learn from those mistakes and no longer buy the product. Market forces eventually eliminate unsatisfactory products.
o Free market economics is a form of “preference utilitarianism” where the utilitarian goal is the maximum satisfaction of preferences.
o Efficiency structures our economy.
o We allow individuals the freedom to bargain for themselves.
o Agreements occur only when both parties believe a transaction will improve their own position.
o Competition works to improve the overall good.

Challenges to Utilitarianism
o Problems from within:
o Finding ways to measure happiness
o Differing versions of the good and implications for human freedom
o Problem from outside
o The principle of consequentialism means that the ends justify the means, but there are certain rules we must follow no matter what the consequences.

Utilitarianism and Business Policy
o Utilitarianism is a social philosophy.
o There are disputes(争论) between two versions of utilitarian policy: expert and market.
o The utilitarian emphasis on measuring, comparing and quantifying re-enforces the view that policy makers should be neutral.
Utilitarian asks us to consider not only the consequences that our acts might have for ourselves, but also the consequences of our acts for all parties affected by them.

Deontological Ethics
o Sometimes the correct path is determined not by consequences but by certain duties.
o Duties= Obligations, Commitments, and Responsibilities
o Deontology denies the utilitarian belief that the ends do justify the means. There are just some things we should do, or should not do, regardless of the consequences.
o Deontological Ethics focuses on the dignity of individuals. Individuals have rights that should not be sacrificed simply to produce a net increase in the collective good.
o Immaneul Kant and the Categorical Imperative: Our primary duty is to act only in those ways in which the maxim of our acts could be made a universal law.
o Maxim=Intention: What am I doing?
o Kant: Ethic requires us to treat all people as ends, not as means to ends.
o Human are subjects that have their own purposes and ends(目的;目标), and should not be treated merely as the means to the ends of others.
o Our ultimate ethical duty is to treat people with respect.
o If our duty is to treat every person with respect, then we can argue that each person has a right to be treated in a respectful fashion.
o My right establishes your duties and my duties correspond to the rights of others.
o Duties establish the ethical limits of our behavior. Duties are what we owe to other people.
o Others have a claim upon our behavior.
o Rights are protecting interests.
o Wants and interests are different from each other. Wants are desires. Interests work for a person’s benefit and are objectively connected to what is good for that person.
o People don’t always want what is good for them.
o Humans make free choices.
o Human have autonomy.
o Humans originate action for their own ends.
o To treat someone as a means to an end is to negate their autonomy-their ability to make free choices.
Deontological approaches insist that some things should be done and some things should not be done – regardless of the consequences. Respecting individual rights and fulfilling out ethical obligations can set limits on decisions aimed at producing good consequences.

Social Justice: Rawlsian Justice as Fairness
o The American philosopher John Rawl has developed one of the most powerful and influential accounts of justice.
o Rawl offers a contemporary version of the social contract theory that understand basic ethical rules as part of an implicit contract necessary to insure social cooperation.
o Rawl’s theory of justice consists of two major components: a method for determining the principles of justice that should govern society, and the specific principles that are derived from that method.

Rawlsian Justice as Fairness: Application of the Method
· Imagine rational and self-interested individuals having to choose and agree on the fundamental principles for their society.
· The image of members of a constitutional convention is a helpful model for this idea.
· To ensure that the principles are fair and impartial, imagine further that these individuals do not know the specific details or characteristics of their own lives.
· They do not know their abilities or disabilities and talents or weaknesses; they have no idea about their position in the social structure of this new society.

Rawlsian Justice Fairness: Veil of Ignorance
· They are, in Rawl’s terms, behind a “veil of ignorance” and must choose principles by which they will abide when they come out from behind the veil.
· To ensure that each individual is treated as an end and not as a means(意图), imagine finally that these individuals must unanimously (全体一致地)agree on the principles.
· These initial conditions of impartiality, what Rawls calls the “original position,” guarantee that the principles chosen are fair- the primary value underlying for Rawls’ concept of justice.
Rawlsian Justice as fairness: The Original Position
o The idea of this “original position,” of having to make decisions behind a veil of ignorance, is at the heart of Rawls’ theory that fairness is the central elements of a just decision or just organization.
o He contends that our decisions ought to be made in such a way, and our social institutions ought to be organized in such a way, that they would prove acceptable to us no matter whose point of view we take.
o He would argue that the only way we can reach this conclusion is to seek out this original perspective from behind a veil of ignorance, to strive towards a perspective of ignorance with regard to our position and instead to strive toward impartiality.
Reality check: Sharing the pie
o Imagine your favorite dessert. You can cut a pie before the arrival of the guests, you don’t know which slice will be yours once, and your guests are allowed to choose their first. (This is comparable to having to decide behind the veil of ignorance.)
o So, you are likely to cut each slice the same size so that you will at least end up with a slice as large as everyone else and, at least, no smaller. The same will be true, Rawl would argue, with the distribution of goods and services in a social group.
o If you are not certain in which group you might fall once the hypothetical (假设的) veil is lifted, you are most likely to treat each group with the greatest care and equality in case that is the group in which you later find yourself.

Rawlsian Justice: Lessons Learned for Economics and Business institutions
o Rawls derives two fundamental principles of justice from this original position.
o The first principle states that each individual is to have an equal right to the most extensive system of liberties(自由权)- equal rights are a fundamental element of social justice.
o The second principle that is derived from the veil of ignorance holds that benefits and burdens of a society should generally be distributed equally.

Virtue That Support Business Transactions
· Trust, Self-control, Empathy(【心】神入;移情), Fairness, Truthfulness, Learning, Gratitude(感激之情), Civility(礼貌 ), Moral leadership.
Virtue Ethic: Making Decisions based on Integrity and Character
· Ethics also involves questions about the type of person one should become.
· Virtue Ethics is a tradition within philosophical ethics that seeks a full and detailed description of those character trait(特征 ), or virtues(美德), that would constitute(构成) a good and full human life.

Virtue Ethics
· An ethics of virtue shifts the focus from questions about what a person should do, to a focus on who that person is.
· Implicit in this distinction is the recognition that our identity as a person is constituted in part bu our wants, beliefs, value and attitudes.
· Character is identical to a person’s most fundamental and enduring dispositions, attitudes, value, and beliefs.
· Virtue ethics recognizes that human beings act in and from character.
· By adulthood, these character traits typically are deeply ingrained and conditioned within us.
· Virtue ethics seeks to understand how our traits are formed and which traits bolster and which undermine a meaningful, worthwhile, and satisfying human life.
· Rather than simply describing people as good or bad, right or wrong, an ethics of virtue encourages a fuller description.
· Faced with a difficult dilemma, we might ask what would a person with integrity(廉正) do?
In other words, you might consider someone you believe to be virtuous(有道德的) and ask yourself what that person would do in this situation.

Three Types of Justice
· Distributive justice
o An evaluation of the outcomes or results of a business relationship (evaluating benefits derived/equity in reward)

· Procedural justice
o Based on the processes and activities that produce the outcomes or results (evaluating decision making processes and level of access, openness and participation)

· Interactional justice
o Based on an evaluation of the communication processes used in business relationships (evaluating accuracy of information and truthfulness, respect and courtesy(礼貌 ) in the process)

Applying Moral Philosophy to Ethical Decision Making
· Evidence suggests that individuals use different moral philosophies depending on the context (personal versus work decisions).
- Pressures at work are different from personal pressures.
- Decision making is affected by the corporate culture at work (rules, work group, etc)
· Moral philosophies should be assessed on a continuum.

Cognitive Moral Development
· Kohlberg’s model consist of 6 stages:
1. Punishment and obedience(服从)
2. Individual instrumental purpose and exchange
3. Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and conformity(遵从)
4. Social system and conscience(善恶观念) maintenance
5. Prior right, social contract or utility(效用,功利)
6. Universal ethical principles

Kohlberg’s Model
· Kohlberg’s 6 stages can be reduced to 3 different levels of ethical concern:
I. Concern with immediate interests and with rewards and punishments
II. Concern with “right” as expected by larger society or some significant reference group
III. Seeing beyond norms, laws, and the authority of groups or individuals

Important of Kohlberg’s Theory
· Provides encouragement that individuals in a company can change or improve their moral development
· Support management’s development of employees’ moral principles through applicable strategies
· Indicates that the best way to improve employees’ business ethics is to provide training for cognitive moral development

White-collar Crime
· An individual or group committing an illegal act in relation to his/her employment
· Highly educated, in a position of power, trust, respectability, and responsibility
· Abuses the trust and authority normally associated with the position for personal and/or organizational gains
· Eg. Unnecessary repair, credit card fraud, exchange account fraud, false stockholder information.

The Right to Privacy: What right?
· Privacy is a surprisingly vague and disputed value in contemporary society
· Calls for greater protection of privacy have increased, yet, there is widespread confusion concerning the nature, extent, and value of privacy.
What is privacy? Two general and connected understandings of privacy can be found in the legal and philosophical literature on this topic: Privacy as a right to be “let alone” within a personal zone of solitude, and Privacy as the right to control information about oneself.

The Value of Privacy
· Privacy is important because it serves to establish the boundary between individuals and thereby serves to define one’s individuality.
· The right to control certain extremely personal decisions and information help determine the kind of person we are and the person we become.
· To the degree that we value the inherent dignity of each individual and treating each person with respect, we must recognize that certain personal decisions and information is rightfully the exclusive domain of the individual.

What is privacy?
Many people believe that a right to be let alone is much too broad to be recognized as a moral right. This has led some people to conclude that a better understanding focuses on privacy as involving control of personal information.
From this perspective, the clearest case of an invasion of privacy occurs when others come to know personal information about us, as when a stranger reads your email or ease drops on a personal conservation. Yet, this also might be too broad of an understanding if we are to claim a right of privacy implies a right to control all personal information.

Ethical Sources of a right to Privacy: privacy as a Universal Right
· The right to privacy is founded in the individual’s fundamental, universal right to autonomy, in our right to make decisions about our personal existence without restriction.
· This right Is restricted by a social contract in our culture that prevents use from infringing on someone else’s right to her or his personal autonomy.

Property rights as a source of privacy right
· Finally, legal analysis of privacy using a property right perspective yields additional insight.
· “Property” is an individual’s life and all non-proactive of her or his life. Derivatives may include thoughts and idea, as well as personal information.
· The concept of property right involves a determine of who maintains control over tangible and intangible, including therefore personal information.
· Property rights relating to personal information therefore define actions that individuals can take in relation to other individuals regarding their personal information.
· If one individual has a right to her or his personal information, someone else has a equivalent duty to observe that right.

Legal Sources of a Right to privacy
There are three ways in which privacy may be legally protected:
· By the Constitution (federal or state)
· By federal and/pr state statutes, and
· By the Common Law.

Constitutional Protections
· The Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protection against an unreasonable search ans seizure governs only the public sector workplace through the Constitution’s application only to State action.
· Therefore, unless the employer is the government or other representative of the State, the Constitution generally will not apply.

Statutory Protections
· From a statutory perspective, there is little, if any, protection from workplace intrusions.
· The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) prohibits the “interception” or unauthorized access of stored communications.
· However, courts have ruled that “interception” applies only to messages in transit and not to messages that have actually reached company computers.
· Therefore, the impact of the EPCA is to punish electronic monitoring only by third parties and not by employers.

Common Law Protections
· The “invasion of privacy” claim with which most people are familiar is one that developed through case law called “intrusion into seclusion.”
· This legal violation occurs when someone intentionally intrudes on the private affairs of another when the intrusion would be “highly offensive to a reasonable person.”
What is Reasonable? Most recent decisions with regard to monitoring specifically seem to depend on whether the worker had notice that the monitoring occurs. Since the basis for finding an invasion of privacy is often the employee’s legitimate and reasonable expectation of privacy, if an employee has actual notice, then there truly is no real expectation of privacy.

Whom can you trust?
· That trust is truly the crux [(问题的)中心] of the issue with the introduction of new technology.
· When consumers rely on technology provided by a business- from email to internet access and from cell phones to medical labs- they might easily assume that the business will respect their privacy.
· Most average email users do not understand the technology behind the process.
· One would like to believe that those responsible for the technology are, themselves, accountable to the user. That would be the ideal.

Recommended Moral Requirements
Economist Antonio Argandona contends that, if new technology is dependent on and has as its substance information and data, there should be significant moral requirements imposed on that information. He suggest the following as necessary elements:
· Truthfulness and accuracy: The person providing the information must ensure that it is truthful and accurate, at least to a reasonable degree.
· Respect for privacy: The person receiving or accumulating information must take into account the ethical limits of individuals’ (and organizations’) privacy. This would include issues relating to company secrets, expionage, intelligence gathering.
· Respect for property and safety rights: Areas of potential vulnerability, including network security, sabotage, theft of information and impersonation, are enhanced and must therefore be protected.
· Accountability: Technology allows for greater anonymity and distance, requiring a concurrent increased exigency for personal responsibility and accountability.

Business reasons to Limit Monitoring
· Monitoring may create a suspicious and hostile workplace.
· Monitoring may arguably constrain effective performance since it can cause increased stress and pressure, negatively impacting performance and having the potential to cause physical disorders such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
· Stress might also result from a situation where workers do not have the opportunity to review and correct misinformation in the data collected. These elements will lead not only to an unhappy, disgruntled worker who perhaps will seek alternative employment but to lower productivity and performance that will reap higher costs and fewer returns to the employer.
· Finally, employees claim that monitoring is an inherent invasion of privacy in violation of their fundamental human right to privacy.

Balancing Interest: Employer/Employee
· It has been suggested that due notice given to employees that they will be monitored, plus the opportunity to avoid monitoring in certain situations would solve the ethical problems.
· Perhaps the most effective means to achieve monitoring objectives while remaining sensitive to the concerns of employees is to strive towards a balance that respects individual dignity while also holding individuals accountable for their particular roles in the organization.

What would a “Balanced” Monitoring program Look Like?
· A monitoring program developed according to the mission of the organization (eg with integrity), then implemented in a manner that remains accountable to the impacted employees, approaches that balance.
- No monitoring in private areas (eg restroom)
- Monitoring limited to within the workplace
- Employees should have access to information gathered through monitoring
- No secret monitoring- advance notice required
- Monitoring should only result in attainment of some business interest
- Employer may only collect job-related information
- Agreement regarding disclosure of information gained through monitoring
- Prohibition of discrimination by employers based on off-work activities.
A balanced Monitoring Program. The parameters on the previous slide allow the employer to effectively and ethically supervise the work done by her or his employees, to protect against misused of resources, and to have an appropriate mechanism by which to evaluate each worker’s performance, thus respecting the legitimate business interest of the employers.

Monitoring Employees through Drug testing
· With regard to drug or other substance testing, the employer has a strong argument in favour of testing based on the law.
· Since the employer is often responsible for legal violations of its employees committed in the course of their job, the employer’s interest in retaining control over every aspect of the work environment increases.
· On the other hand, employees may argue that their drug usage is only relevant if it impacts their job performance.
· Until it does, the employer should have no basis for testing.
Legality of Drug Testing
· In the seminal legal case on the issue, Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, the Court addressed the question of whether certain forms of drug and alcohol testing violate the Fourth Amendment.
· In Skinner, the defendant justified testing railway workers based on safety concerns- “to prevent accidents and casualties in railroad operations that result from impairment of employees by alchohol or drugs.”
· The court held that “ the Government’s interest in regulating the conduct of railroad employees to ensure safety, like its supervision of probationers or regulated industries, or its operation of a government office, school, or prison, likewise present ‘special needs’ beyond normal law enforcement that may justify departures from the usual warrant and probable-cause requirements.”
· It was clear to the Court that the governmental interest in ensuring the safety of the traveling public and of the employees themselves “plainly justifies prohibiting covered employees from using alcohol or drugs on duty, or while subject to being called for duty.”
The issue then for the Court was whether, absent a warrant or individualized suspicion, the means by which the defendant monitored compliance with this prohibition justified the privacy intrusion.
· In reviewing the justification, the Court focused on the fact that permission to dispensed with warrants its strongest where “the burden of obtaining a warrant is likely to frustrate the government purpose behind the search.”
· The court recognized that “alcohol and other drugs are eliminated from the bloodstream at a constant rate and blood and breath samples taken to measure whether these substance were in the bloodstream when a triggering event occurred must be obtained as soon as possible.”
The Court therefore concluded that the railway’s compelling interests outweighed privacy concern since the proposed testing “is not an undue infringement on the justifiable expectations of privacy of covered employees.”

Ethics of Drug Testing
· Where public safety is at risk, there is arguably a compelling public interest claim from a utilitarian perspective that may be sufficiently persuasive to outweigh any one individual’s right to privacy or right to control information about oneself.
Other forms of Monitoring
· Employers are limited in their collection of information through other various forms of testing, such as polygraphs or medical tests.
· Employers are constrained by a business necessity and relatedness standard or, in the case of polygraphs, by a requirement of reasonable suspicion.
· With regard to medical information specifically, employer’s decisions are not only governed by the Americans With Disabilities Act but also restricted by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
· HIPAA stipulates that employers cannot use “protected health information” in making employment decisions without prior consent.
· Protected health information includes all medical records or other individually identifiable health information.

The Future of Testing
· Genetic testing and screening of both employees and consumers, is another new technology that will offer businesses a wealth of information about potential employees and customers.

D.O.B tells about You

2008-12-04T11:31:00.003+08:00

If U were born on the 1st, 10th, 19th,28th of any month U r number 1...

If U were born on the 2nd, 11th, 20th,29th of any month then U r number 2...

If U were born on the 3rd, 12th, 21st,30th of any month then U r number 3...

If U were born on the 4th, 13th, 22nd,31st of any month then U r number 4...

If U were born on the 5th, 14th, 23rdof any month then U r number 5...

If U were born on the 6th,15th,24th ofany month then U r number 6...

If U were born on the 7th,16th,25th ofany month then U r number 7...

If U were born on the 8th,17th,26th ofany month then U r number 8...

If U were born on the 9th,18th,27th ofany month then U r number 9...

Number 1

You are smart, straight talking,funny, stubborn, hardworking, honest,jealous on competing basis, kindhearted, angry, friendly, authorities,famous person...always want to be andregarded as first on people position,they are often like to be independent,will never be under others, selfconfident people!You are most likely to fall in love inthe younger age, but will get marrywhen you mature! You are likely tohave problems with people who haveopposite views and you are most likelyto take revenge over your enemies in along time basis. You are a spender,but you will have a good profession inthe future. If you are guy you will bevery popular that everybody will havemental attraction and respect at you.You can go anywhere from the localshop to the heart of the parliamentbecause you are positive and welltalented in numerous issues!! But inyour life you will always have somepeople who will work hard to bring you& your name down. This is undercover!!Coz of your smart behavior you will behated by some people too... Yourfamily life is very cool, you willhave a very nice partner & wonderfulchildren... You are pioneer,independent & original...Your best match is 4,6,8 good match is3,5,7 !!!

Number 2

No matter what, you will be loved byevery one coz your ruler is the Moonand every one loves the Moon. Well..you are a person who day dream a lot,you have very low-self confidence, youneed back up for every move in yourlife, you are very much unpredictable.Means you do change according to timeand circumstances, kind a selfish,have a very strong sense of musical,artistic talent, verbal communication.Your attitudes are like the Moon,comes to gloom and fade away soeverybody can expect changes in you.You can be a next Mahatma Gandhi whodoes peace love or you can be a Hitlerwho wants to destroy the man kind andpeace (I mean in the community andyour own home).If you really have a deep thoughtabout your own believe in God you canfeel the difference which will makeyou stronger! Most of the time yourwords are a kind of would be happeningtrue! So without any knowledge you canpredict the situation... You willbecome poets, writers, any artisticbusiness people!You are not strong in love, so youwill be there and here till you getmarry.. If U r a girl you will be aresponsible woman in the whole family.If U r a man you will involve infights & arguments in the family orvice-versa.. Means you will sacrificeyour life for the goodness sake ofyour family....You are gentle ,intuitive with a broad vision, a powerbehind the scenes, well balancedPeople!!!Your best match is 2 ,5 ,9 no otherpeople can put up with you !!!

Number 3

You are a person of hard hearted,selfish most of the times, religious,loves to climb up in your life. Youalways tend to have lots of problemswithin your family in the early stagesbut you will put up with everything...You have the strong word power, prettyhappy face.. so wherever you go alwaysyou have got what you wanted!!! Andfrom the birth always wanted to workhard in order to achieve something..You will not get anything without hardwork! When you reach a man/ woman ageyou want other younger once to listento you because you want younger peopleto respect people older than them. Youdo set so many examples to others.Generally you are not a cool person.It's not easy thing dealing with you.A tough player you are! But once youlike someone's attitud! e then hereyou go, what can I say? It will be alasting friendship. You always haverespect from others. Your life seemsto have lots of worries and problemsbut sure they won't be long.. You willalways have brilliant kids!!! You lovethe money a bit too much so temptationwill push you to endless trying andtrying.. If you are a guy then it'sover. Looking after your family andhelp friends, so you will spend a lifetime just being generous and kind(except 21st born men). And number 3syou will be such an example of how tobe in the culture & life!!! If you aregirl then you have good character andculture & hardworking attitude. Youalways follow. You are a freedomlover, creative, ambition focused, aperson who brings beauty , hope & joyto this world!!!Your best match 5, 9. Good match1 ,3 ,6 !!!

Number 4

You are very stubborn too, very hardworking but unlucky in importantmatters in life, very cool, helpful,you have rough word power.. Might putlots of people away from you, you maycause nuisance to others if you are aman, and you often understands othersand their problems well. If you are agirl you are very good with studiesand arts. If you are a guy you spendmost of the time after girl friends(almost) at times, you will have sortof too much fun life with mates &girls. Your friends will spend yourtime & money and get away with theirlife and you will become empty handedand don't know what to do.. So becareful!! You love to spend anyway!!!Your good will is you are always thereto help family and friends. Tell youwhat you people are little gem! s,specially the girls.. You always fallin love in younger age as well. Youoften live with disappointments, foran example you have got a degree insome thing.. but you will beunemployed... or will do very ordinaryjobs. But you will take care of yourfamily very well...All you need to becareful of people who will takeadvantage of your kind heart. Andbeware of your relations too.. You areradical, patient, persistent, a bitold-fashioned, you live withfoundation & order...Your best Match 1, 8. Good match5 ,6 , 7 !!!

Number 5

You are very popular within thecommunity, you can get things done byjust chatting..to even enemies! Youhave a pretty good business mind, youare often have no-idea what is todayis like, or tomorrow is like, you area person who does anything when yourhead thinks 'lets do this'. You willbe famous if you open up a business,get involve in share dealings, musicetc.. Very popular with sense ofhumor ,you are the one your friendsand families will always ask for help,and you are the one actually get moneyon credit and help your friends. Youwill have more than 1 relationship,but when u get settle down you will bea bit selfish anyway. Coz your otherhalf will have a pretty good amount ofcontrol in you, be careful! You tendto go for other relationships!Contacts even you are married attimes 'coz your popularity.. You aresomeone who get along with anyone cozthe number 5 is the middle number..Changes & freedom lovers you are! Youare an explorer with magic on yourface. You learn your life throughexperience and it's your bestteacher!!!Your best match 1 ,3 ,9. Good match6 ,8 !!!

Number 6

Ooopppss..you are born to enjoy.. Youdon't care about others. I mean youare always want to enjoy your lifetime, you are a person... You will bevery good in either education or workwise or business management! You aretalented, kind (but with only peoplewho you think are nice), verybeautiful girls and guys, popular andmore than lucky with anything in yourlives. All the goodness does come withyou. Your mind and body is just madeperfect for love. You are lovable byany other numbers. But if you are anumber 6 man, you will experience kindof looks from most girls and willinvolve in more than few relationshipsuntil you get married. If you aregirl, most of you will getmarry/engaged early. You are ! acaring person towards your family &friends . If you miss the half-waymark then you are about to sufferphysically and mentally. Generally youwill lead a very good inner-homehappiness with nothing short of. Youare a person of compassion, comfort &fairness, domestic responsibility,good judgment, and after all you canheal this world wounds to make peacefor every life coz you have the greatpower of caring talent to make thisworld of love one step further...Your best match 1, 6, 9. Good match 4,5!!!

Number 7

You have got the attraction to anyoneout there, you are realistic, veryconfident, happy, such a talentedindividual with your education, music,arts, singing, and most importantlyacting too. You have real problemswith bad temper! If you are a girl,you are popular with the subjectslisted above. You give up things foryour parents. I mean you value yourfamily status a lot, you will be inthe top rank when you reach a certainage. If you are a guy you are popularwith girls, you are a very talentedtoo. Most of the number 7s face lotsof problems with their marriage life.Only a very few are happy. You haveeverything in your life, but stillalways number 7s have some sort ofunfullfilness, such worries all theirlifetime. It's probably the Lord givenyou al! l sort of over the standardhumans talents and you are about tosuffer in family life. So you need toget ready looking for a partner ratherthan waiting. If you don't, then youmight end-up single. So take care withthis issue, ok? You are wonderful,friendly, artistic, happy person. Youare born to contribute lots to thisworld!!!Your best match is 2. Good matches are1,4 !!!

Number 8

You are a very strong personality,there's no one out there willunderstand you. You are very good atpointing your finger at some thing andsay 'this is what'.. You are morelikely to suffer from the early ages.I mean poverty. If your times are notgood you might lose either of yourparent and end up looking after yourentire family. You often suffer allthe way in life. The problems will notallow you to study further, but youwill learn the life in a verypractical way. You are the one whowill fight for justice and may die inthe war too. You are normally veryreserved with handful of friends andmost of the time live life lonely andalways prepared to help others. Well.once you get married (which is oftenlate) then your bad lucks will go awaya bit and you! u become safe. You willface un-expected problems such as :the error, government, poisonousanimals, accidents. You are some onewith great discipline, persistence,courage, strength which will take youto success. You are a great part of afamily team. You are a fighter!Your Best match 1 ,4, 8. Good match5 !!!

Number 9

Hey..you guys are the incompatiblespeople in the world. You are sostrong, physically and mentally. Youare often have big-aims. You will workhard and hard to get there. Normallyyou suffer in the early age fromfamily problems and generally you willhave fighting life. But when youachieve what you have done, it'salways a big task you have done! Youare so much respected in thecommunity, you are a person who canmake a challenge and successfullyfinish the matter off. You are verynaughty in your younger age, oftenbeaten up by your parents and involvein fights and you seemed to have lotsof injuries in your life time. Butwhen u grow you become calm and machotype. Love is not an easy matter foryou. You are good in engineering orbanking jobs coz people always trustyou. Your family life is very good,but will have worries over yourchildren. Your such qualities arehumanitarian, patient, very wise &compassionate. You are born to achievetargets and serve every one allequally without any prejudice. You aretotally a role model to anybody in theworld for a great inspiration.Your Best match 3, 5, 6, 9. Good match2

Balance Scorecard

2008-12-03T15:43:00.002+08:00

During year 1992, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton had publicizing a series of journal articles about Balance Scorecard (BSC) in the Harvard Business Review caused a lot of attention for their method, and led to their business bestseller book which had published in 1996, “The Balance Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action”.
Kaplan and Norton (1996) define Balanced Scorecard as a strategic planning and management system used to align business activities to the vision statement in managing the business better at every level. Before implementing of balance scorecard, an organization must know and understand what is the organization’s mission statement and strategic plan or vision. Four perspectives are needed to translate an organization’s vision and strategy into implementation, those are:
i) Financial perspective
ii) Customer perspective
iii) Business process perspective
iv) Learning and growth perspective

According to Dinesh and Palmer (1998); McAdam and O’Neill (1999), in order to balance the non-financial and financial issues, BSC had develop four perspectives to be the core idea. This balance can be achieved by balancing between financial and non financial issues, and short-term and long-term goals (Hepworth, 1998).

1 Financial Perspective
The financial perspective is to determine or examine on an organization’s execution and implementation of its strategies are contributing to the lower-line improvement of the organization. This means its had cover the short-term and long-term strategic objectives of the organization. Thus it was merging the intangible output of the strategy into traditional financial terms. There are three stages had been described by Kaplan and Norton (1996):
i) Rapid growth,
ii) Sustain, and
iii) Harvest
In measurement of the growth stage of an organization, it need to clearly stated out the financial objectives which evaluate from the development and growth of the organization which will lead to increased in sales volumes, acquisition of new market share, growth in revenue etc. On the other hand, in sustain stage will be portray by evaluate the effectiveness of the organization to manage its operations and costs. Ways to manage the operations and costs id through calculating the return on investment, the return on capital employed, etc. Lastly, cash flow analysis with measures such payback periods and revenue will be examine in harvest stage. The most common financial measures which had been used are economic value added (EVA), revenue growth, costs, profit margins, cash flow, net operating income etc.

2 Customer Perspective
In this perspective, it is concern about customer satisfaction and thus generate more sales from the most profitable customer groups. The measurement is about an organization value that is delivered to the customer which may involve time, quality, performance and service. Besides that, cost and the outcomes that will affect this value proposition need to be included. Value proposition is refer to customer satisfaction, markets share and etc. The value proposition core judgments is refer to operational excellence, customer intimacy or product leadership while maintaining threshold levels at value delivered to the customer and costs (Kaplan et al., 1996).

3 Internal Process Perspective
Processes that create and deliver the customer value proposition are the issues concern about in internal process perspective. In this section, all the activities and key processes required by the organization to excel at providing the value expected by the customers will be focus on both in productively and efficiently. Moreover, for providing such value expected, organization need to incorporate innovative process development in order to stimulate improvement on short-term and long-term objective. Kaplan and Norton (1996) proposed to used certain clusters that group similar value creating processes in an organization to identify the measures that correspond to the internal process perspective. Those clusters for the internal process perspective are:
i) Operations management
ii) Customer management
iii) Innovation, and
iv) Regulatory & social
Operations management is emphasize on improving asset utilization, supply chain management and so on, however, customer management is emphasizing on expanding and deepening relations. Innovation is emphasizing on new products and services. Finally, regulatory and social emphasize on establishing good relations with the external stakeholders.

4 Learning and Growth Perspective
Learning and growth perspective mainly focus on the internal skills and capabilities that are required to support the value-creating internal processes. This perspective is the foundation of any strategy and focuses on the intangible assets of an organization. Areas that concerned on are human capital, information capital, organization capital of the organization. Jobs, systems and the climate of an organization relate to Kaplan and Norton (1996) claim. Those are the infrastructure that is needed in order to enable ambitious objectives in the other three perspectives to be achieved. This perspective is contributing to long-term success and will require certain expenditures that may decrease short-term financial results.

Review of Pass Studies
At the core of the BSC is the idea that organizations should develop strategies that are balanced. This balance is achieved by balancing between financial and non-financial issues, and short-term and long-term goals (Hepworth, 1998). Amaratunga (2001) point out that the use of the BSC itself will not guarantee success. Instead, they argue that the strength of the BSC is in the process of building it that is supposed to involve members of the organization. Besides that, Braam and Nijssen (2004) had done a survey of the BSC show that some studies found evidence that the BSC did lead to improved performance. Evidence from a study of 66 Australian firms show that use of the BSC lead to improved performance. Some more, besides firms in Australia, the BSC had also been adopted by companies in Europe and United States (Braam & Nijssen, 2004; Malmi, 2001; Speckbacher et al.,2003).

Davis (1996) found out that BSC program requires getting at all levels involved in setting performance measures. Thus, difficulty in studying BSC implementation is that there is no consensus on what the BSC is about (Davis, 1996; Speckbacher et. al. 2003). Altinkemer (1998) argue that the introduction of management technique needs to be seen as a change management process. Futher more, there is few main factors due to failure of BSC are:
i) The information system is Not sufficiently developed to manage the information requirement of performance management;
ii) Lack of leadership and resistance to change;
iii) The initiative did not use state of the art performance improvement method; (d) Perceived lack of benefit;
iv) Concerns about personal consequences of performance measurements (Bourne et al., 2002).
Although there are many critique of BSC, but it also had bring a lot of benefits to some company. The below are the expected benefits from Kaplan and Norton (1996):
i) Balances strategy with financial and non financial issues enables the organization to ensure that the internal capabilities and activities of the organization are aligned with the external objectives of the strategy.
ii) Would derived understanding from the short term and long term issues through strategic outcome and the drivers of these outcomes.
iii) BSC provides management with the measures that can be used to steer the organization towards its strategic objectives.
iv) Strategy map and scorecard enable the organization to communicate the essence of its strategy more effectively.
v) Process of involving managers in an iterative process creates feedback that enables the testing of the strategy’s business hypothesis.

BSC combines important practices and concepts from various aspects and information into a single performance measurement for the purpose of improving financial performance. Manila and Selto (2001) investigate that the effectiveness of the BSC in combining strategic objectives and serving as a management control purpose. They figure out evidence was there is an indirect relationship between BSC’s management control function and improved performance on BSC measures. However, they found out in the large manufacturing organization managers perceived improved performance on the BSC would lead to improved efficiency and profitability.
Another study has investigated directly the relationship between improved financial performance and the implementation of a BSC. Banker et al (2000) testing the association between improved financial performance and non financial measure in a hotel industry where a new incentive program included an emphasis on customer satisfaction. They figure out that there is a relationship between customer satisfaction and future financial performance that suggests the implementation of the new incentive program positively impacted targeted non financial measure and ultimately improved financial performance for the hotels on the new incentive program.

Skandal susu China yang diakibatkan oleh Syarikat San Lu

2008-12-02T15:10:00.004+08:00

Skandal susu China yang diakibatkan oleh Syarikat San Lu telah menyebabkan kematian kanak-kanak di China. Berita ini bukan sahaja menyebabkan ibu bapa yang mempunyai bayi berasa panic, malah masyarakat seluruh dunia juga membimbang akan produk-produk lain yang mengandungi melamine.

Melamine adalah bahan organic yang terdiri daripada karbon, oksigen dan nitrogen yang digunakan dalam bidang pembuatan resin plastic, bahan pembersih, gam, baja dan lain-lain. Malahan, Syarikat San Lu telah menggunakan melamine dalam penghasilan susu tepuk untuk menguat keuntungan tanpa menghiraukan aspek keselamatan dan kesihatan pengguna. Melamine merupakan bahan yang tidak larut dalam air, tetapi ia masih boleh disingkirkan melalui urin. Walaupun begitu, buah pinggang manusia adalah terhad, melamine dos yang tinggi akan menjejas fungsi pundi air jencing dan ginjal tidak lagi mampu menyinkirkannya dari tubuh badan. Oleh itu, kepekatan melamine semakin bertambah dan seterusnya membentuk batu karang yang boleh menyebabkan kegagalan ginjal yang serious.

Perbuatan Syarikat San Lu akan dibincangkan dalam kandungan tugasan ini melalui pandangan agama dan teori moral. Teori yang akan dibincangkan ialah utilitarianisme dan eksistensialisme, malah bagi aspek agama pula ialah agama Ialam dan Budhisme.

Sejak meletusnya perkara bahawa produk susu di Negara China mengandungi bahan organik iaitu melamin, ianya telah mendatangkan beberapa kesan kepada pihak yang tertentu. Pengguna mula berasa bimbang, pekilang susu mengalami kerugian yang teruk dan beberapa imej produk susu yang terkenal telah diburuk-burukkan.

Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia gagal menjalankan pemeriksaan dalam masa yang dijangka oleh pengguna selepas berlakunya susu Syarikat San Lu didapati mengandungi melamin. Akan tetapi, Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia telah memaparkan laporan pemeriksaan semua produk yang berkaitan dengan susu di laman web yang boleh dilayari oleh semua pihak bagi membekalkan maklumat yang terkini berkenaan dengan isu di atas. Perkara ini adalah patut dikenalpastikan dan amat membanggakan.

Produk susu di negara kita belum lagi sampai ke tahap yang serius seperti negara China. Seterusnya, kita masih hendak bergantung kepada Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia supaya mendirikan lebih banyak bilik pemeriksaan dengan segera dan mempercepatkan pemeriksaan spesimen yang dikumpul. Ini bukan sahaja memberikan satu petunjuk yang jelas kepada pengguna-pengguna tentang keselamatan makanan, malah juga dapat menegakkan keadilan bagi peniaga-peniaga dan produk-produk yang disyaki beracun.

Skandal susu China 2008 adalah kes pertama mengenai kematian kanak-kanak di China akibat pengambilan susu yang dicemari kandungan melamine. Skandal ini telah menimbulkan suasana panik terutama di kalangan ibu bapa yang mempunyai bayi. Skandal susu China 2008 yang berlaku di Syarikat San Lu juga telah membongkarkan produk-produk lain yang bercampur melamine.

Skandal susu China 2008 bukan sahaja menjejaskan imej China, malah, juga menjejaskan reputasi produk-produk yang dibuat oleh China. Ini juga menyebabkan pengguna-pengguna menimbulkan perasaan ketakutan dengan produk-produk yang dibuat oleh China.

Syarikat San Lu mencampurkan bahan kimia yang beracun, melamine ke dalam produk susunya demi mengaut keuntungan yang lebih. Walaupun keuntungan Syarikat San Lu tinggi, tetapi mengabaikan kualiti produk-produk. Perbuatan Syarikat San Lu telah menyebabkan pengguna berasa kecewa.

Sebagai pengguna dalam hal ini diminta mendapatkan maklumat terkini dari Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia. Contohnya, website, telefon, kenyataan akhbar. Pengguna dinasihatkan membaca label makanan sebelum membeli.

Langkah-langkah untuk mengelakkan makanan yang mengandungi melamine harus diambil perhatian oleh semua pihak. Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia perlu menguji dengan teliti bagi makanan yang diimport dan mempaparkan isu-isu yang terkini untuk masyarakat. Peniaga-peniaga harus menyemak dengan teliti untuk semua barang makanan yang dibeli untuk dijual semula, malah pengguna harus selalu mengikuti perkembangan terbaru tentang produk makanan yang disyaki dan membaca isi kandungan makanan sebelum menggunakannya.

Sebagai kesimpulan, perbuantan Syarikat San Lu adalah tidak wajar dari aspek teori utilitarianisme, eksistensialisme, agama Islam dan Buddha. Syarikat San Lu telah menyebabkan seluruh dunia berada dalam situasi yang bimbang kerana masyarakat takut termakan makanan yang mengandungi melamine dan kesihatan dijejas atau membawa maut.

Perbincangan dari segi Agama Buddha tentang Melamine

2008-12-02T15:07:00.002+08:00

Asas agama Buddha merupakan sesuatu yang tidak kekal dan saling bergantung antara satu sama lain serta melakukan kebaikan dan menjauhi dari segala kejahatan dan menjernihkan hati. Setiap Buddhis digalakkan untuk mengikuti cara kehidupan seperti yang dinyatakan dalam Jalan Lapan Lapis Mulia yang diajar oleh Buddha. Jalan Lapan Lapis Mulia ini boleh diibaratkan sebagai peta jalan seseorang insan. Jalan Lapan Lapis Mulia terdiri daripada kefahaman benar, pemikiran benar, kata-kata benar, tingkahlaku benar, usaha benar, kehidupan benar, kesedaran benar dan meditasi benar. Ia merupakan prinsip- prinsip panduan dalam kehidupan kita. Segala nasihat dan bimbingan praktikal yang diberikan oleh Buddha dalam Jalan Lapan Lapis Mulia. Usaha menghapuskan konflik yang disebabkan oleh ketidakpuasan dalam kehidupan boleh didapati di sini. Kehidupan setiap insan akan penuh dengan ketenteraman dan kebahagiaan sekiranya mengikut Jalan Tengah ini. Tindakan yang berlebihan atau terlalu kurang ialah tindakan yang jahat, salah dan buruk. Syarikat San Lu telah melakukan perbuatan yang tidak wajar, ia sepatutnya mengikut jalan tengah untuk melaksanakan segala tugas, bukannya melakukan tindakan yang berlebihan dengan mencampurkan bahan kimia ke dalam produk mereka yang boleh menjejaskan kesihatan pengguna.

Dalam kes tersebut, Syarikat San Lu tidak mengamalkan kefahaman benar. Kefahaman benar merujuk kepada pemahaman yang betul terhadap sesuatu terutamanya kehidupan. Setiap orang harus mempunyai sikap ingin tahu dan kritikal sebab manusia mudah dipengaruhi oleh pelbagai jenis idea, pendapat, pandangan yang baik dan buruk. Manusia juga mudah dikeliru dengan tayangan filem, video, televisyen, radio dan gambar-gambar menarik yang boleh menyebabkan ia terbabas dari jalan yang benar dan pemahaman yang betul. Syarikat San Lu sepatutnya membuat penyelidikan terlebih dahulu dan seharusnya membuktikan bahawa bahan-bahan yang digunakan untuk memproses produk adalah halal. Pihak-pihak San Lu tidak sepatutnya menjalankan perniagaan yang mengaut keuntungan tanpa pandangan yang betul. Mereka harus faham bahawa nyawa manusia adalah sesuatu yang tidak ternilai dan tidak boleh ditamatkan dengan sewenang-wenangnya.

Aspek lain yang tidak diamalkan oleh Syarikat San Lu ialah pemikiran benar iaitu perkembangan dari kefahaman benar dan bermaksud fikiran yang betul, tiada niat jahat dan tidak akan menyakitkan hati orang lain. Fikiran yang betul memainkan peranan yang penting dalam kehidupan seseorang kerana semua kelakuan atau pertuturan yang dibuat oleh seseorang akan berdasarkan pemikirannya sama ada pertuturan atau perlakuan yang baik atau buruk. Pihak-pihak dari Syarikat San Lu seharusnya mempunyai pemikiran yang betul, malah bukannya berniat jahat untuk memikirkan cara-cara yang mengaut keuntungan sehingga mengabaikan nyawa pengguna. Pihak-pihak San Lu mesti bertindak dengan mengambil kira nyawa pengguna dan tidak cuba mencederakan pengguna.

Kelakuan moral seterusnya ialah tingkahlaku benar dari Jalan Lapan Lapis Mulia yang tidak diamalkan oleh Syarikat San Lu. Tingkahlaku benar menunjukkan setiap individu harus tahu apa yang sepatutnya dilakukan dan dielakkan. Ia sangat penting kerana memberikan keselamatan, kedamaian dan menghapuskan kebimbangan pihak yang lain termasuklah menghormati dan menghargai nyawa orang lain. Syarikat San Lu sepatutnya mengelakkan daripada perbuatan yang akan mencedera dan mengambil nyawa pengguna. Pihak San Lu mengetahui melamine merupakan bahan kimia yang beracun dan akan menjejaskan kesihatan, mereka sapatutnya menghalang dan memgelakkan melamine digunakan dalam proses pembuatan susu.

Mencari nafkah tanpa mendatangkan keburukan kepada makhluk lain merujuk kepada usaha benar. Ia juga merupakan amalan dan kelakuan moral yang tidak diamalkan oleh pihak-pihak Syarikat San Lu. Mereka mempunyai fikiran yang tidak suci kerana bersifat tamak dan produk susu mereka mengandungi melamine yang mendatangkan keburukan dan menjejaskan kesihatan pelanggan mereka. Usaha benar melarang perbuatan tersebut kerana ia bertentangan dengan prinsipnya. Syarikat San Lu tidak harus mencari keuntungan dengan cara ini dan mesti menghalang timbulnya fikiran yang tidak suci.

Kesedaran benar menjelaskan setiap individu mesti sedar tentang apa yang dilakukan setiap masa sama ada kelakuan, pertuturan atau fikiran. Ia amat diperlukan dalam kehidupan kita. Kita mesti selalu berwaspada terhadap perkara-perkara yang berlaku di sekeliling kita agar kemalangan tidak berlaku. Janganlah menjadi seorang yang lalai dan tidak mengawal perbuatan, pertuturan dan fikiran yang dipenuhi dengan sifat tamak, kegusaran dan kejahilan. Pihak Syarikat San Lu seharusnya mempunyai kesedaran bahawa melamine boleh membahayakan nyawa manusia. mereka tidak sepatutnya hilang kesedaran mereka dengan terlalu memikirkan cara cara mengaut keuntungan sehingga mengabai nyawa manusia. Mereka harus memastikan produk mereka tidak membawa kesan sampingan kepada pengguna untuk mengelakkan kejadian yang tidak diingini.

Perbincangan dari segi Agama Islam tentang Melamine

2008-12-02T15:06:00.004+08:00

Agama yang dipilih oleh kumpulan kami ialah Islam dan Budhisme. Islam bererti Allah memberi sejahtera atau selamat melalui wahyuNya kepada Muhammad. Islam merupakan agama yang mementingkan peribadatan dan penyembahan terus kepada Allah tanpa perantaraan. Terdapat 3 asas utama agama Islam iaitu Aqidah, Syariah dan Akhlak. Aqidah bermaksub semua orang Islam mempercayai bahawa Tuhan hanya satu, iaitu Allah dan tiada Tuhan yang lain. Undang-undang atau rujukan bagi semua urusan dan kehidupan seharian, social, jenayah, ekonomi, cara beribadah dan sebagainya merupakan Syariah.

Dari aspek agama Islam, Syarikat San Lu adalah tidak wajar kerana menggunakan melamine dalam produk susu yang menyebabkan kematian. Mereka seharusnya menjalankan urusan perniagaan mereka berpandukan agama mereka seperti mana yang diamalkan oleh orang Islam. Akhlak atau tingkahlaku pula menyatakan bahawa setiap perbuatan seseorang hendaklah dilakukan seperti diperhatikan dan diawasi oleh Allah. Jesteru itu, akhlak yang baik akan dilahirkan dan dipupuk dalam jiwa seseorang. Dengan ini, setiap manusia atau syarikat akan takut dan malu untuk melakukan kejahatan. Agama Islam tidak mengizinkan sesiapa mencederakan makhluk lain, tetapi Syarikat San Lu mencampurkan melamine ke dalam produk susunya demi mengaut keuntungan lumayan tanpa menghirau kesihatan pengguna dan membahayakan mereka.

Dari perspektif agama Islam, etika perniagaan bermaksud berniaga dengan menjagakan adab, peraturan dan kepentingan bersama. Etika perniagaan terdapat banyak ciri yang baik dari sudut pandangan Agama Islam seperti berniaga dengan jujur, tidak mementingkan diri sendiri, menjual barang yang halal sahaja, tidak memonopoli, tiada unsur judi, riba, meragukan atau perkara merugikan sebelah pihak dan lain lain.

Jujur merujuk kepada seorang peniaga atau sebuah perniagaan tidak akan menipu para pelanggan mereka. Mereka mesti memberitahu para pelaggan mereka tentang produk atau barangan mereka dan menyatakan kekurangan produk atau barangan jika ada, sebaliknya tidak menyembunyikannya. Contohnya, peniaga yang jujur hanya menjual produk atau barangan yang halal dan yang baik sahaja dan tidak akan menjual sesuatu yang sudah rosak atau sudah tidak boleh dipakai lagi tanpa pengetahuan pembeli. Syarikat San Lu tidak sepatutnya mencampurkan bahan kimia yang beracun ke dalam produk mereka kerana jika makanan yang mengandungi melamine dimakan secara berterusan, ia boleh memudaratkan nyawa seseorang dan membawa maut. Ini menunjukkan Syarikat San Lu tidak jujur kerana menyembunyikan bahan kimia melamine dari pengetahuan pelanggan.

Selain itu, seorang peniaga atau setiap perniagaan tidak harus mementingkan diri sendiri. Seorang peniaga atau sebuah perniagaan yang baik bukan sahaja mahu keuntungan semata-mata. Hakikatnya berniaga adalah salah satu cabang usaha yang mulia kerana ia memenuhi kehendak dan keperluan manusia. Dari asas kefahaman itu, usahawan atau peniaga yang beretika kenalah lebih mementingkan kesenangan orang lain. Ini tidak bermakna tidak perlu untung jika beretika, tetapi selain mendapat keuntungan, para pelanggan juga mendapat manfaat yang baik daripada produk atau barangan yang dijual tersebut. Syarikat San Lu tidak harusnya mementingkan kepentingan mereka sahaja dengan mengaut keuntungan yang lumayan tetapi juga memberi perhatian pada kepuasan pelanggan. Mereka hendaklah berniaga dengan lebih bertanggungjawab dan berdasarkan undang-undang perniagaan dan bukan dengan menambahkan melamine ke dalam produk susu mereka.

Menjual barangan yang halal sahaja juga harus diperhatikan oleh semua perniagaan dan peniaga. Salah satu aspek yang diutamakan di dalam Islam ialah menjual produk atau barangan yang bermanfaat, bersih atau dalam bahasa yang mudah, bukan sesuatu yang membahayakan. Halal ini bukan hanya untuk orang Islam semata-mata, tetapi ia amat sesuai untuk semua manusia di dunia ini kerana ia menjaga manusia daripada kemelaratan diri dan jiwa. Maka, para peniaga yang beretika perlulah menjual atau meniagakan sesuatu yang bermanfaat sahaja dan jangan sesekali melibatkan diri dengan perniagaan yang haram di sisi Agama. Contohnya menjual dadah, barangan curi, makanan yang jelas diharamkan oleh Agama dan apa sahaja yang membahayakan para pembeli. Syarikat San Lu menjual produk susu yang tidak halal kerana mencampurkan bahan yang tidak halal ke dalam produk susunya yang boleh membawa maut kepada pengguna.

Pandangan dari segi Eksistensialisme tentang Melamine

2008-12-02T15:05:00.003+08:00

Teori Eksistensialisme diperkenalkan oleh Ahli falsafah Eksistensialisme yang bernama Soren Kierkegaars, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel dan Jean Paul Sartre. Jean Paul Sartre ialah tokoh falsafah yang dianggap paling terkenal dengan falsafah Eksistensialisme. Beliau mengemukakan hujah mengenai eksistensialisme dalam bukunya “ Being and Nothingness”. Teori ini juga dikenali sebagai etika situasi. Etika situasi menilai sesuatu perbuatan sama ada wajar atau tidak wajar berdasarkan penilaian situasi atau keadaan pada waktu tersebut.

Berdasarkan teori Eksistensialisme, tindakan Syarikat San Lu di Negara China mencampurkan bahan kimia melamine ke dalam produk susunya demi mengaut keuntungan yang lebih adalah tidak wajar jika dinilai dari perspektif pengguna-pengguna produk susu Syarikat San Lu. Ini kerana syarikat tersebut cuma mementingkan faedah sendiri tanpa berfikir terlebih dahulu kesan tindakanya yang akan menjejaskan kesihatan orang lain serta membuat pilihan dan keputusan yang tidak bermoral walaupun dikatakan mereka bebas untuk melakukan sebarang tindakan yang mereka rasa wajar.

Menurut pendapat teori pertama yang mengatakan bahawa tokoh falsafah Sartre tidak mempercayai tuhan, jadi Syarikat San Lu bebas melakukan apa sahaja yang dianggap betul dan sesuai dengan keadaan pada waktu tersebut. Oleh itu apa yang dilakukan adalah bergantung kepada Syarikat San Lu tersebut dan peraturan atau hukum yang ditetapkan oleh agama adalah tidak perlu. Walaupun demikian, tindakan Syarikat tersebut yang menambahkan bahan kimia melamine ke dalam produk susu yang boleh memudaratkan nyawa dan membawa maut seseorang yang tidak berdosa telah menimbulkan kemarahan masyarakat terhadap syarikat tersebut. Tindakan mereka tidak boleh dimaafkan kerana semata-mata hendak mengaut keuntungan telah menyebabkan mangsa terlibat dalam keadaan kesakitan atau kedukaan.

Selain itu teori Eksistensialisme juga mengatakan manusia bebas melakukan apa sahaja yang difikirkan wajar pada waktu tersebut dan tidak perlu mengikut sebarang peraturan. Begitu juga Syarikat San Lu bebas melakukan perbuatan yang dianggap wajar dan tidak perlu mengikut sebarang peraturan.Tetapi Syarikat tersebut tidak berfikir secara teliti tentang cara yang mereka hendak melakukan untuk mengaut keuntungan adalah bermoral atau tidak. Oleh itu, Syarikat San Lu perlu bertanggungjawab atas setiap perbuatan yang dilakukan serta peniaga haruslah menggunakan kebebasan yang sepenuhnya untuk mendapatkan fakta yang tepat berhubung dengan situasi moral yang dihadapinya dan mengambil tindakan yang wajar. Akhirnya adalah terpulang kepada peniaga sendiri untuk membuat pilihan dan keputusan sama ada perbuatan tersebut bermoral atau tidak.

Di samping itu, teori Eksistensialisme juga menyatakan bahawa manusia bebas untuk membuat keputusan berdasarkan situasi. Oleh sebab itulah, manusia mesti sentiasa memilih dan menilai berdasarkan kesesuaian waktu. Syarikat San Lu haruslah berfikir terlebih dahulu tindakannya samaada membawa kebahagiaan atau kesakitan kepada pengguna-pengguna produk syarikatnya. Selain itu juga memikirkan teknik yang sesuai untuk syarikatnya mengaut keuntungan dan mengembangkan syarikatnya berdasarkan kesesuaian waktu.

Kesimpulannya, tindakan Syarikat San Lu yang mencampurkan bahan kimia yang beracun, melamine ke dalam produk susunya demi mengaut keuntungan yang lebih adalalah tidak wajar kerana perbuatan Syarikat San Lu yang tidak berfikir terlebih dahulu membawa banyak penderitaan kepada mangsa-mangsa yang terlibat dalam kes ini.

Pandangan dari segi Utilitarianisme tentang Melamine

2008-12-02T15:03:00.002+08:00

Teori utilitarianisme dikenali sebagai Konsep Utiliti atau Prinsip Kebahagiaan Terbanyak. Kesan perbuatan yang menghasilkan keseronokan, faedah dan kebahagiaan kepada majoriti orang ramai akan dianggap sebagai tindakan bermoral dan dibenarkan. Sebaliknya, jika menghasilkan kesakitan atau penderitaan akan dianggap tidak bermoral. Teori ini mengutamakan kebahagiaan pihak majoriti sebaliknya kedukaan yang dihadapi oleh minoriti tidak akan dihiraukan. utilitarianisme ialah memilih sesuatu tindakan yang boleh menghasilkan kebaikan, keseronokan atau kegembiraan yang maksimum ke atas sebanyak mungkin orang yang terlibat. Tokoh falsafah yang merumuskan teori utilitarianisme ialah Jeremy Bentham pada tahun 1748 hingga 1832 dan teori tersebut dikembangkan secara lebih luas oleh John Stuart Mill pada tahun 1806 hingga 1873.

Berdasarkan teori ini, tindakan Syarikat San Lu di Negara China mencampurkan bahan kimia yang beracun, melamine ke dalam produk susunya demi mengaut keuntungan yang lebih adalah tidak wajar. Teori tersebut mengatakan seseorang mestilah mengkaji and berfikir terlebih dahulu akibat atau kesan perbuatannya semasa hendak melakukan sesuatu. Jika hasil perbuatanya boleh memberikan faedah atau kebaikan kepada majoriti atau semua orang, perbuatan yang dilakukan akan dianggap wajar dan bermoral. Perbuatan Syarikat San Lu yang menghasilkan kesakitan dan penderitaan kepada majoriti orang yang tidak bersalah dapat dibuktikan bahawa Syarikat San Lu tidak berfikir terlebih dahulu akibat tindakan mereka terhadap pengguna produk Syarikat San Lu dan tujuanya adalah semata-mata hendak mengaut keuntungan yang lebih tanpa mengambil berat keselamatan pengguna yang menpercayai produk syarikatnya. Di samping itu teori ini membenarkan melakukan perkara yang tidak baik kepada minoriti jika ianya bertujuan mengelak atau menyekat sesuatu yang lebih buruk berlaku kepada majoriti orang. Dalam kes Syarikat San Lu di Negara China mencampurkan bahan kimia yang beracun, melamine ke dalam produk susunya demi mengaut keuntungan yang lebih. Hasil perbuatannya bukan sahaja tidak memberikan sebarang faedah atau kebaikan kepada majoriti, malah akan menbahayakan nyawa mangsa-mangsa yang tidak berdosa demi mementingkan keuntungan syarikat tersebut.

Selain itu teori utilitarian sangat mementingkan perasaan orang ramai oleh itu meminimumkan kesakitan dan memaksimumkan keseronokan kepada majoriti dianggap sangat penting. Ini disebabkan mereka berpendapat manusia secara semulajadinya menyukai keseronokan dan membenci kesakitan. Tindakan Syarikat San Lu menjejaskan pandangan dan kepercayaan majoriti terhadap produk-produk yang diimport dari china serta juga menimbulkan kemarahan masyarakat terhadap perniaga yang keji demi keuntungan. Malah, perbuatan tersebut telah mengambil nyawa kanak-kanak yang masih kecil dan tidak bersalah. Oleh itu kerajaan China harus mengambil tindakan secepat mungkin terhadap Syarikat San Lu yang harus menerima hukuman yang berat atas perbuatanya demi menanggung kesalahan yang berlaku dan juga untuk mendamaikan kemarahan masyarakat terhadap skandal susu yang telah berlaku.
Menurut teori utilitarianisme, kesan perbuatan setiap perkara yang hendak dibuat sama ada membawa kebaikan atau keburukan itu sudah boleh diukur dan diketahui. Bagi tujuan ini, tokoh falsafah teori utilitarinisme yang bernama Jeremy Bentham telah meghasiklan satu cara untuk mengukur jumlah kesakitan dan keseronokan yang akan diperolehi seseorang apabila melakukan sesuatu perbuatan. Cara tersebut dinamakan ‘kalkulus hedonik’ Syarikat San Lu yang melakukan perbuatan yang tidak bermoral ini akhirnya diketahui oleh masyarakat walaupun Syarikat San Lu telah mengambil tindakan untuk menyembunyikan rahsia ini. Kesan keburukan yang dibawa oleh kes ini telah melibatkan majoriti mangsa kanak kanak yang naif dan tidak berdosa. Selain itu, hal ini juga telah menyebabkan ibu bapa yang terlibat berada dalam situasi kerisauan tentang kesihatan anaknya apabila mengetahui produk susu Syarikat San Lu mengandungi melamine.

Kesimpulannya, tindakan Syarikat San Lu yang mencampurkan bahan kimia yang beracun, melamine ke dalam produk susunya demi mengaut keuntungan yang lebih adalah tidak wajar kerana kesan perbuatanya tidak membawa sebarang faedah dan kebahagiaan kepada majoriti orang ramai malah menghasilkan kesakitan dan penderitaan kepada mereka.

Langkah-langkah Untuk Mengelakkan Makanan-makanan Yang Mengandungi Melamine

2008-12-02T15:01:00.001+08:00

1. Peranan Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia (KKM)
KKM telah mengenakan larangan mengimport iaitu tindakan Pemeriksaan Tahap 6 (Auto Rejection) melalui Sistem Maklumat Keselamatan Makanan Malaysia ( Food Safety Information System of Malaysia – FoSIM) kepada semua susu tepung formula bayi, susu dan produk susu dari Negara China sebagai langkah berjaga-jaga supaya tiada produk yang berkaitan dengan susu dari China masih diimport pada masa kini.

KKM juga sentiasa peka dan prihatin terhadap perkara-perkara yang boleh mengancam keselamatan pengguna. Jadi, KKM perlu menetapkan tahap melamine sebagai keperluan dalam Peraturan Makanan 1985. KKM memberi jaminan kepada penduduk Malaysia bahawa tahap keselamatan dan kualiti makanan yang masuk ke negara ini adalah pada tahap yang terkawal dengan aktiviti penguatkuasaan yang bersungguh-sungguh dan berterusan di setiap pintu masuk negara. KKM giat melakukan pemeriksaan secara besar-besaran dan menyeluruh bagi mengesan bahan makanan yang mengandungi melamine berlebihan di negara ini. Oleh itu, penduduk Malaysia boleh membeli produk-produk dengan lebih tenang hati dengan adanya jaminan yang diberikan oleh KKM tersebut.

2. Peranan pakar perubatan dan pegawai perubatan
Sebagai langkah proaktif, semua pakar perubatan dan pegawai perubatan dinasihatkan agar sentiasa berjaga-jaga dan memantau gejala masalah buah pinggang seperti bayi menangis tanpa sebab ketika kencing, kencing berdarah dan tekanan darah tinggi pada bayi. Keadaan ini adalah jarang berlaku di kalangan bayi yang sihat. Sekiranya mengesyaki gejala ini di kalangan kanak-kanak, pakar perubatan dan pegawai perubatan berkenaan perlulah melaporkan kepada KKM dengan segera supaya kes itu dapat dirujuk dalam masa yang singkat.

Selain itu, pakar perubatan dan pegawai perubatan harus memeriksa sampel yang dihantar ke makmal yang diiktiraf KKM dengan teliti bagi memastikan bahan berkenaan tidak mengandungi melamine berlebihan seperti yang tertakluk pada Peraturan-Peraturan Makanan 1985.

3. Peranan sebagai pengimport
Pada masa sekarang ini, pengimport dinasihatkan tidak mengimport susu tepung formula bayi, susu dan hasilan susu dari negara China. Pengimport juga dinasihatkan jangan menjual dan mesti melaporkan kepada Pejabat Kesihatan Daerah (PKD) dan Jabatan Kesihatan Negeri (JKN) yang berhampiran untuk tindakan selanjutnya sekiranya produk makanan tersebut telah berada dalam simpanan.

Pihak pengimport mesti melabelkan atau memasukkan maklumat negara asal pada produk mereka. Ini boleh menjadi tindakan pencegahan kepada pengguna untuk tidak membeli produk tersebut jika mereka bersikap waspada.

4. Peranan sebagai penjual
Penjual dinasihatkan untuk menyemak inventori produk jualan mereka dan segera mengeluarkan produk makanan dari premis jika didapati produk makanan tersebut yang mempunyai susu sebagai salah satu ramuan dan diimport dari Negara China. Langkah ini dapat mengelakkan pengguna dari membeli produk-produk yang disyaki telah dicemari oleh melamin. Penjual juga diminta untuk menghubungi Pejabat Kesihatan Daerah (PKD) dan Jabatan Kesihatan Negeri (JKN) untuk mendapatkan maklumat selanjutnya mengenai kes yang berlaku di China dan produk-produk yang dilarang jual kepada pengguna. Penjual harus memberhentikan jualan produk-produk yang beracun kepada pengguna dengan serta-merta sekiranya diberitahu berita yang terkini.

Maklumat terkini juga boleh didapati dari Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia melalui telefon atau kenyataan akhbar atau melayari laman web http://fsq.moh.gov.my. Penjual harus mengambil sikap bertanggungjawab terhadap produk-produk yang dijual di premisnya. Sekiranya produk-produk larangan yang diumumkan masih dijual dan mengakibatkan perkara yang tidak diingini berlaku, penjual boleh disabitkan kesalahan oleh pihak berkuasa. Oleh itu, langkah yang selamat ialah tidak menjual langsung produk makanan dari negara China sehingga keadaan menjadi reda dan dipastikan produk tersebut bebas daripada kandungan melamine.

5. Peranan sebagai pengguna
Pengguna diminta menghubungi Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia melalui telefon atau kenyataan akhbar yang dipaparkan atau melayari laman web supaya sentiasa mengikut perkembangan terbaharu tentang produk makanan yang disyaki mengandungi melamine. Pengguna boleh membuat langkah pencegahan awal dengan tidak membeli produk makanan dari negara China sehingga keadaan menjadi reda. Selain itu, pengguna juga dinasihatkan membaca label makanan sebelum membeli sesuatu produk makanan bagi memastikan tidak membeli produk yang mengandungi ramuan susu dari negara China pada masa yang tegang ini. Ini disebabkan sebahagian besar daripada bahan mentah produk makanan adalah dari luar negara, khususnya negara China.

Sekiranya pengguna masih berasa ragu-ragu mengenai keselamatan produk tersebut dan mendapati kedai berkenaan masih menjual produk-produk larangan yang telah diumumkan mengandungi melamine yang berlebihan oleh Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia, pengguna juga boleh menghubungi Bahagian Keselamatan dan Kualiti Makanan, Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia di talian 03-88833655/03-88833503 untuk membuat aduan dan mendapatkan maklumat lanjut. Pengguna harus berhati-hati terhadap produk-produk yang ingin dibelinya dan mengetahui hak sebagai seorang pengguna untuk sebarang pertanyaan.

Gejala Penyakit daripada Melamine

2008-12-02T15:00:00.001+08:00

Sebagai langkah proaktif, Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia ingin menasihati semua pakar perubatan dan pegawai perubatan sentiasa memantau sekiranya gejala masalah buah pinggang di kalangan bayi akibat keracunan melamin yang mungkin berlaku seperti:

· Bayi menangis tanpa sebab terutamanya ketika kencing
· Muntah-muntah
· Kencing berdarah (dapat dilihat dengan mata kasar atau melalui mikroskop)
· Kencing sedikit atau tidak kencing langsung
· Keluar batu karang semasa kencing
· Takanan darah tinnggi, sembab dan kesakitan bila terlanggar di bahagian ginjal
· Tanda-tanda hasil dari komplikasi masalah ginjal seperti demam yang tidak diketahui puncanya hasil dari jangkitan kuman/bakterimia atau disebabkan oleh stasis (WHO)

Keadaan seperti di atas jarang berlaku di kalangan kanak-kanak. Justeru itu, ini adalah penting untuk melaporkan kepada ibu pejabat Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia dengan kadar yang segera sekiranya mengesyaki gejala ini di kalangan kanak-kanak.

Kesan-kesan Melamine

2008-12-02T14:59:00.002+08:00

Melamin yang digunakan dalam sebahagian besar produk pengguna sejak empat dekad lalu adalah bahan yang tidak larut dalam air. Akan tetapi, melamine masih boleh disingkirkan melalui urin. Walaupun begitu, buah pinggang manusia tetap mempunyai hadnya tersendiri. Akibatnya, dalam dos yang tinggi, kajian mendapati ia boleh menjejaskan fungsi pundi air kencing dan ginjal tidak lagi mampu menyingkirkannya dari tubuh badan manusia. Oleh itu, kepekatan melamine semakin bertambah dan seterusnya membentuk kristal yang turut dikenali sebagai batu karang. Dari semasa ke semasa, pembentukkan batu karang ini akan bertambah saiz yang akhirnya menyebabkan kegagalan ginjal yang serius.

Satu kajian telah dijalankan oleh pakar toksikologi, Perry Martos dari University of Guelph pada Mac 2007 yang lalu mendapati ada satu lagi bahan kimia yang mendorong kepada pembentukkan batu karang akibat melamine iaitu asid sianurik. Justeru itu, apabila digabungkan dengan bahan kimia berkaitan seperti asid sianurik, gabungan campuran kedua-dua bahan kimia itu boleh menyebabkan pembentukan batu karang yang sekaligus menyebabkan kagagalan ginjal dan memberi kesan toksik kepada buah pinggang. Kehadiran melamine dan asid sianurik secara bersendirian adalah tidak berbahaya kepada manusia.
Kesan ketoksikan akibat pendedahan terhadap melamine secara langsung adalah seperti mengakibatkan iritasi apabila terhidu dan bersentuhan dengan kulit atau mata. Manakala kesan ketoksikan kronik yang diakibatkan oleh pengambilan melamine adalah boleh mengakibatkan kerosakan pada sistem pembiakan atau menyebabkan batu karang dalam ginjal dan pundi kencing Penggunaan melamine dalam pengeluaran makanan dilarang di China dan negara lain kerana ia dikenalpasti sebagai penyebab kegagalan ginjal dan masalah kencing sama ada kepada manusia mahupun binatang apabila ia bercampur dengan asid sianurik dalam badan yang kadangkala hadir dalam air minuman dan makanan haiwan.

Ekoran daripada kejadian kes di China, gabungan melamine dan asid sianurik telah menyebabkan pencemaran yang memberi kesan serius kepada bayi dan kanak-kanak kecil yang bergantung kepada susu bagi pemakanan mereka. Pengambilan melamine melalui makanan boleh mengakibatkan kerosakan pada sistem pembiakan dan pembentukkan batu karang dalam ginjal dan pundi kencing. Ini boleh mengakibatkan kegagalan ginjal terutamanya kepada bayi.
Mula-mulanya tertumpu pada Kumpulan Sanlu selaku peneraju pasaran susu bayi, siasatan kerajaan mendapati masalah ini juga terjadi dalam produk-produk keluaran 21 syarikat lain, termasuk Mengniu, Yili, dan Yashili. Isu ini bukan sahaja menimbulkan kebimbangan orang ramai mengenai keselamatan makanan dan amalan rasuah di China, malah juga menjejaskan reputasi eksport makanan China. Berikutan daripada itu, sebahagian besar negara-negara Asia mengharamkan dan menarik semula produk-produk tenusu keluaran negara China. Ini menyebabkan China mengalami kerugian yang teruk sejak meletusnya kes tersebut.

Pada 22 September 2008, dilaporkan hampir 53,000 kes kesakitan, lebih 12,800 hantaran ke hospital, dan empat kematian bayi akibat karang ginjal dan kegagalan renal yang lain. Kimia terbabit nampaknya dibubuh ke dalam susu agar kelihatan mengandungi lebih protein. Malah sebelum skandal susu di China dikupas sedalam-dalamnya baru-baru ini, melamin telah menjadi satu isu perdebatan pada awal tahun 2007 dimana kimia ini juga terlibat dalam satu insiden penarikan balik makanan haiwan. Perdebatan itu berlaku apabila para saintis dan doctor haiwan berusaha mengesahkan melamin bertanggungjawab meragut ratusan nyawa binatang peliharaan akibat pencemaran haiwan. Pada tahun 2004 di tanah besar China juga pernah berlakunya insiden berbeza yang mana susu kurang bermutu mengakibatkan 13 bayi mati akibat kekurangan khasiat.

Kesan melamine kepada manusia adalah kurang berbanding dengan haiwan kerana jangka hayat melamine adalah 3 jam dan ianya tidak berkumpul di dalam badan manusia serta boleh dikeluarkan melalui perkumuhan buah pinggang sebagai air kencing.

Kegunaan Melamine

2008-12-02T14:58:00.002+08:00

Seperti yang kita sedia maklum, melamine adalah bahan yang digunakan dalam pembuatan plastik, bahan pembersih, gam, baja dan lain-lain. Penggunaan melamine dengan jumlah tertentu dalam makanan dikatakan boleh mengaburi kandungan sebenar khasiat susu kerana kehadiran nitrogen yang tingggi dalam melamine akan memalsukan kandungan protein bagi memenuhi nilai yang ditetapkan bagi ujian protein dan kawalan kualiti pemakanan. Maka tidak hairanlah apabila pengeluar susu memilih jalan pintas untuk mengaut keuntungan tanpa menghiraukan aspek keselamatan dan kesihatan pengguna. Penambahan melamine dalam makanan adalah menyalahi undang-undang di bawah Akta Makanan 1983 dan Peraturan-Peraturan Makanan 1985.

Menurut AFIC, secara dasarnya melamine adalah selamat jika digunakan dalam jumlah yang rendah dan kajian yang dijalankan ke atas haiwan menunjukkan melamine tidak menyebabkan barah atau kecacatan kepada kehamilan. Melamine juga boleh diambil secara tidak sengaja menerusi pemindahan daripada bekas plastik yang mengandungi melamine kepada makanan atau minuman. Keadaan ini biasanya tidak memudaratkan.

Walaubagaimanapun, manusia masih tidak lagi berasa puas hati. Pencampuran melamin dalan susu tepung jenama Sanlu misalnya boleh mengeluarkan produk tenusu yang rendah kosnya tetapi tinggi protein. Sebenarnya, melamin boleh digantikan dengan bahan lain. Akan tetapi, melamin sering menjadi pilihan utama kerana ia dikeluarkan secara berlebihan di China. Oleh itu, melamin dapat diperolehi oleh pengeluar dengan harga yang terlampau murah. Dalam kes ini, cuma yang menjadi mangsa adalah bayi-bayi tidak berdosa itu. Akhirnya, pencampuran melamin dalam susu tepung jenama Sanlu telah membawa beberapa kesan negatif terhadap kesihatan bayi-bayi tersebut.

Apakah itu Melamine?

2008-12-02T14:56:00.001+08:00

Melamine yang dipermasalahkan itu adalah bahan organik yang terdiri daripada karbon, oksigen dan nitrogen yang digunakan dalam bidang pembuatan resin plastik, bahan pembersih, gam, baja dan lain-lain. Bahan kimia ini kali pertama dihasilkan oleh Justus von Liebig pada 1830 yang kemudiannya dihasilkan secara besar-besaran untuk kegunaan industri. Melamine adalah bahan yang tidak dibenarkan di dalam semua makanan. Akan tetapi, melamine biasanya dicampur dalam makanan haiwan seperti kucing dan anjing supaya kandungan proteinnya lebih tinggi.

Mula-mula, skandal produk tenusu di China tidak diketahui apabila melamine dicampurkan dalam susu. Ini disebabkan melamine tidak larut air dan mesti dicampurkan dengan formaldehida atau bahan pelarut organik lain sebelum ia boleh larut dalam susu. Dalam kes di China, kehadiran melamine dan bahan kimia berkaitan didapati sengaja ditambah ke dalam kandungan susu pada kadar yang diharamkan dalam usaha menyembunyikan kenyataan bahawa susu yang dihasilkan sudah dicairkan dengan air.

Sumber Pusat Maklumat Pemakanan Asia (AFIC) dalam satu kenyataan yang dikeluarkan baru-baru ini menyatakan skandal produk tenusu di China berlaku kerana sikap tidak bertanggungjawab pekilang yang ingin mendapat keuntungan. Selain produk tenusu, AFIC melaporkan pada 2007 bahawa melamine juga ditemui dalam gulten gandum dan beras dengan pekatan protein yang dieksport China bagi kegunaan pembuatan makanan haiwan di Amerika Syarikat (AS). Hasilnya, pada tahun itu, AS melaporkan kematian haiwan peliharaan seperti anjing dan kucing akibat kegagalan buah pinggang.

Case study on Withhlding Tax at Malaysia

2008-11-13T23:41:00.000+08:00

Employer is defined as a manager, agent or person responsible for the payment of salary or wages to an employee, for example manager of company, sole proprietor and partnership. An employer also defined as anybody of persons, whether or not statutory incorporated, such as an association. An employer can also be Statutory Board, Federal and State Government. In this case, the employer was a Singapore Company, XYZ which is a non resident company in Malaysia that currently negotiating a service contract with a Malaysian company to provide management services. In regard to provide the services, XYZ would send their employees to Malaysia.
S13(2) provides that “gross income in respect of gains and profits from an employment for any period during which the employment is exercised in Malaysia shall be deemed to be derived from Malaysia and subject to Malaysian income tax. Therefore, XYZ will have the tax responsibilities in relation to their employees who coming to and leaving Malaysia. Non-resident employees of XYZ Company is subject to Malaysian due to they have exercised employment in Malaysia and employment income is deemed derived from Malaysia.

Under S83 (1), ITA 1967 stated that an employer required to furnish the tax return form within 30 days (Form E). Thus, XYZ Company needs to submit the tax return form in order to determine the final tax to be paid. Under S83 (2), an employer is required to notify the Director-General in writing of a new employee. In this case, XYZ Company required notifying the Director-General in relation to the new employees who came to and left Malaysia.

Moreover, the employer is responsible to withheld 10% withholding tax and the tax withheld will be set off against the final tax liability. As long as the non resident has performed a contract services in Malaysia, the non resident is subject to withholding tax provisions and need to withhold 10% of the withholding tax. While non resident employees is subject to 3% withholding tax of the services contract sum for the services that have performed in Malaysia. The excess of 10% withholding tax under S107A which is the 3% withholding tax supposed to be paid by the non resident employees will be refunded upon full settlement of all of the employee’s tax liability.

In addition, the tax paid under S107A is not a final tax. The payee which is XYZ Company required filing of tax return. XYZ Company also entitled to claim tax credit for the withholding tax withheld. Withholding tax that has been paid by the non resident, XYZ Company can be used to offset against his final tax liability. Any excess of credit will be refunded to the payee, XYZ Company if the actual tax payable is less than the withholding tax paid. Any additional tax is to be paid by payee, XYZ Company if the actual tax payable calculated is more than the withholding tax paid.

Generally, a non resident individual is liable to tax at the rate of 30% and he is not entitled to any personal relief. However, there are possible exemptions which apply for the employees sent by the XYZ, Singapore Company. Employees from XYZ, Singapore Company can enjoy tax exemption on employment income even they have exercised employment in Malaysia if all the following conditions are met.

First, an employee having a short-term visit to Malaysia will enjoy tax exemption in respect of his income from an employment exercised in Malaysia when his presence in Malaysia does not exceed 60 days in a calendar year. This tax exemption is not applicable to public entertainers but applicable to non-resident individual only.

An employee also exempted from tax in Malaysia when the employer who pays is not a resident of Malaysia. In this case, XYZ, Singapore Company paid the remuneration to the employees who exercised the employment in Malaysia. Thus, XYZ is considered as an employer. As refer to the information provided, it stated that XYZ is a non resident in Malaysia, thus the employees of XYZ are eligible to apply for the tax exemption.

Additionally, if the remuneration paid to employee is not borne by permanent establishment in Malaysia, an employee can apply for the tax exemption. In this case, if the XYZ is considered to provide management services without establishing a permanent establishment in Malaysia, then the remuneration received by the employees is also not borne by permanent establishment in Malaysia. Hence, an employee is entitled to tax exemption.

On the other hand, an employee is also exempted from Malaysian tax if the remuneration of the non resident employee is taxed in country of residence. In this case, if the XYZ’ employee is a resident in Singapore, he or she will be subjected to Singapore tax. While he or she is exercising an employment in Malaysia, he or she can apply for tax exemption in Malaysia for the income derived since the employment income that received has been taxed in Singapore. Thus, he or she will not be taxed again in Malaysia in order to avoid double taxation on the employment income derived in Malaysia.

Lastly, employee who is on board of Malaysian ship( seagoing ship registered under Merchant Shipping Ordinance 1952 but not included a ferry, barge, tugboat, supply vessel, crew boat, lighter, dredger, fishing boat or other similar vessel) can also enjoy exemption on the employment income they derived.

Tax Treatment on transfer pricing at Malaysia

2008-11-13T23:40:00.000+08:00

XYZ company if want to purchase parts from its related companies, it need to consider about the transfer pricing between both country. In Malaysia, arm’s length prices is require for cross border transactions between related parties and it follow the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) guidelines. There are five methods could be utilized in evaluating the consistency of the transfer pricing with arm length principle. Those are:
a.) Comparable uncontrolled price method,
b.) Resale price method,
c.) Cost plus method,
d.) Profit split method, and;
e.) Transactional net margin method.
Inland Revenue Board (IRB) has clearly stated that comparable uncontrolled price method and resale price method should be attempted first before the transactional net margin methods are considered.

The comparable uncontrolled price method focuses directly on the price of the property or services transferred in a controlled transaction to the price charged for the property or services in a comparable independent transaction, however, the resale price method focuses on the gross margin obtained by the distributor.

There is no specific transfer pricing penalty provision had been set by IRB, but existing penalty provisions may apply to understatement of income, section 140 Income Tax Act 1967. Penalties may be imposed or mitigated at the discretion of the Director General of Inland Revenue.

Documentation contain that needed in transfer pricing transaction are company details, transaction details and determination of arm’s length price. Contain of those documents should have comparability based on adequate data from independent dealings, reliability taken into account in choice of comparables and application of method fully supported with contemporaneous documentation.

Withholding Tax in Malaysia

2008-11-13T23:37:00.002+08:00

Withholding tax is a tax imposed on non-residents who has business dealings in Malaysia and received certain payments which are subject to Malaysian tax. Under the Income Tax Act, 1967 (‘The Act’) has appointed the payer as an agent responsible to collect income taxes on behalf of Inland Revenue Board from such non-residents to withhold a portion of the payment. Such portion of payment is known as “withholding tax”. The scope of withholding tax is restricted to the several types of payment made to non-resident. There are special classes of income under section 4A, royalty under section 15, interest under section 15, contract payment under section 107A and public entertainer under section 109A.

Contract payments was aimed to improve the tax compliance process and income tax collection from the increasing of number of non-resident contractors and employees of non-resident who were coming to Malaysia to undertake construction and development projects.

Provision of permanent establishment is included in Double Taxation Agreement (DTA). If the XYZ has a permanent establishment in Malaysia under the DTA, the business profit of the XYZ that attributable to the permanent establishment is taxable in Malaysia. Permanent establishment concept is used mainly to determine whether a non-resident is doing business in Malaysia. “A fixed place of business” in Malaysia is constituted a permanent establishment. Examples of fixed place are branch, factory, office, a workshop, a place of management, mine, oil or gas well, quarry and so on. Sometimes even through there is no fixed place in Malaysia, it is still a permanent establishment if:
i) A building site or construction, assembly or installation is 6 months period.
ii) Carrying on supervisory activities in connection with building site or construction project.
iii) Presence of an agent that is dependent and concluding contracts on the behalf of the XYZ in Malaysia.

The Singapore Company, XYZ is subjected to withholding tax under contract payments because XYZ will provide services under a contract by the Malaysian branch. The permanent establishment existed if the services are provided by Malaysian branch. By virtue of section 107A will be applied when a contract payment and permanent establishment occurs.
Section 107A stated that any person (in this section referred to as “the payer”) who is liable to make contract payment to XYZ in respect of any works or professional services in Malaysia under a contract project, and the total rates of withholding tax under section 107A are 13%. The 10% withheld is for the XYZ contractor’s tax liabilities while 3% is for the tax of the employees of the XYZ contractor.

The XYZ contractor would submit its tax computation in the normal manner in ascertaining the chargeable income when carrying on business in Malaysia. Income tax payable would be computed. XYZ contractor are allowed to set off the 10% withholding tax against his income tax payable and account for the different or claim the excess (refund) from the tax authorities.

However, if XYZ providing services without a permanent establishment in Malaysia then the payment will falls under section 4A and the withholding is applies under section 109B. The payer who is liable to account for withholding tax while tax is imposed on person deriving income falls under section 4A income. Special classes of income is any amount paid in consideration of technical advice, assistance or services rendered in connection with technical management or administration of any scientific, industrial or commercial undertaking, venture, project or scheme that falls under section 4A(ii)

Finding and Recommendations for Starbucks

2008-11-13T16:49:00.003+08:00

Starbucks has been well-known in thirty-eight countries for some period of time, but this success has also attracted hard criticism on some issues. One of the areas where Starbucks faces challenges is catching up with some of its competition in providing fair-trade coffee. The company purchases and roasts high-quality whole bean coffees and sells them along with fresh-brewed coffees, cold blended beverages, coffee-related accessories and equipment, Italian-style espresso beverages, and a variety of complementary food items primarily through its company-operated retail stores. However, a survey conducted by Global Marketing Institute found that even Starbucks customers view the company as “arrogant, intrusive, and self-centered.” Therefore, Starbucks has put more effort in corporate social responsibility to reduce the customers’ negative perception. In 2002, Starbucks was one of the first major coffeehouse brands to introduce “ethical” coffee. Therefore, the company started to offer a “fair-trade coffee of the week” and later inserted it permanently into the main menu. Starbucks has made the $4 coffee drink acceptable and opened the door for competitors to charge similar prices. Even though it can improve the customer’s perception, many competitors followed suit and switched to 100 percent fair-trade coffee in order to compete with Starbucks. Thus, Starbucks has acted as an ethical trailer instead of a pioneer in this situation.

Deontological ethics refer to ethics of individual morality and public policy, which emphasize the fact that sometimes the correct path is determined not by its consequences but by certain duties. It means that there is something that we should, or should not, do regardless of the consequences. Refer to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, business managers have direct ethical responsibilities to all stakeholders who are affected by business activities. The company owed an ethical responsibility to the customers who are the stakeholder. Thus, the company must possess goodwill in order to execute their responsibility. In this case, Starbucks purchases and roasts high-quality whole bean coffees and sells them along with fresh, rich-brewed coffees, cold blended beverages and others through its company-operated retail stores. On this Kantian theory, Starbucks is responsible to provide high quality coffee at a fair price to everyone. Therefore, Starbucks started to offer a “fair-trade coffee of the week” and made the $4 coffee drink which induced the other competitors to charge similar price. Moreover, Starbucks has invested significantly in Corporate Social Responsibility activities such as grants to charities. As a part of this society, Starbucks is obliged to “give back to the society” willingly for what they have earned without any conditions or motives behind.

Criticism extends far beyond fair-trade policies in that accusation have centered on Starbucks’ clustering strategy that covers areas with branches everywhere, thus forcing many local coffee shops out of business. Starbucks has been expanding across the United States. It estimated to open about five new stores a day and serve over 30 million customers a week. Starbucks definitely believes that opening a new store adds immediate value to the community since the store becomes a gathering place that crowded people together. Twenty-eight stores opened in urban communities in order to provide new employment and revitalization to several U.S. cities. Starbucks is changing urban streetscapes. The Starbucks logo can be seen everywhere and even the advertisements for apartments for rent state that they are near a Starbucks. Ethical Consumer magazine researcher Ruth Rosselson stated that they would recommend the consumers to choose non-chain shops that offer fair-trade coffee even Starbucks has a number of useful policies. With this policy, Starbucks can never be 100 percent ethical. Corporate Watch researcher Chris Grimshaw thinks that Starbucks’ CSR program is just a “smokescreen to create the illusion of ethics. Moreover, the company is more concerned about shareholders’ wealth.

Moreover, Starbucks is trying to change pop culture about what we eat and drink, when we work and play, and how we spend our time and money, which has brought some negative impacts to the society. Starbucks is changing what we eat. However, the food is not always healthy since the portions are too big, and the drinks are full of calories and fat. Nowadays, people are more concerned about healthy lifestyle even though it is possible that healthier food is in Starbucks’ future. This has made the success of Starbucks in conflicting with healthy lifestyle. In utilitarianism point of view, by looking at the consequences, we can determine the ethical significance of any actions. Utilitarianism is typically emphasized on “maximizing the overall good” or producing “the greatest good for the greatest number”. Good and bad acts are determined by their consequences. Social institutions should be structured in whatever way that will maximize the overall good. According to Utilitarianism theory, we must observe the consequences of the actions to the majority people before taking any actions. In this case, Starbucks is planning a new pop culture to the society. Thus, the company has to examine the consequences of taking such action to the society first as to whether it is considered ethical. It has proved that the new pop culture has brought some negative impacts to the society where the food is not as healthy as the society preferred. The portions of food are too big, and the drinks are full of calories and fat may result in overweight or heart attack and other health problems. Thus, the act is bad for the majority people and is considered not ethical. Moreover, Utilitarian is concerned about the feeling of majority. They thought that society likes happiness and dislikes painful naturally. Starbucks should always have a mind or way of doing things which will maximize the overall good by providing healthier food to the society who demand for healthy lifestyle.

Bovine growth hormone (BGH) is given to dairy cows to increase milk production and boost farmers’ per-cow revenues. However, consumer advocacy groups opposed the used of BGH, claiming its full effects on humans are unknown and it can boost the risk of developing cancer. Starbucks was involved in this case where the products sold were consists of BGH milk. According to utilitarianism theory, we must observe the consequences of the actions to the majority people before taking any action. For solving BGH milk case, Starbuck had taken action which concerned about its majority consumers. It decided to make 37 percent of its dairy products BGH-free in a number of its stores in Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Montana, New Mexico, Northern California and New England. Starbucks cares about its consumer’s health.
The size of paper napkins used by Starbucks had been reduced. The main purpose is to reduce wastage and pollution that may cause our mother earth felt burden. Therefore, Starbucks is taking consideration of social responsibility. It earns from public. Thus, it also has to do something to save the public from pollution. By practising this, consumer may think before they throw any rubbish. It is an indirect method to educate public about recycle.
In order to save mother earth out from current situation, Starbucks may try to sell coffee with cup which can be reused again, encourage consumer to bring back the cup by giving them a small discounts or some free snack. This can protect the world from continuously become warming; Starbucks can also improve the image and increase the profits too.

Moreover, Starbucks may help third world country through taking out a portion of money earned from the products that have been sold and donating it. This will upgrade the existing and future customers’ perception towards Starbucks image. People who never buy a cup of coffee from Starbucks may think that by consuming a coffee can help on someone who needed and subsequently go to buy the coffee. The populations of consumer will grow bigger, sales will increase and social responsibility has been taking care off.

Products and Environment of Starbucks

2008-11-13T16:42:00.005+08:00

Both providing products and an environment that customers want and ethical and socially responsible activities also contribute to Starbucks to grow rapidly. However, after taking consideration, we think that providing products and an environment that customers want is the main contribution while ethical and socially responsible activities is an additional contribution for Starbucks growth. Starbucks provides high quality products and ethically sourcing the finest coffee beans, roasting them with great care so that to make the coffee having more nice taste for the customers. Thus, customers will have more confidence to Starbucks product and continually visit Starbucks. The main objective of Starbucks is to maintain the customer loyalty, so the quality of Starbucks coffee can never be compromised.

Providing variety flavors of product that customers desired also helps to attract new customers. While coffee continues to be Starbucks core product, the company markets also sells and licenses a broader range of products, including Tazo tea, Ethos water, Starbucks Liqueurs. Besides, Starbucks produces and sells bottled Frappuccino coffee drinks and Starbucks DoubleShot espresso drink, a line of super premium ice creams and an array of brewing equipment and merchandise. Starbucks also offers various types and taste of coffee as options to the customers according to their individual preference and always create new products. With the brewing equipment and the high quality of coffee bean of Starbucks, customer can enjoy a very nice taste coffee at anytime and everywhere without going to the Starbucks store. It is very convenient and time saving.

The environment of Starbucks store is also the reasons that lead Starbucks grown rapidly. Starbucks has attracted customers through the relax ambience which can let the customers to release their stress while enjoy the coffee and food that they like. Starbucks also supply Hear Music platform that includes media bars in stores where customers can download music and also offer free wireless Internet access with T1 speed in the store. The wireless internet access can attract a lot of office workers via a fast reliable standard base wireless internet connection for laptop and PDA so that they can do their office work. Besides, customers can also use the services to surf the net, check emails, and conduct video conferencing with a high speed wireless connection that faster than standard dial up internet access.

Benefits of Starbucks Employee

2008-11-13T16:39:00.001+08:00

Starbucks Corporation is unique in being able to provide a high level of benefits to its employees. This can be due to the Starbucks’ total pay package, “Your Special Blend” which is unique to each employee. Workers who worked full time or part time are called as partners and entitled to receive health benefits like health, medical, dental and vision benefits.

In 2005, Starbucks spent more on health insurance for its employees rather than on raw materials to brew its coffee. On the other hand, workers who work more than twenty hours a week can receive stock options, known as “Bean Stock”. The board of director determines annual stock option grants based on company performance up to 14 percent of partners’ eligible base wages. Every partner through the director level receives the same percentage of their fiscal-year wages. Workers may participate in a variety of programs and make choices based on individual needs and interests. Starbucks also provide other total pay packages which depend on job and personal situation to its employees, such as Progressive Compensation Package, Retirement Savings Plan, Income Protection Plan (Life and Disability Coverage), Management Bonus Plan, Adoption Assistance Plan, Domestic Partner Benefits, Referral programs and support resources for child and eldercare. Partners can also purchase company stock at a discounted price on a quarterly basis or a semiannual basis and get a pound of coffee each week.
Diversity is the core culture and essential component in the way Starbucks conduct business. Orin Smith, Starbucks president and CEO had said that “Embrace diversity is not only the right thing to do socially or ethically, it’s good for business, as the world becomes more and more complex, having diverse work team helps us to be more adaptive as a company.” This is especially critical because Starbucks is expanding internationally. When Starbucks creates a diverse workplace in which every partner’s voice is heard and will succeed while learning from one another. Besides, they believe that building understanding, respect and appreciation from different people can make better decision. It is definitely a part of Starbucks value system. Total workforce in Starbucks was comprised of 28% minorities and 64% women. They hire and retain partners with a variety of disabilities into diverse pool of jobs. On the other hand, diversity education and recognition are priorities at Starbucks. The diversity learning journey workshops are offered to partners to assist with understanding each partner’s role in creating a healthy work environment and awareness diverse needs of different partners and customers. Furthermore, Starbucks workplace policies provide for equal employment opportunity, and strictly prohibit discrimination or harassment on the basis of age, race, gender, color, religion and physical or mental disability as well as any other basis prohibited by law.

Starbucks continually invest in training programs and career development initiatives to help all new partners grow and advance their careers through an extensive orientation and fundamental training program. Some of the education programs like Coffee Education which focuses on the Starbucks passion for coffee and understands the company core product. For example, baristas (refers to one who has acquired some level of expertise in the preparation of espresso-based coffee drinks) will receive two weeks of initial training to become experts in the preparation and delivery of Starbucks product. After 90 days on the job, they will receive additional training to deepen their coffee knowledge and build their confidence. Another program is Learning to Lead, a three-level program for baristas to develop leadership skills. When barista moves into another retail position, he or she will receives four weeks of training as a shift supervisor, eight months of development as an assistant store manager, eight weeks as a store manager and 15 weeks as a district manager trainee. The last program is Business and Communication, Starbucks Support Center (SSC) will offers a variety of classes ranging from basic computer skills to conflict resolution and management training.

The goal of Starbucks is to create the best possible workplace environment for their partners. Treating each other with respect and dignity is the first on Starbucks’ six point’s mission statement. Starbucks encourages its employees to keep in mind its mission statement and emphasizes on belief that partners’ opinion should be heard and valued by invite partners by giving feedback through a variety of channels like conducting partner view surveys. Starbucks will conduct a partner view surveys approximately every 18-24 months to get feedback from partners around the world. The surveys touched much on extension of the partner experience, including development, communication, senior leadership, coffee knowledge and work condition. They will use the feedback to make adjustment and improvement in order to increase their partners’ satisfaction in their work. Other channel that can be used to get feedback is business conduct helpline, a toll free phone number that partners can call and it is operating 24 hours. Besides, Starbucks workers can also send email to BusinessConduct@Starbucks.com for any enquiries.

As a conclusion, Starbucks is unique in providing high level of benefits to its employees by providing total pay package to their partners. Moreover, Starbucks embraces diversity as an essential component in the way they do business. Thus, Starbucks has a partner’s turnover rate of 60 percent compared to the restaurant industry average of 200 percent. 82 percent of the partners rated being “very satisfied” and 15 percent as “satisfied” with their jobs. Furthermore, the company also offer training and education program for all the partners to conform to their career at Starbucks and provide a strong workplace environment to partners.

Corporate Social Responsibility of Starbucks

2008-11-13T16:34:00.002+08:00

Starbucks Corporation has invested significantly in corporate social responsibility (CSR) since it can bring a lot of tangible and intangible effects to Starbucks.

CSR will indirectly increase the customers’ loyalty towards Starbucks. When a company become popular and possesses good reputation, consumers may stick on it and new consumers will look for it as well. They might think that they also involved in social responsibility by visiting Starbucks.

Moreover, CSR could help to maintain the quality of supply resources. Starbucks is concerned about improving the lives of coffee farmers and protect the environment where the beans are grown in order to meet the highest-quality coffee standards. Starbucks has built relationships with the farmers who supply the coffee while working with governments in the various countries in which it operates. Besides, Starbucks also pays coffee farmers premium prices for their families support.

Additionally, CSR would increase employee satisfaction. Starbucks provided a lot of benefits to its employee such as health benefits which including health, medical, dental and vision benefits and stock options for individual who works more than twenty hours a week. All these will constitute employee loyalty and satisfaction to continue working in Starbucks.

In addition, CSR will help in improving financial performance and increasing productivity. Starbucks has an employee turnover rate of 60 percent compared to the restaurant industry average of 200 percent. This has proved the successful management of the Starbucks. Through concern with social responsibility, Starbucks’ revenues and profits have increased due to higher productivity, lower absenteeism and labor turnover rate.

Finally, CSR will create reputation and image enhancement. As the company grown, it is important in defending and protecting its image. CSR activities initiatives not only benefit employees and local communities, but can also improve corporate reputations and help companies enter new markets by building valuable infrastructure and expanding contacts. Its reputation is built on product quality, stakeholder concern, and a balanced approach to its business activities.

Starbucks History

2008-11-13T16:26:00.002+08:00

The original Starbucks was opened in Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington, USA in 1971 by three partners which consist of an English teacher Jerry Baldwin, a history teacher Zev Siegel, and writer Gordon Bowker to sell high-quality coffee beans and coffee equipments. Starbucks Corporation expanded rapidly over 44 countries around the world and now become the largest international coffeehouse chain with 15,000 stores.

Starbucks serves variety of beverages such as brewed coffee, hot chocolate, Frappuccinos, espresso-based hot drinks, other non-coffee hot and cold drinks, snacks, cakes, own brand mugs and coffee beans. Besides, Starbucks’ brand ice-cream and coffee are available for sales at some grocery stores in certain countries. Moreover, the company also markets books, music, and film through the Starbucks Entertainment division and Hear Music brand.

Besides selling coffee, for the company ongoing innovation and transformation, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz introduced a state of the art espresso system to replace the Verismo 801. Moreover, Starbucks also hope to enter the energy drink market and introduce a customer reward program initiated for registered Starbucks Card User. Members are entitled rewards such as free Wi-Fi internet services and free refills of brewed coffee at certain stores. This approach is to create and strengthen customer loyalty.

In addition, Starbucks also acquired “The Coffee Equipment Company” which is the manufacturer of the Clover Brewing System. This unique "fresh-pressed" coffee system is currently testing the market at six Starbucks locations which are three in Seattle, and three in Boston. Starbucks does not franchise with individuals but enters into licensing arrangements with some companies. The licensed locations include airports, grocery stores, theme parks, major food services corporations, university campuses and hospitals. Additionally, Starbucks had partnered with Magic Johnson's Johnson Development Corporation to form Urban Coffee Opportunities to operate in low-income urban areas.

Starbucks makes their business more environmental friendly by starting "Grounds for your Garden". It is a one year round program that gives leftover coffee grounds to public for composting purpose. Customers can request their local Starbucks to begin the practice if they didn’t participate. Furthermore, Starbucks has reduced the size of their paper napkins and their garbage bags to reduce solid waste. As a result, Starbucks was awarded for their major contributions to the environment.

Review a local e-commerce site

2008-07-07T02:49:00.012+08:00

www.blooming.com.my is one of the Malaysia e-commerce website. Blooming Florist began operations in 1981, it has grown from a small retail shop to its present set-up of six retail outlets in Petaling Jaya, Kuala Lumpur and a head office cum workshop cum retail in Kelana Jaya. Today, besides being linked with most reliable florists throughout Malaysia, Blooming is also networked with 75,000 florists worldwide through its membership in Interflora Pacific Unit Limited.

It allow customer to have online internet trading to order and buy the product and services the Blooming Florist provide. There are different types of product can be found in the website, such as hand bouquets, flowers & gifts, basket arrangements, fruit baskets, hampers, wines and so on.

The download speed of this website is quite slow, due to there are a lot of pictures to be download in this website for customer to have a look of their products. The site design of this website is simple and the titles are small which is difficult to attract the consumer's attentions to view on it. But the design of their product is colorful, unique and nice which can attract the consumer's attentions and provide more choices to let customer choose.

The product search engine is available to let user can search for the product they want to find. It is very convenient and easy to use. When the customer already choose the product they like, the shopping cart have show the item, quantity and the price of the product to let the customer to check whether the product they order is right o wrong. Customer can make the payment for the purchases in various ways such as through online credit card, online banking, mobile payment, pay using kawanku ATM, cash payment

Corporate blogging: a new marketing communication tool for companies.

2008-07-06T23:38:00.009+08:00

Blog existed from the need to easily publish personal voices online. Blogs, by the nature of the medium, encourage casual banter and informal language. Blogs are unlike Websites, which are crafted and branded and carefully planned out to be "on message," the daily journal format of a blog produces more vulnerability from its authors. A blog can bring a human personality to a faceless company in the marketing term which can create a connection between the corporation and the client. Blogs have become one of the hottest communication tools on the Web. This can lead to deeper loyalty and richer feedback.

For example, Tesla Motor are using blog as a communication tool. Their blog divided into 4 section which is think, feel, touch, hear. When a company creates a blog to achieve its business objectives, it is referred to as Corporate Blogging and used for internal communication. They promote the sharing of information of work-related matters. Since blogs can be easily updated, they are used as a part of newsletters or company Intranets. Blog helps employees to keep themselves informed on all the current happenings in the organization. It also allow employees to display their expertise on a particular topic, thereby becoming a recognized industry or subject "expert".

Blogs can also be effectively used to communicate with the public. This is an important part of external communication because companies can communicate with clients, employees, the media, prospective employees or customers through blogging easily. Corporate organizations can even conduct their public relations activities through blogging by posting press releases and updates about new products and services of the company on the blog.

Building a relationship with customers is all about loyalty and transparency. Customers usually associate with an organization that they think they know the best. This is where blogs come into the picture. an organization can build its relationship with its customers and promote their products at the same time through blogging.

Blogs can also be used as a method of employee recruitment. The organization can post a blog on job vacancy and requirements which will help in the recruitment process.

However, blogging can lead to the sharing of information which could harmful for employees and the company. Blogging can lead to legal pitfalls as well. There are cases where a company has been held responsible for comments made by some employees that adversely affected the others. Besides, certain employees may use blogs to write negatively about the companythat lead to bad publicity.

Things to take notes to prevent e-aution fraud

2008-07-06T23:38:00.005+08:00

Things need to be concern while in e-auction:
1. You should understand the obligation as a buyer or seller before you bid on merchandise
2. Ensure you understand what means refund, return, and warranty policies.
3. Review the seller's feedback if available.
4. Investigate the seller as much as possible, such as whether the phone number is working or the email address is active.
5. Before bidding, contact the seller by asking any queries you have.
6. Protect yourself from identity theft by not giving out personal information such social security number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers.

Method to prevents are as follow:
1. User Identify verification. For instance, eBay uses the services of Equifax to verify user identities. eBay encourage users to supply it with information for online verification by offering their Social Security number, driver‘s license number, and date of birth. Through that user can qualify for the highest level of verification on eBay.

2. Authentication Service. Product authentication is a way of determining whether an item is genuine and described appropriately.
Feedback Forum. It provides users with the ability to comment on their experience with other individuals.

3. Physical Inspection. A physical inspection can eliminate problems especially through collector’s item.

4. Escrow Service. The buyers need to mail payment to the escrow service. After the payment had been verified, an alerts email will send to the seller. Then the seller will ship the goods to the buyer. After an agreed upon inspection period and the buyer notifies the service which then sends a check to the seller.

https://www.escrow.com/solutions/escrow/process.asp

Pre-paid cash card

2008-07-06T22:33:00.001+08:00

Pre-paid cash card can be defined as a payment card that works like a credit or debit card. The most significant between debit and credit card is cannot run up a debt. When there is transaction of purchase, money will be directly deducted from consumer bank account, usually is from saving account rather than overdraft. Prepaid cash cards are considered the most secure and safe financial transaction cards nowadays because it always need a personal identification number to be keyed in for the transaction to be authorized, no one else can ever use your card.

Pre-paid cash card can be use through the internet for purchases like credit cards. Pre-paid cash card systems have become popular in video arcades, bowling centers and theme parks. There are several benefits by using those pre-paid cash card, such as allows operators to package their product more effectively while monitoring customer spending at the same time, security features provided such as personal identification numbers to protect consumers against theft and fraud , act virtually the same as cash is more security, are free of interest charges associated with credit cards, can conveniently and inexpensively in transferring funds to everywhere and easy in bill Payment and on-line Purchases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card

The application of 3rd party certification programme

2008-07-06T22:15:00.002+08:00

Third party certification is a third party written assurance given to certain product or service in conformation toward specified requirements. The two most popular certification authority (CA) are VeriSign and Trustgate. CA is a critical component in data security of e-commerce. A trusted third-party organization that issues digital certificates to guarantee customer’s information traveled over the Internet reaches the intended recipients and is safe from intruders.

Services and product of these trust organization have provided to secure are as follow:

Managed PKI for Enterprise Trust Services is a fully integrated enterprise platform designed to secure internet, intranet and extranet applications with high availability and security by combining maximum flexibility, performance, and scalability.Digital ID is electronic credentials that used public and private key to facilitate the operations such as authentication, authorization, integrity, privacy and non-repudiation. Beside, it also used to sign and encrypt the transactions to ensure the confidential information remains private in transit.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol that protects data transferred over the web using encryption enabled by a server's SSL certificate. It contains a public and private key. Public key is used to encrypt information; however, private key is used to decipher it. When a browser points to a secured domain, an SSL handshake authenticates the server and client through establishes an encryption method and a unique session key. Afterward, they can begin a secure session in web that guarantees the message privacy and message integrity.Digital Certificate provides a proving of your identity in electronic transactions. It is similar like a identify card or passport does in face-to-face interactions. By using Digital Certificate is to assure business associates and online services receive an authentic electronic information.

Besides the above service, there are a lot of services that trust organizations have provided. With these securities that provided, it has increase the confident of the user because they know that their privacy, information and transaction are being secure and would not be misuse by other.

-E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies-

2008-07-05T16:29:00.002+08:00

E-government is the use of information technology, e-commerce in particular, to provide delivery of public services to citizens, business partners, and public sector. One of the driving forces for future economic growth, E-Government is already transforming the way in which business is conducted by making businesses more adaptive and responsive.

Most of the e-Government project implementations are currently in progress, for examples, Electronic Procurement (eP) Project, Project Monitoring System (PMS II), Electronic Services Directory (eServices), E-Syariah. E-Filing, Renewing Road Tax and Driving Licence Online.

E-government has faced such problem, for example, the cultural of citizen has no get used of the new technology. The citizen are not totally believe on e-government because they are lack of knowledge of Information technology.

Besides, Citizens will feel no guarantee because there are no paper work on all process, especially the implementation of e-government still not very steady and sometimes system will breakdown.

Furthermore, not every house have internet connection, the procedure to apply internet connection need take long time to process.

In addition, lack of publicity, many citizens don't know how to process through E-Government.

Ways to encouraged citizens to use the government application is promoting the E-Governemnt through newspaper, advertising, magazine, radio.

Second, also can used discount through process of E-Government. This will attract citizens to process some transaction through E-Government.

The vision of Electronic Government is a vision for government, businesses and citizenry working together for the benefit of Malaysia and all of its citizens. The vision focuses on effectively and efficiently delivering services from the government to the people of Malaysia, enabling the government to become more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

Credit Card Debts: Causes & Prevention

2008-07-01T16:45:00.001+08:00

Credit card debt is a financial worry for many people. Excessive credit card debt can cause a poor credit rating, bankruptcy and subjection to high annual interest rates. There is several ways cause of consumers overspent on credit card.

Firstly, reduce of income or same expenses is one the causes of consumers overspent credit card. For example, we often delay bringing expenses in line with a reduction in income for a host of good reasons and let debt fill the gap. The sooner we adjust to our new reality, whether it be temporary or permanent, the better off we'll be.

Another cause of credit card debt is underemployment. People who experience under employment may continue to think of it as only temporary or if they are coming off unemployment feel a false sense of relief.

Saving too little or not at all also cause of overspent by consumers. The simplest way to avoid unwanted debt is to prepare for unexpected expenditures by saving three to six months of living expenses.

Gambling is considered as the cause of debts. It can be addictive, hard to stop and loans are freely available. Gambling establishments may be the only place we can mortgage our house while intoxicated and have it be legal.

However, if we manage our credit card well, we can avoid these problems.

Step1: Limit the number of cards that we have. If our cards offer low interest balance transfers, transfer the balances from our other cards onto the card with the lowest rate.

Step2: Pay at least twice the minimum. Paying the minimum will prevent us from paying off the credit card for many years.

Step3: Renegotiate our APR at least twice a year. Give a call to our credit card company and speak to a representative to see if we are eligible for a lower APR.

Step4: Stop charging everything. An effective way to manage a credit card is to charge only things that we can afford to pay off at the end of the billing cycle.

Step5: Try to pay off the balance during the interest free period. If our credit card offers an interest free promotional period, make the most out of it by paying off any debt that we have accumulated by the end of the period.
Step6:　Look for a rewards card. These cards allow us to get merchandise from our credit card company.

Mobile Payment Systems in Malaysia : Its potentials and consumers' adoption strategies

2008-06-29T19:24:00.003+08:00

Mobile payment (also referred to as mobile web payment or WAP billing) is a point-of-sale payment made through a mobile device such as mobile phone, smart phone, personal digital assistant (PDA) or other such device. Mobile payment can be used to purchase any number of digital or hard goods, such as

Music, videos, ring tones, games, wallpapers and other digital goods.
Books, magazines, tickets and other hard goods.

There are two primary models for mobile payments:

Premium sms based transactional payment
Mobile web payments ( WAP)

Premium sms based transactional payment is where the consumer sends a payment request via an sms text message to a shortcode and a premium charge is applied to their phone bill. The merchant involved is informed of the payment success and can then release the paid for goods. Another models for mobile payments, Mobile web payments (WAP) is where the consumer uses web pages displayed on their mobile phone to make a payment. This process is quickly replacing premium SMS based transactional payments for digital content and also enables the sale of physical goods. Using a familiar web payment model gives a number of proven benefits:

Follow-on sales where the mobile web payment can lead back to a store or to other goods the consumer may like.
High customer satisfaction from quick and predictable payments
ease of use from a familiar set of online payment pages

Mobile money international sdn bhd is one of example in Malaysia uses mobile payment system. Mobile money provide merchants and consumers with a convenient and secure mobile payment which provide no minimun montly transaction, no rental fee, no merchant account required and super low transaction fee at 1.5%. Besides that provide safe and secure, with mobile money, merchants do not have to be concern of cash or cheque and credit card handling problems or fraud.

Step Pay by Mobile Phone Number
(Applies to customer purchase from merchant's brick-and-mortar store or Remote Payment)

	Customer choose to pay via Mobile Money for the goods and services from participating merchants. Customer gives merchant his/her mobile number via phone, fax, email etc.

	Merchant can bill the customer via IVR, Mobile Money website or SMS. When merchant requests for payment with customer's mobile number, Mobile Money sends an SMS with a Bill Reference Number to customer requesting customer to to reply with their 6-Digit Security PIN to approve the payment. (Refer to Sample Screen P1.1 ) P1.1: Customer Receiving Payment Request via SMS from Merchant. Screen 1 and 2 are showing messages from 1 SMS Only.

	Customer authorizes payment by replying the SMS with the Bill Reference Number and customer's 6-digit SECURITY PIN. (Refer to Sample Screen P1.2) Mobile Money authenticates customer's SECURITY PIN and requests for bank approval on transaction. (In this illustration, 001 is the Bill Reference Number while 123456 is the security PIN. In simpler terms, 001 means it is the 1'st SMS request for payment, 002 means the 2'nd, 003 means the 3'rd and the number increases. ) P1.2: Customer Replying the SMS with their PIN CODE.

	Upon receipt of bank's confirmation to debit customer's mobile credit account or mobile Debit account, Mobile Money will send a payment notification with details to merchant as well as customer. (Refer to Sample Screen 1.3) P1.3: Customer Receiving Notification from Mobile Money.

	Merchant can deliver the goods / services.

-eLectronic CurrenCy-

2008-06-29T02:41:00.003+08:00

Nowadays, many people buy books, CDs, clothes, travel, and other products and services over the Internet. However, after years of online purchasing, one long-promised aspect of e-commerce has remained largely unfulfilled: electronic micropayments for items that cost RM 10 or less. Now, there appears to be a growing demand for e-micro payment technologies that would enable the purchase of items and services such as MP3 music files, magazine and newspaper articles, Web-based comics, database access, and driving directions.

Flooz.com was one of type the electronic micropayment, Flooz.com was a venture based in New York City that went online in February 1999. Actually their plans are introduce a currency unique to the Internet, somewhat similar in concept to airline frequent flier miles or even the old grocery store stamp books. " Flooz" word is came from Arabic word for money, فلوس, (fuloos). The sender prepaid the Flooz, which was e-mailed to someone like a greeting card, and the recipient spent it on sites that accepted Flooz. A free reminder service was also provided to keep people from forgetting anniversaries and other dates. The benefit to using an online currency like Flooz is that you can make purchases at e-commerce sites without having to reveal your personal credit card information.

But Flooz.com went bankrupt in August 2001 along with its competitor Beenz.com. The problem with Flooz is that it can only be used at designated stores. Currently they have over sixty (60) different stores that you can spend your Flooz dollars. Besides, Flooz.com was lacking in customer service department. There is a several lack of communication on the part of the staff as well as between the Flooz company and their online partners.

Although Flooz.com would make a nice gift for a friend or family member, there are so many limits with actually spending the currency.

The Threat of Online Security : How Safe Is Our Data?

2008-06-25T17:08:00.006+08:00

The internet offers the opportunity to bank and shop in safety whenever and wherenever you want to do but also got a lot of people are facing problem on an attack their personal, financial and privacy data. The criminals attack internet users in a variety of ways including: virus, spyware, Wi-Fi eavesdropping, Hacking, Phishing.

Virus

Viruses are small, malicious computer progras that try to infect computers, spreading from on machine to the next. They spread in different ways:

As attachments to emails. An infected computer can send out tens of thousands of emails, each carrying virus. Often it will use your email address book to find new people to attack
By pretending to be something they are not (a ‘Trojan’). For example, a file that looks like it contains a picture of a celebrity.
As downloads on malicious websites. In some cases, just visiting the site can download the virus. In other cases, they can be hidden inside seemingly-innocent programs that you download from the net. Hidden inside documents (‘macro viruses’)
Directly over the internet from one computer to another (a ‘worm’). Once infected, a computer will scan the internet looking for computers that are vulnerable to attack and send them a copy.

spyware

Spyware doesn’t try to replicate itself a virus. Instead, it relies on people downloading it mistakenly, often alongside other programs such as peer- to-peer music sharing programs.It causes a range of problems,including:

Annoying pop-up adverts
Taking over your web browser
Scanning your computer for private information like credit card numbers
Slowing down your computer and internet connection
Downloading viruses
Being very difficult to remove

Wi-Fi eavesdropping

If you use a wireless, or Wi-Fi, network you will know that it lets you connect to your broadband internet connection using a radio link with a range of several hundred feet. However, this flexibility has a downside. Without security, other people can also connect to your internet link if they are within range. This mean you could pay for you neighbor’s internet use. A more sinister risk is that people can with the right equipment, eavesdrop on you and gain access to your computer over the wireless link.

Hacking

Hacker is individual who intends to gain unauthorized access t a computer system. Hackers are increasingly motivated by money and stealing your bank account and credit card information could make it well worth a criminal’s time to attack you. However, cracker is individual who intends to gain unauthorized access to a computer system with criminal intentions.

Phishing

Phishing, which means using a fake bank or credit card website and persuading you to enter private information that can be used to steal from you

As a conclusion, as a user we need to safeguard our privacy information by different defences for complete protection, for example anti-virus software and firewall. Besides that users should update it regularly in order to ensure its effectiveness.

how to SAFEGUARD our personal and financial data

2008-06-23T12:05:00.002+08:00

There are many cases involving identity theft, months pass before the victim is aware of any wrongdoing. Simply monitoring your credit card and account statements on a weekly basis can greatly decrease your identity theft risk. Therefore, privacy and security of personal and financial data are often beyond your ability to control. You must nearly always give up some bit of personal information to conduct even the most routine financial transaction. Once you provide data, its security is outside your control. However, there are some steps that you can take to optimize the chances your data will be safe.

Tip 1. Educate yourself with knowing what data is required for a certain transaction and set limits accordingly. For example, a check cashing company may ask for your phone number, but you should question the need to supply your Social Security number.

Tip 2. Recognize your “status” with the financial institution. Are you a “customer” with a continuing relationship, or a “consumer” with no data security protections?

Tip 3. If you want to optimize your security protections, cash checks or use ATMs with institutions where you are a customer and have an ongoing relationship.

Tip 4. Ask your financial institution about its data security program. You may not get an in-depth response or a copy of the company’s written policy, but you are entitled to assurance that the company takes data security seriously. Security is often discussed on a company’s web site along with its privacy policy.

Tip 5. Keep up with the news. Just because a financial institution has a single publicized instance of a security breach does not mean it’s a bad company. An important indicator is what that company does to help its customers after a reported breach. For example, does the company offer to provide free credit monitoring services to limit the threat of identity theft?

Tip 6. Read privacy notices carefully, and exercise any opportunity to opt-out. This is not only important to protect your privacy, but opting out also gives you a measure of control over the security of your information.

Tip 7. Always keep in mind, there is no blanket protection for either privacy or data security. Guard your personal data like you would your money. Remember, your personal information may be more valuable than your money, especially to an identity thief.

Tip 8. Never provide personal data in response to an unsolicited e-mail. Many identify thieves are now sending e-mails that appear to be from a financial institution, such as a bank. This is a fairly recent ruse identity thieves use to obtain your information. The scam is called “phishing.” The return e-mail address or linked web site may look like it came from a legitimate company. But keep in mind, legitimate businesses do not ask for personal information via e-mail -- unless you make the first contact.

pHisHing: ExAmples aNd its PreVenTion MeThod

2008-06-21T14:02:00.005+08:00

Phishing is a crimeware technique to steal the identity of a target company to get the identities of its customers. A person who practice's phishing is called a phisher. Here have some examples of phishing, cases 1: Ebay

Message received by eBay member:

This genuine looking email is a masquerade. As soon as you clicked on "respond", you were directed to an exact clone of eBay and your personal information was stolen. These messages come in different styles and writings. Go manually to ebay.com and check your private messages there and you will see if its real or not.

Second message received by ebay member is:

This message is showed someone was requests that you fill out all personal data, pin code et cetera. You must be pretty naive to fill this form and send it back. The next thing you know is that your account is emptied, checks are written or some crook has done some lavish shopping with your account or credit card.

Cases 2: Bank Of The West

This is the mail one receives:

The client conscious bank would never send an email like this. But to the unsuspecting, law abiding, inexperienced nettizen it might look as a legitimate request. The phisher use client's fear for having the client's account emptied or at least suspended.

To prevent phishing attack,

Using Firewall and anti-virus software to protect your computer.

Review web sites SSL certificates and your own bank and credit card statements for an extra measure of safety.

Continuous periodic exercises for all users in which they experience safe phishing.

Universal two-factor authentication.

Implementation of verification tools such as secret images, and or challenge questions. Secret images is works by having a user select one or more images in advance. The images is only known to the customer and the authenticator, the process works by showing this images to the end user, the end user should be instructed that when this image is not present the site is NOT legitimate and to contact a customer service rep as soon as possible. Challenge questions, work by having a user select multiple secret questions in advance, that only the customer and the authenticator are aware of.

Log information such as IP address, location information, and computer finger prints to uniquely track any device accessing changing customers data online.

Do not mass e-mail your customer base with web links directed to your site or any other website. Doing so teaches your customer base to accept web link opening, and to assume trust. This will open you up for Phishing attacks in the future.

Never email confidential information to ANYONE.

Change your passwords every 90 days.

Never click on a link within an email, always type in the main address of the site yourself and navigate to the login page via their menu.

An example of an E-commerce failure and its causes

2008-06-16T13:17:00.003+08:00

E-commerce can assist company successfully, but also can bring failure. Pets.com is one among many other online retailers that failed as a business-to-consumer e-commerce entity. Pets.com offered consumers a wide range of product selection, large-scale inventory, competitive prices, and expert advice from a staff of pet-industry experts and veterinarians. It attracted many customers by offered an efficiently designed website.

One problem with Pets.com’s business model was that it was not unique and did not offer consumers anything different from the other online pet supplies retailers. Each of the pet e-tailers could easily be confused with its competition. Another problem that Pets.com faced was that it entered a market of selling low-margin food and supplies that are extremely costly to ship to consumers. Many consumers just preferred to shop at local discount stores such as the grocery stores where they would be shopping for food anyway. Pets.com as well as the other online pet supplies firms failed to offer customers a better alternative to what they already had. Shopping online for these kinds of products was not any more convenient for them than shopping at an actual retail store.

Pets.com had become the leading online pet store, but after months of trying everything possible to cut costs, recover dwindling stock prices, and attempt to gain some profits, the online retailer saw no better alternative than to shut down business.The reasons for the closing of Pets.com relate back to an unsustainable business model and unachievable expectations. It acquired large amounts of funding from venture capitalists without demonstrating any background of achievements or success which most likely raised the confidence level of executives far beyond what it should have been.

Without any experience, the firm went public only a few months after its initial launch. Pets.com assumed the market and its revenues would grow quickly enough to allow for a profit before funding money was exhausted. Strongly focus on market share instead of on gaining profits led to the downfall of Pets.com. Also, another contributing factor is that this e-tailer may have overestimated the number of online customers it could gain in the pet market.

Just like numerous other pure-play businesses, Pets.com went public too soon and spent money too quickly. One of its major mistakes was the excessive spending on marketing and advertising. Since funding was continuously available during the beginning months of Pets.com, they did not think twice about spending everything in hopes of increasing consumer awareness of the business which would hopefully lead to increased sales.

Some businesses can be successfully even with high shipping costs, but Pets.com did not have a chance to prove this. There are many reasons why some firms may not want to enter the online selling market, and the experience of Pets.com is just one example of many.

An Example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

2008-06-16T00:48:00.004+08:00

Amazon.com is an American electronic commerce (e-commerce) company in Seattle, Washington. Amazon.com was one of the first major companies to sell goods by internet.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994, and launched it online in 1995. Amazon.com started as an on-line bookstore, but soon diversified to product lines of VHS , DVD , CD , MP3, computer software , video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, etc. Amazon.com has established separate websites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, and Japan. It also provides global shipping to certain countries for some of its products.

Why does Amazon.com so success as a home based business??? It is because amazon.com has build and E-business strategy rather then a technology or focusing on traditional business tactics. It is also required to develop a friendly and warm informative environment to produce a strong basis of market knowledge –customer competition. A strong communication and persuading relation with each customer is also required. Further in order to avoid failure, it is also important to introduce new and unique products to keep the customers coming back as there is no entry barriers on the Internet. The most important thing to realize is the emerging challenges in market and the advanced tools to coup these challenges and at the same time keeps a hand on maintaining a balance in customer and company relationship.

In addition, Amazon is presently ruling the Internet business with its best marketing techniques and expertise in relation to the market trends and demands of its customers. It is booming through out the world of e-business with its wide range of books related to a variety of subjects and topics, committing a major source of income as well as also succeeded in marinating brand names. It is the only website that contains altogether web books, business brands and retails on a single web-based business. Therefore, Amazon does not only leads to sale books but also offer a variety of electronic items as well as video, music, health and fitness, wireless cell phones, automobile, house holds, gifts, software, hardware, kitchen utensils and many more stuff. It therefore contains items related to all ages, all interests and all fields as well as all areas.

On the other hand Amazon.com has significantly grabbed the electronic business by selling its online books and now electronic items and other stuff. Nonetheless the effective management and consumer identification in the market lead Amazon.com to achieve tremendous success in the filed of e-commerce. It in true sense made business via Internet a wealthy way to improve profits and increase revenues.

Globalization has changed the marketing and business trends. Now one can do a market survey and also do retail purchase via electronic media by just sitting on a seat with just a click away. Though the concept of electronic commerce is a new and still at its infant stage but it is growing faster and gaining more and more recognition. Amazon.com has immensely gained economic profit with recognition in e-commerce all over the world due to its strong organizational and effective team management strategies.

How E-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees' empowerment and facilitate customer support

2008-06-15T20:50:00.004+08:00

E-commerce can bring many benefits toward a company, but at here, i will discuss about how E-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees' empowerment and facilitate customer support.

Cycle time means a process of goods or services start from the first stage of produce untill deliver to customers. Many organization is figure out to reduce their company cycle time in order to made more profit and satisfy its customers. E-commerce had eliminate salepersons and middleman which always practice in traditional business trading. E-catelog is flexible and easy to update for provide latest information about products or services then deliver to customer on time upon updated. It reduce the marketing and advertising cost in promoting and can compete with others in quality, price and availability.

E-commerce will bring unlimited market share to a company. It will lead a small business growth bigger and become global multinational companies. Certain product which is special and unique which only certain people will consume on it can be setup in e-commerce too. This kind of market is call as niche market. This because e-commerce allow company to operate in 24 hours for a day. In reducing unnecessary phone call, postage mail, purchasing cost, order processing cost by directly sell to customer will lead to benefit a company more emphasis in improving facilitate customers support.

Most customers like to control on sales process. Especially for those who don't like to face salesperson. Through e-commerce, customers only need click on few icons and a sales transaction will be done. Customer loyalty can be build. Zero inventory can be implement in e-commerce by build up good relationship with supplier. Once a customer need of certain goods and the company can get from supplier in real time and shipping out to customer, not only will made customer love it and it will built up good image for the company too.

Staffs is free from serving customer. They need not to provide customer cervice and sales support by using right software in store of inventory levels, shipping and receiving logs and other administrative works. Easier administrative works will lead to most employees like to work on.

Company which operate in e-commerce and success are google.com, yahoo.com and so on. E-commerce bring a lot of benefits to this time-based competitive worlds.

ThE HiStOry And EvoLuTioN Of E-CoMmErcE

2008-06-15T14:58:00.003+08:00

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce. E-commerce is a type of business model, or segment of a larger business model, that enables a firm of individual to conduct business over an electronic network, typically the internet. Electronic commerce operates in all four of the major market segments: business to business, business to consumer, consumer to consumer and consumer to business. It consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic system such as the internet and other computer networks. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange ( EDI ), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the Word Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.

There are several steps in the history and evolution of e-commerce:

The 1st step is development of Electronic Data Interchange ( EDI ), EDI is a set of standard developed in 1960s to exchange the business information and execute the electronic transactions.

The 2nd step is development of online retailing. In 1992, compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This is the first time that the people are able to buy things off their computer.

The 3rd step is Development of web browser. In 1992, Mosaic web browser was available and it was the first “point and click” web-browser. After that, Netscape browser was introduced in 1994. It provides the users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

The 4th step is the two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched in 1995, there are Amazon.com and Ebay.com.

The 5th step is Development of Digital Subscriber Line ( DSL ). DSL allowed quicker access and a persistent connection to the internet. This stimulates people spend more time and money online.

The 6th step is Retailing spending over the internet in 1999 business.com was sold for US $7.5 million, which was purchased in 1997 for US $150,000. The peer-to-peer filesharing software Napster was launched.

The 7th step is Hacker's attack the e-commerce players. In February of 2000, some major players of e-commerce such as Yahoo, ebay and Amazon were attacked by the hackers. The attacks represent the need to improve the security in the development of e-commerce.

About~aLLen~

2008-06-10T22:38:00.007+08:00

As what required, individual member need to write about themselves in this blog. I am Ong Lam Yew, everybody call me Allen since i entered Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahamn. I from Teluk Intan,Perak, but used to call it Diamond Bay. For me, Diamond Bay is more suitable for it. It famous with leaning clock tower at the heart of town. Some people call it as world second Pisa which famous in Italy. Many tourist like to capture photos around there. Besides that, Diamond Bay also had many delicious food, such as Mee Jawa from Malay, Nasi Khandar from Indian, Che Cheong Fun from Chinese. All this delicious food has been proposed in 8tv 'HoChiak' TV show.

After knowing about my hometown, now is the time to knowing some about me. I am taking Bachelor in Commerce Hons Accounting course in UTAR. Recently is in third year first semester. I had meet a lot of lovely friends in university. Everyone had their own characteristic, but they all treat other nice. So proud for knowing them. When free, i like to serve net, play basketball, volleyball, jungle tracking, swimming and watch drama. I like Hong Kong series, such as The Seventh Day, Detective and so on. TVB drama series stories is more attractive compared to others.

While serving net, i always log on to http://www.friendster.com/. I will post all my recent photos and wrote some blog over there. This page also allow me to keep contact with my friends which stay far from me. My URL is http://profiles.frienster.com/sunkiller. When i need information for assignment, i will visit to http://www.google.com.my/, http://www.yahoo.com/ and http://www.utar.edu.my/. I can get what i want inside that few pages. Information gather in those few websites is more accurate and reliable. I had register with yahoo page for my emailing activities. However, while seeking for entertainment, like watching recent TV show outside Malaysia, i will visit http://www.youtube.com/ and http://www.tudou.com/. TV show such as Guess show from Taiwan, Super from Hong Kong and so on. For listen to song, http://www.666ccc.com/ and http://www.8ka.com/ is the best choice. You can get listen to the latest songs in there.

Want to know more about me??? Wait for next post...

About~ChIA TeAN~

2008-06-10T22:37:00.016+08:00

hello!i am chia tean student of accounting in UTAR Sungai Long. This is the first time i write blog, now let me introduce myself first. I am from Dungun, Terengganu this is a small place compare with KL, but i love my hometown very much, it is because in my hometown has a lot delicious food such as malay food which include nasi lemak, nasi dagang, nasi minyak, keropok and others.These are my favourite foods.

Besides that the residents are very friendly and Dungun is a place which full of peace and harmony. There is also a beautiful sea in Dungun. Pulau Redang is one of the famous travel place in Terengganu. The seaside in the pulau redang is very beautiful and the water in the sea are very clear so we can easily see a lot of fish swim in the water. Besides that air condition in pulau redang also very fresh, it is really a nice place to rest and travel. In my mind it is really a wonderful place in the world.

i like to watch drama,listen to song,sing k at greenbox,online chit chat with my lovely friend through msn and server net to find information during my free time. Besides that i also like to update my blog so that my friend can know my current situation.

The website that i visited the most is www.google.com and www.yahoo.com to find information that i need for my education and updated the information around the world. Another is www.friendst er.com that is a website that can let me share my life picture and can let me know more friend. Besides that is www.youtube.com can let me watch the entertaining video clip and post some special and meaningful video clip to share with my friend. On the other hand is www.chinapress.com.my that can let me know the current issue that happen in our country, that is the top 5 websites that i always enter.

At here i wish my lovely family and my friend all the best and happy everyday.

AbOUt YOkE MuN

2008-06-10T22:31:00.008+08:00

Hehe..My name is Chow Yoke Mun,21 years old, just a normal girl with average look,weight. Now i am pursuing degree bachelor accounting course. Hope can graduate successfully. Erm...i come from the single parent family, my father was pass away since i am 3 years old. So, my mother was support me by herself. Although she was faced many problems but she never give up and hold on straight to the end. She is the one I love most. What the hobbies that i do always?? of course is read comic, like doraemon, crayon syin chan, dragon ball and I like to collect the comic as my collection. So, my bookcase almost all is comic. Another hobbies is watch animax,movie or drama from japanese, korea, hong kong, taiwan i also like.

I not always online because still use prepaid tm net. The top websites i visited i think is www.friendster.com, www.xunlei.com, www.sogou.com, www.cari.com.my, www.yahoo.com. First, I can know more and meet new friend through friendster and keep in touch with old friends. Second, sometimes i was read comic through www.xunlei.com because it is fast and updated. Third, i like to hear song through www. sogou.com because it is fast and have various type of song. Forth, i can participated some updated forum and know more updated various type of information through www.cari.com.my. Finally, i would always check my e-mail and know some updated information.

About~Chin Vun!!

2008-06-10T22:28:00.006+08:00

Again is me, I am Chia Chin Vun, or u can call me Vivian. Do you know TAWAU? Yeah... that's my hometown, a small hometown in Sabah which has many delicious food that i like so and in memorial, like San Nyuk Mian, Soto Ayam, some sort of Kon Lao Mian, tasty fried food and the most important food from my lovely Mum, she's a good cook:P!!

I am taking Bechelor in Commerce Hons Accounting course in UTAR. Recently is in third year first semester. In between, i have make a lots of lovely and friendly friends in my UTAR life :) . Their own characteristics treating my life more enjoyable and excellent. I am going to give a great thanks for them who helping me in studies and learning.

I like to watching drama, listening to songs, eating favourite food, sing K,and sometimes swimming and jogging to keep my health better :D. Let me recommend two TVB series here that i like the most: A Journey called life and Forensic heroes II. Of course, i keep in touch with my friends through msn and serve net for information and blogging to let my friends getting know my recent life easily.

Besides that, i always log on to http://www.friendster.com/ to get update my friends life . By the way, i share my life photoes and comments throught friendsters. There are two websites that i visited the most is http://www.google.com/ and http://www.yahoo.com/ to seek information that i need for my education. I will get what i wan from them and helped me a lot. However, http://www.youtube.com/, http://www.baidu.com/, http://www.discuss.com.hk/ are the pages that can let me seek for the latest songs and drama as well as entertaining shows around the world. ( Recommended,hehe!!)

I'll stop here, I wish all of family and friends having a best and healthy life as their wish!!!