Life & Wessex King Essay Example for Free

Life Wessex King Essay Life in the past was characterized with lots of battles between rival territories. This resulted to the rise of powerful empires and the measure of power during those days was through the number of wars fought. Warriors of those days were called Vikings. A Viking also denotes a pirate, merchant or explorer. These Norsemen normally used long ships to travel in the sea to all the places of their interest and used the same vessels to fight their enemies. The Vikings are traced to have originated in the early 17th century in the German territory. The initiator of Vikings in the Iceland is Erik the red. He lived all his life ruling his people after which his son picked the mantle from him (Gwyn, J. 2000). SCANDINAVIA The term Scandinavia is both a historical a major geographical part in the world. There exist also a people who are identified as the Scandinavians. According to the geographical setting, Scandinavia is located in the Northern Europe, a place called Scandinavian Peninsula. The kingdoms that existed in the Scandinavian region include: Finland, Norway and partly Denmark. A lot of research done also reveal that Sweden and Iceland also form part of this robust history. All these regions put together are further referred to as Nordic region. The geographical orientation of Scandinavia is rather ambiguous. The region spreads from the Norwegian Fjords all the way to the low areas in Denmark through the Scandinavian Mountains and to the archipelagos of Sweden and Norway. This region has diverse group of people and for this reason, there exist more that one dialect. The languages that were spoken in these regions included Norway, Sweden and Denmark dialects. These people usually understood each other and thus had mutual understanding. DO THE VIKINGS RIGHTFULLY DESERVE THE REPUTATION THAT THEY WERE CRUEL, MURDEROUS BARBARIANS? WHY? WHY NOT? The Vikings performed most of their ventures through wars. It is evident that a normal way of dressing was to be attire that is characteristic of a warrior. The males had war uniforms all the time. From the first time that the Vikings entered a territory, war had to be fought. It is mandatory that people must die in the event of war. The death of people was so common to these northern tribes that any one could talk of them to be cruel and murderous. Other ventures like sea piracy and looting were associated with brutality and blood shed. The victims of such encounters were left counting their losses if they were not dead. Erik who is one of the founders of the Vikings movement was actually observed to murder many people in his native land until he was expelled to go to exile, the result which led to the discovery of Ice land. EXPLAIN THE ROLE OF WESSEX, IN REGARD TO THE VIKINGS IN ENGLAND. The Wessex territory was known for its great power during the year 878. This territory had great potential that any attacker could admire. Te Wessex King of that time planed for a very efficient army that was to fight and defeat the Viking warriors. This king managed to resist the Vikings and with time became pronounced as Alfred the great. His territory was a centre for trade, commerce and administration. The Vikings however invaded this land and took loots from it as usual. The Wessex region acted as a real opposition to the advances of the Vikings. Every one feared the Vikings. The sight of these raiders approaching a region would send cold shivers down the guts of every king. King Alfred however managed to escape them, even though he was later cornered. The Wessex region became a home of habitation to some Vikings although others separated from the settling camp and continued with invasion. Wessex became a point mark towards bringing an end to the Viking advances in war. HOW DID THE VIKINGS CONTRIBUTE TO THE BREAK-UP OF THE CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE? The Vikings were a major threat to the kings during the Viking age. The Vikings attached Carolingian empire in the year 885 and 886 leading to the defeat of their kings. In 845, the Viking warriors sailed to seine in France and attacked it. The end result of this was a defeat to the Carolingian empire and the kings that followed were just puppet rulers who were initiated by the Vikings. This led to the fall of this empire and it took along time to come up again. EXPLAIN THE VARIOUS PHASES INVOLVED IN VIKING RAIDS. Vikings mainly had 3 phases of raids. The very first phase said to have lasted from 790-840. The Vikings used very shallow draught long ships. They always used these ships because they were suitable majorly for surprise attacks in the coastal towns. The size of these vessels was so small so that the Vikings could rush and attack very fast. With this they attacked Frisia and Aquitane. The second level of attacks occurred between 841 and 875 and the number of raids increased. The Vikings attacked by killing or enslaving their victims. With this, the attacks proceeded to the Mediterranean Sea. 876 to 911 saw the introduction of the third phase. With this, the Vikings started to invade frnce and other parts of Europe. They also developed their own fleets that were used to attack distance empires.

Roosevelt and the Great Depression Essay -- History Politics Historica

Roosevelt and the Great Depression The Great Depression of the 1930’s was a great blow to America especially after the seeming prosperity of the twenties. The depression was a result not of false prosperity in the twenties, although the distribution of wealth was very uneven the affluence was very real, but rather from a lack of economic and political maturity to address the problems either before 1929 or as a cure post 1929. The Great Depression is often seen as a result of the twenties when rather it was a failure of the thirties. If the necessary policies had been drawn up in the twenties there would have been widespread hatred for these policies by the wealthy ruling class. This would have made them impossible to implement. It is only during the depression that they became a remote political possibility. Since most of these measures were never tried by either Hoover or Roosevelt we can only speculate as to the level of political acceptance such measures would have encountered. Roosevelt's main measure in combating the Great Depression was the implementation of the New Deal. When Roosevelt excepted the presidential nomination he said â€Å"I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people†. The New Deal, which was never clearly defined, became the label for the measures undertaken to combat the depression. This New Deal sparked off one of the most concentrated bursts of legislation in American history. In 1933 Roosevelt took up office in the face of an economic crisis. Massive unemployment had swept the country and a banking sector in crisis. â€Å"The New Deal was already in the oven, only half-baked, but it had to be served quickly† it was perhaps for this reason that the barrage of legislation lacked a cohe... ... reversing the policy of fiscal conservatism into one of increased defence spending which brought a boom to many industries. Many of the gains of Roosevelt’s actions are in the long term. Even though many of his government agencies ceased to exist some key reforms were made, especially with regard welfare and the banking sector. The New Deal, though of dubious economic value, set in motion long-range trends toward governmental expansion and modernisation. Works Cited: Burns, J.M. 1956, Roosevelt the Lion and the Fox 1882-1940: Volume One, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York Conkin, P.H. 1968, The New Deal, Routledge American History, London. Graham, O.L. 1967, An Encore for Reform: The Old Progressives and The New Deal, Oxford University Press, New York. Hill, C.P. & Fell, G.H. (eds), 1975, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, Edward Arnold, London

Msc Strategic Management

The copyright of the Master thesis rests with the author. The author is responsible for its contents. RSI Erasmus University is only responsible for the educational coaching and beyond that cannot be held responsible for the content.Acknowledgements I would like to thank Raymond van Wick, Bert Flier, and Justine Jansen for their inspirational lectures and papers forming the basis for my thesis and new found interests; Raymond van Will and Mochala Chippers for thoughtful discussion and feedback during the process of writing this thesis; the managers responding to my river for enabling thesis testing; my parents, sister, and brother for their enduring and limitless support and patience; and XX for her support, love, and understanding.Your valuable contributions enabled the writing of this paper. XX, March 2009 Marten van Brussels Designing ambidexterity Social Capital and Ambidexterity 10 Cognitive social capital 11 Shared culture and systems Shared vision 12 Relational social capital 13 Trust Tie strength 14 Ambidexterity and Unit PerformanceIt provides the organization the ability to be aligned with and adaptable to its environment. The ambidextrous organizational form builds on internally inconsistent structures and cultures, allowing exploratory and exploitative units to optimally configure themselves around specific task-environment requirements. Exploratory units search for new knowledge and skills for the development of radical innovations and are characterized by loose cultures.Exploitative units build on and extend existing knowledge and skills for making incremental changes and fair well with tight cultures. Thus, to achieve ambidexterity organizations have to integrate the contradictory forces of exploration and exploitation and manage the internal tensions hat these forces bring along. However, it is strategic integration which remains to be a complex issue. The mechanisms for integration need to be able to access and integrate knowledge across relati vely autonomous units.Till date, formal integration mechanisms have received ample attention, while organizational social capital was largely ignored. Cognitive and relational social capital are found to be essential determinants for the transfer of knowledge between units within the organization and thus for their integration. Therefore, this study explores how cognitive social UAPITA, represented by shared culture and systems and shared vision, provides the needed meaning and understanding for business units in a context of contradiction which is apparent in the ambidextrous organizational form.In addition, the facets of relational social capital, represented by trust and strong ties, are explored as enablers to bringing units focusing on either exploratory or exploitative activities together. In total 52 autonomous business units, from three globally diversified electronics and electrical equipment companies, participated with the research through surveys. These business units ar e responsible for either a specific market segment or product group, ranging from more traditional businesses to newer businesses.They provided insight into their achievement of ambidexterity, performance, the extent of mutual meaning and understanding with other units, and the content of their relations with other units. The results concerning the four separated factors used to measure cognitive and relational social capital appear to be influenced by invisible multimillionaires. However, these factors still explain to considerable extent the achievement of business unit ambidexterity and reference.Concerning cognitive social capital, a shared culture and systems do not appear to influence the achievement of ambidexterity, while a shared vision among business units strongly supports business unit ambidexterity and to considerable extent performance. Concerning relational social capital, trust between business units seems to contribute to ambidexterity, but a shared vision is an imp ortant contributor to this relationship. Trust also positively influences unit performance.Strong ties do not seem to influence the simultaneous pursuit for exploratory and exploitative innovation. If at all, the relation would have been negative. Before strong ties would benefit ambidexterity, these ties need to be complemented by a certain amount of trust. In addition, strong ties do not support unit performance. The findings indicate that a combination of shared culture and systems and shared vision into a single measure of cognitive social capital does explain business unit ambidexterity and to considerable extent unit performance.The sharing of a vision amongst separated business units appears to reduce the negative effects of resistance to change and adaptability following from a shared culture and systems. By combining shared vision and shared culture and systems it seems that a more balanced understanding or context is created in which units accept the simultaneous pursuit o f exploration and exploitation. The combination also positively impacts performance. A combination of trust and strong ties into a single measure of relational social capital does explain unit performance, and to some extent ambidexterity.It appears that trusting relations positively mediate the negative relation between strong ties and the search for novel ideas. While trust leads to the exchange and combination of rich resources, the implementation of the consequent novel insights and combinations is benefited by strong ties. The achievement of business unit ambidexterity does positively influence unit performance. However, ambidexterity does not seem to mediate the relation between social capital and performance. Rather the relation between social capital and unit performance is a direct one.Overall, social capital dimensions enable the integration of exploratory and exploitative activities, while ameliorating the subsequent internal tensions. In addition, the content of relation s and extent of mutual understanding between business units influences unit performance. Hence, social capital is an important contributor to vital business unit outcomes. Top managers should therefore master the creation and exploitation of social capital. Interesting avenues for future literature are discussed.Taken together, these understandings deliver new insights into how business units might achieve competitive advantages and increased performance and survival chances. 5 An organization's long-term survival depends on its ability to â€Å"engage in enough exploitation to ensure the organization's current viability and to engage into enough exploration to ensure future viability' (March, 1991: 105). Indeed, Rakish & Brainwash (2008) in their effort to merge the burgeoned literature on organizational ambidexterity conclude that successful firms are ambidextrous.It provides the organization the ability to be aligned with and adaptable to their environment (Gibson & Brainwash, 2 004), enables the organization to simultaneously pursue exploratory and exploitative innovations (Banner & Dustman, 2003), and gives it competitive advantage (Dustman & Reilly, 1996). To achieve organizational ambidexterity organizations have to unite the contradictory forces of exploration and exploitation and manage the internal tensions that these forces bring along.While the benefits of organizational ambidexterity have been emphasized and important contributions providing insight in how to accomplish organizational ambidexterity have been made (e. G. Jansen, George, Van den Busch, & Belabored, AAA; Kittening & Dustman, 2007; smith & Dustman, 2005; He & Wong, 2004), empirical evidence explicating the factors underlying the process of achieving organizational ambidexterity is largely lacking (Reilly & Dustman, 2008; Jansen, et al, AAA). The ambidextrous organization thrives on internally inconsistent structures and cultures (Smith & Dustman, 2005).Exploratory units search for new knowledge and skills for the development of radical innovations in order to meet the needs of emerging customers or markets, while exploitative units build on and extend existing knowledge and skills for making incremental changes to existing products and services to meet the needs of existing customers and markets (Banner & Dustman, 2003). This focus enables the units to optimally configure themselves around specific discontentment requirements (Lawrence & Lora's, 1967).However, it is the strategic integration of these contradictory forces which leads organizational ambidexterity to become a dynamic capability for the organization (Reilly & Dustman, 2008). Since organizational ambidexterity appears to be such an important concept for organizations and difficult to achieve a lack in research on its antecedents is surprising. This paper focuses on the antecedents of ambidexterity at business unit level by taking on a social capital perspective.The research on managing and integratin g exploratory and exploitative activities has mainly focused on formal structures and incentives, largely ignoring the social structure that likely enables organizational ambidexterity (Cleanable & Dustman, 2007; Jansen, Van den Busch, & Belabored, 2006). By focusing on cognitive social capital and relational social capital, the two dimensions of social capital that provide closure within the organization (Van Wick, Jansen, & Less, 2008), the paper attempts to explain the integration of exploratory and exploitative activities.The paper argues hat cognitive social capital, represented by shared culture and systems and shared vision, provides the needed meaning and understanding in the context of contradiction (Smith & Dustman, 2005; Inpatient & Shoal, 1998; Inept and Tsars, 2005; Van Wick, et al, 2008), which is apparent in the ambidextrous organizational form. The facets of relational social capital, represented by trust and strong ties, are seen as enablers to bringing units focusi ng on either exploratory or exploitative activities together (Van Wick, et al, 2008; Tsar, 2000).Also, social capital stands central o the understanding of innovation (Inpatient & Shoal, 1998; Moran, 2005) and as such influences exploratory and exploitative innovation. In addition, Guppy, Smith & Shelley (2006) state that learning from exploratory and exploitative activities is more likely to occur at macro level (I. E. Team, unit, organizational, or interdenominational), than at micro level (I. E. The individual).Thus, referring to the definition of social capital (Inept & Tsars, 2005), organizational learning is a resource which is embedded within, becomes available through, and can be derived from a network of relationships. Following this logic, organizational ambidexterity resides in the relationships between units, which are explained by social capital theory. By addressing the question how social capital can enable ambidexterity, the study attempts to bring a social perspecti ve into the ambidexterity debate.Research addressing this link is missing, while the two are seemingly related. By studying the relation between social capital, which has the ability to build competitive advantage (Inpatient & Shoal, 1998), and ambidexterity, which leads to long-run survival (Rakish & Brainwash, 2008), this paper contributes mainly to the strategic management and organizational literature. In the following sections theory and hypotheses will be presented. Ambidexterity and social capital will be explained, while the hypotheses and the research model linking the two are given.Then, the methodology section will outline how the study tests these hypotheses within business units. The results section provides initial insight on the fulfillment of the hypotheses, while their implications will be outlined in the discussion and conclusion section. In addition, the paper proposes future avenues for inquiry. 7 Duncan (1976) introduced the term ambidexterity, in the organizati onal setting, arguing that long-term organizational success depends on switching organizational structures in sequence, depending on an organization's state of innovativeness.When an organization finds itself in a phase of innovation it should adopt an organic structure. When the organization is ready to exploit the innovation a mechanistic structure is more appropriate. However, it was not until the seminal article of March (1991) on organizational learning that research on ambidexterity started burgeoning. March (1991) argued that organizations should â€Å"engage in enough exploitation to ensure the organization's current viability and engage in enough exploration to ensure future viability' (March, 1991: 105, italics added).A focus on exploitation at the expense of exploration is likely to lead to short-term success, but in the long-term may lead to competency traps and inertia. A focus on exploration at the expense of exploitation might lead to innovate ideas, but would leave the organization without the ability to reap the benefits. Dustman & Reilly (1996) showed that organizations are able to combine exploratory and exploitative activities.

Analysis Of Kevin Halligan s The Cockroach - 1975 Words

This essay examines the question ‘To what extent does the use of diction highlight significant themes of self-realization and existentialism in Kevin Halligan’s The Cockroach?† The essay first off addresses the influences on the poet, Halligan himself, which would have led him to encounter trials and tribulations in his life. The idea of a journey, a process of learning is established further on. The concept of self-realization is then linked into how this poem is a perfect mirror of the real life situations that every individual encounters on a day-to-day basis. The theme of existentialism is latter put to question and its correlation to the life of Halligan himself is discussed. The essay then continues to talk about how the diction of the poem is hugely detrimental to the way in which the message is decoded or perceived by the person who reads the poem. A first read analysis then discusses the most important structural aspects of the poem and talks about how it is influential to the tone as well as the language present. Specifically detailed analysis is provided regarding the usage of diction along with the mirroring themes of existentialism and self-realization. Comparisons between a regular individual’s life and that of the mere cockroach from the poem itself are drawn. The next part of the essay discusses how a metaphoric usage of words has given new meaning and changed the way in which a simple sonnet such as The Cockroach itself is perceived. Towards the end of the