Knowledge without application is worthless Essay

A great philosopher once said, â€Å"Without knowledge action is useless and knowledge without action is futile†Good morning ladies and gentlemen I’m Abdul Rafae and today I’m going to speak on ‘knowledge without application is useless’Humans have a common ability of applying almost everything in their life. Talking about new fashions, trends, innovations but when it comes to applying knowledge, situation is slightly different. Not all people r experts but the qs is what lacks in most knowledgeable humans that becomes an obstacle for them to become an expert. Ladies & gentlemen the answer is as simple as that, they simply lack the ability to use that knowledge just wen it is requird.. I’ve often been hearing an old saying†¦knowledge is power. However, I never agreed with it. I knew it had to be corrected to application of knowledge is power because this is what’s important. Cramming us with useless knowledge contributes to no added value. Rote learning of the books particularly ends up is ruining one’s life. I don’t say being a knowledgeable person is bad but if one has the knowledge yet fails to implement it where required†¦he’s a man of no worth!Considering the competition prevailing in our society today, we’re now in a much more complex state where everybody is seeking knowledge either by book or crook, but when it comes to application of that knowledge we fail to see ‘those geniuses’ getting successful. I’ll support my idea by a very well-known example which I know would be acceptable to all my fellow friends sitting here. This example is of Bill Gates. Yes I’m talking about one of the richest men on earth today who is not even a high school pass out yet is controlling consumers around the globe. Now what exactly do you think is the key to his success? Luck†¦ Source†¦ Or excessive knowledge? Let me tell you it was none of these three. In fact for being another Bill Gates you need to have a passion and you need to know how to apply your skills with respect to the need†¦.and ladies and gentlemen trust me it maybe possible that application along may get you to success. However knowledge alone may not do so. Now let me define the difference between having knowledge & applying it. Lets suppose for e.g. you have a novel of your favourite author but you don’t know how to read the words in it. Would you be able to ever finish it?That’s exactly my point, when u don’t know how to apply ur reading skills how wud u read?Interestingly every student wants an exam free life, don’t we hate exams? Yes we do†¦ its bitter but a fact that if we are not tested on what we acquire from our respected teachers we may never learn to apply it. Hence instead of considering them as a nite mare take exams as a step towards applying whatever ur taught. As time is limited I would like to end my speech by saying that I Abdul Rafae have 2 A’s in my o’levels till now and a successful educational background. My purpose is not to show off but I’m proud to say that I’m not only a knowledge person but I’m a man above that†¦ because I believe knowledge is just the information and only by applying that information we make ourselves what we are. Thank you!

Kenya’s Vision 2030 Relevance to Rural Development

Kenya vision 2030 is Kenya’s long-term national planning strategy stating the main goals of economic, social and political pillars that underpin the vision 2030.It also provides a rundown of flagship projects to be embarked upon in the medium term period of the vision (2008-2012). It is the country’s development foundation store that covers 2008-2030. It aims at making Kenya a new industrial, middle income country providing high quality of life for all citizens. The vision is based on three pillars, namely;- the economic, social and political pillar. The economic pillar aims at providing prosperity to all Kenyans through an economic development program aimed at achieving an average of 10% annual GDP by 2030.The social pillar seeks to build a just and cohesive society with of social equity in a secure environment. The political pillar founded on issues based on politics that respects the rule of law and protects the interests of every individual in the Kenyan society.POL ICY OBJECTIVES.1. To unlock potential benefits of economic growth, employment and poverty reduction.2. To increase the annual GDP growth rate to 10% per annum.3. To reduce high energy costs.4. To improve poor infrastructure.5.To make Kenya a haul tourist destination in the world.6. To raise incomes in agriculture, livestock, fisheries by processing and thereby adding value to the products before they reach the market.7. To improve efficiency in the country.8. To make Kenya the provider of choice for basic manufactured goods in Eastern and Central Africa.9. To provide business services via internet to companies and organizations in developed countries e. g. Europe, Britain etc.10. To have a vibrant/ globally competitive financial sector.11.To promote globally competitive quality education/ research development.12. To promote efficiency and quality health care system.13. To achieve a nationally clean and secure environment.14. To provide gender equity.RELEVANCE TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN KENYA. ECONOMIC VISION AND STRATEGY. TOURISM. Creation of more tourist attraction sites with the aim of raising the tourist population in Kenya from 1. 8m (2006)- 3m (2030). This will involve upgrading the standards of attractive but rarely visited sites like Ruma and Marsabit. INCREASING VALUE IN AGRICULTURE.This will be done by processing goods before they reach the market in order to give them more value. Also, it aims at introducing new land use policies that will maximize utilization of the high and medium potential lands for large-scale agriculture. A BETTER AND MORE INCLUSIVE WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE SECTOR. It aims at lowering transaction costs through institutional reforms. It will involve strengthening informal trade through investment in infrastructure, training and linking it to wider local and global markets. MANUFACTURING FOR THE REGIONAL MARKET.Kenya aims to become the provider of choice for basic manufactured goods in Eastern and Central Africa before breaking int o other markets targeting commonly used products. It will be done by improved efficiency and competitiveness at firm level, thus raising the market share in the regional market from 7%-15%. BUSINESS PROCESS OFFSHORING. It involves providing business services via the internet to companies and organizations in developed worlds e. g. USA. FINANCIAL SERVICES. Having a vibrant and globally competitive financial sector driving high levels of savings and financing Kenya investment needs.SOCIAL STRATEGY. EDUCATION AND TRAINING. It aims at Kenya providing a globally competitive quality, Itraining and research for development i. e. achieving 80% literacy rate, increasing school enrolment to 95% and increasing the transition rates to technical institutions and secondary schools to accommodate the ever increasing number of primary students who have qualified to join secondary institutions. HEALTH SECTOR. To improve the overall livelihood of Kenyans. The vision aims at providing efficient high q uality health care systems with good standards. WATER AND SANITATION.Kenya being a water scarce nation, the vision aims at conserving water sources and find new ways of harvesting and using rain and underground water. It also aims at promoting agricultural activities through irrigation (140,000-300,000 ha), 54km canal from Tana river to Garissa (Rahole canal), Tana Delta project and rehabilitation of major irrigation schemes. ENVIRONMENT. The vision aims in achieving a clean/ secure and sustainable environment by 2030. It will do this by increasing forest cover from less than 3% to 4% in the future, to lessen environmental diseases.HOUSING/ URBANIZATION. To achieve decent and high quality urban livelihoods by 2030. GENDER, YOUTH AND VULNERABLE GROUPS. To promote gender equality, improve livelihoods amongst vulnerable groups and become a responsible society by empowering women, children and the youth. It also aims at doing away with child labor and FGM. SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVAT ION (STI). It is based on the creation of internet competitiveness in the corporate level and also for the citizens. POLITICAL STRATEGY. RULE OF LAW. Inculcating a culture of compliance with laws and decent human behavior.Increasing service availability and access by reducing barriers for justice and public education. PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY. Promoting open engagement between the government and civil society as well as free flow of information e. g. by use of the media. SECURITY, PEACE BUILDING AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT. Promoting community policing, reducing the police to population ratio, adopting information and communication technology (ICT) in crime detection and prevention, enhancing police training, all with an aim of creating a society free from danger and fear. POLICY GAPS.1.Lack of clearly defined legal frameworks to deal with corruption e. g land grabbing.2. Lack of policies that seek to mechanize milk farming.3. It lacks avenues for the rural produce so as to discourage mo nopolies/ exploitation from private investors.4. Does not entail modern storage facilities for farmers during boom yields and harvests.5. It lacks frameworks to advocate for creation of small airstrips in high production zones so as to tackle the transportation challenge.6. Lack of introduction and inclusion of computer studies in the school curriculum at the elementary level.7. Does not seek to upgrade local hospitals to the referral level and also make treatment affordable.8. Lack of emergency and rescue services that are fully equipped.9. Lack of rural electrification programs.10. Lack of agencies at the rural level to regulate price exploitation on commodities.RECOMMENDATIONS.1. Legal frameworks should be created to deal with cases of corruption.2. The vision should include in it simple ways of mechanizing farming in the rural areas and at the same time create measures to ensure that human labor is not done away with completely.3.Markets should be found or created by the governm ent so that farmers have somewhere to sell their commodities at reasonable and fair prices.4. The vision should include construction of modern storage facilities so that farmers can keep their excess produce safely and this will help reduce food insecurity in the country during scarcity.5. Small airstrips should be constructed especially in areas that produce perishable goods so that they can be taken to major airports in good time.6. ICT should be introduced and incorporated in the school curriculum at the elementary level.7.The vision should advocate for affordable healthcare to all and also upgrade the local hospitals to referral statute.8. Emergency and rescue services should be upgraded to international levels so that 95% of the emergencies can be tackled.9. Rural areas should be electrified as this will attract industrialization in such areas.10. Prices on basic commodities should be regulated so that they can become affordable to everyone.REFERENCESUnited Nations, (2005). Mil lennium Development Goals. New YorkGovernment of the Republic of Kenya,(2007). The Kenya Vision 2030,Government Printers ,Nairobi, Kenya

Benito Mussolini’s Doctrine of Fascism

DOCTRINE OF FASCISM Benito Mussolini outlines several essential characteristics of his preferred political ideology, Fascism, in what has become known as the Doctrine of Fascism. In this paper, Mussolini outlines his vision of the ideology, and explains the major issues that Fascism will address once it becomes the leading political system in Italy. Mussolini’s major points as outlined in the Doctrine included an extreme emphasis on nationalism, organization and modernization of the state, persistent focus on religion, life as a struggle, and the notion that individuals exist only for the improvement of society as a whole.Wolfgang Schieder, after reviewing the Doctrine of Fascism, explains Mussolini’s success based on it and clarifies what exactly Adolf Hitler adopted from the Italian Fascist ideology to incorporated into his own Third Reich. One of the fundamental tenants in Mussolini Doctrine of Fascism is the strong sense of nationalism, which we wants the Italian pe ople to embrace. As a result, he calls for a unification of all Italians over his Fascist regime. Mussolini truly thought that the Italian nation was preordained for greatness, and that the only way to fulfil this destiny was through extreme social cooperation under Fascism.To that end, Mussolini advocated a mass modernization of the Italian state, centralization of government and creation of a state in â€Å"spirit, not territory. † Mussolini wanted Italy to leave its mark on history through the fascist system, so his Doctrine emphasised cultural contributions such as art and philosophy. Mussolini believed that a nation’s power was derived from its people, who had to be â€Å"numerous, hard working, and well regulated† in order to succeed. A further crucial element of Mussolini’s Doctrine was that he constantly stresses the role of the state and government in a Fascist state.As opposed to other political systems such as socialism, the state in a fascist society does not act as a mere â€Å"watchdog† or â€Å"night watchman,† simply protecting its citizens and facilitating material gains. Rather, the state according to Mussolini is the spiritual, moral and political apex of each human being. Its duties are to give a â€Å"concrete form to the political, juridical and economical organisation of the country† though a series of practical actions. Mussolini sees the state as an actual physical manifestation of all positive aspects of the human spirit, and furthermore acting as an â€Å"immanent conscience of the nation. Moreover, The Doctrine of Fascism goes on to explain that through the state, human beings are transformed from primitive tribal beings to glorious emperors, gaining level of power that would be impossible to achieve as an individual or small group. Finally, Mussolini establishes that the only way for one to immortalize themselves, and be remembered within a nation was through beneficial contribution s to the state. One particular notion within the Doctrine that seems peculiar at first glance is the importance that Mussolini places on religion, specifically the Catholic Church.For such a modern and practical-based system, it seems rather surprising that Mussolini not only tolerates religion, but respects and facilitates its progression. Mussolini’s official reasoning for this is that similar to the state, religion is effectively a â€Å"manifestation of the spirit,† and so the Catholic Church and Mussolini’s fascism share this commonality. In actuality, the real reason Mussolini was so tolerant of the church likely goes far beyond that. Wolfgang Schieder, whose ideas will be developed further on, explains that Mussolini required the Church’s support in order to gain the unwavering support of the Italian people.Mussolini was considered the first national socialist to repair the damaged link between the state and church, and was rewarded for it with ful l support of the Pope and Catholic Church. Mussolini was a man obsessed with the notion of empire, and this is reflected in his Doctrine. The concept of force and discipline was stressed not simply in military conquest, but every aspect of life for the average Italian. War is inevitable, as it is simply the manifestation of the strength and vigour of the Italian people that wishes to expand itself, never looking back.Peace was considered as merely a â€Å"mask to surrender and cowardice. † Mussolini stressed that Italians required â€Å"forces, duty, and sacrifice† in order to rise again to their former greatness, that of the Roman Empire. This is also Mussolini’s rationale for harsh and severe actions against any who would resist or try and undermine fascism. Finally, there remains perhaps the most basic and yet most profound idea present in the entire doctrine; being the notion that life is a struggle. The entire doctrine constantly discusses this concept, and in fact Mussolini uses it to justify the entire doctrine.Mussolini states that, â€Å"fascism wants a man to be active and absorbed in action with all his energies,† a desire which he considers synonymous with fascism’s own desire to be constantly progressing. Italians were not only encouraged to frequently be taking action, but it was considered their â€Å"duty to conquer out of life what was really worthy to them. † Mussolini is essentially stating that he believes that a virtuous Italian should be constantly struggling with his life, never becoming complacent and always fighting to better himself.Fascism, being an extension of the human spirit, naturally mirrored these qualities. Wolfgang Schieder, analyzes Mussolini’s political success and what he the extent to which Mussolini facilitated Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. According to Schieder it largely because of what he calls the ‘Philo-Fascist climate’which was present in Ge rmany during the early 1930’s. During this era Germany’s economy was in ruin largely die to war reparations, and the nation as a whole was not in very good shape.The German peoples experiment with democracy through the Weimar Republic was in many ways viewed as a failure, and people were looking to alternative models of governments. Fascism was being presented as a viable alternative to a ‘discredited Parliamentary system’ What is important to note is that Schieder thinks that the pro-Fascist atmosphere of Germany at the time was largely because of Mussolini himself. Mussolini was a very charismatic figure, and he was especially adept at handling the media in Germany.He often surprised them by speaking German, and by the end of any interaction with the German press Mussolini left them in awe of himself as a person and of the Fascist system, which he had implemented. In the early 1930’s according to Schieder there was no other form of dictatorship in the world that was as widely accepted as Fascism was. This created an environment is which Hitler stood to profit from pro-Fascist sentiment, the more he moulded his political strategy in that direction. According to Schieder there were two developments, which enabled Hitler’s acceptance by the German elites.Firstly, the Great Depression had opened the discussion about implementing a ‘new economic order’, and in this face of rising left-wing economics happening during this time made such a development even more necessary. Moreover, the German elites at first didn’t appreciate Hitler for what he truly was, and in many ways they underestimated him. In a time of economic chaos, the ‘Italian Experiment’ was viewed as a success, and its implementation in Germany was being justified under the context that ‘Hitler was not Mussolini’, and that if he became chancellor he would easily be manipulated by the German elites.Mussolini paved the way for Hitler because there was a tremendous amount of admiration for Mussolini within Germany, and the more Hitler aligned himself with Mussolini, the more he stood to benefit from this in a highly fragmented society. The manner in which Germany embraced Fascism can be best represented by two people at the time: Emil Ludwig and Theodore Wolff. The two men were high advocate of democracy in Germany, who shifted their support to Mussolini and his Fascist Doctrine.They did so out of the necessity to temporarily establish temporarily establish an authoritarian regime rooted in Fascism to offer Germany a political way out of their precarious situation. Although German understanding of Fascism can be characterized by ‘selective readings’, it was nonetheless the perfect political system for Germany given their historical circumstances. Given Fascism highly nationalistic nature, it was ideal for a nation like Germany that was still rebuilding from World War 1.Moreover, the G erman elites saw Fascism as a better political alternative to democracy, or even worse, socialism as was being pursued elsewhere in the world. As this paper has tried to illustrate, the correlations between fascism as it developed in Germany and Italy are not merely coincidental dictatorships, but there is much more to the story. After all, Hitler did view Mussolini has his political mentor. BIBILIOGRAPHY 1. Schieder, Wolfgang. Third Reich Between Vision and Reality. Oxford: Berg Publisher, 2003. eBook. 2. Mussolini, Benito. The Doctrine of Facism . Rome: Ardita Publishers , 1935. Print.

Themes between Frankenstein, OTSP and The Lord of the Rings Essay

Themes between Frankenstein, OTSP and The Lord of the Rings - Essay Example Out of the Silent Planet does not include women in most of it, but it does make the claim that women should be content with simply raising their children because that is the Christian ideology that the author believed in. In this novel, women are shown taking care of the cooking, while the men are out providing. The Return of the King, however, portrays women in a much stronger manner. The women in this story, though few in number, are able to assist the men on their journey and provide useful contributions to them. The theme of femininity is present and important in each of these novels, but females are portrayed in their strongest form in The Return of the King, which is important because it shows that strong female characters can be used successfully in literature. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is a novel that does not contain very much in the way of strong females characters. The majority of them are passive and subservient women who fill their gender roles and then die in less than impressive fashion. One of the reasons why this is done could be to draw attention to male behavior and what it does to the female psyche. For example, Caroline Beaufort dies because she is so wrapped up in caring for her daughter that she does not put any emphasis on her own life. Elizabeth is portrayed as a character that is â€Å"imaginative, delicate and beautiful† (Shelley 30), which is hardly the characteristics that strong female character would possess. This, once again, shows the role that has placed upon females in our society as it would be rare to see a male do the same sort of thing. Victor also has an interesting view of the other, as he does not feel like he will be able to control the female monster if it is created. This shows that males h ave very little understanding of how the mind of a woman works and do not wish to challenge the unknown. It also shows how males always want to be

Nursing research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 7

Nursing research - Essay Example On the other hand, components of a research study involve  logical flow since one step leads to the other step as a researcher builds on the  previous  step to progress with research. In effect, careful planning of the study will ensure that the researcher addressed expected limitations effectively, which eliminates the possibility of unexpected variables affecting the direction of research. It is common knowledge that study designs are plans that indicate the process of collecting data, the research subjects, and the process of data analysis in order to answer the research questions. In line with this, researchers should select data collection instruments carefully and ensure that the instruments passed the reliability and validity tests in order to ensure that the results were beneficial to the nursing practice. In order to establish the validity and reliability of the instruments of research, it is important to carry out reliability and validity tests. During the tests, a reliable research instrument will produce the expected results from a research study while an unreliable tool will not produce the expected results. In effect, the instrument will not be valid, and a researcher should find other tools that will be reliable and

Stakeholder analysis and engagement in Management and planning for Essay

Stakeholder analysis and engagement in Management and planning for competing interests in Great Barrier Reef - Essay Example I have also talked to representatives of the stakeholders who all practically agreed to all the engagement techniques that you have been adopting. It might be exhilarating to know that most of them find the seminars, discussions, workshops and consultations that you have been conducting worthwhile because these produced in such stakeholders a renewed, reinvigorated determination to protect mother nature and that starts with the preservation of the Great Barrier Reef. The subject matter of the Great Barrier Reef immediately calls to mind the problem of climate change that has been bedeviling the whole world. This has caused immeasurable alarm to every nation on earth because if left unabated, it will signal the extinction of this planet. Problems of management and planning of the Great Barrier Reef by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), to whom the whole paper is addressed to, are but of secondary and minor importance. Because the problem of a steady rise in water temperature in the Great Barrier Reef can certainly cause bleaching and ultimately death of the coral reefs and thus ecological imbalance among the flora and fauna that take refuge in such reefs, and because such problems of man destroying the coral reefs through fishing through dynamiting, use of toxic chemicals that poison reef fishes and land erosion runoff, muro ami fishing among others, there is the urgency of identifying all stakeholders and finding means or techniques of making them all a part of the solution solvers to these pressing problems. Most of the techniques used to brainwash these stakeholders to make them identify with the problems of the Great Barrier Reef and cause them to consider such problems as their own and thus help the with its aims and objectives, have already been utilised by GBRMPA. This paper hopefully reinforces and supplements what GBRMPA has been doing. This paper then concludes to declare that GBRMPA is certainly treading the right path to the right direction and wishes GBRMPA to widen its scope of stakeholders that it must share the onus to, now that this paper has identified and clarified all the stakeholders that should share the burden of the problem

Research report Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Report - Research Paper Example An understanding of these web-technologies will require a research report in order to understand them. Ajax and Google analytics will be examined and investigated in order to provide an understanding and finally implement them in the product. Functional and non-functional requirements will be addressed in the research report. Table of Contents Introduction 4 Review of Literature and Technologies 5 System Requirement Analysis 9 Project Rationale 9 Functional Requirements 10 Non-functional Requirements 13 Booking Websites Design Patterns 13 The technologies that will be used 15 CSS – Cascading Style Sheets and HTML 5 15 JavaScript and JQuery 16 AJAX 16 PHP and MySQL 17 Proposed Methodology 17 Summary or Conclusion 18 Introduction There is no doubt that since the 1960s, the internet has matured has now become one of the most common technologies used in the world. It has nonetheless become a valuable and new form of communication that has effectively collapsed all physical and geo graphical barriers. There are many reasons given for its success, one of them is the simplicity of its architecture which can be summarised as being a network of networks. Clients can make request to a computer via several protocols such as TCP/IP, Domain Name Servers (DNS) are used to lookup URL requests and translate words into IP addresses. One of the key recent milestones in the internet has been the emergence of internet 2.0. The benefits of this have been exploited by developers and corporations and thus the explosion of apps such as Skype, video on demand, API’s and interactive games have become one of the most common features of internet usage today. Other advantages include not having to refresh a whole page, page state can be maintained and inputted text is also saved (Campesato & Nilson 2010). All of these factors ensure a much smoother experience for the user. In this regard, the internet has become a more competitive marketing tool in the tourism and hospitality industry (Doolin et al. 2002). It has today become a common feature for travellers and tourists worldwide to rely on the power and capability of the internet powered by web 2.0 technologies to interact with businesses all over the world. They are able to gather information on prices, offers, packages, and destinations online or from the internet, conveniently, at least, at the comfort of their homes, offices, or even while on the move (Gaona et al. 2013). The latter is facilitated by the advanced in technology with regards to the capability of handheld devices including smartphones, laptops, and tablet computers (Greenspan 2004). Further, many hoteliers, and tour operators are regarding the internet/web as the new, cost-effective, and efficient distribution, marketing and customer care environment; thus most of them are taking advantage these e-services, specifically, online booking or reservation system. In order to facilitate the development of a system which can meets its goals a nd is also efficient, research suggests that the different elements of the system such as the interface code, server side scripting code and database code be separated. This is a common theory which industry has adopted because it allows people with different skills to develop a system simultaneously. This concept or is often termed N-tier architecture (B’Far 2005) and will be incorporated into the project. Developing online booking systems has many advantages both for the client and the business that provides online

Video games Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Video games - Essay Example Video games can include profanity, criminal behavior, drug use, sexual themes, and graphic violence. Under U.S. law video games containing profanity, criminal behavior, drug use, sexual themes, and graphic violence are marked under the game rating label as MA, along with a V for violence and other appropriate warning labels. Specific games, like Grand Theft Auto, Doom, EverQuest, Need for Speed, and other popular titles promote the adverse behavior mentioned above. All of these titles are rated MA. Despite the mature rating children, teenagers, and adults make these titles best sellers. This can lead to the conclusion that video games including profanity, criminal behavior, drug use, sexual themes, and graphic violence are preferred by the public. The first example of video violence influencing real violence is the Columbine Massacre. On 20 April 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold arrived at Columbine High School, outside of Denver (Larkin, 1). Armed with an elaborate plan, bombs, and guns, the two shooters entered the school. In forty-five minutes, Harris and Klebold killed twelve students and one teacher. Twenty-four more students were wounded. After the forty-five minute rampage, Harris and Klebold committed suicide (Larkin, 8). The Columbine Massacre was one of the bloodiest school shootings in U.S. history. Before the Columbine Massacre, Harris and Klebold both played an online game called Doom (Larkin, 129). Doom is a first person shooting game for the computer platform. Doom can also be played online against other gamers. Harris even wrote levels of Doom. Manipulating Doom characters into violent scenarios was one of Harris’ hobbies (Larking, 130). The two boys bonded while playing this violent game. Harris even invented a Doom level that resembled Columbine High School. Many were quick to blame the Doom game for the violent attack. The violent video game,

Strategy as practice and leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Strategy as practice and leadership - Essay Example ance, the total productivity and profitability of the organization might get enhanced to a significant extent as compared to many other rival players. Other than this, learning or educational training programs acts as the raw materials that might be used to enhance the inner knowledge and skills of the employees that may prove effective in improving the intangible assets of the organization such as customer loyalty, brand image, reputation and reliability etc. However, such type of intangible assets might amplify the prosperity and distinctiveness of the organization in the market among many other rival players. Hence, it might be clearly depicted that in order to enhance the reputation and popularity of the organization in future era, the entrepreneur might try to offer high concentration over training programs or learning processes of the employees. So, most of the organization in this age, try to implement numerous work-shops or training programs to enhance the inner talents and capabilities of the employees. As employees are considered as the most important assets of an organization without which it may not prosper in the mark et among others existing players of the market. The objective of this essay is to analyze the effectiveness and importance of learning in future development of the organization so as to amplify its prosperity in the market. Along with this, the importance of soft systems thinking (SST) in developing the organizational intellectual capital. As per Beardwell & Claydon (2010), learning is the weapon that might be used to improve the innovation of today into practice of the future era. However, it might be possible only by offering high concentration and value to the procedure of learning. This is because; it’s the process that may be used to amplify the inner knowledge and skill of the employees so as to increase the future prospects of the individual. Moreover, the process of learning is extremely essential to improve the human capital

Final Project Milestone Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Final Project Milestone - Assignment Example This painting illustrated the difficult childhood life of an isolated, young, black, Bermudian male. Another painting, mixed media on canvas, referred to as the Trickle Down Economy, 2012, also caught my eye. This interesting art piece was a representation of plants on the ocean rocks dependent on rain and sun for their survival. This was symbolic as most Bermudians are dependent on outside sources-international business and tourism-for their survival. The most interesting art piece, apart from the ones mentioned above, was the mosaic sculpture, Frozen Time, done by Jackie Stevenson. This sculpture illustrates one of Bermuda’s exotic fish species, the parrot fish, which is the most colorful reef fish. The medium of mosaic used in this sculpture has in some way, brought to shore, the magic, the colorfulness and the inspiring nature of the fish. In her work, the Frozen Time sculptor piece, Jackie Stevenson curves out Bermuda’s famous, exotic fish, the parrot fish-red reef fish. In this art work, Jackie Stevenson uses small square pieces of glass of various colors as the sculpture’s motif. Jackie Stevenson uses white, green, blue, and clear pebbles to design the fish’s tail. ... It is worth noting that, in the sculptor, the white pebbles are dominant as opposed to the clear, green and light-blue pebbles used in designing the fish tail. The artist uses mirror-like, square piece to decorate the wing of the parrot fish. Using white, sand-like substance, Jackie Stevenson, designs the fishes mouth. This substance is tightly packed on the external surface to create a parrot-like beak just as that of a real parrot fish. It is clear that, Jackie Stevenson first curved the parrot fish using stone or concrete and later, mounts the multi-colored glass-like pieces and pebbles to illustrate the color pattern exhibited by real parrot fish. This sculpture is close to 40 cm in length just as the size of the majority of parrot fish in real life. It is amazing how Jackie Stevenson has managed to illustrate the color pattern of this magnificent, high catching fish-parrot fish. However, there are critical question that arise with regards to how the artist has mixed various colo rs (Martin & Jacobus, 2011). Around the head and the mouth of the fish, the artist uses more green, and shades of green marble-like pieces and thus making the head area more green. This can be explained by the fact that, most parrot fish species have a green colored head, and as such, Jackie Stevenson aim might have been to illustrate the most popular type of parrot fish, the green hump head parrotfish, which are known to live in reefs since they feed mostly feed on corals. As noted earlier, the choice of using tightly packed, white, sand-like substance for the design of the fish mouth is to create a parrot-like beak just as that of a real parrot fish. Jackie Stevenson uses a wooden

Cathedral by Raymond Carver Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Cathedral by Raymond Carver - Essay Example Years before she and the narrator were married, his wife had a job as a reader and helper to Robert. She kept in touch with him by recording her thoughts and feelings onto tapes, a sort of auditory journal, which she would send to Robert on a regular basis. Robert would send tapes to her as well. The narrator feels threatened by this â€Å" I heard my own name in the mouth of this stranger, this blind man I didn’t even know!† While listening to the tape, they were interrupted, and the husband was relieved not to hear any more: â€Å"Maybe it was just as well. I’d heard all I wanted to.† His wife’s suicide attempt is related to Robert, who is a sort of father confessor to her. â€Å"Now this same blind man was coming to sleep in my house† the narrator says. â€Å"Maybe I could take him bowling† he tells his wife. She gets angry and tells her husband that the visit is important to her, and he will be a good host if she loves him. She say s she would do the same for him, but â€Å"you don’t have any friends.† Her husband’s isolation, both actual and spiritual, are shown in this statement. It is also illustrated by his need to party.

Ducati Essay Example for Free

Ducati Essay Patrick EnglandDucati individual write up #3 Management 495 2/7/2012 Can Ducati sustain its position in the sport segment? Can Honda and other Japanese manufactures stop its growth in this segment? The ability for Ducati to sustain its position in the sport segment of motorcycles is going to depend on management’s ability to stay focused on keeping their image and story alive and in the minds of the motorcycle community. If management continues its current trend I believe that they can sustain their position, although there are challenges posed by the Japanese firms and changes in Ducati itself can also play a role in their ability to maintain their growth and position as the high end advanced sport bikes. Ducati’s decision to move from a mechanical company to an entertainment company could be the source of its success or its failure. The company to this point in 2001 had become known for their exotic engineering and design, focusing on beating the completion by any means, even if it involved producing a bike that many might call ugly or not the traditional motorcycle, so Ducati was running the risk of turning away the very customers and removing the image that had built them to the company they had become. But the decision made by Minoli, to become more of an entertainment company and to produce products that could be attractable by a wider variety of customers could also spur growth and market share that the company desperately wanted and needed if it was going to continue to compete with the Japanese bikes. I believe that if the management at Ducati can continue to make this â€Å"turnaround† hold and follow through with the goals laid out in it, then yes they can sustain their position, although any deviation or getting lack in the respects of implementing these long term goals will in my opinion hurt them greatly, for it is the image and the brand that Ducati represents that makes their products wanted. If they try too hard to copy the functions and company structure of competitors they very well may be destroying their core competitive advantage of image and product uniqueness. Japanese manufactures have been pushing hard in the sport market and have the capital and business structure to make a full fledge effort to take market share in the sport division. Honda and others have the ability to mimic the aspects of Ducati that have made them so revered by customers (mainly new technology and exotic styling) while still maintain their reliability and cost advantage. They will still continue to struggle with the â€Å"cookie cutter† image that has plagued them throughout their history, and I believe that if they can try to separate products in their sport division and create the image of uniqueness and exoticness that people associate with Ducati, then they definitely can pose a serious threat.

Case Studies of Organizational Change

Case Studies of Organizational Change CASE BACKGROUND The RTAs approach was to just involve the executive level management and the consultants in the strategy making process without including the middle and lower level management. The approach of the company shows its high level confidence in its top level management and it wants none other those to get involved in the decisions which are of utmost importance to the company and all of its employees (Heathfield). There are both positive and the negative aspects of such a strategy. Taking this change management policy positively, the company wants do not want any kind of issue arising during its process of changing the organizational management to save its time, energy and the focus which is a good decision in itself but if we consider the negative side of this strategy, the company will not have that support from its lower and the middle position employees which is very essential in order to have success in achieving the targets of changing the organization and in the worse case they eve n may fail to accept it at all. ISSUES INVOLVED The concept of organizational change is a wide process aiming at achieving some overall goals and objectives rather than the smaller change. This includes the big changes like the change in mission, restructuring the operations, changes in the technologies, re-engineering, major collaborations, etc. (Basic Context for Organizational Change) Such changes may be regarded as the changes that re-orientate the whole fundamentals in which the organization operates. These changes are the ones which affects the being and the corporate lives of each and everybody in the organization. THEORETICAL UNPINNING OF THE ISSUES INVOLVED In order to achieve certain organizational and group goals, the involvement of those very elements in the organization that are very close to these setting up of goals along with those who are going to be highly affected with that is very important. It can never be expected the one hundred percent support from any employee to support the changes made in his work or way of work who was not involved in the process of decision which will have a long lasting impact on his work. For such changes to succeed the involvement of those individuals whose working is going to get highly effected is very essential. Though it is quite admissible that during the changes, especially the ones which have an effect on the whole organization, the involvement of each and every individual is not possible but it would be highly worthy to try the involvement of the individuals as much as possible from the lower as well as the middle management. ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The changes in such a strategy is quite possible with a program that in a way involves these lower and the middle level management too, but not affecting the positive interest of the company for which it was adopted in that way. The changes can be explained as follows: If the role of the middle management as a whole cannot affect the overall decision of the change, at least the involvement of each and every employee in taking the meaningful decisions which involves their own work or the work of their respective unit or group. During the change management process, the suggestion for the changes can be taken from the middle management in the form of survey or the request for the submission of the changes to the executive management or the consultants can be taken. This would not only help the top level management in making the changes but would also involve all the employees in the organization. The suggestions which are found effective enough can be called for the discussion in the conference center and in this way the middle position managers having the considerably effective and the efficient ideas can have a chance to make a big contribution in the change management process. CONCLUSIONS With the certain involvement of the middle or the lower level management in the decisions related to the change management the immense amount of support and the confidence from the employees will be confirmed for such decisions by the executive level management and also with these suggested changes in the process of the change management, Al Ammeri can get his ideas considered and if found feasible by the consultants and the executives he can get those included. Organizational Situation 2: Why is Cultural change so hard? CASE BACKGROUND Fatima Al Hebsi is a student of a Master Degree at BHMeU and her discipline is change course management. In her first interview, she was offered the job as the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Organizational Change Consultantà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  for an old and well established electric power company. The company is expected to make major organizational changes and now it concerns Fatima how hard it would be to change the major components of the culture being followed in the company over a long period. ISSUES INVOLVED Organizational culture is the set of the guiding tools and the ideology that guides and the interpretations and the actions in any organization. It describes the various attitudes, beliefs, the way of doing the work, psychologies, experiences, etc shared commonly by all the employees in the organization. It is basically the ways and the values followed by each and everybody in the organization whether directly or indirectly related to it. The organizational culture of any organization is highly dependent upon the goals and the objectives of the it and the appropriate kinds of the standards adopted for the needs to achieve those. Actually, these are the norms which lays down the guidelines or the expectations that prescribes the kind of behavior is expected from its employees which controls the behavior of the members of the organization towards each other. THEORETICAL UNPINNINGS OF THE ISSUES INVOLVED The consensus about the concept of organizational culture is bit difficult to understand theoretically, as they are quite holistic, historical involving the various anthropological and socially constructed concepts which are also very much difficult to change. Changing the organizational culture is one of the toughest task in the organizational change as this component of the organization was developed over a long period of time by the interaction and the confidence of its participants in the organization. The current organization culture matches the comfort and the style of its employees especially its executive level managers which ultimately reflects the prevailing management style in which the employees are well settled and used to in that working environment. ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATION First of all, the need of initiating the change in the organizational culture is itself a big decision which requires some extremely reason or set of reasons. These reasons have to be of the class of significant loss of sales or customers, fear of bankruptcy, or loosing the millions of dollars in the market, etc and for that too blaming the organizational culture itself needs a harsh journey. But after recognizing the organizational culture as the reason for these troubles and there is a need to change the culture the process require a deep understanding and commitment along with certain tools and knowledge. Doing the change itself is not pretty enough and also the changes are not that easy. Before changing its culture the organization must understand its current culture and the values, the way the things are going on in the organization. Once the organization has understood its current culture, the consultant needs to understand what changes or alterations may be required to guide the organization to the success along with taking into the consideration the well being of its employees, stake holders, partners and the others. This should reflect the future mission and the vision in the future and what will be the major steps to achieve that and path to be folled. This needs high degree of the future predictions according to the current scenario. The next step which would be the toughest step is to convince its employees to change their behavior as per the requirements and the needs of the changed organizational culture. CONCLUSION The change management and especially the changes in the prevailing organizational culture may although be a tough task to be accomplished in the light of fact that these cultures have been developed over the long time and it would be difficult for each and every element of the organization to get adapted for these changes. But for a smart and efficient consultant, he/she has to understand the very roots and the soul of these cultures, to get started right from these ends to get the solutions of the issues involved. Organizational Situation Scenario:3 How do you change a complacent organization? CASE BACKGROUD Ahmed Al Shammsi is the CEO of a well established organization Trans-Tech Solutions which is the market leader in manufacturing the avionics components for the commercial airlines. Even though the organization is doing extremely well in the current situation but the CEO is foreseeing the future problems that is bound to occur in the organization for which the acute changes in the management is required in the organization. Now, CEO is finding another issue about how to convince the top managers to go for some of major changes in the organization. ISSUES INVOLVED The current era of fast industrial and business growth, more competition and the need of more innovation has become the utmost important tool for achieving the success and making stability in that success. The change has to be taken as the most important capability of any business operating in todayà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s era without which the organization could not just wish to get the success and get adapted to a changing world. Without the effective and efficient changes required from time to time, the organization is bound to become obsolete some day and eventually die out. THEORITICAL UNPINNING OF THE ISSUES Every organization gets formed on the basis of some ideas and the innovations. They have a distinctive vision with some of those dedicated and devoted people with fresh mind set up to accomplish these very things. Not only the top level management but the organization as a whole have to kept together while making such decisions which as big as the changes in the way they are working, the motive for which they are operating and mission they are acting day and night for the well being of the organization. The settled and the complacent organization like the Trans-Tech Transportation must have started with a fresh idea through which they grew into a market leader and reached a certain level of excellence. But the flexibility is the thing which is required by this corporation to continue as the market leader in the future. ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS It is quite possible that the top level managers have become quite matured with enough resistance to the changes but this may become the reason due to which the company may fall on to a senility mode in which the efficiency of the company slows and may even stop causing the ultimate downfall and then die out. Keeping ourselves in the place of Ahmed Al Shamsi, the owner has to convince its managers even though they are the market leaders, they have been doing well enough in achieving its objectives and goals, there excellent performance has been based on their organizational strategies and cultures but the change is the law of nature which applies here as well. They will have to see not only the prospects coming out for the near future but also the far future which would help them to maintain its leadership as long as possible (Theories of Motivation). They will have to keep in mind that they became the leader by replacing somebody and it would not be impossible that some other innova tion may pull them next to the leader. CONCLUSION Based on the analysis of the complacent organization of Trans-Tech Corporation, the top level managers should look forward for looking for some changes based on some exciting and new idea through which the company may continue its strong and fine edge to continue as a firm with solid vision, strong vision with clear objectives for not only the well being of itself or the executive level management but the organization as a whole.

Factors Influencing Corporate Strategy: UK Supermarkets

Factors Influencing Corporate Strategy: UK Supermarkets Tesco Plc Corporate Strategy The definition of corporate strategy has changed over the years. In the past it was deemed to be a set of internal plans and policies designed to enable a business to succeed in the pursuit of its aims and objectives (Pettigrew et al 2002). Robert Grant (2004, p.7) in his study stated that the implementation of successful strategy could not happen until the business managers had appraised the available or required resources, have an in-depth knowledge of the competitive environment they operated within and the whole team had agreed upon the objectives. More recently, the understanding of corporate strategy has been extended to include external forces and thus it can rely upon the definition statement made by Collis and Montgomery (1997, p.5) which observes that: â€Å"Corporate strategy is the way a company creates value through the configuration and coordination of its multimarket activities.† The purpose of this paper is to promote further understanding of the factors that influence corporate strategy within a particularly competitive industry sector. For this purpose the supermarket retail sector has been chosen for analysis. To assess how these factors impact upon the market players, the Tesco organisation has been used a focus for a case study. The reasoning behind this particular choice is that Tesco Plc has maintained a position of industry dominance, despite strong competition from other players, including Asda and Sainsbury Retail Industry Supermarkets During the course of the past four or five decades the Supermarket has taken a progressively increasing share of the grocery retailing market, with their store size and low prices driving local and independent stores in increasing numbers. In 2005 the organisations had reached a position where collectively their revenue accounted for approaching two thirds of total UK grocery sales. in Supermarket sales now account for around nearly two thirds of total grocery sales in the UK and were having an increasing impact in other retail sectors. However, as can be seen from the breakdown of the supermarket sales in grocery products, there is a considerable amount of competition between the supermarket players (see table 1). Table 1: Supermarket grocery sales 2005 (Source: BBC News 2006 and company reports) As can be seen from the above Tesco’s leads the industry sector by a considerable margin in terms of percentage. Furthermore , despite the intensity of competition that is focused upon around a dozen competitors, in revenue terms Tesco’s sales are almost equivalent to the sum of their three closet rivals, which gives them a commanding lead in terms of the number of consumers that are attracted to their stores. Tesco operates a total of 3,262 stores internationally, including 1,988 located throughout the UK. Employing in excess of 450,000 people globally, the business has so far achieved a market leadership position in four other countries as well as the UK and is currently considering expanding its operations in the US. Similarly, in line with other retailing organisations, the business is expanding its home delivery and Internet presence through the development of its online retailing website. (www.tesco.com). As Hill and Jones (2007) identify in their research into the subject of strategic management, the key drivers change and the market players have to respond positively to these changes. The supermarket industry is no exception to this rule. Initially supermarket organisations were driven by the need to create a competitive advantage. In essence this is achieved when the business reaches a position â€Å" â€Å"whenever it outperforms its competitors† (Pettigrew et al 2002, p.55), but as Grant (2004) observes, ultimately it needs to build upon that advantage, thereby reducing the opportunities for others to compete. Grant (2004, p.30), Collis and Montgomery (1998, p.65) state that competitive advantage can be gained through cost or differentiation, either of which return greater value to the consumer. However, competitive advantage is also relevant to the business marketing process, where it is important for the organisation to â€Å"understand its consumers and the decision processes they go through (Kolter et al 2004, p.29). However, advantage in this area is also achieved by a better understanding than that of competitors Consumers also drive the industry as has been seen through recent years. Initially the consumer determinant was for lower prices, wide range of selection, convenience and to a lesser extent the ability to do a one-stop shop, hence the development of the supermarket and out of town hypermarket locations, where all the weekly shop could be performed at one time. They have achieved the objective on price through a strategy of low cost and strategy through a process of low cost and the offering of substitute products (Hill and Jones 2007), which as a side effect, has also enable d the businesses to achieve a level of power over suppliers that has forced such organisations to address their own internal issues in order to remain economically viable. However, more recently consumer demands have changed and the emphasis has now moved to other areas of importance. These include the need for quality, customer service and â€Å"organic† and environmentally friendly products. Similarly, w ith the advent of concerns regarding the natural environment supermarkets are having to respond to these changes as well. To address consumer issues human resource management has also become an important driver in the industry development. The majority of researchers believe that the manner by which a business manages their HR resources has a significant impact on strategy (Collis and Montgomery 1998, p.163) and (Grant 2004, p.144). Thus the supermarket organisations have devoted a considerable amount of effort to increasing motivation and satisfaction within their workforce. The more successful organisations, such as Tesco’s and Asda have created the appropriate style of leadership and team building that has helped them achieve success in this area (Pettigrew et al 2002, p.285). As Hills and Jones (2007) have identified, the better the abilities of management and leaders in dealing with HR management, the easier it is to get a corporate strategy accepted and implemented. Technological developments have also brought about a change in the supermarket retailing industry. By incorporating these within all aspects of the supply chain, such as using new software and Internet systems that enable a closer control of stock, this has â€Å"set the overall context of competition for all firms in the industry (Porter 21004, p.142). It has also enabled organisations such as Tesco’s to continue to maintain their position within the industry. As the supermarkets have increased size and market share, so there have found themselves being increasing subject to the constraints of external forces being exerted upon them for the political and legislative stakeholders(Porter 2004, p.56 and Collis and Montgomery 1998, p.68). For example, the competition commission has often stepped in during the past few years to halt development of new stores on the grounds that it would be detrimental to fair competition. Similarly, as a result of the increasing concerns being expressed regarding health and environmental issues, the supermarket has be driven to introduce new â€Å"health† and â€Å"organic† brands and, as part of the brand management process, to increase the level of product knowledge in respect of these issues that appears upon the packaging. Therefore, all of these external issues are now having to be borne in mind during the planning of the strategy process.(Pettigrew et al 2002, p.190). In essence, at present the critical success factors for the industry can be identified as relating to three specific areas. The first of these is the efficient management of its supply chain, where the effective performance of each part is important to the smooth running of the whole (Porter 2004, p.311). Secondly, the quality of its products and customer services and effective marketing of the brand is important in order for the business to maintain both its market position and competitive advantage. Thirdly, is the effectiveness of its change management strategy. In this later respect it is essential that there is a â€Å"continuous interaction between strategy formulation and strategy implementation in which strategy is constantly being adjusted and revised in light of experience† Grant (2004, p.17). All of these factors are important to the industry players in that there form the vital elements that enable the maintenance of the business main objective, which is to continue to add value for the business stakeholders (Hills and Jones, 2007). The structure of an organisation, how it manages its resources and the relationship that it builds with employees and customers are key elements in a business that is seeking success and profitability. The level to which each organisation can achieve the harmonisation of all these factors will determine both the competitive advantage and the position that the organisation holds with the industry. As will be shown in the following section, Tesco’s has been consistently achieving a position of successfully incorporating all of these elements into their corporate strategy. Tesco Case Study During the past five years, and before this period, Tesco’s have based the main thrust of their corporate strategy on Porter’s â€Å"cost leadership.† By concentrating upon ensuring that all aspects of the supply chain were cost driven, thereby lowering unit price, the business has been able to maintain its policy of reduce prices to the consumer whilst at the same time ensuring that it has the funds and ability to invest in the new technology needed to maintain this advantage (Porter 2004, p36). In terms of the former, this can be evidenced by the fact that, as one of the current advertising campaigns states, there are able to maintain a price advantage over all of their competitors across a wide range of their products. Even given that, partially because of the business cycle, which can be said to have reached a level of some maturity (Hills and Jones 2007), together with the constraints that have been placed upon the industry by political, regulatory and legislative forces, the same low cost strategy is being maintained as the Tesco’s organisation seeks to enter and make an impact upon other market segments, for example fashion, home products and finance. For example, the current range of prices throughout all of these non-core products are still promoted using the organisation’s brand marketing message of â€Å"every little helps,† which indicates that the consumer will receive the same approach to low prices as has been offered within the grocery retail segment of the business revenue. However, as will be noted from their website[1], the business has taken info account the other factors that are important to the cusses of corporate strategy. For example, the human resources management policies are prominent in terms of the employee importance to the business, as is the relationship that the business is maintaining within both its suppliers and consumers, mainly through the increasing use of technology. Another import element of Tesco’s success has been its ability to manage change. As Porter (2004, p.21) suggests, different stages of the business life cycle can bring about change, as can the movement of the consumer demands and aspirations (Collis and Montgomery 1998, p.3). Tesco’s has respond quickly top both of these areas of change rapidly and in an efficient manner (Porter 2004, p.71 and Grant 2004, p.382). In the former instance, as indicated, it has moved into other market segments, and in terms of the latter, it has introduced new brands, including those that concentrate upon the environmental and health issues being raised by consumers and to address the issue of quality, where it now includes a â€Å"Tesco’s finest† range. However all of these moves have been performed whilst still maintaining a dedication to the core business strategy of cost leadership. As can be seen from the following graph, during the course of the past five years, as witness to the success of the Tesco corporate strategy, the business has consistently outperformed the FTSE 100 and the shares of its nearest UK quoted rival Sainsbury. The only time there was any near convergence of the two supermarket chains share value was earlier this year, and this was because of potential bidders showing an interest in Sainsbury, not related to their performance. Conclusion As has been shown during the course of this research, Tesco’s have consistently led the UK supermarket retailing sector of the business during the course of the past few years. This has been achieved by the implementation and maintenance of a successful corporate strategy, which has enabled the business to maintain a competitive advantage despite strong competition from other industry players. In reality this success, which has been evidenced from the financial performance, has been achieved by their turning this strategy into a unique business culture, which as Hofstede et al (2004) has created a situation where the business is seen to have, has resulted in the:- â€Å"†¦the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of the group or category of people from others† Anther major element of the organisation’s success is the effectiveness of the way in which they manage change, being able to respond appropriately and rapidly to anything that poses a threat to the business future. There is little doubt that as long as the management remain focus on these strategies, that the business will maintain its present marketplace position. References Collis, David J and Montgomery, Cynthia A (1998). Corporate Strategy: A resource Based Approach. McGraw Hill. US. BBC News (2006). Tesco’s market share still rising. Retrieved 19 November 2007 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4694974.stm Faulkner, David and Campbell, Andrew (2006). The Oxford Book of Strategy: A Strategy Overview and Competitive Strategy. New ed. Oxford University Press. Oxford, UK. Grant, Robert (2004). Contemporary Strategy Analysis. 5th Edition. Blackwell Publishers. Oxford, UK. Gregory, David (2005). Supermarkets and Standards. Presentation, UK. Retrieved 27 September 2007 from http://www.odi.org.uk/speeches/apgood/Agric_in_Africa_05/apgood_nov23/index.html Heavens, Andrew (2005). E-commerce soars by 88%. Times Online. Retrieved 25 September 2007 from http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article417278.ece Hill, C.W.L. Jones, G.R. (2007). Strategic Management Theory: An Integrated Approach. (7th ed) Houghton Mifflin. Boston, US. Hofstede, G. Hofstede, G.J.(2004). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. New York: McGraw-Hill. Kelly, Sean. (2005). Customer intelligence From Data to Dialogue. John Wiley Sons Ltd. Chichester, UK. Lucas, R. Lupton, B. Mathieson, H. (2007). Human Resources Management in an International Context. London: CIPD. Pettigrew, Andrew M. Thomas, Howard and Whittington, Richard (2002). The Handbook of Strategy and Management. Sage Publications Ltd. London, UK. Porter, Michael E (1985). Competitive Advantage. The Free Press. New York. US. Porter, Michael E (2004). Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analysing Industries and Competitors. The Free Press. New ed. The Free Press. New York, US. Survey (2006). The UK’s Best Online Shopping Experience 2006. www.blastradius.com. Retrieved 26 September 2007 from http://www.blastradius.com/ukshopping2006.pdf Tesco (2007). Tesco at a glance. Retrieved 27 September from http://www.tescocorporate.com [1] http://www.tescocorporate.com/page.aspx?pointerid=3DB554FCAE344BD88EEEEFA63D71B831 Analysis of the Accrual Anomaly | Accounting Dissertation Analysis of the Accrual Anomaly | Accounting Dissertation Sloan (1996), in a determinative paper, added the accrual anomaly in the list of the market imperfections. Since then, academics have focused on the empirical investigation of the anomaly and the connection it has with other misspricing phenomena. The accrual anomaly is still at an embryonic stage and further research is needed to confirm the profitability of an accruals based strategy net of transaction costs. The current study investigates the accrual anomaly while taking into consideration a UK sample from 1991 to 2008. In addition, the predictive power of the Fama and French (1996) factors HML and SMB is being tested along with the industrial production growth, the dividend yield and the term structure of the interest rates. Chapter 1 Introduction Since the introduction of the random walk theory which formed the basis for the evolvement of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH hereafter) proposed by Fama (1965), the financial literature has made many advances but a piece of the puzzle that is still missing is whether the EMH holds. Undoubtedly, the aforementioned debate can be considered as one of the most fruitful and fast progressing financial debates of the last two decades. The Efficient Market Hypothesis has met many challenges regardless of which of its three forms are being investigated. However, the weak form and semi strong hypothesis have been the most controversial. A literally vast collection of academic papers discuss, explore and argue for phenomena that seem to reject that the financial markets are efficient. The famous label of â€Å"anomaly† has taken several forms. Many well-known anomalies such as the contrarian investment, the post announcement drift, the accruals anomaly and many others are just the beginning of an endless trip. There is absolutely no doubt that many more are going to be introduced and evidence for the ability for the investors to earn abnormal returns will be documented. Recently, academics try to expand their investigation on whether these well-documented anomalies are actually profitable due to several limitations (transaction costs etc) and whether the anomalies are connected. Many papers are exploring the connection of the anomalies with each other proposing the existence of a â€Å"principal† misspricing that is documented into several forms. The current study tries to look into the anomaly that was initially documented by Sloan (1996) and has been labelled as the â€Å"accrual anomaly†. The accrual anomaly can be characterised as being at an embryonic stage if the basis for comparison is the amount of publications and the dimensions of the anomaly that light has been shed on. The facts for the accrual anomaly suggest the existence of the opportunity for investors to earn abnormal returns by taking advantage of simple publicly available information. On the other hand, accruals comprising an accounting figure have been approached from different points of view with consequences visible in the results of the academic papers. Furthermore, Stark et al (2009) challenge the actual profitability of the accrual anomaly by simply taking transaction costs into consideration. The present paper employs an accrual strategy for a sample comprising of UK firms during 1991-2008. The aim is to empirically investigate the profitability of such strategies during the whole data sample. The methodology for the calculation of accruals is largely based on the paper of Hardouvelis et al (2009). Stark et al (2009) propose that the positive excess returns of the accruals’ strategy are based on the profitability of small stock. In order to investigate the aforementioned claim, the current study employs an additional strategy by constructing intersecting portfolios based on accruals and size. Finally, five variables are being investigating at the second part of the study for their predictive power on the excess returns of the constructed portfolios. The monumental paper of Fama and French (1996) documented an impressive performance of two constructed variables (the returns of portfolios named HML and SMB). In addition, the dividend yield of the FTSE all share index, the industrial production growth and the term structure of the interest rates will be investigated as they are considered as potential candidates for the prediction of stock returns. Chapter 2 Literature review 2.1. Introduction During the last century the financial world has offered many substantial advances. From the Portfolio Theory of Markowitz (1952) to the development of the Capital Asset Pricing Model of Sharpe (1964) and Lintner (1965), and from the market Efficient Market Hypothesis (hereafter EMH), developed by Fama (1965), to the recent literature that challenges both the CAPM and the EMH, they all seem to be a chain reaction.   The financial academic world aims to give difficult but important answers on whether markets are efficient and on how investors should allocate their funds. During the last two decades, many researchers have documented that there exist strategies that challenge the claim of the supporters of the efficient and complete markets. In this chapter, the effort will be focused on reviewing the financial literature from the birth of the idea of the EMH until the recent publications that confirm, reject or challenge it. In a determinative paper, Fama (1970) defined efficient markets and categorised them according to the type of information used by investors. Since then, the finance literature has offered a plethora of studies that aim to test or prove whether markets are indeed efficient or not. Well known anomalies such as the post announcement drift, the value-growth anomaly or the accruals anomaly have been the theme of many articles ever since. 2.2. Review of the value-growth anomaly We consider as helpful to review the literature for the value growth-anomaly since it was one of the first anomalies to be investigated in such an extent. In addition, the research for the value-growth anomaly has yielded a largely productive debate on whether the documented returns are due to higher risk or other source of mispricing. Basu (1970) concluded that stocks with high Earnings to Price ratio tend to outperform stocks with low E/P. Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1994) documented that stocks that appear to have low price to a fundamental (book value, earnings, dividends etc) can outperform stocks with high price to a fundamental measure of value. Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1994) initiated a productive period that aimed to settle the dispute on the EMH and investigate the causes of such â€Å"anomalies†. Thus, the aforementioned researchers sparked the debate not only on the market efficiency hypothesis but also on what are the sources for these phenomena. Fama and French (1992) supported the idea that certain stocks outperform their counterparts due to the larger risk that the investors bear. Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1994) supported the idea that investors fail to correctly react to information that is available to them. The same idea was supported by many researchers such as Piotroski (2001). The latter also constructed a score in order to categorise stocks with high B/M that can yield positive abnormal returns (namely, the F Score). Additionally, the â€Å"market efficiency debate â€Å"drove behavioural finance to rise in popularity. The value-growth phenomenon has yielded many articles that aim to find evidence that a profitable strategy is feasible or trace the sources of these profits but, at the same time, the main approach adopted in each study varies significantly. Asness (1997) and Daniel and Titman (1999) examine the price momentum, while Lakonishok, Sougiannis and Chan (2001) examine the impact of the value of intangible assets on security returns. In addition, researchers have found evidence that the value-growth strategies tend to be successful worldwide, as their results suggest. To name a few, Chan, Hamao and Lakonishok (1991) focused on the Japanese market, Put and Veld (1995) based their research on France, Germany and the Netherlands and Gregory, Harris and Michou (2001) examined the UK stock market. It is worth mentioning that solely the evidence of such profitable strategies could be sufficient to draw the attention of practitioners, but academics are additionally interested in exploring the main cause of these arising opportunities as well as the relationship between the aforementioned phenomena (namely, the value growth, post announcement drift and the accrual anomaly). In general, two schools of thought have been developed: the one that supports the risk based explanation or, in other words, that stocks yield higher returns simply because they are riskier, and the one that supports that investors fail to recognise the correct signs included in the available information. 2.3. The accruals anomaly 2.3.1. Introduction of the accrual anomaly. Sloan (1996) documented that firms with high (low) accruals tend to earn negative (positive) returns in the following year. Based on this strategy, a profitable portfolio that has a long position on stocks with low accruals and short position on stocks with high accruals yields approximately 10% abnormal returns. According to Sloan (1996) investors tend to overreact to information on current earnings. Sloan’s (1996) seminar paper has been characterised as a productive work that initiated an interesting to follow debate during the last decade. It is worth noting that even the very recent literature on the accrual anomaly has not reached reconciling conclusion about the main causes of this particular phenomenon and about whether a trading strategy (net of transaction costs) based solely on the mispricing of accruals can be systematically profitable. At this point it is worth mentioning that the accruals have been found to be statistically significant and negative to predict future stock returns. On the other hand, there are papers that examine the accruals and its relations with the aggregate market. A simple example is the paper published by Hirshleifer, Hou and Teoh (2007), who aim to identify the relation of the accruals, if any, with the aggregate stock market. Their findings support that while the operating accruals have been found to be a statistical significant and a negative predictor of the stock returns, the relation with the market portfolio is strong and positive. They support that the sign of the accruals coefficient varies from industry to industry reaching a peek when the High Tech industry is taken into account (1.15), and taking a negative value for the Communication and Beer/Liquor industry. 2.3.2 Evidence for the international presence of the phenomenon. Researchers that investigated the accruals anomaly followed different approaches. At this point, it is worth noting that the evidence shows the accrual anomaly (although it was first found to be present in the US market) to exist worldwide. Leippold and Lohre (2008) examine the accrual anomaly within an international framework. The researchers document that the accrual anomaly is a fact for a plethora of markets. The contribution of the paper though, is the large and â€Å"complete† number of tests used, so that the possibility of pure randomness would be eliminated. Although, similar tests showed that momentum strategies can be profitable, recent methodologies used by the researchers and proposed by Romano and Wolf (2005) and Romano, Shaikh and Wolf (2008), suggest that the accruals anomaly can be partially â€Å"random†. It is noteworthy that the additional tests make the â€Å"anomaly† to fade out for almost all the samples apart from the markets of US, Australia and Denmark. Kaserer and Klingler (2008) examine how the over-reaction of the accrual information is connected with the accounting standards applied. The researchers constructed their sample by solely German firms and their findings document that the anomaly is present in Germany too. We should mention at this point that, interestingly, prior to 2000, that is prior to the adoption of the international accounting standards by Germany, the evidence did not support the existence of the accrual anomaly. However, during 2000-2002, Kaserer and Klingler (2008) found that the market overreacted to accrual information. Hence, the authors support the idea that an additional cause of the anomaly is the lack of legal mechanisms to enforce the preparation of the financial statements according to the international accounting standards which might gave the opportunity to the firms to â€Å"manipulate† their earnings. Another paper that focuses on the worldwide presence of the accruals mispricing is that of Rajgopal and Venkatachalam (2007). Rajgopal and Venkatachalam examined a total of 19 markets and found that the particular market anomaly exists in Australia, UK, Canada and the US. The authors’ primal goal was to identify the key drivers that can distinguish the markets where the anomaly was documented. Their evidence supports the idea that an accrual strategy is favoured in countries where there is a common law tradition, an extensive accrual accounting and a low concentration of firms’ ownership combined with weak shareholders’ rights. LaFond (2005) also considers the existence of the phenomenon within a global framework. The author’s findings support the notion that the accrual anomaly is present worldwide. In addition, LaFond argues that there is not a unique driving factor responsible for the phenomenon across the markets. It is worth noting that LaFond (2005) documented that this particular market imperfection is present in markets with diverse methodology of accrual accounting. Findings are against the idea that the accrual anomaly has any relation with the level of the shareholders protection or a common law tradition, as suggested by Rajgopal and Venkatachalam (2007). Finally, the author suggests that, if any, it is not the different method of accrual accounting (measurement issues) that favours or eliminates the accrual anomaly, but the accrual accounting itself. 2.3.3. Further Evidence for the roots of the accruals anomaly. Additionally, papers such as those of Thomas and Zang (2002) or Hribar (2000) decompose accruals into changes in different items (such as inventory, accounts payable etc). The findings catholically suggest that extreme changes in inventory affect returns the most. On the other hand, many articles connect the accruals with information used by investors, such as the behaviour of insiders or analysts, as the latter can be considered a major signal to the investors for a potential manipulation of the firms’ figures. In particular, Beneish and Vargus (2002) documented that firms with high accruals and significant insider selling have substantial negative returns.  Bradshaw (2001) and Barth and Hutton (2001) examine the analysts’ reports and their relation with the accruals anomaly. Their findings support that the analysts’ forecasting error tends to be larger for firms with high accruals, while analysts do not revise their forecasts when new information for accruals is available. Gu and Jain (2006) decompose accruals into changes in inventory, changes in accounts receivable and payable and depreciation expenses and try to identify the impact of the individual components to the anomaly. Consistent with Sloan (1996), Gu and Jain (2006) document that the accrual anomaly exists at the components level. The findings are important since Desai et al (2004) supported the connection of the accrual anomaly with a single variable (cash flows from operations). The researchers suggest that the results yielded by Desai et al (2004) were highly dependent on the methodology used and thus, suggested that the accruals anomaly is â€Å"alive and well†. Moreover, other articles try to confirm whether the anomaly is mainly caused by the wrong interpretation of the information contained in accruals. Ali et al. (2000), investigate whether the naà ¯ve investors’ hypothesis holds. Following the methodology introduced by Hand (1990) and Walther (1997), they found that for smaller firms, which are more likely to be followed by sophisticated investors, the relation between accruals and negative future returns is weaker compared to larger firms, which are followed by many analysts. Therefore, the researchers suggest that, if anything, the naà ¯ve investors’ hypothesis does not hold. In contrast to other market anomalies where findings suggest that the naà ¯ve investors hypothesis holds, the accruals anomaly is suggested as unique. Shi and Zhang (2007) investigate the earnings fixation hypothesis suggesting that the accruals anomaly is based on the investors â€Å"fixation† or â€Å"obsession† on earnings. Their primal hypothesis is that if investors are highly based on the reports about earnings and misprice the value-relevant earnings, then the returns should be dependent not only on the accruals but also on how the stock’s price changes according to reported earnings.  The researchers’ hypothesis is confirmed and finding support that an accrual strategy for firms whose stocks’ price highly fluctuates according to earnings yields a 37% annual return. Sawicki and Shrestha (2009) aim to examine two possible explanations for the accruals anomaly. Sloan (1996) proposed the fixation theory under which investors fixate on earnings and thus overvalue or undervalue information for accruals. Kothari et al. (2006) proposed the â€Å"agency theory of overvalued equity† according to which managers of overvalued firms try to prolong the period of this overvaluation which causes accruals to increase.  The paper uses the insider trading and other firm characteristics and tries to compare and contrast the two major explanations. Evidence produces bd Sawicki and Shrestha (2009) support the Kothari et al. (2006) explanation for the accrual anomaly. In a relatively different in motif paper, Wu and Zhang (2008) examine the role that the discount rates play in the accrual anomaly. They argue that if anything, the anomaly is not caused by irrationality from the investors’side but by the rationality of firms as it is proposed by the q-theory of investment. They argue that since the discount rates fall and more projects become profitable (which makes accruals to increase) future stock returns should decline. In other words, if the capital investment correctly adjusts to the current discount rates, the accruals should be negatively correlated with the future returns and positively correlated with the current returns. The evidence of Wu and Zhang (2008) support that the accruals are negatively correlated with the future stock returns but the contribution of the paper is in that they document that current stock returns are positively correlated with the accruals. 2.3.4. The relation of the accrual anomaly with other market imperfections. Many papers examine the relation between the accruals anomaly and other well-known anomalies such as the post announcement drift or the value-growth phenomenon. Desai et al. (2002), suggest that the â€Å"value-growth† anomaly and the accruals anomaly basically interact and conclude that the  ¨accruals strategy and the C/P reflect the same underlying phenomena†. Collins and Hribar (2000) suggest that there in no link between the accruals anomaly and the â€Å"PAD†, while Fairfield et al. (2001) support that the accruals anomaly is a sub-category of an anomaly caused by the mistaken interpretation of the information about growth by the investors. Cheng and Thomas (2006) examine the claim that the accrual anomaly is a part of a broader anomaly (and more specifically, the value-glamour anomaly). Prior literature suggested that the operating cash flows to price ratio subordinates accruals in explaining future stock returns (Deshai et al (2004)). Their evidence suggests that the Operating CF to price ratio does not subsume neither abnormal nor total accruals in future announcement returns. This particular result does not confirm the claim that the accrual anomaly is a part of a broad value-glamour anomaly. Atwood and Xie (2005) focus on the relation of the accrual anomaly and the mispricing of the special items first documented by Burgstahler, Jiambalvo and Shevlin (2002). Their hypothesis that the two phenomena are highly related is confirmed since the researchers found that special items and accruals are positively correlated. Additionally, further tests yielded results that suggest that the two imperfections are not distinct, while the special items have an impact on how the market misprices the accruals. Louis and Sun (2008) aim to assess the relation between the abnormal accrual anomaly and the post earnings announcement drift anomaly. The authors hypothesize that both anomalies are related to the management of the earnings and thus, they aim to find whether the two are closely connected. The findings are consistent with the primal hypothesis, as they found that â€Å"firms with large positive change of earnings that were least likely to have manipulated earning downwards† did not suffer from PEAD, while the same result was yielded for firms that had large negative change of earnings that were least likely to have managed their earnings upwards. As supported by many researchers the value-growth anomaly and accruals anomaly might be closely related or they might even be caused by the similar or even identical roots.  Fama and French (1996) support that the book to market factor captures the risk of default, while Khan (2008) suggests that in a similar pattern firms with low accruals have a larger possibility to bankrupt. Therefore, many researchers try to connect the two phenomena or to answer whether a strategy based on the accruals can offer more than what the value growth strategy offers. Hardouvelis, Papanastopoulos, Thomakos and Wang (2009) connect the two anomalies by assessing the profitability of interacting portfolios based on the accruals and value-growth measures. Their findings support that positive returns are obtainable and magnified when a long position is held for a portfolio with low accruals while combined with stocks that are characterised as high market to book. The difference of a risked-based explanation or an imperfection of the markets is considered to be a major debate, as it can challenge the market efficiency hypothesis. Many researchers, such as Fama and French (1996) noted that any potential profitable strategy is simply due to the higher risk that the investors have to bear by holding such portfolios. In a similar way, the profitable accruals strategies are considered as a compensation for a higher risk. Stocks that yield larger returns are compared or labelled as stocks of firms that are close to a financial distress. Khan (2000) aims to confirm or reject the risk-based explanation of the accruals anomaly. The researcher uses the ICAPM in order to test if the risk captured by the model can explain the anomaly first documented by Sloan (1996). It is worth noting that the descriptive statistics results for the sample used showed that firms that had low accruals also had high bankruptcy risk.  The contribution of the paper is that, by proposing a four factor model enhanced by recent asset pricing advances, it showed that a great portion of the mispricing that results in the accrual anomaly can be explained within a risk-based framework. Furthermore, Jeffrey Ng (2005) examines the risk based explanation for the accrual anomaly which proposes that accruals include information for financial distress. As proposed by many papers, the accrual anomaly is simply based on the fact that investors bare more risk and thus low accrual firms have positive abnormal returns. The researcher tries to examine how and if the abnormal returns of a portfolio which is short on low accruals stocks and long on high accrual firms changes when controlling for distress risk. Evidence supports that at least a part of the abnormal returns are a compensation for bearing additional risk. Finally, the results support that the big portion of the high abnormal returns of the accrual strategy used in the particular paper is due to stocks that have high distress risk. 2.3.5. The accruals anomaly and its relation with firms’ characteristics. A noteworthy part of the academic literature examines the existence of some key characteristics or drivers that are highly correlated with the accruals anomaly. Many researchers have published papers that aim to identify the impact of firm characteristics such as the size of the firm, characteristics that belong to the broader environment of the firms such as the accounting standards or the power of the minority shareholders. Zhang (2007) investigates whether the accrual anomaly varies cross-sectionally while being related with firms’ specific characteristics. The researcher primarily aims to explain which the main reason for the accrual anomaly is. As Zhang (2007) mentions, Sloan (1996) attributes the accrual anomaly to the overestimation of the persistence of accruals by investors, while Fairfield (2003) argues that the accrual anomaly is a â€Å"special case of a wider anomaly based on growth†. The evidence supports the researcher’s hypothesis that characteristics such as the covariance of the employee growth with the accruals have an impact on the future stock returns. Finally, Zhang (2007) documents that that accruals co-vary with investment in fixed assets and external financing. Louis, Robinson and Sbaraglia (2006) examine whether the non-disclosure of accruals information can have an impact on the accruals anomaly. The researchers, dividing their sample into firms that disclose accruals information on the earnings announcement and firms that do not, investigate whether there exists accruals’ mispricing. The evidence supports that for firms that disclose accruals information, the market manages to correctly understand the discretionary part of the change of the earnings. On the contrary, firms that do not disclose accruals information are found to experience â€Å"a correction† on their stock price. Chambers and Payne’s (2008) primal aim is to examine the relation of the accrual anomaly and the auditing quality. The researchers’ hypothesis is that the accruals mispricing is related with the quality of auditing.  Additionally, their findings support that the stock prices do not reflect the accruals persistence characterising the lower-quality audit firms. Finally, their empirical work finds that the returns are greater for the lower-quality audit portfolio of firms. Palmon, Sudit and Yezegel (2008) examine the relation of the accruals mispricing and the company size. Evidence shows that company size affects the returns and, as the researchers documented, the negative abnormal returns are mostly due to larger firms while the positive abnormal returns come from the relatively small firms. Particularly, as the strategy with the highest profits they found the one that had a short position in the largest-top-accrual decile and a long position in the smallest-low-accrual decile. Bjojraj, Sengupta and Zhang (2009) examine the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the FAS 146 and how these two changes affected the accrual anomaly. FAS 146 (liabilities are recognized only when they are incurred) reduced the company’s ability to â€Å"manipulate† earnings while the SOX aims to enhance the credibility of the financial statements. The evidence recognises a change on how the market conceives information about restructurings charges. The authors propose that a possible explanation is that before the introduction of SOX and the FAS 146, the market was reluctant due to the ability of the firms to manage earnings. Finally, Bjojraj, Sengupta and Zhang (2009) document that post to the FAS 146 and the SOX act, low accrual portfolios do not generate positive abnormal returns. 2.4. The applications of the accruals phenomenon and reasons why it is not arbitraged away. The importance of the analysis of the anomalies is substantial for two reasons. Firstly, the profitability of a costless strategy challenges the EMH, especially if the strategy is based on bearing no additional risk. Secondly, managers’ incentives to manipulate the financial statements and consequently the accruals would be obvious if a profitable strategy based on such widely available information existed. Chen and Cheng (2002) find that the managers’ incentive to record abnormal accruals is highly correlated with the accrual anomaly. The hypothesis of the researchers, which their findings support, was that the investors fail to detect when the managers aim to record abnormal accruals and that may contribute to the accruals anomaly. Richardson’s (2000) main objective is to examine whether the information contained in the accruals is utilized by short sellers. As the researcher mentions, previous articles such as that of Teoh and Wong (1999) found that sell side analysts were unable to correctly â€Å"exploit† the information contained in accruals for future returns. Richardson suggests that short sellers are considered as sophisticated enough to utilize the accruals information. Findings confirm previous work, such as that of Sloan (2000), who suggests that even short sellers do not correctly utilize the information contained into accruals. Ali, Chen, Yao and Yu (2007) examine whether and how equity funds benefit from the accrual anomaly by taking long position into low accruals firms. The researchers aim to identify how exposed are the equity firms to such a well known anomaly and what characteristics these funds share. By constructing a measure called â€Å"accruals investing measure† (AIM), they try to document the portion of the low accruals firms into the actively managed funds. The evidence shows that generally funds are not widely exposed to low accruals firms but when they do so, they have an average of 2.83% annual return. It is worth noting that the annual return is net of transaction costs. Finally, the side-effects of high volatility in returns and in fund flows of the equity funds that are partially based on the accrual anomaly might be the reason behind the reluctance of the managers. Soares and Stark (2009) used UK firms to test whether a profitable accrual strategy is feasible net of transactions costs. Their findings support that indeed the accrual anomaly is present in the UK market. The authors suggest that for such a strategy to be profitable, someone is required to trade on firms with small market capitalization. They also suggest that although the accruals’ mispricing seems to exist also in the UK, the transaction costs limit the profits to such an extent that the accrual anomaly could be difficult characterised as a challenge to the semi strong form of the efficient market hypothesis. Finally, we should not neglect to mention two papers that discourse on why the markets do not simply correct the accruals anomaly. According to the classical theory, markets are so imperfect that can produce the incentive to the market to correct the â€Å"anomalies† at any point of time. Mashruwala, Rajgopal and Shevlin (2006) examined the transactions costs and the idiosyncratic risk as possible reasons of why the accrual anomaly is not arbitraged away. The researchers aimed to investigate why the market does not correct the anomaly, but also to identify whether the low accruals firms are riskier. The paper poses the question of what stops the informed investors from taking long positions into profitable stocks according to the accrual anomaly so that they can arbitrage it away. The paper examines the practical difficulty of finding substitutes so that the risk can be minimized and its relation with the accrual anomaly. Additionally, the paper investigates the transaction co sts and findings support that according to the accrual anomaly, the profitable stocks tend to be the ones with low stock prices and low trading volume. Lev and Nissim (2004) focus on the persistence of the accr