Corporate Social Responsibility Practices Essay

Corporate Social Responsibility Practices - Essay Example This essay stresses that intense competition plays a crucial role in creation of sustainable development practices and enhancement of the quality of products and services. Corporate responsibility is regarded as the degree to which an organisation complies with the legal guidelines and looks after the welfare of the society. The contemporary business practices show significant levels of understanding between the responsible and good corporate practices. Stakeholders and shareholders have understood the value of CSR and are focused on integrating business activities with huge societal concerns that can lead to good management practices. CSR is regarded as a technique which helps the organisation in evaluation of the business activities and its impact on the society and environment through ethical and transparent decision making. This paper declares that the World Business Council for Sustainable Development states that the CSR approach is a ‘business contribution to the sustainable economic development’. CSR includes activities such as health and safety, corporate governance and ethics, environmental stewardship, human rights and sustainable development. It focuses on aspects such as community and societal involvement, development and investment, corporate philanthropy, employee volunteering, customer satisfaction, anti-bribery, anti-corruption measures and adherence to the principles of fair competition. Business activities play a pivotal role in wealth and job creation, but the central management concern of CSR would be efficient utilisation of natural capital. (Halal, 2000). CSR activities help in efficient utilisation of human resources and capital and increasing the employee retention rate. The brand image of the company is enhanced because of the CSR activities performed by the organisatio n. Companies which recycle their products can effectively lower their expenditure. Customers are attracted towards companies which perform CSR activities efficiently. Whether or not a company implements CSR tools and techniques, the way it performs its business activities signifies clear intentions of the company. According to Hopkins (1999 cited in Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001), business organisations need to perform commercial and non-commercial responsibilities with an equal amount of importance. The non-commercial responsibilities undertaken by the company should include the well-being of the society, community, environment, government etc. The stakeholder’

Rfid in the Medical Field Essay Example for Free

Rfid in the Medical Field Essay RFID is now being used in the medical field to track and monitor the use of medical devices and also to locate medical personnel and patients. A company such as AwarePoint uses RTLS or real time locating systems to help their clients run their businesses efficiently and effectively. This company relies on RFID to provide its service to its clients. Awarepoint provides workflow automation and tracking solutions for acute care hospitals. Awarepoint automatically manages patient flow in clinical units, it locates and routes movable medical equipment to ensure proper cleaning, maintenance, distribution, and security. It also monitors and documents medical personnel compliance with hand hygiene requirements and other infection-containment protocols. It monitors areas that are supposed to be temperature controlled environments. It even logs out of range events and documents corrective actions. Awarepoint facilitates management of turnover of inpatient beds by monitoring occupancy, status, and availability. By using this service, it helps medical facilities to also run more cost effectively and efficiently. The process of purchasing and installing Awarepoint is quite simple. Once the medical practice develops a floor plan and its business needs are determined, AwarePoint installs sensors in throughout the medical facility which allows the facility to have access to Awarepoint’s mesh network. The next step is to attach RFID tags to the equipment and to have patient and medical personnel tags. Patient and medical personnel tags come in many forms; they can be attached to belt clips, lanyards, badges or an ID bracelet. After these two simple steps are completed, the medical facility is now able to track and locate the medical devices, staff or patients by using Awarepoint’s search engine. The search engine is simple to use and requires very little training. A medical facility which has installed Awarepoint is able to effectively track their medical equipment which helps to decrease cost to the facility by reducing the number of â€Å"unable to locate† assets. Being able to locate the assets the facility spends less money replacing equipment. It also helps the facility to keep track of its inventory and prevents excess orders of inventory. The service also offers a temperature tracking component; by tracking the temperature in specific locations, it could assist the medical facility in controlling the temperature in locations such as the pharmacy,  lab or dietary refrigerators. Awarepoint facilitates all levels of medical personnel, from the administration to the infection and safety department. It helps administrators by increasing capacity and decreasing reimbursement. By providing real time location of equipment, patients and medical personnel, Awarepoint decreases room for delays; it facilitates the management of equipment budgets, increases staff efficiency and improves safety and compliance. As far as medical staff, Awarepoint makes sure the appropriate equipment is being used on the right patient and the right medical personnel are attending to the patient. Therefore, making it easier for the doctors and nurses to focus on patient care. Awarepoint also facilitates the IT department. It removes the threat of data loss and eliminates any other health IT complications to the Wi-Fi network. Awarepoint also offers many different types of applications so medical facilities can choose one that is best suited to the facility. It offers an application that will manage the operating room schedule from personnel to equipment. This application streamlines the process of OR scheduling so the hospital can optimize its OR utilization. Awarepoint also provides an application geared to the emergency department. This application helps the emergency room to control their workflow therefore ensuring the patient receives the best care. It contains modules for EMS calls to admissions on the floor and even provides a module for documentation. Given all the information, it is clear by using a company such as Awarepoint, a hospital would run most efficiently and most cost effectively to the facility. This company addresses the facility as an individual and assesses the company’s individual needs and concerns. It makes sure the medical practice receives the most bang for its buck. It ensures a rapid, clean and minimally invasive installation of its product. It also guarantees reliability and accuracy of its services. Best of all, the software is simple to use and requires minimal training. Awarepoint prides itself on its return on investment for companies that use their product. It is proven that Awarepoint has enabled a facility to save  $2 million just by â€Å"right-sizing† their mobile medical equipment capital expenditures. By using Awarepoint, the hospital was able to eliminate its need for rentals, saving the company $147, 776. Lost or stolen equipment rates dropped from 13.8% to an astounding 0%. The company projected savings of $1 million from improved management and utilization of assets. For the emergency room, Awarepoint has increased revenue by $14.8 million annually because it was able to decrease the number of patients who left without treatment. In the operating room, Awarepoint added an average of 49 new cases per month, increasing revenue by $24 million annually. As you can see this product streamlines processes so well that it guarantees a return on investment. It is practical and sensible to have software like Awarepoint to facilitate hospitals. It increases efficiency, decreases cost and provides increase revenue.

The Discrimination Act | Analysis

The Discrimination Act | Analysis Discrimination referred to bad treatment against a certain group of people of a specific category or class. There are two types of discrimination: the direct and the indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination according to the European Commission (2003) defined as ‘when a person is treated less well, in comparison with someone else, because of his or her racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.Indirect discrimination occurs when a person want to get a job and for that job required special qualifications or criteria where challenge against a certain group of people and cannot be excused objective. The phenomenon of discrimination existed for many years ago and unfortunately still exist and sometimes in high degree. There are many examples of discrimination like the race, color or gender discrimination which are more popular and more often. Some examples of racism discrimination are Hitler and the American people who bad treated the b lack expatriates.   Also another popular and very often discrimination is about the gender of workers. In countries such as Afghanistan or Iran women are not manipulated equal as men thus have a sidetrack position in all areas culture. The face of discrimination in the employment is not such an easy problem, so the only factor that can stop those discriminations is the application of law in all areas and especially in the workplace. In this essay we are going to examine if the legislation is an effective mechanism for eliminating gender/ethnic discriminatory practices in employment. According to Crosby and Stockdale (2007) sex discrimination can be defined as ‘when a person is or people are treated unfairly in the work context because of gender. There exist, and always will, the huge gap between men and women as concerns the equality. Particularly, in the workplace, we can notice that women do not treated equally as men and thus we have the sex discrimination in employment. This unfair treatment against women leads to resort in Employment Tribunals and claim their rights. Taking in mind the Article 23, the equality between men and women must exist in all areas, including employment, work and pay. The principle of equality shall not embarrass the preservation or approval of measures providing for specific advantages in favor of the under-represented sex, all the employers have to respect and obey it. Many women claiming to earn the same reward opportunities as men, can get a promotion or decision-making roles, have the same employment benefits as men, to ha ve the chance of training and development opportunities, being protected by the law and having the chance for a convenience working. Some statistics show that the average hourly earnings for full-time working women are 82% of those of men and the part-time rate is 61% of that of men. Also the 20% of women which working full time earn less than  £200 per week compared with the 8% of men. Women have the 37% of managerial positions in businesses and it can be notice that women that working in the private sector earn better wages than those who are working in the public sector. As regards the flexible working 63% of women are likely to work flexibly, 78% of housework is doing by women and the 80% of women are becoming the victims of violent crimes. Occupational segregation is another barrier which prevent women accomplishment their obligation in the workplace. It is the distribution of jobs between men and women which require specific qualifications. For example masculine jobs which are engineers, electrical, pilots, firemen etc and the henpecked jobs which are nurses, teachers and stewardess. Although there are some exceptions like some women are being judges or senior police officers. ‘Glass ceiling represents the various barriers that women may face. ‘Glass ceiling prevent them from having an increased in their income or overall go on with their career unlikely with the efforts, achievements and qualifications that may have and offer. The consequences of the sex discrimination are the unfair dismissal for the following reasons: pregnancy, marital status and child care. It is very frequent for a woman to loss her job because of her pregnancy or because is divorced. According to Lockton (2006), ‘In the Courts view, the dismissal of a pregnant woman who had been appointed for an indefinite period, could not be justified on grounds relating to her inability to fulfill a condition of her employment contract temporarily. As a result we have to try and create new policies which include a much broader range of women e.g. black women, working-class women and single mothers, who suffer from discrimination and disadvantages. Furthermore women will tend to leave the workforce because of the child care, of not being as productive as job requires, or choose to earn less by staying in a friendly position or even to experience bias from her employer or her colleagues. Another form of discrimination is the race or ethnic discrimination which referrers to minority of groups in society which are less favorable treated from other groups such an example black and Asian people compared to white and English people. There is a law called Race Relation Act where established in 1976 where prohibits this type of discrimination on race, color, nationality and ethnic origin grounds. Sir Macpherson suggested that ‘the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their color, and culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behavior which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people. The black and Asian people face the discrimination by their employers in the workplace. They usual concentrated in particular jobs, have fewer opportunities to recruitment in j ob than white people, they work in lower jobs with very poor pay and the most of them are unemployed. Employers cannot discriminate against the job applicants because of the racial ground in terms of intention who should offer the job, which employment is offered or by denying employment. Also employers cannot discriminate on their current employees about the racial ground in terms of which is the employer, the way that can get opportunities for promotion, training and many other benefits or by unbind because they did not bow to their wishes (racial harassment). According to Bell (2002) ‘In the UK, during 1999/2000, the police recorded 47.814 racist incidents, most involving damage to property or verbal harassment. The International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination has the Article 4(a) which says that to announce as a fast punishable by lawimpulse to racial discrimination, as well as all acts of violence or impulse to such acts against any race or group of persons of another color or ethnicity. As it mortgaged above, racial discrimination is prohibited by law so many people who had faced any type of discrimination can complaint to the Employment Tribunal. There is three month time limit for presenting in Employment Tribunal and the decision of the tribunal is sometimes further than compensation. The Employment Tribunal may recommend to the employer ways to reduce bad effects of the discrimination such as an apology.   Nowadays discrimination has reduced in very high levels because all the employers try to respect and obey the law. By the incorporation of black and Asian people in the workforce had been able to acquire successful jobs. Also women in the 20th century have more opportunities and are protected by law. They have made improvements on areas of politics, education, employment etc. In conclusion the gender and ethnic discrimination in the workplace is prohibited by law. Unfortunately some employers violate the law and discriminate against of their employees. Women, black and Asian people faced most recently the racism of their employers and many cases transferred to the Employment Tribunal. Nowadays this phenomenon has reduced and employers are training and have the knowledge to avoid any situation of discrimination not only from their side but also form the side of the workers. In recent years women and black people have very important positions all over the world and an example is the minister of USA Barack Obama who had competed with a woman, Hillary Clinton, for the chair of USA. This example shows us that men and women, black or white are equal, have the same opportunities and are protected by the law from any type of discrimination. Japanese Airlines: Strategic Human Resource Management Japanese Airlines: Strategic Human Resource Management This essay is going to discuss about the human resource management issues in Japanese airlines and also provide the way to solve the problem based on the human resource strategy that consist of various practices i.e. communication within an organization, human resource planning, recruitment and selection, learning and development, performance measurement, employee relations, and evaluation. Harvard Referencing Style is adopted for referencing in this essay. In 1992, Japanese airlines, JAL, declared its first loss at $100.2 million (Shrestha, 2008). Numbers of policies and plans were initiated and executed in order to combat with the loss. The key to combat with the loss was to reduce the expenses therefore downsizing the employee and cutting off the employee remuneration were included in its plans. Furthermore, the company turned to start hiring non-Japanese employees instead due to the lower payment on their wages. Consequently, these policies and plans led to another substantial loss for the company which was a lowering in productivity of its employee and had a notably impact on customer services and also customer relations. This substantial loss was engendered by the differences between Japanese and non-Japanese employees of JAL itself and this was considered to be the human resource management issue of the firm. According to the business strategy of Japanese airlines was to strive in the airline business and combat with its loss by the cost reduction and workforce productivity improvement (JAL, 2008). Thus, the human resource strategy had to be aligned to the business strategy in order to achieve the firms goal. HR strategy consists of a set of decisions and actions which involve with the management of all level of employee in the business and related to the implementation of strategy that led to creating and sustaining competitive advantage of the company (Tyson, 2006). The key HR strategy of JAL appeared to be the hiring non-Japanese employees at lower wages through the IASCO, global crew leasing company. This was possibly considered as an effective strategy to JAL as the labor costs of the firm was reduced by 40% in that period of time. However, afterwards, this strategy turned to be a loss of the firm in long run as a rift between Japanese employees who directly contracted with JAL and n on-Japanese employees who contracted with JAL through IASCO was created according to the differences between them. Differences were possibly stimulated in either difference in their personal culture of working and flawed HR policies that could not blend and treat them together equally; as a result, them and us culture was developed and made a loss to the firm. Apparently, the existed HR strategy of the firm did not cover this pitfall and should be reconstructed based on HR practices and fit with the business strategy in order to resolve the problem and sustain the competitive advantage of the company. The key determinant of human resource effectiveness is the fit between the business strategy and human resource strategy (Tyson, 2006). The business strategy and HR strategy are required to be communicated through all level of employees in the company to enhance the employee understanding and motivate them to pursue the firms goal. Communication in organization is the basic function that cannot be overlooked. It is the key for motivation that can improve the employee morale and productivity (Martin, 2005). Without the communication, it is impossible to create the human relations and thus difficult to success in the business (Thomson, 2007). Communication in organization can be categorized into 2 main types which are written communication such as internal newsletters, e-mails and another one is the oral communication that involves presentations, employee meetings. Both types are important in different ways depend on the situation but, generally, oral communications are much more meaningful and effective than written communications (Martin, 2005). As such, the HR strategy of JAL should be conducted through the employee meeting which involves entire level of employees by include how each individual employee can contribute to the firms goal, how employees will be supported and how the firm will be different in the future and make sure that it is a two-way communication to ensure that all employees will receive and understand the delivered messages. However, the Japanese culture tends to be the seniority system under a formal hierarchy that reflects the subordinates to acknowledge the supervisors commands with less comments and suggestions (Deresky, 2008). Therefore, this strict hierarchy should be mitigated in communication and replaced by the openness in order to obtain the feedback and perceive the existed and potential problems including human resource issues in the organization from all employees. It is important to gather the information of existed problems as well as potential problems in the future from the employees as they are the real one who facing the real problem and their opinions are useful to develop the problem solving plan (Robbins, 2008). HR practices such as human resource planning, recruitment and selection, learning and development, performance measurement, employee relations, and evaluation would be more effective by development with the joint of employees feedback. HR planning is the process of determining what job in the firm will need to be filled, how to fill them and what skills, experience and competencies will be required (Dessler, 2008). This process is significance to the firm in term of manpower management and certainly the benefit to the firm in term of financial as well. The goal of HR planning can be defined as to get the right quantify of employee with the right knowledge, skills, experiences and competencies in the right jobs at the right time and also at the appropriate cost in order to achieve the firms goal (Bacal, 2010). The HR planning is able to play an important role regarding the firms cost reduction strategy because it involves with the determining current existed employees and also forecasting the future employee turnover and requirement rate to balance the total headcounts that capable to sustain the achievement on business goal. Shortage of employee issue can make a loss in opportunities in business that leads to financial loss. Similarly, excessiveness of headcount issue can make a financial loss by the excess payment on unnecessary jobs and downsizing the employee which compensation payments are required. The downsizing does not create an impact on only employees who have been sacked but it also creates the negative impact on morale of remaining employees (?sthus, 2010). These issues are possibly mitigated by an effective HR planning (Dessler, 2008). Under a well-developed HR planning, JAL would tend to promote their existed employees to other required positions by training and developing them instead of hiring new employees which may cause financial loss in the future due to an excessive headcount. HR planning could provide both money saving and prevention of morale impact on firms employees. HR planning directly involves with the recruitment and selection process. Recruitment and selection process is the process of screening and choosing the right people into the right positions at the right time (Martin, 2005). This process can be done by the firm itself so called in-house recruitment or through the employment agencies i.e. headhunters, niche recruiters (Dessler, 2008). JAL decided to recruit their non-Japanese pilots and flight engineers through the IASCO, crew leasing company which is considered as employment agencies, due to the reason of lower wages. However, the cultural differences between Japanese and non-Japanese employees created a negative impact to the firm. To combat with this issue, JAL could work out with IASCO to screen and select non-Japanese employee by take following factors into account beyond the skills, experiences and competencies that are generally required in the position. These factors are culture adaptability and ability to learn other language of the candidates through the ability test of aptitude, test of personali ty and group situational test in the structured interview and selection process. Adaptability is a personality to handling uncertainty situation, and dealing with the working outside traditional culture and also geographical borders (OConnell, 2008). With the high adaptability of non-Japanese employees, they could tend to conform to JAL culture. Consequently, the cultural differences issues could be reduced. In the same way, this recruitment practice that takes the adaptability of candidates into account could provide more effective in problem solving related to the cultural differences by applying it to the recruitment of Japanese employee by JAL itself as well. As such, both Japanese and non-Japanese with high adaptability could easily blend together and provide better work performances. Alternatively, the JAL could save more money and, in the same time, avoid the cultural differences issues by in-house recruitment on both Japanese and non-Japanese employees with the focus on adaptability of candidates. Hiring people through the employment agencies normally cost more than in-house recruitment since the agencies get the fees (Dessler, 2008). Also, recruiting non-Japanese employees directly by JAL itself and make them to be permanent employees for the firm could prevent the negative impact on their morale and lead to maintain their productivities. Morale and employee relation problems can be created when the permanent and non-permanent employees working on the same work but not obtain the same benefits regarding their differences in permanent and non-permanent employment status (Schaefer, 2005). The productivity of employee is tended to worsen if the employees morale is lower (Mohanty, 2009). Recruiting and selecting the high potential employees does not assure that they will perform their work effectively. To guarantee that employees will work effectively, they are required to know what to do and how to do their jobs through the learning, training and development programs (Dessler, 2008). Firstly, the employees need to learn the basic background information of the firm such as company rules and policies in order to get them perform their jobs satisfactorily. Employees may perform their work performance lower than expectation of the company without knowing the basic information on things like rules and policies (Tyson, 2006). Secondly, in order to improve the work performance of employees, they are required to learn and acquire new skills and knowledge. As such, training and development process is essential. Training and development is a learning process to provide the skills and knowledge, required for employees to perform their jobs, to both new and current employees with an aim to bettering their work performances (Dessler, 2008). The process can be done both on and off the job. Group meetings, Projects and assignments are the samples of on the job training. On the other hand, samples of off the job training are seminars and workshops. To train and develop employees effectively, firm needs to identify who needs training and what do they want to learn. After that, establishing plan and implementation of the training to serve employee needs. Finally, the evaluation to check the effectiveness of the training is required (Martin, 2005). Regarding the JAL human resource issues, other than general training and development programs to improve the skills and knowledge of employees, the team building training should be adopted to glue the rift between Japanese and non-Japanese employees. Team building promotes the bonding between employees within the organization (Hikichi, 2010). It can be done in a various forms even activities like games and parties (Leland, 2010). By implementing the team building program, Japanese and non-Japanese employees could tend to learn, connect and blend to other cultures from their colleagues. Team building helps break the ice between employees and better understanding on each other (Leland, 2010). As such, the conflict issues of JAL due to the culture differences could be mitigated therefore JAL could improve productivity from its employees. The productivity and workflow in a team could be intensely damaged by the conflict or confusion (Grainger, 2010). Once the employees have been employed, trained and worked on their job for a period of time, the performance appraisal is required to measure their performances. Performance appraisal is one process of the performance management. Performance management is the way that company measures and determines how well its business and employee performs through all of the organizational processes by linked with the organizations goals and objectives (Martin, 2005). Its aim is to evaluate and develop the employees (Tyson, 2006). Under performance management, JAL is required to state the clearly defined business objectives, department objectives and individual employee objectives. Thus, those objectives have to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time bound, exciting and reviewable to motivate its employee. By the clearly defined objectives, employees would know what to do and see how their individual, teamwork performance affect and contribute to the overall objectives of the firms ( Moore, 2010). Clearly defined objectives provide the directions and challenges to employees and lead to improve their motivation (Bauer, 2009). The performance appraisal is important to the JAL in order to determine, evaluate and develop the employees based on their past performances. The performance appraisal also provides a benefit to the firm by improve the motivation of its employees. Once the employees are appraised, the feedback of their strengths and weaknesses are returned to employees. Letting they know what areas they need to improve and develop based on their strengths and weaknesses could improving the motivation of employees and also increasing the organizational performance (Martin, 2005). The appraisal can be done both internally such as the self-evaluation, evaluation by their supervisors, peers and externally by customer feedbacks, evaluations. JAL should standardize the performance appraisal process among subsidiaries and also equally to both Japanese employees and non-Japanese employees from IASCO crews in order to prevent the unfair situation and negative impact due to the different treatment between them. Work performances of the employees tend to be poorer if they are experienced injustice in workplace (ScienceDaily, 2009). By standardization of appraisal on both Japanese and non-Japanese employees, the non-Japanese employees could be stimulated to improve their work performances and also distrust attitude of Japanese employees could be reduced as both of them are required to work hard and perform the well-performance to improve their bottom line profits. The employees who performed above and beyond the expected level of output regarding their job description and accomplished firm, department and individual objectives should be rewarded. Recognizing and respecting for employees contribution at work is the biggest motivator (Harrison, 2010). Plenty benefits would be returned to JAL by an adoption of appropriate reward system regarding employees performance such as improvement on employee productivity, increasing in retention of quality employee and lowering absenteeism. Awarding the desired work performance of employee increases the repetition of desired work performance therefore more productivity is created (Harrison, 2010). Employee relations is the another process that JAL could adopt in order to improve its employees motivation and productivity. Employee relations is the process that concerned with sustaining the relationship between the employer and employee that contribute to satisfactory morale, motivation and productivity (Dessler, 2008). Improving the relationships at work leads to an improvement on overall productivity and thus increasing the profit to the firm (Polman, 2010). To improve the relationship among employer and employee, the conflicts between them have to be prevented. JAL could have to state clearly, effectively and reasonably policies and rules such as disciplinary rules and procedures to prevent the conflicts within an organization. Rules and policies in workplace are mainly set to specify expectations for behavior, secure safety and health of employees, promote and protect employee rights, and promote harmony and reduce the conflicts in workplace (Cuma, 2010). JAL could also help non-Japanese employees, IASCO crews, to get the membership of labor union in order to enhance the employee relations. One of the ways to improve the employer-employee relationship is to dealing well of labor union (Van der Waldt, 2007). As such, non-Japanese employees could gain more benefit, consequently be motivated and perform more productivity of their works. Union members receive more payment, holidays, insurance plan benefit, and various other benefits than nonunion employees (Dessler, 2008). Moreover, the union member also can ask for a help from the union to guarantee that workers rights are put in place (James, 2009). In addition, this action could also provide the bargaining power back to the Japanese employees who have been being members of the union. Furthermore, the job security of non-Japanese employees has to be guaranteed in order to prevent the lowering in productivity according to employees morale. Lack of job security makes the employees feel stressful (MacLeod, 2010). If employees are at unhealthy stress level, there are high possibilities that employees work performances will be poorer and that will cause negative impact to the firm (Pearson, 2009). Last step to solve the JAL human resource issues effectively is to continually evaluate the effectiveness of all previously presented HR activities. The continual evaluation process is important in order to determine how successful HR activities are and how can firm develop and improve them to be more effective. Evaluation process is used to ensure that the plans and implementations are having an effect per expectation (Douglas, 2010). If there are any loopholes in the plans and activities, the evaluation process will show early signals therefore the plans and activities can be timely adjusted to improve the effectiveness (Douglas, 2010). This essay is attempted to solve the human resource issues in Japanese airlines through the HR areas. Hopefully, the problems can be solved by the presented strategic HR plans and activities with an aim to improve the productivity and motivation of the workforce, at the same time, enhance cost saving in various ways through the HR processes which are communication within an organization, human resource planning, recruitment and selection, learning and development, performance measurement, employee relations, and evaluation.

Analysis Of Qt Sydney Hotel Marketing Mix Marketing Essay

Analysis Of Qt Sydney Hotel Marketing Mix Marketing Essay Marketing is often thought to be only selling and advertising. However, marketing consists of many other functions that can be seen far more important than just the exchange of goods. (Kotler Amrstrong 2004: 5) The American Marketing Association defines marketing as follows: Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large. (Middleton et al. 2009: 21) The marketing strategies for the hotel industry are significant and can make an enormous difference between empty rooms and a superlatively booked hotel. The hotel marketing strategy should cover every area of marketing, advertising and its communication from online to direct in person face to face tactics. The business should try identifying its key target market, chalk out a meaningful marketing strategy and where it wants to position itself in the market. QT Sydney Hotel market Like the other hotels, QT Sydney Hotel targets people of sustainable age groups who can easily support themselves. Determining the right and meaningful target market is crucial. When defining a target market of a hotel such as QT Sydney Hotel, we can assume that the categorization can be done in three separate levels. The first level consists of customers who are willing to book a room and also have the resources to book the hotel premises. The second level consists of customers who have the resources to book the room but not necessarily the desire. The third level consists of customers who are not able to buy but if monitored can change their willingness and be able to book the hotel room later According to Mplans.com, the most important target market of the hotel should be professional visitors to the hotel from the following industries: Education, Travel trade and commerce IT industry; Automotive. Local businesses and countless firms can also be targeted for a full day use of facilities in the premises such as conference rooms, room nights for visiting executives and long stay professional guests. Market segmentation and the bases that QT Sydney Hotel uses Market segmentation recognizes that people differ in many ways like in their needs, attitudes and lifestyles. (Middleton et al. 2009: 97) Through market segmentation companies divide their market into smaller segments. All of the segments have specific needs and by dividing the market those needs can be met more efficiently with products and services that match their unique needs. (Kotler 2004: 239) There are many ways the hotel can use to segment its market. Different segmentation variables are used, both individually and in groups as a whole, in order to classify consumers into different segments. According to Kotler, four major variables that are generally used in market segmentation are: geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral variables. Geographical segmentation divides the market into different geographical units such as cities, regions, countries or climate and population density. By this way when a hotel is deciding in which areas to operate and market, they can direct their efforts to geographical differences in needs and wants of the people of that region. For example Sydney QT Hotel can pay attention to their premises in northern areas where it is colder and have a state of the art centralized heating mechanisms as compared to the hotel premises in the South. (Kotler 2004:239) Demographic segmentation is based on the market divided into groups based on age, gender, family size, income, profession, education, religion, race and nationality. This segmentation is one of the most popular and effective bases for segmenting customer groups for the hotel industry. This is wholly and exclusively because the customer wants are closely interrelated to its dependants such as income and age. (Kotler 2004: 240-241) Based on different variables further such as social class, lifestyle, and individual personality characteristics, psychographic segmentation is ones of its kinds for the hotel industry in which QT Sydney hotel operates. For instance, people may live in the same city, be of the same age but one of them can be a student while the other can be a businessman. This segmentation affects their lifestyles greatly and therefore also has an effect on the buying behaviors and renting rooms of the people. The hotel needs to tailor its strategy according to each different segmentation to yield the utmost benefits for the customers and the hotel itself. Behavioral segmentation categorizes the customers into categories based on their knowledge, attitudes, uses and responses to a product. This category of segmentation particularly has the benefit that are inexplicably linked to the hotel industry itself. When the hotel knows when and why the customers are bookings its premises and its rooms, they can relate their marketing tactics to it. For example some holidays like on Valentines Day or at Christmas people tend to book hotel rooms and halls for exclusive parties and social gatherings, the hotel can benefit maximum from the situation and prepare special offers and communications to its customers. (Kotler 2004: 244) In hospitality industry these same segmentation variables can be used but there is also a wide range of subgroups that for example almost all of the hotels use. Hotels like Sydnet QT Hotel should usually use only one variable when segmenting these subgroups and that is the purpose of travel. By defining the purpose of hotels can classify many subgroups such as corporate/business clients, visitors on group package tours, independent and leisure vacationers. By acknowledging different segments a hotel can target their services more effectively. (Middleton et al. 2009: 97-99) Target Market coverage strategy Relationship marketing can be a unique form of marketing that emphasizes customer retention and their greater satisfaction and their value of money services. It shifts the paradigm focus from the recruitment of new customer to the retention and recovery of existing ones. Relationship marketing differs from other forms of marketing in that it recognizes the long-term value of customer relationships and extends communication. (Middleton et al. 2009: 92) When planning g a relationship marketing strategy hotel QT Sydney must take into account that not all customers want a relationship with the hotel. That is why it must be carefully considered which types of customers are usually more likely to repeat their visit to the hotel. While most hotel websites include Face book, Twitter and LinkedIn follow-us buttons, the ability to engage and convert anonymous visitors into customers is still an elusive goal for many. However, the hotels must try to engage their customers and facilitate them to yield the meaningful results and profits from the marketing strategy. As the hospitality industry is beginning to learn social media and its impact on their return on investment, they are venturing more into adapting to the newer technology and capturing the customers needs. The social media that is integrated in a natural way and is used to communicate with guests during the travel cycle is much more impactful.   Another most popular form of relationship marketing is to gather information from the customers about their stay and whether they had any complaints or suggestions for improvement. Internal marketing is also an extension of a marketing strategy that considers the importance of the service of the hotel employees while interacting with customers Better pricing strategy can be another tactic the hotel can use to penetrate in the market and attract more visitors and enhance the loyalty of the existing customer. It can also be linked to overcome the challenge of low customer seasons at the hotel. The daily rate could for example change based on the occupancy of the hotel or there could be a more efficient way of boosting the sales before hand when there are low customer flows coming to the hotel. Section 2 : Analysis of QT Sydney Hotel Marketing Mix The marketing mix is one of the major concepts in modern marketing and is often brought up in general discussions of marketing. Marketing mix is a set of marketing tools that a company uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market. (Kotler 2004: 56-57) When a company is making decisions on marketing they generally fall into four controllable categories known as the 4 Ps: product, (variety, quality and services) price, (payment period, discounts) place (location, channels and distribution) and promotion (advertising, marketing and sales) The main idea of marketing is to influence and persuade the consumer to buy and use the companys product or service. In order to get customers to do so a company uses the four Ps as a mixture in order to influence the demand for its products. (Kotler 2004: 56-57) In the hospitality industry just the hotel Sydney operates, the products are primarily designed to satisfy the needs and wants of business and leisure travelers/corporate executives. As part of the marketing mix for a hotel room can be seen as a product that the hotel sells to its customers. Although the hotel rooms can vary in quality or in services they offer and are based on the customers need to have the specific type of room. For example a businessman can have different needs from a hotel room (using a conference hall, meeting rooms , lounge for corporate meetings than a leisure traveler or even a corporate executive. In the hospitality industry the place of business is many times the key to success. A hotels location is important for visitors and therefore they usually examine carefully which hotel and where they choose. The location of the hotel affects the transportation possibilities, how accessible it is for example from the airport or the city center. (Bowie Buttle 2004: 26-27) Pricing decisions can greatly affect the the demand and profitability of the hotel . In a hotel setting such as the Sydney QT for example the hotel occupancy rates and special run time offers and discounts for new and existing key customers are crucial and require a lot of attention and careful consideration. Promotion is usually the function of most marketing and sales departments and it includes all the tools that a company can use to communicate with customers. A hotel can for example use different websites, billboards and social media to advertise their products and services and also use brand identification to their advantage. (Bowie Buttle 2004: 28) Brands help consumers to identify what the product or the company is, for example people relate the Hilton Hotel chain with luxury and good quality. They can link the Sydney QT hotel to the same category or even better as a multi-purpose hotel that caters to all of its market That helps the Sydney QT hotel when they are planning their marketing strategy. (Bowie Buttle 2004: 208)

The Anti-Trust Case Against Microsoft :: Business Technology

The Anti-Trust Case Against Microsoft Since 1990, a battle has raged in United States courts between the United States government and the Microsoft Corporation out of Redmond, Washington, headed by Bill Gates. What is at stake is money. The federal government maintains that Microsoft's monopolistic practices are harmful to United States citizens, creating higher prices and potentially downgrading software quality, and should therefore be stopped, while Microsoft and its supporters claim that they are not breaking any laws, and are just doing good business. Microsoft's antitrust problems began for them in the early months of 1990(Check 1), when the Federal Trade Commission began investigating them for possible violations of the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts,(Maldoom 1) which are designed to stop the formation of monopolies. The investigation continued on for the next three years without resolve, until Novell, maker of DR-DOS, a competitor of Microsoft's MS-DOS, filed a complaint with the Competition Directorate of the European Commission in June of 1993. (Maldoom 1) Doing this stalled the investigations even more, until finally in August of 1993, (Check 1)the Federal Trade Commission decided to hand the case over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice moved quickly, with Anne K. Bingaman, head of the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, leading the way.(Check 1) The case was finally ended on July 15, 1994, with Microsoft signing a consent settlement.(Check 1) The settlement focused on Microsoft's selling practices with computer manufacturers. Up until now, Microsoft would sell MS-DOS and Microsoft's other operating systems to original equipment manufacturers (OEM's) at a 60% discount if that OEM agreed to pay a royalty to Microsoft for every single computer that they sold (Check 2) regardless if it had a Microsoft operating system installed on it or not. After the settlement, Microsoft would be forced to sell their operating systems according to the number of computers shipped with a Microsoft operating system installed, and not for computers that ran other operating systems. (Check 2) Another practice that the Justice Department accused Microsoft of was that Microsoft would specify a minimum number of minimum number of operating systems that the retailer had to buy, thus eliminating any chance for another operating system vendor to get their system installed until the retailer had installed all of the Microsoft operating systems that it had installed.(Maldoom 2) In addition to specifying a minimum number of operating systems that a vendor had to buy, Microsoft also would sign contracts with the vendors for long periods of time

Birth Order Essay -- essays research papers

Sigmeund Freud was the first psychotherapist to say: "a child's position in the sequence of brother and sisters is of very great significance for one course of his later life" (Richardson 12). One's birth order position (whether born first, second, last, etc.), one's sex (male or female), and the sex of one's siblings affects the kind of person one becomes. People often say they can't understand "how people from the same family can be so different". What they do not realize is that each sibling is born into a different family. Each new child needs to create a unique identity separate from the others. However this new identity is created within the context of those who are already there. The people in a family change in many ways between the birth of each new child. Many variables impact on each sibling. These include the physical circumstances in which a family finds itself, (ie. location, income, residents), the emotional stability of the family, (ie. well adjus ted parents, parental experience, settled career), and lastly the state in which they find themselves, (ie. decade, wartime, country). These variables mean that each child will be treated differently by parents and siblings and this is done usually unintentionally. One must remember that birth order does not determine the basic values of a person or the person's value to society. It affects social interactions more than attitudes and ethnical stances. Your birth order and sex determines in a large part how other people in your family react to you and treat you which in turn influences what you think about yourself and how you react to and treat others inside and outside the family. Your birth order and gender affect primarily your social behaviour and how you relate to other people in your life. They affect the way you relate to your spouse, your friends and the skills you bring to parenting. Birth affects what kind of a spouse you will be because of how you grew up. "It is useful to know that something as simple as birth order can account for major conflicts in a relationship and that neither person is to 'blame'" (Richardson 17). When one understands, for example, that an oldest brother of brothers and an oldest sister of sisters are bound to have conflicts over who is in charge, they can stop blaming each... ...table position is that of the only child which usually takes on the role of a firstborn and then some. Hence, an only child is often referred to as the "Super First Born". "It is a scientific fact proven time and again that your position in your family shapes your approach to life" (Leman 9). Your birth order and sex determines a large part how other people in your family react to you and treat you which in turn influences what you think about yourself and how you react to and treat others inside and outside the family. It should also be noted that birth order not only affects reactions and behaviour. One's birth order affects a plethora of things which include one's IQ, consumption of cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, depression and mental illness, and creativity. (Ernst i - v) The topic birth order has proven to be very interesting and educational. It is amazing and fun to know more about yourself and your siblings through the order in which we were all born. O ne can only wonder how much one's life is out of one's control by virtue of being born first, middle or last. Does birth order really determine who one is or will become or do other factors come into play?

Role of Parents Towards Their Children in a Society That Does Not Help in Raising Children Properly

bismiAllah hir Rahman nir Raheem Role of parents towards their children in a society that does not help in raising children properly A very common problem seen in youth in western countries is that their parents allow them to indulge in some form of haram in the hope that that will stop them from committing worse haram. An example of this is that parents will say that they allow their children to indulge in music in the hope that that will stop them from going out with bad people or leaving their home all together. Parents are afraid that if they enforce the law of Allah in their homes, that their children will leave. What is Islam’s position on this sort of compromise? Some parents also say that they only have the duty to tell their children something is haram, and then their children have to choose for themselves because they are already young adults (i. e. 13 -18 yrs old and unmarried, living at home). Don’t the parents have to forbid haram by all means, or do they just say that is haram and then leave them be? To what extent do parents have to go to forbid their children from haram? Parents also believe that once their children reach the age of puberty they are no longer responsible for their sins or actions, and so say they will have no sin if they advise their children something is haram and then leave them. Is this true? Or do parents always have the responsibility of forbidding their children from haram, and will they be responsible if they see their children doing haram and just leave them after advising them?. Praise be to Allaah. Firstly: The success or failure of the Muslim in raising his children depends on a variety of factors, which undoubtedly includes the environment in which they live, which plays a major role in the success or failure of that upbringing. Please see the answer to question no. 52893. Secondly: The parents have to understand that Allaah has given them responsibility over their children, and they have to fulfil the trust as Allaah has enjoined in the Qur’aan. The Sunnah also confirms this command in many saheeh ahaadeeth. The texts of the Revelation also warn the one who does not look after his lock sincerely and who neglects the trust with which Allaah has entrusted him. It was narrated that Ma’qil ibn Yasaar al-Muzani said: I heard the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) say: â€Å"There is no person whom Allaah puts in charge of others, and when he dies he is insincere to his subjects, but Allaah will forbid Paradise to him. † According to anothe r report: â€Å"†¦ and he is insincere towards them, but he will not smell the fragrance of Paradise. † Narrated by al-Bukhaari (6731) and Muslim (142). See the answer to question no. 20064. Thirdly: Allaah has enjoined those who are in charge of children to raise them from when they are very small to obey Allaah and love Islam. Even though they are not accountable because they have not reached puberty, one should not wait until puberty to teach them, guide them and tell them to obey Allaah, because in most cases at that age (i. e. puberty) they will not respond unless they have been brought up in this manner and have learned it from their families since a young age. Hence parents are enjoined to teach young children how to pray from the age of seven and to smack them if they do not pray when they are ten. The Sahaabah used to make their young children fast, so as to get them used to loving Islam and its rituals, so that it would be easy for them to follow its commands and keep away from the things it forbids when they grow up. It was narrated that ‘Abd-Allaah ibn ‘Amr said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: â€Å"Teach your children to pray when they are seven years old, and smack them if they do not do so when they are ten, and separate them in their beds. † Abu Dawood (495), classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh Abi Dawood. It was narrated that al-Rubayyi’ bint Mu’awwidh ibn ‘Afra’ said: On the morning of ‘Ashoora’, the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) sent word to the villages of the Ansaar around Madeenah, saying: â€Å"Whoever started the day fasting, let him complete his fast, and whoever started the day not fasting, let him complete the rest of the day (without food). † After that, we used to fast on this day, and we would make our children fast too, even the little ones in sha Allaah. We would make them toys out of wool, and if one of them cried for food, we would give (that toy) to him until it was time to break the fast. Narrated by al-Bukhaari (1960) and Muslim (1136). Just as they raise them to do acts of worship, they should also prevent them from doing haraam things. If the child does an act of worship, the reward will be for him and for the one who taught him and encouraged him to do it. As for doing acts of disobedience or sins, the minor does not sin, rather the one who enabled him to do it and left the door open for him to do it and did not close it, is sinning. As for the one who tells him to do it, he is like the one who did it. Hence it is not something extreme at all if a Muslim raises his children to obey Allaah and prevents them from doing haraam things, such as males wearing gold or silk, or females wearing male clothing, or lying, stealing, swearing and other sins. Similarly, it is not something extreme if a Muslim raises his daughter to be modest and chaste and not to mix, because if a person gets used to something when he is young, there is the fear that he may persist in it. Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: Even though the child is not accountable, his guardian is, and it is not permissible for him to enable him to do something haraam, for he will get used to it and it will be difficult to wean him from it. Tuhfat al-Mawdood bi Ahkaam al-Mawlood (p. 162). And he (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: The one who neglects to teach his child that which will benefit him and leaves him with no care has done a very bad deed. The corruption of most children is due to their parents and their neglect of (their children), because they neglect to teach them the obligations and Sunnahs of Islam. So they neglected them when they were small, and (the children) turned out unable to benefit themselves or to benefit their parents when they are old. Tuhfat al-Mawdood, p. 229 The scholars of the Standing Committee were asked: With regard to my small children, should I teach them the etiquette of Islam and make the young girls wear Islamic clothes, or this regarded as extremism? If my doing this is correct, what is the evidence for it from the Qur’aan and Sunnah? They replied: What you have mentioned about making girls wear loose and concealing clothing and making them get used to that from a young age is not extremism, rather you are doing the right thing in giving them an Islamic upbringing. Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azeez ibn Baaz, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Razzaaq ‘Afeefi, Shaykh ‘Abd-Allaah ibn Ghadyaan. Fataawa al-Lajnah al-Daa’imah (25/285, 286). In his book Majmoo’ah As’ilah Tuhimm al-Usrah al-Muslimah, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: The scholars say that it is haraam to dress a child in clothes that it is haraam for an adult to wear. Clothing on which there are images is haraam for an adult to wear, so it is also haraam for a child to wear it. What the Muslims should do is to boycott such clothes and shoes so that those who want to spread evil and corruption will not be able to reach us by these means. If they are boycotted they will never find a way to make them reach this land. After that, he was asked: Is it permissible for male children to wear things that are only for females, such as gold and silk, etc, and vice versa? He replied: This is to be understood from the first answer. I said that the scholars say that it is haraam to dress a child in clothes that it is haraam for an adult to wear. Based on this, it is haraam to dress male children in that which is only for females, and vice versa. After that, he was asked: Does this include isbaal or making clothes come below the ankles for male children? He replied: Yes, it includes that. End quote. And Allaah knows best. http://www. islam-qa. com/en/ref/103526 Praise be to Allaah. There is no greater calamity than that which befalls one’s religious commitment. That is true calamity. We ask Allaah to keep us safe from it. Nothing is more precious to a person – after his own self – than his child. Children are the apples of our eyes. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): â€Å"And those who say: ‘Our Lord! Bestow on us from our wives and our offspring the comfort of our eyes, and make us leaders of the Muttaqoon (the pious)’† [al-Furqaan 25:74] But the heart cannot find true joy except through righteous offspring. Al-Hasan al-Basri said: â€Å"This joy means seeing one’s wife, brother and close friend obeying Allaah. Tuhfat al-Mawdood by Ibn al-Qayyim, p. 424. Undoubtedly the most important thing that is asked of parents is to protect their children and take care of them, to bring them up to worship and obey Allaah and to keep them away from disobeying Him. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): â€Å"O you who believe! Ward off yourselves and your families against a Fire (Hell) †¦Ã¢â‚¬  [al-Tahreem 66: 6] Mujaahid and others of the salaf said: Advise your families to fear Allaah and discipline them. Qataadah said: Tell them to obey Allaah and forbid them to disobey Him. In al-Saheehayn it is narrated from ‘Abd-Allaah ibn ‘Umar (may Allaah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: â€Å"Each of you is a shepherd and each of you is responsible for his flock. The ruler who is in charge of the people is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock. A man is the shepherd of his family and is responsible for his flock. A woman is the shepherd of her husband’s household and is responsible for her flock. A servant is the shepherd of his master’s wealth and is responsible for his flock. Each of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock. † Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 2554; Muslim, 1829. This hadeeth indicates that the one who is accountable will be brought to account for any shortcomings in those who are under his authority and under his care. The hadeeth states that parents are included in the general principle: â€Å"A man is the shepherd of his family and is responsible for his flock. A woman is the shepherd of her husband’s household and is responsible for her flock. So the parents are responsible for their children, because they have been commanded to strive to protect them from the Fire and to follow the commands of Allaah and to avoid the things that He has forbidden. If the parents do that which has been enjoined upon them, namely giving the children a sound upbringing and not falling short in that, then there is no sin on them if their children go astray. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): â€Å"and no bearer of burdens shall b ear the burden of another† [al-An’aam 6:164] If a person understands Islam clearly and has an ounce of common sense, he will understand that if he neglects his duty of guiding and teaching his children, then he is responsible for any deviation that they fall into. The responsibility of families who live in the west towards their children is of another kind that is even greater than that, because they are responsible for throwing the apple of their eyes into the sea bound and tied. It is even worse than that, it is the Fire and torment of Allaah. We ask Allaah to keep us safe and sound. In the case of your son, and many others, you should have closed the door to temptation before things got out of control. In Islam there is no such thing as friendship between a man and a woman who is not his mahram, especially at this dangerous stage of your son’s life. But the important question now is: what to do about it? You and his father have to act quickly to get your son away from these sinful relationships and cut off all ties with non-mahram women, even if you know that these relationships have not reached the level of zina. As we have stated, these relationships are not allowed in Islam in principle. One of the most important means of getting him away from these haraam relationships may be to protect him by means of marriage. Hence the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: â€Å"O young men, whoever among you can afford to get married, let him do so, and whoever cannot, let him fast, for it will be shield for him. † Agreed upon. What is meant by it being a shield is that it will protect him from falling into sin. But you know that keeping young men away from such haraam relationships is no easy matter; it may be almost impossible in the country in which you are living, because the western environment in which the hearts and minds of this generation have grown up is completely contaminated with every kind of temptation and whims and desires, temptations which surround the second and third generations of Muslims there, generations which are losing touch, day after day, with the symbols and laws of Islam, and imbibing instead the values and attitudes of the west, until there is nothing left but the â€Å"blessing† of their background? I ask you again: Are you serious about following the command of Allaah, and do you really fear betraying the trust towards your own soul first of all, then towards your offspring? Do you have the desire to set things straight? Do you have any motive to sacrifice the worldly pleasures and comforts of the west and bring your children back to your own land, or go to a place where your religious commitment will be safer, before it is too late and death comes when you are in this state, then one may say: â€Å"‘My Lord! Send me back, so that I may do good in that which I have left behind! ’ No! It is but a word that he speaks; and behind them is Barzakh (a barrier) until the Day when they will be resurrected† [al-Mu’minoon 23:99-100]; before we see the outcome of our deeds, i. e. , the consequences: â€Å"On the Day the event is finally fulfilled (i. e. the Day of Resurrection), those who neglected it before will say: ‘Verily, the Messengers of our Lord did come with the truth, now are there any intercessors for us that they might intercede on our behalf? Or could we be sent back (to the first life of the world) so that we might do (good) deeds other than those (evil) deeds which we used to do? ’ Verily, they have lost their ownselves (i. e. destroyed themselves) and that which they used to fabricate (invoking and worshipping others besides Allaah) has gone away from them† [al-A’raaf 7:99]. Or does this responsibility not deserve such a sacrifice? You may say that most of the Muslim lands nowadays are filled with temptations and evils, so we will never find the right atmosphere to raise our children in an Islamic way, so what would be the point of making this move? The answer is: Yes, you are right to a great extent, but even if we cannot achieve all the good things, we should do as much as we can; if we cannot ward off all evils we should ward off as much as we can; and some evils are less serious than others. All that is needed is to be sincere with oneself. Allaah has indeed spoken the truth: â€Å"Nay! Man will be a witness against himself, 15. Though he may put forth his excuses (to cover his evil deeds)† [al-Qiyaamah 75:14-15] May Allaah help us and you to do that which He loves and which pleases Him.