The Importance of Nature in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn :: Essays Papers

The Importance of Nature in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn In his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses nature not only as ally, but as a deterrent in Huck Finn's search for independence and Jim's search for freedom. The most prominent force of nature in the novel was the Mississippi River. The river was not only their escape route, but perhaps it became their biggest enemy because it was always unpredictable. Nature is the strongest factor in the novel because in a completely different geographical setting the story would have had not only a different outcome, but Huck and Jim might never have found friendship and freedom. Twain changes his tone when describing the Mississippi River from wry and sarcastic to flowing and daydreaming. This change in tone illustrates his own appreciation for the beauty and significance that nature holds for him. Twain uses personification to show the beauty of nature in contrast to the immaturity and obnoxious mentality of society. Huck would sometimes wake up to "see a steamboat coughing along upstream" that "now and then would belch a whole world of sparks up out of her chimbleys" which acts like a child without manners. (Twain, 81) In almost every chapter Twain uses colorful descriptions of nature to help the reader to imagine the setting of the scene. Twain would not have used so many examples and vivid descriptions of nature if he didn't want nature to be a huge part of the novel. In the novel, Huck's main goal is to get away from a terrible, abusive drunk of a father. Without the access of the Mississippi, Huck might not have ever escaped his father, and his father could have easily killed Huck. For Jim, who's goal was not only freedom, but to see his family again, the river was a free way to reach the free states. With Huck's fortune he could have bought a train ticket or paid another way to get to Cairo, but it was important for him to make his journey with Jim. In that time a black runaway slave could not have ridden on a train or even walked on land in the light of day without being caught in a matter of minutes.

Symbolism in William Goldings Lord of the Flies Essay -- essays resea

Symbolism in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies renders either through a character, intention, or theme. The author uses these symbols to have a greater impact on the readers’ interpretation of the novel, rather than merely revealing the idea. First and foremost, the beast and its several manifestations are few of the many signs that support deeper meanings. Furthermore, there is Piggy, one with intelligence and responsibility and one very important symbol. Finally, there are the two fires which are vital representations in the novel that contrasts and demonstrates irony. The use of symbols does provide a deep elucidation of the novel, but it supports an even more profound significance for the readers’ perspectives as well. In the novel, the beast is an inclusive symbol which comes to the boys in many distinctive figures. Due to their fear of the unknown island and each other, they begin to suppose that there is a tangible ‘beastie’ with them on the island. Each character arranges an emotional fear within themselves from their sinister side of human nature. All the fear can then have the ability to bring the fictional beast to life. One way they perceive the beast is through an unfortunate parachutist who lost his life and is blown onto the island. Although he is harmless, Ralph describes him as a monster with, â€Å"†¦teeth, and big black eyes.† (Golding 136). All but 1 2 Simon know the genuine behind their fears and the shape of the creature. Knowing that, â€Å"†¦Maybe it’s only us.† (Golding 96), he confronts the beast at the summit of the mountain and soon understands that he is no more but dead flesh. However, his truth eventually leads to his demise during the savages’ chaotic... ...e soul. Succinctly, Golding’s Lord of the Flies is a mental exertion of symbols which are meant to have the readers reflect above and beyond to more individual thoughts. The analysis of the novel becomes more interesting and authentic through the themes that it is shown through. The fire, the beast and Piggy are only some of symbols on the mechanism of human nature and even nature in itself. The many representations also intend to stand for simple theses and are meant to have an impact on how one thinks about the present society. There are always small signs in everyday life which represent and help develop the civilization known today. The nature of a symbol is a capability to manipulate and explore relationships between various ideas and information. Ultimately, the novel uses this nature to support deeper characteristics in both the literary and human worlds.

The Important Role of the Auditor

Auditors play an important role in the ensuring the integrity and reliability of the financial statement for public companies. Recently (in the United Sates especially) the independence and objectivity of auditors has been a major concern, and has been brought to the forefront. A new rule was then proposed to deal with these concerns. This eventually led to the adoption of new requirements that must be followed by auditors in the United States. Many user groups had economic consequences at stake and lobbied the Securities and Exchange and Commission (SEC) to what they believed would be the best solution. This was mostly performed through submitting comments to the SEC and through participating in the public hearings held by the SEC to allow discussion on the proposed rule. This report will briefly describe independence as it relates to accounting profession, identify and describe the new requirements presented by the SEC and then describe the events and circumstances that led to the new requirements being proposed. It will also describe and assess the validity of the concerns that were stated at the various public hearings by the affected user groups. First a simple but important definition of independence and how it relates to the accounting profession will be presented. â€Å"Independence is generally understood to refer to a mental state of objectivity and lack of bias.† An auditor must perform the audit without allowing external factors to alter or effect his or her decisions. Douglas Carmichael goes on to relate independence to an auditor directly by stating â€Å"the auditor must be without bias with respect to the client since otherwise he [or she] would lack that impartiality necessary for the dependability of his [or her] findings, however excellent his [or her] technical proficiency may be.† This definition looks easy to interpret but it becomes hard to determine when an auditor is acting independently. Often, an auditor does not even realize when their own actions have been influenced by other factors. Objectivity is a state of mind and is more often than not is hard to prove. Of critical importance is the notion of independence in fact and independence in appearance. Ultimately auditors can be independent in fact but if a reasonable investor observes all relevant facts and circumstances and concludes auditors as not being independent then the whole profession suffers. An extreme consequence that could result is if investors and other financial statement users looked elsewhere for information when they are looking to invest. This would make financial reporting useless and would ultimately lead to its demise. This demonstrates the importance of auditors remaining independent of managers and reiterates the point that investors must be able to trust and rely on the financial statements. These issues directly relate to the two goals that the independence function seeks to achieve. The first goal is supply high quality audits without letting any external factors sway an auditor's judgment (objectivity). The second goal is to achieve a high level of investor confidence in the audited financial statements. The difficulty in measuring the first objective has led to more concentration and focus on the second objective. It is this decreased investor confidence that has driven the new rule requirements, because there has not been a great amount of evidence that proves there is lower quality audits being performed. Commission's Auditor Independence Requirements The release of this new rule establishes four principles to evaluate when assessing if an auditor is independent. â€Å"An auditor will not be independent when (1) has a mutual or conflicting interest with the audit client(2) audits his or her own work (3) functions as management or an employee of the audit client, or (4) acts as an advocate for the audit client.† These four principles are to be used when trying to determine if the actions of an auditor will impair the independence of an auditor and were the basis for forming the new independence requirements. They are rooted in the belief that an auditor must be independent in fact and appearance. The new rule considerably alters the number of people related to the auditor that can invest in the auditor's clients because this would violate the independence requirements released by the SEC. It also limits the number of non- auditing services that can be provided by auditors to their audit clients, but at the same time puts no restrictions on the non- auditing services that can be provided to non-audit clients. The new requirements also call for proxy disclosure in the financial statements of a company. These proxy disclosures state information on certain non-audit services performed by the auditors in the last fiscal year. â€Å"The new auditor independence rule will revise the rules for auditor independence in primarily three areas: (1) investments by auditors or their family members in audit clients; (2) employment relationships between auditors or their family members and audit clients; and (3) the scope of services provided by the audit firms to their audit clients.† ! Investments by Auditors and Family Members in Audit Clients The new rule restricts an auditor or a family member from investing in a firm's audit client. It also restricts an auditor's partner from investing in the client only if the auditor can directly influence the audit work. This new rule is left open for interpretation since if an auditor does not work on the audit he is not restricted as long as he is considered not to be influencing the audit in any way. The subjectivity is in the determining of who can or who does influence an audit. The new rule defines the auditor, family members and certain partners as â€Å"covered persons†. The new rule establishes certain situations that would find an auditor not to be independent if any covered persons participated in these situations. The rule specifically outlines that an auditor is not independent if a covered person has a direct investment in an audit client or affiliate, has a direct investment of more than five percent in an audit client, has an indirect investment in an audit client of more than five percent, and if they own more than five percent of an entity of which the audit client owns an interest. There are certain other financial relationships with an audit client that can restrict an auditor from being independent. These relationships include having loans to or from an audit client, certain savings, checking, brokerage accounts and holding certain individual insurance policies. The rule also put restrictions on certain audit clients investing in audit firms. Under the new rules an audit firm must be cautious of whom they hire and whom the client's firm hires in order to remain independent. The new rule outlines specific instances in which the auditor would be declared as not being independent. â€Å"An accountant will not be independent if a close family member of a covered person is employed by an audit client in an accounting or financial reporting role, if a partner is employed by an audit client in an accounting or financial reporting role, and if a former employee of an audit client becomes a partner of a the accounting firm.† Scope of Services Provided by the Audit Firms to Their Audit Clients This is the area of the new rule that caused the most controversy when it was first introduced. The new rule greatly reduces the number of non-audit services that an auditor can perform for audit clients. The new rule identifies certain non-audit services that cannot be provided without damaging an auditor's independence. These non-audit services are consistent with the four principles that the rule was based on. I will now highlight the certain services that an auditor cannot perform to an audit client and how these services relate to four principles that measure an auditor's independence. Services related to the audit client's accounting records or financial statements such as bookkeeping cannot be performed to an audit client. This service is restricted because it undermines the basic principle that auditors cannot audit their own work. Other non-audit services that are restricted because an auditor would end up auditing their own work are appraisal or valuation services, and actuarial services. An example of an appraisal service is when auditors are asked by their clients to value assets during the year, and then at the end of the fiscal year they are asked to perform the audit. This results in the auditors auditing their own work using their own underlying assumptions, which would directly result in bias. The same problem arises with actuarial services. When an auditor makes estimates for policy reserves and related accounts it affects the amounts that are reported on the balance sheet and will again result in auditors auditing their own work. The problem of an accountant having a mutual or conflicting interest with the audit client results in the restriction of non-audit services such as internal audit outsourcing, human resource services, broker or investment services, and financial information systems design and implementation. Internal audit outsourcing can cause managers and auditors to become a team when creating an internal control system and therefore they will both be responsible for its failure or success. If an auditor supplies a human resource service such as hiring they create a mutuality of interest because they have to accept some responsibility for ensuring the success of the employee. Supplying broker or investment services creates an interest for the auditor in increasing the value of the securities. Helping design information systems creates a mutual interest between the client and the auditor based on the success of the information system. Management functions performed by the auditor for their audit client are also restricted in the new rule. This allows the auditors to perform a management function for their clients and will inherently decrease objectivity in the audit and increases bias in the audit since the auditors are part of the firm that they are auditing. The last non-audit service that is restricted to audit clients is expert services. These include legal, administrative, or regulatory filing procedure advice. These are restricted because they give the appearance that when auditors provide these services to audit clients they are acting as an advocate for the audit client. Decisions to restrict these services were decided on using the four main principles presented earlier that evaluate an auditor's independence. The creation of these principles was due to increasing concern that auditors were not remaining totally independent when performing the audit. Circumstances Leading to the Concern for an Auditor's Independence There are a number of events in the accounting profession that led to the need for rules to obtain independent auditors. Accountants are in a profession that is seeing dramatic changes in the way firms are structured, the services they are providing, as well as increased competition. These events are creating situations that may seriously hinder the independence of auditors by giving them opportunities to act in the interests of their clients. There has been increased competition for auditing business among accounting firms. This tough competition has led to competitive pricing which in turn has led to decreased profits on audits. This tough competition has also led to auditors relying on audit clients for business more and could possibly lead to auditors acting in the best interests of management to keep their audit work instead of in the best interest of the public. Decreased profit margins are forcing accounting firms to cut costs, and some believe that the quality of audits are decreasing because of accountants are using less resources on their audits. There has also been an increasing array of services being performed by every accounting firm. Since auditing profits are decreasing many firms are looking to more profitable consulting services to help increase profits. â€Å"This has been a true metamorphosis for accounting firms, and particularly for the big firms, which some estimate now get 30 to 40% of their revenues from consulting and under 40% from accounting and auditing. Some of these firms have come to offer virtual one-stop shopping for all a client's business consulting needs.† This has caused concerns that the audit function is becoming a loss leader and is being used to pursue additional business opportunities. This causes beliefs that the quality of the audit is being harmed and that investors are seeing a lower level of confidence in this new relationship. Richard Walker, a director of the SEC's enforcement division, stated these beliefs are based not just on speculation, but on what we're seeing in our invest igations and other contacts with the profession. Walker went on to give researched examples of when an auditor has been persuaded by clients to act in the interest of the clients firm. One example he showed was a situation where the auditor was pressured to falsely improve the financial performance of the clients firm in order to receive additional consulting contracts. This should cause great concern because it is a great restraint placed on auditors to remain independent. There has also been increased pressure on managers to meet earnings expectations, and many professionals say this pressure has intensified, especially for certain types of firms. If firms miss their earnings expectations even by a slim margin the result is an immediate decrease in stock prices. This puts increased pressure on managers to do anything they can to artificially increase earnings. This puts increased pressure on the auditors to help management meet these expected earnings. The new emerging structure of accounting firms is also causing independence concerns. Over the last decade accounting firms have become bigger in size due to increased mergers, and there has also been an increase in the number of national and multi-national firms emerging. Many firms have prided themselves on being â€Å"one stop† shops for their clients. This gives the accounting firms control over many aspects and decisions of their clients firms. The problem with this is achieving independent decisions when trying to perform the audit. This causes all the problems discussed in the four principles of evaluating the independence of an auditor. There have been many circumstances emerging that have been causing independence concerns, and hopefully the new rules will be able to prevent these potential problems. However there were many people that strongly opposed many aspects of the new rule. This report will now discuss some of the concerns against the implementation of the rule as well as some strong opinions for implementing the rule immediately. Concerns Addressed at The Public Hearings Public hearings were held in New York City for all concerned parties to voice their opinions on the proposed new independence rules. Different parties that were represented were Chartered Public Accountants (CPA's), professors, officers of major non-accountant companies, and regulators. Not all their comments will be examined, only their main concerns will be highlighted and evaluated. The first comment that will be examined is from Michael Daggett, who is a director at large of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy and a CPA. Daggett expressed the common concern that independence is critical in appearance and fact in order to retain the integrity of the accounting profession. However he had two main problems with the rule. His first recommendation was that the SEC should take a more cautious view and try not to overreact to the situation at hand. He goes on to explain that often regulatory agencies are too quick to regulate in the time of crisis and controversy. He believes that the SEC has become too focused on trying to change the â€Å"nuts and bolts† of the auditor's behavior, and has thus not been able to appropriately deal with the expansion and changing times of the profession. The SEC was faced with a potential crisis and even Daggett alluded to that idea in his testimony. The main crisis is maintaining quality audits, and to achieve this there must be independence on the auditor's part. While the SEC is trying to control an auditor's behavior in certain circumstances it is at the same time trying to deal with the changing profession and the expansion of services that are emerging. The SEC is not rushing to regulate because they see a potential crisis emerging and are simply dealing with it in advance. This is crucial and is a better solution than waiting for a number of huge audit failures to occur, and then trying to deal with it appropriately. Daggett's second problem was with the restriction put on auditors to perform human resource services of an audit client. He stated, â€Å"It's important to remember that auditor's already have an interest in its clients success. He suggests that such services would create relatively little risk and an unyielding prohibition would seem to be excessive.† Employee performance is not likely to impair an auditor's mindset and would not result in any bias. If an auditor helps choose human resource policies such as recruiting Evaluate this comment further Another CPA, Kalman Barson, gave comment on the proposed rule. He is a strong opponent to the new rule and he made sure his feelings were heard. He believes that the new rules are contrary to the best interests of the accounting profession, is counterproductive to the best interests of audit clients, and would not accomplish the goal of the reason for this rule being proposed. He believes that the new rule should be totally withdrawn because it will result in the opposite of what the SEC is trying to accomplish. He backs up his case by saying that there has not been one instance of impairment in audit quality as a result of an accounting firm also providing a consulting and auditing role simultaneously. He believes that the SEC is trying to fix something that is not broken. There are a couple of points that need to be addressed in his statements. The first is that audit quality is about more than just avoiding major audit failures or fraud cases. It must be addressed at a lower level before it becomes a major problem. This is the level that the SEC is trying to address presently. An audit failure is often a combination of several factors not just an independence issue. Trying to address the separate issues that can cause an audit failure is the first step. â€Å"To demand, as a predicate for commission action, evidence that each loss of independence produces an audit failure is a bit like demanding proof that every violation of a fire safety code results in a catastrophic fire.† Also there has been at least one instance where a firm has broken independence issues. â€Å"Price-Waterhouse Coopers was censured for improper professional conduct and violating auditor independence rules early this year (2000).† One other point that must be addressed is that with all the concerns of auditor independence that were raised while the economy is doing relatively well, what will happen when an economic hardships exist? Imagine the concerns and the pressure on auditors that will be raised when the majority of firms fall short of their earnings. This pressure could be huge and unbearable; this is why it must be dealt with now. The second major point that Barson addressed is that consulting for an audit client helps produce a higher quality audit. Understanding the clients operations and procedures more thoroughly helps the auditor to obtain a better understanding of the company and therefore the auditor is able to perform a better service for the client. This he argues is in the best interests of the client and society as a whole. He argues that inefficiencies would result by splitting up the consulting and auditing functions between firms, and would end up costing the client more in the long run. Inefficiencies would result because one firm would perform the audit and the other firm would have to perform all the consulting. This would result in the splitting of knowledge of the firm and would result in lower quality audits. The SEC does not believe that the quality of the audit will be lost and officers of Ernst and Young also carry this view. They believe that this argument is flawed in many areas. The first flaw is the inherent assumption that all knowledge obtained from non-audit services is relevant to an audit. It also assumes that the auditor receives all information received from non-audit services. Often a consulting division is reluctant to transfer information over to the auditors. Other times the consulting professionals will have little or no interaction with auditors especially in large firms. Ernst and Young recently sold their consulting business and therefore separated their auditing practice from the consulting area. Ernst and Young officials were stated as saying that as the result of the sale they see no reason why the quality of the audit would suffer in any way. They believe that the skills necessary to carry out an audit are inherently different than the skills you need to carry out consulting services. The SEC also made the point that only 25% of accounting firms audited by the big five firms also receives advisory services. This proves that 75% of the audits performed now are of considerably high quality. If it is not possible to perform audits without consulting for the firm at the same time we would have seen a huge amount of low quality audits or perhaps audit failures. A more neutral view will now be presented from the academic side of the debate. Douglas Carmichael is a professor at Baruch College and is a strong advocate for the new rule and his comments are based on research over the past thirty years. His first comment backs up the four principles that are used by the SEC to measure auditor independence. He believes that the basic principles are comprehensive and appropriate. The principle of conflicting and mutual interest is essential because without it the auditor could be too easily persuaded by clients to act in the client's interest and therefore would reduce the reliability of the financial statements. His research has also showed that there has been evidence that consulting has resulted in impaired independence. His conclusions were based on thorough investigation of the actual underlying evidence. He also argues that the quality of the audit is not improved by consulting services. † He found that in many cases of auditor malpractice, the auditors have not made use of the knowledge of consultants providing services to the clients.† His last point is that the proposed restrictions are practical and they appropriately relate to the basic four principles. He believes the new rules appropriately relate to those principles, which is key since most of the professionals can relatively agree on the principles. Since there is agreement on the principles the controversy is mostly based on the restrictions, and Carmichael believes that these restrictions already adequately relate to the principles and need to be implemented immediately. A Canadian perspective will be presented next, from the point of view of the Chair of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC). He underlines the importance of the auditor being independent in fact and appearance. He also mainly agrees with the new rules and their restrictions on non-audit services to audit clients. His main concern relating to auditor independence in Canada is the growing concern that the audit is becoming a loss leader to achieve more profitable consulting revenues. He believes that it would be natural for shareholders and other investors to perceive the auditor as losing confidence in the quality of the audit. He also expresses his concern that firms are placing more importance on the consulting side of the business compared to the audit side. He believes that this will cause firms to make strategic decisions based on this concern and will cause employees to strive towards being consultants because the firm places more value on the consulting side. While this could result in more talented professionals leaning towards the consulting side, especially if salaries are higher there are many other concerns that affect the recruitment of professionals. Other concerns that could affect recruiting are the attractiveness of the work to the individual, as well as the number of graduates to choose from. Brown had concerns that were related to the implementation of the new rules as a whole. He expressed concern that the regulation of the new rule cannot be sufficient by itself. The audit committee will have to play an important role in the process. It is key that the audit committee identifies independence violations, because they are on the front line and are closest to the action. The SEC is only one organization and will need a critical amount of help in finding violators. He also recommends that the SEC becomes an active participant in recommending or implementing similar rules in other countries. He stresses this importance because the United States constantly interacts with all other countries and the new rules will significantly affect interactions. This is important, but it will they will have to convince the SEC to spend time on this task. It would be much easier for the SEC to recommend other countries to adopt the same requirements as the U.S. Brown goes onto illustrate this point by showing that in Canada we are looking at the SEC's proposal closely and extensively and † will formulate our regulatory response partly on your experience.† The concerns of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) will now be addressed. They totally agree with the four basic principles that were outlined by the SEC. The IIA also generally agrees with the underlying objectives of the SEC in releasing these requirements (improving quality and improving investor confidence). Their main concerns have to do with the technical aspects of the rules. Their main concern is that the SEC has restricted services in the wrong manner. They believe that â€Å"not all non-audit services need to be restricted unless their fees are sufficient enough to trigger independence concerns and as long as there are no management or operating considerations that hinder independence.† They also believe the Independence Standards Board in the U.S. should be responsible for determining and updating the list of services that would impair independence. The objective list allows for easier regulation by allowing for the subjectivity to be removed. The certain restricted services were chosen because they related back to the four basic principles. This ensures that the SEC remains consistent by following a dependable framework for making decisions regarding auditor independence. One last comment to look at is from CPA, Norman Manley. He submitted comments on behalf of all forty employees of Dellinger & Deese, PLLC. They are totally opposed against the new ruling and voiced many of the same concerns that were seen from other CPA's. Their concerns can be summarized by their opening comment, â€Å"We firmly believe the proposal is unwarranted and not supported by facts, or requested by the financial and business community we both serve. Non-audit services offered by audit firms simply have not compromised auditor independence or audit failure. Focus will be on their additional concerns that were voiced at the public hearings. One concern they voiced was that the broad restriction on the non-audit services will place too much reliance on audit fees for accounting firms and this will not serve the public interest. The public interest is always an important consideration to keep in mind, but in this instance the public interest will still be served by providing high quality audits backed with investor confidence. There will still be plenty of opportunities to perform audits and the new rulings will not decrease the number of firms that require audits. They are also concerned with the quality of talent that will be recruited and retained by accounting firms. They believe that accounting professionals will have 25-40% of their market blocked by the restrictions. They further believe that this will cause professionals to choose a career where their market is wide open. They also had some economic issues that they were concerned about. The first being the inability for accounting firms to combine and obtain the economic benefits of mergers and joint ventures. Their ability to merge will be due to concerns about violating independence requirements. A firm could merge with another firm and would then become an affiliate of the accounting firm. They also believe that the SEC has interfered with the work of the Independence Standards Board (ISB) in the USA. The believed the SEC originally assigned the issue to the ISB and then jumped in and regulated prematurely. However, the SEC worked more in conjunction with the ISB by taking their research and many of their recommendations. They also agreed more with recent disclosure and audit committee requirements that were adopted by the ISB, SEC, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the American Stock Exchange (ASE). They believe that these requirements would have of solved the independence problem if given time to mature and work. To conclude their concerns with the new rule one more point will be issued. They know and thoroughly understand the problems associated with a lack of independence, and they stated that they always put independence rules at the top of their priorities. They do not see a problem with non-audit services impairing this independence because auditors have the ability to remain independent using their own professional judgment. This report will conclude by drawing on comments given by chairman of the SEC, Arthur Levitt. He believes â€Å"in this environment of conflicting interests, the investing public relies on the accountant to stay true to his or her fiduciary duty, to never lose sight of the precious franchise that is theirs to guard so vigilantly.† He is aware that the perceived value of the audit is being put at risk and for this and other reasons he is strongly committed to keeping the public's interest first, and will not let new circumstances interfere with his task. He also realizes that the SEC cannot do it alone and is willing to work with the profession to continuously improve the situation. He is dedicated to continuous improvement of financial statements to better serve investors, the market, and the public. He stresses that he will leave the communication lines open between the SEC and CPA's in order to retain a strong respect and teamwork between the two parties. The majority of opposition seems to be coming from a main source. The CPA's seem to be the only interest group that is opposed, and this strengthens the validity of the new rulings. If there was strong opposition stemming from other interest groups it would be easier to challenge the new ruling. The point to remember is that being an accounting professional entails looking out for the best interests of the public, and this is what the new requirements are striving to achieve. The new requirements will not be able o achieve this alone, but they are an important aspect in the battle for independence. The main concern from the opposition of the rule has to deal with the scope of services that are restricted. Limiting non-audit services to audit clients still leaves plenty of opportunity open to perform audits and still makes it attainable to perform high quality audits while at the same time retaining investor confidence. We must remember, â€Å"It's not enough that audit quality is maintained and that the numbers are right. It's also necessary that public investors-the users of financial reports-perceive that the numbers are right.†

To establish positive and productive relationships

Arredondo Positive and productive relationships with families establish a strong connection for the benefit of nurturing and educating the children entrusted to my care. I know how important it is for the parents to know about their child's day, upcoming school events, and progress in all areas of the children's learning and development. I know that consistent communication is the key to a trusted partnership with parents. Having a clear understanding up front of what we can expect from each other helps us establish common goals for the benefit of the children.It is an important foundation for creating the very best early childhood experience for the parents and children. Daily communication between parents, teachers and school management is an essential component to my partnership. The parents will receive additional information on a weekly and monthly basis in a variety of formats including welcome letters, weekly and monthly newsletters, ongoing assessment communication, and paren t teacher conferences. Multiple forms of communication foster the connection between home and school to build relationships and create continuity of xperiences, which increase a child's sense of security and well being.I also provide my parents with helpful parent resources related to children's learning and development. Many items and links are classroom or age group specific, including book suggestions, home fun activities and additional online resources. In order to keep up with what's going on in the children's lives after they leave my care, I maintain a close personal relationship with the parents. To do this I must be attentive and trustworthy. I talk to the parents about the child's behavior at home as ell as at school.If there needs to be any adjustments including discipline I immediately talk to the parents about what we should decide on next. We discuss a plan that will work for home and at school so the child knows it's the same consequence in both environments. If ever I am not physically at work on a day a parent has a special request I leave a parent/ teacher log for them to fill out and leave. I was very eager to receive the questionnaires back from my parent's. I have quickly learned how much respect I have received from my families.I was thrilled to find that I meet, and in some cases over exceed expectations of the parents. Reading some of the parent's answers it's established that I have positive, responsive and cooperative relationships with their children and all members of their families. This was definitely one question all the parents seemed to agree on. In conclusion to this essay this has confirmed all my beliefs about my classroom and I. I will continue to grow professionally through out my years of teaching and look forward to many more

Supply Network Design

Supply Network Design The Supply Network Perspective: A supply network perspective means setting an operation in the context of all the operations with which it interacts, some of which are its suppliers and its customers. Materials, parts, other information, ideas and sometimes people all flow through the network of customer-supplier relationships formed by all these operations. On its supply side an operation has its suppliers of parts, or information, or services. These suppliers themselves : have their own suppliers who in turn could also have suppliers, and so on.On the demand side the operation has customers. These customers might not be the final consumers of the operation's products or services; they might have their own set of customers. †¢On the supply side is a group of operations that directly supply the operation; these are often called first-tier suppliers. They are supplied by second-tier suppliers. However, some second-tier suppliers may also supply an operation directly, thus missing out a link in the network. Similarly, on the demand side of the network, ‘first-tier' customers are the main customer group for the operation.These in turn supply ‘second-tier' customers, although again the operation may at times supply second-tier customers directly. The suppliers and customers who have direct contact with an operation are called its immediate supply network, whereas all the operations which form the network of suppliers' suppliers and customers‘ customers, etc. , are called the total supply network. Homeware manufacturer supplies some of its basic products to wholesalers which supply retail outlets. However, it also supplies some retailers directly with ‘made-to-order' products.Along with the flow of goods in the network from suppliers to customers, each link in the network will feed back orders and information to its suppliers. When stocks run low, the retailers will place orders with the wholesaler or directly with the manufacturer. The wholesaler will likewise place orders with the manufacturer, which will in turn place orders with its suppliers, which will replenish their own stocks from their suppliers. It is a two-way process with goods flowing one way and information flowing the other. It is not only manufacturers that are part of a supply network.The second (service) operation, an operation which manages an enclosed shopping mall, also has suppliers and customers that themselves have their own suppliers and customers. Figure 6. 2 shows the supply network for an operation which manages an enclosed shopping mall. Why consider the whole supply network? †¢There are three important reasons for taking a supply network perspective: †¢It helps an understanding of competitiveness. Immediate customers and immediate suppliers, quite understandably, are the main concern to competitively minded companies.Yet sometimes they need to look beyond these immediate contacts to understand why custo mers and suppliers act as they do. Any operation has only two options if it wants to understand its ultimate customers' needs at the end of the network. It can rely on all the intermediate customers and customers' customers, etc. , which form the links in the network between the company and its end-customers. Alternatively, it can look beyond its immediate customer and suppliers. Relying on one's immediate network is seen as putting too much faith in someone else's judgment of things which are central to an organization's own competitive health. It helps identify significant links in the network. The key to understanding supply networks lies in identifying the parts of the network which contribute to those performance objectives valued by end-customers. Any analysis of networks must start, therefore, by understanding the downstream end of the network. After this, the upstream parts of the network which contribute most to end-customer service will need to be identified. But they will not be equally significant. For example, the important end-customers for domestic plumbing parts and appliances are the installers and service companies that deal directly with domestic consumers.They are supplied by ‘stock holders' which must have all parts in stock and deliver them fast. Suppliers of parts to the stock holders can best contribute to their end-customers' competitiveness partly by offering a short delivery lead time but mainly through dependable delivery. The key players in this example are the stock holders. The best way of winning end-customer business in this case is to give the stock holder prompt delivery which helps keep costs down while providing high availability of parts. †¢It helps focus on long-term issues. There are times when circumstances render parts of a supply network weaker than its adjacent links.A major machine breakdown, for example, or a labour dispute might disrupt a whole network. Should its immediate customers and suppliers explo it the weakness to enhance their own competitive position, or should they tolerate the problems, and hope the customer or supplier will eventually recover? A long-term supply-network view would be to weigh the relative advantages to be gained from assisting or replacing the weak link. Design decisions in supply networks †¢The supply-network view is useful because it prompts three particularly important design decisions.These are the most strategic of all the design decisions treated in this part of the book. It is necessary to understand them at this point, however, because, as well as having a particularly significant impact on the strategy of the organization, they set the context in which all other process design decisions are made. The three decisions are: †¢1- How should the network be configured? This means, first, how can an operation influence the shape which the network might take? Second, how much of the network should the operation own? This may be called the ou tsourcing, vertical integration or do-or-buy decision. 2- Where should each part of the network be located? If the home ware company builds a new factory, should it be close to its suppliers or close to its customers, or somewhere in between? This decision is called the operations location decision. †¢3-What physical capacity should each part of the network have? How large should the home war factory be? Should it expand in large-capacity steps or small ones? These types of decisions are called long-term capacity management decisions. †¢Note that all three of these decisions rely on assumptions regarding the level of future demand. The supplement to this chapter explores forecasting in more detailDeciding whether to outsource †¢Although the effect of outsourcing on the operation's performance objective is important, there are other factors that companies take into account when deciding if outsourcing an activity is a sensible option. For example, if an activity has lo ng-term strategic importance to a company, it is unlikely to outsource it. For example, a retailer might choose to keep the design and development of its web site in-house even though specialists could perform the activity at less cost because it plans to move into web-based retailing at some point in the future.Nor would a company usually outsource an activity where it had specialized skills or knowledge. For example, a company making laser printers may have built up specialized knowledge in the production of sophisticated laser drives. †¢This capability may allow it to introduce product or process innovations in the future. It would be foolish to ‘give away' such capability. After these two more strategic factors have been considered the company's operations performance can be taken into account.Obviously if its operations performance is already too superior to any potential supplier, it would be unlikely to outsource the activity. But also even if its performance was c urrently below that of potential suppliers, it may not outsource the activity if it feels that it could significantly improve its performance. Figure 6. 3 illustrates this decision logic. Outsourcing and offshoring †¢Two supply network strategies that are often confused are those of outsourcing and off-shoring Outsourcing means deciding to buy-in products or services rather than perform the activities in-house.Off-shoring means obtaining products and services from operations that are based outside one's own country. Of course, one may both outsource and offshore as illustrated in Figure 6. 4. Offshoring is very closely related to outsourcing and the motives for each may be similar. Offshoring to a lower-cost region of the world is usually done to reduce an operation’s overall costs as is outsourcing to a supplier that has greater expertise or scale or both. Critical commentary †¢In many Instances there has been fierce opposition to companies outsourcing some off the ir processes.Trade unions often point out that the only reason that outsourcing companies can do the job at lower cost is that they either reduce salaries or reduce working conditions, or both. Furthermore, they say, flexibility is only achieved by reducing job security. Employees who were once part of a large and secure corporation could find themselves as far less secure employees of a less benevolent employer with a philosophy of permanent cost-cutting. Even some proponents of outsourcing are quick to point out the problems.There can be significant obstacles, including understandable resistance from staff who find themselves ‘outsourced'. Some companies have also been guilty of ‘outsourcing a Problem' . In other words, having failed to manage a process well themselves, they ship it out rather than face up to why the process was problematic in the first place. There is also evidence that, although long-term costs can be brought down when a process is outsourced, there may be an initial period when costs rise as both sides learn how to manage the new arrangement. The Location of capacity It was reputedly Lord Sieff, one-time boss of Marks and Spencer, the UK-based retail organization, who said, ‘There are three important things in retailing – location, location and location', and any retailing operation knows exactly what he meant. Get the location wrong and it can have a significant impact on profits, or service. For example, misallocating a fire service station can slow down the average journey time of the fire crews in getting to the fires; †¢locating a factory where there is difficulty attracting labour with appropriate skills will affect the effectiveness of the factory's operations.Location decisions will usually have an effect on an operation's costs as well as its ability to serve its customers (and therefore its revenues). Also, location decisions, once taken, are difficult to undo. The costs of moving an operation can b e hugely expensive and the risks of inconveniencing customers very high. No operation wants to move very often. †¢Reasons for location decisions Not all operations can logically justify their location. Some are where they are for historical reasons. Yet even the operations that are ‘there because they're there' are implicitly making a decision not to move.Presumably their assumption is that the cost and disruption involved in changing location would outweigh any potential benefits of a new location. Two stimuli often cause organizations to change locations: changes in demand for their goods and services, and changes in supply of their inputs. Changes in demand A change in location may be prompted by customer demand shifting. For example, as garment manufacture moved to Asia, suppliers of zips, threads, etc. started to follow them. Changes in the volume of demand can also prompt relocation.To meet higher demand, an operation could expand its existing site, or choose a larg er site in another location, or keep its existing location and find a second location for an additional operation; the last two options will involve a location decision. High-visibility operations may not have the choice of expanding on the same site to meet rising demand. A dry cleaning service may attract only marginally more business by expanding an existing site because it offers a local, and therefore convenient, service. Finding a new location for an additional operation is probably its only option for expansion.Changes in supply. The other stimulus for relocation is changes in the cost, or availability, of the supply of inputs to the operation. For example, a mining or oil company will need to relocate as the minerals it is extracting become depleted. A manufacturing company might choose to relocate its operations to a part of the world where labour costs are low, because the equivalent resources (people) in its original location have become relatively expensive. Sometimes a business might choose to relocate to release funds if the value of the land it occupies is worth more than an alternative, equally good, location.The objectives of the location decision †¢The aim of the location decision is to achieve an appropriate balance between three related objectives: †¢The Spatially variable costs the operation (spatially variable means that something changes with geographical location); †¢the service the operation is able to provide to its customers; †¢the revenue potential of the operation. †¢In for-profit organizations the last two objectives are related. The assumption is that the better the service the operation can provide to its customers, the better will be its potential to attract custom and therefore generate revenue.In not-for-profit organizations, revenue potential might not be a relevant objective and so cost and customer service are often taken as the twin objectives of location. In making decisions about where to locate an operation, operations managers are concerned with minimizing spatially variable costs and maximizing revenue and customer service. Location affects both of these but not equally for all types of operation. For example, with most products, customers may not care very much where they were made. Location is unlikely to affect the operation's revenues significantly.However the costs of the operation will probably be very greatly affected by location. Services, on the other hand, often have both costs and revenues affected by location. The location decision for any operation is determined by the relative strength of supply-side and demand-side factors (see Fig. 6. 5). Location techniques Although operations managers must exercise considerable judgement in the choice of alterative locations, there are some systematic and quantitative techniques which can help the decision process.We describe two here – the weighted-score method and the centre-of-gravity method. †¢Weighted- score method The procedure involves, first of dl, identifying the criteria which will be used to evaluate the various locations. Second, it involves establishing the relative importance of each criterion and giving weighting factors to them. Third, it means raring each location according to each criterion. The scale of the score is arbitrary. In our example we shall use 0 to 100, where 0 represents the worst possible score and 100 the best. Worked example An Irish company which prints and makes specialist packaging materials for the pharmaceutical industry has decided to build a new factory somewhere in the Benelux countries so as to provide a speedy service for its customers in continental Europe. In order to choose a site it has decided to evaluate all options against a number of criteria, as follows: †¢the cost of the site; †¢the rate of local property taxation; †¢the availability of suitable skills in the local labour force; †¢the site's access to the motorwa y network; †¢the site's access to the airport; the potential of the site for future expansion. After consultation with its property agents the company identifies three sites which seem to be broadly acceptable. These are known as sites A, B and C. The company also investigates each site and draws up the weighted-score table shown in Table 6. 2. It is important to remember that the scores shown in Table 6. 2 are those which the manager has given as an indication of how each site meets the company's needs specifically. Nothing is necessarily being implied regarding any intrinsic worth of the locations. Likewise, the weightings are an indication of how important the company finds each criterion in the circumstances it finds itself. The ‘value' of a site for each criterion is then calculated by multiplying. its score by the weightings for each criterion. †¢ †¢For location A, its score for the ‘cost-of-site' criterion is 80 and the weighting of this criterion i s 4, so its value is †¢80 X 4 = 320. All these values are then summed for each site to obtain its total weighted score. †¢ †¢Table 6. 2 indicates that location C has the highest total weighted score and therefore would be the preferred choice.It is interesting to note, however, that location C has the lowest score on what is, by the company's own choice, the most important criterion – cost of the site. The high total weighted score which location C achieves in other criteria, however, outweighs this deficiency. If, on examination of this table, a company cannot accept what appears to be an inconsistency, then either the weights which have been given to each criterion, or the scores that have been allocated, do not truly 1 reflect the company's preference. ?

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