Visual Argument

Visual Argument As it has been revealed, images are more powerful in persuasion and information provision than mere words. This is due to their ability to reach a wider audience base, including those who are unable to read or write. Importantly, images are efficient in producing clear mental images about the information being conveyed.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Visual Argument specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More On this basis, many advertisers have been finding it more effective and efficient to use visual objects and pictures in their advertisements, which are reinforced by some explanatory words. Since images are great influencers on thinking patterns, their massive use in various advertisements impact more to the target groups than just mere words. It has been revealed that, images portray hidden values of culture and therefore more appealing on human beliefs and values. Considering the advertisement shown below, eye appeal ha s been greatly realized. The use of color mix in this advertisement seems appealing. Having green color mixed with and blue in the container in which the drink is stored reflects massive power of the drink to meet the consumer’s needs. This is because; green and blue are considered as natural colors, implying that nothing exceeds nature. As a result, this ad meets the requirements of the consumers in its color mix to assuring success to the drink takers in their racing tournaments. In fact, the use of colors in this advertisement has largely realized the ultimate goal of enticing the target group of the product In the advertisement shown above, the advertisement seems highly appealing by presenting how the castrode drink gives individuals supernatural power to win in a very competitive racing tournament. More precisely, the advertiser presents the drink as enhancing individuals to reach high levels than expected.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More For instance, the advertisement presents a motor-bike sporting activity, where the advertiser presents the contestant who drinks castrode drink as reaching the sky, and finally emerges as the winner. This is a very powerful eye appealing advertisement, capable of creating enthusiasm among the consumers to take the drink. The use of visuals to reflect naturality in an advertisement impacts more than just mere words to the target groups. The use of shock appeal in this advertisement has largely made the message being conveyed sink deeper in the target group’s heart. Having a figurative contestant in a racing tournament who seems to be reaching the sky, reflects the powerful nature of the drink to make individuals reach far much higher than they expected. If fact, the use of sky at the back ground of this visual advertisement shows how natural the drink is to enhance self actualization. Quite si gnificantly, the images presented in this advertisement reflect a real life racing tournament where individuals who take the castrode drink always emerges as winners. The use of visuals to reflect real life situation in an advertisement as one of the most powerful strategies to facilitate consumer’s confidence in the product. Conclusion As it has been revealed, high degree of accuracy in advertising is achieved through the use of pictures, other than using only mere words. With effective use of color mix, and presenting the pictures used to represent real life situation, the target group is greatly enticed to purchase the commodity. It has been revealed that, information presented by use of pictures impacts a lot on the mind, as precise and accurate information is relayed by use of images, rather than mere words.

How to Get Your CDL in Utah and Minnesota

How to Get Your CDL in Utah and Minnesota This is a guide to help you to get a CDL in Utah and Minnesota. If you want to learn about applying for a CDL in other states, check out this guide on applying for a CDL in all states of the country. UtahTo obtain a CDL in   Utah, you must:receive training with the vehicle you wish to driveobtain a medical certificateapply for your license in person at a field office of the Driver License Division of the Utah Department of Public Safety (DPS)After you have completed any preparation and training you feel you need to do before you take your tests,  you will have to take all appropriate  knowledge tests (which are written) and skills tests (which are on-the-road tests).Knowledge TestsThe knowledge tests you take will depend on the type of license and endorsements you are seek.  All applicants must take the General Knowledge test.Bus driver applicants take the Passenger Transport test.If your vehicle has air brakes, you must  take the Air Brakes test.If you drive a combination vehicle, you must take the Combination Vehicles test.If you want to haul hazardous material or waste in amounts which require placarding, you must take the Hazardous Materials testIf you want to haul liquids in bulk, you must take the Tanker testIf you want to pull double or triple trailers, you must  take the Doubles/Triples testLearner’s PermitsOnce you get a medical certificate and pass the knowledge tests, you may receive a learner’s permit. Anyone in possession of a learner’s permit can legally practice for the driving skills test in a commercial vehicle, as long as a commercial operator with the appropriate license and endorsements rides with you.Skills TestsAfter you’ve passed the knowledge tests and have practiced on the road with your learner’s permit, you can take the skills tests. During the skills tests, you drive in the type of vehicle you seek a  license for.  You will be tested in pre-trip inspection, basic vehicle control, and on-road driving.When applying for a new CDL, bring the following documents:Your current Utah driver licenseYour Social Security cardYour valid DOT medical card or â€Å"Long Form†If you took the skills test from a third-party tester, bring your Certificate of Driver CompetencyYour application form (you can fill this out at the driver license field office)Required application/testing feesMinnesotaYou must   have a CDL to operate any of the following commercial motor vehicles:A set of  vehicles in which the gross combination weight is 26,000+ pounds and the towed unit has a gross vehicle weight of 10,000+A single vehicle with a GVW of  26,000+ poundsA vehicle designed to transport 15+ people, including the driverAny size vehicle that requires hazardous materials placards (the age requirement is usually  21 to transport hazardous materials)Any size vehicle outwardly equipped and identified as a school busAfter you have completed any preparation and training you feel you need to do before you take your tests,  you will have to take all appropriate  knowledge tests (which are written) and skills tests (which are on-the-road tests).Knowledge TestsThe knowledge tests you take will depend on the type of license and endorsements you are seek.  All applicants must take the General Knowledge test.Bus driver applicants take the Passenger Transport test.If your vehicle has air brakes, you must  take the Air Brakes test.If you drive a combination vehicle, you must take the Combination Vehicles test.If you want to haul hazardous material or waste in amounts which require placarding, you must take the Hazardous Materials testIf you want to haul liquids in bulk, you must take the Tanker testIf you want to pull double or triple trailers, you must  take the Doubles/Triples testYou must be at least 18 years old, pass your knowledge tests, and have a valid Minnesota driver’s license in order to obtain a commercial learner permit (CLP). You must obt ain a a CLP and hold it for 14 days before you can  take your  CDL road tests.Skills TestsThe CDL skills test is broken into three phases: (1) the pre-trip inspection; (2) the basic control skills and (3) the road test. You must take these tests in the type of vehicle for which you wish to be licensed.

The Ugly Truth About Beauty by Dave Barry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The Ugly Truth About Beauty by Dave Barry - Essay Example such, the author demonstrates the intention of pun on claiming â€Å"Some men form the opinion that they are irresistible stud muffins and they do not change their opinion even when their faces sag and their noses bloat to the size of eggplants.† The injected humor, nevertheless, bears no significant effect on my interpretation of the piece. Barry’s position is sufficiently clear on what he argues as the â€Å"ugly truth† which women tend to mask with their notion and seemingly painstaking attitude toward beauty. Men, according to Barry, hugely differ from women in this aspect where the latter spend a ridiculous amount of time fixing themselves just to end up barely convinced with â€Å"not good enough† outcomes while the male species can find plenty of ways to feel good and confident without many external tasks. Apparently, Barry’s essay serves as a call for women to realize the essence of character for the approval of the opposite sex not always rests on physical

Business law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 7

Business law - Essay Example Stanford Engineering, Inc. is engaging Cornell Code Corporation in an unhealthy and unfair competition through advertising. Stanford Engineering, Inc. makes a false claim against Cornell Code Corporation through an advertising campaign that seeks to market competitive software products. As a result, Cornell is losing its sales to Stanford based on the false claim against it. Stanford can be held liable in a number of ways for injuring Cornell’s reputation in business. To start with, Cornell clearly understands that Stanford’s claim is untrue, but this has actually affected its sales negatively. Cornell is justified to file a lawsuit against the advertiser, which in this case is Stanford Engineering, Inc. This lawsuit would be set to forbid and restrict Stanford from using Cornell in its advertising activities. Stanford is likely to be asked to refrain from involving Cornell Company in its advertising strategies. On the same note, Stanford would be required to desist from making any reference to Cornell in its line of business and operations. In other words, Cornell can seek to have Stanford prohibited to make any reference to it. This can actually take the notion that Stanford cannot refer to Cornell as its competitor in form of advertising until the underlying dispute is resolved. Another ground upon which Cornell can sue Stanford is demanding of reimbursement of sales lost due to false advertising. Cornell has lost significant sales due to Cornell’s false claims. Cornell can sue Stanford for damages. Stanford’s false advertising has led to loss of sales to Cornell. Fair competition is governed and controlled by provisions of law. Through these laws, Stanford could be made to reimburse Cornell’s losses in sales. Cornell is losing sales to Stanford due to the ruined reputation in the market. Stanford could be sued for defamation. Stanford is tarnishing Cornell’s reputation in a

American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) and Violence Against Literature review

American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) and Violence Against Women in US - Literature review Example In this paper, therefore, the dynamics of violence against women will be judged with reference to socio-economic pattern of the USA. In Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the United Nations (1993) defined violence as â€Å"any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life† (Article 1). Decoding this definition reveals the fact that violence against women includes all types of physical, verbal and sexual assaults that can cause harm to the physical body, sense of trust, of liberty and that of private life of women (Runyan & Peterson, 2013; Alhabib, Nur & Jones, 2010). In the USA, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was established in 1994 in order to create a protective shield, restricting rise in violence against women in the country. The VAWA (1994) defined violence as the exertion of any physical force intended to cause an injury or abuse to women. Such definitions ar e applicable regardless of nationality, age, racial orientation and ethnicity of women. In the USA, more than 2 million women are either physically assaulted or raped by their intimate partners (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000; Matthews, 2004; Grovert, 2008). Alhabib, Nur, and Jones (2010) found that â€Å"the lifetime prevalence of domestic violence† changes significantly with that of geographic locations across the USA. For example, â€Å"the lifetime prevalence of domestic violence† is just 1.9% in Washington, while it is more than 68% in case of countryside in the USA. In the context of the USA, physical violence is probably the most common type of violence that is committed against women (Turner, 2002). In case of physical violence, one person intentionally hurts physical parts of woman that can cause outcomes such as, murder, femicide

Criteria For The Project Success Management Essay

Criteria For The Project Success Management Essay Lundin and Soderholm (1995) illustrates the project as a temporary organization and assert the time conception as one of the four distinguishing features of temporary organizations from permanent organizations (task, team and transition are other three distinguishing features). Cleland and King in 1983 (cited in Cooke-Davies, T. J. 2001) adopted a similar approach by the following project definition: A complex effort to achieve a specific objective within a schedule and budget target, which typically cuts across organisational lines, is unique, and is usually not repetitive within the organisation. Moreover, recent definitions expanded the project definition to include the product and /or service as the project outcomes. For example Duncan (1996) defines project as A temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service. Temporary means that the project has a definite ending point and unique means that the product or service differs in some distinguishing way from all similar products or services. However, as expectations from projects increase, the definitions for project evolved to reflect this. Thus, Turner and Mà ¼ller (2003) incorporate the idea of beneficial change that product of the project is expected to deliver, to the project definition. Thus, they define a project as a temporary organisation that aims to create a unique service or product that brings added value or delivers beneficial change (Turner and Muller, 2003). Eventhough, there are various project definitions that have been accumulated for almost 50 years, the review of literature revealed that defined start and end, a common objective and complex set of activities are the three most common features that are shared by every project and thus present in almost every project definition. 2.2 Project Success: Although project success is a core project management concept, a review of the project management literature reveals that there is no standardized definition of a project success in the project management literature (Baccarini, 1999). The success of a project is perceived differently by different success assessors (Shenhar et al., 2001). Therefore, as Prabhakar (2008, p. 3) noted the only agreement seems to be the disagreement on what constitutes project success. According to Pinto Slevin (1988) based on their study conducted with over 650 project managers, the project success is not only meeting cost, schedule, and performance requirements rather it requires satisfaction of more complex specifications, such as client satisfaction. Baker, Murphy and Fisher (1983, 1988 as cited in Prabhakar, 2008 and Cooke-Davies, 2001) discuss that client satisfaction has been achieved together with the end result has a vital influence on the perceived success or failure of projects (Prabhakar, 2008 ). In a similar fashion, Baker, Murphy and Fisher (1983, 1988 as cited in Prabhakar, 2008, p.4) states that In the long run, what really matters is whether the parties associated with, and affected by, a project are satisfied. Good schedule and cost performance means very little in the face of a poor performing end product De Wit (1988), on the contrary, defines project success as the assessment of project outcomes against cost, time and quality (as cited in Cooke-Davies, 2001 and Prabhakar, 2008). However, he points out to a distinction between the project success and project management success, which he defines as measurement of project outcomes against the overall project objectives that will be discussed by most of the researchers interested in this subject area. Furthermore, another attempt at developing a viable foundation for project success definition was by Baccarini (1999), who attempts to contribute to this gap in the literature by his logical framework method (LFM). The LFM model distinguishes between four levels of project objectives, namely goal, purpose, output, and input, provides a comprehensive framework for defining, as well as, comprehending the project success concept. Baccarini (1999), just as some of his colleagues, based his work on De Wits (1988) a decade old research. Similarl y, Baccarini (1999) differentiates between project management success and the product success, instead of project success. Product success is related with goals and objective, while project management success is related with the project outputs and inputs. On the other hand, another stream of researchers, including Pinto and Slevin (1987), Belassi and Tukel (1996), Lim and Mohamed (1999) prefer not to distinguish between project management success and project success as two distinct concepts rather consider project management success as being part of and contributing to project success. Lim and Mohamed (1999) took a further step and conducted a study to determine criteria for assessing project success by different stakeholders. Since as Baccarini (1999) notes that criteria for assessing project success has vital importance in preventing the project and its team members from holding different views on project success which contributes to project failure. Therefore, it is fundamental to determine and agree upon the criteria satisfying various stakeholders, who have different perceptions of project success. 2.3 Criteria for the Project Success: According to Lim and Mohamed (1999, p.243), Success criteria is defined as the set of principles or standards by which project success can be judged. Early research on project success criteria adopted the so-called Iron Triangle of time, budget and quality as the set of principles for evaluating the success of a project. Almost 40 years ago, Oisen (1971) proposed budget, time and quality as the project success criteria. Many scholars accepted this set of success criteria but also noted the necessity to take into consideration other criteria for the project Success (Turner, 1993; de Witt, 1998; Pinto and Slevin, 1988). More recently, this set of criteria has been evaluated as being insufficient for assessing the project success comprehensively (Turner, 1993; Jugdev and Mà ¼ller, 2005). To illustrate this point, according to Jugdev and Mà ¼ller (2005), assessing project outcomes only with respect to time, cost and, quality is to consider only operational level project management as o pposed to anything of strategic value. Jugdev and Mà ¼ller (2005) focussed on evaluating project success based on the organizational aspects that are internal to the project, leaving out external ones as being too complicated. Nevertheless, there are researchers, such as Pinto and Mantel (1990), who tend to include both internal and external aspects of a project organization, as well as, complex criteria in assessing project success such as, stakeholder satisfaction, stakeholder community benefits, organization benefits, etc. (Pinto and Mantel, 1990; Atkinson, 1999; Wateridge, 1998). Pinto and Mantel (1990) proposed two additional success criteria, namely, the quality of the project as it is perceived by the project team and an external performance indicator of both project and its team performance (e.g. client satisfaction) in addition to the efficiency of implementation phase criterion that assesses the project success in relation to internal performance indicators, and the Iron Triangle. Similarly, in a subsequent study, Andersen and Jessen (2000), who attempt to assess project success with respect to the task- and people-oriented aspects, defined project success criteria further into 10 elements. These elements, besides the traditional Iron Triangle components of time, budget, and quality, include the degree of importance of the products to the base organization, the results as perceived by all stakeholders, the learning experience, motivation for future work, knowledge acquisition, the final report preparation method, and the way of project termination (Andersen Jessen, 2000). Andersen and Jessen (2000) thus provided a more holistic picture for assessing the success of a project. Lim and Mohamed (1999), on the other hand, in their study attempted to justify this diversity in perception of project success criteria. They concluded different stakeholders perspectives on project success criteria, such as those of the project manager, the project team, the client, and the general public, as being the reason for different perspectives on project success criteria. In addition, Lim Mohamed (1999) note success criteria as one of two constituents of the project success. The other constituent of the project success are Critical Success Factors (CSFs), which will be reviewed in the following section. 2.4 Critical Success Factors: It was Daniel in 1961 (as cited in Amberg et al, 2005), who first coined the term success factors in management literature. In his study, he came up with a set of industry-related CSFs that are claimed to be relevant for any company in a particular industry. Anthony, on the other hand, in 1972 (cited in Amberg et al, 2005), discussed the need for adaptation of CSFs to a companys and its managers specific strategic objectives. Then, based on the both perspectives by Daniel (1961, cited in Amberg et al, 2005) and Anthony et al. (1972, cited in Amberg et al, 2005), Rockart (1979, cited in Amberg et al, 2005) conducted a study that involved three organizations. He found out that organizations despite operating in the same industry may have different CSFs due to differences in geographic locations, strategies etc. Then on, studies on identifying CSFs for different industry projects proliferated in the project management literature. According to Cooke-Davis (2002) researchers have been trying to find out those factors that are critical to project success since the late 1960s. Therefore, the review of literature on CSFs reveals several definitions. The following CSF definition by Rockart (1979, cited in Amberg et al, 2005) is one of the most cited: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦the limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization. In subsequent studies CSFs are defined as: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ characteristics, conditions or variables that, when properly sustained, maintained, or managed, can have a significant impact on the success of a firm competing in particular industry by Bruno and Leidecker (1984, p. 24). Whereas, as factors which, if addressed, significantly improve project implementation chances by Pinto and Slevin in 1987 (p.22). Lim and Mohamed (1999, p. 243) define critical success factors (CSFs) as the set of circumstances, facts, or influences which contribute to the project outcomes. 2.5 Critical Success Factors and the Projects: During the 1970s-1980s, critical success factor requirements had been addressed rather as a response to the indicators of project success at the implementation phase, focussing on time, cost, and quality, as well as, stakeholder satisfaction (Jugdev and Mà ¼ller, 2005). It was Pinto and Slevin (1987), who first attempted to develop a comprehensive set of CSFs related to project implementation success. In their work, they propose a project implementation profile (PIP) model, which consists of 10 CSFs, namely, project mission, top management support, project schedule/plan, client consultation, personnel, communication, technical tasks, client acceptance, monitoring and feedback, troubleshooting, determining project success. Additionally, the PIP model of 10 CSFs, is claimed to be suitable as an instrument for project managers to measure those factors (Pinto and Slevin, 1987). Later, Pinto and Prescott (1988), take a further step by determining the relative importance of 10 CSFs over the life of a project and discover that the relative importance of several CSFs vary at different phases of the project life cycle. The generalized 10 CSFs of the project implementation process (PIP) have also been employed as a model for many project types in several studies (Pinto and Prescott, 1988, Finch 2003, and Hyvari, 2006). However, the factors identified by Pinto and Slevin are not likely to cover every aspect involved in project management. Finch (2003) indicates that the PIP model does not take into consideration a number of significant external factors that affect the success of a project, such as, competence of the project manager, political activities within the organization, external organizational and environmental factors, and responsiveness to the perceived need of project implementation. Nevertheless, subsequent research, conducted during the 1990s-2000s, i ncorporate the stakeholder issue, as well as, interactions between internal and receiving organizations as factors that are critical for a project success (Jugdev and Mà ¼ller, 2005). Moreover, in pursuit of providing a comprehensive CSF framework, there have also been attempts that integrate CSFs categorizations and frameworks with project success criteria. Belassi and Tukel in their study conducted in 1996, criticize previous studies, whose critical success factors are mainly focused on the project manager and project organization. They incorporate characteristics of the project and team members, as well as external factors, into their framework. Their framework, thus, provides a classification of project CSFs into four groups; namely, project manager, team members, organization, and external environment. Additionally, the framework by Belassi and Tukel (1996) provides an explicit and systematic way for examining the intra-relationships between factors in different groups. This scheme provides grouping of project success factors, however it is generic rather than industry specific. Another interesting study is by Cooke-Davies (2002, p.185), in which he introduce s a set of questions for the purpose of grouping of CSFs, such as; What factors are critical to project management success?; What factors are critical to success of an individual project?; and What factors lead to consistently successful projects? Moreover, he distinguishes between project management success and project success by claiming that project management success is the satisfaction of traditional criteria of time, cost and quality, whereas, project success is the satisfaction of the overall project objectives. Then, he proposes 12 CSFs, which he extracts from multi-national organizations activities and practical actions. Additionally, although his proposed CSFs are not directly related to human factors, he points out that people have intrinsic importance to all project processes. On the other hand, CSFs introduced by Clarke (1999) involve effective communication, clear projects objectives and scope, decomposing project into manageable size, using project plans as working documents, whereas, Nicholas (2004) proposes a set of CSFs, which are grouped into three categories: project participants, communication and information sharing and exchange, and the project management/systems development process. Based on an analysis of the literature it can be concluded that there is not a consistent CSF framework. Rather there are different perspectives of what constitute CSFs, depending on how the authors identify and classify them. Moreover, although early literature on project management does not consider project success criteria, containing the focus to CSFs, subsequent studies attempt to close the gap between CSFs and project success criteria, both of which impact on project success. In addition to this, recently developed CSFs are more complex than those of the previ ous decade as more recent CSFs cover both hard and soft aspects of project management such as the competence of the project manager and the project team members and leadership. The challenge to determine relevant CSFs over the full life of a project has been attracting growing interest in recent publications. 2.6 Critical Success Factors and the Project Life Cycle: According to Mintzberg (Mintzberg et al, 1998) many academicians, especially in the strategy development field have stated the necessity for better project implementation. Nevertheless, Walker and Rowlinson (2008) argue that mainstream literature in the project management and strategy field fails to address these issues because it views implementation: As a lesser form of intellectual pursuit than strategy and planning (Walker and Rowlinson, 2008, p.32). Furthermore, Belassi and Tukel (1996) contribute to this issue by claiming that when it comes to project implementation issues, project management literature focuses more on improving tools and techniques such as scheduling, or project failure, rather than on success. However, such position is understandable, as to identify the success factors of a project is a more complex task than identifying failure factors, mainly because of the following reasons. First, parties involved in a project tend to see project success differently and therefore, each party may allocate different success criteria to each phase (Pinto and Slevin, 1987; Pinto and Prescott 1988; Baker et al 1983; Belout and Gauvreau, 2004; Fowler and Walsh, 1999). Several academicians have proposed models in attempts to capture the processes which a project undergoes during its life. Adams and Barndt (1998), King and Cleland (1983) and Westland (2006) support the model which consists of the following four stages: initiation/conceptualisation, planning, execution / implementation and closure / termination. Pinto and Prescott (1988) propose empirically derived CSFs for each of the phases over the project life-cycle and CSFs proposed for implementation phase are mission, trouble-shooting, schedule/plan, technical tasks, and client consultation. Their work was later criticized unsuccessfully by some authors, including Belout (1998) and Belout and Gauvreau (2004), whose result s were found to support those of Pinto and Prescott (1988). Third, Belassi and Tukel (1996), Clarke (1999) and King (1996) argue that the CSFs may not directly affect the project outcome. It is the combination of these factors at different project life-cycle stages that influences the success of the project. They also add that due to uniqueness of a project, some CSFs may be missing or become irrelevant for some projects and therefore covering as many factors as possible that could influence the project would be of little or no help to project manager. Moreover, Adams and Brandt (1988) remind us that projects are not static entities; rather they change significantly as they progress through their life-cycle stages. Finally, as Belout and Gauvreau (2004), Bellasi and Tukel (1998), Fryer, Antony and Douglas (2007) argue that the relevance of the CSFs vary across different industries. For example, Belout and Gauvreau (2004) found that in the IT industry, with the exception of client ac ceptance, all other factors proposed by Pinto and Prescott (1988) are critical to success. In construction and engineering industries, on the other hand, client acceptance is critical. 2.7 Non Profit Projects: According to Ba Khang Lin Moe (2008), Non Profit Projects plays a significant role in the socio economic development process of both developed and developing countries. In business literature, indicators of success of the business organization are typically assessed against the profit it gains. But what makes NGOs become effective and efficient, as their work is not driven by the profit motive? It is widely accepted that the non-profit sector has not yet developed its own theoretical framework of management, because of the fact that they do not possess a bottom line against which to measure success; organizational standards of performance simply do not exist. Contrary to the corporate sector, NGOs often promote vague and non-quantifiable objectives such as improving human rights, protecting the environment, or advocating democracy. To be more specific, the primary objective of non-profit organizations is to change the quality aspects of the human life or transform societies, thus ma king assessment of effectiveness extremely difficult. As Fowler (1997, p172 ¼Ã¢â‚¬ °points out, Establishing performance criteria for non-profits and then using them for comparative purposes is a conceptual and practical headache. NGO capacity-building is tied up with indicators of organizational effectiveness or project success (Eade, 1997 ¼Ã¢â‚¬ °. In other words, capacity of an NGO should be constructed against indicators the NGO lacks or is weak in. Since NGOs greatly vary within themselves and within different development contexts, as stated above there is no formal consensus on standardized determinants of organizational effectiveness or project success, particularly of NGO development activities with grassroots people. Therefore, assessing the NGO capacity or project performance should be done based on the particular context of individual NGOs and their project activities ¼Ã‹â€ Kanter, 1979; Drucker, 1993) 2.8 Characteristics of Non Profit Projects compared to For- Profit Projects: Non profit projects have distinctive characteristics compared to the For-profit projects and Youker (1999) states the differences between International development projects; one of the important types of non-profit projects and the other for-profit projects. First of all, compared to hard type industrial and infrastructure projects, Development projects as soft type projects with their less tangible social objectives and deliverables pose a special challenge in managing and evaluating of Development projects (Do and Tun, 2008). In addition to their less tangible objectives and deliverables, the complex web of the many stakeholders is an IDP characteristic that results in another management challenge (Youker, 1999). To illustrate, compared with industrial and commercial projects, which involve the client, who pays for and receives the deliverables of the project, and the contractor, who manages and obtains the desired result (Do and Tun, 2008). Development projects involve a web of st akeholders, including the coordinator as the head of the project management unit; the task manager as the supervisor of the project implementation in the multilateral development agency; the national supervisor, to whom the coordinator reports; the project team; the steering committee as an interface with the local institutional system; the beneficiaries as those actually benefit from the project outputs without paying for it; the population at large. In addition, ensuring accountability of the project manager is more troublesome within this complex web of stakeholders (Diallo and Thuillier, 2004) as opposed to traditional projects. Youker (1999) based on his study of evaluations of World Bank IDP post- project reports, outlines a number of IDP management challenges in addition to the above mentioned. He states that the lack of shared perception and agreement on the objectives of the projects by staff and stakeholders, as well as, the lack of commitment by the team, management and stakeholders as the problems that had been most persistent during implementing Development projects. Also, Youker (1999) counts the lack of detailed, realistic, and current project plans, unclear lines of authority and responsibility, the lack of adequate resources, poor feedback and control mechanisms for early detection of problems, poor or no analysis of major risk factors, delays caused by bureaucratic administration systems as other challenges that had occurred frequently during IDP implementations in past. 2.8 Conceptualising Critical Success Factors for Non-Profit Projects: Eventhough, identifying critical success factors is one of the most popular topics among researchers and practitioners; there are very few research conducted on Non-profit projects. One of the studies that identified in the literatures was the research conducted by Do Tun (2008). Do and Tun (2008) studied on critical success factors of International Development Projects (IDP), a kind of non profit projects followed by Diallo and Thuiller (2004; 2005) have developed a framework based on an adaptation of the Logical Framework Approach (LFA), which is a general methodology commonly used by the development community to design, plan, manage and communicate their projects, for IDP context. Their proposed framework focuses on project life cycle, and then assesses the success of each phase based on the outputs produced by the previous phase. As a consequence, these partial successes are integrated into an assessment of the overall success of the IDP according to the Life-Cycle-Based framewo rk.

Essay --

Jane Eyre-- Life at Lowood In â€Å"Jane Eyre†, a classic by Charlotte Bronte, the little girl Jane lost her parents and was adopted by her uncle Mr. Reed who also died soon after. Poor Jane was left to be taken care of by her selfish and cruel aunt who viewed her as a burdensome and wicked child. At Gateshead, none of her cousins were nice to her, and therefore getting bullied was usual. As a result of their conflicts Jane was sent to Lowood, an institution for orphan girls where they could receive strict education and be trained to become disciplined young women. The bad conditions there did not let Jane lose faith as she made a genuine friend whose name was Helen, and met a kind teacher called Mrs. Temple. They gave Jane love and hope in such a cold world, which made her harsh life endurable. By the end of the essay it will be proven that Jane’s life at Lowood has shaped her development as a young woman and bildungsroman. At first, Jane’s life at Lowood was no better than her life at Gateshead. According to the author, â€Å"Many a time I shared between two claimants the precious morsel of ...