Windows NT Essay -- Computers Technology Operating System

Windows NT The history of Windows NT The history of Windows NT goes back to the archeozoic 80s, when Microsoft was working on the original Windows system to run on top of DOS. They joined forces with IBM in gild to create a more powerful DOS replacement that would run on the Intel x86 platform. The resulting operating system was to be known as OS/2. At the same time OS/2 was being developed, Microsoft was busy working on a new OS, more powerful than the Windows system they already had. This newborn Technology operating system would run on different processor platforms. They planned to accomplish this by writing most of the operating system in the C programming language, which is a language that is portable across platforms. In late October of 1988, Microsoft hired a man named David Cutler who was a respected operating systems guru from digital Equipment Corporation, to help them design their new operating system. The original pl anned name was OS/2 NT because at the time, Microsoft was helping to develop OS/2 and was incorporate parts of it into its new operating system (NT). After almost two years of work, the first bits of OS/2 NT ran on an Intel i860 processor. Around the same time, David Cutler project to Bill Gates that NT would ship around March 1991, which turned out be more than two years off the mark. In early 1990, as teams dedicated to NT were formed within Microsoft, Bill Gates criticized NT for being too big, and too slow during a review. The decision was eventually made in early 1991 to base NTs personality on Microsofts current Windows system, version 3.0, and not OS/2. In o... ... up retrieval. Windows NT utilizes SCSI disk drives to implement RAID. Increased Stability / hardihood over Windows 95/98 More attention was paid to the stability of Windows NT 4.0 when Microsoft was designing and coding it. It was essential that NT be very stable in aim to be a viable alternative to UNIX as a desktop and server operating system. Windows 95 and 98 are notoriously unstable and not acceptable for very high performance hardware (multiple processors, Gigs of RAM), and high demand TCP/IP applications, such as that seen in high volume internet servers. Blue screens of death are also few and far between compared to Windows 9x. So in summary, NT 4.0 is much more stable and reliable than Win9x due to how it was intentional and due to its heritage, which is entirely different from Windows 9x.

Ridley Scott’s Failure to Acknowledge the Truth in 1492: Conquest of Paradise :: Movie Film Essays

Ridley Scotts Failure to Acknowledge the Truth in 1492 conquering of Paradise 1 Why would a person in 1992 affect a historical film about Christopher Columbus discovery that completely ignores the then current debates that question whether or not it precipitated genocide? Director Ridley Scott rigid out to produce the be-all-end-all depiction of Columbus, yet he blatantly neglected to address the most heated issue Native American genocide. In Scotts film, the native voice is unheard, their identity is muted, and their culture is disregarded. The quincentennial celebration of Columbus voyage triggered a proliferation of literary criticisms addressing the controversy over the traditional Columbus myth. 1492 Conquest of Paradise, however, is silent about these issues. Having full knowledge of this multi-faceted debate, did Scott simply take the easy way out by providing another typical Columbus story? nether the pretense of a historical film, did Scott sacrifice historical tr uth and intellectual integrity for mass appeal at the box office? In his silence, Scott decides to debar the genocide debate. Whether or not the discovery of the New World indeed precipitated genocide is still under debate, but it is an important one and should not be ignored. We still have a lot to learn from our heritage and need to address the important issues in order to better learn and evolve. The two loaded arguments below represent the two sides of a heated debate that was not represented in the film 1492. They contain harsh truths which arent marketable to the American public but are vital to the understanding of the moral implications of cultural conquest. Pulling The Fleece Away From Our Eyes 2 Columbus is a mainstay of American patriotism. He is the patron saint who planted the seeds of our nation. Our culture has been lulled into his heroic myth for hundreds of years and has celebrated this man with much pomp and circumstance. Columbus worthiness has been t he outlet of much controversy and is now being linked to such un-heroic terms as mass murder, holocaust, and genocide. 3 Fueled by hundreds of years of Western propaganda, our nation created the American Dream from the realities of an American Holocaust. By refusing to recognize the desecration of the native population, an atrocity is ignored a crime doesnt exist without a victim.

The Christian Perspective on Stem Cell Research Essay -- Argumentative

The Christian Perspective on Stem Cell Research Many Americans do not see how the existing state laws grim humankind cloning can survive, and others like them be enacted, since the federal government has given its blessing to the cloning and destruction of human embryos for research purposes. An entire empyrean of law where states have been able to express respect for human life may be wiped away. We know that many have made expansive claims for the benefits of human embryo research. However, all such claims are conjectural. Embryonic stem cell research has not helped a single human patient or show any therapeutic benefit. At the same time, adult stem cells have helped hundreds of thousands of patients and new clinical uses expand almost weekly. Even President Clintons National Bioethics consultive Commission, recognizing the human embryo as a developing form of human life, concluded that the use of embryos from fertility clinics for such research cannot be justified if mora lly noncontroversial alternatives exist. There is now ample evidence that they do exist, are far more promising than once thought, and are worthy of increased open attention and government support. Most Christians have grave concerns on this critically important issue of embryonic stem cell research. In our view, conducting research that relies on deliberate destruction of human embryos for their stem cells is illegal, immoral and unnecessary. It is illegal because it violates an appropriations rider (the Dickey amendment) passed every year since 1995 by Congress. That provision forbids funding research in which human embryos (whether initially created for research purposes or not) are harmed or destroyed ou... ...eficiency (SCID)-X1 Disease, 288 Science 669-72 (28 April 2000). 16. K. Foss, Paraplegic regains movement after cell procedure, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), June 15, 2001 at A1. 17. E. Ryan et al., Glycemic Outcome Post Islet Transplantation, Abstract 33-LB, Annual Meeting of the American Diabetes Association, June 24, 2001. See http//38.204.37.95/am01/AnnualMeeting/Abstracts/NumberResults.asp?idAbs=33-LB. 18. M. McCullough, Islet transplants offer hope that diabetes can be cured, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 22, 2001 at A1. 19. D. Woodbury et al., vainglorious Rat and Human Bone Marrow Stromal Cells Differentiate Into Neurons, 61 J. of Neuroscience Research 364-70 (2000) at 364 (emphasis added). 20. D. Prockop, Stem Cell Research Has Only Just Begun (Letter), 293 Science 211-2 (13 July 2001)(citations omitted).

We Must Search for Alternatives to Animal Testing Essays -- Alternativ

Polio was once rampant all over the world and President Roosevelt, among many others , fought the war with this disease. Dr. Jonas Salk was the wizard who discovered a cure for this disease thanks to animal enquiry but is animal research always beneficial? Treat others as you would inadequacy to be treated, is what the Golden Rule has taught us for many years. Should we not treat animals the same way we want to be treated in return? The field of study of animals being used in medical research has been controversial for many years. One side of the argument says that using animals is the only way to safely tribulation a product before it reaches the public, but others say alternatives should be pursued. Despite the medical discoveries animal testing has shown, alternative methods should be used whenever possible since virtually experiments have caused pain to animals and have been unsuccessful when the same products were used on humans. For hundreds of thousands of year s animals have been used to further the knowledge in medical research and technology. The first recorded use of animals in experimentation was in 450 B.C.E. when Alcmaeon Croton severed the optic nerve of a dog and blindness resulted (Von Stein). Experiments continued as Greek and Roman civilization continued to develop. Around the fifth century during the Dark Ages and the Fall of Rome, animal experimentation began to disappear in Europe. It was during the Italian metempsychosis when experimentation revived again with technological advances (Von Stein). Experimentation of this time was considered cruel and barbaric since anesthesia has not yet been created and animals were not given anything to ease the pain. solace since animals shared physiological and genetic characteristics wit... ... Jan. 2010. http//www.issues.abc-clio.com.Fano, Alix. Chemical Testing on Animals Is Unreliable. At Issue Animal Experimentation. Ed. Cindy Mur. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 2004. N. pag. fence Viewpoints Resource Center. Web. 17 Dec. 2009. http//find.galegroup.com/ovrc/Haugen, David M. Product Testing on Animals Is Cruel and Unnecessary. At Issue Animal Experimentation. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 2000. N. pag. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Web. 17 Dec. 2014.Lawrence, Corey. Animal Testing is Essential for Medical Research. At Issue Animal Experimentation. Ed. Cindy Mur. San Diego Greenhaven, 2004. N. pag. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Web. 5 Jan. 2010.Von Stein, Thomson. Chronological Outline of a History of Knowledge and Beliefs http//history-of-knowledge.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/1-23-11chron.161205822.pdf

What makes a good teacher? :: essays research papers

There are many things which make a instructor great and they all cant be defined.However ive always considered several of them essential.In my opinion a good teacher is someonewho first of all creates interest in studying,doesnt underestimate the children,has equal expectations of siccess from e very(prenominal)one and exsert but not least likes his job. A good teavher always has a sense of purpose.He chooses very carefully the teaching method programme and adjusts it to the needs of his students.Children always set first and thats why the decision he makes are based on how they will affect them.He shares experience with other teachers and thus is always specifyedness new things.It is very important for a teacher to be a good communicator.He doesnt just stand in front of the class and natter but tries to establish a dialogue and tofind the best group activities in which every child to be involved.Discussion,peer-to-peer coaching are the things which make the process of teachi ng more interesting and challenging so that all students attend classes and participate actively.The good teacher works with all students.A friend of mine told me how her maths teacher tolerates only students who are good at mathematics or those who have special interest in the subject.Towards the rest of the class my friend says shes very exacting.She gives homeworks and tests without bothering to ask about difficulties.She doesnt try to explain it and as a result many students keep getting bad marks.I firmly guess teachers shouldnt forget that all students no matter of their colour,race or gender have equal ability to study.Different students have different learning systems.Some can learn things easily while others need to spend more time over a given task.

A Psychological Analysis of Romeo and Juliet Essay -- William Shakespea

A Psychological Analysis of Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet was obviously not written to fit the psychoanalytic model, as the theories of Freud were not developed for centuries after Shakespe atomic number 18. Shakespeare wrote to Renaissance England, a culture so heavily steeped in Christianity, that it would have blushed at the instinctual and sexual thrust of Freuds theory. However, in order to keep literature alive and relevant, a culture must continually reinterpret the themes and ideas of past works. While contextual readings assure cultural precision, very much these readings guarantee the death of a particular work. Homers Iliad, a monument among classical works, is currently not as renowned as Romeo and Juliet because it is so heavily dependent on its cultural context. Just as writers have the liberty to reinterpret works to make them more relevant to their particular time, so to should commentators be allowed to criticize a work with modern ideas. For all the blatant and covert sexual content of Shakespeares plays, they are in no bearing subscribing to a psychoanalytic construction. With that said, a psychoanalytic construction makes this play more relevant to modern readers, as psychoanalytic ideas are so pervasive they are either thoughtlessly accepted or flippantly rejected. Either way, Freudian ideas are a filter through which modern readers can understand the actions of Romeo and Juliet. The ideas employ to interpret this play are not classically Freudian, but rather a more contemporary understanding of psychodynamics as influenced by modern empiric theory. The ideas of Ernest Becker, one of the more influential figures in the new psychoanalysis, are used throughout this psychological examination.Suicide is the doma... ...t life. Suicide is the most extreme manifestation of this panic of life. A more moderate manifestation of this fear is depression. Early in the play, Romeo is described as having depression like symptoms. As the love a ffair progresses, it becomes progressively clear that Romeo can not handle life without Juliet. By the end of the play, he kills himself because he can no longer have Juliet. Romeos nett act of suicide is not completely based on the death of Juliet. The depression he exhibits at the onset of the play is already exhibiting his desire to break life. Works CitedBecker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. New York The Free Press, 1973.Cox, Marjorie C. Adolescent Processes in Romeo and Juliet. Psychoanalytic Review 63 (1976). 379-392.Faber, M.D. The Adolescent Suicides of Romeo and Juliet. Psychoanalytic Review 63, (1976). 169-181.

A Psychological Analysis of Romeo and Juliet Essay -- William Shakespea

A Psychological Analysis of Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet was obviously not written to fit the psychoanalytic model, as the theories of Freud were not developed for centuries after Shakespe atomic number 18. Shakespeare wrote to Renaissance England, a culture so heavily steeped in Christianity, that it would have blushed at the instinctual and sexual thrust of Freuds theory. However, in order to keep literature alive and relevant, a culture must continually reinterpret the themes and ideas of past works. While contextual readings assure cultural precision, a lot these readings guarantee the death of a particular work. Homers Iliad, a monument among classical works, is currently not as renowned as Romeo and Juliet because it is so heavily dependent on its cultural context. Just as writers have the liberty to reinterpret works to make them more relevant to their particular time, so to should commentators be allowed to criticize a work with modern ideas. For all the blatant and cove rt sexual content of Shakespeares plays, they are in no means subscribing to a psychoanalytic construction. With that said, a psychoanalytic construction makes this play more relevant to modern readers, as psychoanalytic ideas are so pervasive they are either thoughtlessly accepted or flippantly rejected. Either way, Freudian ideas are a filter through which modern readers can understand the actions of Romeo and Juliet. The ideas employ to interpret this play are not classically Freudian, but rather a more contemporary understanding of psychodynamics as influenced by modern empirical theory. The ideas of Ernest Becker, one of the more influential figures in the new psychoanalysis, are used throughout this psychological examination.Suicide is the doma... ...t life. Suicide is the most extreme manifestation of this cultism of life. A more moderate manifestation of this fear is depression. Early in the play, Romeo is described as having depression like symptoms. As the love aff air progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Romeo can not handle life without Juliet. By the end of the play, he kills himself because he can no longer have Juliet. Romeos net act of suicide is not completely based on the death of Juliet. The depression he exhibits at the onset of the play is already exhibiting his desire to miss life. Works CitedBecker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. New York The Free Press, 1973.Cox, Marjorie C. Adolescent Processes in Romeo and Juliet. Psychoanalytic Review 63 (1976). 379-392.Faber, M.D. The Adolescent Suicides of Romeo and Juliet. Psychoanalytic Review 63, (1976). 169-181.

How Does SHRM Influence Organizational Outcomes? Essay

IntroductionIn modern transmission line environment, St arrangegy is always applied in each business area. As strategic cogitate discipline originated in the 1950s and 1960s, strategic homophile preference prudence emerged as following. At the beginning, HR department is not viewed as an important segmentation and in many multinational companies (Vymys.P 2014), provided marketing, R&D and finance which are direct associated with the competition and revenue could get enough attention from oecumenical manager, stockholders and professors in guidance area. However, nowadays, strategic human resource management (SHRM) is considered to be a source of competitive advantage for a firm (Wright, Dunford, & Snell, 2001). An increasing crook of senior managers or professors have begun to focus on human upper-case letter. Actually, the core competition power of an opening move is accumulated quantify of employees.During the process of promoting and implementing all the business in an first step, the initiative of the people, the guaranteed skills and the team cooperation is the key factor for it to work tellingly SHRM is, in fact, the management of power using and the core of management behavior includes the acquisition, motivation, placement and excogitatement of human resource management. These four parts form a unified whole and none is dispensable. The circulation of the unified whole promotes human resources management and first step management constantly, thus enhances the first steps core competitiveness and profitability. In Google, the humans Resource department is called People Operations. They emphasize on the process which employees earn value for the company and presents strategic modes in HR management.For example,each employee in Google has material packages in HR department with at least dozens of pages, on which study their abundant personal information,like SAT scores,rankings,GPA,re contente, papers published,referees and even mess age in BBS and blog (Wei,J. 2013). In terms of recruitment,the questions candidates received are various and strange. Google devotes into seeking the smart to compete rivals and indeed,this strategic recruitment method does work and provides countless value for the initiative (Poundstone,W. 2012). In total, SHRM plays a crucial role in enterprise management and affects the success and failure in an organization.strategic Human Resource Management and 8P ModelStrategic human resource management (SHRM) is different from the model human resources management. Put it in detail,SHRM refers that the essence of SHRM is to adopt a flexible but strategic perspective that accurately analyses both the internal and impertinent environments of organizations to assure fit between HR strategies and practices, and between these and business strategiesRedman,T. and Wilkinson, A. 2013,p.50). The main characteristic of SHRM is to emphasize matching up between human resource management and enterprise strategies, to establish relevant human resource management activities and deployment according to organizational strategic objectives and to provide services and support for the implementation of enterprise strategy(Strategic Human Resource Management And 8P Model 2012) .Therefore, if an organization wants to achieve the goals, the first thing is to successfully manage human chapiter. However, how to motivate human talent to create a network and make the company successful? According to Adam Smith1776, economic activity was fulled not by workers as a collective muckle but by the acquired and useful ability of all the inhabitants and members of the society. With the development of strategic human resource management, there is an increasing number of people focusing on capitalize the intangible asset. Many practices and strategies are applied in promoting the best fit and encouraging the network. Theodore Schultz(1960), American economist and the creator of human capital theory, in his report Human Capital Investment and Urban Competitiveness said, the source of economic growth can not increase only depending on the material input of the Labor force, but the more important is to rely on mitigated peoples ability.According to the American economists estimates, from 1900 to 1957, the material capital investment increased by 4.5 times, profits increased by 3.55 times,while human capital investment increased by 3.5 times, profits increased by 17.55 times. During the 38 years from 1919 to 1957, 49% ofgross national product is the result of human capital(What Is Strategic Human Resource Management In An Organization 2008). Obviously, the contribution rate of human capital in the era of knowledge economy is far greater than that of material capital.Therefore, carrying attention to the importance of human capital on economic growth is particularly urgent. Under the background of modern social economy, the enterprise must carry out strategic management of human ca pital and strengthen the competition and development of the enterprise. As I mentioned, SHRM is power management and its core function and soul is acquisition,motivation,organization and development. In terms of behavior and responsibilities of strategic human resource management, to conclude, there are eight essential abilities Table1.Strategic Human Resource Management and 8P model (MBA Lib,2012)These eight abilities are specifiedHRM project system ground on strategy(Project)Understanding organizational strategic decision and management environment is the precondition of human resource planning. According to the enterprise development strategy, combining with the enterprise human resource current situation and making enterprise human resources plans enable the enterprises human resources to support enterprise strategic development needs and to contribute to the realization of enterprise strategy.The main activities of enterprise human resources planning encompass the analysis of supply and demand of human resources, the planning of numerate of human resource planning, human resources structure optimization planning and human resource qualification promotion planning, and the concrete measures to realize the objective of human resource planning, namely, the various business plans.Job analysis system based on strategy(position)Job analysis is a basic work in an enterprises SHRM. Enterprises select the appropriate organization mode according to their own strategic and on the reason of this, set up departments including management processes and business processes and clear the obligation and authority of the various functional departments. HR department should clear the responsibilities andcontent of each department and analyze the necessary knowledge, skills, experience and personal quality as an employee.Employees qualification analysis system based on strategy and position (personnel) Enterprises should proceed based on strategic objectives and customer d emand, on the basis of line of reasoning analysis, analyze and conclude the staff with high surgical procedure and then set up Staff Quality Model in order to optimise human resource and motivate the staffs potentials.recruitment system based on strategy and competence(provide) Recruitment based on strategy is no longer to simply hire people to fill the vacancies and what they acquire is the resource with which an enterprise can survive and win the competition. A company not only care about if the candidate is qualified in the position, but besides care about if the candidate could provide support for the company to achieve the enterprise strategic objectives. Therefore, an enterprise should take human resource planning and Staff Quality Model into account, when recruiting. planning system based on strategy and employees career(plant) The training system based on strategy and staffs career development should encompass training demands assessment, drawing up a training plan and t raining results transformation. Training needs assessment should consider about strategic requirements, staff qualities and training needs by which employees want to achieve headmaster development in their career.career management based on strategy(profession)Career management based on strategy requires an enterprise to set up job positions and job classification based on the organizational strategies. Enterprises should establish different levels of qualification standards according to different employees classification, drive the employees to study and improve master key skills. In addition to this, HR division should set up promotion system by which employees have more motivation to do the work and improve themselves. Besides, an enterprise should build a good environment for employees to grow up and positively provide consultancy foremployees about promotion and skill improvement. By that, realize that the enterprise leads employees to grow up and employees promote the enterpr ise to develop.appraisal doing system based on strategy and key performance indicator (performance) Performance is an effective output in order to achieve strategic objectives including organizational performance, department(team) performance and personal performance. SHRM focuses on organizational overall performance whose goal is to survive and develop in the competition. Appraisal performance system based on strategy and key performance indicator requires an enterprise to develop relying on organizational strategic objectives and to determine the enterprise key results areas and key performance indicators through the analysis of the value chain of enterprises.Organizational performance is based on individual performance and team performance. When the organization performance targets are allocated to every employee and every job, and as long as each employee meets the organizational requirements, the realization of organizational performance is guaranteed. bill procedure of perf ormance appraisal comprises five links, namely, planing assessment, performance management(e,g, performance coaching, counseling and performance tracking), performance appraisal, performance feedback such as performance interview, and the use of performance appraisal(e.g. reward, promotion, elimination and improving the performance appraisal mode).payment management based on ability and achievement(payment) There are three ways measuring the value that employees create for the enterprise. So on the basis of it, there are emerging three compensation modes. The first mode is based on job duties which is resolved by the importance of job and relative value of job in the enterprise. The second is based on performance evaluation. In this way, an employees wages is link to his performance. Evaluating the salary level by employee personal performance or team performance is a result oriented value distribution way. The third is to pay the employees according to employees ability, capacit y, professional skills, experience internal quality and so on.Under the framework of strategic human resource management, the enterprises salary incentivesystem should focus on the short-term performance improvement and long-term development of the enterprise. Therefore, compensation management must link to performance and ability appraisal by which each employees income and performance is related to the realization of organizational strategies. Payroll management based on performance and ability not only emphasize the value created by individuals and teamwork but also emphasize potential value that individuals and teams could bring about for the enterprise.ConclusionTo conclude, SHRM to a large extent influences the organizational outcome. I have explained each function separately and each one is closely associated to the organizational strategy. Actually, the core management of an enterprise is human management and each department in the enterprise is operated by people. Therefor e, what extent to capitalize the human resource and how to match the human resources with the organizational strategies is critical issue.More importantly,this also requires the HR division to understand the organizational strategies on which manage employees effectively and plan and execute SHRM strategies to help the enterprise to survive and win the global competition. To sum up, SHRM is to look and motivate the value of people. A good HR division knows exactly which division need which talents and understand how to motivate the employee potential. However, to what extent to motive and explore these potentials to be the Best Fit and how to manage the talents from motivating personalities to forming a standard is another important issue. This would be discussed more deeply.References1. Vymys,p.2014,Introduction to Human Resource Strategy(WORK6017), The university of Sydney,Sydney, 29 July, viewed 10 September 2014,2. Mayhew,R. and Demand 2014, Chron,Small Business,10 September 20 14,3. Strategic Human Resource Management And 8P Model 2012, MBA Lib, viewed 10September 2014,4. Schultz,T. 1960,Human Capital Investment and Urban Competitiveness,social Sciences Academic Press, China.5.What is Strategic Human Resource Management In An Organization 2008, MBA Lib, viewed 10 September 2014,6. Redman,T. and Wilkinson,A. 2013, Contemporary Human Resource Management,Pearson,UK7.Human Resource 2014,MBA Lib, Viewed 10 September 2014,8.Wei,J. 2013,demystify the recruitment of Google prolonged and picky five rounds of interviews,Sina ChuangShiJi, viewed 17 September 2014,9. Manjoo,F. 2013,The Happiness MachineHow Google became such a great place to work, Slate, viewed 17 September 2014,10. Google,2014,Google Career, viewed 17 September 2014,11.Pounderstone,W.2012,Are You refreshed Enough To Work At Google,Little,Brown and Company Press,United States of America.

Gender Differences in Computer Literacy Essay

Information Technology (IT) has had a positive impact on health c are delivery system worldwide, particularly in the areas of disease control, diagnosis, patient management, teaching and learning. Anuobi (2004) pointed out that man has scientifically placed himself in an environment that is international and digital, which predisposes him to constant utilization of reading, its location notwithstanding. Shanahan (2006) believes that the health care industry is in a state of constant and rapid change and due to the increase in scientific k promptlyledge and rapid technological advances, there has been a growing emphasis on the physicians need to efficiently access, retrieve, and use scientific evidences to improve patient care ( Li, Tan, Muller & Chen, 2009).Masood, Khan & Waheed (2010) noted that the availability of affordable computing machines and the advancement of information engineering science have resulted in our ability to rapidly and effectively access, retrieve, ana lyze, share, and ancestry large volumes of information pertinent to patient care and for learning process in a teaching hospital . According to Poelmans, Truyen & Desl (2009) during the learning process, students are responsible for the management of their own information processes. After their graduation, the job market expects them to function as mobile knowledge-workers. It is therefore vital that students acquire the right attitudes and skills in graze to survive in this information society and to deal with the ceaseless information flood.As Masood, Khan & Waheed (2010) observed, estimator skills are vital for checkup practitioners of the future. With the medical cranial orbit being an information intensive profession, to use technology effectively for the advancement of patient care, the medical student must possess a variety of calculator skills. However, scholars like Luan, Aziz, Yunus, Sidek, Bakar, Meseran & Atan (2005) have observed that there is a sex activity ga p in the use of ICTs. Accordingly, the purpose of this mull over was to determine if there is a gender residue in the computer literacy levels of clinical medical students by looking at how they have access to computers, the frequency with which they use computers, if there is gender conflict in the use of various software and look at problems they face when exploitation computers.Literature ReviewComputer literacy has been a subject of educational look for for recent years. Computer literacy is defined as the knowledge and ability to use computers and related technology efficiently, with a range of skills covering levels from elementary use to programme and advanced problem solving Lynch (1998). Computer literacy can also refer to the comfort level someone has with using computer programs and other applications that are associated with computers (Wikipedia 2010). Anuobi (2004), described computer literacy as having a basic understanding of what computer is and how it can be u sed as a resource. To Lynch (1998), computer technology literacy deals with an understanding of an infrastructure that underpins much of todays life, it also means knowing some basic things about ICT, for example, how to save and open a file, or how to use a word processor (Tella & Mutala, 2008).The needs of a medical student of the millennium generation in a rapidly changing information society has changed, he now has to confront new challenges which are vital to his survival in the information age. Idowu, Adagunodo, & Idowu (2004) indicated that knowledge, skills and confidence with computer technology are now an asset for those entering the competitive employment market. They further pointed out that every aspect of life from education, leisure, and work environment to social interactions is being influenced by computer technology. Moreover, with the increasing use of ICT in education the world over, new skills and competencies are needed by students to be better equipped with th e requisite digital literacy competencies.Essentially, gender refers to sets of relationships attributes, roles, beliefs and attitudes that define what being a man or a woman is within the society. It is a socially ascribed attribute as opposed to sex which is a biological attribute ( Oghiagbephan & Asamaigo, 2010). As a result of gender roles assigned by different cultures many another(prenominal) women have been brought up to see technology and its use as reserved for on the male gender. According to Munusamy & Ismail (2009) women look at computers and see more than machines, thus considering computers as masculine and complicated to use.According to Asuquo & Onasanya (2006), many factors in and outside the classroom result in girls being turned away from computer technology. These factors include the media depicting men as experts in technology, societal expectations of different goals for boys and girls, the structure of learning tasks, the nature of feedback in performance sit uations, and the organization of classroom seating. Because these factors are often subtle, they go unnoticed. It is little wonder why girls are not interested in computer technology. This situation has led to what scholars have termed the gender digital divide.Explaining this, Ikolo (2010), stated that the gender digital divide is manifested in the unkept piece of egg-producing(prenominal) users if ICTs compared to men. Gurumurty (2004), observed evidences that points towards gender imbalance in the use of computers and other technologies. According to Tella & Mutula (2008), the issue of gender equity as far as access to and use of ICTs continues to be a topical subject not only in developing countries but the world over. However, available indices have began to enkindle that, although there is a gender gap in all countries, with the significant growth in access to and increased educational opportunities for more women, the relative contrast amid men and women is diminishing (Sorenson, 2002, Kay, 2008 & Munusamy & Ismail, 2009).In the 1980s, research on computer literacy focused on the question of whether medical students were ready for the foreseeable omnipresence of computers in the future of doctors professional environment and if they possess necessary computer skills Link & Marz (2006). When Poelmans, Truyen & Desl (2009) compared the mean scores of computer literacy and its subscales by gender. The results showed a clear pattern in both the global scale and the subscales male students report a significant higher degree of perceived computer literacy. In a similar view carried out by Link & Marz (2006) to examine the level of computer literacy of first year clinical students in Vinna, the study showed that although 94% of the student attested to accessing and using computers, of this number only 26% of the female students used computers frequently.Citing Ong & Lai, Luan, Aziz, Yunus, Sidek, Bakar, Meseran & Atan (2005) reported that males had more positive attitudes towards ICTs. Guptas (2001) study also fix significant gender difference in the way females and males rated themselves in their ability to master technology skills. Even though both genders were positive about their computer abilities, males rated themselves higher than females. Kay (2006) reviewed 36 studies on gender and computer use and concluded that the male correspondents have significantly higher perceived computer literacyOn whether there was equality of access between the women academics and their male counterparts, 199 (97.1%) answered in the negative while only 6 (2.9%) respondents confirmed that there was equality of access. (Olatokun, 2007). Again, Link & Marzs (2006) study showed that more male medical students (72%) had access to personal computers (laptops). Respondents were also asked to indicate what computer applications they used. The results depicted that there is marked significant gender difference in application use of computer by male an d female subjects.It was clear that male students engaged in applications like word processing, Internet browsing, e-mail, data analysis, programming, and CorelDraw more than the female, except that the females engage in chat and games more than their male counterparts. This result as well can be linked to the issue of fear and anxiety attributed with computer by the female subjects, and may be responsible for their lower engagement in using computer software and applications. Tella & Mutula, 2008).In a survey, Tella & Mutula (2008) found out that, when respondents were asked to state the number of hours that they used computers in a week, the results showed that there were differences in the male and female number of hours spent using computer per week with male medical students expending more hours than the female medical students. While a considerable number of male students spent from 10-25 hours per week, female students spent between 1-4 hours per week. In another study by R ajab & Baqain (2005), a significant difference was found between males and females in the length of time they used computers. When asked about the frequency of computer use, male respondents (56%) were found to use computers more than female respondents (37%) (Munusamy & Ismail, 2009).Rajab & Baqain, (2005) concluded that although both gender of clinical students believed themselves to be competent in word processing, more males than females used multimedia presentations (power point). Luan, Aziz, Yunus, Sidek, Bakar, Meseran & Atan (2005), in their study found out that females were better at word processing and presentations and emailing than males. Olatokun (2007), in his study reached the conclusion that 70.7% female used computers for word processing 98.5% indicated not using ICT for games at all and a numerate of 84.9% respondents used ICT very often for Internet browsing.MethodologyThe study employed a descriptive survey method which affords the researcher the opportunity to study the present condition of the computer literacy skills of the clinical medical students. The population of the study comprised of 93 clinical medical students of Delta state University and University of Benin who are in 400 level. The total population was used as the sample size for the study. Data were collected using a self constructed, organize questionnaire that was divided into two sections. Section A was designed to gather bio data while B was meant to obtain data on computer literacy skills of the students. A total of 86 questionnaires were returned. The demographic characteristics of the respondents revealed 50(58.1%) as males and 36 (42%) as females. Data was analyzed using simple percentages.

Savage Beast

Importance of a healthy Elevator Pitch While persistence and ingenuity were also important factors in fussting Savage Beasts initial investment, the investor decided to invest after only ten minutes. This implies that Savage Beast had a strong elevator pitch that was both informative enough and arouse enough to hook an investor. 2. Defined roles When everybody know what their role in the smart set entails, it akes for a well-oiled machine.When everybody has a Job to do and everybody is open and understanding of the Job decisions get made that are in the best interests of the company. 3. Sustainable plans There are a lot of good ideas, but in order to be a successful company these ideas have to have long term footing. Without growth, the company will fail. For instance, if there is a medicine tool with a small music library, no one will invest. 4. Corporate decisions It is important for everyone in upper management to be on the same page and to agree on company decisions.When the ounders of a company are not in agreement the entire company suffers. In this case, I think one of them leaving was a good decision. 5. Redirection Taking a step back and reassessing goals and options can be a huge turn around for a struggling company. There is no mortify in stopping one failing strategy as long as the new strategy has purpose and direction. Section C Discussion Questions 1 . Where exactly did Savage Beast go wrong? There was timing issues (the dot com crash), unsustainable goals, and corporate dissonance, but which were causes and which were effects?

An Attempted Robbery

One evening when the sun was about to set, my mother asked me to go and deprave some onions and salt from the nearby sundry pasture. The shop is run by Samy, a jovial middle-age Indian valet with a huge pot-belly. His wife and deuce young children, a boy and a girl, help him run the shop.It was almost completely dark when I reached the shop. Samy had switched on the lights in his sm all but adequately stocked shop. He was al genius at the time and I was the only customer. Samy greeted me with a huge smile. I always wanted to ask him how he unploughed his teeth so sparkling white but I was afraid to ask. Anyway I told him what I wanted to buy and he went about get the things for me.Next door to Samys shop is a drinking chocolate shop run by another Indian man. It was still open at the time. From the coffee shop emerged two men. They came into Samys shop and I could smell the all overpowering smell of beer coming from these two men. Both of them were young but from the way they half-walked half-staggered into the shop it was obvious they had a bit too much to drink. I kept a safe distance from these men. It is never a good idea to be near drunks. One never knows what they will do next.True enough, my caution was justified, for the next moment, without any warning, one of the men swept a pile of plate goods from a table onto the floor. In a second the neat rows were reduced to utter chaos. The man who did it roared out in laughter. I could collide with Samys animosity rising. He raised his voice. As if in reply to his retort, the two men started shouting obscenities at him. Then suddenly a knife appeared in one of the mens hand. The man that held the knife was small and wiry and judging from the muscles in his hand I had no doubt he was very strong.The knife-man lunged and in a flash he had the point of his knife at Samys throat. Samy froze and his face paled. I was so overwhelmed by the suddenness of events that the next thing I knew I could not move m y hands, nor the other parts of my body. I was held in a vice-like grip by the other man. I did not even see him coming. I struggled but all I could do was to make the grip tighten more. I got difficult to breathe.I heard a lot of shouting and I could see the knife-man slapping Samy. Reluctantly Samy opened the drawer where he kept his cash and the knife-man leaned over and made a grab for the cash. That was a big drop off he made. For a fleeting moment his knife was forgotten and in that short moment Samy seized his chance. Samys huge right hand came down substantial over the back of the leaning mans head. The force of the blow carried the mans head right down hard onto the table. There was a sickening thud when face met table. The knife-mans head rebounded like a rubber ball from the table and I could see blood all over his face. He was badly hurt. The knife dropped from lifeless hands on the floor.Moving with surprising speed, Samy grabbed a bottle of tomato ketchup from a shel f and broke it over the mans head. Red tomato ketchup splattered all over the place. I could not distinguish how much of the red kibosh on the mans face was his own blood, or tomato ketchup. Slowly he sank to the floor and lay still.I struggled to get loose. I entangle so easy. Then I realized that hands no longer held me. I turned around and saw the dark figure of a man running out of the shop and disappearing into the semi-darkness. I was about to go in pursuit but Samy stopped me. He said it was useless prosecute somebody in the dark. Moreover the man could be armed and that would be dangerous.Ten minutes later the shop was filled with curious people all wanting to know what had happened. The knife-man was herded into a police car. Samy and I had to give our statements to the police. When I arrived home half an hour later, my mother was waiting impatiently for me. She was about to chew out me about being so slow in getting a few things but she stopped and listened dumbfounded while I related the recent events to her. When I finished she smiled and said that she was glad I was not injured.

How might Randstades partnership program contribute to the effective decision making?

The Randstad is a Dutch company that has undergone great expansion in the U. S. majorly because of teaming up its young employees with the hoarer ones who are more see. This partnership program has played a vital role in the line of products decision making process. For instance, it has ensured increased productivity from the paired sales agents since in that respect was sharing of jobs and also a trade off in responsibilities. The end result realized has been a minimized production and distribution costs and lesser time being used in availing the products.This program has ensured that budgetary appropriations are not cumbersome. Moreover, the existence of a symbiotic relationship between the Gen Yers who needed a lot of attention and the older that needed the former to succeed aided in nurturing the young employees. This helps in growth of the business to a certain size within a shorter time span. The program also made job rotation possible since every(prenominal) employee had varied expertise in the various departments.The vast knowledge greatly aids the firm in the recruitment process of new potential workers and ensuring ripe record keeping. In addition, since there is also job specialization, competition among employees is not a problem since no one is seeking for recognition but for the prosperity of the firm as a whole. The personnel integration led to the recruitment of more Gen Yers which cultivated a relationship between them and the organization. As a result, individually and every effort by the employers is directed towards the achievement of the business goals.2. How might it help employees generate and evaluate alternatives? Since there is nobody termed as the boss in the business, employees are free to bring into focus their views towards an arising situation affecting the business. The employees share the responsibilities equally thus willing to give out their different ideas and hence. As genus Benzoin states, no one is individually res ponsible for everything (Bloomberg). Through this, each employee get to learn new alternative courses of action and methods of coming up with the solution.The fact that there are a number of alternatives puts at bay the unyielding option of giving up when one employees criterion fails since he/she in not over there can arise a solution from the other partners course of action. The partnership program ensures that the best alternatives that will not put off clients are adopted. Through this program, employees develop courage and confidence in airing their various alternatives generated through partnering.These alternatives later undergo joined house-to-house scrutiny for best result realization. 3. How might it help employees choose alternatives and learn from feedback? The partnership program can play a crucial role in ensuring that the right alternatives are given a priority by asking the relevant questions and saying the right things to the clients. Further more, explicit suggest ions can be obtained from a partner who with time might result to only making observations to the partner and understanding whether or not the alternative is right.The older employees are more experienced in comparison with the Gen Yers, thus their alternatives might be considered or else utilized as an important reference point in some major areas of allude thus strengthening the rapport between them. Negative feedbacks like sabotaging the other partner or reduction in productivity due to constant wrangle are indicators unfruitful partnership which can lead to its break up (Giancola, 13). In addition, the uncooperative partner is identified, since he ends up leaving the company. This serves as a warning for the business entity to engage in a similar relationship in the future.Older workers can mock the young counterparts in a general business set up but with the employment of the pairing program, this is discouraged. The focus in set on impacting the same business knowledge to th e young by the old since there is no master in the business. 4. How might this program contribute to organizational learning? Cross generation partnership, as practiced by the Randstad, whitethorn lead to the understanding of the connection between solidarity in work place and the feeling of being more successful and productive.It diversifies the egocentric thoughts of the management to caring almost the welfare of its subordinates and improves the relationship between them. To add on, the older employees do not get cynical for having been in the business for a longer time than the Gen Yers. The younger agents are taught on how to be patient and avoid discouraging the clients by the experienced ones who first seek for the solution to the arising problems (Bloomberg).This fosters appreciation for each party in the business hence playing a motivational role which is eventually reflected in the increased units and quality of the output. Concisely, organizations learn the best employe e combination criteria since some depended on others for their success hence the organization attaining its objectives on top of nurturing the employees skills. Though these relationships are promising, they are susceptible to dysfunction and require a lot of maintenance for their accompaniment thus the organization has to take necessary measures in good time.Thus, if the partnership proves to be doing more harm than good, the organization should opt for its termination the soonest possible. whole kit and caboodle Cited Bloomberg , L. P, Bridging The times Gap Employment Agency Ramstad Teams Newbies With Older Staff To Great Effect, September, 17 2007. Viewed on July 2 2010 from http//www. businessweek. com/magazine/content/07_38/b4050063. htm Giancola, F. (2006). The Generation Gap More Myth than Reality. Journal of Human Resource Planning. Vol. 29, p. 12-29

Lamb to the Slaughter

LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER by ROALD DAHL The room was warm, the curtains were closed, the two table lamps were lit. On the wardrobe behind her on that point were two glasses and some whoop it ups. Mary Mal iy was waiting for her conserve to come al-Qaida from work. Now and again she glanced at the clock, barely with knocked come in(p) apprehension She merely wanted to satisfy herself that each minute that went by do it ne arer the term when he would come home. As she bent over her sewing, she was especially peaceful. This was her sixth month expecting a small fry. Her mouth and her eyes, with their new calm look, seemed larger and darker than before.When the clock said ten proceedings to v, she began to listen, and a few moments later, punctually as always, she heard the gondola tires on the stones outside, the car door closing, footsteps passing the window, the key turning in the lock. She s to a faultd up and went forward to kiss him as he entered. Hello, darling, she said. Hello, he answered. She took his coat and hung it up. consequently she make the drinks, a strong one for him and a weak one for herself and soon she was top again in her chair with the sewing, and he was in the other(a) chair, keeping the tall glass, rolling it gently so that the ice knocked musically against the side of the glass.For her, this was always a wonderful time of day. She knew he didnt want to come up to much until the first drink was finished, and she was satisfied to sit quietly, enjoying his company after the long hours alone in the house. She love the warmth that came out of him when they were alone to affirmher. She loved the shape of his mouth, and she especially liked the way he didnt complain approximately being tired. Tired, darling? Yes, he sighed. Im thoroughly exhausted. And as he spoke, he did an uncommon thing. He lifted his glass and drank it cut down in one swallow although on that point was still half of it left.He got up and went slowly to position himself a nonher drink. Ill lose it she cried, jumping up. Sit down, he said. When he came defend, she noticed that the new drink was a very strong one. She watched him as he began to drink. I think its a shame, she said, that when someones been a policeman as long as you shake, he still has to walk around all day long. He didnt answer. Darling, she said, If youre too tired to give out tonight, as we had planned, I earth-closet fix you something. Theres plenty of smasheds and stuff in the freezer. Her eyes waited to an answer, a smile, a nod, plainly he made no sign. Anyway, she went on. Ill get you some bread and cheese. I dont want it, he said. She moved uneasily in her chair. besides you substantiate to countenance supper. I can easily fix you something. Id like to do it. We can cede lamb. Anything you want. Everythings in the freezer. Forget it, he said. scarcely, darling, you have to eat Ill do it anyway, and and consequently you can have it or not, as you like. She stood up and ensnare placed her sewing on the table by the lamp. Sit down, he said. Just for a minute, sit down. It wasnt until then that she began to get frightened. Go on, he said. Sit down. She lowered herself into the chair, watching him all the time with large, puzzled eyes. He had finished his second drink and was staring into the glass. Listen, he said. Ive got something to tell you. What is it, darling? Whats the matter? He became absolutely motionless, and he kept his head down. This is going to be a biggish outrage to you, Im afraid, he said. But Ive judgment well-nigh it a good deal and Ive decided that the only thing to do is to tell you immediately. And he told her. It didnt take long, iv or five minutes at most, and she sat still through it all, watching him with puzzled horror. So there it is, he added. And I know its a tough time to be telling you this, but there simply wasnt any other way. Of course, Ill give you money and see that y oure taken care of. But there in truth shouldnt be any problem. I hope not, in any case. It wouldnt be very good for my job. Her first instinct was not to cogitate any of it. She thought that perhaps shed imagined the whole thing. Perhaps, if she acted as though she had not heard him, she would kick downstairs out that none of it had ever happened. Ill fix some supper, she whispered.When she walked across the room, she couldnt feel her feet pitiful the floor. She couldnt feel anything except a slight sickness. She did everything without thinking. She went downstairs to the freezer and took hold of the first object she embed. She lifted it out, and looked at it. It was wrapped in paper, so she took by the paper and looked at again a nog of lamb. All right, then, they would have lamb for supper. She carried it upstairs, held the thin end with twain her hands. She went into the living room, byword him standing by the window with his back to her, and stopped. Ive already tol d you, he said. Dont make supper for me. Im going out. At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause, she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head. She might as easily have clear up him with a steel bar. She stepped back, waiting, and the strange thing was that he remained standing there for at least four or five seconds. indeed he crashed onto the carpet. The fury of the crash, the noise, the small table overturning, helped to bring her out of the shock.She came out slowly, feeling cold and surprised, and she stood for a few minutes, looking at the body, still holding the piece of mall tightly with both hands. All right, she told herself. So Ive killed him. It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began thinking very fast. As the wife of a detective, she knew what the punishment would be. It made no difference to her. In fact, it would be a relief. On the other hand, what about the baby? What were the laws about manslayers with unborn children? Did they kill them both mother and child? Did they wait until the baby was born?What did they do? Mary Maloney didnt know and she wasnt prepared to take a chance. She carried the meat into the kitchen, put it into a pan, off on the oven, and put the pan interior. Then she washed her hands, ran upstairs, sat down in precedent of the mirror, fixed her makeup, and tried to smile. The smile was rather peculiar. She tried again. Hello, surface-to-air missile she said brightly, aloud. The office sounded peculiar, too. I want some potatoes, Sam. Yes, and perhaps a can of bean. s. That was better. Both the smile and the voice sounded better now. She practiced them several times more.Then she ran downstairs, took her coat, and went out the back door, through the garden into the street. It wasnt six oclock yet and the lights were still on in the neighborhood grocery. Hello, Sam, s he said brightly, smiling at the man in the shop. Good evening, Mrs. Maloney. How are you? I want some potatoes, please, Sam. Yes, and perhaps a can of beans, too. Patricks decided hes tired and he doesnt want to eat out tonight, she told him. We unremarkably go out on Thursdays, you know, and now I dont have any vegetables in the house. Then how about some meat, Mrs. Maloney? asked the grocer. No, Ive got meat, thanks, Ive got a prim leg of lamb, from the freezer. Do you want these potatoes, Mrs. Maloney? Oh, yes, theyll be fine. Two pounds, please. Anything else? The grocer turned his head to one side, looking at her. How about dessert? What are you going to give him for dessert? How about a nice piece of cake? I know he likes cake. Perfect, she said. He loves it. And when she had bought and paid for everything, she gave her brightest smile and said, Thank you, Sam. Good night. And now, she told herself as she hurried back home, she was returning to her husband and he w as waiting for his supper.She had to cook it well and make it taste as good as possible, because the poor man was tired and if she found anything unusual or terrible when she got home, then it would be a shock and she would have to react with grief and horror. Of course, she was not expecting to find anything unusual at home. She was unsloped going home with the vegetables on Thursday evening to cook dinner for husband. Thats the way, she told herself. Do everything normally. Keep things absolutely natural and therell be no need for playacting at all. As she entered the kitchen by the back door, she was quietly singing to herself. Patrick she called. How are you, darling? She put the package on the table and went into the living room and when she aphorism him lying there on the floor, it really was a shock. All the old love for him came back to her, and she ran over to him, knelt down beside him, and began to cry hard. It was easy. No acting was necessary. A few minutes later, she got up and went to the phone. She knew the number of the police station, and when the man at the other end answered, she cried to him. Quick Come quickly Patricks stone-dead. Whos verbalise? Mrs. Maloney. Mrs. Patrick Maloney. Do you mean that Patricks dead? I think so, she cried. Hes lying on the floor and I think hes dead. Well be there immediately, the man said. The car came very quickly, and when she opened the front door, two policemen walked in. She knew them both. She knew almost all the men at the police station. She fell into Jack Noonans arms, crying uncontrollably. He put her gently into a chair. Is he dead? she cried. Im afraid he is. What happened? In a few words she told her story about going to the grocer and coming back, when she found him on the floor.While she was crying and talking, Noonan found some dried kin on the dead mans head. He hurried to the phone. Some other men began to arrive a doctor, two detectives, a police photographer, and a man wh o knew about fingerprints. The detectives kept asking her a lot of questions. They always treated her kindly. She told them how shed put the meat into the overn its there nowand how she had gone to the grocers for vegetables and how she came back to find him lying on the floor. The two detectives were exceptionally nice to her. They searched the house.Sometimes Jack Noonan spoke to her gently. He told her that her husband had been killed by a blow to the back of the head. They were looking for the weapon. The murderer might have taken it with him, but he might have thrown it away or hidden it. Its the old story, he said. Get the weapon, and youve got the murderer. Later, one of the detectives sat down beside her. Did she know, he asked, of anything in the house that could have been used as a weapon? Would she look around to see if anything was missing. The search went on. It began to get late it was some nine oclock.The men searching the rooms were getting tired. Jack, she sai d, Would you like a drink? You mustiness be extremely tired. Well, he answered. Its not allowed by police rules, but since youre a friend. They stood around with drinks in their hands. The detectives were uncomfortable with her and they tried to say cheering things to her. Jack Noonan walked into the kitchen, came out quickly, and said, Look, Mrs. Maloney. Did you know that your oven is still on, and the meat is still inside? Oh, she said. So it is Id better turn it off. She returned with tearful eyes. Would you do me a favor?Here you all are, all good friends of Patricks, and youre helping to magnetise the man who killed him. You must be very hungry by now because its long past your supper time, and I know that Patrick would never forgive me if I allow you stay in the house without offering you anything to eat. Why dont you eat up the lamb in the oven? I wouldnt dream of it, Noonan said. Please, she begged. Personally, I couldnt eat a thing, but itd be a favor to me if you ate it up. Then you can go on with your work. The detectives hesitated, but they were hungry, and in the end, they went into the kitchen and helped themselves to supper.The woman stayed where she was and listened to them through the open door. She could hear them speaking among themselves, and their voices were thick because their mouths were abundant of meat. Have some more, Charlie. No, wed better not finish it. She wants us to finish it. She said we ought to eat it up. Thats a big bar the murderer must have used to hit poor Patrick. The doctor says the back of his head was broken to pieces. Thats why the weapon should be easy to find. Exactly what I say. Whoever did it, he cant deliver a weapon that big around with him. Lamb to the SlaughterLAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER by ROALD DAHL The room was warm, the curtains were closed, the two table lamps were lit. On the cupboard behind her there were two glasses and some drinks. Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home fro m work. Now and again she glanced at the clock, but without anxiety She merely wanted to satisfy herself that each minute that went by made it nearer the time when he would come home. As she bent over her sewing, she was curiously peaceful. This was her sixth month expecting a child. Her mouth and her eyes, with their new calm look, seemed larger and darker than before.When the clock said ten minutes to five, she began to listen, and a few moments later, punctually as always, she heard the car tires on the stones outside, the car door closing, footsteps passing the window, the key turning in the lock. She stood up and went forward to kiss him as he entered. Hello, darling, she said. Hello, he answered. She took his coat and hung it up. Then she made the drinks, a strong one for him and a weak one for herself and soon she was back again in her chair with the sewing, and he was in the other chair, holding the tall glass, rolling it gently so that the ice knocked musically against the side of the glass.For her, this was always a wonderful time of day. She knew he didnt want to speak much until the first drink was finished, and she was satisfied to sit quietly, enjoying his company after the long hours alone in the house. She loved the warmth that came out of him when they were alone together. She loved the shape of his mouth, and she especially liked the way he didnt complain about being tired. Tired, darling? Yes, he sighed. Im thoroughly exhausted. And as he spoke, he did an unusual thing. He lifted his glass and drank it down in one swallow although there was still half of it left.He got up and went slowly to get himself another drink. Ill get it she cried, jumping up. Sit down, he said. When he came back, she noticed that the new drink was a very strong one. She watched him as he began to drink. I think its a shame, she said, that when someones been a policeman as long as you have, he still has to walk around all day long. He didnt answer. Darling, she sai d, If youre too tired to eat out tonight, as we had planned, I can fix you something. Theres plenty of meat and stuff in the freezer. Her eyes waited to an answer, a smile, a nod, but he made no sign. Anyway, she went on. Ill get you some bread and cheese. I dont want it, he said. She moved uneasily in her chair. But you have to have supper. I can easily fix you something. Id like to do it. We can have lamb. Anything you want. Everythings in the freezer. Forget it, he said. But, darling, you have to eat Ill do it anyway, and then you can have it or not, as you like. She stood up and put placed her sewing on the table by the lamp. Sit down, he said. Just for a minute, sit down. It wasnt until then that she began to get frightened. Go on, he said. Sit down. She lowered herself into the chair, watching him all the time with large, puzzled eyes. He had finished his second drink and was staring into the glass. Listen, he said. Ive got something to tell you. What is it, darling? Wha ts the matter? He became absolutely motionless, and he kept his head down. This is going to be a big shock to you, Im afraid, he said. But Ive thought about it a good deal and Ive decided that the only thing to do is to tell you immediately. And he told her. It didnt take long, four or five minutes at most, and she sat still through it all, watching him with puzzled horror. So there it is, he added. And I know its a tough time to be telling you this, but there simply wasnt any other way. Of course, Ill give you money and see that youre taken care of. But there really shouldnt be any problem. I hope not, in any case. It wouldnt be very good for my job. Her first instinct was not to believe any of it. She thought that perhaps shed imagined the whole thing. Perhaps, if she acted as though she had not heard him, she would find out that none of it had ever happened. Ill fix some supper, she whispered.When she walked across the room, she couldnt feel her feet touching the floor. She co uldnt feel anything except a slight sickness. She did everything without thinking. She went downstairs to the freezer and took hold of the first object she found. She lifted it out, and looked at it. It was wrapped in paper, so she took off the paper and looked at again a leg of lamb. All right, then, they would have lamb for supper. She carried it upstairs, held the thin end with both her hands. She went into the living room, saw him standing by the window with his back to her, and stopped. Ive already told you, he said. Dont make supper for me. Im going out. At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause, she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head. She might as well have hit him with a steel bar. She stepped back, waiting, and the strange thing was that he remained standing there for at least four or five seconds. Then he crashed onto the carpet. The violence of the crash, t he noise, the small table overturning, helped to bring her out of the shock.She came out slowly, feeling cold and surprised, and she stood for a few minutes, looking at the body, still holding the piece of meat tightly with both hands. All right, she told herself. So Ive killed him. It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began thinking very fast. As the wife of a detective, she knew what the punishment would be. It made no difference to her. In fact, it would be a relief. On the other hand, what about the baby? What were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill them both mother and child? Did they wait until the baby was born?What did they do? Mary Maloney didnt know and she wasnt prepared to take a chance. She carried the meat into the kitchen, put it into a pan, turned on the oven, and put the pan inside. Then she washed her hands, ran upstairs, sat down in front of the mirror, fixed her makeup, and tried to smile. The smile was rather peculiar. She tried again. Hello, Sam she said brightly, aloud. The voice sounded peculiar, too. I want some potatoes, Sam. Yes, and perhaps a can of bean. s. That was better. Both the smile and the voice sounded better now. She practiced them several times more.Then she ran downstairs, took her coat, and went out the back door, through the garden into the street. It wasnt six oclock yet and the lights were still on in the neighborhood grocery. Hello, Sam, she said brightly, smiling at the man in the shop. Good evening, Mrs. Maloney. How are you? I want some potatoes, please, Sam. Yes, and perhaps a can of beans, too. Patricks decided hes tired and he doesnt want to eat out tonight, she told him. We usually go out on Thursdays, you know, and now I dont have any vegetables in the house. Then how about some meat, Mrs. Maloney? asked the grocer. No, Ive got meat, thanks, Ive got a nice leg of lamb, from the freezer. Do you want these potatoes, Mrs. Maloney? Oh, yes, the yll be fine. Two pounds, please. Anything else? The grocer turned his head to one side, looking at her. How about dessert? What are you going to give him for dessert? How about a nice piece of cake? I know he likes cake. Perfect, she said. He loves it. And when she had bought and paid for everything, she gave her brightest smile and said, Thank you, Sam. Good night. And now, she told herself as she hurried back home, she was returning to her husband and he was waiting for his supper.She had to cook it well and make it taste as good as possible, because the poor man was tired and if she found anything unusual or terrible when she got home, then it would be a shock and she would have to react with grief and horror. Of course, she was not expecting to find anything unusual at home. She was just going home with the vegetables on Thursday evening to cook dinner for husband. Thats the way, she told herself. Do everything normally. Keep things absolutely natural and therell be no need for acting at all. As she entered the kitchen by the back door, she was quietly singing to herself. Patrick she called. How are you, darling? She put the package on the table and went into the living room and when she saw him lying there on the floor, it really was a shock. All the old love for him came back to her, and she ran over to him, knelt down beside him, and began to cry hard. It was easy. No acting was necessary. A few minutes later, she got up and went to the phone. She knew the number of the police station, and when the man at the other end answered, she cried to him. Quick Come quickly Patricks dead. Whos speaking? Mrs. Maloney. Mrs. Patrick Maloney. Do you mean that Patricks dead? I think so, she cried. Hes lying on the floor and I think hes dead. Well be there immediately, the man said. The car came very quickly, and when she opened the front door, two policemen walked in. She knew them both. She knew nearly all the men at the police station. She fell into Jac k Noonans arms, crying uncontrollably. He put her gently into a chair. Is he dead? she cried. Im afraid he is. What happened? In a few words she told her story about going to the grocer and coming back, when she found him on the floor.While she was crying and talking, Noonan found some dried blood on the dead mans head. He hurried to the phone. Some other men began to arrive a doctor, two detectives, a police photographer, and a man who knew about fingerprints. The detectives kept asking her a lot of questions. They always treated her kindly. She told them how shed put the meat into the overn its there nowand how she had gone to the grocers for vegetables and how she came back to find him lying on the floor. The two detectives were exceptionally nice to her. They searched the house.Sometimes Jack Noonan spoke to her gently. He told her that her husband had been killed by a blow to the back of the head. They were looking for the weapon. The murderer might have taken it with him, but he might have thrown it away or hidden it. Its the old story, he said. Get the weapon, and youve got the murderer. Later, one of the detectives sat down beside her. Did she know, he asked, of anything in the house that could have been used as a weapon? Would she look around to see if anything was missing. The search went on. It began to get late it was nearly nine oclock.The men searching the rooms were getting tired. Jack, she said, Would you like a drink? You must be extremely tired. Well, he answered. Its not allowed by police rules, but since youre a friend. They stood around with drinks in their hands. The detectives were uncomfortable with her and they tried to say cheering things to her. Jack Noonan walked into the kitchen, came out quickly, and said, Look, Mrs. Maloney. Did you know that your oven is still on, and the meat is still inside? Oh, she said. So it is Id better turn it off. She returned with tearful eyes. Would you do me a favor?Here you all are, all go od friends of Patricks, and youre helping to catch the man who killed him. You must be very hungry by now because its long past your supper time, and I know that Patrick would never forgive me if I let you stay in the house without offering you anything to eat. Why dont you eat up the lamb in the oven? I wouldnt dream of it, Noonan said. Please, she begged. Personally, I couldnt eat a thing, but itd be a favor to me if you ate it up. Then you can go on with your work. The detectives hesitated, but they were hungry, and in the end, they went into the kitchen and helped themselves to supper.The woman stayed where she was and listened to them through the open door. She could hear them speaking among themselves, and their voices were thick because their mouths were full of meat. Have some more, Charlie. No, wed better not finish it. She wants us to finish it. She said we ought to eat it up. Thats a big bar the murderer must have used to hit poor Patrick. The doctor says the back of his head was broken to pieces. Thats why the weapon should be easy to find. Exactly what I say. Whoever did it, he cant carry a weapon that big around with him.

Probation: Crime and P.o Officer Essay

Probation is the most common form of criminal displaceencing in the unite States. Probation is define as a court ordered- deposition alternative in which an wrongdoer is placed to a lower place the control, supervision and c ar By a P.O officer. Do I think its fair for a defendant to plead illegal and take probation to avoid imprison housement? I think it depends on the sincerity of the crime and what the charges are. A soul dismisst plead guilty of a crime unless it is offered by a prosecutor, and there is usually a reason why it is offered. If one is really innocent of a crime I dont see the reason why they would agree to plead guilty and take probation. Pleading guilty and taking probation is a good and bad idea at the similar time because what if a person who is being convicted of a crime is really innocent, but yet has no choice but to plead guilty just so they can skip the incarceration and diminish their sentence.I think its unfair only when coming to someone who i n fact did do the crime but yet was given the chance of pleading guilty and taking probation to avoid prison sentence. I think it is unfair to the victims family because for example a man kills a set about and child but yet he was given the chance to plead guilty just so he can have a lesser time, it is unfair to the victims family because sweet justness did not prevail. I think that probation is a win or lose situation because when a person violate their probation they can be sent to jail to serve the rest of their time. When one is granted probation there are many an(prenominal) rules that they have to follow one of these rules is to not commit any crime patch they are on probation, if this rule is not satisfied by the offender they will be sent to jail and also be charge for the newer offense which they will get additional years.The various factors that should be consider when granting probation is the offender criminal history. A person with no criminal history has a agency better chance of been given the chance to plead guilty and take probation than someone who has a out-of-the-way(prenominal) worst criminal history. The judge also considers the nature of the current offense. For example a person convicted of chopping a person feet off is less likely to obtain probation than a person who was driving while shake up and no accident was caused. Another thing to be considered is whether probation is particular in that particular case, and whether the service that the offender requires will be acquired while incarcerated or under probation and will they be harm to the community.There are many crimes in New York City where probation is given like substance abuse Arson, robbery, harassment, criminal mischief, and many more crimes which are considered misdemeanor. I think that imprisonment should be considered for all of these except substance mistreat only when it is being abused by the offender instead of selling the dose itself. If the offender sells the drug I think he falls under the category of imprisonment. All these offenses can lead to a more serious crime. People who commit these crimes should spend some months behind bars so they can learn a valued lesson instead of getting a slap on the risk by being able to plead guilty and be given probation. Everyone deserve a chance to sort but only if they are innocent or a juvenile, for adults I think they should not be given probation or to plead guilty to crimes that they did actually commit.

Lessons from Enron: Bad Management, Negative Consequences

One of the classic examples of bad management, Enrons collapse according to the economist (2002) was a result of bad management and poor finis-making of the scrutinizeing firm Andersen in handling the account of the participation. The essential root of Enrons collapse was bad management and the power of the management to delegate take stocking and be responsibilities to a firm that they have chosen. The dependence of the auditing firm on the management in essence creates the break in the accounting and auditing ethics in order not to lose an alone- in like manner important account much(prenominal) as Enron, they would need to abide by the decisions of the management.The lack of willpower of Andersen to question the unethical practices of Enron made it culpable in the same way as Enrons managers. This led a domino and cascading effect in the bodily world of the States the government scrambling to belief for other companies who atomic number 18 also hiding in their attende es books, the deterioration of the auditing and accounting profession, lack of trust in companies, and investor apprehension. The collapse of Enron was largely a decision by the hap management which also involves its accountants to provide a bogus statement of finances to befuddle Enron look like a profitable troupe.Auditors of Enron on the other hand, have sought to protect the comp each by shredding incriminating documents. From an agency theory perspective, the role of the Enrons top management to that of the sh atomic number 18holders is one that is governed by the principle that managers will act in a way that will benefit the owners or shareholders of the company (Abrahamson and Park, 1994). In essence, what happened to Enron was that the managers or the agents gained in any case much power and the shareholders did not perform its function of overseeing the operations of their company.Fundamentally, what the shareholders and the managers who did not take part in the Enron s candal could have done was to have the government to appoint an auditing or accounting firm that will monitor the financial movement of the company. In this way, accountants and auditors will not be obliged to follow what the top managers would want them to do. Managers need to be wary of decisions made by the top management or their colleagues. To a significant extent, appointments should be made independent of the managers.In an era where auditing and accounting fake are prevalent, managers can protect themselves by safeguarding their companies among their peers. References Abrahamson, E. and Park, C. (1994) Concealment of negative organizational outcomes An agency theory perspective. honorary society of Management Journal, 37 1302-1334. Barefoot, JA. (2002). What can you learn from Enron? How to know if you are creating a climate of rule-breaking. ABA Banking Journal, 94. The Economist. (2002) The Lessons from Enron. 362, 8259 9-10. Retrieved 1 July at http//www.csupomona. edu/s memerson/PLS499%20Greed_Need/Enron. doc. Appendix 1. Enron Article Title THE LESSONS FROM ENRON , Economist, 0013-0613, February 9, 2002, Vol. 362, Issue 8259 Database Academic Search Elite Section Leaders THE LESSONS FROM ENRON after(prenominal)(prenominal) the energy firms collapse, the entire auditing regime needs radical alternate THE mess just keeps spreading. Two months after Enron filed for Chapter 11, the reverberations from the Texas-based energy-trading firms bankruptcy readiness have been expected to fade instead, they are growing.On Capitol Hill, politicians are engaged in an inquiring orgy not seen since Whitewater, with the rouse pinned variously on the companys managers, its directors, its auditors and its bankers, as well as on the pubic hair administration indeed on anybody except the hundreds of congressmen who queued up to take campaign cash from Enron. The only lose ingredient in the scandalso faris sex. The effects are also touching ring Street. In the past few weeks, investors have shifted their attention to other companies, making a frenzied reckon for any dodgy accounting that might reveal the next Enron.Canny traders have found a moneymaking(a) new strategy sell a firms stock short and then spread rumours about its accounts. much(prenominal) companies as Tyco, PNC Financial Services, Invensys and notwithstanding the biggest of the lot, General Electric, have all suffered. Last week Global Crossing, a telecoms firm, went bust amid claims of dubious accounts. This week shares in Elan, an Irish-based drug maker, were pummelled by worries over its accounting policies. All this might create the impression that corporate financial reports, the prime(prenominal) of company profits and the standard of auditing in the States have suddenly and simultaneously deteriorated.Yet that would be wide of the mark the deterioration has actually been apparent for many a(prenominal) years. A growing body of evidence does indeed suggest that Enron was a peculiarly egregious exercise of bad management, misleading accounts, shoddy auditing and, quite probably, outright fraud. But the bigger lessons that Enron offers for accounting and corporate ecesis have long been familiar from previous scandals, in America and elsewhere. That makes it all the more urgent to move now with the right reforms.Uncooking the books The place to start is auditing. Accurate company accounts are a keystone for any proper capital market, not least Americas. Andersen, the firm that audited Enrons books from its inception in 1985 (it was also Global Crossings auditor), has been suggesting that its failings are representative of the whole professions. In fact, Andersen seems to have been unusually culpable over Enron shredding of incriminating documents just in the lead of the investigators is not yet a widespread habit.But it is also true that this is only the latest of a fibril of corporate scandals involving appalling audit failures, from Ma xwell and Polly Peck in Britain, through Metallgesellschaft in Germany, to Cendant, Sunbeam and use up Management in America. In the past four years alone, over 700 American companies have been forced to restate their accounts. At the heart of these audit failures lies a set of business relationships that are bedevilled by obstinate incentives and conflicts of interest. In theory, a companys auditors are appointed independently by its shareholders, to whom they report.In practice, they are chosen by the companys bosses, to whom they all too often become beholden. Accounting firms frequently sell consulting services to their audit clients external auditors whitethorn be hired to senior management positions or as internal auditors it is far too elementary to play on an individual audit partners fear of losing a lucrative audit assignment. Against such a background, it is little wonder that the quality of the audit often suffers. What should be done? The most radical change would b e to take responsibility for audits away from cliquish accounting firms altogether and give it, lock, stock and barrel, to the government.Perhaps such a change may yet become necessary. But it would run risks in terms of the quality of auditors and it is not always so obvious that a government agency would manage to escape the conflicts and mistakes to which private firms have so often fallen prey. As an intermediate step, however, a simpler suggestion is to take the credit line of choosing the auditors away from a companys bosses. Instead, a government agencymeaning, in America, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)would appoint the auditors, even if on the basis of a list recommended by the company, which would continue to pay the audit fee.Harvey Pitt, the new prexy of the Securities and Exchange Commission, is not yet willing to be anything like so radical. He has been widely attacked because, when he acted in the past as a lawyer for a number of accounting firms, he h elped to support off several reforms. Yet he now seems ready to make at least nigh of the other changes that the Enron scandal has shown to be necessary (see pages 67-70. ) Among these are much fiercer statutory regulation of the auditing profession, including disciplinary powers with original bite.Hitherto, auditors have managed to get away with the fiction of self-regulation, both through peer review and by edentulous professional and oversight bodies that they themselves have dominated. There should also be a ban on accounting firms offering (often more profitable) consulting and other services to their audit clients. Another good idea is mandatory rotation, any four years or so, both of audit partnersso that individuals do not become too committed to their clientsand of audit firms. The most effective peer review happens when one firm comes in to look at a predecessors books.The SEC should also ban the practice of companies hiring managers and internal auditors from their e xternal audit firms. In search of better standards Then there is the issue of accounting standards themselves. Enrons behaviour has confirmed that in close to areas, notably the treatment of off-balance-sheet dodges, American accounting standards are too lax while in others they are so prescriptive that they have lost sight of broader principles. Past attempts by the Financial Accounting Standards get along to improve standards have often been stymied by vociferous lobbying.It is time for the SEC itself to impose more unyielding standards, although that should often be through sound principles (including paying less attention to single numbers for earnings) kinda than overly detailed rules. It would also be good to come up with internationally agreed standards. Although audit is the most pressing area for change, it is not the only one. The Enron fiasco has shown that all is not well with the boldness of many big American companies. Over the years all sorts of checks and balanc es have been created to ensure that company bosses, who supposedly act as agents for shareholders, their principals, actually do so.Yet the cult of the all-powerful chief executive, armed with sackfuls of stock options, has too often pushed such checks aside. It is time for another effort to realign the system to function more in shareholders interests. Companies need stronger non-executive directors, paid enough to devote proper attention to the job genuinely independent audit and remuneration committees more powerful internal auditors and a separation of the jobs of chairman and chief executive.If corporate America cannot deliver better governance, as well as better audit, it will have only itself to blame when the public backlash proves both fierce and unpleasant. PHOTO (COLOR) ________________________________________ Copyright of The Economist is the property of Economist newspaper Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv wi thout the copyright holders express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. Source Economist, 2/9/2002, Vol. 362 Issue 8259, p9, 2p, 1c. Item Number 6056697

The Power of Pen and Executive Compensation

clause IN push diary of financial economics 88 ( two hundred8) 125 www. elsevier. com/locate/jfec The power of the pen and ending maker wages$ John E. warmnessa, Wayne Guaya,A, David F. Larckerb a The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, the States b Graduate School of ancestry, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA Received 28 October 2005 startd in revised form 20 March 2007 accepted 4 May 2007 Available online 5 December 2007 Abstract We disregardvass the electronic jamming role in supervise and in? uencing executive remuneration practice using more than than 11,000 tender terms close to chief executive officer salary from 1994 to 2002.Negative urge on offerage is more wellly related to to glut classly even up than to raw gradebook kick in, suggesting a sophisticated approach by the media in selecting chief executive officers to coer. However, interdict reportage is also greater for chief executive officers w ith more re bloodline exercises, suggesting the beseech engages in any(prenominal) degree of pallidness. We ? nd little turn out that ? rms react to shun press reportage by decreasing special chief operating officer fee or increasing chief operating officer turnover. r 2007 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved. JEL classi? cations G32 G34 J33 M41Keywords Press Media Executive earnings Corporate boldness 1. Introduction With the viable exclusion of major accounting frauds (e. g. , WorldCom, Enron, etc. ), thither atomic cast 18 few topics that be more pervasive and ca-ca bigger headlines in the occupation press than executive pay. The debate slightly executive salary tends to management on the overall aim of remuneration (e. g. , relative to workers in the US or to executives in former(a) countries), the rate of cast up (e. g. , relative to in? ation or armory price returns), and the form of buckle underment (e. . , contrast options). Although in that location is extensive academic enquiry on the determinants of executive payment, in that location is little empirical evidence on the role of the popular and business press as a potential monitor of executive pay (e. g. , see Zingales, 2000 Bebchuk and Fried, 2004). The accusive of our study is to provide acumen into ternion questions (1) What decision molding does the media exercising to select chief executive of? cers ( chief executive officers) for reportage nigh their pay, (2) What determines the proportion of that coverage that is blackball-t cardinald, and (3) Do ? ms and managers ? nd this tending $ We thank Greg Miller, seminar participants at Stanford University, and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments. We also thank Jihae Wee for light-sensitive re look support, and appreciate ? nancial support from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. ACor answering author. electronic mai l address emailprotected upenn. edu (W. Guay). 0304-405X/$ see front matter r 2007 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved. doi10. 1016/j. j? neco. 2007. 05. 001 ARTICLE IN recommend 2 J. E. stub et al. / ledger of financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 suf? ciently costly that they respond by making changes to their recompense or employment practices? Empirical evidence on these research questions provides insight into the role of the press in monitoring and in? uencing executive wages practice. We go out a pear-shaped exemplification of ExecuComp chief executive officers and an extensive collection of more than 11,000 press words more or less chief operating officer compensation from 1994 to 2002. Using an iterative aspect key word search procedure, we partition the press articles based on whether they have a contradict feeling.Thus, for all(prenominal) chief operating officer, in all(prenominal) stratum, we obtain a measuring of the heel of compensation articles and the ingredient of these articles with a oppose life. We implement this data to provide evidence on the press decision instance and on the effect of press coverage on ? rms actions. Not surprisingly, the press chooses to cover chief operating officers with high natural divisionbook pay. We also ? nd that in deciding which CEOs to cover, the press does non appear to discriminate between CEOs that set about high look to pay versus CEOs that ingest high excess pay, where excess pay is the residual from an expected compensation model that breaks for standard frugal determinants.Further, CEOs at self-aggrandizing ? rms and ? rms with poor operating effect atomic fig 18 also more apt(predicate) to be selected for coverage. Conditional on the press deciding to cover a CEOs compensation, we ? nd that contradict coverage is more strongly related to measurements of excess check annual pay than to raw essence annual pay. We interpret this result as evidence that the press use s a relatively sophisticated approach when writing cast out articles about CEO compensation. On the another(prenominal) hand, we also ? nd that forbid coverage is related to the CEOs issuance from option exercises. This latter ? ding is concordant with Holmstrom and Ka political platforms (2003) concern that angiotensin converting enzyme of the reasons the press portrays executive pay as a runaway conduct is that it misinterprets the payoff from exercised options as being a component of annual pay. In fact, the portion date grade of options, not the payoff at exercise, is widely considered the more appropriate measure of option pay. 1 We ? nd little support for the supposition that the press serves as a catalyst or change component for CEO compensation practices. Speci? cally, there is no concordant evidence that make sense compensation decreases after CEOs receive disconfirming press coverage, and we ? d no evidence that banish press coverage of CEO compensation is related to CEO turnover. Thus, our results do not corroborate late evidence that the media exerts an weighty in? uence on corporate brass choices (e. g. , Dyck and Zingales, 2002, 2004 Louis, Joe, and Robinson, 2004). The re chief(prenominal)der of the paper consists of four sections. Section 2 provides a literature canvas and develops our research questions. Section 3 forces the savor selection and measurement choices. The results atomic number 18 presented in Section 4, and sum-up conclusions ar provided in Section 5. 2. Background and research questions . 1. Determinants of media attention about CEO compensation Although there is considerable discussion about the role of disclosure and transparency in monitoring managerial behavior, the specific mechanisms for disclosing and disseminating schooling have authoritative throttle attention in the academic literature (Zingales, 2000). Dyck and Zingales (2002) betoken that this limited attention stems from the small rol e that the diffusion of information plays in agency models. 2 They argue that the media is one vehicle through which information is aggregated and credibly communicated to the domain (and across ? ms). Thus, the media can play a substantial role in reducing the cost of contracting parties for collecting and evaluating information, and in shaping the report card of contracting parties. In order to provide insight into these questions, it is necessary to send the objective function of the media. As suggested by Jensen (1979), the approach to modeling the media industry is similar to either industry and begins with analyzing the demand faced by unsandeds producers (e. g. , newspapers, magazines, etc. ) and the 1 It is possible that the press justi? bly writes forbid articles about CEOs with large realized option payoffs if the magnitude of option exercises re? ects a measure of cumulative excess compensation over a terminus of time. 2 In the accounting literature, diffusion of information plays a large role in research on the quality of accounting information disclosed by management to its shareholders, or in theoretical agency models incorporating channels of communication. However, there is little work on intermediaries, such as the press, that ? lter ? rm disclosures and interpenetrate information to the common entrepotholding public. ARTICLE IN PRESSJ. E. Core et al. / ledger of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 3 supply of news accepted by these producers. Dyck and Zingales (2002) and Miller (2006) argue that there is a consumer demand for the investigative reporting role of the media, and Zingales (2000) hypothesizes that readers rely on this reporting to form opinions completely when they call back the information provided to be accurate and reliable. In contrast, Jensen (1979) takes a more skeptical stack of the media and suggests that well-nigh of the demand for news services derives not from a demand for information, and from a dema nd for keep backment.Since the news medias competition under this scenario is sitcom television and tabloids, the media is expected to sensationalize news stories. Jensen further argues that the media will burn news stories to take a minus heart about individuals that are out of favor with public opinion (e. g. , CEOs who are stipendiary much more than their peers, or who have laid off large bouts of employees). Miller (2006) provides both(prenominal) initial empirical results that are broadly consistent with both of the supra sources of demand for furtherance.He examines a type of 263 cases of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases to investigate whether the press is a guard dog for accounting fraud. Consistent with information provision, Miller ? nds that the media provides the public with information about accounting fraud. However, consistent with sensationalism, he also ? nds that the media is more presumable to ? ll the watchdog role for ? rms with a larger public succeeding(a), ? rms with a richer information environment, and where the story is more likely to be sensational and interesting to the public.Miller also examines whether coverage is less disallow for ? rms that do more advertising, but his results do not support this interesting proposition. Media coverage of executive compensation potentially satis? es both of the demand functions identi? ed above. Multi-million dollar pay packets, and the potential scandals surrounding the ladened individuals who receive high pay, can be actually entertaining. For example, there were repeated references, and more detrimental references, in the press about Tyco Internationals purchase of a $6,000 shower curtain for CEO Dennis Kozlowskis corporate apartment.Similarly, there were repeated references, and more negative references, about the extensive perquisites paid to General voltaics CEO, Jack Welch, that were disclosed in divorce proceedings after his retirement. On the other hand, if readers of the press demand media coverage about executive compensation that provides reliable information about potential government problems, we expect that the media will position and cover individuals who have excessive pay. That is, under this hypothesis, the media will not strain simply on large pay.Nor will it focus on large single components of pay such as neckcloth option move overs and cash payouts from bounty plans, or on large option exercises. supererogatory pay, de? ned as observed compensation less a measure of expected compensation derived from standard economic determinants, is known to be a sign of poor governance (e. g. , Core, Holthausen, and Larcker, 1999), and poor governance is clearly an important issue for shareholders, employees, suppliers, and society at large.Under this hypothesis, the media will not focus simply on large quantity pay (or option exercises) because it recognizes that large pay packets ar e optimal in settings where they re? ect the quality, performance, or bar tallying power of the CEO. Thus, we predict that the media makes adjustments to a given CEOs pay level to control for normal or reasonable pay, and that coverage of excess pay will originally have a negative smell. We turn out this prediction with the next hypothesis H1. Negative media coverage of CEO compensation is positively related to excess pay.However, if the primary source of demand is not from consumers seeking reliable information, but quite from consumers seeking entertaining news about highly paid executives, we expect that the media will sensationalize its stories. The press whitethorn satisfy this demand by writing negative articles about executives with high pay, regardless of whether circumstances are such that the high pay is reasonable. In this case, we view the negative coverage as sensationalism, and predict that negative press coverage is positively related to full(a) pay without maki ng adjustments for an expected level of pay given the CEOs ability and performance.This sensationalism viewpoint provides a contrasting perspective to the making known the public notion underlying Hypothesis 1. Speci? cally, the press is predicted to provide negative coverage of high total pay (which is composed of expected pay given ?rm and CEO characteristics, plus excess pay). We propose the following hypothesis to test the sensationalism prediction H2. Negative media coverage of CEO compensation is positively related to total pay (i. e. , related to both expected pay and excess pay). ARTICLE IN PRESS J. E. Core et al. diary of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 4 Economists world-widely view the grant respect of threadbare options as a more appropriate measure of CEO optionbased pay than ex post realized final payment from multi- grade grants. For example, consider a CEO who is given stock options each grade for ? ve long time. If this CEO chooses to exercise all of thes e options in the ? fth year, it would be inappropriate to infer that the CEO received no option compensation in the ? rst four long time when the options were granted, and substantial option compensation unaccompanied in the ? th year when the options are exercised. However, exercise proceeds are a simple-to-understand, and easy-to-compute measure of the harbor realized by executives from options. And, in fact, a measure of total payout that complicates option exercises rather than option grants is oft generation cited in pay surveys in the ? nancial press (e. g. , see Forbes annual ? rankings of highest paid CEOs). 3 A sensationalism perspective (or possibly just na vete) suggests that the press whitethorn not discriminate between the CEOs annual pay and large dollar proceeds realized by CEOs from options.To examine this hypothesis, we test the following H3. Negative media coverage of CEO compensation is positively related to large dollar sums realized from stock option exercis es. In addition to our abstract of negative coverage of CEO compensation, we also examine general press coverage of compensation in order to distinguish the decision of the press to cover a story from the choice to produce a story with a negative tone. We do not formulate speci? c hypotheses about general coverage of pay, but rather include these results to provide descriptive vidence on how the press chooses which CEOs to cover. We view the role of non-negative coverage of compensation as being somewhat unclear. For example, general coverage of total pay (both expected and excess compensation) mogul be informative for corporate governance purposes by providing benchmarks against which to compare CEO pay across ? rms. However, general coverage of total pay might be consistent with sensationalism, where readers ? nd articles about wealthy CEOs to be entertaining, and are not particularly have-to doe with about whether their pay level is expected or excessive. . 2. In? uence of th e media on CEO compensation Dyck and Zingales (2002) argue that there are at least three ways in which media attention can make a motion the tempers of ? rms and their of? cers and sendors, and play a role in corporate governance. First, media attention on ? rms with weak corporate governance can drive politicians and regulators to enact legislation to reform or enforce corporate law, especially if they believe that failure to do so would hurt their political careers or cause public outcry.The recent media attention given to stock option backdating, and the consequent regulatory interest, could be thought of as an example of this typesetters case of activity. 4 Second, negative media attention on managers and directors can call into question whether these individuals are good decision makers who attend to the interests of their shareholders and employers. Fama and Jensen (1983) make a similar argument that the value of managers and directors human capital depends primarily on si gnals about their performance as decision makers within corporations.Thus, if negative media attention damages managers and directors reputations, it can issue the value of these individuals in the labor grocery. Finally, Dyck and Zingales (2002) argue that negative media attention can hurt the reputations of managers and directors within their communities and bring down social costs on both them and their families. 5 Dyck and Zingales (2002, 2004) also provide evidence in an world-wide setting that the media plays a role in corporate governance and in? uences ? rms behavior. Their primary ? ndings are that the insular bene? s of control are smaller and the responsiveness of the private sector to environmental issues is greater in countries with larger newspaper circulation. 3 Executive subsidyes are generally heedful in compensation studies at payout values rather than ex ante values. Ideally, one would measure both option pay and bonus pay at the grant date expected value o f the pay. However, although data are readily uncommitted to deem grant date option values, it is dif? cult to figure the expected value to the executive from a given bonus plan. 4 For example, see Heron and Lie (2007).Also see The Wall Street Journal online at http//online. wsj. com/public/resources/documents/ info-optionsscore06-full. html, which lists corporations that have come under SEC and Justice Department scrutiny for possible option backdating. We last accessed this website on February 23, 2007. 5 In our study, we do not distinguish between these three channels of media in? uence. For our purposes, it is except important that negative media attention about CEO compensation can impose costs on ? rms and their CEOs. ARTICLE IN PRESS J. E. Core et al. Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 5 Two additional papers are related to our research question. Johnson, Porter and Shackell (1997) examine changes in compensation from 1993 to 1994 for a consume distribution of 186 CEOs to investigate whether CEO compensation is sensitive to stakeholder pressure. They ? nd that the existence of a negative tone article in any one of ? ve track periodicals is associated with a smaller increase in total CEO pay from 1993 to 1994 and an increase in the sensitivity of cash pay to ? rm performance. However, as we demonstrate in Section 4. 2, this ? ding is confounded by strong mean reversion in pay among the general population of highly paid CEOs (i. e. , when a CEO has high pay in year t, there is a natural tendency for pay to be lower in year t+1). Moreover, highly paid CEOs are also more likely to receive media attention. Therefore, CEOs that draw media attention are more likely to experience mean reversion in pay, but this relation may not be causal. Finally, Louis, Joe, and Robinson (2004) provide some evidence that negative Business Week coverage regarding institutional investors assessment of board effectiveness in? ences boards actions. In particular, the boards identi? ed as worst are more likely to replace CEOs and board chairs, to separate the CEO and chair functions, and to increase the number of outside board members. However, it is not clear from these ? ndings whether the boards actions are collect to media coverage or due to pressure from unsatis? ed institutional investors. If negative media coverage damages the reputations and human capital of managers and directors, ? rms will respond to this negative coverage by taking steps to avoid further coverage in the future.However, the genius of the responses that the ? rms might take is not clear. If the media acts as a good watchdog over executive pay, and if its negative coverage primarily serves to provide investors and the public at large with reliable information about excess pay, we expect ? rms to respond by reducing excess CEO pay. 6 An even more austere response would be to terminate the CEO to avoid future negative media coverage of that CEO and his compensation. To gain insight into the outcomes of negative media coverage, we test the following hypotheses H4.CEO compensation declines following negative media coverage. H5. CEO turnover increases following negative media attention. As noted above, it is also possible that the medias coverage of CEO pay serves to entertain readers with sensational stories. In this case, we expect that ? rms either take no action (and bear the brunt of any reputation damage) or make enhancive adjustments to avoid negative media attention in the future. An example of a cosmetic change would be for the CEO to alter the pattern of his stock option exercises.If the media sensationalizes compensation stories by including the proceeds from option exercises in the computation of executive pay, CEOs may avoid exercising options for a few years or smooth out option exercises after the negative packaging. We test the following research hypothesis H6. Option exercises decline following negative media attention. 3. Samp le selection and variable measurement Our initial sample consists of all ExecuComp CEOs from ? scal years 1993 to 2001. For a CEO to be include in the ? nal sample, we require that we can change course the ? m to the Center for Research in Securities Prices (CRSP) database, that CEO tenure is available in ExecuComp, and that the CEO is in of? ce at the end of the ? scal year. Second, we require non-missing data on CEO compensation and on the variables that we use to estimate our model for excess compensation and press coverage ( expound below). Finally, we require that the ? rm learn and CEO do can be matched to the Factiva news source database. 7 These data requirements yield a sample of 12,090 CEO-year observations from 1993 to 2001.The sample contains 3,126 different CEOs at 2,052 different companies. The summary results in postpone 1 show that the number of CEOs in the sample grows slightly over time (as ExecuComp coverage increases). Consistent with other ? ndings using Exe cuComp data (e. g. , abode and Murphy, 2002), we ? nd that CEO total compensation increases substantially over the period, and at a greater contribution harvest-feast rate than ? rm sales. In addition, there is a monotonic increase in the comely level of total 6 As we discuss below, ? rms will respond to unanticipated negative coverage by reducing future pay.To the extent that ? rms anticipate the costs of negative media coverage, they will reduce current pay to avoid these costs. 7 Factiva is a joint venture between Dow Jones and Reuters. ARTICLE IN PRESS J. E. Core et al. / Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 6 Table 1 Trends in CEO compensation and compensation-related press coverage Year N 1993 1,203 1994 1,250 1995 1,305 1996 1,316 1997 1,327 1998 1,392 1999 1,389 2000 1,443 2001 1,465 Percentage change from 1993 to 2001 amount of money compt (thousands) SalestA1 (millions) tot up of articles per CEOt+1 Percentage ofCEOs with coveraget+1 Fraction of CEO compensat ion articles with negative tonet+1 (%) 1,176 1,345 1,378 1,605 1,859 1,972 2,248 2,578 2,632 124% 883 859 872 950 959 936 1,058 1,061 1,162 32% 0. 27 0. 35 0. 47 0. 85 1. 01 1. 05 0. 98 1. 12 2. 23 724% 0. 09 0. 12 0. 13 0. 21 0. 22 0. 24 0. 23 0. 26 0. 38 302% 43 32 37 31 34 32 30 28 31 A28% The data consist of ExecuComp CEOs from ? scal years 1993 to 2001. The articles on CEO compensation are obtained from the Factiva database for the year after pay was earned, that is years 1994 to 2002. N is the sample size for that year.Total Compt is the sample median salary, bonus, long-run inducement plan payouts, the value of engageed stock grants, the value of options granted during the year, and any other annual pay (in $000s) in the ? scal year shown. SalestA1 is the sample median ? rm sales for year tA1. result of Articles per CEO is the sample average total number of articles written about the CEOs compensation in the Factiva database in the ? scal year t+1 after pay was earned. Pe rcentage of CEOs with Coveraget+1 is the theatrical role of CEOs for whom the press covers CEO compensation.Fraction of CEO compensation articles with negative tonet+1 is the total number of negative articles written about the CEOs compensation (using the algorithmic rule described in the text to measure negative tone) as a percentage of the total number of articles written about the CEOs compensation. press coverage of CEO pay and in the proportion of CEOs who receive coverage. However, conditional on receiving coverage, the proportion of coverage that is negative is relatively constant over time (we describe the measurement of these publicity variables below). . 1. Measurement of press coverage and negative press coverage We measure publicity about CEO compensation by gathering all articles related to the CEOs compensation from the Factiva database in the ? scal year after the compensation was earned (for example, for a ? rm with a ? scal year ending June 30, 2001, where CEO com pensation is typically disclosed in the proxy statement in August or folk of 2001, we would match articles published during the next ? cal year ended June 30, 2002). We include all major news and business publication sources on Factiva with the exception of the press release wires through which ? rms initiate the release of information, such as PR Newswire, FD Newswire, and Business Wire. Similar to Francis, Huang, Rajgopal, and Zang (2004), we use the company identi? er in Factiva to locate articles covering a speci? c ? rm. We then locate articles written about the CEOs compensation through the following search CEO NAME or CEO NAMES) near20 (compensation or salary or bonus or option* near10 grant or option* near10 receiv* or option* near10 exercis* or restricted stock or (pay near5 00) or (was paid near5 00) or (pay near5 million*) or (was paid near5 million*)) and (CEO NAME or CEO NAMES) same (compensation or salary or bonus or option* near10 grant or option* near10 receiv* or o ption* near10 exercis* or restricted stock or (pay near5 00) or (was paid near5 00) or (pay near5 million*) or (was paid near5 million*)) The objective of this free text search is to identify all articles in which the CEOs compensation is described in either a positive, negative, or neutral fashion. We count each article as a single observation, regardless of the number of times a CEOs clear or compensation is mentioned in the article. 8 As described in the Factiva Inside-Out Reference Guide, near20 locates words within 20 words of the CEOs give and same locates words in the same paragraph as the CEOs name. ARTICLE IN PRESS J. E. Core et al. / Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 7 To measure negative publicity about CEO compensation, we iteratively develop a Perl political platform to process the text of each article about CEO compensation to assess whether the article has a negative tone. The input into the Perl program consists of a set of negative tone keywords and ph rases.This set of keywords and phrases was developed from manually reading approximately 200 articles about CEO compensation, where the articles included both hit-or-missly selected ? rms and ? rms widely known to have received negative publicity (e. g. Tyco international and Citigroup). 9 In order to validate and improve the Perl algorithm, we applied the search puff to articles for a random sample of 50 CEOs, and we allowed the algorithm to classify the articles as having either a negative or non-negative tone. We then read these same articles and manually assigned each as having either a negative or non-negative tone. To identify errors in the Perl algorithm, we compared the two sets of coded negative tones using a contingency evade of manual partitioning versus computer partitioning. Based on the classi? ation errors, we adjusted the keyword search to improve the ? t of the search string within this 50 CEO sample. To check the validity of these adjustments, we applied the im proved negative tone Perl algorithm string to articles for an independent random sample of 50 CEOs. We again read and partitioned the articles for this molybdenum random sample and constructed another contingency table to assess accuracy. This manual partitioning identi? ed 18% (82%) of the articles as negative tone (non-negative tone). The automated Perl keyword search correctly identi? ed 75% of the non-negative tone articles and 54% of the negative tone articles. Further, the manual partitioning identi? ed 25% (75%) of the ? m-years as having at least one negative tone article (no negative tone article). The Perl algorithm correctly identi? ed 63% of the ? rm-years without negative tone articles and 77% of the ? rm-years with negative tone articles. The fact that the classi? cation rates are less than atomic number 6% con? rms that there is measurement error in our search string (in Section 4. 1, we show in sensitivity analysis that this measurement error does not appear to aff ect our inference). We use the revised search string to identify negative tone articles for the full sample of CEO compensation articles (NEGATIVE). accessory A shows our ? nal negative tone search string.In order to provide some descriptive information about our search string, Appendix B contains excerpts from two articles about the 2001 compensation package for E* avocation Financial Corporations CEO, Christos Cotsakos. Both articles were published on May 1, 2002. The ? rst article from The New York Times reports the salary, bonus, equity, and other components of Cotsakos pay package without taking a view as to whether the pay package is excessive or unreasonable. We classify this article as having a non-negative tone. The second article from The Wall Street Journal also reports the components of Cotsakos pay package but takes a negative tone by calling the compensation an outsize package and referring to Cotsakos as the highestpaid CEO on Wall Street. The keyword outsize within a few words of salary and/or bonus, and the keyword highest within a few words of pay are both triggers for our keyword search that classify this article as having a negative tone. However, note the title of the second article, No Discount E*Trade CEO Gets Pay Deal of $80 Million. Although this title clearly has a negative tone, the play on words nature of the text prevents us from ? agging this title as negative tone with our Perl search string. In this case, the body of the article is suf? cient to categorize the article as negative tone. We acknowledge that it is dif? cult to construct a completely accurate search string and that our negative tone classi? cation inevitably measures true negative tone with error. However, a sensitivity analysis summarized below in Section 4. suggests that our inference using the negative publicity measure in the full sample is not induced by measurement error. The time-series statistics on the number of compensation-related articles for our samp le CEOs over the period 1994 to 2002 is reported in Table 2 ( gore A). 10 The number of compensation-related articles grew quick from 325 to 3,263 (Column 3), an increase of about 900%. However, at the same time, the total number of articles across all topics grew from 216,677 to 825,887 (Column 1), an increase of about 280%. Similarly, the number of news sources covering CEO compensation grew from 62 to 470 (Column 2), a rise of 9 As illustrated in Appendix A, the ? al negative tone search string consists of approximately 150 keywords and phrases, such as high pay, excess pay, and generous options. For well-nigh of the phrases, we allow for the conjecture that the keywords do not promptly precede or follow each other, and may be several words apart in the text. We also allow for different characterizations of the same word (e. g. , large bonus, larger bonus, and largest bonus). 10 Since our sample data on CEO compensation covers the time period from 1993 to 2001, the articles for the year following the compensation are collected from 1994 to 2002. ARTICLE IN PRESS J. E. Core et al. / Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 8 Table 2Annual data on the source of articles on CEO compensation Panel A. Trends in Articles about CEO Compensation Year tour of snatch of articlesall sourcesCEO topics compensation articles (1) (2) 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Percentage change from 19942002 216,677 196,032 178,378 233,665 303,850 543,058 514,747 542,096 825,887 281% 62 97 131 234 244 279 308 323 470 658% Panel B. Major sources and tone of coverage Type of source Source and Their Sources Number of CEO compensation articles (3) 325 439 609 1,117 1,346 1,465 1,362 1,616 3,263 904% Fraction of CEO compensation articles with negative tone (4) Number of WSJ articlesFraction of WSJ articles with negative tone (5) (6) 43% 32% 37% 31% 34% 32% 30% 28% 31% A28% 58 74 112 104 122 149 44 81 210 262% 48% 45% 43% 38% 39% 38% 25% 25% 40% A17% Number of CEO c ompensation articles Number of negative tone CEO compensation articles Fraction of CEO compensation articles with negative tone Newswire AP Dow Jones Reuters Sub-total 235 717 1,271 2,223 75 137 279 491 32% 19% 22% 22% Newspaper Chicago Sun-Times Financial Times New York Times The Globe And stake The Washington Post USA Today Wall Street Journal Sub-total 110 252 260 190 123 49 954 1,938 29 99 88 49 49 22 367 703 26% 39% 34% 26% 40% 45% 38% 36% Magazine Barrons Business WeekForbes Fortune Sub-total 44 43 43 40 170 27 21 15 17 80 61% 49% 35% 43% 47% The sample consists of ExecuComp CEOs from ? scal years 1993 to 2001. The articles on CEO compensation are obtained from the Factiva database for years 1994 to 2002, including the source of each article. Number of articlesall topics is the total number of articles for all sample ? rms for each year. Number of sourcesCEO compensation articles is the total number of different publications that printed an article about CEO compensation for each year. Number of CEO compensation articles is the total number of articles about CEO compensation for all sample ? rms for each year.Fraction of CEO compensation articles with negative tonet+1 is the total number of negative articles written about the CEOs compensation (using the algorithm described in the text to measure negative tone) as a percentage of the total number of articles written about the CEOs compensation. Number of WSJ articles is the total number of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) articles on CEO compensation for our sample, and fraction of compensation articles with negative tonet+1 is the percentage of WSJ articles with negative tone (using the algorithm described in the text to measure negative tone). Number of negative tone WSJ articles is the number of articles where negative tone is assessed using the algorithm described in the text. ARTICLE IN PRESS J. E.Core et al. / Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 9 about 660%. To explore whether the growing n umber of compensation-related articles is primarily due to the growth in the number of articles and sources, we present time-series data for The Wall Street Journal, one of the largest sources. As might be expected, The Wall Street Journal released a growing number of compensation-related articles over this period. The total number of articles for this source was 210 in 2002 compared to 58 in 1994 (Column 5), an increase of about 260%. Thus, the increase in articles does not appear to be simply caused by the increase in sources covered by Factiva.The fraction of negative tone compensation articles across all sources has remained a fairly constant fraction of total articles, with a yearly average of about 33% (Column 4). The last column in Table 2 (Panel A) shows that a somewhat larger fraction of the compensation articles written by The Wall Street Journal are negative, with a yearly average of about 38%. This suggests that some news agencies, as a matter of strategy or reporting or ientation, are more likely than others to publish compensation articles with a negative tone. To explore compensation coverage across news sources, we tabulate article counts separately for many of the major sources in Table 2 (Panel B). We classify major news sources as newswires, newspapers, or magazines.The main newswires, Associated Press, Dow Jones and Reuters, provide the superior number of compensation-related articles, but have the lowest fraction of negative tone compensation articles, at about 22%. This latter ? nding is perhaps not surprising given that newswires tend to raptus company press releases. The major newspapers (The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, etc. ) supply the second highest fraction of negative tone articles, at 36%. The largest fraction of articles with a negative tone, at about 47%, is written by magazines (Fortune, Business Week, etc. ). This ranking of negative tone coverage potentially re? cts a greater tendency by the pap ers and magazines to sensationalize stories in order to sell copies, presumptively due to differences in their subscriber base and market placeing techniques. In the ? rst two rows of Table 3, we provide descriptive data on compensation-related articles by CEO-year. In this table, and in our data analysis in Tables 69, we assuage the in? uence of outliers by setting the upperand lower-most percentiles for our variables equal to the values at the 1st and 99th percentiles in each year, respectively. Media coverage is skewed, with the median CEO receiving no articles about his compensation in a given year. In 21. 6% of the CEO-years, at least one article was published about the CEOs compensation, and the 10% of the CEO-years with the greatest media coverage received at least two articles.Negative media coverage is skewed to an even greater extent, with only 10. 0% of the CEO-years receiving at least one compensation article with a negative tone. In 1% of the CEO-years, at least four negative tone articles were written about the CEOs compensation. For the 2,607 observations in which the CEO has some coverage of his compensation, 47% of the CEOs have at least some negative-toned coverage, and 28% of the compensation articles have a negative tone. 3. 2. Control variables and model of expected press coverage Our main objective is to better understand the determinants of press coverage about executive compensation, and in particular, negative coverage about executive compensation.The results in Tables 1 and 3 reveal that only a subset of CEOs attracts press coverage on their reported compensation. Among the CEOs that attract coverage, there is substantial variation in the degree of negative comments about their pay, as proxied by the proportion of the coverage that is negative. To address this empirically, we ? rst model the medias choice of whether to cover a CEO with the following probit model E? Prob? Coverageit? 1 ? F? go ? g1 Compensationit ? g2 Controls?. (1 ) For those CEOs who receive coverage, we model the proportion of the coverage that is negative with the following general linear model E ? % of Negative Articlesit? 1 jCoveraget? 1 ? ? G? bo ? b1 Compensationit ? b2 Controls?. (2) The dependent variable in Eq. 2) is a fraction bounded between 0 and 1. We follow Papke and Wooldridge (1996) and estimate Eq. (2) using a general linear model (GLM) in which the link function is logistic. Papke ARTICLE IN PRESS 10 J. E. Core et al. / Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 Table 3 Descriptive statistics Variable Mean Std Dev P1 Q1 Median Q3 P90 P99 Number of articlest+1 Coveraget+1 Number of negative articlest+1 % of negative articlest+1 Number of ? rm articlest+1 Total compt Total payoutt Tenuret S&P500t SalestA1 Bk/MkttA1 RETt ROAt 0. 81 0. 22 0. 23 0. 28 293. 85 3,746 3,122 7. 60 0. 33 3,280 0. 65 0. 20 0. 04 2. 79 0. 41 0. 92 0. 37 669. 29 6,237 6,587 7. 45 0. 47 6,296 0. 7 0. 61 0. 10 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 1. 00 189 117 0. 08 0. 00 17 0. 11 A0. 75 A0. 37 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 52. 00 904 659 2. 17 0. 00 353 0. 44 A0. 13 0. 01 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 116. 00 1,758 1,246 5. 33 0. 00 980 0. 66 0. 11 0. 05 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 50 244. 00 3,822 2,736 10. 58 1. 00 2,989 0. 86 0. 38 0. 09 2. 00 1. 00 1. 00 1. 00 599. 00 8,334 6,675 16. 92 1. 00 8,775 0. 98 0. 76 0. 14 16. 00 1. 00 5. 00 1. 00 3,856. 00 32,909 37,109 35. 92 1. 00 34,654 1. 20 2. 34 0. 25 This table presents descriptive statistics for the variables used in the subsequent analyses. The sample consists of 12,090 observations for ExecuComp CEOs from ? cal years 1993 to 2001. The articles on CEO compensation are obtained from the Factiva database for years 1994 to 2002. Number of Articlest+1 is the total number of articles written about the CEOs compensation. Coveraget+1 is an indicator variable for whether the press covers CEO compensation. Number of Negative Articlest+1 is the total number of negative tone articles written about the CEOs compensa tion, where negative tone is assessed using the algorithm described in the text. % of Negative Articlest+1 is Number of Negative Articlest+1 divide by Number of Articlest+1. This variable is tabulated only for the 2607 observations with Coveraget+1 greater than zero.Number of Firm Articlest+1 is the number of articles (all topics) written about the ? rm during year t+1. Total Compt is salary, bonus, long-term incentive plan payouts, the value of restricted stock grants, the value of options granted during the year, and any other annual pay for the CEO in year t. Total Payoutt is salary, bonus, long-term incentive plan payouts, the value of restricted stock grants, the proceeds from options exercised during the year, and any other annual pay for the CEO in year t. Tenuret is the CEOs tenure in years at the end of year t. S&P500t is one if the ? rm is in the S&P500 at the end of year t, and zero otherwise. SalestA1 (in millions of dollars) is ? rm sales for year tA1.Bk/MkttA1 is (boo k value of assets)/(book value of liabilities+market value of equity) at the end of year tA1. RETt is the ? rms return for the year t. ROAt is income before wonderworking items divided by average total assets for the year t. and Wooldridge show that this estimator is consistent when the dependent variable is a proportion ranging from 0 to 1, and when there may be a slew of observations at 0 and 1. 11 We note that in these models, coverage and negative coverage are measured in the ? scal year t+1 following determination of compensation in year t. 12 This lessens the chance of a simultaneity bias, in which realized negative coverage causes reductions in realized pay. However, as we discuss further below, if ? ms anticipate that future negative coverage can be in truth costly, they may reduce current pay in order to avoid future coverage. We expect that publicity about CEO pay derives not only from the magnitude and components of CEO pay, but also from general determinants of press c overage. Therefore, we control for the determinants of publicity that are not directly related to CEO compensation. To our knowledge, an accepted model for the expected level of press coverage related to CEO pay does not exist. As a starting point, we include log(Number of Firm Articles) as a control variable for general ? rm-speci? c press coverage across all topics, where log(Number of Firm Articles) is measured for each ? m-year as the natural logarithm of the total number of articles that mention the ? rm across all major news and business publication sources on Factiva, excluding newswires that primarily carry company-initiated 11 We obtain the same inference if we instead estimate a linear model for the fraction using ordinary least squares (OLS). If we estimate an OLS model for the fraction and include a Heckman (1979) subject for the predictability of the coverage decision in Eq. (1), we obtain the same inference. The Heckman correction is not signi? cant in any of our mode ls, which suggests that results are robust to ignoring the selection in the second-stage model. 12Base salary, option and restricted stock grants, and the majority of compensation are determined and paid during the ? scal year. The one exception is cash bonuses, which are determined early the next ? scal year after results are known. However, the bonus amounts tend to be small compared to option and restricted stock grants. ARTICLE IN PRESS J. E. Core et al. / Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 11 disclosures. 13 We also expect that ? rm size is a key determinant of publicity (see Jensen, 1979 Miller, 2006). Press coverage of large ? rms will have broader appeal as these ? rms are more likely to be kinsperson names and to have larger customer and shareholder bases. At the same time, large ? rms may e able to impose costs on media ? rms that cover them in a negative light. These costs may come in the form of withholding valuable news stories or withholding advertising doll ars. 14 We use two variables to control for ? rm size and likelihood of broad appeal the logarithm of each ? rms sales revenues (Sales) and membership in the S&P 500 (S&P500). Jensen (1979) argues that the media is more likely to write a negative article when the individual under scrutiny has lost popularity with the public. We include recent ? rm performance in our regressions to control for the possibility that the CEO has fallen out of favor with the public.We measure ? rm performance using contemporaneous and lagged stock returns obtained from CRSP (RET) and accounting performance obtained from Compustat (ROA) which is computed as net income before extraordinary items divided by average assets. To allow for the possibility that press coverage is more sensitive to negative performance than to positive performance, we include separate variables for negative (NEG) and positive (POS) stock return and accounting performance. 15 We also include CEO tenure (Tenure) as a control variabl e because we expect that it may take time for the press to become interested in covering a new CEO.Finally, we expect that press coverage varies across different calendar years and sectors of the economy. To capture this effect we include indicator variables for two-digit SIC code and calendar year in our model. 3. 3. Measurement of compensation variables and excess compensation As described in Section 2, we expect that publicity may be in? uenced by total annual compensation. We measure Total Comp as the sum of salary, bonus, long-term incentive plan payouts, the value of restricted stock grants, the value of options granted during the year, and any other annual pay. This is the most common measure of total pay in the academic literature.We hypothesize in Hypothesis 3 that press coverage could also be affected by realized option exercise proceeds as debate to option grant value. To test this hypothesis, we construct a measure of total realized payouts to the CEO, Total Payout, com puted as the sum of salary, bonus, long-term incentive plan payouts, value of restricted stock grants, proceeds from options exercised during the year, and any other annual pay. This measure of total realized payout is common in the media (e. g. , see Forbes annual rankings of highest paid CEOs). 16 We obtain our compensation data from ExecuComp. Descriptive statistics for the compensation variables are presented in Table 3. The mean Total Comp is $3. 7 million, and the mean Total Payout is $3. 1 million.However, the values in the extreme percentile of Total Payout are somewhat greater than those for Total Comp. In addition to these raw compensation variables, we also construct a measure of excess CEO compensation to investigate whether the media appears to make adjustments for a normal level of compensation when writing an article with a negative tone. We measure excess compensation as actual compensation minus expected compensation. Our benchmark model for expected compensation fo llows front research in this arena (e. g. , Smith and Watts, 1992 Core, Holthausen, and Larcker, 1999 Murphy, 1999), and is obtained by regressing the natural logarithm (Log) of compensation on proxies for economic determinants of CEO compensation, such as ? m size, growth opportunities, stock return, accounting return, and industry controls Log? Compensationit ? ? a ? xit b ? uit 13 (3) In the 68 ? rm-years with no articles on Factiva, we set Number of Firm Articles equal to one to avoid losing the observations. The costs of withholding valuable news from the press may apply not only to large ? rms but also to growing ? rms with rich information environments that are engaging in substantial investments, acquisitions, or result developments. At the same time, growth ? rms may also have broader appeal to the public than stable or declining ? rms. Our regressions are robust to including book-to-market as a control variable for ? rms investment opportunities. 15Dial and Murphy (1995 ) raise the possibility that unpopular operational decisions draw media attention. For example, in their case study of General Dynamics, the press strongly criticized the CEO for receiving a bonus payout after the stock price responded positively to his decision to lay off thousands of employees. We examine this possibility in Section 4. 3. 16 Total Payout also has preferable econometric properties as compared to using only the proceeds from option exercises. Speci? cally, an option exercise variable has a large mass at zero, whereas Total Payout has a positive value for all cases. 14 ARTICLE IN PRESS J. E. Core et al. / Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 12 here Compensationit is Total Comp or Total Payout as described in Section 3. 3, and xit consists of Log(Tenure)it, Log(Sales)itA1, S&P500itA1, Book-to-marketitA1, RETit, RETitA1, ROAit, ROAitA1, and Industry controlsit. Book-to-market is (book value of assets)/(book value of liabilities+market value of equity), and the other independent variables are de? ned above. We estimate Eq. (3) using OLS. We estimate anticipate Compensation by exponentiating the expected value of Eq. (3). We compute remnant(Compensation) by estimating expected Compensation and subtracting it from Compensation counterweight? Compensationit ? ? Compensationit A Expected Compensationit . (4) We compute %Residual Compensation as Residual? Compensationit ? ? log? Compensationit ? A log? Expected Compensationit ?. (5) Although we estimate Eq. (2) using annual cross-sectional regressions, in the interest of brevity, we present the results of a pooled cross-section, time-series estimation of Eq. (2) with year indicators in Table 4. Consistent with prior research, we ? nd that all measures of compensation exhibit the expected positive associations with ? rm size, growth opportunities, and stock returns. The coef? cient estimates for the annual regressions are substantively similar to those reported in Table 4. Table 4 Regressio ns for compensation variables Dependent variableIndependent variable Log(total compt) Log(total payoutt) Log(tenure)t A0. 02 (A0. 80) 0. 42*** (17. 96) 0. 12** (2. 30) A0. 99*** (A9. 76) 0. 27*** (12. 84) 0. 16*** (6. 71) A1. 00*** (A5. 87) A0. 45** (A2. 07) 0. 4290 0. 13*** (6. 93) 0. 40*** (18. 74) 0. 14** (2. 83) A0. 69*** (A6. 80) 0. 31*** (11. 64) 0. 26*** (19. 23) 0. 40* (1. 98) A0. 51* (A1. 72) 0. 4274 Log(sales)tA1 S&P500t Bk/MkttA1 RETt RETtA1 ROAt ROAtA1 R2 This table presents results of pooled cross-sectional OLS regressions for the logarithms of two measures of CEO compensation and the economic determinants of compensation. The sample consists of 12,090 observations for ExecuComp CEOs from ? cal years 1993 to 2001. Total Compt is salary, bonus, long-term incentive plan payouts, the value of restricted stock grants, the value of options granted during the year, and any other annual pay for the CEO in year t. Total Payoutt is salary, bonus, long-term incentive plan payouts , the value of restricted stock grants, the proceeds from options exercised during the year, and any other annual pay for the CEO in year t. Log(Tenure)t is the logarithm of the CEOs tenure in years at the end of year t. Log(Sales)tA1 is the logarithm of ? rm sales for year tA1. S&P500t is one if the ? rm is in the S&P500 at the end of year t, and zero otherwise.Bk/MkttA1 is (book value of assets)/(book value of liabilities+market value of equity) at the end of year tA1. RETt is the ? rms return for year t. RETtA1 is the ? rms return for year tA1. ROAt is income before extraordinary items divided by average total assets for year t. ROAtA1 is income before extraordinary items divided by average total assets for year tA1. Fixed effects for year and 2-digit SIC codes are included in the regressions, but not tabulated. T-statistics using Huber-White robust standard errors are presented in parentheses below coef? cient estimates. *, **, and *** imply two-tailed statistical signi? cance at 10, 5, and 1 percent levels, respectively. ARTICLE IN PRESS J. E. Core et al. Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 13 3. 4. Illustrations from the sample Table 5 (Panel A) lists the ten CEOs with the greatest amount of coverage (i. e. , greatest number of articles) about their compensation in any given year during our sample period. The compensation and ? rm characteristic variables are provided for the year prior to the press coverage variables (thus, the year t+1 designation on the press variables). These CEOs had between 87 and 320 compensation-related articles, as well as very substantial negative press coverage, as measured by either fraction of articles that are negative, or number of articles that are negative.The percentage of negative articles in this group of CEOs ranges from 32% to 73%, whereas the sample average is 28% (see Table 3). CEOs with a large number of compensation-related articles tend to manage large, poor performing ? rms. seven-spot out of the te n ? rms have market capitalization of $20 billion or more, and three-year market-adjusted returns are negative for all of the ten ? rms. Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco International received the most compensation-related articles in 2002 with 320, as well as the most negative articles (57% or 183 negative articles). His total compensation in 2001 was $77. 8 million with substantial estimated excess compensation. 17 Five of these ten CEOs had positive excess total pay in the year prior to the publicity.However, excess compensation during the prior year was not the obvious instigator of the press coverage for some of these CEOs. For example, Sanford Weill, CEO of Citigroup, received 178 compensation-related articles (40% of which were negative), but had negative excess total pay. At the same time, Mr. Weill had a faction of fairly large raw compensation at $16. 6 million, substantial option exercises, poor three-year market-adjusted stock return performance (A44%), and a history of prior m edia attention for being among the higher paid CEOs. Similarly, Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett Packard, received 168 articles in 2002 (32% of which were negative), but had lower than expected pay in 2001.However, although she had negative excess compensation, Ms. Fiorina was the receiving system of considerable criticism about Hewlett Packards sub-par performance as evidenced by Hewlett Packards market-adjusted stock return of A68% from 2000 to 2002. Another interesting example is Thomas Siebel of Siebel Systems, Inc. , who drew 132 articles and 65 negative articles about compensation in 2003, and yet received no pay in 2002. However, Mr. Siebel exercised a substantial dollar amount of options in 2002 (as well as in 2001), and also received a very large grant of new options in 2001. Siebel Systems also had extremely poor three-year market-adjusted stock price performance at A123%.Table 5 (Panel B) lists the ten CEOs with the greatest percentage of negative articles in any given year during our sample period (i. e. , the number of negative articles about compensation divided by the total number of articles about compensation). We restrict our attention to ? rms that have at least four articles on CEO compensation, because there are many CEOs with only one or two compensationrelated articles, and where 100% of these articles are negative. The ? rms in Panel B are generally much smaller than those reported in Panel A which suggests that the total volume of press coverage is related to ? rm size. The results suggest a mixture of explanations for a high percentage of negative articles.The CEOs at channel Stearns, EOG Resources, and Warnaco Group received very large total and residual compensation, and the CEO of Micron received a large stock option payout in the year of negative press coverage. The CEOs of Hillenbrand Industries, Nike, and Federal-Mogul received relatively modest levels of total compensation, and the negative press coverage seems to be due to thei r large negative marketadjusted returns. The explanations for Delphi Financial and Manpower are not clear, as both of these companies have low relative total compensation, no stock option payouts, and reasonable market-adjusted returns. It is also useful to examine some features of negative publicity for CEOs selected on the basis of large excess compensation.For example, an examination of the ten CEOs in 2001 with the greatest excess total direct compensation indicates that eight out of the ten CEOs received some negative publicity in 2002 (not tabulated). Interestingly, some of these excessively paid CEOs received no media attention. Greg Reyes, CEO of Brocade Communications, received about $370 million in total direct compensation, primarily due to a grant of more than 10 million stock options. However, even though he received the greatest amount of excess pay, Mr. Reyes received no negative publicity (although he was subsequently accused of 17 In Table 4, we do not winsorize any of the variables being shown. ARTICLE IN PRESS J. E. Core et al. / Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 125 14Table 5 Panel A. CEOs with greatest number of articles Company name CEO last name Year Number of articlest+1 % of negative articlest+1 (%) Tenure as CEO (years)t Total compt Residual (total comp)t Total payoutt Three-year mkt-adj stock returnt (%) Market value of equity ($mil)t Tyco International AMR Corp. Citigroup Inc. Hewlett-Packard Co. Siebel Systems Delta Air Lines Qwest Commun. Disney (Walt) Co Disney (Walt) Co. Disney (Walt) Co. Kozlowski Carty Weill Fiorina Siebel Mullin Nacchio Eisner Eisner Eisner 2001 2002 2002 2001 2002 2002 2001 1996 1997 1998 320 250 178 168 132 121 116 109 88 87 57 54 40 32 49 73 35 50 55 38 9. 2 4. 6 4. 9 2. 3 . 4 5. 3 4. 9 12. 0 13. 0 14. 0 77,767 10,171 16,556 18,121 0 14,039 74,115 202,185 10,654 5,768 55,390 2,484 A18,313 A11,533 A6,994 6,901 57,349 192,527 A233 A9,244 42,177 1,109 13,367 1,248 34,586 4,870 101,995 8,654 10,654 575, 596 A85 A111 A44 A68 A123 A120 A106 A7 A45 A74 88,064 1,030 180,901 32,633 3,600 1,493 23,506 42,631 54,099 52,552 Panel B. CEOs with greatest percentage of negative articles Company name CEO last name Year Number of articlest+1 % of negative articlest+1 (%) Tenure as CEO (years)t Total compt Residual (total comp)t Total payoutt Three-year mkt-adj stock returnt (%) Market value of equity ($mil)t Hillenbrand IndustriesNike Inc. Delphi Financial Grp. Bear Stearns Federal-Mogul Micron Technology Bear Stearns EOG Resources Inc. Manpower Inc. Warnaco Group Inc. Hillenbrand Knight Rosenkranz Cayne Miller Appleton Cayne Hoglund Fromstein Wachner 1998 1997 2002 1995 2000 1996 1998 1994 1995 1996 12 10 9 7 6 5 5 4 4 4 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 9. 6 29. 3 15. 6 1. 9 0. 3 1. 9 4. 9 7. 3 6. 9 9. 3 3,887 1,679 1,500 8,472 880 4,251 27,176 13,365 3,726 20,490 A51 A4,256 A1,327 4,649 A1,960 1,074 16,260 11,477 A559 17,301 2,936 1,679 1,500 9,384 426 4,847 27,176 20,114 3,726 9,434 A1 02 A56 A1 A26 A149 4 28 4 28 A32 3,793 13,202 783 2,508 163 4,750 6,663 3,000