Internation Accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Internation Accounting - Essay Example Narsimha Rao and the finance minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in the year 1991. Through this reform foreign direct investment was brought in many sectors. By the 20th century India headed towards a free market economy which reduced the state control of the economy with increased financial liberalization (Datt & Sundharam, 2009, p. 976). The Indian economy is the eleventh largest in the world by the nominal GDP and the third largest in terms of the PPP (Purchasing Power Parity). In 2010-2011 India maintained a GDP growth rate of around 8% thus bringing down the fiscal deposit of the country to 4.8% of GDP by maintaining a current account deficit to 2.6%. However, the fiscal year 2001-2012 has been a challenging for the Indian economy. With the progressing year monetary tightening was witnessed in response to the untamed inflationary pressures. The gradual increase in inflation of the Indian economy resulted in slowing down the growth rate of India. In spite of the economic turmoil in the c ountry India still is goring at a rapid pace in comparison to other developing countries. This in turn is enhancing the opportunity of India to push through further reforms, generate economic opportunities and create infrastructure for the country (â€Å"Current State of Indian Economy†, 2012, pp.1-7). The Indian financial market has progressed over the years especially in the banking sector with 14 nationalized banks to provide 40% of their net credit to priority sectors so as to fulfill the developmental and social goals of the country. Company’s Business HDFC bank mainly provides service in wholesale banking, retail banking and treasury services undertaken by the company. In the whole sale banking the target customers of the... This paper shows that according to the study of HDFC bank we can conclude that the company is performing very well even ender the turmoil economic situation of the country. The evidence of which is their increased net profit which has amounted to Rs.113, 413, 323, 000. But the cost of revenue of the company has increased over the year which is cause of concern for the bank. The company is listed in National Stock Exchange in India. The bank has made some investment decision which has resulted in negative returns for the company. This has reduced the cash and cash equivalents of the company to Rs. 209, 377, 263, 000. The accounting principles that is adopted in India is a little different from that of IFRS which is usually applied in developed countries like America, Europe, etc. Thus the item under consideration is usually a little different from that of a manufacturing company and so is their process of accounting. Hence, the bank under consideration has been successful in generatin g an income of Rs. 325,300,466,000. This paper approves that the impairment of the assets is usually assessed in the balance sheet of the company. The occurrence of the impairment loss, if any is forecasted in the profit and loss statement of the company. This generally arises when the carrying cost of the assets exceeds the estimated recoverable amount. The revisions of the accounting estimates are prospectively recognized both in current as well as future periods.

Stakeholders And Commercial Viability Versus Sustainability Assignment

Stakeholders And Commercial Viability Versus Sustainability - Assignment Example At present, obtaining a house through a housing loan is not a popular solution in Saudi Arabia because interest rates are too high and the banks themselves are not keen on extending them considering the absence of specific laws that will protect them in cases of defaults. That will change very soon with the passage of the mortgage law. But what makes the Al Qasr Project more than a bright prospect is the fact there is a sure market of housing in the Kingdom, particularly in Riyadh, because of the rising population, mostly young, and the present housing shortfall. Nevertheless, all stakeholders play vital roles in ensuring that the Al Qasr Project will both be commercially viable and also sustainable. The Al Qasr Project is a mixed-use development complex located in the Al-Suwaidi or Alsweidi suburbs, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and is owned and developed by the Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development Company (About Al Qasr 2010). The Project, whose construction began in 2005, have completed most of its infrastructure and superstructure, which include pavements, lanes, lighting and treeing, irrigation and sewage networks, and telephone and security lines. Other services schemes such as gardens, parks, commercial centres, and governmental administrative building to serve the area and its future inhabitants are also in the pipeline. The Project applies the suburban centre concept, where residential and commercial units are integrated in one area creating a self-contained centre, under the framework of the comprehensive development philosophy, which entails the accommodation of the medium income group (Al Qasr 2010). Standing on an area of 816,000 sqm, more or less, the Al Qasr Project consists of 3,303 units of residential villas, apartments, commercial and low-rise office buildings and is expected to accommodate a total of 13,000

Theories of Work and Identity

Theories of Work and Identity Discuss: Work is a big portion of a person’s life. To say that work is a big portion of a person’s life is a understatement of large proportions. Children are raised with one or both parents who make it a priority. They are raised to make it a priority. They work virtually all their lives. They retire from it. It can be intrusive and ubiquitous and the fact that it is both a noun and a verb does not begin to hint at the complexity of it. In beginning to consider it, a nature path would be to define its nature. Is it feathered or scaled, or more accurately, is it to be relegated as a science of economics, sociology or something else entirely? Many regard it as a pure function of applied economics (Block, Berg, Belman 2004, p. 94). It seems right to regard it as such as at its most basic level it is a about an exchange relationship in which two parties trade something the one owns for something the other owns. Whether this exchange is of time, expertise, property, or ideas is irrelevant. The exchange takes place in a form of a market while both discrete and often not-so-discrete forces are at ‘work’ to set the value of the exchange. These forces, laws of supply and demand, invisible hands and the like seek to maximize the utility of the trade to both parties. As a consequence of the nature of the relationship being able to be characterized by an ‘exchange’, work can also be considered by a legal or contractual basis. By virtue of this, there are certain very explicit rules that govern the conduct of either party with regard to the fulfillment of their respective duties. Such laws, as for example in the United States, often fall under a Department of Labor and generally includes such standards as a forty-hour work week, harassment and discrimination provisions, minimum pay and pay frequency specifications as well as provisions regarding collective bargaining. The goal of such a perspective is to serve as something of a bridge between not only the economic interests of both parties but the social impact of work to the workers. In modern world, a typical exchange takes place between the individual and the organization. With this type of exchange, there are a number of additional concerns and issues that become relevant. In the first place there is generally an asymmetry of power in which the owners of capital employ individuals in masse to literally make up the corporate body and to wield profit maximizing power on employees. This imbalance is potentially offset by the previously mentioned ability of certain workers to partake in collective bargaining actions such as the formation of unions that ultimately can help to give the individual worker a larger voice. This power is wielded as a consequence of the corporation’s greater resources to enforce the often contractual nature of the exchange. Also, as corporate budgets generally exceed those of individuals the ration of the loss to the total ‘budget’ is greater. In addition, as a corporation does not have emotions, the consequences of a ‘failed agreement’ are often of significant magnitude to the individual. Though the worth of the individual worker is indeed significant to the corporation for, without him, the corporation would ‘die’, the time horizon of the two parties is vastly different. This idea is eloquently expressed by Adam Smith, â€Å"In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate† (Smith 1976, p.84). As the nature of work is at least partly economic, to ignore the basic issues of business management would be unpardonable. From Taylor’s beginning of scientific management to the â€Å"high performance work systems† of today, the nature of managing the individual worker presents a range of methods devised in order to maximize the economic return of work. While Taylor’s command-and-control methods largely regarded the average laborer as incapable of being able to self-manage, they did nonetheless create vast increases in efficiency and paved the way for the development of very large organizations. Interestingly enough, these techniques, or at least, the implementation, of them has been supplanted by the like’s of Stanford’s Pfeffer is able to rigorously document the superlativity of a complete system of seven key human resource practices that, when fully integrated into an organization produce superior financial returns to the organization. In place of timed work, close supervision and continuous thrusts for greater efficiency through centralized decision-making, consider the characteristics of the ‘modern’ high performance organization (Taylor 1917; Pfeffer 1998, pp. 64-65): Employment security Selective hiring Decentralized decision-making Comparatively high compensation Extensive training Egalitarian work place Extensive information sharing. Despite the fundamental economic nature of work, there is another side that, were it go unmentioned, the discussion would utterly fail to consider the other perspective on work: that of the individual employee. Even as an economic premise entirely, the goal of which is to increase the profit and well-being of the individual, the sociological aspects of work merit full consideration (Stiglitz 2002, p. 1). In consideration of the individual, it is reasonable that one might consider the very contractual nature of work to be akin to that of a â€Å"social exchange† process through which individuals and groups of individuals engage in transactions (Dreher Dougherty 2002, p. 41). These exchanges are clearly governed first by applicable laws and regulations, perhaps secondly by organizational policies and procedures and thirdly and perhaps most notably, they are regulated by the very nature of individuals to ascribe to something that might resemble a common values system. In this system is the seemingly natural component of a sense of â€Å"fairness†. This guides innumerable behaviors as the individual inevitably seeks a form of â€Å"reciprocal altruism† in which, in addition to following self-serving fulfillment of their own needs, individuals appear to operate on the assumption that there is a bigger picture of morals and the â€Å"right thing† involved (Fred erick Wasieleski 2002, pp.284). An additional consideration of the social nature of work and ensuing issues is the idea that, for many, work is the process by which â€Å"identity† is established. Consider the typical introduction at a party or other function†¦ first, one gives their name and then, almost inevitably either their occupation or work relation status to the host (i.e., â€Å"I work with Ted†, â€Å"I am a client†, etc.). This phenomenon, Social Identity Theory, is quite relevant to the workplace in that it forces one to consider the psychological implications of doing business (Ashforth Mael 1989, pp. 20-21; Stiglitz 2002, p. 1). Bridging this concept with the representation that work is fundamentally an exchange relationship is the idea of the psychological contract. Just as there are explicit rules governing work expectations, so too are there implicit rules. The rules are communicated by the culture of the firm, the seemingly accepted behaviors of others in a similar posit ion and other verbal and non-verbal queues. The conditions of the contract are primarily mediated by the individual’s manager, the immediate representation of the organization in the mind of the individual (Rousseau 2000, February). Thus, it is through the social processes of work that an individual gains an understand of who they are but also gain particular knowledge of the mutual obligations of the economic exchange. In summary, work is. It is: what, why, how, when. It is the noun and the verb, the result as well as the process. A discussion of which cannot omit the fundamental economic nature of it yet one cannot ignore the precepts of sociology and psychology woven into every single ‘unit of production’, the individual worker. Any discussion of work which does not give full deliberation the simultaneous dichotomy is to only give half the argument and less than that for the appreciation of what work represents, to the organization, the individual and to society. Works Consulted Ashforth, B. F. Mael. (1989). â€Å"Social Identity Theory and the Organization†. Academy of Management Review (14), 1, pp. 20-39. Block, R., Berg, P. and Belman, D. (2004). â€Å"The Economic Dimension of the Employment Relationship†, in Coyle –Shepard, J. Shore, L. Taylor, M. and Tetrick, L., (eds.). The Employment Relationship: Examining Psychological and Contextual Perspectives. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. Dreher, G. and Dougherty, T. (2002). Human Resource Strategy: A Behavioral Perspective for the General Manager. McGraw-Hill Irwin: Boston, Massachusetts. Frederick, W. and Wasieleski, D. (2002). â€Å"Evolutionary Social Contracts†. Business and Society Review, (107), 3, pp. 283-308. Pfeffer, J. (1998). The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First. Harvard Business School Press: Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Rosseau, D. (2000, February). Psychological Contract Inventory Technical Report. Carnegie Mellon University: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA . Smith, A. (1976). An Inquiry into the Nature and the Causes of the Wealth of Nation., R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner, eds. Clarendon Press:. Oxford, UK Stitlitz, J. (2002). â€Å"Employment, Social Justice and Societal Well-Being†. International Labour Review, (141), 1-2, pp. 9-29. Taylor, F. (1911). The Principles of Scientific Management. Harper: New York, New York.

An Icon to Remember :: Essays Papers

An Icon to Remember During the Late Byzantium Period a new burst of creative energy grasped the Russian artists. More artists emerged as Russians became increasingly interested in art. Earlier in the Byzantium Period â€Å"art that had to do with religious worship, like statues and any religious imagery throughout the empire, was destroyed under Leo III in iconoclasm† (Kleiner and Mamiya 326). This era lasted nearly one hundred years. During this period icon painting became very popular. â€Å"These paintings are small portable paintings depicting Christ, the Virgin, or Saints† (Kleiner and Mamiya 342). One of the most famous and influential icon artists to come about during this time was Audrei Rublev. In ca.1410 he designed his masterpiece, the Old Testament Trinity (Figure 1), one of the most beautiful and popular icon paintings in Russia. Rublev’s Old Testament Trinity was a very spiritual and an important icon painting during the fifteenth century. Audrei Rublev was born in ca.1360 and was known as a Russian painter and monk (â€Å"Rublev† 304). He was so spectacular that his work had a profound influence on the development of Russian art overall. His paintings usually attributed to a more linear quality (â€Å"Rublev† 304-305). â€Å"Rublev worked beside Theophanes the Greek and Prokhor from Gorodets, whom may have been his teachers, in painting the Cathedral of the Annunciation and also with the icon painter Daniil Chorny† (Hamilton 93). Although there is very little background known of his life, his first appearance was in 1405(Hamilton 93). Audrei Rublev passed most of the remainder of his life in the Andronikov Monastery, where he is now buried (â€Å"Rublev† 304). He lived to be seventy and died in ca.1430. Audrei Rublev was one of the greatest icon painters for Russia during the Middle Ages. â€Å"The Old Testament Trinity was dedicated to Saint Sergius Radonezhsky c.1411† (â€Å"Rublev† 305). It was found in 1918 in a storeroom near the Cathedral of the Dormition. Although having severe and irreparable damage enough remains. â€Å"The painting depicts three angels that are in silent communication with each other, seated around an altar table with a chalice that indicates the subject of their contemplation is self-sacrifice† (Art Treasures in Russia 61). The central figure, God the Father, is further back then his companions, God the Son on the left and the Holy Spirit on the right.

Public Administration Essay

DEFINING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION When people think about government, they think of elected officials. The attentive public knows these officials who live in the spotlight but not the public administrators who make governing possible; it generally gives them little thought unless it is to criticize â€Å"government bureaucrats.† Yet we are in contact with public administration almost from the moment of birth, when registration requirements are met, and our earthly remains cannot be disposed of without final administrative certification. Our experiences with public administrators have become so extensive that our society may be labeled the â€Å"administered society†. Various institutions are involved in public administration. Much of the policy-making activities of public administration is done by large, specialized governmental agencies (micro-administration). Some of them are mostly involved with policy formulation, for example, the Parliament or Congress. But to implement their decisions public administration also requires numerous profit and nonprofit agencies, banks and hospitals, district and city governments (macro-administration). Thus, public administration may be defined as a complex political process involving the authoritative implementation of legitimated policy choices. Public administration is not as showy as other kinds of politics. Much of its work is quiet, small scale, and specialized. Part of the administrative process is even kept secret. The anonymity of much public administration raises fears that government policies are made by people who are not accountable to citizens. Many fear that these so-called faceless bureaucrats subvert the intensions of elected officials. Others see administrators as mere cogs in the machinery of government. But whether in the negative or positive sense, public administration is policy making. And whether close to the centers of power or at the street level in local agencies, public administrators are policy makers. They are the translators and tailors of government. If the elected officials are visible to the public, public administrators are the anonymous specialists. But without their knowledge, diligence, and creativity, government would be ineffective and inefficient. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Large-scale administrative organization has existed from early times. The ancient empires of Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, China, and later the Holy Roman Empire as well as recent colonial empires of Britain, Spain, Russia, Portugal, and France – they all organized and maintained political rule over wide areas and large populations by the use of quite a sophisticated administrative apparatus and more or less skilled administrative functionaries. The personal nature of that rule was very great. Everything depended on the emperor. The emperor in turn had to rely on the personal loyalty of his subordinates, who maintained themselves by the personal support from their underlings, down to rank-and file personnel on the fringes of the empire. The emperor carried an enormous work load reading or listening to petitions, policy arguments, judicial claims, appeals for favors, and the like in an attempt to keep the vast imperial machine functioning. It was a system of favoritism and patronage. In a system based on personal preferment, a change of emperor disrupted the entire arrangements of government. Those who had been in favor might now be out of favor. Weak rulers followed strong rulers, foolish monarchs succeeded wise monarchs – but all were dependent on the army, which supplied the continuity that enabled the empire to endure so long. In the absence of institutional, bureaucratic procedures, government moved from stability to near anarchy and back again. Modern administrative system is based on objective norms (such as laws, rules and regulations) rather than on favoritism It is a system of offices rather than officers. Loyalty is owed first of all to the state and the administrative organization. Members of the bureaucracy, or large, formal, complex organizations that appeared in the recent times, are chosen for their qualification rather than for their personal connections with powerful persons. When vacancies occur by death, resignation, or for other reasons, new qualified persons are selected according to clearly defined rules. Bureaucracy does not die when its members die. BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION In the studies of the 1880s and later scholars have collected an impressive body of data how best to carry out and manage routine operations to gain productivity in industry. Principles of scientific business management were worked out and people were trained to follow them. Later successful business was seen as the model for the proper management of government, and the field of public administration was seen as a field of business, because management of all organizations in both the fields involves planning the activities and establishing goals; organizing work activities; staffing and training; directing or decision-making; coordinating to assure that the various work activities come together; report-  ing the status of work and problems to both supervisors and subordinates; and budgeting to assure that work activities correspond to fiscal planning, accounting, and control. Some scholars argued that administration is a more general term and a more generic process than management. Administration takes place at factories, schools, hospitals, prisons, insurance companies, or welfare agencies, whether these organizations were private or public. Accordingly they started speaking about business and public administration. There is an obvious difference between administration of business, or private organization, and administration of public organizations. Thus, the word public in ‘public administration’ is meaningful, and the study of public affairs will have to take into account not only management subjects common to both public and private sectors, but also the special environment in which the public servant has to live, an environment constituted of the mix of administration, policy making, and politics. And then, public organizations are more dependent on government allocations, more constrained by law, more exposed to political influences, and more difficult to evaluate than business organizations. These differences suggest caution in applying business management techniques to government agencies. Public Administration as an Academic Discipline Originally the discipline of public administration was not strong on theory. Early public administration was marked by a concern for applying the  principles of business management to a higher level of business – public affairs. The method of case study was borrowed from business schools and applied to public administration. It was a prescriptive method and it told the student what he â€Å"ought to do† and what he â€Å"should not do† in specific situations of managing of public agencies. But by and by public administration developed a theory and a method of investigation of its own. In the 1950s it began to borrow heavily from sociology, political science, psychology, and social psychology that led to the formation of organization theory that helps to understand the nature of human organizations. Then, the 1950s and 1960s witnessed a dramatic upsurge of professional and academic participation in comparative administration studies. Comparative administration was focused on the developing nations and the analysis of â€Å"transitional societies†. Considerable attention was paid to studies of particular areas of the world. There were detailed case-by-case examinations of administrative situations in both the developing countries and the older, established bureaucracies of the industrialized world. They developed elaborate and highly generalized models of development administration and managed to explain many development situations. Another situation that has drawn from the management science traditions is the emergence of public policy analysis as a major branch of public administration studies. Writings on decision-making took into account economic, political, psychological, historical, and even nonrational, or irrational processes. The National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) advocates public policy analysis as one of the subject areas that should be included in any comprehensive program in administration. An interesting development in American public administration in the late 1960s is known as the New Public Administration which was a reaction against the value-free positivism that had characterized much of American public administration thought since World War II. It reasserted the importance of normative values, particularly social justice. The disclosures of the Watergate scandals have reinforced these positions and stressed anew the importance of integrity, openness, and accountability in the conduct of public affairs. This concern for the needs of human beings in the modern world can be seen in the growth of consumer and environmental protection functions domestically, and pressure for human rights around the world. The politics  of public administration becomes increasingly interesting. Citizens, students, and scholars all round the world have come to understand the enormous impact of public administration on all of us, which is an important reason for the renaissance of their interest in public administration. SOME THEORETICAL ASPECTS   OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Though there are different approaches to the field of public administration, this interdisciplinary subject nowadays has a quite strong theory that tries to take into account not only management subjects, but also the mix of administration, policy making, and politics. Let us consider some issues of this theory and start with organization theory common to both public and private sectors. The basic aspects of organization theory The terms public and private convey very different connotations to the general public. Public organizations are commonly pictured as large mazes that employ bureaucrats to create red tape; private organizations, on the other hand, are viewed to be run by hard-nosed managers who worry about profit and consumers. Public organizations are pictured as wasteful; private organizations are often presented as efficient. Yet these perceptions of their differences do not withstand careful scrutiny. Both types of organizations have much in common. Organization as bureaucracy Whether in business or government organizations, a dominant form of any administration is bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are generally defined as organizations that (1) are large, (2) hierarchical in structure with each employee accountable to the top executive through a chain of command, (3) provide each employee with a clearly defined role and area of responsibility, (4) base their decisions on impersonal rules, and (5) hire and promote employees taking into account their skills and training related to specific jobs. Bureaucracy has promise but it may also create problems  and abuses of power, especially in the absence of effective coordination. Organization as a dynamic change Then, both public and private organizations have a dilemma – the need for both stability and change. All organizations resist change as organizational change is often painful and destructive. Despite the need for new ideas, new approaches, and new types of employees, stability need usually dominates in organizations. And the forces of stability are stronger in public organizations. These institutions are generally insulated from survival concerns by legal mandates. Few of them declare bankruptcy despite serious doubts about their efficiency. Organization as human relations Both organizations, especially public organizations, are crowded with individuals. Individuals bring to organizations a complex mix of needs (both fundamental needs, as food, shelter, health care, and future security which are bought with money earned through work, and our highest spiritual needs to belong to a social group and to contribute to it, the need of self-actualization, esteem and recognition). To attract and keep people and to encourage dependable and innovative performance, organizations must take into account individual needs and motivation and satisfy them. Organizations should also make a system of various rewards that are powerful incentives for above-average performance. Pay, promotions, recognition, and others rewards are distributed by managerial staff. Social rewards like friendship, conversation, impact, satisfaction received from meaningful work appear in the process of work itself. The social rewards of some jobs are more obvious than others. Jobs with greater variety, responsibility, and challenge are inherently more rewarding while routine can generate lack of interest and boredom, and managers should take it into account. Organization as a structure of subgroups Most work in organizations depends on ensemble rather than solo effort, and is a mix of collaboration and interdependence. There are two basic groups in organizations: formal and informal. Formal groups (departments, committees) are identified and selected by organizational leaders, and their major  characteristics are organizational legitimacy and task orientation. Informal groups (sport groups, common lunch hours, etc.) are not created by management but evolve out of the rich social environment. Though people in these groups get together to share common interests, not to work, their activities in them (supporting friends, trading rumors, and so on) have a profound effects on work and are as important as formal assignments. Organization as a cultural product Organizations have not only tangible dimensions such as an office building, an organizational chart, products and services, specific individuals and groups. Organizations are cultural and meaning systems as well as places for work. The concept of culture is difficult to define. But when comparing organizations in different countries, their cultural differences are extremely vivid and important. Despite similar work and procedures, police departments, for example, in India, Germany and Japan differ greatly. Offering a small gift to a policeman may be considered corruption in one nation and a sign of respect in another. Organizations are also meaning systems as they provide meaning to our lives. Feelings and emotions as well as purpose are very important to work life of an organization. The despair of the unemployed goes deeper than financial worries; many feel lost, without significance. Both culture and emotions influence structure, effectiveness, and change in organizations. Organizations are not only places of production; they are also sites rich with symbols and bureaucrats and executives act as tribal leaders: they tell stories, repeat myths, and stage rites and ceremonials. The symbolic and cultural dimensions of organizations are increasingly viewed as essential to understanding individual organizations and their role in society. The environment of public administration When many people think of public administration as an activity, they visualize large offices crammed with rows of faceless bureaucrats sitting at desks and producing an endless stream of paperwork. But this view captures only few of the important things that professional civil servants actually do. Public administration also has many more participants, such as the  executive, the legislature, the courts, and organized groups, which are involved in the formulation and implementation of public policy. And if a public administrator focuses the attention on only some of them then others may become neglected and that may lead to the jeopardy of the entire program. Summing up what has been said, it is important to underline that the theory of public administration is very diverse, is rapidly developing and depends much on what we know about why humans behave as they do when they interact with each other. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION PERSONNEL:  ROLE-TYPES, ROLE CONFLICTS, ROLE OVERLOADS Large organizations employ many individuals. Charismatic leaders, caring supervisors, innovative program directors, and numerous street-level employees lend individuality to the collective and character to the whole organization. One should also remember that higher moral and ethical standards are expected of public employees than of private employees, and that public managers work within very strict limits of legislation, executive orders, and regulations surrounding government. But unique contributions of individuals do not obscure their general patterns of behavior, or roles. A role is a predictable set of expectations and behaviors associated with an office or position. Like an actor assigned a part, cabinet secretaries, police officers, and policy analysts step into roles that are already largely defined. A person usually performs several roles and it may become a source of stress and overload. Role overload is more than just too much work, or overwork. Role overload exists when the demands of various roles overwhelm an individual’s ability to balance expectations, when the demands of one role make it difficult to fulfill the demands of others. The lawyer who must cancel an appointment to care for a sick child or the professor who neglects his students to fulfill administrative obligations is experiencing a role conflict. Viewing organization as a system of roles helps to identify rights and obligations of each employee. Roles provide the consistency that holds an organization together. An organization that falls apart when individuals leave has not built an adequate structure of roles. Although public organizations contain  many specific roles, five role-types – the political executive, desktop administrator, professional, street-level bureaucrat, and policy entrepreneur – are the most common. Political executives Political executives (the secretary of a State Department, the city manager, or the county administrator) occupy the top of public organizations. Although their jobs and responsibilities are different, they all perform the functions of a political aide, policy maker, and top administrator. In most cases, political executives are political appointees – elected officials give them their jobs. That is why, their position, their tenure, and their influence while in office derive from the authority of elected officials. The official who wins the election most commonly appoints loyal supporters. They are advisors for selected officials. Elected officials cannot do everything. They can do little more than point the general direction and scrutinize the final result. That is why political executives appointed by them are also policy makers. The political executive initiates, shapes, promotes, and oversees policy changes. They may also have responsibility for major decisions. The ultimate authority, however, rests with the elected official. Political executives are also top-level administrators. It is a difficult role. Public executives are legally responsible for implementing policy They must cut through the red tape, resistance of change, intra-organizational conflict to assure that the public is served well.. Those political executives who fail to reach down and get the support and enthusiasm of their agency personnel will effect little change in policy. But if they completely disregard the preferences, knowledge, and experience of their agencies, stalemate ensues. If they uncritically adopt the views of their elected officials or their agencies, they may lose influence with elected officials. Desktop administrators Desktop administrators are career civil servants down the hierarchy a few steps from political executives. They are middle managers and closely fit the general description of a bureaucrat. Whether a social worker supervisor or the director of a major government program, the desktop administrator  spends days filled with memoranda and meetings. The desktop administrators are torn between the promises and practicality of governing. Desk administrators guide policy intentions into policy actions that actually change, for better or worse, people’s life. If there is, for example, a public and political consensus that the government should assist poor blind people, the definition worked out by a desktop administrator to answer the question who is poor and who is blind, has a dramatic influence to the nature of the program. Desktop administrators differ fundamentally from political executives in that most of them are career civil servants. After a short probation period, most earn job tenure, and usually are not fired. Tenure insulates the civil service from direct political interference in the day-to-day working of government. Job tenure protects civil servants from losing their jobs, but they may be reassigned to less important jobs of equal rank if they lose favor with political executives. Professionals Professionals make up the third major role-type in public organizations. The original meaning of the term profession was a ceremonial vow made when joining a religious community. This vow followed years of training and some certification that the acquired knowledge and appropriate norms of behavior justified an individual’s initiation. Modern professionals receive standard specific training that ends with certification. They also learn values and norms of behavior. Increasingly the work of public organizations depends on professionals and more and more professionals are involved in public administration. The work of professionals involves applying their general knowledge to the specific case and requires considerable autonomy and flexibility. An important difference between professional and non-professional work is who evaluates performance. Nonprofessionals are evaluated by their immediate supervisors. Professionals assert their independence from supervisors. Their work is evaluated by peer review of their colleagues and that has flaws: fellow professionals are sometimes more willing to overlook the mistakes of colleagues for different reasons. Street-level bureaucrats Street-level bureaucrats (social workers, police officers, public school  teachers, public health nurses, job and drug-counselors, etc.) are at the bottom or near the bottom of public organizations. Their authority does not come from rank, since they are at the bottom of hierarchy, but from the discretionary nature of their work. They deal with people and people are complex and unpredictable, they are not the same and require individual attention. A common complaint about public bureaucrats is that they treat everyone like a number; they ignore unique problems and circumstances. But there are only general guidelines how to deal with people (an abusive parent, an arrested, poor, old or sick person), and it is impossible to write better guidelines to make everyone happy. Street-level administrator must use judgment to apply rules and laws to unique situations, and judgment requires discretion. Given limited resources, public organizations want fewer, not more clients, and this is an important difference between public and private organizations, which attract more clients to earn more profit. And dependence of clients on street-level bureaucrats often create conflicts. Street-level bureaucrats work in situations that defy direct supervision. Even when supervisors are nearby, much work with clients is done privately. Most paperwork and computerized information systems attempt to control street-level bureaucrats, who in turn become skilled in filling out forms to satisfy supervisors while maintaining their own autonomy. Street-level bureaucrats are also policy-makers. They often decide what policies to implement, their beliefs can affect their work with clients, they may interpret the policy to benefit clients and vice versa, and thus they may change the policy while implementing it. Policy entrepreneurs The policy entrepreneur is generally considered to be the charismatic person at the top, though they can exist at all levels of an organization. They are strongly committed to specific programs and are strong managers. They are skilled in gathering support and guiding an idea into reality. The role requires conceptual leadership, strategic planning, and political activism. This role is both necessary and dangerous. They take risks and push limits, which is necessary for a dynamic government, but they also bend rules and sometimes lead policy astray. PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION: STAFFING  AND TRAINING THE AGENCY An important task in the management of any enterprise, private or public, is the recruiting, selecting, promoting, and terminating of personnel and employee training. Recruiting Once jobs have been created, the recruitment starts, i.e. finding people to fill those jobs. Public administration in the United States has come a long way from the time of Andrew Jackson, when, in the popular view, government jobs could be performed by any individuals (or at least any men) with normal intelligence. Under Jackson and his successors, frequent rotation on office was encouraged; no particular prior training or experience was necessary for most jobs. Merit systems were designed for the most part to keep out the grossly incompetent, not to attract the highly qualified. Gradually, the pattern changed. The government began attracting especially competent applicants. Openings were more highly publicized, recruiting visits were made to college and university campuses, and wages were made more nearly competitive with those in the private sector. Active efforts were made to attract individuals who, in earlier times, would have been excluded from public employment because of their ethnic or racial backgrounds or because they were women. Examining and selecting Once applications have been received, the next step in the personnel process is examination. The term examination does not refer only to a pencil-and-paper test. Some judgments are made on the basis of an unassembled examination. That is, the application form itself may require sufficient information to permit the assignment of a score based on reported experience and education and on references. Another possibility, especially important for jobs requiring particular skills, is performance examination. Some jobs call for an oral examination, particularly those for which communication skills are especially important. One examination of special importance is the Professional and Administrative Career Examination (PACE). PACE is intended to select candidates for federal government careers rather than for particular jobs. The personnel agency (e.g. Civil Service Commission) considers the list with the names of the individuals with the highest examination scores from which it chooses the new employee. Considerable discretion is allowed in making the final choice. Following selection, the new employee is likely to serve a probationary period, often six months, during which removal is relatively easy. Personnel managers encourage supervisors to see this as an extension of the testing procedure, but few employees are, in fact, dismissed during this period. Evaluation The evaluation of employee performance is a further personnel function. Recently, the trend has been to formalize rating schemes and to regularize feedback to employees. Where possible, objective measures of the work completed are employed. In jobs where this is not possible, supervisors are encouraged to judge performance as accurately as possible using impressionistic techniques. By supplying a continuing record of performance, such evaluation can protect employees from capricious actions of a subjective supervisor. Continuing education in the public service Government is deeply involved with the further education and training of the employees. This involvement may range from relatively simple, in-house training sessions – even on-the-job training – to the financing of undergraduate or graduate education. Many universities, in cooperation with government agencies, have developed special programs for public employees, and the courses typically lasting for a week, may be conducted either at a university campus or at an agency site. The Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia, established in 1968, operated by the Civil Service Commission, provides managerial training for high-level federal executives. The commission also has regional training centers located throughout the country. Public personnel are also often given leaves for a semester or a year by their agency to pursue a degree at the doctoral level (the Doctor of Public Administration) or to fulfill a master’s program. ELEMENTS AND MODELS OF A DECISION-MAKING PROCESS We all make decisions all the time. Some are small; some will have ramifications throughout our lives. Sometimes we make snap judgments that in retrospect seem wise. Other times we carefully weigh the pros and cons but are betrayed by fate. Often the most important decisions are nondecisions: we put things off, choose to ignore problems, or to avoid situations or people and later discover that inaction has consequences just as important as those resulting from action. Four processes of decision-making Whether small or large, short- or long-term, studied or impulsive, decision-making involves four major elements: problem definition, information search, choice, and evaluation. They are not sequential, they occur simultaneously. And it is often difficult to identify when a decision process begins and ends as most important choices are ongoing. Problem definition The first step in defining a problem is recognizing that it exists. Then, problems are plentiful; attention is scare. Selecting a problem for attention and placing it on the policy agenda is the most important element in policy making. When a problem is given attention, it gains focus and takes shape. How a problem is defined affects how it is addressed. The problem of the homeless is a good example. The people without home have always been with us. Most often they have been seen as people who because of their own weaknesses could not find work and afford homes. They were dismissed as drunks and drifters. So defined, the homeless remained a problem in the background – a problem for the Salvation Army, not the government. But as their number grew, we began to take a closer look. We saw individuals discharged from mental institutions, the unemployed whose benefits had expired, and families unable to afford decent home. And we started seeing â€Å"the homeless† as people in desperate situations. This change in our perception altered the decision process. Homelessness is now a focus of policy debate. Information search When we are only vaguely aware that a problem exists, our first step is often to learn more about it, and this learning is an important step in the decision-making. Acid rain is a good example. First in Europe and then in North America, people noticed that trees were dying, and a few scientists began to ask why. Pollution and changes in climate were explored. Out of this active search for information the problem gained definition: air pollution is killing trees. Then, the solutions were considered. Reducing acid rains requires costly reduction in pollution created in regions often at great distance from the dying trees. Thus, the information defined the nature of the policy-making. Information has always been central to governing, and governments are primary sponsors of research both in the sciences and humanities. Such research is driven by the interests of scholars and may not have immediate relevance to policy debate. But it may have important policy implications. For example, advances in lasers and genetic engineering influence defense and social policy in ways unanticipated by scientists or their government sponsors. Choice As problems are defined and information about problems and outcomes is examined, choices emerge. Weighing options and selecting are the most visible decision-making processes.  Sometimes choices are difficult and taking decisions is very hard, especially when choices are not clear and their results are unpredictable. Should we negotiate with terrorists? Do we want to save the lives of hostages, as family members prefer, or do we want to eliminate any incentive for future terrorism? The selection process does not necessarily require reasoned judgments; the compromises of group decision-making often produce results that only few individuals prefer; satisfying single interests often means ignoring the interests of others. Evaluation Decisions do not end with choices among alternatives. Decision-making  involves evaluating the effects and actions. Evaluation may be formal (an official study of the results produced by a new government program) or informal (scanning the news, talking to colleagues). Whether formal or informal, evaluation is another form of information gathering after the choice. The distinction between information search and evaluation is arbitrary. Before decision makers reach conclusions, most try to anticipate outcomes. The most difficult aspect of evaluating choices is establishing the criteria. The most common criterion is the result – if things turn out well we feel that we made the right choice. But in this case we may confuse good luck with good decision-making (consider the decision to have a surgery: all surgery involves risk, and if a person chooses to take the very slight risk to remove a small tumor and dies during surgery, was the decision wrong?). Results are not universal criteria for the quality of a decision. The evaluation of any decision-making must involve looking at results and processes as well as the situation faced by decision makers. Models of decision-making There is no right or wrong way to make decisions. Sometimes cautious deliberation is the best path; at other times risks are required. But scholars speak about two broad categories of models of decision-making: rational and nonrational models. Rational decisions are choices based on judgment of preferences and outcomes. They are not always turn out best and they do not eliminate the possibility of failure. Sometimes the goal is so important that it is rational to choose an option with little promise of payoff. Opting for experimental surgery is a rational choice over a life of pain. In nonrational models choices do not result from the deliberate balancing of pros and cons. These models share the assumption that the mix of rules and participants shape choices, and that decisions result from the varying (though not necessarily accidental) mix of ingredients. Most of governmental decisions are within these models. The decision process there is too complex to take into account multiple goals, alternatives and impacts of every alternative; the time required to take a decision is too short; the  finances are too thin to provide long researches. Taken to extremes, rational models reduce human judgment to computation, and nonrational models portray decision outcomes as the result of forces beyond individual control.  Both rational and nonrational models of the decision process are products of value-neutral social science. Values enter rational decision models only in the form of preferences, but they are generally defined in terms of self-interest. An emerging view of decision-making places a stronger emphasis on decisions as value statements. LEADERSHIP Leadership is the direction and guiding of other participants in the organization. Leadership differs in degree. Transactional leaders exchange rewards for services. They guide subordinates in recognizing and clarifying roles and tasks. They give their subordinates the direction, support, and confidence to fulfill their role expectations. They also help subordinates understand and satisfy their own needs and desires. They encourage better than average performance from their subordinates. They are good managers. Transformational leadership is more dramatic. Transformational leaders change the relationship of the subordinate and the organization. They encourage subordinates to go well beyond their original commitments and expectations. If transactional leaders expect diligence, transformational leaders foster devotion. These leaders have the ability to reach the souls of others to raise human consciousness. They raise the level of awareness and encourage people to look beyond their sel f-interest. Both forms of leadership are important. When people in positions of authority encourage subordinates to believe that their work is important – not merely a fair exchange of pay for work – motivation, commitment, and performance surpass routine expectations. Leadership is required for major changes and new directions, and without leadership government easily stagnates. When things go well or poorly we credit or blame the leader. We look for leadership in candidates for high office. But can we determine which job candidates are â€Å"natural born† leaders? Can we train employees so that they develop the required personality characteristics to become effective leaders? Over many years, investigators have hoped to identify leadership traits. It is  extremely difficult to know precisely what traits such diverse political leaders as Napoleon Bonaparte, Luther King, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Indira Ghandi, and Adolf Hitler shared in common. Yet many researches have attempted to identify universal characteristics of leadership and the following classification of the leadership traits is suggested: 1)capacity (intelligence, verbal facility, originality, judgment); 2)achievement (scholarship, knowledge, athletic accomplishments); 3)responsibility (dependability, initiative, persistence, aggressiveness, self-confidence, desire to excel); 4)participation (activity, sociability, cooperation, adaptability, humor); 5)status (socioeconomic position, popularity). Yet this list is not very helpful. Particular traits are neither necessary nor sufficient to become a leader. There are brilliant thinkers and talkers who are not leaders, and there are people who are not very intelligent and not blessed with verbal facility who are obvious leaders. The holding of a degree does not say enough of the holder and whether he would fit into a particular situation. In some situations the manager’s superior education may be even resented by less well educated organization members. It is obvious that some managers are better leaders than others, and if psychological traits do not explain the variations, what is the explanation? Some investigators emphasize the situational character of leadership. The ingredients of this parameter of leadership are the following: †¢status, or position power – the degree to which the leader is enabled to get the group members to comply with and accept his or her leadership (but leadership should not be confused with high position – holding high office does not guarantee impact; despite the leader’s formal power, he or she did not always get from subordinates the performance that was desired); †¢leader-member relations – acceptance of the leader by members and their loyalty to him or her; †¢task-structure – the degree to which the jobs of the followers are well defined; †¢ability to recognize the most critical needs for organization members at the moment (physiological needs for food, sleep, etc. or safety needs for freedom from fear, for security and stability; needs for love, friends and contact; esteem needs for self-respect and the respect of others or needs for self-actualization, for a chieving one’s potential). Defining leadership is a very difficult task but  rejecting the study of leadership would impoverish our understanding of governing.

Othello Portia and Desdemona Essay

Othello, Portia and DesdemonaIntroductionThey say art lives forever, while some say that nothing lasts forever, but nothing is as timeless in literature as the works of one William Shakespeare and his play, A midsummer Nights Dream. The plays have two different versions that follow the play closely, but they are as dissimilar as night and day. The first production of this play opened the New York City Ballet in April, 1964 at the New York State Theater. The second was a BBC production in 1981. These plays are different as much as they are similar. For example, in Act 3, Scene 2, the scene is mainly set up in the forest. In the 1981 version, the woods are fairly vague, which indicates a backdrop that has been painted? Even with color, there seems to lack the element of life and suspense. A similarly painted moon hangs on the backdrop of a similarly painted sky which makes things look more static and less lively. This version of the BCC Company focuses more on the development of characters rather than on the blend of character with a realistic backdrop. The Hollywood version of the play has tall and dark trees that make the forest seem haunted. The scene is big and to some extent overwhelming. In the 1980s things returned to a more conservative trend. Puck, for example, is a mysterious goblin or fairy who is full of mischief and riddles. The BBC version shows him to be a teenager who is darker than he is humorous. He also has pitch black hair and also wears fangs, which makes him a scary character in the play. In the Hollywood version of the play, Puck is a small boy rather than the presumed magical fairy. Although they speak the same lines, they have completely different attitudes. For example, in the BBC version, he sounds as if he is fed up while, in the Hollywood version, he sounds very much amused. Another distinct difference in the production of the play in both eras is in the mode of dressing of the characters. Hermia, for example, can be portrayed as either weak or strong depending on the director. In the 1981 version of it, she is portrayed as a strong and sweet lady full of emotions. She is passionate and she is in touch with her feelings. However, she is dressed in attire from the 1600s while, in the 1964 version, she is dressed in attire from the middle ages. In the 1964 version, she looks more like a fairy tale character. This way, she is not portrayed as a strong woman but a gentle and sweet eye candy. In the 1060s, women were viewed differently than they were in the 1980s. In the 1980s, women could have some opinion regarding their lives and issues that affected them. Another distinct difference in both plays is the fact that love was viewed differently by the society in both eras. Demetrius is in love with Hermia and at the same time, trying hard to get rid of Helena who has fallen in love with him, which angers him. In the 1981 version, he has dark hair and a goatee and in some way resembles a musketeer. When Puck bestows some magic on him, he suddenly becomes sweet and understanding and at the same time determined to get what he wants. In the 1964 version, he has no facial hair and he is more than perturbed by the persistence of Helena on her cause. Here, he pushes her away gently unlike the brutal way he puts her off in the 1981 version. This only shows two eras that the dramatic expressions and dismissals of love were taken differently. In the 1981 version, Helena is whiney and very confused. She dresses just like Hermia, but she is not quite as pretty as she is. In the 1964 version of the same play, she sounds very heartbroken and sad. In 1981, Helena made a speech that is more or less dramatic and demanding of attention according to recent times and cultures. In the 1964 version, she starts as a girl whose heart has been broken but ends up getting angry towards the end of her speech. This reflects on both cultures at the time whereby, in the 1980s, women could express their views, which included sudden outbursts. In the 1964 era, women were more conservative of their words and not much could trigger outbursts that were looked down upon. It is noteworthy that more distinct differences in both productions are not only limited to characters. They are also present in the overall scenes. For example, a big fight that happens in the forest was more physical in the 1981 version of the play. They splash severally in the puddles and often get in each others’ faces and the end, Hermia is both hurt and appalled. Helena, on the other hand, is confused. In the 1964 version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the forest fight is more in a lively spirit and jest as compared to the previous aggressive play. Here, Helena does more scorning and Hermia gets angry at her for this. In conclusion, it is my personal opinion as a lover of plays, that the BBC version of 1981 best captures modern situations and responses to a situation such as anger and love. On the other hand, the Hollywood version of 1964 best depicts the Elizabethan times when life was less complicated and women had limited voices. Now, they just yell, scorn and dismiss in public even the most private of issues. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is rife with different themes, spectacular in fact but all the more, precise in their execution. The theme of abused women stands out in its own right, especially when Ophelia comes to question. Trust is the most formidable show of humility besides love in Shakespeare’s plays, but they each stand out in his or her own right. Trust and love becomes the joy and the demise of many female characters in Shakespeare’s plays. However strong they feel for each other, some die at the hands of their spouses while some lose the meaning of the word love. Just like Lavina, Ophelia is a victim to much abuse from the men that she trusts in her life. The act of trusting and depending on the men in her life costs Ophelia her sanity and ultimately her life. Both Ophelia’s irreconcilable attachment to Polonius and Hamlet as individuals, and holding on to the values of chastity and sensual love as ultimate goals leads to her demise. Both Ophelia and Lavina have a similarity in that they are both motherless and have been cared for by their fathers. Ophelia is obedient and pretty much naive, much like most female characters in Shakespearean books and plays. Even in the midst of her madness, she still keeps the simplicity and the purity that characterizes her. Lavina, daughter to Titus Andronicus is the quintessential good girl of the Shakespearean times. She is chaste, obedient and very quiet as was required of her, exactly like Ophelia. She is raped and thereafter mutilated by Chiron and Demetrius who cut her tongue off and her hands so that she is unable to identify them either in writing or speech. Just like Ophelia is used as a pawn by Polonius and subsequently held in a hall where she spends most days, Lavina is denied the right to speak by her abusers. It is true to say that their naivety is the main cause for their tragedy that comes in untimely yet crude fashions. If they had known better, they would have stayed clear and taken caution. Desdemona is one of the characters in Shakespeare’s Othello. She is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father by the unforgivable act of eloping with Othello. He is a man several years her senior who is later deployed to Cyprus to serve the Republic of Venice, and Desdemona accompanies him. As time goes by, Othello’s ensign, Lago manipulates him to believing that Desdemona is an adulteress, and in the final act, Othello murders her. Portia, on the other hand, is an also a beautiful and gracious, yet rich heiress whose father has imposed conditions for her hand in marriage. Her father insists that her suitors choose one of three boxes, either of gold, silver or lead. These suitors are mainly princess from other lands, but Portia is in love with Bassanio who is not royalty. Portia’s father had imposed these conditions for marriage just to make sure that her daughter would be loved for who she was and not because of her wealth. Much like Desdemona and Portia, Jessica breaks her father’s heart when she steals from him and elopes with her lover Lancelot. Desdemona elopes with her lover and gets married in the absence of her father, Portia does not follow the rules her father sets out for her condition in marriage, and Jessica steals and elopes with her father’s ducats and servant. It is a betrayal by daughters to their fathers who seem to control to them, even from the grave. However, these fathers are more concerned about the financial well-being of their daughters’ futures rather than their happiness. The norm of love in Shakespearean writings may be described as being a passion the kindles the heart and brain and makes somebody as senseless as the day he or she was born. Girls like Hermia, Desdemona, Imogen, Portia, Jessica, Juliet and Anne Page all look forward to marriage without turning their affections elsewhere. Religion is a major theme that appears in Shakespeare’s Othello. Enmity is created on both the religious and economic fronts. Since the Turks are Moslems, Othello has no regard for them and even insults them by calling one of them ‘a circumcised dog.’ He is a Christian by religion and as well, fights for Christians. The incident of the handkerchief obsesses Othello and the anger connects him to a pre-Christian or a pre-Moslem belief. At first, he says that he is going to chop Desdemona into bits but later prepares to kill her as a sacrifice. Once he realizes what he has done, he takes his own life as he once killed the Turk (he is executing the Turk he sees that he has become who is anti-Christian). During the Shakespearean times, England was mainly protestant while Spain was a Catholic nation. However, after the invasion of Spain, Catholics gained ground and more English converted. Although it is not clearly known which denomination, Shakespeare was following the Catholic secretly, while it is believed that he was a member of the newly formed Anglican Church. Before the time of his birth, the Elizabeth Religious Settlement served the Church of England exclusively and, therefore, the Roman Catholic Church was surprises. Scholars claim that there was evidence that Shakespeare’s family were secretly Catholic followers and that he took up the line. The likeness of Othello to Shakespeare is that they both have a secret admiration of the religion that is loathed and looked down upon. Othello saw himself as a Moslem after he killed Desdemona, while Shakespeare is a secret follower of the Catholics. Character defines a man; wisdom defines great men while love defines a lot of things, inclusive of idiocrity and naivety among men. Love has brought great men to their knees while the same love has elevated other men to unimaginable heights. Material wealth has been acquired through many unscrupulous actions but the best of them has been through love. Some have inherited it; some have worked for it while some have married into it. In this life, it is only normal for a woman to marry into riches, but in the Merchant of Venice, the tables have turned. Bassanio, a poor fellow has his sights on a beautiful heiress, primarily not for her beauty, but for the fortune that is her name. He explains to Antonio that in Belmont, there’s a lady who has been richly left, who is fair and nothing about her has been undervalued. He uses words such as value to indicate his intention to get her hand in marriage, and become part of the wealthy. Bassanio sets out to impress Portia in a bid to win her hand in marriage but he has to borrow money from his friend, Antonio. He asks that Antonio thinks of his lending as an investment into the future, because Bassanio was sure of winning her hand and becoming the husband of a rich lady. When Portia is informed of the arrival of Bassanio, the young Venetian, she and Nerrisa rush to see him, giddy like school girls. She has affection for the young lad but she cannot break the rules for her hand in marriage. She has to let him play the game like all other suitors have done and if he would lose, he would lose her forever, and he would not e allowed to marry another lady. At first, Bassanio’s love for wealth and a lavish lifestyle trumps any feeling that he might have had for Portia initially but after her realizes this, affection for her grows. When the prince of Morocco fails to win Portia’s hand, she is more than happy and wishes that all men of such color face the same fate. However, the request to play music when Bassanio is about to pick a casket is features as witty and out of sheer love. The song she plays only leads to the choice that Bassanio makes, as Portia secretly directs him with the words of her song. Why Bassanio chose the Lead casket instead of the golden one is something of a mystery of the heart. If Bassanio would have listened to his head, he should have chosen the golden or the silver casket because he was in so much debt. He did not value Portia as a regular woman, but the girl born with a silver or golden spoon. The song that Portia sings while he chooses the casket is the only indication that Bassanio would have made the wrong choice had he not heard it. In addition to that, the arrival of Bassanio had made Portia inclined to delay his choosing of the casket so that they would have had a few moments together. The brief moments that they were together made Bassanio realize that he indeed wanted to spend his life with Portia and he would listen to her. With this in mind, Portia secretly guides him to pick the lead casket which is the right one. In relation to Othello, The Merchant of Venice is quite a love story. With Portia and Jessica and Desdemona in Othello and The Merchant of Venice respectively, all ladies have rich fathers who seem quite controlling of their daughters, even form the grave, as is Portia’s case. However, all ladies have rich fathers but their suitors are clearly not of the same social class. They are also dedicated to their mates, regardless of the outcome. In Othello, interracial marriage ends in death or suicide while in The Merchant of Venice, Portia ends up being happy while Jessica converts to Christianity and also leads a happy life with her spouse. In Othello, Desdemona is obedient and even accompanies her husband to battle, knowing that she is needed in some way. Portia on the other hand Guides Bassanio into choosing the right casket because she understands that he only has one chance to prove his worth. References â€Å"A Midsummer Night’s Dream By William Shakespeare About A Midsummer Night’s Dream.† About A Midsummer Night’s Dream. N.p., 9 Feb. 2012. 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Web. 5 Apr. 2014. â€Å"Themes in Shakespeare’s Othello (Gabriele Bernhard-Jackson).† Themes in Shakespeare’s Othello (Gabriele Bernhard-Jackson). N.p., 1 May 2009. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. . â€Å"William Shakespeare – An examination of two modern interpretations of Shakespeare’s `A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.† William Shakespeare – An examination of two modern interpretations of Shakespeare’s `A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. N.p., 5 Oct. 2006. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. .Shmoop Editorial Team. â€Å"Jessica in The Merchant of Venice.† Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. . Shmoop Editorial Team. â€Å"Lavinia in Titus Andronicus.† Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. . Shmoop Editorial Team. â€Å"Portia in The Merchant of Venice.† Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. . Source document