A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift and Tartuffe by Moliere

Commerce is frequently thought of as the activity of buying or selling on a large scale, whether it be goods or not, but commerce can be thought of in a different manner, simply defining it as social dealings between people. If commerce is looked at as simply the social interactions between groups of people, it exists practically everywhere on nearly a daily basis. Whether it be the exchange of some sort of â€Å"good† on a mass scale from one group to another satirically seen in Jonathan Swift’s â€Å"A Modest Proposal†, arranging marriages as seen in Moliere’s Tartuffe, or 3RD TEXT, it can all be considered some kind of commerce. The presence of commerce in Jonathan Swift’s â€Å"A Modest Proposal† is anything but modest, but nonetheless it is there and it does take a certain side on finding a solution for society’s main problems at that specific time. In the early 1700’s, conditions in Ireland slowly began to worsen, henc e his satirical, scathing response to the lack of solving the ever so present economic crisis the people of Ireland were experiencing. As he mentions in his proposal, poor children, predominantly Catholic, are seen all across the country, and in his point of view they are seen as burdens to their families and not so much of good use to the commonwealth. He begins to make a â€Å"modest† proposal that he claims will be a much better solution than anything else that someone can come up with, and is where the majority of the commerce is present. â€Å"That the remainingShow MoreRelatedThe Enlightenment: An Incredible Change1163 Words   |  5 PagesNeo-Classical era, many world famous writers such as Jean-Baptiste Poquelin known by Moliere, Jonathan Swift, and Francois-Marie Arouet know by Voltaire wrote some incredible stories, poems, plays and articles about the age of reason. In literature, all of them are well known by the tactics and methods they used in their styles of writing in order to persuade or inform the readers. In the Age of Enlightenment, Moliere, Swift, and Voltaire used the concept of â€Å"Satire†, such as verbal, situational, and dramaticRead MoreSatire in Tartuffe and Modest Proposal1560 Words   |  7 Pagesfollies and vices in society. In Molià ¨re’s Tartuffe and Jonathan Swift’s essay A Modest Proposal, that both obliquely criticize and burlesque human behavior and the perception we have towards others. Through a satirist delivery, these authors offer an insight past the seemingly obvious, and aim to improve this faulty custom of one sidedness rather than eliminating it. Although these pair of literary pieces illustrates satire, it is Molià ¨re’s play Tartuffe that generates a more effective delivery.Read MoreA Modest Proposal On Satire1239 Words   |  5 Pagessociety. In Molià ¨re s Tartuffe and Jonathan Swift s article A Modest Proposal, both diagonally condemn and criticize human conduct and the discernment we have towards others. Through a comedian conveyance, these creators offer an understanding past the apparently self-evident, and expect to enhance this flawed custom of one sidedness as opposed to disposing of it. The key topic of Tartuffe is hypocrisy, as presented with the disposition of the antagonist. Hypocrisy is represented in Tartuffe s characterRead MoreA Comparison of A Modest Proposal, Tartuffe, and Candide1134 Words   |  5 PagesWriters use personality traits and events to change the classical ideals. Majority of the writers focus is to change peoples attitudes. Jonathan Swift, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere, Francois-Marie Arquet de Voltaire use characterization and plot to challenge the themes of the Neo-Classical period. nbsp; In A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift challenges the Neo-classical period by creating a sense of instability in their way of thinking. He attacks the society by carelessly endorsing

Alternative Energy Vs. Fossil Fuels Essay - 1407 Words

Alternative energy versus fossil fuels is a very controversial issue surrounding America today. The issue is so controversial for many reasons, such as our economic dependence on fossil fuels and the possibility of global warming due to the burning of these fossil fuels we are so dependent on. Where one argument seems to succeed in persuading the reader one way, another rebuttal can be made that will neutralize the arguments before it. If the United States become more alternative energy dependent, it could destroy thousands of jobs, or it could save the US’s economy. Those who are for alternative energy side this way for many reasons. Firstly, alternative resources are an extremely clean source of energy, as one anonymous person said, â€Å"Remember when all those kids got asthma from solar panel smog, toxic wind turbine pollution got in your food, and clean energy poisoned our water? Yeah, me neither.† Almost all alternative energy plans highlight that they have much lower carbon emissions than any of the fossil fuel options available, and make the environment healthier, as they do not pollute it with carbon dioxide or any other toxic gases that are produced, as a byproduct of fossil fuels. As of right now, our economy’s inflation is directly based on the supply of fossil fuels, foreign and domestic. The cost of renewable energy is dependent on the amount of money put into the infrastructure, as sunlight, wind, and water are free and in abundance almost anywhere on earth, whichShow MoreRelatedFossil Fuels vs Energy Alternatives730 Words   |  3 PagesHow can energy be converted from one form to another? All forms of energy can be converted to another form of. For example: A pendulum is an object is suspended by a string or wire for support. If the object is moved to one side and then released, it will swing back and forth in an arc. 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Managing Segways Early Development free essay sample

9-804-065 REV: SEPTEMBER 15, 2004 RICHARD G. HAMERMESH DAVID KIRON Managing Segways Early Development It was a cold dreary morning on December 20, 1999 as Dean Kamen – inventor, founder and owner of DEKA, a Manchester, New Hampshire R company – began his annual speech to his employees. The entire staff had gathered â€Å"to hear him talk about the past year, the year ahead, and whatever else had been gnawing at him lately. The speech was usually equal parts lecture, oration, pep talk, and homily, all of it seasoned with wisecracks. After the speech, Dean always called each employee’s name and gave out Christmas bonus checks, along with handshakes for the men and hugs for the women. †1[77] Bonuses were especially important at DEKA, where engineers worked for below-market salaries and received no stock options. Now Kamen was wondering if he could continue this approach. DEKA had attracted some of the brightest engineers because of Kamen’s allure and DEKA’s cutting edge projects. But for the first time, recruitment and retention were becoming issues. In the midst of the Internet boom, many of the most attractive engineering candidates were looking for positions that offered compensation packages that included stock options and salaries higher than what Kamen was willing to offer. Kamen’s long-time friend and most trusted lieutenant, Mike Ambrogi, had recently accepted a job at Sycamore Networks, which had offered Ambrogi a lucrative compensation package that included stock options. In 1999, DEKA had a difficult year, several projects were canceled or behind schedule, and many of the gathered staff had concerns that these cancellations and delays would diminish, if not eliminate, their bonuses. DEKA employees were also concerned about stock options, which had been promised only to employees on a secret project that many had never seen. Kamen had created a separate company within DEKA to design and manufacture a product that the team had nicknamed â€Å"Ginger. 2 Kamen believed both that the new company had a chance to become the fastest growing company in the world [50] and that stock options were appropriate compensation within such a venture. However, he wondered if it was fair to withhold options from the many other loyal and productive employees who worked at DEKA. After all, many DEKA engineers were responsible for Ginger’s early development. 1 This case draws heavily from Steve Kemper’s Code Name Ginger, Harvard Business School Press, 2003. Page numbers to quoted passages (contained in brackets) all refer to Kemper’s book. The Segway Human Transporter was called Ginger during its development. This case focuses on management issues during that development period. ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ Professor Richard G. Hamermesh and Senior Researcher David Kiron, Global Research Group, prepared this case. This case was developed from published sources. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright  © 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www. hbsp. harvard. edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School. 804-065 Managing Segways Early Development Kamen struggled to find a fair approach to determining everyone’s bonus. DEKA’s bonus pool, which totaled $1 million in 1998, had typically been 15% to 20% of annual revenues and represented about the same percentage of salaries. Kamen considered several issues: †¢ What should be the size of the bonus pool? The number of DEKA employees had grown significantly over the preceding year, but the company had not made a profit. Any bonuses would have to come from Kamen’s personal funds, which were already being used to finance several projects. In the previous month alone, Ginger had cost Kamen $500,000. Should Kamen reduce the bonus pool, keep it the same, or increase it? Should the bonus pool be supplemented with a promise of stock options in Ginger? Unlike Ginger’s engineers, DEKA engineers did not even have the promise of options. Should Kamen now promise stock options in Ginger to DEKA employees as well? How should the bonus pool be allocated? In past years, everyone received a bonus. However, in the past, the company was profitable. At this time, many were not working on incomegenerating projects. Some had no projects at all. Should everyone continue to receive a bonus? †¢ †¢ Background At 49, Dean Kamen was a self-made multi-millionaire with no formal college education. He owned more than 100 patents, and was, according to many accounts, a brilliant, ambitious, visionary inventor with extraordinary sales skills. Kamen wanted to change the world, and already had. His practical medical inventions, including a portable kidney dialysis machine and a portable, automatic drug infusion pump, had already benefited millions of people. For these and other achievements, Kamen would earn the National Medal of Technology award, the U. S. government’s highest honor for inventors who enhanced U. S. competitiveness. (See Exhibit 1 for a picture of Kamen. ) Kamen’s entrepreneurial success began when he was in high school. Kamen had a summer job as a cabinetmaker that gave him after-hours access to Manhattan’s Museum of Natural History and its Hayden Planetarium. Kamen told the Museum’s chairman that he could improve the Planetarium’s lighting system. The chairman declined to let a 16-year old fiddle with one of his most popular attractions. Undeterred, Kamen used his pass to set up the show and convinced the chairman to see the Planetarium before throwing him out. The chairman was so impressed that he hired Kamen to create similar lighting systems for three other museums. The museum chairman was not the only one impressed. Several years later, the founder of Cordis, a medical equipment manufacturer, wanted to hire the creator of the Planetarium’s light show to make an audiovisual presentation for the company’s new pacemaker. Kamen was hired over the phone. When company representatives came to see the final product at Kamen’s production facility, they were shocked to find it located in the basement of his parents’ suburban home in Long Island, New York. Despite their shock, they were pleased with the presentation. Kamen’s brother, who was in medical school, encouraged Kamen to construct a portable intravenous (IV) system that delivered precise dosages of drugs at precise intervals. Such a device would revolutionize hospital care, freeing nurses who had to constantly monitor the conventional IVs, which were large, complex, and stationary. Kamen’s solution, a portable infuser, which he made from off-the-shelf components, reflected his approach to innovation: â€Å"I don’t have to invent anything. It’s out there somewhere if I can just find and integrate it. †[19] After a positive review from the New England Journal of Medicine, Kamen’s infuser became a standard device in hospitals around the 2 Managing Segways Early Development 804-065 world. He formed the company AutoSyringe to manufacture the devices, and used his parents’ basement as headquarters. As the company grew, Kamen moved the company out of the basement to an industrial strip on Long Island. New York state taxes soon became a nuisance, and Kamen relocated the company and 20 employees to New Hampshire, which had no state taxes. After three more years of sustained growth, he sold the company for a reputed $30 million. With the proceeds, Kamen purchased a plane, a helicopter, an island off the Connecticut coast, a large New Hampshire home, and 500,000-square feet of office space in a former textile mill along the Merrimack River. The Amoskeag Millyard, which housed a row of decrepit but structurally sound brick factory buildings, became headquarters for Kamen’s new R company, DEKA; a name that combined â€Å"De† from Dean with â€Å"Ka† from Kamen. As he first mill buildings were renovated, DEKA operated out of a machine shop that Kamen had built onto his house. While commuting to the Millyard in his helicopter, Kamen noticed several ways to improve it, so he bought the helicopter company, patented his improvements, and incorporated them into his company’s new helicopters. As the Millyard renovation moved forward, Kamen became dissatisfied with his options for climate control syste ms in the rehabbed buildings. So, he designed his own, and created a spin-off company, Teletrol, to make the systems [16]. Teletrol soon had a client list that included Walt Disney Corporation and NASA. Kamen’s wealth and natural charisma helped him to become a local celebrity, but one who was out of touch with the nation’s popular culture. He dated New Hampshire’s Miss America contestant, but was unable to recognize Barbara Streisand while sitting next to her at a luncheon on health care. He befriended former governor John Sununu, who later provided Kamen access to president George H. Bush, but was unfamiliar with former basketball star, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who once wanted to rent his island. He would later develop a following among the new captains of industry, billionaires and venture capitalists, such as Steve Jobs (Macintosh), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers), William Sahlman (HBS), yet Kamen had little idea who Warren Beatty and Andy Warhol were upon meeting them. In fact, Kamen’s cultural heroes were of a different ilk: Galileo, Archimedes, Newton and Einstein. Kamen believed that scientists and engineers could be, even should be, as highly and widely regarded as pop culture icons. So, from 1992 to 1993 Kamen started FIRST3, a robotics competition that teamed professional engineers with high school students from across the country. For Kamen, FIRST was much more than a simple competition. It was the first step in his pursuit of a world in which science heroes and stars matched the popularity of sports stars. Kamen recruited leaders of American industry, education and government to sponsor the events. Before a competition had ever been held, Kamen envisioned that the FIRST championships would eventually be held at Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center. Several years later, his vision became reality. FIRST’s 1999 national championships became the largest non-Disney event ever held at Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center. Kamen was as passionate about FIRST as he was about DEKA, where he brought together brilliant engineers, and cultivated an environment to bring out their best. DEKA Kamen believed in doing well by doing good. DEKA projects focused on developing medical technologies that he would license to companies. Royalties from these projects funded a second set of projects, which Kamen dreamed up. Kamen encouraged his engineers to approach both kinds of 3 FIRST = For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology 3 04-065 Managing Segways Early Development projects in the same way: as if they were addressing the relevant technological problems for the first time in history. When asked to improve upon an existing technology, Kamen’s team would reinvent the product. In 1987, Baxter Healthcare asked Kamen to improve its kidney dialysis machine, an expens ive, complicated, and heavy (over 180 pound) device that was as big as a freezer. Kamen told the DEKA team they were going to make a better machine from scratch. Kamen’s plan alarmed the only two MBAs at DEKA, who advised against making such radical alterations. Kamen responded: If J. P. Morgan had said to [the MBAs], â€Å"I want to build a railroad to the West Coast,† they would have advised against it as too capital intensive, with an uncertain return, because the railroad would be going into nowhere. Morgan’s response to such sensible MBA advice†¦would have been, â€Å"Morons! I know there’s nothing out there. That’s why I want to build the railroad! †[18] Five years later, DEKA had created an inexpensive dialysis machine that weighed 22 pounds, fit under an airline seat, and was easy to operate. Design News named DEKA’s dialysis machine the best medical device of the year. DEKA licensed the machine to Baxter Healthcare. Royalties from the product became the main source of Kamen’s personal fortune, and the primary source of funding for DEKA’s freelance projects. 4[19] In the early to mid-1990s, Kamen had little trouble luring the brightest and most risk-taking engineers to DEKA. The opportunity to work with Kamen was a large draw for many, who were captivated by Kamen’s charm, technical expertise, record of success, and the opportunity he offered to create something truly new and useful to the world. Another big draw was DEKA’s culture. Kamen encouraged his engineers to innovate, and seldom dictated specific goals. One engineer said, â€Å"Dean would never do something like give me objectives for the year. He would say, ‘If I gave you objectives, you might reach them, and that would be terrible, because it might keep you from doing something really great. ’†[35] While many larger firms tried to avoid development mistakes that might delay a project, Kamen encouraged his engineers to try outlandish ideas that might not work out. A Kamen aphorism set the tone for the working environment: â€Å"you need to kiss a lot of frogs (make a lot of mistakes) before you find the prince (find a solution). [60] Most engineers were thankful for the opportunity to work at DEKA even at below-market rates. One engineer described a widely held view among DEKA staff: â€Å"I owe Dean for giving me the greatest experience of my life. †[33] By the time DEKA had invented a heart stent, the kind that was put in vice president Dick Cheney’s chest after one of his heart attacks, its dom inant business model was firmly in place: create the most ground-breaking product possible, with little concern for time constraints; license the products, and use the royalties to finance the next round of Kamen’s revolutionary products. Origins of Ginger Around 1991, Kamen set out to fix the main problems facing those confined to wheelchairs – climbing stairs, having eye-level conversations, and traveling on irregular surfaces. He collected and studied U. S. wheelchair patents from the previous 100 years. Two years and a few million dollars later Kamen literally stumbled across a solution, when he slipped coming out of a shower. As he 4 One of Kamen’s freelance projects involved the development of a Stirling engine, a non-polluting, cheap power source that could produce electricity and purify water. NASA was working on a similar device for powering spacecraft. Kamen expected to perfect the Stirling engine first, which inventors had been working on for more than a hundred years, and sell the machines to developing countries. 4 Managing Segways Early Development 804-065 flung out his arms to balance himself, Kamen realized that he needed a device that could maintain its equilibrium, whether it was going up stairs or over a curb. The key idea was to make a machine that was continuously falling, but also continuously compensating for all of the factors that might make it fall. DEKA engineers took the idea of balancing an inverted pendulum, which was well known among engineers, and did something that no one had ever thought to do: balance someone on top of the pendulum, as the entire structure motored forward (see Figure A below). After two more years, Kamen’s engineers produced a working model that could climb stairs. Because of its herky-jerky, dance-like movements, they named it â€Å"Fred Upstairs† after the dancer Fred Astaire. Figure A Kamen used Fred to solicit additional funding, promising prospective investors a revolution in the wheelchair market. Kamen turned to Johnson and Johnson (J), the giant healthcare manufacturer, which had recently exited the wheelchair market. J CEO Ralph Larsen refused to see Fred, until his Chief Technology Officer told him that missing this opportunity would be the biggest mistake of his career. Despite his resistance to J re-entering the wheelchair market, when Larsen saw Fred climb stairs, he agreed to invest $50 million in its continued development. Kamen, in turn, agreed to deliver a marketable product in three years and to license the exclusive rights to all medical applications of his patents related to Fred’s technology. The culture that evolved at DEKA, however, created numerous delays. Kamen tended to send mixed signals about his priorities on the Fred project. He warned about meeting deadlines, but suggested improvements that delayed production. The suggestions were so frequent that engineers named the process, ‘getting Deaned. ’ When a manager vetoed Kamen’s changes to stay on schedule, Kamen would issue a counter-order. The impact of his suggestions was not lost on Kamen: â€Å"They’re afraid when I come down there because they‘re already up to their asses in alligators and all I do is bring new problems†¦New opportunities. [37] Over the next three years, the Fred Project also developed a culture of secrecy. One outsider called the machine Nobel Prize worthy material, and recommended making the project a secret. Kamen accepted the recommendation and closed the doors to the project, effectively voiding his policy of encouraging employees to learn about other DEKA projects. Engineers were hired for the Fred project without knowing what their job would be and without ever seeing the Fred prototype. However, with all of the secrecy and the delays, by the fall of 1999, the Fred project was more than a year behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget. 35] 5 804-065 Managing Segways Early Development Kamen was already enamored with another project that had originated with an adaptation of Fred’s early technology, an early two-wheeled prototype that looked like a motorized manual lawnmower. At some point in Fred’s early development, an engineer began playfully surfing around the laboratory on the self-balancing device. Lighter and more slender than Fred, the team nicknamed the new machine, Ginger, after Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire’s glamorous dance partner. Soon after, Kamen realized that the device had serious applications. It was because of Ginger that Kamen retained the rights to all non-medical applications of Fred-related patents. Kamen envisioned entire cities built to accommodate fleets of Gingers. All of the problems of urban congestion, e. g. , environmental destruction and pollution, could be mitigated by wide distribution of Gingers. Even if the market for Gingers failed to achieve his vision in the short term, many markets could already benefit from a low-cost, efficient personal transport: mail delivery, theme parks, college campuses, even the golf industry. As DEKA created a more functional version of Ginger, Kamen began soliciting investors. One observer described Kamen’s marketing approach: I never tired of watching Dean perform his sales pitch to potential investors. It was entertaining and irresistible. Engineers know that heat always flows from a hot object to a cold object. When Dean began talking about his passion for Ginger to a cool investor, you could watch the target’s molecules heat up and start dancing. [49] †¦ he opened his pitch with an aperitif of statistics †¦ Do you realize that transportation is the world’s biggest industry, bar none? And that transportation and pollution are two of the world’s biggest problems? Even if we did have feasible, affordable alternative-energy cars, which we don’t, they would solve only part of the problem, the other part being traffic jams. Our cities can’t handle any more big vehicles. Yet in 15-20 years, most of the world’s population will be living in cities. Did you know that China is building eight new cities th e size of Manhattan every year? Cities are dying for solutions. [49] Then, [Kamen] and the investor would walk down to Dean’s double helicopter hangar, where Dean would tear around on a Ginger until the target’s eyes got big. Then Dean would switch the machine into a slower mode – known among the engineers as â€Å"CEO Mode† – and give the prospective investor a quick lesson. Dean liked to demonstrate Ginger’s balance by shoving the billionaire rider in the chest: â€Å"See? See? † he would say, jabbing the guy hard. â€Å"It automatically compensates. † Then the rider would roll off and his face would get that Ginger look that meant the hook had gone in deep. [51] Reactions like this – from billionaires and venture capitalists – were confirming what Kamen already believed: Ginger’s potential was practically unlimited. Indeed, John Doerr, the famed venture capitalist, later predicted that Ginger would reach $1 billion in sales faster than any venture in history. 5 For the first time, Kamen decided to start another company, separate from DEKA, to develop, manufacture, and distribute Gingers to markets around the world. Kamen explained his motivation to start the new company: Conceiving, designing, and protyping new ideas is what’s fun, and it’s what we do. Tooling, inventory, manufacturing, and service we have tried to avoid. We’ve let the big boys do that. We go along for the ride and collect a royalty. But there is no obvious big guy in the Ginger business, because there is no product like Ginger. So we’ve decided to be the captain of our own soul and do Ginger ourselves. [79-80] 5 Heilemann, John, â€Å"Reinventing the Wheel,† Time, December 10, 2001, p. 76. 6 Managing Segways Early Development 804-065 Team Ginger In 1998 Kamen decided to get serious about Ginger. His first move was to make Doug Field, an engineer on the Fred Project, Ginger’s first employee and chief engineer. In his early 30s, Field was a two-year DEKA veteran, with graduate degrees from MIT in engineering and business, and was originally hired to work on Fred, without ever having seen the Fred project. He described his reaction to seeing Fred on his first day at DEKA, â€Å"I had a huge panic. It had wheels and it was new. Oh my God! What if I hadn’t come here, and then I saw it when it came out? †[32] As chief engineer, Field was in charge of putting together an engineering team for the Ginger project. Field’s first hire from outside the company was Scott Waters, a 28-year old industrial designer, the first designer ever hired at DEKA. Waters was already familiar with the Fred project, having done related-consulting work for a small New Hampshire design firm. Waters had designed furniture, snowboard bindings, and a toilet for American Standard, and saw Ginger as the, â€Å"opportunity of a lifetime. It’s not just designing a clamshell for something electronic. It has all the meat I could ever want: concerns about structure, cost, worldwide acceptance, and usability. [60] Field hired Ron Reich to be lead mechanical engineer. His job was to ensure that the project moved smoothly from research to product development. Reich had managed 60 engineers for a supplier to the Big Three automakers in Detroit, Michigan and was accustomed to making sure schedules were followed. Like Field, he joined DEKA on blind faith. After interviewing with Field, he went home to Michigan and told his wife, â€Å"I just interviewed for a company that doesn’t yet exist, that’s going to make a product I didn’t see—and I can’t wait to start. †[38]. To find someone to run the company, someone who knew what was required to make a global business, Kamen turned to his friend, Francois Castaing, a former Chrysler senior vice president responsible in large part for the company’s fabled turnaround, and one of the first board members of FIRST. Castaing recommended Tim Adams, then president of Chrysler Europe. A long time veteran of the global auto industry, Adams was ready to move on after the company’s merger with DaimlerBenz. Adams had supervised the turnaround of Chrysler’s Lamborghini division and directed Chrysler’s Next Generation Vehicle Programs. Before taking the job, Adams told Kamen that he had already worked with a â€Å"mercurial entrepreneur and hadn’t liked it, because the owner had insisted on retaining control over every little detail and would sell the desk out from under you for cash flow. †[46] Kamen assured Adams that he â€Å"had no interest in being involved with manufacturing and all those production details. He needed someone like Tim to run the business so he could get back to the fun stuff, inventing and engineering. †[46] Seeing Ginger sealed the deal. Adams became CEO and president of the new company, accepting a more than 50% cut in salary and a promise of stock options. In exchange for taking the lower salary, Adams was allowed to fly business class. In October 1999 Mike Ferry became Ginger’s marketing director. Ferry came from Procter Gamble where he had been marketing director for a paper products division. His job was to identify how Ginger was likely to be used, select demographic targets, estimate demand, and test market the final versions of the product. With the management team in place, Field created a development plan that differed radically from DEKA’s standard approach to development, especially the approach taken on the Fred project. Field said, â€Å"Fred got in trouble by sticking to the DEKA model, which always asked, ‘Can it be done? ’ Instead of shifting to the product development model, which asked, ‘Should it be done? ’†[37] As a result, the culture that developed on the Ginger project represented a significant departure from the culture at DEKA. Ginger had a CEO, designers, and secrecy, whereas DEKA had a horizontal 7 804-065 Managing Segways Early Development management structure beneath Kamen. Ginger was focused on developing a product for global sales on a tight schedule. DEKA was focused on research and technological innovation on extended timeframes. Kamen summed up his attitude toward the growing distance between the cultures at DEKA and Ginger: â€Å"Those guys across the hall at Ginger are running a religious cult over there, not an engineering firm. They’re more concerned about †¦ the process than the result. It drives me crazy. †[275]. Tensions In the winter of 1999, Kamen had several concerns about the Ginger project, including the senior management, cost-containment, project secrecy and maintaining control over the project. Kamen’s focus on these concerns led to several problems. Senior Team Struggles Soon after Adams started, Kamen began to form the impression that Adams might not be the right person to lead the new company: â€Å"You talk to him and he says a few bright things, but he says the same few things every time. He’s a simple guy in a lot of ways and that’s his strength. He’s not nearly as bright as most of the engineers I have, even though I pay him two or three times as much as any of them. †[54] Several potential investors reinforced Kamen’s initial concerns about Adams. One venture capitalist allegedly criticized Adams to Kamen, asking, â€Å"where did you find an old-line butthead like him? [273] According to Kamen, â€Å"when it comes to knowing suppliers and manufacturers, [Adams] has been there, done that, and knows everybody. †[54] However, Kamen limited Adams’s relationships with these groups. He expected Adams to find suppliers willing to absorb the costs of developing factories for Ginger’s novel parts , without offering guarantees of volume sales – guarantees that were commonly offered to offset supplier risk if the product did not meet expected demand. Kamen believed that Ginger’s almost certain success would create a bonanza for suppliers. Adams was finding suppliers less than receptive to this view. Over time, Kamen and Adams differed on several issues. Adams, along with the rest of Ginger’s senior management team, wanted BAE Systems, a large British firm, to supply Ginger’s key balancing mechanism, a system of unique gyroscopes. BAE had already developed a version that was ready for mass production. However, BAE’s price was 50% more than what the team had projected, and BAE wanted a guarantee of 100,000 sales in the first year. Kamen was pushing Delphi, a large U. S. -based company, which was pricing the gyroscopes much closer to what the team had budgeted. However, Delphi had yet to develop a gyroscope, and was dodging many technical questions about the gyroscope they had in development. Adams argument for BAE was that, â€Å"It doesn’t matter if we reduce cost if we don’t have inventory. †[274] Kamen’s counterargument was that Delphi’s lower costs could save the company tens of millions of dollars and might not create a large delay in production, if any of the other steps in the production schedule fell behind. Kamen and Adams also differed on where production was to occur. Adams had yet to receive permission to build a factory and move project engineers to a location outside of DEKA. He had proposed several sites nearby in New Hampshire, but Kamen rejected every one. Kamen even hinted that he might locate the manufacturing site within the Amoskeag Millyard, even though the Millyard’s location presented significant shipping challenges. Because Kamen expected to ship 8 Managing Segways Early Development 804-065 between 200,000 and 500,000 Gingers in the first year [230]6, Adams and his team believed that the Millyard could not possibly accommodate the vast resources and networks required to produce and distribute such large volumes of product. Adams was not the only one on the senior team to be constrained by Kamen’s approach to building the new company. Kamen’s concerns with secrecy were restricting the marketing decisions of Mike Ferry, whose group Kamen had begun calling â€Å"The Three Mouseketeers. † Kamen prohibited any test marketing that risked exposing Ginger to the public, despite Ferry’s insistence that postponing the tests threatened initial sales. Adams said, â€Å"It’s hard to know if you have the right marketing targets if you can’t talk to people. It’s difficult to know if your regulatory strategy is correct if you can’t talk to people. †[232] Kamen, however, was worried that Honda or some other automotive company would find out about Ginger and duplicate its technology. For Kamen the automotive industry was Ginger’s main competitive threat. He told one prospective candidate for the CIO position, â€Å"You worked for IBM, and they never saw the PC coming, which was going to wipe them out. And the PT – the personal transporter – will do the same to the auto industry. [230] Secrecy on the Ginger project was such a concern that any outsider – consultants, job candidates and test riders – who had to see Ginger had to be cleared through Kamen, not even CEO Adams could offer clearance. Personnel Issues Kamen was financing Ginger entirely out of his own pocket, and was trying to duplicate his successful strategy at DEKA – hiring brilliant engineers at below-market rates b y offering them the chance to work on new, world-changing projects. By the end of 1999, however, the Internet boom was providing many of the best engineers with the chance to do novel work, and become millionaires at the same time. Yet Kamen refused to offer competitive rates for both senior managers and engineers. For instance, Kamen balked at Adams’s request for a senior level procurement manager, at a $200,000 annual salary, suggesting instead that Adams hire someone smart for $35,000 a year, and teach them what they needed to know. [135] Kamen also refused to hire an HR manager to do recruitment due to cost considerations, even though Field and other senior team members were then forced to spend valuable time doing interviews. The interviews often failed to produce a new hire. Ginger’s managers were making offers that were 80% of what they considered a rock-bottom salary. They called the 80% the Dean factor. After several months of looking for new engineers, Field had only half of the personnel he needed: not enough to gain a head start on the next Ginger prototype. As the project slipped behind schedule, Kamen refused Field’s request to tap the most convenient pool of engineers†¦at DEKA. According to Kamen, â€Å"Somebody has to keep working at Fred. †[173] Kamen’s tactics were creating tensions both on and off the Ginger project. Ginger already had several engineers on loan from DEKA, including several of Ginger’s most important engineers, and none had been promised options in the Ginger company. Adams characterized the options situation on the Ginger team as â€Å"explosive. †[67] For DEKA engineers working on other projects, compensation was becoming an issue, especially for veteran staff. A very senior DEKA engineer and Kamen’s best friend at the company, Mike Ambrogi, had already decided to leave. Ambrogi had graduated at the top of his MIT class and was considered part of DEKA’s foundation and soul. However, Ambrogi wanted a greater financial stake 6 Kamen’s marketing team believed, however, that first year sales would not exceed 150,000 units [194]. 9 804-065 Managing Segways Early Development in DEKA than what his friend Kamen was prepared to offer. Other veteran staff simply resented the Ginger project, which was developing a reputation for out-of-control spending. Soon after Adams started, many within DEKA believed (falsely) that all Ginger staff flew business class. The fact that only Ginger project engineers had been promised options only added to the frustrations of some DEKA engineers. Some DEKA engineers considered following Ambrogi’s lead, but many more were anxious to join the Ginger project. One engineer said to Field, â€Å"If Fred is hell and Ginger is heaven, you must be Jesus Christ. I hope you’ll save me. †[173] Conclusion: For Love or Money? By the time Kamen’s speech moved into its second hour, he had yet to discuss the issue of bonuses. The staff was becoming antsy. Throughout 1999, several DEKA projects had lost their funding sources, either because sponsors had decided to cancel or because they had simply run out of money. Project cancellations had left 30 to 40 engineers without a project, about 20% of the company’s engineers. â€Å"[M]y rule is that no one will lose a job for causes that aren’t their ethical or professional fault,† Kamen said. â€Å"The consequence is that DEKA—that is, me—had to absorb that expense. †[79] Then, more bad news: the Fred project was continuing to encounter delays. And the Ginger project was becoming much more expensive than he had anticipated. He had yet to find a satisfactory outside investor, spending millions of his own money on Ginger in order to find a venture capitalist that accepted his terms. My idea of a good partner for Ginger is someone who leaves us in total control,† Kamen said. â€Å"We’ve spent a few million this year waiting for the right partner. †[85] Kamen was willing to sell a 10% stake in Ginger for $50 million. Once the financing came through, Kamen’s plan was to grant a 10% stak e in the form of stock options to Ginger’s management team. Although he expected other DEKA projects to deliver hefty profits in the near future, Kamen expected the greatest success to come from Ginger. Kamen told the group, â€Å"whether you like it or not, I am your 401(k) manager. I’m investing in Ginger for you. Imagine what life will be like when we can fund internal projects, and I can eat and sleep again. I don’t think it’s hard to imagine. †[85] As he turned to the topic of bonuses, Kamen told the group that if bonuses were paid, he would need to take out a loan to help pay for them. 10 Managing Segways Early Development 804-065 Exhibit 1 Dean Kamen http://www. bricklin. com/deankamen. htm. Accessed October 21, 2003. 11

What Setting Ttells Us Essays - A Rose For Emily, Emily

What Setting Tells Us In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," the narrator carefully describes the house that Miss Emily lives in. This description helps us picture a decaying Mississippi town in the post-Civil War South. We also learn about Miss Emily's resistance to change. It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps--an eyesore among eyesores. Later we enter the house itself and, eventually, end up inside one particular room. The physical details of the setting become linked with the values, ideals, and attitudes of that place in different times. Setting can add an important dimension of meaning, reflecting character and embodying theme. Notice how the details of the setting provide the clues for solving the murder in "A Jury of Her Peers." As a result, they illuminate the deeper meaning of the story.

How to Make Yellow or Golden Fire

How to Make Yellow or Golden Fire Most flames from candles or wood burning fire are yellow, but you can color a blue flame so that it will become yellow. Heres what you do. Chemicals That Produce Yellow Fire Yellow can be caused by the temperature of a flame, but it can also come from the emission spectrum of a chemical as it is heated. Typically, this is caused by the presence of sodium in a fuel. You can produce a yellow fire by adding any of these common sodium compounds to a fire: Sodium chloride (table salt)Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)Sodium carbonate (washing soda) Making Yellow Fire The yellow emission spectrum from sodium is so intense, you really dont need to add sodium to most materials to produce a yellow flame. However, if you want to intensify the yellow color, you can add salt to your fuel. Most of the chemicals that produce yellow fire are soluble in water. Dissolve any of the salts in a very small amount of water or in rubbing alcohol, which is a mixture of alcohol and water. Mix the sodium solution with your fuel (e.g., naphtha, alcohol) to add yellow color to a blue or colorless flame.

Degrees of Freedom in Statistics and Mathematics

Degrees of Freedom in Statistics and Mathematics In statistics, the degrees of freedom are used to define the number of independent quantities that can be assigned to a statistical distribution. This number typically refers to a positive whole number that indicates the lack of restrictions on a persons ability to calculate missing factors from statistical problems. Degrees of freedom act as variables in the final calculation of a statistic and are used to determine the outcome of different scenarios in a system, and in math degrees of freedom define the number of dimensions in a domain that is needed to determine the full vector. To illustrate the concept of a degree of freedom, we will look at a basic calculation concerning the sample mean, and to find the mean of a list of data, we add all of the data and divide by the total number of values. An Illustration with a Sample Mean For a moment suppose that we know the mean of a data set is 25 and that the values in this set are 20, 10, 50, and one unknown number. The formula for a sample mean gives us the equation (20 10 50 x)/4 25, where x denotes the unknown, using some basic algebra, one can then determine that the missing number,  x, is equal to 20. Lets alter this scenario slightly. Again we suppose that we know the mean of a data set is 25. However, this time the values in the data set are 20, 10, and two unknown values. These unknowns could be different, so we use two different variables, x, and y,  to denote this. The resulting equation is (20 10 x y)/4 25. With some algebra, we obtain y 70- x. The formula is written in this form to show that once we choose a value for x, the value for y is completely determined. We have one choice to make, and this shows that there is one degree of freedom. Now well look at a sample size of one hundred. If we know that the mean of this sample data is 20, but do not know the values of any of the data, then there are 99 degrees of freedom. All values must add up to a total of 20 x 100 2000. Once we have the values of 99 elements in the data set, then the last one has been determined. Student t-score and Chi-Square Distribution Degrees of freedom play an important role when using the Student t-score table. There are actually several t-score distributions. We differentiate between these distributions by use of degrees of freedom. Here the probability distribution that we use depends upon the size of our sample. If our sample size is n, then the number of degrees of freedom is n-1. For instance, a sample size of 22 would require us to use the row of the t-score table with 21 degrees of freedom. The use of a chi-square distribution also requires the use of degrees of freedom. Here, in an identical manner as with the t-score  distribution, the sample size determines which distribution to use. If the sample size is n, then there are n-1 degrees of freedom. Standard Deviation and Advanced Techniques Another place where degrees of freedom show up is in the formula for the standard deviation. This occurrence is not as overt, but we can see it if we know where to look. To find a standard deviation we are looking for the average deviation from the mean. However, after subtracting the mean from each data value and squaring the differences, we end up dividing by n-1 rather than n as we might expect. The presence of the n-1 comes from the number of degrees of freedom. Since the n data values and the sample mean are being used in the formula, there are n-1 degrees of freedom. More advanced statistical techniques use more complicated ways of counting the degrees of freedom. When calculating the test statistic for two means with independent samples of n1 and n2 elements, the number of degrees of freedom has quite a complicated formula. It can be estimated by using the smaller of n1-1 and n2-1 Another example of a different way to count the degrees of freedom comes with an F test. In conducting an F test we have k samples each of size n- the degrees of freedom in the numerator is k-1 and in the denominator is k(n-1).

Degrees of Freedom in Statistics and Mathematics

Degrees of Freedom in Statistics and Mathematics In statistics, the degrees of freedom are used to define the number of independent quantities that can be assigned to a statistical distribution. This number typically refers to a positive whole number that indicates the lack of restrictions on a persons ability to calculate missing factors from statistical problems. Degrees of freedom act as variables in the final calculation of a statistic and are used to determine the outcome of different scenarios in a system, and in math degrees of freedom define the number of dimensions in a domain that is needed to determine the full vector. To illustrate the concept of a degree of freedom, we will look at a basic calculation concerning the sample mean, and to find the mean of a list of data, we add all of the data and divide by the total number of values. An Illustration with a Sample Mean For a moment suppose that we know the mean of a data set is 25 and that the values in this set are 20, 10, 50, and one unknown number. The formula for a sample mean gives us the equation (20 10 50 x)/4 25, where x denotes the unknown, using some basic algebra, one can then determine that the missing number,  x, is equal to 20. Lets alter this scenario slightly. Again we suppose that we know the mean of a data set is 25. However, this time the values in the data set are 20, 10, and two unknown values. These unknowns could be different, so we use two different variables, x, and y,  to denote this. The resulting equation is (20 10 x y)/4 25. With some algebra, we obtain y 70- x. The formula is written in this form to show that once we choose a value for x, the value for y is completely determined. We have one choice to make, and this shows that there is one degree of freedom. Now well look at a sample size of one hundred. If we know that the mean of this sample data is 20, but do not know the values of any of the data, then there are 99 degrees of freedom. All values must add up to a total of 20 x 100 2000. Once we have the values of 99 elements in the data set, then the last one has been determined. Student t-score and Chi-Square Distribution Degrees of freedom play an important role when using the Student t-score table. There are actually several t-score distributions. We differentiate between these distributions by use of degrees of freedom. Here the probability distribution that we use depends upon the size of our sample. If our sample size is n, then the number of degrees of freedom is n-1. For instance, a sample size of 22 would require us to use the row of the t-score table with 21 degrees of freedom. The use of a chi-square distribution also requires the use of degrees of freedom. Here, in an identical manner as with the t-score  distribution, the sample size determines which distribution to use. If the sample size is n, then there are n-1 degrees of freedom. Standard Deviation and Advanced Techniques Another place where degrees of freedom show up is in the formula for the standard deviation. This occurrence is not as overt, but we can see it if we know where to look. To find a standard deviation we are looking for the average deviation from the mean. However, after subtracting the mean from each data value and squaring the differences, we end up dividing by n-1 rather than n as we might expect. The presence of the n-1 comes from the number of degrees of freedom. Since the n data values and the sample mean are being used in the formula, there are n-1 degrees of freedom. More advanced statistical techniques use more complicated ways of counting the degrees of freedom. When calculating the test statistic for two means with independent samples of n1 and n2 elements, the number of degrees of freedom has quite a complicated formula. It can be estimated by using the smaller of n1-1 and n2-1 Another example of a different way to count the degrees of freedom comes with an F test. In conducting an F test we have k samples each of size n- the degrees of freedom in the numerator is k-1 and in the denominator is k(n-1).

CAD drafting software Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

CAD drafting software - Essay Example One of the reasons why autoCAD is ranked top among other CAD softwares is the fact that it is packed with features within the tool bar which are relatively easy to use and navigate. AutoCAD has all the relevant and necessary features which make usability easy while improving compatibility at the same time. It allows the user to customize the tool palettes consisting only of the tools required for the current project. AutoCAD supports a myriad of files which requires no conversion during import or export (Cohn, 16). The software is not easy to use and in addition to time consumption, there is difficulty in figuring how to use some of its features. AutoCAD is supplemented with a wide range of help and support options besides the online knowledge-base present on the website. SolidWorks is considered to be an extensive software that is meant for corporate environment and large production. SolidWorks has extensive design capabilities which makes it a very complex system. Despite the complex and extensive designs in cataloging and tolerance control, the user interface has been kept as dynamic and simple as possible. The design makes SolidWorks a design software suitable for users at all levels. SolidWorks is quite expensive; Premium version goes for $7,995, Standard for $3,995 and the Professional version at $5,490. There is minimal training required for a user to become productive and knowledgeable of SolidWorks. Besides, there is a good production demonstration video which offers design lessons (Cartwright, 12). SolidWorks has an electrical package which is highly used in electrical engineering field in designing complex circuits. It has a wide range of electrical design functionality suitable for design professionals. Google Sketch Up is free but can be upgraded to Pro version at a cost of $485 which comes with email technical support and export options. It’s a simple CAD software for sketching models in a 3 D space. Google Sketch up is

Db5 team and leadership Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Db5 team and leadership - Research Paper Example Other factors that might contribute to the teamwork failure include lack of open-mindedness and progressive thinking among team members (McCallin & Mike, 2009). However, this is opposed to another experience I had with another team that was very successful from the start to end. Among the main factors that contributed to the success of the team was commitment to the goals of the project, good interpersonal skills and interdependence among team members. According to Tarricone & Luca (2002), interpersonal skills such as open discussions among team members, honesty, trust and respect are some of the most important factors that can enhance effective teamwork among members. However, the most crucial factor that helped the team become successful was communication among members. Open communication and positive feedback among the team members are important attributes for a successful team (Tarricone & Luca, 2002). All members of a particular team need to learn teamwork and be committed to targets, timelines and responsibilities set for the project. Such effectiveness can only be achieved through proper communication among team

American Multiculturalism Essay Example for Free

American Multiculturalism Essay Multicultural education helps achieve the highest goals in the achievement of setting goals to all students. It promotes many different diverse languages, decision making and critical thinking. All the while moving away from inequality and moving towards cultural pluralism. Multicultural Education is to reform schools and gives all cultures a chance in every area: job, school and in the community. It also includes nationality, diversity and class to the students while teaching. This education benefits the students by centering their education in familiar ways to their culture and helps them think on it in multiple ways. In this way the students have an opportunity to be comfortable and in a relatively familiar setting to their culture. I have read on globalization and it is based on integration of different people with different backgrounds. â€Å"As a concept, refers both to the shrinking of the world and the increased consciousness of the world as a whole. It is a term used to describe the changes in societies and the world economy that are the result of dramatically increased cross-border trade, investment, and cultural exchange. The processes and actions to which the concept of globalization now refers have been proceeding, with some interruptions, for many centuries, but only in relatively recent times has globalization become a main focus of discussion. The current or recently-past epoch of globalization has been dominated by the nation-state, national economies, and national cultural identities. The new form of globalization is an interconnected world and global mass culture, often referred to as a global village. (New World Encyclopedia, retrieved 1/18/13) The intent of this is to live alongside like cultures and befriend them economically and socially. History speaks of many encounters with multicultural education. It had its pros and cons. In some instances it was harmful to others if this fell into the wrong hands of people with ill intent to others, but it was for the most part a benefit to us all. It’s just like when one country invents something. Then the next country follows up with something else just a little better. To me this is a great example. We all benefit from this. Overall students can excel at more education and have a greater opportunity to access knowledge. Multicultural education also improves teaching methods, a better learning environment for international students and can eventually help the students to feel better acquainted with their communities. It also promotes acceptance in the dialect and citizenship of each student. We should be able to share these opportunities nationally and live side by side to benefit us all. It involves including everyone’s needs to make decisions in curriculum and in the way we live.

Georg Simon Ohm :: essays research papers fc

Georg Simon Ohm   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  At the time Georg Simon Ohm was born not much was known about electricity, he was out to change this. Georg grew up in Bavaria which is why most information about Georg is in German. There is even a College named after him: Georg-Simon-Ohm Fachhochschule Nuernberg. To much dismay not a whole lot has been written about him. Usually you will find a paragraph of the summary of his life. I hope to change this flaw in the history books by telling you as much as I could find on his life.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When Georg was growing up his dad, owner of a prosperous locksmith business, wanted young Georg to study mathematics before joining the family business. Georg attended a Gymnasium, like a college, in Erlangen, Bavaria (now Germany) . During his time at this Gymnasium a professor noticed how he excelled in math. This professor's name was Karl Christian von Langsdorf, Georg owes this man much credit from his recommendations to others.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After he graduated he took a job teaching mathematics at Erlangen University in 1805. He spent the next years looking for a better teaching position. He found what he was looking for in 1817 when a job was made available to him at Cologne Gymnasium. He now looked to research electrical current. In 1827 he published Die galvanishce Kette, mathematisch bearbeit (The Galvanic Circuit, Mathematically Treated). This was a mathematical description of conduction in circuits modeled after Fourier's study of heat conduction. This is also known as Ohm's Law.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ohm's Law, which is Georg's greatest accomplishment, started as an experiment. The experiment's purpose was to find the relationship between current and the length of the wire carrying it. Ohm's results proved that as the wire increased the current decreased. Ohm came up with a formula to state these findings. It is V=IR, where as V=Voltage, I=Current, and R=Resistance. Ohm came up with a statement for this: current is equal to the tension (potential difference) divided by the overall resistance. Units of resistance, or ohms, are named after Georg Ohm. The inverse of resistance is conductance and it's units are mho, or Ohm's name spelled backwards. This is expressed as G=I/R or I=GV. That is conductance is equal to Current divided by resistance. Georg's work was under constant ridicule because it was experiment only and was irrelevant to a true understanding of nature. So he felt compelled to resign his job at Cologne. He continued his research after this time. After six years he got another teaching job at Nuremberg. He was recognized by the Royal Society of London for his work in the 1840s.

Teacher Motivation and Its Effect on the Academic Achievement

Fall 2011 Gender differences on Intrinsic Motivation in Hong Kong Higher Education Hon Keung Yau Man Shan Kan City University of Hong Kong Alison Lai Fong Cheng Abstract The purpose of this paper is to investigate if there are different levels of intrinsic motivation towards study, curiosity and external regulation among males and females. This study focuses are attained by conducting a survey (137 students) among a local university in Hong Kong. Results show that among all students, no matter males or females, their levels of intrinsic motivation towards study, curiosity and external are the same.Burger, Dahlgren, and MacDonald (2006) found that male have higher intrinsic motivation to gamble when compared with female. Another study shows that masculine students have higher intrinsic motivation than feminine students when responding to competition (Conti, Collins, & Picariello, 2001). However, when talking about intrinsic motivation to study, will the result of comparing males and f emales still be the same? Most Hong Kong people spend more than twenty years to learn as much knowledge as they can to get high academic qualifications.Among all students, there is a question of how students can gain more than others when learning in the same learning environment, and whether either one gender has higher intrinsic motivation towards learning. Motivation is an essential element to directly affect students’ learning and performances. Some students may feel that they are not active but under obligation to learn. It is due to lack of motivation in learning, which would not result in good performance. According to Olsson (2008, p. 7), motivation is a reason or set or reasons for engaging in a specific activity, especially human behavior.The reasons can be basic needs, an object or a goal. Self-determination theory (SDT) by Deci and Ryan (1985, 1991) is currently the most comprehensive theories of motivation with empirical support. According to SDT, intrinsic motiv ation is defined as the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfactions rather than for some separable consequence (Xie, Debacker, & Ferguson, 2006). It is the degree to which an individual chooses to accomplish an activity for pleasure and enjoyment (Olsson, 2008, p. 2). e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 3 Fall 2011 This type of motivation is known as the most optimal kind of motivation as being entirely autonomous (Noel, Clement, & Pelletier, 2001; Remedios, & Lieberman, 2008; Gao, 2008). Students with intrinsic motivation complete tasks for fun or challenge instead of external stimuli, pressures, or rewards. They often have more interest, confidence and excitement in doing the task. According to Brophy (2010), intrinsic motivation emphasizes on motivation as selfdetermination of goals and self-regulation of actions rather than motivation as response to felt pressures.In view of this emphasis of intrinsic motivation, this project tries to i nvestigate different aspects affecting students’ learning so that their self-regulation of actions can be improved and learn without pressure. With this improvement, their academic performance can be enhanced at the same time. As few studies have focus of gender difference on intrinsic motivation for Hong Kong students, this study conducted in a local university in Hong Kong tries to investigate if either one gender possesses higher level of intrinsic motivation.According to Narayanan, Rajasekaran, and Iyyappan (2007), females have higher intrinsic motivation in learning English than males among engineering university students. Meanwhile, another research by Shang (1998), it was found that females have lower intrinsic motivation in physical education classes than males. A study by Schatt in 2011 focusing on subject of music found that female students have higher instrumental musical practice rate than males while the amount of time spent on practice correlated significantly w ith intrinsic motivational beliefs.It raises a question whether females possess higher intrinsic motivation, which is investigated in this paper. In view that Ning and Downing (2010) have conducted a research study among 581 university students in Hong Kong and found that student motivation is the strongest predictor to their academic performance while few attempts to investigate more specific factors such as curiosity and external regulation that whether they affect intrinsic motivation among university students in Hong Kong, the relationship between these factors and intrinsic motivation are deeply investigated so as to improve student intrinsic motivation.Also, whether males or females would have higher level of intrinsic motivation is also studied. These serve as the purpose of this paper. We attempt to fill the research gap by asking the following research questions: 64 e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 Fall 2011 (1) Is there any difference in the level of intrinsic motivation towards learning between males and females for Hong Kong university students? (2) Is there any difference in the level of curiosity between males and females for Hong Kong university students? 3) Is there any difference in the level of external regulation between males and females for Hong Kong university students? These questions are answered by conducting a quantitative survey among a local university in Hong Kong. The result indicates that there is no difference in the level of curiosity, external regulation or intrinsic motivation towards learning between males and females. The result implies that students, no matter males or females, their likeliness to be motivated to work tend to be the same.Theory Background and Hypothesis Gender affects the skills or traits people find fascinating or personally relevant (Sansone & Harackiewicz, 2003). It implies that different genders tend to have different perception and thoughts. Different gender may t hus be destined to have different level of intrinsic motivation. In this fast-paced society, people need to have high competitiveness, wide range of knowledge and high capabilities in order to achieve eminent performance. Students having good academic performance were found to have higher intrinsic motivation.In this research, the focus is to find out if there is any difference regarding the level of curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation between males and females. Students in a local Hong Kong university are the targeted group. Differences in Gender Most of the previous researches are apt to suggest that female have higher motivation and more desirable learning than male students. Narayanan, Rajasekaran, & Iyyappan (2007) found that female university students studying Engineering or Technology have higher motivation in learning English than males.It was concluded that female students studying learn English better than male students (Narayanan, Rajasekaran, & Iyyapp an, 2007). Further to the explanation provided by Narayanan, Rajasekaran, and Iyyappan (2007), female have better listening skills, more concerned with input, i. e. listening, and tend to have better attitudes towards learning. Contrarily, male are less sensitive, more concerned with output, i. e. talking, and think in a more analytical way than female.These may be reasons explaining e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 65 Fall 2011 why females perform better in learning. It should be noted that the above research is for university students learning English. There is a research focusing on another subject, music, conducted by Schatt (2011). The study showed that female students have higher instrumental musical practice rate than males while the amount of time spent on practice correlated significantly with intrinsic motivational beliefs.Motivational beliefs are guides of students’ thinking, feelings and actions in learning some subject areas and they can lead to success in learning (Boekaerts, 2002; Clayton, Blumberg & Auld, 2010). Another research focusing on subject of physical education, the result is different. One study by Shang (1998) in Taiwan focusing on physical education classes in high and also junior high school, it was found that female students have lower intrinsic motivation which is relevant to their interest or enjoyment and perceived competence than male students in most of the sub-scale of the study, but have higher effort put into the learning tasks.It not only proves that learning environment is different for male and female students, but it also emphasizes that males perceive the learning environment as more challenging and competitive while females perceive higher threat than males in physical education classes (Shang, 1998). From several researchers investigating the levels of intrinsic motivation of students on different subjects, it resulted in different genders having higher intrinsic motivati on towards various subjects. Therefore, it should not have any conclusion saying that a particular gender is inclined to have higher motivation on all subjects.Based on the above evidence, the study hypothesized: Hypothesis 1 (H1): There should have no difference between males and females on the level of intrinsic motivation. Curiosity Curiosity is defined as the intrinsic desire to know, to see, or to experience that motivates information seeking behavior (Zelick, 2007, p. 147). Acquiring knowledge out of curiosity is considered to be intrinsically rewarding and highly pleasurable since it eliminates states of ignorance and uncertainty (Litman, 2005). There are not so many literature reviews regarding gender difference in the level of curiosity.In a previous study, it was found that males possess higher level of curiosity than females. This study was conducted among Israeli college students while there is no significant e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 66 Fall 2011 difference for the level of curiosity among American college student (Ben-Zur, & Zeidner, 1988). According to another study by Engelhard and Monsaas (1988), it shows that no significant gender difference was found among the urban elementary school students.It was also discovered by Sanders, Driscoll, Dixon, Pendergrass and Scales (2004) that there is no significant gender difference among middle school students either. From the above evidence, it is believed that there should be no gender difference in the level of curiosity among the Hong Kong university students. As a result of the literature review elaborated above, the second hypothesis was: Hypothesis 2 (H2): Both genders possess equal level of curiosity. External Regulation External regulation is the most pressured and controlled type of motivation (Vansteenkiste, Sierens, Soenens, Luyckx, & Lens, 2009; Olsson, 2008, p. 47). Externally regulated students study for avoiding punishment, to obtain rewards or to meet external expectations (Vansteenkiste, Sierens, Soenens, Luyckx, & Lens, 2009; Xie, Debacker, & Ferguson, 2006; Olsson, 2008, p. 147). They feel that they are obliged to study. With the external pressured contingencies, they are mentally pushed to put effort into their studies. It is also indicated by Bowman (2007) that rewards and incentives provided by teachers can be used as tools to motivate students in their learning and achieve their goals.For the wording of external to describe the external regulation, its source can still be internal. For instance, students can push themselves by studying with feelings of guilt, shame and anxiety. It can also be positive feelings of pride and ego enhancement. When students are externally regulated through some internal sources, this type of external regulation is labeled to be introjected regulation. Another research by Olsson (2008) stated that externally regulated people carry out internalization and integration of their behavior. It will form introjected regulation.He also agreed that their behavior is related to or enforced by the expectations of self-approval or avoiding guilt and anxiety. This type of behavior has external locus of causality. With the internalization and integration of behavior becoming more advanced, it will shift to identified regulation and people will have perception of internal locus of causality. There is limited literature reviews regarding the gender difference on the level of external e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 67 Fall 2011 regulation.One study by Agina, Kommers, Steehouder (2011) discovered that gender has no effect on the level of external regulation one possesses. That means there is no particular gender possessing higher level of external regulation. Another study by Balaguer, Castillo and Duda (2007) focusing on sport motivation found that female athletes have lower level of external regulation. Since the latter one pertains to lea rning and doing sport while the former one pertains to the targeted students’ external regulation in learning, it is believed that there is no gender difference in the level of external regulation among Hong Kong university students.Based on the above evidence, the third proposed hypothesis was: Hypothesis 3 (H3): Both genders possess equal level of external regulation. In this study, three elements were analyzed. They are curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation. Their levels within both genders are investigated. Hong Kong Learning Environment and Education System Students in Hong Kong need to study with intense academic competition owing to the commercialization of education and rapid expansion of tertiary education (Gao, 2008).Although the increased number of universities may ease the academic competition for higher education places. The number of unemployed university graduate is also increased. Students in Hong Kong learn in a highly competitive, examinati on oriented and large classes with excessive amount of homework (Moneta & Siu, 2002). Moreover, English is widely regularly promoted to be essential for individuals’ social and career development (Gao, 2008; Davison & Lai, 2007). English is the medium of instruction among all universities in Hong Kong.These are the characteristics of Hong Kong education system, which tends to requires students remembering all knowledge and apply all the knowledge on the paper for the examination. Hong Kong Students may always have surface learning that they will engage in the shortcuts allowed in some courses and attain till the end without deeper understanding (Moneta, & Siu, 2002). There are eight universities in Hong Kong governed by the University Grants Council (UGC), which has an international membership.UGC has been assigned to ensure all standards and maintain the independence of Hong Kong universities after the handover to China (Kember & Leung, 2011). All universities were founded w hile Hong Kong was a British colony. They e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 68 Fall 2011 are consistent with UK standards and practices. Also, owing to the importance of globalization and student exchange among the education, some top Hong Kong universities have been highly international in the outlook and can be compared with any other good universities in other countries.For Hong Kong education system, most university students are Chinese and aged from 18 to 22. Positive Relationship between Intrinsic motivation and Academic Performance According to a study conducted by Ning and Downing (2010) in Hong Kong focusing on investigating the relationship between intrinsic motivation and academic performance among university students, it was found that the relationship is positive. Also, another research by Afzal, Ali, Khan, and Hamid (2010) among 342 university students in Pakistan generates the same findings that intrinsic motivation can promote mor e optimal learning and better academic performance.In view of these result, intrinsic motivation should be promoted for the sake of student academic performance. Research Methods Survey research among university students is used in this study to test the hypotheses stated above since questionnaire as an instrument for studying research problems is a survey tool for collecting data from people about themselves such as attitudes, thoughts, behaviors; or concerning a social unit such as a school (Lanthier, 2002; Siniscalco, & Auriat, 2005). The research was completed in three universities in Hong Kong.Before the survey is mass produced and used to gather real data, pilot study was carried out to disclose problems and refine the wording, ordering, etc (Litwin, 1995; Hoinville, Jowell & Associates, 1978). Ten of my friends are asked to complete the questionnaires and give feedback independently about the questionnaires. The survey was then conducted by distributing questionnaires with co vering letter explaining the purpose of the research to the university students individually. The questionnaire was averagely completed within 10 minutes.Subsequently, 200 questionnaires were given out to undergraduates from various universities in Hong Kong. A total of 137 responses (with a return rate of 68. 5 per cent) were achieved, and the usability rate was 100 per cent since no incomplete questionnaires were found. There are nine statements (Table 1) for three variables: curiosity (Mot_3, Mot_5, Mot_6, e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 69 Fall 2011 Mot_7 and Mot_8), external regulation (Mot_1 and Mot_2) and intrinsic motivation (Motivator_3 and Motivator_4).Those statements were taken from three questionnaires from three journals (Albrecht, Haapanen, Hall, & Mantonya, 2009; Vansteenkiste, Sierens, Soenens, Luyckx, & Lens, 2009; Lepper, Corpus, & Iyengar, 2005). 4-point Likert-type scale which is common rating format especially for educatio nal survey research was assigned to all statements (Siniscalco, & Auriat, 2005; Allen, & Seaman, 2007). Removing mid-point category from Likert scale can reduce social desirability bias arising from respondents (Garland, 1991). Statements in questionnaire were ranked at (1) Very True, (2) Sort of True, (3) Not Very True and (4) Not At All True.Table 1. Statements for Three Variables Variables Curiosity Statements Mot_3 – I work hard in some courses because this represents a meaning choice for me. Mot_5 – I work hard in some courses because I think I can apply what I learn to my future career. Mot_6 – I work hard in some courses because I want to learn new things. Mot_7 – I work hard in some courses because good results in school can help me get a better career. Mot_8 – I work hard in some courses because this is an important life goal for me. Mot_1 – I work hard in some courses because that’s what others (parents, friends, etc. expect me to do. Mot_2 – I work hard in some courses because that’s what others (parents, friends, etc. ) force me to do. Motivator_3 – I work harder when I like the teacher. Motivator_4 – I work harder when the subject is interesting and useful. Data Analysis The purpose of this study is to test the gender difference on level of curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation. SPSS Version 17 is used to analyze the data in this study. This is sophisticated software for many scientists and other professionals to analyze statistics.Data analysis including frequency distribution is used to analyze the personal data of respondents. After that, mean and standard deviation are used to study the perception of curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation different genders possess. Independente-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 70 External Regulation Intrinsic Motivation Fall 2011 samples t test is then used to test all three hypotheses to see if there is any difference between males and females on the level of the three elements.Before the analysis, the collected data was examined to ensure that it is valid and reliable. It involves checking the usability and the validity of the responses on the questionnaires collected. Subsequently, reliability analysis using Cronbach alpha, which is a measure of internal consistency about how close elements are related to each other, is carried out to test the reliability of the variables (Nunnally, 1978; Prater and Ghosh, 2006). The test means the freedom from random error (Alreck, & Settle, 1985). The Cronbach alpha values (Table 2) of curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation are 0. 57, 0. 622 and 0. 685 respectively. A value of 0. 60 is also used as the practical lower bound (Narasimhan & Jayaram, 1998). Therefore, reliability figures in this study, which exceed the value of 0. 60, can be perceived as acceptable. This study can be conside red as reliable. Apart from reliability testing, factor analysis was also utilized to establish construct validity. Results of factor analysis can be used to ensure that questionnaire used in this study is valid (Field, 2005). Factor loading is used to analyze the validity of measurement scales with general value of acceptance as 0. 0 (Anderson, & Gerbing, 1998; Fornell, & Larcker, 1981). The variable of curiosity includes five items. A factor analysis for those items was conducted for the five items. Factor loadings ranged from 0. 542 to 0. 783. The variable of external regulation includes two items. Factor loadings are 0. 852 for both items in the factor analysis. The variable of intrinsic motivation includes two items. Both factor loadings are 0. 872. All values of factor loadings in the questionnaire are greater than 0. 3. Hence, this scale is retained.As a result, it can be concluded that the measurement scale is valid and reliable. Table 2. Mean, Standard Deviation, and Cronba ch Alphas of Three Variables Items Curiosity External Regulation Intrinsic Motivation Note: n = 137 Mean 2. 0569 2. 8139 2. 0255 Standard Deviation . 51732 . 62722 . 61334 Cronbach alpha 0. 757 0. 622 0. 685 71 Findings The demographic statistics of the respondents were analyzed. Table 3 shows the background e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 Fall 2011 of totally 137 respondents, in which 65. % are males. 99. 3% are between 21 and 25 years old. All of them are studying Engineering in a local university in Hong Kong. More than half of them are year 2 university students. With 56. 9% promote to university through Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPAS), it indicated that they have been studying and encountering different level of motivation in learning for at least 18 years for education system in Hong Kong. Table 3. Descriptive Statistics of Personal Data of Respondents Minimu Std. N m Maximum Deviation 13 1. 00 2. 0 . 47648 7 Cumulat ive Frequency Percent 72 Gender Male Female Age Below 21 Between 21 and 25 Above 25 Year Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Promotion JUPAS NON-JUPAS 90 47 13 7 1. 00 3. 00 . 50523 55 81 1 13 7 1. 00 5. 00 . 61495 14 79 44 13 7 1. 00 2. 00 . 49699 78 59 65. 7 100 40. 1 99. 3 100 10. 2 67. 9 100 56. 9 100 Valid N (listwise) 13 7 All respondents completed a questionnaire asking their reasons of study in terms of whether they perceive the specific statement as â€Å"Very True† (1), â€Å"Sort of True† (2), â€Å"Not Very True† (3) or â€Å"Not at all True† (4).The reasons in the questionnaire pertain to the three variables (curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation) investigated in this study. e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 Fall 2011 Mean and standard deviation were used to examine the level of their perception of the variables. The values of mean, standard deviation and Cronbach alpha are shown in Table II. Results sh ow that university students have slight perception towards having curiosity and intrinsic motivation, but not external regulation. It is indicated by the mean score of 2. 569 for curiosity, 2. 8139 for external regulation and 2. 0255 for intrinsic motivation. Independent sample t-test was used subsequently to test if there is any different in the level of curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation between males and females. H1: This hypothesis predicting that there is no significant difference on the level of intrinsic motivation between males and females was supported since the t value is 0. 498 and the significant value is 0. 620, which is higher than 0. 05. With the mean difference of only 0. 05508, it shows no significant difference between both genders.H2: This hypothesis predicting that there is no significant difference on the level of curiosity between males and females was supported since the t value is -0. 112 and the significant value is 0. 911, which is high er than 0. 05. With the mean difference of only 0. 01050, it shows no significant difference between both genders. H3: This hypothesis predicting that there is no significant difference on the level of external regulation between males and females was supported since the t value is 1. 222 and the significant value is 0. 224, which is higher than 0. 05. With the mean difference of only 0. 3771, it shows no significant difference between both genders. To conclude, all three hypotheses are supported via the above results. It shows that both genders possess equal level of curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation. Discussion and Implications Results indicate that the levels of curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation for university students in Hong Kong are nearly the same among different genders. It can be interpreted by the same education environment for both genders. Students in Hong Kong receive education under the same educational systems and approaches among different genders.Therefore, it contributes to both genders having the same level of characteristics affecting their learning and also intrinsic motivation. Moreover, there is a part of university students in Hong Kong, no matter males or females, studying subjects that they are not interested in owing to the emphasis of education e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 73 Fall 2011 qualification for students’ future careers in Hong Kong society. As a consequence, the education they are receiving cannot make a difference of various perspectives affecting learning on different genders.That is why there is no difference for males and females on the three factors that is supposed to students’ learning. Difference on Level of Intrinsic Motivation between Males and Females Supported by several researchers with this result, Narayanan, Rajasekaran, & Iyyappan (2007) concluded that female students studying Engineering or Technology learn E nglish better than male students. Meanwhile, from a research of Shang (1998) in Taiwan focusing on physical education classes, it was found that female have lower intrinsic motivation than males but with higher effort put into the learning tasks.Another research conducting by Schatt (2011) focusing on subject of music found that female students have higher instrumental musical practice rate than males while the amount of time spent on practice correlated significantly with intrinsic motivational beliefs. Therefore, it should not have any conclusion saying that a particular gender is inclined to have higher motivation on all subjects since university students always involves studying English, Chinese culture and their major altogether.The result of this research study showing that there is no difference between males and females on the level of intrinsic motivation support the hypothesis 1 (H1). Difference on Level of Curiosity between Males and Females Supported by several researche rs with this result, Engelhard and Monsaas (1988) concluded that there is no significant gender difference on the level of curiosity among urban elementary school students. Moreover, same study outcome was resulted in a study by Ben-Zur and Zeidner (1988) focusing on American college students.Therefore, there should be no significant gender difference on the level of curiosity among university students in Hong Kong. The result of this research study showing that there is no difference between males and females on the level of curiosity support the hypothesis 2 (H2). Difference on Level of External Regulation between Males and Females Supported by several researchers with this result, Agina, Kommers, Steehouder (2011) found that gender has no effect on the level of external regulation one possesses.Although Balaguer, Castillo and Duda (2007) focusing on sport motivation found that female athletes have lower e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 74 Fal l 2011 level of external regulation, this study concentrated on students’ sport motivation and the study of 2011 as mentioned pertains to students’ learning. As a consequence, there should be no significant gender difference on the level of external regulation among university students in Hong Kong.The result of this research study showing that there is no difference between males and females on the level of external regulation support the hypothesis 3 (H3). Implication for Practice The implication for practice in this study is to let universities identify if one of the genders possess higher level of curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation so as to bring the awareness of universities and students about their ways of teaching and it offers more information for lecturers and professors to implement different practical methods to improve students’ learning performance.Furthermore, this study can let universities know if they need to focus on one pa rticular gender when teaching due to the different level of learning characteristics or intrinsic motivation. It can help schools develop deeper understanding among students. Limitations and future opportunities There are mainly two limitations in this project. Firstly, the sample size of some subgroups is not even. The sample size of males is 90 while that of females is 47. The significant level may be influenced owing to unbalanced distribution of sample size.Also, the investigated school is only one local university in Hong Kong, the survey result may not be representative to the general situations of university students in Hong Kong. The second limitation of this study is that the sample size is not large. Less than 200 samples were collected. It may make the survey result not representative enough to show the general learning environment for university students in Hong Kong. Apart from the limitations, there are several future research opportunities from this study.The first is to extend this current study to a larger sample size among Hong Kong university students to get a more representative result. Secondly, since there is limited literature review investigating the gender difference in curiosity, external regulation and also intrinsic motivation, which is what this project focuses e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2 75 Fall 2011 on, it is suggested to apply this type of research to similar research study in primary schools, secondary schools, overseas schools, or among students studying associate degree in Hong Kong.The result may be different. This research study also lacks deep investigation. This study is empirical that involves only quantitative research. The survey was conducted in form of questionnaires and without faceto-face interview. The focus of the investigations in this study is on the existence of the relationships. Further research can be done concentrating on deeply investigating why there is no signi ficant gender difference on the level of intrinsic motivation, external regulation and curiosity. Thereby, all these can be a further research for future development of education.Conclusion Throughout the study, there is investigation of the existence of gender difference on the level of curiosity, external regulation and intrinsic motivation among the targeted group of university students in Hong Kong. This study was conducted in a local university in Hong Kong. The survey result supports all three hypotheses defined in this research study. It shows that there is no significant gender difference on the level of intrinsic motivation, curiosity and external regulation (H1, H2 and H3 respectively). References Afzal, H. , Ali, I. , Khan, M. A. , & Hamid, K. (2010).A Study of University Students’ Motivation and Its Relationship with Their Academic Performance. International Journal of Business and Management, 5(4), 80-88. Agina, A. M. , Kommers, P. A. M. , Steehouder, M. M. (2011 ). 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Extending the Traditional Classroom through Online Discussion: The Role of Student Motivation. J. Educational Computing Research, 34(1), 67-89. Zelick, P. R. (2007). Issues in The Psychology of Motivation. Nova Science Publishers: New York. 80 e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership Volume 9, Number 2