ICT in Private and Government Organisations

ICT in Private and Government Organisations The term I.C.T, otherwise known as Information and Communication Technology, encompasses quite a wide range of the scope of multi-dimensional communication infrastructures and systems employed for enhancing effective communications in business and public organisation.   As implied by the abbreviation and also the full meaning of it, the said communication occurs at different levels and for different purposes, some of which has to be secured, but all of them share one thing in common: they are all enhanced through computers and electronic networks.In recent times, almost every organisation is dependent or assisted with one type of communication equipment or another and the fact that such communication infrastructures can be easily linked to Information Technologies could be claimed as prove of the importance of I.C.T in organisations.   To make this argument more clear, it is necessary to pinpoint some specific organisations, both private and governmental whose operation will collapse or highly hindered, should the I.C.T aspect of it be removed or for some reason cease to function. To make the picture clearer, the organisations to be analysed will be categorised and then individual organisation will now be placed undo the category they belong to before they are further analysed.   The major categories are Private and Governmental and thereafter we look at how the chains are connected and interwoven. This sector is divisible into various other major sub-categories namely:1.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Security: These are organisations such as the security agents including the police, army, customs, immigration officers, civil defence corps, and also the secret agents.   In this sector there is a lot of communication and information exchange going on, some of which are beyond the British borders, e.g. our soldiers in Iraq has to make constant uninterrupted communications via phones, internet, and other satellite-linked, wireless technology networks.   They also need to communicate with one another both as groups or platoons and also as individual.   Here, the communication network has to be as secured as can be. 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Social: This relates to everything from financial help to psychological helps and also political helps for foreigners such as asylum seekers and other classes of immigrants.   At this level also communication and efficient information transfer is a necessity.   Help-line telephone services that is installed with up- to-date software for managing calls, sometime on a 24-hour basis and transferring such calls automatically to the officer responsible for each individual cases and also to maintain an orderly queue where necessary. A log of all the official activities is created and stored in the appropriate database, which is connected via LAN networking system and thus the internet or intranet network system to transfer the logged cases to other concerned offices within the department or to the outside near and fear government departments for preparing statistical data (such as spreadsheets), prepare budgets or to inform deliberations on crucial social issues, such as how to manage illegal migration into the country. 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Commercial: Sometimes, the government is also involved in commercial ventures, especially in the area of social amenities, such as electricity, telecommunications, transportation, agriculture, and some special production sectors, e.g. exploration and export of mineral resources. 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Education: Governments role in the education sector is very high. From nurseries to University education and adults literacy and vocational trainings, the governments hands will always be found in the pie.   To effectively plan and monitor the activities in this sector, the government need to be well equipped with the relevant I.C.T. infrastructures.   A good database that is interpreted and organised by a good spreadsheet software.   Appropriate networking facilities that will link every arm of this education systems ladder to the monitoring departments and sections must be in place.It must be noted here also that each of the education levels have their individual basic I.C.T needs.   For example, At the secondary school level, the teacher manages his classes, schedules and attendance register from a laptop computer, running probably on Windows XP Professional Operating System and installed with Bromcoms Winfolder which is currently version 2.03.   This soft ware is the one that collects daily register for the teacher from the schools server, which is equipped with Bromcoms e-School MIS version is 2.10.2, the softwares that prepares the register ready for the other day. The teachers laptop is either connected either via the CAT5e cables to the Ethernet LAN port which links him to the server, or connected wirelessly via network cards. The server which probably runs on Microsoft SQL houses the schools database and connects to the outside network system via optic fibres of the type Fibre Optic Multimode GBIC (1.25Gb/s bi-directional). The server is secured against power interruptions through the use of Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). UPS is a battery system that enables to server to carry on functioning for a period of time in the event of a power outage, or enough time for it to safely shut down if the power outage is for an extended period.The teacher takes class attendance to ascertain that all the registered pupils are in attendanc e and send same via the internet to the data base which is equally connected to back-up storage outside of the school premises to secure against accidental data loss. The library system is another complex I.C.T. system that is active both locally and also on the network to the outside, running on effective software that facilitates an dynamically updated warehouse of information about the whereabouts of library materials and also for calling materials that is in urgent need, or have overstayed with the borrower. 5.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Health: Health is wealth as the saying goes.   The governments involvement in the health sector in deep and this ranges from procurement of hospital equipments to physical maintenance of the hospital premises-employment and payment of wages.   Monitoring of all the activities at the health sector is quite important and this often is done in real time or through other communication channels including writing on paper, which is printed out on a printer connected to computer system connected to both intranet and internet networks.   The health sector is undoubtedly another fertile soil for the I.C.T. systems.   If we have to start analysing the way in which the hospital, as an entity, operates on a daily basis; we will see how appointments are booked on phone, and the doctors secretaries will keep a log of the appointments, having sent a notice to the concerned doctors calendar of schedule.   The patient may have to be sent a printed letter of notification as a reminder of the appointment date and time.   All these activities are also stored in the departments database, which is sent automatically to the hospitals central database, which probably is equipped with multiple hard drives in a RAID array to allow the system to continue functioning in the event of the loss of any one hard drive and also back-up tape drive, which allows a back-up of vital information and for several copies of this data to be kept off site. The doctors, office and consulting room is equipped with computers, which run on up-to-date Operating Systems and also have special software featuring medical encyclopedia, and maybe old cases database, from which they could compare difficult cases and find solutions via the network. The doctors always record their finding on Dictaphones and this is probably for sharing with other colleagues for knowledges sake, but our concern here is that all these equipments are I.C.T based.Heart-beat monitors, incubators, ultra-scan equip ments, X-ray and physiotherapy equipments and many more are scattered all around the hospital.   Patients survive on dialysis machines, which are monitored through computer and network systems. 6.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Administration:   For administration purposes at all levels of governance is the process dependent on I.C.T infrastructures: Databases, civil registration numbers, national insurance number, passports and national identity cards, budgeting, population distribution and statistics, elections, and many more functions of the government are done via reliable I.C.T. infrastructures. Looking at the private sector, there is much more application of the I.C.T. equipments.   This sector can be further sub divided into the following categories:1.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Commercial:†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Transport:   From Land to air and the sea, transportation is deeply dependent on I.C.T. infrastructures.   From Scheduling to announcements, you will always find I.C.T.   Take the train services for example, most trains in the UK runs on electric and are scheduled and monitored in real time.   Apart from the internal daily runs of this system, the travellers are also included in the chain via e-commerce, such as internet booking and ticketing; the credit card and debit card accessible ticket kiosks are erected for self-services and you can also receive train and coach schedules on your mobile phones in the form of short text messages.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Manufacturing: Most manufacturing outfits, especially those involved in the production of continuous process products, su ch as cars, telephones, plastics, dairy products, breweries, etc, are engaging the services of different types of industrial robots for their operation.   These robots or programmable production lines are mostly 100% dependent, because daily running of them depends on information communicated through I.C.T media and the whole activities is afterwards, logged for records purpose and also to monitor the process and know when the machine should be over hauled.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Banking and Finance:   Financial institution today are one of the organisations that depend to a high degree on I.C.T. Imagine what the day will be like for the banks and other money markets operators, e.g. Stockbrokers, without their I.C.T. systems. No computers, no internet connections, no printers, no telephones.   How will international banking thrive without the internet?   How about the credit and debit cards? The situation is better imagined than experienced.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Insurance:   Ins urance organisations are more or less like banks.   They need a sound I.C.T system for a smooth running of their business every second of the day.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Supply Chain sector:   With the advent of e-commerce, supply chain sector is undergoing some kind of revolution right now.   Tesco Supermarket is a testimony to this fact.   Other than the fact that they need a good database for managing their wares, they also use laser scanners, bar code readers for both price tags and security of the wares.   They also use mobile phones to communicate and collaborate towards, customer satisfaction and use public address systems to make announcements.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Communication: The story of I.C.T in organisations can never be complete without mentioning the communication sector, whose daily operations are entirely dependent on I.C.T infrastructures.   From   mobile telephony, featuring mobile phones (with camera, video recorder with playback functionalities, MP3, r adio, WAP, Interactive games, chatting, internet, and now T.V; and PDAs with GPS functionalities for navigating continents. Letters are sent within seconds via email messaging, people chat online in written form and also verbally in real time.   It was first on the internet that it was possible to see the person you are chatting with via the web cam.   Pictures and digital music (MP3) is another mystery of the internet communication and information exchange of limitless magnitude. Now we are having internet television and online cinemas.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Advertisement: This sectors business revolves around I.CT. very much. They use computers for graphic design, store information, make and edit video materials and digital animations, scanning and printing are part of their daily activities.   These cannot be done without I.C.T infrastructures.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Consultancy Services: This organisation requires a good database, and sound network system.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Heal th: This is similar to that of the government sector earlier mentioned.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Agriculture: Cow milking, feeding and branding and monitoring have all gone hi-tech.   This is made possible through I.C.T.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Education: The story in the private sector in not much different from that of the government sector.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Journalism:   From news gathering to editing to disseminating, everything in this sector is I.C.T related: Video recorders, digital cameras, Dictaphones, electronic typewriters, computers, etc, are their instrument of office.†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Others: There are many more areas to be cited.2.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Non-profit organisations: Though they are not profit oriented, these organisations still require I.C.T. based equipments such as telephones and Personal Computers (PC) with internet connections, good printers, fax machines and scanners for their daily operations.   Their major areas of operation is as listed:†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   S ocial Help†¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Environmental Fig. 1. A chart showing I.C.T-related sectors of the human endeavours and some examples of the infrastructures.Conclusion:The role of I.C.T in many organisations surrounding our lives cannot be underestimated.   They are the pivot on which our entire system revolves.

The Life of Charles Dickens :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

The Life of Charles Dickens One of the most remarkable men was born on February 7, 1812: Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens had a talent in the field of writing that was unlike that of any other man in his time. He had a gift that he shared with the rest of the world, a gift that has survived for decades Charles Dickens was an extraordinary person with an extraordinary life. He was born to John and Elizabeth Dickens (www.perruweb.com/Dickens/second.html ). His child hood was not that of a fortunate child. His parents were not the best parents a child could have. They loved the extraordinary life and they loved to have fun. They put to much importance in their social life and neglected their children often. John and Elizabeth had eight children including Charles (Charles Dickens, p. 129). Because of their expensive social life and their eight children, John and Elizabeth were at the brink of financial bankruptcy. They were forced to move to a new house because they could no longer afford the house that they were living in. Their once glamorous and expensive life was gone. Now they were no more then common people. An education was provided for Charles, but his education never reached college. Charles’s parents never provided a college education for Charles. Because o f their financial issues, John and Elizabeth could only afford to send one of their children to college: They picked Fanny. Fanny had a gift for music and so her parent wanted her to expand on it (www.perruweb.com/Dickens/third.html). Charles only had one dream to begin with. He dreamed of becoming a gentleman, but unfortunately these dreams were killed when his father was arrested in 1824 for failure to pay his debts. John was sent to Marshalsea prison for this crime. Charles was now forced to work at a shoe-polish factory because of all of this. The next year his father was released from jail, but Charles’s dreams of becoming a gentleman were dead (Charles Dickens, p.128). On 1830 Charles met Maria Beadnell, but unfortunately this affair only lasted for three years. This was more of a sexual relationship then a romance. Maria was never serious about Charles. She â€Å"kept him for a while in suspense and then dismissed him with casual thoughtlessness†(A Pitkin Guide, p.

The Role of the Lesion Method in the Understanding of Healthy Brain Fun

Understanding the relationship between brain and behaviour has been of great phenomenon in the field of neuropsychology yet a compound one. Studying the effects of brain functions on human behaviour requires us to operate with methods that allow us to dissect different aspects of mental functions. This paper therefore addresses one of the ways of assessing brain functions in human and non-human animals; the lesion method (in Banich, 2004). The basic concept of the lesion method is to determine a correlation between a lesion in a certain region of the brain and occurring behaviours. The lesion method strategy thus involves ablating or destroying a proportion of the brain in order to understand the functional nature of that specific brain part and its effects on behaviour (in Carlson, 2006). A lesion refers to the structural change or damage of brain tissues which may be directly related to a certain aspect of a mental function thus leading to a decline in brain functioning. The existence of lesions in humans can occur in several different ways such as strokes, tumours, traumatic brain injuries, accidents etc and it is these patients that have provided us with a valuable insight into the effects of brain lesions on human behaviour and the nature of neurologically intact individuals (in Carlson, 2006). In general, research agrees on the idea that different aspects of behaviour are mediated by distinctive parts of the brain; a concept referred to as localization of function (in Banich, 2004). With the brain consisting of various components each providing support for different mental processes the principle of localization of function poses that certain regions of the brain are circumscribed to specific locations (in Banich, 2004).... ... contributed to our understanding of the brain not only allowing us to uncover the nature of lesion deficits in brain damaged patients but also allowing us to investigate brain functions in neurologically intact individuals. Intact individuals have also aided and our understanding of the different neuroanatomical structures of the brain and how mental processes operate. Works Cited Banich M.T. (2004). Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology (2nd Ed.).Boston: Houghton Mifflin CO. Boddy., J. (1978). Brain systems and Psychological Concepts. Sutton Surrey. By John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Carlson. R.N. (2006). Foundations of Behavioural Neuroscience.(8th ed.). Allyn & Bacon. Pearson Education, Inc. Passer, M., Smith, R., Holt, N., Bremner, A., Sutherland, E., & Vliek, M. (2009). Psychology; Science of Mind and Behaviour. (European Edition). New York.

Racial Ideologies in Frederick Douglass and Linda Brents Narratives Es

Racial Ideologies in Frederick Douglass and Linda Brent's Narratives 4) Slavery was justified by racial ideology. Consider three texts, including one that was written by a former slave. How do the authors either replicate or refute racial ideologies common in the nineteenth century? I am going to focus on the narratives of Frederick Douglass and Linda Brent as examples of a refusal of racial ideologies and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin as an example of replicating (although attempting to refute) racial ideologies of the day. Douglass’s Narrative and Brent’s Incidents follow them from ignorance to knowledge; knowledge and freedom gained through their own doing. I think that Stowe is in a way both trying to write an anti-slavery novel, however, I can’t see her as anti-racist because Romantic Racialism is what grounds her arguments. In all three, I am going to prove that the relationship between and the representations of the body and the mind are what either refuse or support racial ideologies of the nineteenth century. First, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative introduces the reader to a young Douglass who is ignorant in terms of book knowledge and also lacks practical life experience. He even lacks the knowledge of his own age. But the fact that Douglass is able to educate himself refutes the idea of the time that African Americans were intellectually inferior. By the end of the narrative, he is more educated than someone like Covey, one of his former masters. Kimberly Drake claims that [t]he ability to utilize language, especially written language or literacy, is also portrayed by many ex-slaves as crucial to their quest for freedom, a freedom which in large part is the ability to allow ... ...impulse. All three of these books have really helped me to gain an understanding of what the racial ideologies of the period in which they were written were: Douglass and Brent, through their refusal of these ideologies and Stowe through her inadvertent reinforcement of them. Bibliography: Works Cited Brent, Linda. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Ed. L. Maria Child. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1973. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995. Drake, Kimberly. â€Å"Rewriting the American Self: Race, Gender, and Identity in the Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.† MELUS 22 (Winter 97): 91-109. MacFarlane, Lisa Watt. â€Å"’If Ever I Get to Where I Can’: The Competing Rhetorics of Social Reform in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.† ATQ 2 (June 90): 135-148. Racial Ideologies in Frederick Douglass and Linda Brent's Narratives Es Racial Ideologies in Frederick Douglass and Linda Brent's Narratives 4) Slavery was justified by racial ideology. Consider three texts, including one that was written by a former slave. How do the authors either replicate or refute racial ideologies common in the nineteenth century? I am going to focus on the narratives of Frederick Douglass and Linda Brent as examples of a refusal of racial ideologies and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin as an example of replicating (although attempting to refute) racial ideologies of the day. Douglass’s Narrative and Brent’s Incidents follow them from ignorance to knowledge; knowledge and freedom gained through their own doing. I think that Stowe is in a way both trying to write an anti-slavery novel, however, I can’t see her as anti-racist because Romantic Racialism is what grounds her arguments. In all three, I am going to prove that the relationship between and the representations of the body and the mind are what either refuse or support racial ideologies of the nineteenth century. First, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative introduces the reader to a young Douglass who is ignorant in terms of book knowledge and also lacks practical life experience. He even lacks the knowledge of his own age. But the fact that Douglass is able to educate himself refutes the idea of the time that African Americans were intellectually inferior. By the end of the narrative, he is more educated than someone like Covey, one of his former masters. Kimberly Drake claims that [t]he ability to utilize language, especially written language or literacy, is also portrayed by many ex-slaves as crucial to their quest for freedom, a freedom which in large part is the ability to allow ... ...impulse. All three of these books have really helped me to gain an understanding of what the racial ideologies of the period in which they were written were: Douglass and Brent, through their refusal of these ideologies and Stowe through her inadvertent reinforcement of them. Bibliography: Works Cited Brent, Linda. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Ed. L. Maria Child. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1973. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995. Drake, Kimberly. â€Å"Rewriting the American Self: Race, Gender, and Identity in the Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.† MELUS 22 (Winter 97): 91-109. MacFarlane, Lisa Watt. â€Å"’If Ever I Get to Where I Can’: The Competing Rhetorics of Social Reform in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.† ATQ 2 (June 90): 135-148.

Cognitive- behavioural approaches to counselling Essay

This essay is written to compare the counselling relationship in person-centred and cognitive-behavioural counselling by outlining both the theory and practice of the counselling relationship. This will be done by outlining the theory of the counselling relationships and the theory in practice. Both person-centred and cognitive-behavioural counselling are widely recognised, successful treatments. There are however many significant differences between the two. Cognitive-behavioural therapy is based on scientific study taking two therapies, cognitive therapy and behavioural therapy, and combining the two. Behavioural therapy is based on the fact that people can learn behaviours through classical conditioning, which was first recorded by Ivan Pavlov at the end of the nineteenth century, and operant conditioning (Skinner, 1953. ) Therapists believed what the behavioural therapists were helping their clients to do, such as encouraging self- assertion and self-understanding to help develop new approaches to dealing with life, incorporate a wide range of cognitive processes including decision-making and problem-solving. Beck (1976) founded cognitive-behavioural therapy after becoming disillusioned by psychoanalytic methods. (McLeod J. 008) Person-centred counselling is a non-scientific therapy developed by Carl Rogers in the 1940s and 1950s. It is a humanistic approach where it is believed that the client needs to feel valued and understood for them to be able to develop a self-awareness so they are able to deal with any difficult situation they feel they are in, giving them the power to change their own lives. Person-centred therapy is non-direct approach where the therapist and client develop an equal friendship to develop trust between the two, creating a safe therapeutic environment which enables the client to figure out what makes them the way they are. When the client begins to trust their feelings and become emotionally confident they can begin to find the answers to their own problems within themselves. For this to happen a core conditions model is in place. Without these conditions this type of therapy would not be effective (Rogers, C. 1957. ) Therapist-Client Psychological Contact- A relationship which two people have impact on each other and the therapist needs to be engaged by the client. Client incongruence, or Vulnerability- The client needs to be in a state of incongruence, feel that their real self is not how they would ideally like be. The client is also vulnerable to anxiousness which means they will be motivated stay in the relationship. (McLeod, J. 2008) Therapist Congruence or Genuineness- The therapist needs to be congruent within the therapeutic relationship- needs to be genuine in dealing with the client and use their own experience to enable the relationship. Unconditional Positive Regard- The therapist needs to have unconditional positive regard for the client. Acceptance, empathy and genuineness without judgement, is needed for the client to feel a higher sense of self-regard so they can realise that their self-worth was distorted by others. The therapist needs to accept the client for who they are now, not what they could become. Empathetic understanding- accurate empathy on behalf of the therapist can help the client believe that the therapist has unconditional love for them. Client Perception- If the therapist communicates to the client their unconditional regard and empathetic understanding to at least a minimal degree this is effective. In contrast cognitive-behavioural therapy is a direct approach where clients are taught how to think and behave in ways in which enables them to obtain their goals. They are not told what it is they want, but instead how to achieve the goals they may have this develops a student (client) and teacher (therapist) relationship. In order for this to be successful, intervention techniques are used to ensure that the goals agreed with the client is met. (Haaga and Davison1986, Meichenbaum 1986) These include; Systematic desensitization- a relaxation technique is taught to help the client to overcome anxiety to enable them to extinguish their phobias. Once this has been learnt the client must use this to enable them to overcome these by using a fear hierarchy. Homework assignments- practicing techniques learnt in therapy between sessions. Experimenting with different self- statements in everyday situations. Thought stopping- instead of letting anxious thought take over the client learns to use something to interrupt these thoughts such as flicking a rubber band on their wrist. Challenging irrational beliefs- the therapist tries to identify the clients’ irrational beliefs that are causing issues in their life and challenges it so that the client develops a less extreme way they view the problem. Reframing the issues – getting the client to perceive a certain emotion as something different. An example of this is perceiving fear as excitement. In vivo exposure- going into highly fearful situations with the therapist whilst they are talking through cognitive-behavioural techniques to help you deal with the situation. Scaling feelings- placing present feeling of anxiety and rating them on a scale off 0-100 is an example of this. Rehearsing different self-statements in role-play in therapy sessions. Assertiveness or social skills training. Although a therapeutic relationship is important in both practices, cognitive -behavioural therapists believe this is not sufficient enough alone to help clients work through their problems, and while many therapists have different styles the main cognitive behavioural therapy programme have an outlined structure in place. (Kuehnel and Liberman 1986; Freeman and Simon 1989,) which is the main focus. Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy is more client action orientated to produce a change in the way they think which then will lead to a change in the way the client will behave. However in Person-centred therapy a therapeutic process is put in place as a series of stages. These stages help promote a therapeutic change in the client or a â€Å"process of greater openness to experience† (McLeod, J. 2008. ) (Rogers, C. 1951) considered the management of therapeutic growth as including the awareness of the clients of any experiences they have been denied. They stop seeing the world in a generalised view and begin to see it differently. This enables them to rely on their personal experience to create their own set of values. These personal developments lead to a â€Å"reorganization of self† (Rogers, C. 1951) and is vital to develop new behaviours. In conclusion although both approaches to counselling realise that a counselling relationship is important, person-centred therapists believe that the counselling experience and effectiveness of the therapy is determined solely on that of the relationship. Cognitive-behavioural therapists find, through past experiments other techniques, such as systematic desensitization and behavioural self-control, are equally important to the success of the therapy.

Literature review Essay

Abstract: Supply chain Management has assumed a significant role in firm’s performance and has attracted serious research attention over the last few years. A literature review reveals a considerable spurt in research in theory and practice of SCM. Combining and informing on features of Supply Management and distribution Management. This integration has resulted in the concept of extended enterprise and the supply chain is now manifest as the collaborative supply chain across intercompany borders to maximize the value across the entire supply chain. A large number of research papers have been published in various journals in last two decades. In this paper an attempt is made to review the status of literature on Supply Chain Management. A literature classification scheme is proposed. A total of 588 articles from 13 refereed academic journals are classified into articles in five methodologies i.e. Exploratory, Normative, Methodology, Literature Review and Hypothesis testing. This literature review finds that exploratory type of research is mostly preferred it is expected that with the maturity of SCM the hypothesis testing method will pick up. The articles are further categorized in fifteen categories on the basis of content analysis. Based on this review, some possible research issues are identified. Keywords: SCM, Supply Chain strategy, Literature Review. those with average performance. 1. INTRODUCTION Traditionally, Supply Chain Management (SCM) has been a melting pot of various aspects, with influences from logistics and transportation, operations management and materials anddistribution management, marketing, as well as purchasing and information technology (IT). Ideally, the allencompassing philosophy of SCM embraces each of these functions to produce an overall supply chain strategy that ultimately enhances firm performance (Croom et al. 2000; Wisner and Tan 2000). In actuality, the literature is still very fragmented and although several studies purport to discuss supply chain issues, most of the existing research only examines one link of the chain, or most importantly only focuses on one ingredient in the supply chain performance mix. Six major movements can be observed in the evolution of supply chain management studies. Creation, Integration, Globalization, Specialization Phases One and Two, and SCM 2.0 These phases are given in Table 1. In the current competitive scenario supply chain management assumes a significant importance and calls for serious research attention, as companies are challenged with finding ways to meet ever-rising customer expectations at a manageable cost. To do so, businesses must search out which parts of their supply-chain process are not competitive, understand which customer needs are not being met, establish improvement goals, and rapidly implement necessary improvements. Previously manufacturers were the drivers of the supply chain – managing the pace at which products were manufactured and distributed. Today, customers are calling the shots, and manufacturers are scrambling to meet customer demands for options/styles/ features, quick order fulfillment, and fast delivery. Manufacturing quality – a long-time competitive differentiator – is approaching parity across the board, so meeting customer’s specific demands for product delivery has emerged as the next cri tical opportunity for competitive advantage. Companies that learn how to improve management of their supply chain will become the new success stories in the global market place. Study on Benchmarking shows significant cost differences between organizations that exhibit best-in-class performance and Copyright  © 2010 HyperSciences_Publisher. All rights reserved The six stage evolutionary era depicts that in a particular era which strategy was emphasized. For instance in the sixth era information Technology was given priority and IT enabled supply chain was the burning issue. In the 1990s industries began to focus on â€Å"core competencies† and adopted a specialization model. Companies abandoned vertical integration, sold off non-core operations, and outsourced those functions to other companies. Web 2. 0 is defined as a trend in the use of the World Wide Web that is meant to increase creativity, information sharing, and collaboration among users. The term supply chain management was first coined by an American industry consultant in the early 1980s. However the concept of supply chain in management, was of great importance long before in the early 20th century, especially by the creation of the assembly line. This era of supply chain management studies was highlighted with the development of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems in the 1960s and developed through the 1990s by the introduction of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. This era is characterized by the globalization of supply chain management in organizations with the goal of increasing competitive advantage, creating more value-added, and reducing costs through global sourcing Specialization within the supply chain began in the 1980s with the inception of transportation brokerages, warehouse management, and non asset based carriers and has matured beyond transportation and logistics into aspects of supply planning, collaboration, execution and performance management. presents various connotations given by various researchers; then a literature classification scheme is explained and a research agenda is suggested after identifying the gaps between theory and practice of SCM. SCM research has included a number of literature reviews and historical studies published in the top scholarly journals in the fields of logistics, logistic   management, purchasing and SCM (Croom et al. 2000; Carter and Ellram 2003; Rungtusanatham et al. 2003). SCM literature reviews have also been done in the past. However, for the most part these reviews have been descriptive (offering basic frequencies for topics covered etc.) or normative. Given the increasing focus on SCM in both academic and practitioner literature streams, a review of the concepts, topics, analysis methods and levels of analysis across thirteen academic journals was undertaken. This research investigates the history of the SCM literature looking at the various trends and developments in the field

Theory

Very much like the author of a book is given credit as its sole creator, auteur theory gives the film director credit for authoring the film, â€Å"imprinting it with his personal vision†(goodnight, 2011,sec. 7. 3,Para. 1). While auteur theory is a good starting point for film analysis, it places almost total responsibility for a film's artistic success or failure on the director. The problem is that not all film critics agree on the same definition of what is considered art. According to Andrew Saris, to be considered an auteur, a film director must qualify in three key areas: 1.Technical competence 2. Distinguishable personality and 3. Interior meaning A positive aspect about auteur theory is that directors can really make a name for themselves and become even more famous than their â€Å"Star actors†. While each of a director's films are unique in their own way, there still remains a common and recognizable thread that runs through them collectively that says â€Å" this is a Spielberg film, or â€Å"This is a James Cameron film†. On the other side, some say that the auteur theory is too full of holes and is not a good way to determine whether a film is true art.Some directors intentionally step outside the set parameters of what is generally considered technical competence. Others insist that because film is a collaborative effort, it is not fair to esteem directors more highly than screenwriters and actors who play equally important roles in the production of a film. I would consider Clint Eastward an auteur. He began his career very young as an actor in esters movies. After 16 years of acting and learning he began directing films. Eastward became famous first as an actor in films such as â€Å"Dirty Harry'.Later on in his career, though he played significant roles in each of his films, he was more known for his directorship of films like â€Å"Grand Torsion† and â€Å"Million Dollar Baby'. According to Prep Hemmer, in these f ilms, â€Å"Eastward shows himself as an auteur through his constant use of Juxtaposing relationships between a younger and older generation, is consistency of a tragic event occurring, bringing his films to end in a violent or tragic manner, and his choice of acting in the majority of his films as he challenges the declining role of American men†(Hemmer,n. . ).