Con Edison In New York

Risk-taking works congruently with some of the aforementioned behaviors in this thesis, for example, assertive communication. If a company desires to cultivate an environment in which employees communicate freely and openly, management must understand employees’ points of view, as well as work to genuinely involve themselves with the employees. Once this occurs, an atmosphere will arise in which management and employees can discuss corporate culture, work methods, and company goals.

            In his research, Laff (2007) discovered that the companies in which employees were most likely to embrace risk-taking are technology companies. Laff found a high correlation between the levels of change within each technology company and the ability of employees to take risks. Companies that encourage involvement and communicate regularly with employees will accordingly enjoy employees who embrace organizational changes. This derives from the fact that these employees feel that changes are done with their thoughts and opinions in mind.

            Therefore, it can be concluded that there exists a large disconnect between the managers and union workers at Con Edison New York. By and large, this disconnect originates from a lack of communication between both parties. In addition to the lack of communication, union workers tend to resist and avoid organizational changes. Employees must find a way to embrace organizational changes, as they are a necessary part of a functioning corporation.

Breast Cancer

Human beings are naturally concerned with that which is closest to themselves, whether it be positive or negative. First and foremost, we are most concerned with that which happens in our own homes, then in our own city, our own country.  Humans have learned to develop a sort of selfishness in order to survive and to maintain the health of those close to us and similar to us.  Individually, we all go on a journey trying to satiate our subconscious desire to feel good about ourselves. How we go about this journey comes in different forms. We learn to take care of ourselves, but we also learn to strive to be selfless. This selflessness is ultimately a part of being selfish. Can one really be selfless, or is it part of bigger scheme of trying to satiate that desire? When does this desire come into play? There must be certain factors that determine what makes people want to help others. Some agents such as moral beliefs, environment, emotions and gender can drive and shape helping behavior.

The experiment that we are conducting is to demonstrate whether the gender of a person has an effect on which charity he or she will donate to. The goal of the experiment is to test the differences is charitable activity—if gender factors suggest a woman will donate to a certain charity, while another charity appeals to men. The charities we are focusing have gender-related causes—one charity being the Breast Cancer Foundation and the other being the Prostate Cancer Foundation.  The experiment may show that people of each gender should be attracted to their respective gender-related charity—women will more likely donate to breast cancer, men to prostate cancer—because they are able to relate or are some way attracted to the cause. The experiment can enable to better understand why people help according to gender.

Science Is Always Revolving

Science has greatly evolved over the course of time, from the days of the Ancient Greeks, to the Renaissance Age, to the Age of Enlightenment, and the science of the modern day, of genetics, nuclear physics, quantum physics and, of course, the ongoing debate about evolution.  Along these years of scientific advancement, religion has often played as antithesis to science’s vast expansion, as a vanguard for the old methods of explaining the world around us.  And as a result, as science has changed, religion has had to change as well, to adjust its beliefs and ideologies in order to stay compatible with the scientific discoveries, many of which have been supported by empirical data. Naturally, there has been immense conflict as a result of the ideological battle between science and religion.  There have been instances in which scientific discoveries have been made that indirectly undermine or test the beliefs and ideologies of religions that have been deeply entrenched in people’s lives.  The trials of Mclean vs. Arkansas and Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District are two examples of this ongoing conflict between science and religion.  The cause of these conflicts can be directly attested to the significant role science and religion play in our daily lives, and more importantly, our general perspective of how the world works

About Charles Darwin

            Over the years, great scientists and thinkers have reevaluated and reworked the way we think about the natural world.  From Aristotle to Newton to Darwin and Einstein, the great modern scientists are constantly trying to find better and more accurate ways to view the nature we have been born into.  The natural world as well has constantly changed throughout history, and as more new phenomena are discovered, scientists must try and develop new systems of natural perspective to understand and better comprehend the environment around us.  For modern natural science, however, there is no question that much of the radical new waves of thought have sprung out of the 18^th and 19^th century schools of thought.  Charles Darwin, among others, has been a significant influence on the way we perceive life and nature.  However, his theories, and that of others’ are constantly being modified even today—nature, much like science, continues to evolve and become more sophisticated.

Ancient Chinese Government

In ancient China, many of the key elements of Chinese culture had already sprung into being and begun being elaborated on. Back in the 2^nd millennium BCE, “[t]he long-term cultural legacy of the Shang was primarily one of attitudes: an obsessive concern with ritual, a strongly bureaucratic outlook (especially evident in an abiding love of hierarchy, order, and classification), a consuming interest in the family and in ancestor worship, an aesthetically satisfying script, and the beginnings of yinyang-type art motifs and metaphysics.” (Smith 28) This was but the beginning, however, and in successive centuries the arrival of the Zhou and, in particular, Han dynasties further cemented and developed this nascent principles into long-standing traditions that had stood the test of time and new dynastic rules. “[T]he Han dynasty's conception of "ritual propriety and social morality" (lijiao; lit., the teachings of ritual) (Smith 32) based on a melding of Legalist principles and Confucianist spirit, clearly maintained continuity with the Shang philosophy of government but also developed along its own course. China has always had a strong notion of class, however such a mindset was tempered by major changes in bureaucratic management by government, such as with the bureaucratic examinations of the Tang period, which marked “the beginning of a trend toward the replacement of aristocratic rule by "meritocratic" rule in Chinese government.” (Smith 33) This marks the shift into a “junxian” (Schrecker 4) philosophy of rule as opposed to a more decentralized “fengjian” system. “Fengjian society has sharp class lines and an elite of hereditary aristocrats, whereas junxian has a relatively open social system and an elite based on wealth, talent, or education.” (Schrecker 4) China was to remain largely junxian well into the Qing dynasty. Along with a growing change in the nature of upward mobility in the class system, “[a]nother Tang contribution to the character of Chinese government in late imperial times was its highly refined law code, which provided the general format of the law codes of subsequent dynasties down to the Qing, as well as many specific statutes. Tang law was overwhelmingly penal in emphasis and designed primarily to preserve the entire Chinese social order against acts of moral or ritual impropriety.” (Smith 34)

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War is remembered by Americans as one of the single most important periods of U.S. history. It was an affront to the American spirit, which, in spite of the disastrous Korean War, could still feel a straightforward sense of accomplishment in having met and conquered the enemy in World War II. The intransigency of president after president, general after general, and the desperate lengths to which the U.S. army went to somehow attain a victory in Vietnam could be exemplified no better than in the tragically severe Operation Ranch Hand, in which millions of gallons of herbicides, collectively referred to as Agent Orange, were used to defoliate large swathes of jungle terrain which hid enemy forces. The possible collateral damage to the environment and subsequent generations of Vietnamese was clearly not taken into account. And as the U.S. continues to ponder its questionable role in Vietnam, particularly in light of recent events in Iraq, Afghanistan, and even Pakistan, the Vietnamese must still deal with the very real and brutal consequences of some of the world’s most wide-ranging and catastrophic incidents of chemical warfare.