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Fifth Business

---Character Response---

‘Fifth Business’, a book by Robertson Davies, has been written as a memoir of

Dunstable Ramsay. Dunstable Ramsay, renamed to Dunstan, during the course of the




book, is the narrator of this story. He writes this memoir to the Headmaster of the school,

where he was the Assistant Head and Senior History Master before his retirement. But

the memoir is only to be opened after his death, not before that. This information about

the book certainly implies that the content of the book and the way in which the life of

Dunstan and others has been described can be biased to a very great extent.

Dunstan has been observed as a very sincere and stiff person. But the abnormality in

his character does not show up till someone else mentions it to him. This is not to say that

Dunstan hides what was not very normal about him but it shows that during his life there

were others, because of whom Dunstan got a chance to think about his life, his nature and

his personality as a whole. We get to know a lot about him right from the beginning of

the story but a very important instance in his life is when the readers of the story get to

know more about Dunstan in a very straightforward manner. This is when Diana tells

Dunstable to change his name and says, “Why don’t you change it to Dunstan? St.

Dunstan was a marvellous person and very much like you � mad about learning, terribly

stiff and stern and scowly, and an absolute wizard at withstanding temptation.”

(Robertson Davies. -). It clearly states for the readers, that Dunstan is a person who

seeks knowledge, which implies that he must be having deep insight into subjects he

seeks knowledge about, for instance, about saints and their lives. We also know that he

wrote several books on this subject. He is also someone who can easily express himself,

verbally and in writing. He is an expressive person with a great ability to form strong

opinions. This quote by Diana tells us that Dunstan is a stiff and stern person, a man with

proper principles and a person who follows rules at an age of about 0. Something here

can give the readers an indication of the kind of person Dunstan is going to change into

once he grows up. It foreshadows that a person who can have so much mental control at

such a small age, might grow up to be a very mentally-strong individual. He is very good

at withstanding temptation. But the most important fact that this quote reveals to us is that

Dunstan can control his emotions and behavior. At least on the surface, he appears to be a

very composed and strong individual. But the fact that he is still tender in age makes one

wonder what the reason behind his maturity might be. One can easily attribute this to his

days in the army. It must have instilled discipline in him.

Dunstan had always been passively influenced and molded by his life at Deptford, his

family and especially his mother. He has a want of becoming something he might not

have had a chance of becoming if he were to remain at Deptford all his life. But this does

not mean he can run away from what Deptford wanted to make of him. He is loyal to his

friends and people near him. He is secretive in matters concerning anybody. He does not

like to gossip or spread rumors, something that would totally defy what Deptford taught

him. Proper in conduct, he is determined to do what he wants and takes a fancy for. But

he never seems to take a liking to anything that is not expected of a self-righteous and

correct person. He is restrained, but very hard working in what he is supposed to do. Not

extremely ambitious, he is quite frugal in money matters but does seek progress in this

field. Luckily, Boy seems to help him to a very great deal as far his economic status is

concerned. He is a determined fellow who is modest. One of his most significant

character traits is that he is a very responsible person, being able to take upon his mind a

lot of stress due to this. After all, he does maintain that he was solely responsible for

Mary Dempster’s plight if nobody else was to take or share the responsibility.

But all this makes him too much of a proper and correct human being, almost saintly.

It makes him too good to be true. But there is a flaw here. Yes, he is abnormal, not quite

like the normal person. He takes life too seriously. He never lets his inner being come

out. Very restrained, he never shows any impropriety in conduct or behavior. And we

come to know about this when Liesl says to Dunstan, “Why don’t you shake hands with

your devil, Ramsay, and change this foolish life of yours? Why don’t you, just for once,

do something inexplicable, irrational, at the devil’s bidding, and just for the hell of it?

You would be a different man” (Robertson Davies. 6). It shows us that Dunstan always

kept his devil inside him and never let him appear on the surface. It is one of the things

one might not have easily understood, but Dunstan’s soul is pure. Liesl’s last name is the

demon’s name in the play ‘The Vision of Dr. Fautus’, where Faust was a magician who

sold his soul to the devil. Dunstan is nowhere near a magician, but definitely wanted to

become one at a point in time. it is important to remember a this point that it is in the very

presence of Liesl, that Dunstan, for the very first time notices a change in the way he was

behaving. Talking about matters that were supposed to be kept secret or talking loosely

was never his style. But what is there that one might not do in the presence of the ‘Devil’.

He is not in full control of himself and his behavior. Liesl than asks Dunstan, “Who are

you? Where do you fit into poetry and myth? Do you know who I think you are Ramsay?

I think you are Fifth Business” (Robertson Davies. 7). The real purpose of Dunstable

Ramsay in this story is of being a passive recorder of events and facts. His very nature,

the way he grew up and the kind of incidents that shaped his life account for his

motivation to become what he is today. The fact that he never took a liking to what his

hometown had to teach him made him passively rebel against the kind of life he would

have had to live. He becomes a different kind of person. His feeling of being responsible

for Mrs. Dempster’s situation causes him to be like the person he is to a very great extent.

He is a very inspired person and like it has been mentioned before, very considerate and

composed. There is a great deal that could still be said about his character on further

investigation. Dunstan himself is not aware of a lot of things about himself, especially

about his place in the whole story, even though to him it might seem he is.

Percy Boyd Staunton was introduced to us on the very first page of the book. He

remains there throughout, playing a very important part in the story. He has a specific

character of his own, at the same time; he is a personification of the world around him.

As we notice, he is a very materialistic person who lacks the value of spirit and is to a

very great extent quite the opposite of Dunstan. Dunstan introduces Boy to us as his

‘lifelong friend and enemy’, making Boy’s character a very interesting one. As a child,

we see, that Boy is a spoilt brat who is a bad loser and grows up to be a very ambitious

person. He is very successful and progressive person, but only in the field of money and

status. His strength is his sharp mind, which works very well when it comes to money

matters. But he lacks any real inner strength. He is the antagonist in this story and is a

part of various incidents, which lead to his downfall as a man with values and principles.

There are many incidents in the story which contribute towards telling the readers a lot

about Boy’s character, but one of the most important times is when Boy completely

denies his guilt of throwing the ill-fated snowball, which causes the story to take the route

it does. He acts in a very irresponsible manner throughout the play. The first time we see

what a cheap coward Boy is, is when Dunstan narrates to us, “We looked into each

other’s eyes and I knew that he was afraid, and I knew also that he would fight, lie, do

anything rather than admit what I knew. And I didn’t know what in the world I could do

about it” (Robertson Davies. ). He completely denies any responsibility of the bad

incident. He does not care what his friend would feel about the whole thing or how

Dunstan was to deal with it. He does not know how to deal with moral and mental

pressures in life. He is shallow of heart and lacks the depth of character. He does not

concern himself with anything that is of no use to him.

Not caring about people’s feelings is his style and we come to know about this on two

occasions. One is when Boy gives Dunstan film reels to be developed and later Dunstan

finds that the reels contained pictures of Leola in which she is stark naked. After this,

when Dunstan is at Boy’s place, Boy says, “Nice, nice, nice! Of course it isn’t nice! Only

fools worry about what’s nice. Now sit here by me, and Dunny on the other side, and be

proud of what a stunner you are” as a reply to Leo’s repeated pleading to not show the

photos in front of Dunstan (Robertson Davies. 157). It creates a feeling of hatred for Boy,

among the readers. Very inconsiderate, he treats his wife like garbage, some object

without feelings and insults her by being so rude to her in front of their old family friend.

The next time we get an insight into Boy’s character is when, at Christmas, Leo finds a

note in Boy’s clothes that tells her of what Boy has been up to with another woman,

committing adultery? And to this Percy Boyd Staunton says, “‘There’s no reason to carry

on like that…But if you think I intend to be tied down to this sort of thing’ � and he

gestured towards the drawing-room, which was, I must say, a dismal, toy-littered waste

of wealthy, frumpish domesticity � ‘you can think again.’” (Robertson Davies. 186). This

really crowns it all. He takes absolutely no responsibility of what just happened. He does

not think committing adultery is a crime, a moral one more than anything else, but the

fact that he does not even apologize for his wrong deed illustrates a lot about his

character. He says this to Leo in front of their children, scaring them for life. Lost

innocence can never be restored. He leaves his wife, the very person who would do

absolutely anything to be like the person Boy wanted to make her, howling and heart-

broken. Truly cruel and evil, Boy probably deserved what he got in the end.

All his life, Boy only looked for wealth and fame. Being the center of attraction and

dominating situations by any means was his life’s real motive. He wanted to surpass

everything and everybody in the materialistic world. His was the thought that money

could buy anything and was the only base of a life. For him too, Deptford might have

been something in the past, long forgotten and forbidden, but scarcely do people realize,

just how much, the forces that affected them as children, really drive them. Boy enjoyed

his life on the basis of the money and wealth he had amassed. Such achievements,

without the least trace of any humanitarian qualities; what a tragedy that is and this is

exactly the kind of person Boy was. A person with no honor, Boy is a hollow person,

with impure intentions he had lead his life and died, only to be forgotten as a regular rich

fellow.



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All was well on a sunny July afternoon at a Santa Monica farmers’ market, where loads of people were gathered outdoors collecting fruit, and enjoying their day. Heart rates increased and tragedy struck as a 1 Buick emerged into the scene at top speed. The car uncontrollably succeeded in knocking stands over disastrously, managing to steal ten innocent lives, and send about forty to the hospital. The driver, Russel Weller, was an 86-year-old man.

This tragedy revived an issue already controversial senior driving. It raised questions about when it is safe for seniors to continue driving, and when it is time to take away the keys.

Elderly drivers are not necessarily terrible drivers, however nobody can deny that the skills necessary for driving deteriorate with age. The older we get, the weaker our senses become. The majority of us begin to find prescription glasses essential in order to sharpen our sight, and hearing aids to enhance our hearing. Reaction time plays a vital role in life tasks, especially in driving. Our reaction time definitely begins to deteriorate as we grow older, increasing the risks of automobile accidents involving elderly drivers. Studies prove that older people are among the most accident-prone groups on the road. According to a specific study by John Hopkins researchers for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the crash-per-miles-driven statistics for people age 80 or over is triple that of people ages 65 � 6.

Though many older drivers see driving slower as being safer and more cautious, this isn’t always the case. When driving slower than the surrounding cars, you are still at risk of getting rear-ended by another vehicle. In driving school, it is taught to go at the speed of traffic, whether it is above or below the speed limit. This is to obviously prevent the risk of collisions.




While elder drivers may be a hazard on the road, it is unfair for their license to be confiscated so suddenly. After all, driving is the ticket to independence. Taking away their advantage of driving is pretty much taking away their freedom, and they are left to burden others in helping them with everyday errands and tasks. Taking the bus may be an alternative, yet a big adjustment as well. The bus is not at your convenience as a personal vehicle would be, waiting for you in your driveway. Instead, one must abide by the schedule and arrangements the bus sets. According to Daniel Yi, Los Angeles Times writer and author of “Behind the Wheel,” some alternatives to driving include bus transportation and walking. Good old fashioned walking can be pleasant as well as a good workout, keeping us in fairly good shape. The bus can be used for long-distance transportation. You rest while the driver takes you to your destination.

Other solutions to the problem with older drivers would be to somehow retest them on their driving ability and skills. Romando Dixon of the Columbus Dispatch suggests testing adults every five to ten years to make sure everything

is working all right. This is a good method until the adult is labeled “unable to drive”. Once they are deemed as driving impaired, they should consider the bus and/or walking, and maybe even count on family to help them out by driving them from place to place.

Older people’s senses may not be as sharp as they used to be, and their reaction time might be deteriorating as time goes by, which are important reasons as to not allowing them the privilege of driving. However, a gesture such as this seems unjust and somewhat discriminating. Indeed, losing driving privileges can be a great loss of independence for seniors, however, loss of control behind the wheel is even worse.



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John Donne wrote the essay, Meditation XVII, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. This piece was written three hundred and seventy-eight years ago in 1678. John Donne wrote this essay at a time when he was very ill. Due to this, the main topic of his essay is that of death and of ones own mortality. In the beginning he lets us know that he is sick when saying and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state may have caused it to toll for me The bell Donne is talking about is the one that tolls every time a parishioner dies. Donne says that he might be so sick that the bell may be tolling for him and he does not even know it. At this point he is so sick that people have to take care of him. He feels that the people caring for him may have caused the bell to toll for him, especially those who see how sick he really is. John Donne, emphasizes the unity of the Catholic Church and he describes her as being universal. He says that church ceremonies such as baptisms and funerals are important to him. The young children who are baptized and those who die are all linked to him through God. With every baptism there is another life added to the church family. This life does not act or survive alone. It is connected and affects everyone one elses life in the congregation. In this essay, Donne talks about all humans being a whole. He uses the book as a metaphor, saying that God is the author and every man is a chapter in his book of life. If one person dies, their chapter should not be torn out of Gods book. Instead it should be translated into a better language and every chapter must be so translated Donne believes that God has a hand in everything and that, all which happens, happens for a reason. He states that God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but Gods hand is in every translation. The translations of age, sickness, war, and justice are all things that can cause death. In that case, these elements can translate human beings into spirits of heaven or to anywhere else God chooses to send them. In the middle of his essay, John Donne gives a significant quote No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory wereany mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. This is the most popular quote in John Donnes essay and today people still use this quote in many ways, even though it was written almost four hundred years ago. Donne means that no one person can stand alone. Human beings need others for support and survival. Then he talks about the death bell. He says that the bell tolls for thee, meaning all humankind. Whenever the bell tolls it tolls for more than the one person who has died. It tolls for all those who are left behind to mourn. When a person dies, we not only mourn their death but we mourn our own mortality as well. The death bell can bring focus to our own lives and help us live and discover our meaning. Donne says that it is not enough to go through our own misery but we must all feel the misery of our neighbors and all of mankind. He says that, tribulation is treasure in the nature of if, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer out home, heaven, by it. Pain and misery will bring us closer to God. At the end of his essay, Donne suggests that thinking of our own death and misery is not enough. He says that often times we do not think of these things until we are dying. We must also take part in the misery and deaths of others. Through sacrificing and suffering in others miseries we become closer to God. By considering and experiencing the death of others as they leave this world, our thoughts turn closer to God and our own afterlife. At the very end Donny says that God is the only one who can assure out existence in the after life. I found Donnes piece very interesting. I also found it extremely confusing and quite a challenge, which is partially why I was drawn towards it. I read it over and over and took advantage of outside sources in order for me to understand it better. His style of writing is almost before its time and I wondered how this style relates to other works of this time. This work was written a very long time ago and it so well written. Every sentence must be broken apart and reread in order for it to make sense. He expresses themes and true life issues in such a small piece or writing. John Donnes use of figurative language is what he is admired for. He also usesmetaphors to characterize humankind and death. He also relates the human body to a chapter in Gods book. John Donne also asks questions in his essay. These questions add to his style and allow the reader to become more involved and to stop and think. I would like to know and understand more about his use of literary terms and style of his essay. I think that the new criticism approach could help me. Hopefully this approach would be able to aid me in analyzing his writing approach and style of the Meditation essay. After looking and researching an approach that would be most beneficial, I decided to go ahead and stick with the new criticism approach. I found that Internet sites were the most useful and abundant of all sources. Although it was difficult, to pinpoint an exact site that could give me a clear definition of new criticism. The sight I found was very beneficial in helping me understand the concept of new criticism a little better. This website was written by Sklyar Burris and was titled the Literary Criticism Study Guide. Skylar gave a good and clear overview of the numerous critical literary approaches. Before jumping into the paper itself, I thought it would be a good idea to find out the pros and cons of a criticism approach. Burris gave three major purposes of criticism. The first purpose is to help us solve a problem in reading. The second is to help us choose the better of two conflicting readings. Finally the third reason is to help us evaluate all literature and to have a better understanding of its meaning. After finding out some of the reasons for this critical approach, I searched for the site that gave the clearest definition of new criticism. I also found this in Sklyar Burriss website. The definition I received was that new criticism is a formalistic approach to literature and it involves a close reading of the text. Formalistic critics believe that all information necessary to the interpretation of a work must be found within the work itself; there is no need to bring in external information about the history, politics, or society of the time, or about the authors life. Because they are interested in what the work itself has to say, formalistic critics (presumably) so not view works through the lens of feminism, psychology, mythology, or some other such standpoint, and they are not interested in the works affect on the reader. Formalist critics generally delight in a close analysis of irony, paradox, imagery, and metaphor. They are also interested the works setting, characters, symbols, and point of view (4). In the site written by Skylar Burris, I also learned that there are special terms used in the new criticism approach. One of the terms used is tension. Tension is used to describe the integral unity of a work, which results from the resolution of opposites mostly in irony and paradox (5). Intentional fallacy is another term used and it is the belief that the meaning or value of a work may be determined by the authors intention (5). Affective fallacy, is the belief that the meaning and value of a work is determined on how it affects the reader (5). External form are the outside forms such as rhyme scheme, paragraphs, and stanza forms. Objective correlative is a term that refers to a set of object, or a situation, as a chain of events which is the formula of particular emotion, such that when the external facts are given the emotion is immediately invoked (5). I think that tension is a term that I would use most for this piece of work. I also learned some advantages and disadvantages to the new criticism approach. One of the advantages is that this approach emphasizes the value of literature aside from its context. New criticism is also a good starting place from all critical approaches and many other approaches must start at new criticism. Being that it has its advantages, it has disadvantages as well. In Burriss article, I read that through this approach the text is seen in isolation. Formalism ignores the context of the work. It cannot account allusions. It tends to reduce literature to just a few rhetorical devices, such as irony, paradox, and tension (6). This means that the history and conditions of when a work was written does not matter. Unfortunately, that is one of my curiosities relating to Donnes piece. I would have liked to learn more personal things about his life, illness, and time period; however, that probably takes effect in the new historical approach. Since John Donnes essay is such a confusing piece, it takes extra time and effort to understand it. This essay is not something that can be comprehended with only one reading. It must be read repeatedly and even then it is still confusing. In order to help me in understanding this work I went to the Internet and looked up some sites on this work. There are numerous sites on just this one piece written by John Donne. People have used pieces of his essay and applied them to different subjects and to all that is going on in the world. I found one site that was the best out of all of them. It was extremely helpful in allowing me to become more familiar and comfortable with his work, although I am not sure who the owner of this site is and have yet to receive their reply. This site contained John Donnes entire essay and it was written with annotations. These annotations allowed me to click on the areas that were most confusing and would help clear up any questions with its commentary. This site also had many links to other sites relating to John Donne. In Sklyar Burriss website, she also gave a link so that readers may have the chance to see a small example of a new critical approach, applied to a piece of literature. This was the most frightening part of the whole experience and there were no annotations for it either. What I saw looked like a text massacre. This was a piece that had been written by Sandra Cisneros. They then applied the new critical approach to it. The text had literally been ripped inside out, and by the end of the story, it was completely turned around with a different meaning. Unfortunately they didnt clearly explain how to do this. So after paranoia set in, I began to seek other sources that would give me guidelines in ways to apply the new criticism approach. After a not so successful search, I was ready to take a stab at it and attempt the application of the new critical approach to the Meditation XVII. At first I would go back to the basics and to the general definition of new criticism. With the new criticism approach, certain elements are focused on, such as irony, paradox, imagery, metaphors, settings, characters, symbols, and point of view. Most of these elements are self-explanatory but before I can apply these methods to Donnes piece, I must have a clear understanding of what they mean and represent. I think that point of view is the necessary place to start. I would apply the point of view approach to this piece by reading each sentence at the same time taking in to account who is telling this story. I already had known it was written in the first person point of view and now that I read it over, I realized that John Donne refers directly to himself in nearly every sentence. The Meditation XVII has many symbols within its text. Symbols are something that represents something else. The very first sentence starts off with a symbol, as Donne first mentions the bell. On the fourth sentence there is a reference to the church, which symbolizes unity, connection and being universal; however, it also symbolizes death, silence, and disconnection. In line nine, there is another symbol which is the chapter. The word chapter symbolizes the role of each man in Gods Book, which is also another symbol. The island is used as the symbol of humankind. This is used to show that no man/island can live alone and that companionship is necessary, with out it there is no true life. Gold is another important symbol that is talked about at the end of the essay. Gold is described a treasure, money, and as in a mine. When looking at in from the new criticism standpoint, the meaning and symbolism of gold is left out. Gold only seems and represents what it is, such as money. When not seen through the new criticism standpoint, we realize that gold is the symbol of a much higher meaning. Gold is the symbol or experience and suffering. The bell is the most important and symbolic symbol in John Donnes Meditation XVII. The bell occurs in the essay from the very beginning, till the very end. In each of these instances the bell is either tolling or ringing. Through a new critical view the bell can also represent life, and silence. Irony is a mode of speech in which the meaning is the opposite of what is actually expressed. When looking at the approach through the means of irony, the text changes tremendously. The first sentence states for whom this bell tolls may be so ill. When seen through the eyes of irony this could mean that for whom the bell is silent for, may be so healthy that he knows its silent for him and maybe the narrator thinks he is so much healthier than he really is, that when the people who are not around him, do not see him, they cannot cause it to be silent for him. Being that irony is the opposite of what is exactly expressed, it may suggest that people actually dont need others to live and every person is his or her own island. After attempting the new critical approach and not knowing if Im coming or going, I found that I do see Donnes work somewhat different. It is always different when a work is viewed and studied on a different level and approach. The new criticism approach allowed this work to be read through different eyes, creating a different opinion. I really did not care for the new criticism approach applied to the Meditation XVII. I have learned the hard way, that I am more interested in the history of a work and its author, instead of the exact context itself.



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It can be said that the term ‘human resources management’ became popular in the UK at the latter half of the eighties and at the beginning of the nineties. It has been applied to a diverse range of management strategies and has sometimes been used simply as a more modern term for personnel, employee or industrial relations.

It’s importance lies in its association with a strategic, integrated and highly distinctive managerial approach to the management of the people. The distinctiveness lies in labour being seen as an asset and resource and not as a cost. The strategy is to try to develop this resource to it’s maximum so that emphasis is on the individual employee and on his/her motivation, training and development.

Human Resources Management is defined as proactive rather than reactive, system-wide rather than fragmentary, treats labour as social capital rather than as a variable cost, is goal-oriented rather than relationship oriented, and ultimately is based on commitment rather than compliance.

The key themes upon which Human Resources Management is based include Human Relations psychology, Strategic Management theory, and the doctrines of quality and flexibility. The relative emphasis that is accorded to each of these themes can give rise to different ‘variants’ of Human Resources Management. In particular, it is possible to identify two extreme positions. These are Instrumental and Humanistic. Instrumental approaches draw upon the rational-outcome model of strategic management to view Human Resources Management as something which is driven by and derived directly from corporate, divisional or business level strategy, and geared almost exclusively to enhancing competitive advantage. Humanistic approaches, on the other hand, utilise ‘process’ theory to emphasise the reciprocal nature of the relationship between strategic management and Human Resources Management and the latter’s role in ensuring that competitive advantage is achieved through people but not necessarily at their expense.




One positive consequence of several new approaches to human resourcing has been to force managers to address the basic concepts and values that they routinely use in the evaluation of personnel processes, thereby encouraging a clearer understanding of the overall human resource system. Such an understanding is closely linked to the success with which the performance of human resources can be evaluated. Such evaluation has tended to take two forms a concern with systems of performance management, and the use of flexible working patterns and organisational structures.

However Human Resources Management is not perfect when you ponder on the point of view of the business goals and interests. It’s extremely hard for a company to achieve maximum profits and efficiency if it takes too much at heart the wellbeing and interests of its employees. This problem can be defined as an ‘integration’ issue where we distinguish the external fit of Human Resources Management with the organisation’s broader business view and the internal consistency of the policy goals of Human Resources Management itself. This is particularly problematic in highly competitive or recessionary conditions where the needs of the business are likely to undermine any internal Human Resources Management issues. For example, if shedding of labour should occur this would challenge, if not destroy, an organisation’s Human Resources Management image of caring for the needs and security of it’s employees.

The fundamental problem with Human Resources Management is that in most cases Human Resources issues are subordinate and secondary to business strategy. It is not simply that the search for profit overrides the policy goals of Human Resources Management, but arguably that Human Resources Management is pursued only in the belief that by raising employee’s commitment, flexibility and quality of their work the bottom line will be improved.

The contradictions within Human Resources Management are most apparent at the level of actual practices, with simultaneous advocacy of workforce attributes such as individualism and teamwork, commitment to a job and flexibility and development of a strong culture and adaptability. In identifying the tension between individualism and teamwork, for example, what these cases demonstrate is the need for a redefinition of Human Resources Management, for despite any surface similarity with the textbook checklists of Human Resources Management policies these cases could certainly not be described as operating a form of ‘development humanism’. The internal contradictions, which plagued Human Resources Management, are well illustrated by the issue of employee commitment. For proponents of Human Resources Management, commitment represents a key dimension because it’s sometimes assumed that highly committed workers are more productive.

Conflicts are apparent too where organisations have attempted to introduce more flexible working arrangements and performance-related pay. The problems with flexibility began partly from the tensions between different sources of flexibility. While soft forms of Human Resources Management encourage employee development through the learning of a broader range of skills, hard forms of Human Resources Management advocate the securing of greater variability in the volume of labour, therefore providing management with greater scope to match labour input to demand fluctuations. In addition, however, conflicts exist within each of the major sources of flexibility. For example, the danger exists of securing high levels of functional flexibility at the cost of other organisational objectives such as stability, continuity and cohesion. Likewise forms of numerical flexibility potentially clash not only with the objective of securing employee commitment but also with establishing and sustaining high quality output and group cohesion.

Performance-related pay, to emphasise the more purposeful and ‘object achieving’ focus of Human Resources Management, would seem not only to have failed to yield high levels of commitment in many organisations, but also to have perpetuated a longstanding tradition in wage and salary administration of ‘muddling through’. While a strategy for reward may need to be part of a wider human resources development strategy, reward in itself is not sufficient to promote human resource contributions to corporate improvement. More importantly, however, individual reward systems could well act to undermine co-operation, teamwork and even individual motivation. And these are all key elements of Human Resources Management.

These and other conflicts and contradictions evidenced by the different contributions underline the problematic status of Human Resources Management as a coherent concept. Rather than seeing this as an excuse for abandoning the notion of Human Resources Management altogether, however, the evidence presented would seem to support a more careful circumscribing of Human Resources Management, and a clearer definition of its status as a set of management practices. In doing so, the relationship between Human Resources Management and the longstanding core issues of labour management like issues of power, control, conflict, resistance, dependence, consent, etc. Human Resources Management is one of a series of approaches management may take to secure the levels of compliance and co-operation it requires. Different sets of circumstances will influence the adoption of one approach over others, while changing circumstances will encourage a shift from one to another and possibly the creation of new practices and approaches.

The central objective of Human Resources Management policy is to secure the commitment of employees to innovation and commitment of employees to innovation and continual improvement of product quality. Some measures of employment security and considerable investment in training and development are seen as essential supports for management effort in this area. Equally, the recruitment and retention of competent and committed staff is supported by competitive pay and reward structures which are perceived as fair. At the level of the workplace, these strategies require significant change in management behaviour. The crude assertion of managerial prerogative, associated with short-term low-cost approaches, is eschewed in favour of employee involvement in problem solving and fostering of a climate of operation and trust.

Human Resources Management has been dependent upon the changing economic circumstances of the past decade. It grew in the boom of the last half of the past decade, when attachment, commitment and development were the watchwords. It faced it’s sternest test in the severe recession of the first half of the nineties with its emphasis on restructuring, downsizing and a big reduction in both employee and managerial confidence in the prospects for renewed growth. For this reason Human Resources Management is now tinged with suspicion and a certain hostility as to its role in organisations. The difficulty for Human Resources Management is to establish its credentials as a central part of employee management in economic conditions that make the expansionary and development aspects of the approach extremely difficult to sustain.

While Human Resources Management has proved possible for traditionally conceived industrial relations and personnel management procedures to have endured economic cycles, even though the managerial strategies underlying them reflected the realities of the labour market, Human Resources Management has still to demonstrate that it has the robustness to move beyond generalised managerial prescriptions as a sustainable model of management. In this sense, this decade will be the testing ground for the idea of Human Resources Management as a consistent and integrated approach, as opposed to a fragmented and opportunistic set of interventions.

Industrial Relations Theory and Practice, Michael Salamon

Reassessing Human Resource Management, P. Blyton and P. Turnbull

Principles of Human Resource Management, David Gloss

A Handbook of Personnel Management Practice, O. Aikin

Personnel Management HRM in action, D. Torrington and L. Hall

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INTRODUCTION

This project aims to construct an active international equity portfolio based on trade date Feb 8 00. We perform the key stages in the investment management process including investment analysis, formulating risk-return expectations, ¡®blending in¡¯ investment heuristics, portfolio optimisation and performance evaluation (both in and out of sample).

PRELIMINERY CONSIDERATIONS

Choice of Indices




We select the FTSE All-World index (FTAW) and 48 constituent country indices for three reasons

First, the FTAW index is a well-known and widely used benchmark index, so it can be readily accepted as a valid data origin.

Second, The FTAW covers a broad range of stock markets [both in terms of geographical area and the risk-return spectrum], including developed markets, advanced emerging markets and emerging markets. Further there are standardized indices for each of the 48 constituent countries.

Third, and related, we can obtain (from DATASTREAM) dollar denominated total return indices for all countries allowing us to conduct the analysis as US investors. As discussed by Solnik (5) , there are in fact two possibilities with respect to managing currency exposure. The first, which is the approach we take implicitly take here, is to take on currency exposure so that total portfolio risk includes currency and stock risk. The second is to hedge it using derivative securities such as forward contracts. In this case, the returns available to international investors are equivalent to local currency returns. The latter may appear more sensible; however, Solnik () finds that currency risk is actually a relatively small component of the total risk of an international equity investment, and further observes currency risk reduction effects in a portfolio diversified across many currencies [which is the case here]. It must also be highlighted that hedging involves transaction costs and requires periodic rebalancing. Hence, we decide not to hedge.

Choice of risk free rate

The risk free rate assumption, for all investment decisions, is 1 year US dollar LIBOR, at Feb 8 00. At this date, the annualized risk free rate (rf) is .4%, so the monthly risk free rate is



Choice of 15 Countries

At the first step, we excluded all the Latin America markets to avoid the political and economic risk. Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Argentina were excluded, from a commonsense viewpoint, because of the continuously widening negative influence from Argentine financial crisis over that area.

We decide to select the set of 15 countries with lowest average correlation to maximize international diversification benefits. To achieve this, we construct a correlation matrix from the FTAW 48 constituent countries¡¯ total return indices, with monthly frequency, for the 5-year period from 8 Feb 17 to Feb 8 00. However, based on this 5-year criteria, we find sufficient data in DATASTREAM for only countries Russia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Poland, Hungary, South Africa and Morocco have to be deleted from the list.

From the average correlation shown in Table 1, we chose the 15 countries China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland.

INVESTMENT STRATEGY

Tools for portfolio analysis

The two optimization techniques used in the project involve the Markowitz (MM) and Single Index (SIM) models.

Markowitz E(Rp)=¡ÆXiE(R) sp = ¡Æ¡ÆXiXjsi,j Single Index E(Rp)= ¦Áp+¦ÂpE(Ri) sp=¦Âpsm +se,p

MM is a standard approach to portfolio optimisation, but requires the full variance-covariance matrix to compute portfolio risk. The SIM bypasses the operational difficulties associated with this by assuming a simplified covariance structure between securities; the optimal portfolio is then computed by a ranking procedure conditional on the required inputs. The SIM is based on the standard OLS assumptions (1) E(ei)=0, () COV (ei,Rm) = 0 & () COV (ei,ej) = 0. The SIM & MM portfolio variances can be compared from the formula

MMsp=SIMsp + ¡Æ¡ÆXiXj COV (ei, ej).

From assumption () above, SIMsp will over- or under-estimate the true variance [MMsp].

A key and pertinent difference between the models is information requirements. For the MM, total information requirements are (N+N)/ (N expected returns, N variances, (N-N)/ unique covariance) making a somewhat impractical total of 15 for all 15 countries. However, the SIM, due to the simplifying assumption about the covariance structure, requires only N+ (N alpha, N beta, N r, Rm, sm) making a more manageable total of 47. For this reason, we decide to use the SIM, at the first stage, to select the 5 constituent countries for the portfolio followed by MM to blend in the required ¡®heuristics¡¯.

Single Index for preliminary country selection

Our natural starting point for the portfolio analysis is the optimal portfolio selection procedure from EGBG (00) Ch. based on the input data from the single index model. The procedure enables optimal portfolio weights to be established, and we consider the solution case with no short sales. It is based on a particular ranking criteria, and EGBG (00) note that it can be proved that the particular criteria lead to an optimal portfolio (conditional on the single index model representing the covariance structure between assets). The ranking is purely driven by the well-known Treynor ratio capturing the ratio of excess return over the risk free to beta.

Country

Israel 0.00688 0.5108 0.0040 0.007406 0.004714 0.01446

Italy 0.00454 0.8648 0.005 0.00756 0.0011 0.00841

Turkey 0.0076 .1070 0.01846 0.0164 0.008 0.007746

Pakistan 0.001 0.014 0.0061 0.001618 0.04741 0.00567

Denmark 0.00051 0.7005 0.005508 0.00505 0.001515 0.00500

Belgium 0.00148 0.5470 0.004185 0.0018 0.00004 0.008

Ireland -0.0005 0.86456 0.0074 0.001740 0.00040 0.0001

Thailand -0.011776 .1718 -0.00105 -0.00055 0.08665 -0.001406

Austria -0.007 0.677 0.00014 -0.001854 0.00411 -0.00

Taiwan -0.008457 1.075465 -0.00150 -0.00515 0.00816 -0.00471

Malaysia -0.0110 1.15881 -0.00671 -0.00874 0.018884 -0.0071

India -0.00505 0.55871 -0.006 -0.00465 0.00686 -0.007618

Indonesia -0.0114 1.6647 -0.01004 -0.0107 0.001 -0.00771

Philippine 0.00688 0.5108 -0.015548 -0.017551 0.0114 -0.0174

China 0.00454 0.8648 0.015475 0.0147 0.017 -0.44518

Table . Data required to determine optimal portfolio with rf=0.0000

Table illustrates the first part of the procedure. The Treynor ratio was computed for each of the 15 countries, and they were then ranked from highest (most desirable) to lowest (least desirable). We now require a cut-off point, and to determine the C, we compute Ci for each necessary country, where

(1)



The Ci is gradually built up in table ; it assumes that we keep adding one more country to the optimal portfolio until we get C. We seek a unique C such that all countries ranked higher satisfy Ci ¡Ý C, while countries ranked lower satisfy Ci ¡Ü C. We find C = 0.004656. Having obtained the set of 5 countries, it remains to determine the optimal portfolio weights. Each Zi value from () below is proportional to the optimal weight Xi, which is obtained by scaling each Zi using () below. Based on the five countries; we obtain -

() Z1=1.065188, Z1=1.0174, Z=0.150, Z4=0.008664, Z5=0.1604

() X1=0.4087, X=0.41, X=0.0876, X4=0.00504, X5=0.06486

Country

Israel 0.804457 55.654 0.804457 55.654 0.00166

Italy .070 54.4568 .0147 10.0844 0.00888

Turkey 1.14811 148.11 4.0467 458.15804 0.00458

Pakistan 0.01711 .67464 4.068 461.8868 0.00451

Denmark 1.6117 4.05847 5.60511 786.046766 0.004656

Belgium 0.5667 14.800467 6.8718 5.847 0.00458

Ireland 0.774 66.561 7.045 10.05 0.004041

Thailand -0.1581 164.746587 6.751 1466.50110 0.0056

Austria -0.486510 166.07705 6.0644 16.0715 0.00048

Taiwan -0.564568 117.801 5.74187 1750.857454 0.0065

Malaysia -0.507760 71.1117 5.411 181.78771 0.0018

India -0.4767 45.64847 4.886476 1867.61617 0.0011

Indonesia -0.7118 .55077 4.1758 15.86864 0.001741

Philippine -.06576 168.0657 .10748 18.17566 0.0008

China -0.0115 0.047516 .0866 18.78 0.00081

Table . Calculations for determining cut-off rate with ¦�m=0.00

Given the procedure; these are clearly the optimal weights. However, we are also required to formulate and apply ¡®heuristic¡¯ rules in the portfolio choice problem. There are numerous possibilities such as upper or lower limits, portfolio tilting or even risk controls. A key issue is, of course, how to incorporate such portfolio constraints into an analytical solution.

A second approach is therefore to consider the quadratic program from EGBG(0) (pp0) based on the Kuhn-Tucker conditions plus an upper limit weight constraint

(K1)

(K)

(K) and

(K4) (N=15)

An attempt was made to compute the solution via ¡®Excel Solver¡¯. A total of 15 ¡®target cells¡¯ are required. These represent (K1) rearranged such that each is set equal to zero. Then, in the solver format, Z and M need be varied to obtain solution values that meet (K) to (K4). Unfortunately, Excel Solver function allows only one target cell, so the solution was not obtainable.

Markowitz to build in ¡®heuristics¡¯

Therefore, we opt for the Markowitz approach via ¡®Excel Solver¡¯, which will enable us to determine portfolio weights based on the following ¡®heuristic¡¯ rules (1) No countries weight should be more than 5%, Xi ¡Ü 0.5, () No countries weight should be less than 5%, Xi ¡Ý 0.05. The rationale for the constraints is to limit single country exposure, balance the portfolio and control risk. They allow us to modify the portfolio so that it is not solely a product of historical analysis.



The portfolio strategy is based on the maximization the objective Sharpe ratio

,

where Rp is the expected return of the portfolio, and Rf is the risk free rate, sp is the total portfolio risk conditional on varying the 5 country weights under the constraints

(1) Fully invested åXi = 1;

() No short selling Xi ¡Ý 0 for all i;

() No countries weight should be more than 5%, Xi ¡Ü 0.5;

(4) No countries weight should be less than 5%, Xi ¡Ý 0.05.



We uses the Excel Solver function to solve the problem, the procedure is as follows

Firstly, we report the summary statistics (Table 4) that the Markowitz Model requires. They includes N expected returns, N variance terms & (N-N)/ unique covariance terms [N=5].

Country Israel Italy Turkey Pakistan Denmark

Expected Returns 0.0040 0.005 0.01846 0.0061 0.005508

Variance 0.0055 0.00501 0.041150 0.056 0.00666



Covariance Matrix

Country Israel Italy Turkey Pakistan Denmark

Israel 0.0055

Italy 0.0014 0.00501

Turkey 0.00788 0.00554 0.041150

Pakistan 0.0018 0.00047 0.0066 0.056

Denmark 0.00074 0.0016 0.005 -0.00074 0.00666

Table 4. Summary Statistics for Markowitz Approach

Secondly, we input those data into the Excel spread sheet (Table 5) and define B, B10, B11, B1, and B1 as the adjustable cells. Then we added the following constrains into solver function (1) B+ B10+B11+B1+ B1 =1, ()$B$ $B$1 ¡Ü 0.5, and () $B$ $B$1 ¡Ý 0.05. After that, we set B0 as the target cell to be maximized by varying the 5 adjustable cells representing the constraints. B0 is equal to the (B17-B1)/B18. B17and B18 will vary based on the weights of the 5 countries in our portfolio. We set 0% as default weights for each country, as solver requires initial guesses.

7 A B C

8 Country (Xi) Weight

Israel (X1) 0.

10 Italy (X) 0.

11 Turkey (X) 0.

1 Pakistan (X4) 0.

1 Denmark (X5) 0.

14 X1+X+X+X4+X5 1.00

15

16 Monthly Annually

17 Expected Return (Rp) 0.0065 0.117018

18 Total Risk (sp) 0.07408 0.5665

1 Interest Rate (Rf) 0.0000 0.0400

0 Objective Sharpe Ratio 0.0801 0.6158

Table 5. Excel Solver function Inputs

The solver output (Table 6) shows that the maximum achievable Sharpe ratio (by varying the weights of the 5 countries under those constraints) is 0.14514 (monthly). Thus, the weights of those 5 countries in our portfolio are Israel (X1) = 0.5, Italy (X) = 0.5, Turkey (X) = 0.085, Pakistan (X4) = 0.05, and Denmark (X5) = 0.167005.

Target Cell (Max)

Cell Name Original Value Final Value

$B$0 Objective Sharpe Ratio 0.07714 0.14514

Adjustable Cells

Cell Name Original Value Final Value Reduced Gradient

$B$ Israel (X1) 0. 0.5 0.010401

$B$10 Italy (X) 0. 0.5 0.0075

$B$11 Turkey (X) 0. 0.085 0

$B$1 Pakistan (X4) 0. 0.05 -0.0786

$B$1 Denmark (X5) 0. 0.167005 0

Constraints

Cell Name Cell Value Formula Status Slack

$B$14 X1+X+X+X4+X5 1.00 $B$14=1 Binding 0

$B$ Israel (X1) 0.5 $B$=0.05 Not Binding 0

$B$10 Italy (X) 0.5 $B$10=0.05 Not Binding 0

$B$11 Turkey (X) 0.085 $B$11=0.05 Not Binding 0.67005

$B$1 Pakistan (X4) 0.05 $B$1=0.05 Binding 0.

$B$1 Denmark (X5) 0.167005 $B$1=0.05 Not Binding 0.185

$B$ Israel (X1) 0.5 $B$=0.5 Binding 0.

$B$10 Italy (X) 0.5 $B$10=0.5 Binding 0.

$B$11 Turkey (X) 0.085 $B$11=0.5 Not Binding 0.05

$B$1 Pakistan (X4) 0.05 $B$1=0.5 Not Binding 0

$B$1 Denmark (X5) 0.167005 $B$1=0.5 Not Binding 0.117005

Table 6. Microsoft Excel .0 Solver Answer and Sensitivity Report

From the optimal weight we obtained from Markowitz Approach we can calculate out the following basic summary of our portfolio (Table 7).

Monthly Annually

Expected Return (Rp) 0.001 0.116148

Total Risk (sp) 0.05774 0.0005

Interest Rate (Rf) 0.0000 0.0400

Porfolio Beta 0.7701 0.7701

Objective Sharpe ratio 0.14514 0.458768

Treynor ratio portfolio 0.008 0.11485

Table 7. Summary for the optimal portfolio with rf = .4% p.a.

Computation of Efficiency Frontier

We begin to trace out the portfolio efficient frontier by the suggested approach in EGBG (P10-11) by varying the risk free rate. We select 5% as the interest rate for obtain the optimal portfolio, and solve it through solver function, and then we obtain the optimal portfolio with respect to 5% risk less rate. The weights of the 5 countries are Israel (X1) = 0.5, Italy (X) = 0.5, Turkey (X) = 0.1805, Pakistan (X4) = 0.05, and Denmark (X5) = 0.06065. Its annualised expected return is 0.14464, the annualised total risk is 0.4585, and the variance is 0.060465.



From the basic statistics for those portfolios shown in Table 8, we can conclude that the variance of a new portfolio consisting of &frac1; of portfolio (rf =.4%) and &frac1; of portfolio (rf = 5%) is

s = (&frac1;)(0.0005) + (&frac1;)(0.4585 ) + (&frac1;)(&frac1;) s1 = (0.14)

Therefore, s1 = 0.04771.

Country (Xi) P1 (rf = .4%) P (rf =5%) &frac1;P1+ &frac1;P

Israel (X1) 0.5 0.5 0.5

Italy (X) 0.5 0.5 0.5

Turkey (X) 0.085 0.1805 0.16015

Pakistan (X4) 0.05 0.05 0.05

Denmark (X5) 0.167005 0.06065 0.1185

W1+W+W+W4+W5 1.00 1.00 1.00



Summary Annually Annually Annually

Expected Return 0.116148 0.14464 0.157

Total Risk 0.0005 0.4585 0.14

Table 8. basic statistics for portfolio (P1, P, and &frac1;P1+ &frac1;P)



After we calculated out the expected returns, variance and covariance, then we could trace out the efficient frontier from varying the weights of P1 and P.

The efficient frontier is showed in the Figure 1. In our case, the risk free rate, rf, is .4%, the optimal portfolio is the tangent point (0.0005, 0.116148), and the minimum variance portfolio is the starting point (0.16461, 0.088857).



Figure 1. Efficient Frontier with the minimum risk portfolio and optimal portfolio.

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

As highlighted by EBGB(0) performance evaluation is an integral aspect of any investment decision making process. In this section, the ex-post performance of the Single index and Markowitz portfolios are analyzed over the sample estimation and subsequent one-year period. We aim to discover whether the selected portfolios have achieved sufficient return conditional on various performance measures. The required input data, based on annualized mean return and standard deviation, is summarized in table . For the in-sample period, the risk free assumption rf=0.054777, which represent the annualized mean monthly rate. For the out of sample period, the risk free assumption is rf=0.00568, which represents the annualized mean weekly rate.

We observe that, in the in-sample period, the ¡®Single Index 5¡¯ (SI5) and ¡®Markowitz 5¡¯ (M5) portfolios exhibited higher return and standard deviation than the FTSE All World (FTAW), while both portfolio betas were less than 1. For the out of sample period, the general observation is that all risky equity portfolios under-performed the risk free. From these preliminary observations, we can move to more definitive conclusions by utilizing a range of analytical techniques.



In Sample -

MARKOWITZ 5 0.116148 0.0005 0.7701

SINGLE INDEX 5 0.1555 0.158 0.81

FTSE ALL-WORLD 0.06085 0.165876 1



Out of Sample -

MARKOWITZ 5 -0.04885 0.171641 0.6084

SINGLE INDEX 5 -0.066 0.18188 0.6401

FTSE ALL-WORLD -0.16580 0.168 1

Table . Performance measurement input data

The Sharpe Ratio

As noted by EBGB(0), in the return & standard deviation space, all combinations of a risky portfolio and risk free asset lie along the straight line connecting the risky portfolio and risk free asset. The Sharpe ratio is the slope of this line and represents the ratio of excess return (over risk free) divided by return standard deviation (total risk). More formally -



Under this measure, the greater the Sharpe ratio, the better the portfolio performance. Further, since the ratio is based on total risk, it can be used to rank actively managed equity portfolios. In this respect, we note that our five asset portfolios represent active selections from the set of 4 countries that comprise the FTAW. The respective Sharpe ratios are reported in table 10.

In Sample ranking Out of sample ranking

Rank Portfolio Sharpe ratio Rank Portfolio Sharpe ratio

1 SINGLE INDEX 5 0.860 1 MARKOWITZ 5 -0.41046

MARKOWITZ 5 0.06540 SINGLE INDEX 5 -0.481175

FTSE ALL-WORLD 0.066 FTSE ALL-WORLD -1.08105

Table 10. Sharpe ratio portfolio performance ranking

From the table, we observe that, over both periods, both the SI5 and M5 portfolios outperformed the FTAW, but neither SI5 nor M5 dominated. For the in-sample period, the respective factors of market outperformance, for the SI5 and M5 portfolios, were around 8.7 and 8.7 times the FTAW Sharpe ratio. For the out of sample period, the negative Sharpe ratios indicate underperformance with respect to the risk free. The respective factors of market outperformance, for the M5 and SI5 portfolios, were around 0.4 and 0.4 times the negative FTAW Sharpe ratio.

Differential return when risk is measured by beta

Again, this is appropriate for actively managed equity portfolios. As discussed by EGBG(0), the essential intuition is to compare the return on an active portfolio to a passive strategy of combining the risk free and FTAW to obtain a portfolio of identical beta. The differential return, known as the Jensen alpha measure, represents the (beta) risk adjusted abnormal return. More formally -



The respective ratios are reported in table 11, and we note that the performance ranking is identical to the Sharpe ratio.

In Sample ranking Out of sample ranking

Rank Portfolio Alpha Rank Portfolio Alpha

1 SINGLE INDEX 5 0.065758 1 MARKOWITZ 5 0.076646

MARKOWITZ 5 0.05651 SINGLE INDEX 5 0.06458

Table 11 Performance ranking by the Jensen differential performance index

Decomposition of performance

The alpha measure, or return to selectivity, can be further decomposed into the return to diversifiable risk and net selectivity via the technique of Fama decomposition.

Markowitz approach Single Index Approach

Performance analysis (annual basis) in sample Performance analysis (annual basis) in sample

Fama Decomposition Fama Decomposition

Return Beta Return Beta

Selected Portfolio (P1) 0.116148 0.7701 Selected Portfolio (P1) 0.1555 0.81

Benchmark (P) 0.0565 0.7701 Benchmark (P) 0.05767 0.81

Portfolio alpha (P1-P) 0.05651 Portfolio alpha (P1-P) 0.065758

Benchmark (P) 0.0610 1.0658 Benchmark (P) 0.0666 1.78

Divers. Risk (P-P) 0.00474 Divers. Risk (P-P) 0.0085

Selectivity (P1-P) 0.0540 Selectivity (P1-P) 0.06864



Markowitz approach Single Index Approach

Performance analysis (annual basis) Out of sample Performance analysis (annual basis) out of sample

Fama Decomposition Fama Decomposition

Return Beta Return Beta

Selected Portfolio (P1) -0.04885 0.608 Selected Portfolio (P1) -0.066 0.6401

Benchmark (P) -0.1651 0.6084 Benchmark (P) -0.1181 0.6401

Portfolio alpha (P1-P) 0.076646 Portfolio alpha (P1-P) 0.06458

Benchmark (P) -0.1867 0.8740 Benchmark (P) -0.10 0.687

Divers. Risk (P-P) -0.06061 Divers. Risk (P-P) -0.06781

Selectivity (P1-P) 0.1607 Selectivity (P1-P) 0.1176

Table 1 Performance analysis by Fama decomposition

As discussed by EBGB(0), this is achieved by comparing the active portfolio return to the return on a passive portfolio with the same total risk, i.e. the total risk of the passive portfolio (which is all systematic) is set equal to the total risk of the active portfolio. This allows a second benchmark to be computed, which represents the ¡®required¡¯ alpha from an active fund conditional on its total risk. Any more than this represents a pure selection gain or ¡®net selectivity¡¯.

For the in sample SI5 portfolio, we compute the beta and return of the required naïve passive portfolio with the same total risk.



The Fama decomposition for all four portfolios are reported in table 1 and are illustrated for SI5 and M5 in fig 1. For the SI5 in sample portfolio, we observe that only around 4% of the alpha was required to achieve the benchmark return for diversifiable risk. Similarly for the M5 in sample portfolio, around 6% of the alpha represented a net selection gain.





Figure . Performance Analysis by Fama Decomposition

For the out of sample period, the positive alpha measures for the SI5 and M5 portfolios must be put into the overall context of a negative market risk premium of nearly ¨C4%. Figure illustrates the Fama decomposition for the out of sample M5. The passive benchmark P illustrates that RP is the ¡®benchmark¡¯ return required from an active portfolio to ¡®compete¡¯ with a naïve portfolio of equivalent total risk to P1, leading to negative return to diversifiable risk. In this scenario, even fund managers with negative alpha can legitimately claim selection skills if they exceed RP. We note that positive alpha required positive net selectivity in excess of the magnitude of return to diversifiable risk; this was comfortably achieved by M5. However, the overall M5 return was around 7% below the risk free. We observe similar decomposition effects for the SI5 out of sample portfolio, where the return was nearly % below the risk free.

Performance summary

Both SI5 and M5 portfolios were market outperformers with the SI5 featuring as the dominant in sample portfolio. In this respect, we note that the SI5 represented an unconstrained solution, while the M5 portfolio was optimized subject to several constraints resulting in a performance trade off. However, these ¡®heuristics¡¯ proved beneficial for the out of sample, M5 has % more return than SI5. Illustrating that limiting country exposure and balancing out a portfolio can act as prudent modifications in supplementing a purely historically driven analysis. Finally, in the out of sample period, we must acknowledge that both portfolios underperformed the risk free.

CONCLUSION

We need not look very far for the source of the out of sample. At the current time, there appears to be a world-wide lack of confidence in global equities driven by a range of factors including the general fall out from the dot-com bubble, a number of high profile accounting scandals, the plague of political instability in respect of Iraq sending shockwaves across global stock markets. We note that US and UK stock markets have fallen heavily for the last years or so, and maybe, therefore, we should have considered a bond or even equity put option portfolio given the stock market environment. Indeed, we were only able to find one rising stock market ¨C Pakistan (by 1%) - for the last year, but the portfolio weight amounted to only 5%. If only we had a crystal ball!





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• With the takeover of DMJSL, the organizational culture is going through a dramatic change. Implementing the change requires strong leadership skills, where DMJSL have decided to follow the Path-Goal Leadership model.

Path-Goal Leadership Theory

• Based in part on the expectancy theory of motivation, Path-Goal leadership theory was initially articulated by Robert House in the 170’s. The theory that a subordinate’s ability to perform certain work tasks in proportional to the amount of direction and clarification of the paths that lead to the goals of organization.

• This means that if an employee is given clearly articulated instructions and demonstration of what to do, then the chance the employee will succeed is greatly enhanced.




• Path-goal theory argues that a subordinate’s motivation, satisfaction and performance are dependent on the leadership style chosen by their superior.

• Based upon Robert House’s theory, the two primary findings are that if a subordinate has a habitual job then a high level of initiating structure will result in a decrease in employee satisfaction.

• On the other hand, an employee has a highly ambiguous role with the organization then a high level of initiating structure by the leader, would lead to high levels of employee satisfaction.

• Therefore, according to this theory, the success of any organization is dependent on its leaders.

Communication Plan

• Communication means information being transmitted and being understood by other.

• Communication serves four major functions with the organization, which consist of Control, Motivation, Emotional Expression and Informational.

o In Control Function, organizations have the authority and formal guidelines that employees are required to follow.

o In Motivational Function, involves clarifying for employees what is to be done, how well they are doing and what needs to be improve.

o In Emotional Expression, it gives employees the ability of expression of emotions and fulfillment of social needs.

o Informational Function, where it provides the information that individuals and group need to make decisions by transmitting the data to identify and evaluate choices.

Employee Empowerment

• The merger has created a sense of low morale because the former DMJSL employees can no longer take the initiative to solve problems without the approval of upper management.

• This dis-empowerment has also cause lower self-esteem and morale, where they feel that their opinion does not matter.

• This matter is something that Mergers Inc. needs to resolve.

Performance Expectations.

• Re-establish performance goals and expectations in order to align them with Mergers Inc.

• Managers will meet with each employee to set personal performance goals.

• Management must clearly communicate to the employees that rewards are contingent on performance.



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Marketing Plan

This marketing plan is going to be over Wal-Mart. Since Wal-Mart is such a big firm, only the food department in the Round Lake Beach Wal-Mart will be examined. Wal-Mart competes in the retail industry. It sells many different products from many different suppliers at very low prices. Over the past three years sales have done nothing but gone up. Wal-Mart has always had a food department but it wasn’t until about years ago when the Round Lake Beach Wal-Mart got their coolers. The coolers contained such products as milk, dairy products, and assorted frozen foods. Since the addition of these the sales have gone up anywhere from 15%-50% a year.

Wal-Mart is thought of to be more of a family store, but you could say that they target all races and ages of people. They offer different kinds of products that will suit every persons needs. They offer products that satisfy different races of customers and different ages of customers. It is an open market and all types of people are allowed and will be served with the best customer service possible.

Wal-Mart’s food department has many competitors. It has an advantage over stores like Target, but it has a huge disadvantage against stores such as Jewel, Dominick’s, and Super K-Mart. Wal-Mart has the lowest prices out of all of these stores so you would think that they would be at the top of the market, but that is not the case. Wal-Mart has a relatively small food department compared to Jewel, Dominick’s, and Super K, but compared to Target it is relatively big. Stores like Jewel and Dominick’s offer more products and product lines than Wal-Mart does. For example, if you look at Gatorade. Wal-Mart carries four different flavors and only three different sizes. However, Jewel will offer about 10 different flavors in about six different sizes. Another strength that the other stores have over Wal-Mart is that they have a fresh produce section. They carry fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat. Basically ever store has their own strengths and weaknesses, it is all up to the consumer to choose where they shop. The SWOT analysis of the Round Lake Beach Wal-Mart food department is located at the end of this paper.




Has far as sales goes Wal-Mart expects nothing but the best. Wal-Mart is always looking for an increase in profits and sales. Over the next year the Round Lake Beach food department can expect to go up in sales and over the next five years they can expect the same. They can expect this because year by year the food department is getting bigger and bigger. They are also ordering more and more products from more and more suppliers. The food department is probably wanting to stay the same in the future if they can not increase, They however do not want to decrease sales and I would say they would go up in sales anywhere between 5% to 0% at the most.

Wal-Mart tends to not venture far into the new product thing. They are usually very consistent with the products they offer and from who they get it from. The newest stuff they will get will of course just be stuff that is an extension of a product line. For example, they will offer a new flavor of pop from the Pepsi Company or they will offer a new bag of chips from the Frito Lay company. Another situation in which they receive new products is during holidays as a seasonal item. For example, they receive egg nog during the Christmas season and receive a great amount of different candies during Halloween. The new usually replaces the old however. What they do to get rid of the older items often differs. Sometimes these older items will just be put onto clearance or comped just to rid of them. If these strategies don’t work they often just delete the item from the system for ever. The packaging of these items does not depend on Wal-Mart. The packaging is done by all of the suppliers that Wal-Mart is partners with. The packaging by the suppliers is usually consistent in what is wanted by the customers. The packaging usually contains the nutrition information and all of the other things that labels contain. Over the next five years you can expect the Round Lake Beach Wal-Mart to keep it simple. They will not do anything out of the ordinary and by doing it this way the customers will continue to flock in.

As far as pricing goes, Wal-Mart is at the top of the chain. One of their slogans is “Always Low Prices” and they do stay true to that. They offer certain things on rollback and clearance. Their normal food products are cheap anyways. For example, the milk is only a $1.8 a gallon, the cheapest anywhere. This is the reason why Round Lake Beach’s milk sales is number one in the district and leads all other stores. There are some environmental factors that might cause a change in some prices. All of Wal-Mart’s prices in the department should not change in anyway over the future. If they did this would ultimately lead to false advertising because after all their slogan is “Always Low Prices.”

When it comes to advertising Wal-Mart does the normal commercials and newspaper ads. They do not need to do much because their name is already out there in the market. People know what Wal-Mart is and what they provide. A thing that would help is if they found a way to show some of the items they provide through their commercials. In all of their commercials they often just emphasize low prices and customer service, it would help if they showed some of the products they offer also. This would be a helpful strategy that would just bring in all of the more customers.

The plan in the food department at the Round Lake Beach Wal-Mart is already put into place and it can only get better. Wal-Mart has existed for many many years and there is no way that anything would happen that would jeopardize the future of this outstanding company.







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A product is defined as the bundle of physical, service, and symbolic attributes desiged to satisfy customers wants and needs. Goods are tangible products that customers can see, smell, hear, taste, or touch. Services are intangible tasks that satisfy the needs of customers.

The three major classifications of consumer products are convenience products ( frequently purchased items), shopping products ( products purchased after comparison), and specialty products ( thoses that offer unique characteristics that consumers prize).a.soft drink-convenience product

b.gasoline-convenience product c.Rolex watch-specialty product

d.winter coat-shopping producte.Godiva Chocolates-specialty product




f.DVD player-shopping product

Business products are classified as installations (major capital investments), accessory equipment ( capital items that cost less and last for shorter periods than installations), component parts and materials (finished business products of one producer that become part of the final products of another producer), raw materials ( natural resources such as lumber, beef, or cotton), supplies ( the regular expenses that a firm incurs in daily operations), and business services ( the intangible products that firms buy to facilitate their production and operating processes. Examples of these in order explained is purchases of Boeing 77s for Air New Zealand, laptop computers, chemicals, lumber, light bulbs, financial services.

The concept of quality or continuous improvement is firms trying to continually improve products and work processes to achieve customer satisfaction and world-class performance. It is very important in todays marketplace because the worlds best goods and services need superior performances.

A product line is a series of related products offered bt one company. Companies usually develop one of these to achieve the objectives of growth, optimal use of company resources, increased company importance in the market, and to make optimal use of the product life cycle.

A product mix is a assortment of product lines and indidvidual product offerings that a company sells. Marketers typically measure product mixes according to width, length, and depth.

. The stratgies marketers use to expand their product mixesis often firms purchase product lines from other companies that want to narrow their product mixes. Other firms expand their offerings by acquiring entire companies through mergers or acquisitions. Sears and Roebuck & Company acquired the mail-order firm Lands End in order to re-establish its general mail-order presence. A firm should asscess its current product mix to determine the feasibility of a line extension. Coach, recently decided to extend its offerings to include products as leather and wood directors chairs, leather handbags, and leather picture frames. Careful evaluation of a firms current product mix can also help marketers in making decisions about brand management and new-product introductions.

. The four stages of the product life cycle is the Introductory Stage, an example of this is didgitla cameras, broadband internet access, satellite radio transmission. The next satge is growth, example og this is cell phones, cable TV, DVDs, and personal chefs. The next stage is Maturity, examples of this include video tapes, and cable TV access. The last stage is Decline and examples of this include portable phones, and typewriter repair.

Marketers can extend the life cycle of a product by increasing frequency of use or users, finding new uses for the product, or changing package size, label, or quality. An example of each approach is special edition M&Ms for different holidays, The Got Milk? campaign is aimed at all sorts of nontraditional mildrinkers-anyone other than children or pregnant women-in an attempt to increase the number of people who drink milk. An example of a new use is mouthwash as an aid in treating and preventing plaque and gum disease. Food markeers brought out small packages designed to appeal to one-person households and extra large containers for customers that want to buy in bulk. The wine industry is well known for relying on packaging and labeling to attract consumers to its mature products.

It is just as important for marketers to identify the point at which a product should be deleted as it is to identify when to introduce or extend the life of a product because it determines if there going to put out a new product by eliminating or retaining weak products by how long it can hold out on the market. An example of a recent product deletion decision is shortages of raw materials sometimes prompt companies to discontinue production and marketing of previously profitable items. Alcoa discontinued making its brand of aluminum foil due to shortage of materials.

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Integrity is a very important trait in leadership. A leader has to developing a trusting relationship with their employees in order to be an effective leader. Without trust between employees and their leaders both morale and work performance suffers. A leader who listens and follows through on their actions will have better morale and job performance from their employees, than from leaders who lack these leadership traits. In my experiences the leaders that I have worked with have not displayed any of those traits sincerely. It is not so much an integrity issue but an honesty or trust issue. If they would just be up front and be honest from the start we would have a better understanding of what is on the table.

# Leaders Born or Made?

I believe that leaders are made. Leadership traits such as honesty, trust and integrity all can be learned through experiences in life or educational settings. My feeling is a person who wants to be an effective leader can be one. Just by listening to your employee’s needs and wants allow you to understand if they understand the goals and the plan for the company’s future. Overtime someone can develop great leadership through their past experiences, their mistakes as well as others and leadership seminars. Everyone has the opportunity to become a good leader. The question is do we want to be a good leader for our employees and the company or for the power and the prestige?

# How can leaders be made more effective?




Leaders can be made more effective by developing a trust relationship with their employees. I think there a many different approaches to making a leader more effective. Listening is an attribute to being an effective leader. By listening to the employees wants and follow through on promise made employees will start to develop a trust with you. This trust that will develop will not only benefit the company but will lead to a good working bond together. Other ways for leaders to be more effective would be to read, leadership seminars, or have their management skills evaluated. Leaders who want to improve themselves as well as operations within the company will try to change, the ones who don’t will never gain that respect they are searching for.



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