Discussion Board Post Response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Discussion Board Post Response - Essay Example For instance, many of the employees look demoralized in their activities as they feel devalued as their contributions in terms of input to the budget formulation does not matter (Zelman, McCue and Glick, 2009)). There is however one issue in particular I am interested in and would want you to clarify. Does your organization has a specific way of collecting employees, supervisors, and lower-level managers ideas or contributions to the budget? Does it happen during weekly meetings or do the employees forward their contributions or input to their supervisors who then forward it to the top managers? Martusciello, your post was interesting and I learnt a lot from your research. I had not imagined that a change in staffing matrix could be reason enough to deviate from a budget as you have noted in your post. It is true that when cases where some of the staff resigns or are on leave puts the management in a hard situation whereby they have to hire new employees temporarily. This according to Zelman, McCue and Glick (2009) translates to additional expenses as such expenditure in terms of salaries for the temporary staff is not initially planned. I also agree that unplanned situations such as an influx or surge in the number of patients could cause deviation from a budget. Your organization did the right thing to employ the additional eleven nurses to float to units. I am interested to know, did the surge in patients affect the nurses in any way in terms of burnout and elevated stress levels? Zelman, W., McCue, M., & Glick, N. (2009).Financial management of health care organizations: An introduction to fundamental tools, concepts, and applications(3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from the Walden Library

Balanced Scorecard Essay Example for Free

Balanced Scorecard Essay Rivalry amongst competing firms – Apple is in the unique situation that it has its own proprietary operating system and only used by Apple. So although the competition is fierce for customers, it is a different type of battle for Apple than for others such as Samsung, Google or Microsoft. Apple does face stiff competition but it is in the battle for use-case preference. The Android or Windows OS is different than the Apple iOS and consumers make a choice as to which road they are going to go down. Apple is competing for winning this important thought process and decision-making process. They are not competing on hardware alone because Apple alone produces their products with their OS. The competition will continue for easily the foreseeable future, 10 years and beyond, as the world becomes more digitized. Force: Moderate Potential Entry of New Competitors – The barriers to entry in this industry are steep. Cost of production is very high for new entrants until significant economies of scale are reached. Over the next 10 years there will be many new entrants into the industry though either brand new, or companies already in similar technology markets that will branch out into markets that compete with Apple. Again, that would be a competition for OS preference, not hardware per se. There is always the possibility of an entirely new and 4th, or more, operating systems being developed as technology advances. Moore’s Law tells us this is likely but difficult to ascertain from where it will come, whether it will be significantly better than any existing, and if it will gain wide user acceptance. Force: Weak to Moderate Potential Development of substitute products – Again, since Apple has its own exclusive OS, substitute products are only a threat as being other choices of entirely different OS’s from Microsoft or Android producers, or any other possible future OS development. But Apple does not have any substitute for its own products. Force: Weak Bargaining Power of Buyers – Apple users tend to stay Apple users. Their loyalty is strong and they love Apple products. Apple charges a premium for its products but the image and allure of Apple products and their perceived high quality keep unit sales strong. Although technology economies of scale have certainly been reached in Apple production, they have continued to keep their products priced higher that competing products. Buyer choice based on price alone should affect growth amongst some new customer segments, but will have little effect on the current loyal Apple user base. Unless their products begin to lose some of their luster and appeal and effectiveness, they should remain strong for the future. Force: Weak Bargaining Power of Suppliers – With Apple’s exclusive product line and OS and the relatively small number of products, they are not threatened by supplier power. Apple can easily find factories more than willing to be a part of the Apple supply chain. As their products gain more market share and production increases, Apple is in an ideal situation to manage their suppliers effectively.

Software Project Management

Software Project Management Project Proposal Introduction The organization in which the project is to be carried out is ******** It is a multinational computer technology corporation, which is involved in developing, manufacturing, licensing and supporting a wide range of software products for computing devices. The vision of the company is to develop a workstation where the software runs onto every desk and sooner or later in every home. The company follows the principles and corporate code of conduct. The objective of the company is to delight its customers, employees and shareholders with the help of delivering advance technology. The company wants to enlarge its leadership in the field of manufacturing and technology. It wants to increase its profitability worldwide by satisfying the customer needs and wants to excel in customer orientation. Managers from Sales, Consulting and IT departments have identified a problem that has reduced productivity to unacceptable levels. The current email system is causing significant business interruptions and must be updated. The current system is disjointed and much of the technology is outdated. Name of the project and persons associated with project Name of the project: E-Mail System Up gradation, Expansion and Integration Project Proposer: The top authority person and the member from IT department are the proposers of the project. They provide policy definition to the Project team. They resolve all policy issues with the appropriate policy owners in order to provide a clear, decisive definition. They are the persons who make final decisions and resolves conflicts or issues regarding project expectations across organizational and functional areas (Agarwal Mishra, 2007). Project sponsor: The project sponsors provide executive team approval and sponsorship for the project. Project Stakeholders: The project stakeholders include Sales, Consulting and IT department management leaders and end users. They are the key provider of requirements and recipient of project deliverable and associated benefits. The majority of stakeholders for this project will be agency heads (Agarwal Mishra, 2007). Project Managers: ****** are the IT Department Head. They provide overall management to the project. They are accountable for establishing a Project Charter, developing and managing the work plan, securing appropriate resources and delegating the work and insuring successful completion of the project. All project team members report to the project manager (Agarwal Mishra, 2007). Project team: The team will include 2 executives or support managers, 1 market analysts, 2 product designers and 1 financial manager. The project team members are involved in analyzing, designing and ultimately improving or replacing the business processes. Objective of the project The aims and objectives of the project are: To develop fast e-mail system in the company To expand the existing activities or production facilities. Avoidance of the delay, technical flaws and drawing defects (Agarwal Mishra, 2007). Developing new servers, software and protocol in order to remain competitive Updating the technology and opening of additional accounts online. Proper tooling and techniques (Agarwal Mishra, 2007). Proper control over chain reaction activities. To meet the changing demands of the customers (Ramaswamy Namakumari, 2007). To earn more revenues and profits. Project Deliverables A consolidated e-mail software and network which has upgraded and modernized servers, pertinent protocol, staff trained in new software, hardware and protocol, functioning system help desk, system commissioning report and stakeholder project sign off (Agarwal Mishra, 2007) Technical requirements for the standard of performance A comprehensive range of e-learning tools and a new Email Standards and Protocols would be established and training will be provided to all departments. All the current email users shall be converted into the new system, and 500 new users that did not have email before shall be added. The users would have both LAN and remote access to email. Some help desk and support infrastructure shall be set-up to accommodate the new system. The relevant equipment would be salvaged (Agarwal Mishra, 2007). The users’ PCs would be upgraded to accommodate the new email system. It is expected that implementation and successful completion of this project will reduce operational expenses and increase productivity to create a net value of $200,000 per year (Agarwal Mishra, 2007). Major Milestones The milestones of this project include both the technical as well as the behavioral aspects like designing the up gradation project, selecting the team who needs to undergo this project, appointment of the team, which is responsible for the project and timely evaluation and assessment of the project (Agarwal Mishra, 2007). Project scope The proposed project will completely consolidate the old systems, update hardware and greatly diminish time and work losses due to technical and procedural e-mail communication problems. This change is necessary for company to be sustainable, provide timely service to the customers and ultimately remain relevant in today’s competitive market Includes: 2500 identified end users from the 12 departments and offices will be provided with the equipments that can operate the new system. Training will be provided to the employees for the use of the new system and system protocols (Agarwal Mishra, 2007). All the 2500 users will be converted in to the new system. In this new system, there will be LAN and remote access will be offered to the users. The system will be set up by the support infrastructure and help desk. The system will function after upgrading the PC’s. Does Not Include: Accounts or training in excess of 2500 are not part of the scope of this project. This effort will not extend into other aspects of ACME, Inc.’s information systems but will be confined to the e-mail system solely. Project management, reporting and controlling In order to implement a project in a successful manner, able corporation should first select a project management team comprising of professionals such as engineers, technicians, managers and accountants with responsibilities in their respective fields. The team should be headed by a project manager with individuals within defined parameters to achieve a common goal, i.e. to complete the implementation within projected schedule, projected cost and deliver the project with defined quality(Agarwal Mishra, 2007). The team members have to report timely and directly to the project manager. Project overruns and project failure are due to the cumulative effects of a number of reasons. Thus, a manager has to play a significant role in completion of project. Project priorities The project aims to accomplish all the set objectives. However, it emphasizes on certain tasks on a priority basis like up gradation of the skills and knowledge of the trainees, reinforcement of the value and ethics of the organization, reviewing and evaluation of the existing work-patterns in the Able Corporation, minimization of the redundant practices in the organization, completion of the project within the scheduled time-frame and maintaining high-quality standards in the due course of the project. Resources Required: A variety of resources will be needed to implement the project of new product development. The main resources, which are considered in the project, are the financial resources and workforce or staff of the company. With the help of the team as well the staff, the project can be completed rapidly and before the decided duration (Resource consideration, 2008). The project can be successful only when a firm is capable of utilizing its limited economic resources optimally. For the completion of the project, it is necessary that the resources are fully allocated as they are limited (Resource consideration, 2008). Work Break down Structure The work breakdown structure (WBS) presents a systematic and logical breakdown of the project into its component parts. The company is facing decrease in the productivity levels due to problems in the email system. The email system used currently is causing interruptions and the technology has become obsolete. The email system should be updated in the organization. There are 500 new users who do not have accounts. This will require an additional investment. For making an effective communication process, the Able Corporation has to be technologically advanced (Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), 2008). WBS in the email system project is broken into a logical series of smaller tasks, each of which is chosen for size and scope to fit it with the project management structure so that it can be subjected to efficient planning and execution (Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), 2008). It is believed that during the process of e-mail system up gradation, the work of the project would be broken down and consequently integrated with the process of organizing the project. The organization of the project would be further broken down to the functional groups of the project team (Agarwal Mishra, 2007). In this case, the WBS would represent the division and sub-division of work to the level of work packages. Cost estimates It is estimated that the task of forming the project team, plan phase and project estimation would be completed in 4 days and would incur a cost of about $15,000. The selection of project staff for phase would be completed in a time of 7 days with an expenditure of $7,000. However, for securing the commitments for staff availability, it is estimated that a period of 5 days would be taken and nearly $1,000 would be incurred on this task (Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), 2008). Near about 3 days would be required to complete the identification and allocation of management clerical overheads to the phase by incurring a cost of $7,000. In order to evaluate user system requirements, duration of 25 days would be required with an expenditure of $6,000. The task of Network suitability, test and changing the control procedures would prove to be detrimental for the final outcome and success of the project. As a result, a great deal of emphasis would be laid on this task in terms of time and money. It would thus require an extended period of 41 days and a heavy expenditure of $15,000. To develop the support infrastructure for the helpdesk, it is estimated that a period of 30 days would be sufficient with an expenditure of $22,000 (Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), 2008). Thus, this task would also require significant attention from the people involved in the project. To complete the task of implementation, 10 days would be warranted with a cost of $15,000. Also, an expenditure of $10,000 would be incurred on salvaging the equipments in a period of 10 days. Finally, a time of 7 days would be required to deploy the e-mail systems by incurring a cost of $9,000. References Agarwal, N.P. Mishra, B.K. (2007) Project management (4th Edition). New Delhi: Ramesh Book Depot. Mathew, M.J. (2000). Sales Management and Sales Promotion (3rd Revised Edition), Jaipur: RBSA Publishers. Resource Considerations (2008) Retrieved May 29, 2008 from http://www.utexas.edu/computer/lrp/ch6_res.htm Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) (2008). Retrieved June 25, 2008 from http://www.hyperthot.com/pm_wbs.htm

The Worst Vacation Of My Life Essay -- Summer Vacation Essays

I used to spend the last part of my summer vacation with my uncle and aunt. As a continuation of a long-ago-established tradition we decided going to York - a small, picturesque tourist town at the seaside, located in the southeastern part of Maine. On the 27th of August, early in the morning we went to my uncle’s car with the entire luggage, prepared to leave and spend a nice, relaxing vacation, far away from the problems of the city. Unfortunately the unpleasant surprises started from the first second of our vacation. To our great disbelief the two front tires of the car were missing, and as later became clear, stolen during the night so at this moment the car was lying on the pavement, like a big wounded animal. I remember that my aunt said that this ought to be an omen of bad luck, warning not to go against your destiny and luck. After several hours repairing the car we, eventually, headed on, ready, for what turns to be the worst vacation in my entire life. However, our lack of luck was not over yet. On our way to the seaside we had a flat tire and after one more wasted hour searching for auto-service and proper repairment we were ready again. Unfortunately, our complete misfortune was still with us. Near Veliko Tirnovo the headway was closed, due to repair works, so we had to turn back a few kilometers and find another, this time not so good way. By this time the day was quickly turning into night. From the car windows I was seeing only the lights coming from the distant villages and the workers hurrying to get home. I thought for a moment, observing those people, that humans are very fragile. They were searching shelter from the coming night in those tiny lights, as they can save them from the perilous dark. ... ...one hospital I understood that she was lucky, because she had no other damages except 3 broken ribs and many bruises all over her body. That accident changed my prospective of seeing things. Long after the vacation I was feeling guilty because I had the chance of helping my aunt, but I failed. I was thinking that if I had not accepted her idea I might have prevented this. For the first time of my life I felt responsible for something. I discovered the meaning of the word â€Å"vulnerable†, and that made me even sicker. I was self-blaming for my inactivity and my helplessness. As the years pass I think that those memories are already left far in the past, that, slowly, I am surpassing them. But the changes are still visible- I am more cautious, knowing that every single moment is bringing certain risk and if I fail to notice it I may easily â€Å"fall from the cliff†.

Adlerian Theory-Birth Order, Gender, Family Values

Adlerian’s Family Constellation Focusing on Birth Order, Gender, and Family Values Brittany Teal Bellevue University Applied Counseling Theories March 27, 2012 Abstract Diving into Adlerian’s Theory and focus on family, there are three main components to take into consideration to define how children might be defined as adults. The three factors include: birth order, gender, and family values. Birth order can make a difference in defining adult personality and behaviors. Gender can play a role with its views of society and the acceptance of the up kept expectations.Family values play a role simply because it defines who the family is and makes the future generations structured and stable. Adlerian’s Family Constellation Focusing on Birth Order, Gender, and Family Values Focusing on how one’s life may be affected behaviorally and psychologically can be based off of the factors that are out of an individual’s control. When stating this sentence, it ma y seem confusing to know that an individual had the possibility of being â€Å"judged† or â€Å"defined† on the day they were born.With this being said, the uncontrollable, but life-shaping factors include birth order, gender, and family values. Although it is important to note that these factors will not always determine the life outcome of an individual, they will, however, create a formation of life for an individual to follow. Bringing attention to birth order first, knowing how the first born, middle, and last born child can be affected immediately can possibly define a lot about how the individual’s future could turn out. The first born child can often be described as the busy, attention receiver (Shulman & Mosak 1977).On the flip side, the first born often is held to the highest expectations to uphold in the future due to the self control and respectful domineer they portray. The reason for this can be based off of the parent’s abilities to revolve their lives around engaging their child in multiple activities and organizations. This can have a lasting result on the child into adulthood in the case where they are attention seeking due to the loss of receiving it for the time they did when they were young (Carlson & Sperry 2006).Next the focus moves to the middle child. The middle child seems to be the one getting loss in the mix and often found in a competition for attention (Shulman & Mosak 1977). In most cases, the middle child is one who does not get to participate in as many activities as the first born, but still gets involvement in major activities and functions (Shulman & Mosak 1977). The middle child can also sometimes be known as the â€Å"diplomat. † They are this simply because they get caught up in the middle between the oldest and youngest sibling.Often times it becomes natural responsibility for the middle child to be the mediator between siblings (Shulman & Mosak 1977). Finally we move onto the last born child, the â€Å"baby. † The last born child can be defined as â€Å"ambitious. † An explanation to support this statement is that the youngest sibling is often times surrounded by mature adults who seem to give much attention (Shulman & Mosak 1977). They also have this lifestyle due to being dependent on the older influences in their lives.When this type of behavior is allowed at a young age, the child grows into adulthood with knowing no different. On the plus side of this, the ambition the youngest child displays can often times result in success and a bright future for the youngest born (Carlson & Sperry 2006). All in all, there can sometimes be more children in the mix, but results stay similar to the main three orders listed. Next the focus turns to gender effects on individuals as they enter adulthood from the Adlerian views’.When a child is born, he or she is automatically placed into the acceptable gender roles of society. When this occurs and as the c hild ages, he or she will decided whether or not they want to accept, reject, or adapt to the role expectations that they are given (Lindsey & Christie 1997). This becomes very challenging to exactly define how an individual will be affected into adulthood due to the outside factors and influences that can take a toll on one’s life. Gender roles are something usually defined in childhood and carried into adulthood, ut as society changes and roles become more adverse, it is difficult to say how set and stone these roles will be (Carlson & Sperry 2006). Overall, it is obvious one picks up gender roles on the day they are born, but it is up to the individual themselves to decide whether or not they want to maintain those roles throughout their lifestyle. Finally family values come into the picture when defining an individual as an adult. Family values are not only just standards up kept by family, but more or less what create a baseboard for the function of a family.There are mu ltiple components that get taken into consideration when focusing just on family values and they are the beliefs, morals, and convictions that both the mother and father have implied to their family lifestyle (Juel 1993). With these factors being apparent at birth and throughout childhood, the individuals have choices as to whether or not they want to agree, disagree, or adopt their own family values. In most cases, children carry these values through adulthood which results in the family lifestyle getting pasted from generation to generation.To sum it all up, it takes cooperation and trust for a family to clearly define and keep family values a tradition throughout a lifetime. References Carlson, J. , & Sperry, L. (2006). Adlerian therapy. Relationship Dysfunction: A Practitioner's Guide to Comparative Treatments, 102. Juel, E. J. (1993). Non-Traditional Family Values: Providing Quasi-Marital Rights to Same-Sex Couples. BC Third World LJ, 13, 317. Lindsey, L. L. , ; Christie, S. (1 997). Gender roles. Prentice Hall. Shulman, B. H. , ; Mosak, H. H. (1977). Birth order and ordinal position: Two Adlerian views. Journal of Individual Psychology, 33(1), 114-121. Adlerian Theory-Birth Order, Gender, Family Values Adlerian’s Family Constellation Focusing on Birth Order, Gender, and Family Values Brittany Teal Bellevue University Applied Counseling Theories March 27, 2012 Abstract Diving into Adlerian’s Theory and focus on family, there are three main components to take into consideration to define how children might be defined as adults. The three factors include: birth order, gender, and family values. Birth order can make a difference in defining adult personality and behaviors. Gender can play a role with its views of society and the acceptance of the up kept expectations.Family values play a role simply because it defines who the family is and makes the future generations structured and stable. Adlerian’s Family Constellation Focusing on Birth Order, Gender, and Family Values Focusing on how one’s life may be affected behaviorally and psychologically can be based off of the factors that are out of an individual’s control. When stating this sentence, it ma y seem confusing to know that an individual had the possibility of being â€Å"judged† or â€Å"defined† on the day they were born.With this being said, the uncontrollable, but life-shaping factors include birth order, gender, and family values. Although it is important to note that these factors will not always determine the life outcome of an individual, they will, however, create a formation of life for an individual to follow. Bringing attention to birth order first, knowing how the first born, middle, and last born child can be affected immediately can possibly define a lot about how the individual’s future could turn out. The first born child can often be described as the busy, attention receiver (Shulman & Mosak 1977).On the flip side, the first born often is held to the highest expectations to uphold in the future due to the self control and respectful domineer they portray. The reason for this can be based off of the parent’s abilities to revolve their lives around engaging their child in multiple activities and organizations. This can have a lasting result on the child into adulthood in the case where they are attention seeking due to the loss of receiving it for the time they did when they were young (Carlson & Sperry 2006).Next the focus moves to the middle child. The middle child seems to be the one getting loss in the mix and often found in a competition for attention (Shulman & Mosak 1977). In most cases, the middle child is one who does not get to participate in as many activities as the first born, but still gets involvement in major activities and functions (Shulman & Mosak 1977). The middle child can also sometimes be known as the â€Å"diplomat. † They are this simply because they get caught up in the middle between the oldest and youngest sibling.Often times it becomes natural responsibility for the middle child to be the mediator between siblings (Shulman & Mosak 1977). Finally we move onto the last born child, the â€Å"baby. † The last born child can be defined as â€Å"ambitious. † An explanation to support this statement is that the youngest sibling is often times surrounded by mature adults who seem to give much attention (Shulman & Mosak 1977). They also have this lifestyle due to being dependent on the older influences in their lives.When this type of behavior is allowed at a young age, the child grows into adulthood with knowing no different. On the plus side of this, the ambition the youngest child displays can often times result in success and a bright future for the youngest born (Carlson & Sperry 2006). All in all, there can sometimes be more children in the mix, but results stay similar to the main three orders listed. Next the focus turns to gender effects on individuals as they enter adulthood from the Adlerian views’.When a child is born, he or she is automatically placed into the acceptable gender roles of society. When this occurs and as the c hild ages, he or she will decided whether or not they want to accept, reject, or adapt to the role expectations that they are given (Lindsey & Christie 1997). This becomes very challenging to exactly define how an individual will be affected into adulthood due to the outside factors and influences that can take a toll on one’s life. Gender roles are something usually defined in childhood and carried into adulthood, ut as society changes and roles become more adverse, it is difficult to say how set and stone these roles will be (Carlson & Sperry 2006). Overall, it is obvious one picks up gender roles on the day they are born, but it is up to the individual themselves to decide whether or not they want to maintain those roles throughout their lifestyle. Finally family values come into the picture when defining an individual as an adult. Family values are not only just standards up kept by family, but more or less what create a baseboard for the function of a family.There are mu ltiple components that get taken into consideration when focusing just on family values and they are the beliefs, morals, and convictions that both the mother and father have implied to their family lifestyle (Juel 1993). With these factors being apparent at birth and throughout childhood, the individuals have choices as to whether or not they want to agree, disagree, or adopt their own family values. In most cases, children carry these values through adulthood which results in the family lifestyle getting pasted from generation to generation.To sum it all up, it takes cooperation and trust for a family to clearly define and keep family values a tradition throughout a lifetime. References Carlson, J. , & Sperry, L. (2006). Adlerian therapy. Relationship Dysfunction: A Practitioner's Guide to Comparative Treatments, 102. Juel, E. J. (1993). Non-Traditional Family Values: Providing Quasi-Marital Rights to Same-Sex Couples. BC Third World LJ, 13, 317. Lindsey, L. L. , ; Christie, S. (1 997). Gender roles. Prentice Hall. Shulman, B. H. , ; Mosak, H. H. (1977). Birth order and ordinal position: Two Adlerian views. Journal of Individual Psychology, 33(1), 114-121.

Gatsbys Revelation essays

Gatsbys Revelation essays When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the novel The Great Gatsby, he used a unique writing technique. It used a first-person point of view in the form of a narrator, Nick Carraway, who was also involved in the story. This style allowed the author to withhold any information that he did not present to the narrator in the story, causing the reader to learn things the same way the narrator did. The protagonist in The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, was revealed to the narrator, Nick, gradually throughout the course of the novel. On the surface, Jay Gatsby appeared to be extremely wealthy and generally happy with his place in life, and this is how he appears to Nick at the beginning of the novel. Gatsby threw big parties and people were not invited; they just showed up, as explained by Nick on page 45: "I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited-they went there"(45). As Nick began to know Gatsby better, he began to realize there was something wrong with Gatsby. Gatsby was obviously unhappy, but the reader was not told why. When Nick goes to New York with Gatsby and meets Meyer Wolfshiem, the reader is given some suspicion that Jay is involved in illegal dealings, because of the hints that Meyer Wolfshiem drops and the things Jay tells Nick about Meyer. The reader is finally told why Gatsby is unhappy at the end of chapter four, when Jordan Baker tells Nick about Gatsby's love for Daisy. The next major revelation about Gatsby does not happen to Nick until much later, but the author decided to place it earlier in the novel so the reader could understand what was going on more easily. Jay Gatsby tells Nick about where he came from, how he got there, and why he got there. Nick realizes that Gatsby is so in love with Daisy that he is crazy and will do anything to get her. It has consumed his life so much that he spent five years leading an illegal life just because of her. Th ...

The Bet

The Bet "The Bet" By Anton Chekhov The debate among about life imprisonment virus's capital punishment has been fought long and hard. This argument takes place here in this story where two men are having a lively discussion about which is more humane, life imprisonment or capital punishment. The one who chooses life imprisonment is the lawyer. The banker is against this and chooses death. The banker is so sure that no one would lose their life to imprisonment rather then end it all quickly. The banker, so confident, makes the bet with the lawyer staking two million rubles that he couldn't sacrifice his freedom for his belief and stay confined by himself for fifteen years.The banker being so confident thinks no one would lose fifteen years of his or her life for so much money. In the beginning the banker disagrees with the people who say that the death penalty is out of date.Prisoners per 100,000 population

About the U.S. Department of State

About the U.S. Department of State The United States Department of State also referred to as â€Å"the State Department† or simply â€Å"State,† is the executive branch department of the United States federal government primarily responsible for administering U.S. foreign policy and consulting with the President of the United States and Congress on international diplomatic issues and policies. The mission statement of the State Department reads: â€Å"To advance freedom for the benefit of the American people and the international community by helping to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and prosperous world composed of well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people, reduce widespread poverty, and act responsibly within the international system.† The primary functions of the State Department include: Provide protection and assistance for U.S. citizens traveling or living abroad;Assist U.S. businesses and industries operating in the global marketplace;Coordinate and provide support for international activities of other U.S. agencies, official visits overseas and at home, and other diplomatic efforts;Inform the public about U.S. foreign policy and relations with other countries and provide feedback from the public to administration officials. Similar the foreign ministries in other nations, the State Department conduct international diplomatic relations on the part of the United States by negotiating treaties and other agreements with foreign governments. The State Department also represents the United States in the United Nations. Created in 1789, the State Department was the first executive branch department established after final  ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Headquartered in the Harry S Truman Building in Washington, D.C., the State Department currently operates 294 U.S. embassies around the world and oversees compliance of more than 200 international treaties. As an agency of the president’s Cabinet, the State Department is led by the Secretary of State, as nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The Secretary of State is second in the line of presidential succession after the Vice President of the United States. In addition to assisting with the international activities of other U.S. government agencies, the State Department provides many important services to U.S. citizens traveling and living abroad and to foreign citizens trying to visit or immigrate to the United States. In perhaps its most publicly noticeable role the State Department issues U.S. Passports to U.S. citizens allowing them to travel to and return from foreign countries and travel visas to U.S. citizens and non-citizen residents. In addition, the State Department’s Consular Information Program informs the American public of conditions abroad that may affect their safety and security while traveling abroad. Country-specific travel information and global Travel Alerts and Warnings are vital parts of the program. The State Department also oversees all U.S. foreign aid and development programs such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. All activities of the State Department, including foreign assistance programs, representing the U.S. abroad, countering international crime and human trafficking, and all other services and programs are paid for through the foreign affairs component of the annual federal budget as requested by the president and approved by Congress. On average, the total State Department expenditure represents just over 1% of the total federal budget, projected to exceed  $4 trillion in 2017.  Ã‚   Brief History of the State Department On July 27, 1789, President George Washington singled a bill passed by the House of Representatives and Senate on July 21, 1789, creating the Department of Foreign Affairs as the first federal agency created under the new Constitution. A law enacted on September 15, 1789, changed the name of the agency to the Department of State and assigned it oversight of a variety of domestic, rather than foreign issues. For example, the law made the Department of State responsible for running the United States Mint and conducting the decennial U.S. census. During the 19th century, these and most of the Department of State’s other domestic duties were turned over to other federal agencies and departments. Appointed by President Washington on September 29, 1789, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, then serving as Minister to France became the first Secretary of State. Appointed before Washington had taken office, John Jay had been serving in as Secretary of Foreign Affairs and continued to function as de-facto Secretary of State until Jefferson returned from France several months later.

Managing Business Information (report) Assignment

Managing Business Information (report) - Assignment Example Manipulation as well as plotting of data is also possible with the help of few simple commands. Even so, while defining database, it can be outlined as the prime technique for developing an information system in the modern business process. The databases are used in e-commerce and internet based marketing systems. It is very important for information system developers to have detailed knowledge and understanding regarding data structure and data analysis. The spreadsheets and database are highly used by organisations for proper running of their business. However, it is noticed that the use of database is preferred against that of spreadsheets, in present business scenario. The report details the difference between use of database and spreadsheets, along with differences between the two. It also highlights the database and spreadsheets models, which are used in the recent years for development of the informative system in an organisation. The strength and weakness of both the processe s are elaborated in the report; so as to determine the best tool used in the present world of management (Baxter, 2006). Spreadsheets are used traditionally by accountants to prepare financial budgets and had helped them to identify the financial position of companies. It is the main software for companies, which assist them to track the basis of numerical information and evaluate the same quickly and easily, compared to paper calculations. It is used widely for accounting and financing purposes and also, to record transactions made by the companies. Spreadsheets have helped accountants to replace the manual pages in ledgers, where the income and expenditure are detailed in columns and rows. The users of spreadsheets can build different functionalities, which assist them in understanding data without the need of any mathematical skill. One of the main advantage of the spreadsheet software is that it is customised with macros and buttons and thus, makes it

Space and Place Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Space and Place - Assignment Example ding to Finnegan, "New Yorkers use Central Park: for sports, from croquet to horseback riding to league softball; and for cultural events such as Shakespeare in the Park and other outdoor performances. It is also used for other sporting activities such as skating, cycling, and football" (302). Other than these activities, this park is a great location for a stroll as one enjoys the natural manmade habitat and watching the many types of birds available in the park. In addition, people visit this park regularly to view the numerous cascades, statues, and other figurines. There are a lot of people who use this park often. Primarily, this park is used by individuals living around New York City for recreational purposes. There are also secondary users of this park. These include musicians, local performers or actors, sportsmen or athletes, and also domestic visitors and tourists. To understand the environment in this park, it is important to describe its permanent features. As elucidated by Finnegan, Central Parks landscape covers a total of eight hundred and forty acres (304). Subsequently, this scenery is designed in such a way that presents an exceptional feeling for visitors. There are also conforming and contrasting topography, as well as characteristic impressions created by the stylish viaducts and other suspension bridges. Other permanent features in the park include lakes, ponds, commemorative inscription tablets, zoos, playing fields, and turf (Finnegan 304). There are also movable objects within Central Park. These include man-made structures such as the Obelisk, Cleopatras needle, statues, and other sculptures. There is a relationship between the permanent features and the movable objects in this park. The movable objects are used to revamp or titivate the natural environment. The natural environment comprises the permanent features. Movable objects also makes accessibility to the permanent features such as lakes easier. To propose how else the objects

Macroeconomics Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Macroeconomics - Research Paper Example The fiscal policy should be used because it leads to increase in disposable income that translates to increase in demand for goods. It also leads to creation of employment translating to increase in consumption rate. Increase in demand eventually leads to enhanced economic growth (Sullivan & Sheffrin, 2003). Expansionary Fiscal Policy entails the government efforts to raise the aggregate demand. It thus involves raising the government expenditure and lowering taxes. This will have the effect of increasing the Aggregate demand and eventually lead to increased rate of economic growth. This can be illustrated by the equation and the graph shown below: (AD=C+I+G+X-M). This policy will also lead to the multiplier effect. When the government spends more, this money is transferred to the people. This means that when a person receives some money, he will spend part of it and maybe save the rest. The money will be transferred to another person who also does the same. Lowered taxes will increase the levels of disposable income which translate to extra spending and eventually higher economic growth. The multiplier effect has significant advantages to the growth of the economy because it leads to creation of employment and increased consumption (Gavel, 2012). When the government increases its expenditure, it implies that there is more activity both in the private and public sector leading to creation of jobs. For instance, if the government decides to spend more on the construction of roads, it means that more employees will be required in offering skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labor (Gavel, 2012). It also implies that the new projects will require materials from different suppliers who have to raise their production levels. The raised production levels will need extra labor and more people will get jobs. As mention above, the multiplier effect leads to money reaching more people within the economy. These

Role of the student in higher education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Role of the student in higher education - Essay Example This is also a right approach to ensure that students get the right knowledge so that they can be able to rely on themselves. On the other hand, this form of education will be instrumental in ensuring that the students acquire the necessary job related skills. On the other hands, it provides theoretical knowledge to apply to real work (Kay 2010). These institutions provide social and community incorporated education and hence reinforces the relevance of higher education towards national development. As a result, this strengthens job relevant skills and innovation skills. This will help especially in nursing due to technology influence (Mastrian et al. 2010). Therefore, it can be viewed as a way of making a connection between formal schooling and social/community learning (Baumann & Blythe, 2008). All these ideals help in shaping a career. Higher education is of essence to nursing student as it makes them professional, relevant, and follow regulation. Nursing education is paramount in higher education (HE). This will help in improving nursing knowledge before and after they get their licenses. This is because a difference exist in the practice nurses were educated in the 20th century. These skills are no longer up to quality as compared to the health care needs in the 21st century. This is because patient needs and care setting has become more involved. This has been the case due to the rise of chronic diseases such as diabetes and the ever-increasing aging population. Therefore, nurses need requires competencies to deliver high quality care (Chiarella & McInnes n.d.). Such competencies include leadership, health policy, system improvement, research and evidence based practice, and teamwork as well as collaboration (Institute of Medicine (IOM) 2010). Likewise, competency is needed in different areas. The HE will also help nurses to cater for increasing roles in healthcare and obtain necessary technological skills and data management system (IOM 2010). This will take place as they cooperate and coordinate care across teams of health professionals. On the other hand, nursing should be treated like a profession. In fact, in this decade nursing requires more skill, intelligence, and education. This is because the increasing demand for nurses calls them to have unique and attainments. In the past, uneducated, wicked women were allowed to take care of the sick as nurses. It is also necessary to note that the medical profession was against nurses acquiring education and awareness in the early years (DeNisco & Barker 2012). However, this has changed significantly with the acceptance of health care professionals having learned nurses. Hence, nursing need to be considered as a profession. This way the knowledge they earn will help them in linking theory to practice. Therefore, just as other profession requires a recognised higher education to be able to link theory to practice, the same should apply to nursing. In higher education, nurses get an opp ortunity to learn concepts and put it into practice. In such institutions, nurses get an opportunity to develop critical thinking to manage nursing care and service within a group of intellectuals when meeting the requirements of the patients. For example, they will be able to use the current technology in communicating with doctors in the theatre section. In addition, patient is most likely to be able to trust a nurse based on his or her competency (Price 2013). On the other han

Superstructure Work Package Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Superstructure Work Package - Essay Example The building comprises of ten storeys, with all those above the ground providing office accommodation. There is also a ground floor, as well as, a high basement with a height of 7.5m. The latter provides space for a parking lot, loading bay and plants. Vehicles gain access to the basement through two vehicle elevators. The building has a centrally placed atrium, which extends from the ground floor to the tenth level, where it is covered with a glazed roof. The Point’s perimeter or circumference light well allows natural light to get to all floors including the ground floor, in addition to providing ventilation to the plant areas in the basement level. Work Package and Innovation under Scrutiny Even though the building’s perimeter light well and facades proposed by the architect bring light to all above ground levels, they do not constitute a comprehensive cooling and ventilation system. Additionally, the lighting mechanism does not cater for the basement level, thus dep riving plant areas sufficient light for growth. For these reasons, therefore, more considerations have to be accounted for, in order to enhance sustainability, technical performance and aesthetics, as per the client’s requirements. ... The Point on the local environment as well as on the potential occupants; which will make it possible to analyze the new developments in the design, operation and construction of this tall building. The available opportunities will be the need of assuring the client continuous dynamism provided that The Point requires superlative conditions for its operations. In order to achieve this, the building’s management is supposed to make sure that the demand for office space will be met. Further, tall office buildings like the Point have become increasingly essential as a result of the proficient utilization that they make on the limited land that is available. This is not only in Paddington, but it should be implemented in London as a whole. There is urgency for more office accommodation but there are problems that are experienced in such a situation. The problem being experience is in the sustainable development which is the principal parameter of action, and noting that, The Point has not exhausted all possible sustainability strategies. The construction, design as well as the operation of The Point, representing tall building has failed in conforming to new the legislation demanding installation of understandable sustainability procedures. Performance Standards The principal design worry for numerous tall buildings is fixed on their operational effectiveness instead of the environmental impact. A new balance needs to be struck between these two factors. Inefficient energy is also another concern. Speculative developers do not have any interest in other people’s building because they only want to maximize on their revenue that enhance environmental issues which will ultimately save energy and the tenants will incur much more on energy payment. The lifecycle assessment

Diversification of Portfolios in the Global Financial Market Essay

Diversification of Portfolios in the Global Financial Market - Essay Example The problem of domestic surplus also has its solution in the global market. With a greater number of buyers, investors will be able to sell what no one in their country will be willing to buy. Simply put, with more buyers and sellers now more interlinked with each other, globalization has given the financial market a global scope. With a greater scope arise complexities and more risks and seemingly ironic instances. As countries have become more interlinked, they begin to share similar reactions to economic shocks. While similar reactions may make it easier for market analysts to determine how the world will react to different economic shocks, the presence of varying political and economic systems in the global financial market make external and internal economic forces more unpredictable. Greater unpredictability simply means greater risks. Again, the simple solution to this risk is the placing of eggs into different baskets. One could argue that it is pointless to diversify portfol ios in a financial market where countries almost always react in similar ways. However, as Bordo (2000) explains, emerging markets are more susceptible to fluctuations, â€Å"bust and booms† he calls them, as the result of â€Å"open capital markets.† This implies that while one emerging economy may offer huge returns in a couple of days or weeks, investors still need to diversify their investments because it is difficult to determine how emerging economies will do in the longer runs. The disadvantages of portfolio diversification.

Role of the student in higher education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Role of the student in higher education - Essay Example This is also a right approach to ensure that students get the right knowledge so that they can be able to rely on themselves. On the other hand, this form of education will be instrumental in ensuring that the students acquire the necessary job related skills. On the other hands, it provides theoretical knowledge to apply to real work (Kay 2010). These institutions provide social and community incorporated education and hence reinforces the relevance of higher education towards national development. As a result, this strengthens job relevant skills and innovation skills. This will help especially in nursing due to technology influence (Mastrian et al. 2010). Therefore, it can be viewed as a way of making a connection between formal schooling and social/community learning (Baumann & Blythe, 2008). All these ideals help in shaping a career. Higher education is of essence to nursing student as it makes them professional, relevant, and follow regulation. Nursing education is paramount in higher education (HE). This will help in improving nursing knowledge before and after they get their licenses. This is because a difference exist in the practice nurses were educated in the 20th century. These skills are no longer up to quality as compared to the health care needs in the 21st century. This is because patient needs and care setting has become more involved. This has been the case due to the rise of chronic diseases such as diabetes and the ever-increasing aging population. Therefore, nurses need requires competencies to deliver high quality care (Chiarella & McInnes n.d.). Such competencies include leadership, health policy, system improvement, research and evidence based practice, and teamwork as well as collaboration (Institute of Medicine (IOM) 2010). Likewise, competency is needed in different areas. The HE will also help nurses to cater for increasing roles in healthcare and obtain necessary technological skills and data management system (IOM 2010). This will take place as they cooperate and coordinate care across teams of health professionals. On the other hand, nursing should be treated like a profession. In fact, in this decade nursing requires more skill, intelligence, and education. This is because the increasing demand for nurses calls them to have unique and attainments. In the past, uneducated, wicked women were allowed to take care of the sick as nurses. It is also necessary to note that the medical profession was against nurses acquiring education and awareness in the early years (DeNisco & Barker 2012). However, this has changed significantly with the acceptance of health care professionals having learned nurses. Hence, nursing need to be considered as a profession. This way the knowledge they earn will help them in linking theory to practice. Therefore, just as other profession requires a recognised higher education to be able to link theory to practice, the same should apply to nursing. In higher education, nurses get an opp ortunity to learn concepts and put it into practice. In such institutions, nurses get an opportunity to develop critical thinking to manage nursing care and service within a group of intellectuals when meeting the requirements of the patients. For example, they will be able to use the current technology in communicating with doctors in the theatre section. In addition, patient is most likely to be able to trust a nurse based on his or her competency (Price 2013). On the other han

Diversification of Portfolios in the Global Financial Market Essay

Diversification of Portfolios in the Global Financial Market - Essay Example The problem of domestic surplus also has its solution in the global market. With a greater number of buyers, investors will be able to sell what no one in their country will be willing to buy. Simply put, with more buyers and sellers now more interlinked with each other, globalization has given the financial market a global scope. With a greater scope arise complexities and more risks and seemingly ironic instances. As countries have become more interlinked, they begin to share similar reactions to economic shocks. While similar reactions may make it easier for market analysts to determine how the world will react to different economic shocks, the presence of varying political and economic systems in the global financial market make external and internal economic forces more unpredictable. Greater unpredictability simply means greater risks. Again, the simple solution to this risk is the placing of eggs into different baskets. One could argue that it is pointless to diversify portfol ios in a financial market where countries almost always react in similar ways. However, as Bordo (2000) explains, emerging markets are more susceptible to fluctuations, â€Å"bust and booms† he calls them, as the result of â€Å"open capital markets.† This implies that while one emerging economy may offer huge returns in a couple of days or weeks, investors still need to diversify their investments because it is difficult to determine how emerging economies will do in the longer runs. The disadvantages of portfolio diversification.

Social Media Essay Example for Free

Social Media Essay Even though what credibility issues can arise from information found on the internet, advantages and disadvantages of social media because advantages and disadvantages of obtaining information though social media and how might these advantages and disadvantages alter how a person might use social media. Advantages And Disadvantages Of Social Media Some advantages of social media are that it is a unlimited ways of keeping up with what is going on in today culture. For example a person can be living under a rock all there life and stay on the internet and can know what is going on in the world though social media, weather it is the latest music, movies, clothing trend, news etc. Though social media a person can have a best friend that they never even met before. Social networking can provide opportunities for new relationships as well as strengthening existing relationships whether your friends are close to home or across the world. It is good to have positive relationships through various ways that include the internet. Read more:Â  Advantages and disadvantages of social media essay Some disadvantages of social media can stem from anything like cyber bulling, child predators, false information about something or someone. Although that internet can be very positive it can also be very negative. For example I remember back in about 2007 in my home town of Baltimore Md. there was a big thing all over the news about a man that was called The Myspace Killer. This man met a woman over a social media network and got the woman to meet him and end up killing her and leaving her on the side of the road. So again I say the social media can also be very dangerous. To all the parents out there please know what your kids are doing or into when they are on the internet. Advantages And Disadvantages Of Obtaining Information Some advantages of easily obtaining information on the internet is that, anything a person needs to know is just a click away. In other words if there is anything a person needs to know about anything all the person has to do is type it in the computer and everything about that subject will come up. Some disadvantages of easily obtaining information on the internet is just what it is easy. In other words it is a disadvantage to be able to just type a subject in the computer and get the answer for anything. That word make it to easy for a student needing to really learn something, the internet is doing everything for that person. I feel like that is a big disadvantage for the up and coming youth of today, things are to easily obtainable. Knowing these advantages and disadvantages might alter a person using the social media by making that person more cautious on what actions that person is taking while using the internet and also if that person have kids it would make that parent more cautious about what there kids are learning and seeing on the internet. An example of a creditable issue that can arise from information found on the internet is that approximately 104 million American adults have access to the internet. Of these, there are slightly more females(51%) on the internet than males(49%), of both high and low socioeconomic status (Matthew S. Eastin, School of Journalism, Ohio State University). Conclusion In conclusion while what credibility issues can arise from information found on the internet there are many advantages and disadvantages of social media. This paper just touched on some of them. References Stephen, Andrew T.; Galak, Jeff. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR). Oct2012, Vol. 49 Issue 5, p624-639. 16p. 7 Charts, 2 Graphs. Agnihotri, Raj; Kothandaraman, Prabakar; Kashyap, Rajiv; Singh, Ramendra. Journal of Personal Selling Sales Management. Summer2012, Vol. 32 Issue 2, p333-348. 16p. 1 Diagram, 1 Chart Andzulis, James Mick; Panagopoulos, Nikolaos G.; Rapp, Adam. Journal of Personal Selling Sales Management. Summer2012, Vol. 32 Issue 2, p305-316. 12p. 1 Diagram, 1 Chart. .

Factors of Affecting Online Game Satisfaction

Factors of Affecting Online Game Satisfaction CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction Online gaming is one of the most popular entertainments among the citizen in this world no matter what ages they are. Due to the advancement in the technologies, it has brought lots of growth in this industry since early of 2000s. This growth has been developed online game market into the core of the world cultural industry (Sang, Yung, Jae, and Kyoung, 2004). Hsu and Lu (2003) stated that online game service has been a highly profitable e-commerce application in recent years and its market value has increasing markedly as well as number of player growth at the same time. Now a day, most of the household will owned at least one personal computer (PC) or a laptop and some even more than that due to the cheaper cost to have a computer. Consequently, the demand for computer has been grown rapidly throughout this recent year. The accessibility of internet also is easier with each passing year and the cheaper price to have broadband internet connectivity (Bizymoms.com). Generally, online game service can be categorized as business-to-consumer or B2C in e-commerce and it is also one the videogame and interactive entertainment industry. A strategic market research and consulting firm which focuses on the interactive entertainment and the emerging video game, online game, interactive entertainment and portable game markets namely, DFC Intelligence has made its forecast for worldwide videogame and interactive entertainment industry each year since year 1995. According to DFC Intelligence forecast on year 2008, the worldwide videogame and interactive entertainment industry revenue to reach USD 57 billion in 2009 with no signs of slowing due to the slumping economies and expensive hardware (Androvich, 2008). The rapid growth in videogame and interactive entertainment industry has been attracted lots of entrepreneur who would like to enter this profitable industry. Based on the report of DFC, PC was the top platform for games in 2007, with online game revenue alone eclipsing USD 7 billion on year 2006 and not including retail sales. The DFC also stated the total PC game revenue is expected to reach USD 19 billion by year 2013 (Androvich, 2008). In Malaysia, there were 15 million subscriber of internet and it was 62.8% out of the total population in 2008 (Internet World Stats, 2008). It was more than half of the citizens of Malaysia have used the internet and this has brought a great opportunity to the entrepreneur who would like to join this industry to be one of the online game service providers to share the profit since the number of internet users was increasing each year. It did not showed that the number of the online game subscribers but there is a business opportunity for the entrepreneur to start-up their business through online. Table 1.1: Internet Usage and Population Growth of Malaysia Year No. of Users Total Population % 2000 3, 700, 000 24, 645, 600 15.0% 2005 10, 040, 000 26, 500, 699 37.9% 2006 11, 016, 000 28, 294, 120 38.9% 2007 13, 528, 200 28, 294, 120 47.8% 2008 15, 868, 000 25, 274, 133 62.8% (Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/my.htm [2009, November 1]) A study showed that customer satisfaction is the immediate factor affecting the consumer retains loyalty (Cronin, Brady, and Hult, 2000). Most of the studies showed that higher levels of customer satisfaction will lead to customer loyalty. â€Å"A minor change in satisfaction could lead to a substantial change in loyalty increment† (Bowen and Chen, 2001). However, most of these studies were in offline environment. Wind and Rangasamy (2001) found that online environments offer more opportunities for interactive and personalized marketing. Eventually, these opportunities may influences customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the online environment if compared to the traditional market or offline environment (Shankar, Smith, and Rangaswamy, 2003). The main purpose of this study is to identify the factors affects the customer satisfaction towards online game services and which could lead to customer loyalty. It is including the service quality, transaction cost, experience value, and technology acceptance factor. These four antecedents of online game service satisfaction and loyalty will test associations based on the model that has been constructs. 1.2 Background of the Research In this century, computer might be a need for a person if compared to the olden days where there was a limited growth in technologies. Now, computer seems like a tool which can do everything for you such as searching information, payment, shopping, and so on. This powerful electrical appliance has gain a well response from the citizen of the world. It has many functions can perform through computer and one of the most popular functions of computer is gaming. In the earlier 2000s, most of the games were played offline since the limited internet connectivity and expensive prices to have an internet connectivity. However, this situation has changed due to the technologies advancements and the industry has achieved economic of scale. To more understand what online games is, it is a must to brief its history. The very first online gaming activities were introduced in the late of 1960s and early of 1970s. Later, they started gain more popularity within 1970s to 1980s when dial-up Bulletin Boards became popular and the users started playing online game over them. Clyde and Thomas (2008) stated that the development of arcade game in the 1970s, and video and computer games in the 1980s; digital games have become an influential part of popular culture. The bulletin boards provided a multi-user platform which allowed few users to play at the same time. Now, it has been transformed to MMORPG (Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games) which is popular all around the world presently (Bizymoms.com). At one time, games were used for educational purpose rather than entertainment (Clyde and Thomas, 2008). However, due to the changed in the perception of game role and the culture, it becomes an entertainment but there is still has some of the game designers and educators used it as educational purposed such as learning typing skills and so on. In the year of 1990s, due to the growth of internet technologies of Flash and Java, it has led to the increasing usage of the internet and the millions of new websites mushrooming across the World Wide Web. When enter to the millennium year, technological giants such as Sony, Microsoft and Ninetendo came out with advanced gaming consoles has changed the features of online gaming completely (Bizymoms.com). The people all around can play a same game with each other virtually at the same time. Currently, online gaming industry is growing each year and it has a great expansion in future. The online game service is one of the most competitive industries among the entire industries. The new and the existing online game service provider are delivering their best services to gain more market share to sustain its organization. To penetrate the market, the firm must meet the customer expectation which may lead to customer satisfaction. Eventually, it may bring customer loyalty. 1.3 Research Problem Customer is the one who contribute the profit to the firm because they are the one who are using the product or services. However, consumers are becoming wisely now a day when they would like to use certain product or services. They will tend to purchase the product only if the product can meet their expectation which might lead to satisfaction. To meet the customer expectation, it is a biggest challenge for the firm. Other than that, the growth of the online game has brought some a major problem to the service provider which is how to retain the existing online game users and will not shifting to other service provider or loyalty to the current provider (Yang, Wu, Wang, 2009). In order to survive in this competitive industry, many practitioners and academicians in this field have focused on how to improve online services to attract potential buyers as well as the current customers (Jun, Yang, and Kim, 2004). There are some of the factors to achieve customer satisfaction. However, the key factors especially in online game services which are able to make the customer satisfied with the products and services still under study or unknown (Dick, Wellnitz, and Wolf, 2005). If the key factors have been determined, the provider might be able to gain the competitive advantages which trying to meet the customer expectation. This research is emphasizing the customer satisfaction and loyalty in online game service. Specifically, it is trying to identify the key factors affects online satisfaction and online loyalty in order to guide the online game service provider to improve their service quality to garb more potential customers and retain the existing one. 1.4 Research Objectives The objectives were formed based on the research problem and there are formulated to achieve the main goal of this study which is to examine the factors of affecting the online game satisfaction and loyalty. To determine service quality has a positive impact towards online game satisfaction. To determine transaction costs has a positive impact towards online game satisfaction. To determine technology acceptance factor has a positive impact towards online game satisfaction. To determine experience value has a positive impact towards online game satisfaction. To determine online game satisfaction would have a positive impact on online game loyalty. To determine service quality, transaction cost, technology acceptance factors, and experience value will affect online game satisfaction and eventually online game loyalty. 1.5 Justification of the Study This study is significant for several reasons. First, it can identify the gaps between customer expectation and perception about online game service provider in order to guide them to provide better services. â€Å"It is commonly known that there is a positive relationship between customer loyalty and profitability† (Bowen and Chen, 2001). It is correct once the customer is loyal to the company because they will visit the firm after a purchase and some even recommend to their friends. In the online environment, the online satisfaction also grabs much attention from all of the researchers because to meet a customer expectation is the toughest challenges to the company. Also, it brings the profitability and the survival of the company. Online game service provider should concern about the medium which may influenced the online game satisfaction and online game loyalty. The importance of the study is to keep the online game service improvement in order to achieve the customer satisfaction from time to time. In online environment, the customer can easily compared the alternative than offline customer especially products and service (Shankar et al., 2003). As in online environment, the user is free to search the information to the product that they demand. As well as online game, there is large amount of online game service provider. Therefore, the user can easily compared the features of the game and service quality that provided by the firm. Once the factor has a positive impact on online satisfaction has been determined, the service provider is able to strengthen their weaknesses in order to sustain its market share. Besides, the study is providing guidelines for the service provider to develop their future or long-term plan. The importance of the online game satisfaction will give a direction to the service provider to plan for their future such as strategic plan. It also helps the company to gain competitive advantages in this industry. Commonly, most of the studies regarding to customer satisfaction and loyalty were did for offline environment and only limited for online environment. However, consumers still have some same characteristics in making decision when they would like to purchase a product. As the study has identified the factors affect the customer satisfaction and loyalty, the firms are able to fulfill the users need and wants. This action is trying to meet the customer satisfaction and eventually customer loyalty. Once the customer become loyal, the company may survive in this competitive market. On the other hand, it is also will benefit the user to gain a better service from the online game service provider once they have responded to what they are percept towards the online game service provider that they currently subscribed. Also, the service provider is able to understand what kind of service quality that the users perceived and expected. It will leads to a win-win situation if both of the parties could perform what they are request and give. 1.6 Definition of Important Terms There are some important terms in this study: Online satisfaction, online loyalty, service quality, technology acceptance factors, transaction cost, and experiences value. Online Game Satisfaction Online game satisfaction is customer satisfaction towards online game service. Oliver (1980) defines customer satisfaction as customers evaluation of a product or service with regard to their needs and expectations. It is just in virtual environment perspectives. Online Game Loyalty Online game loyalty is customer loyalty towards online game service. It can be defined as â€Å"a deeply held commitment to rebuy or repatronize a preferred product or service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behaviuor† (Oliver, 1997). Service Quality Parasuraman, et al., (1988) defined service quality as â€Å"a global judgement, or attitude, relating to the superiority of the service†, â€Å"and explicated it as involving evaluations of the outcomes (i.e., what customer actually receives from services) and process of service act (i.e., the manner in which service is delivered)† (Jain, and Gupta, 2004) Technology Acceptance Factors It is also known as technology acceptance model (TAM). Davis (1989) proposed TAM to explain and predict user acceptance of information systems (IS) or information technology (IT). In short, it is explaining â€Å"intention to use a technology† (Schepers and Wetzels, 2007). Transaction Cost It is a theory â€Å"seeks to explain why firms exist and how firm boundaries were determined† (Watjatrakul, 2005). Experience Value It refers to â€Å"shopping efficiency and making good product performance and functionality† (Wu and Liang, 2009). Wu and Liang (2009) added â€Å"its perceptions are based on interaction involving either direct usage or distant appreciation of goods or services†. MMORPG (Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games) It is known as a virtual environment where it allows multiple geographically distributed users interact with each other at the same time (Papargyris and Poulymenakou, 2005). Besides, it is â€Å"offering an alternative channel for players to communicate, share experiences, socialize, and eventually from virtual communities† (Chee, Zaphiris, and Mahmood, 2007) Online Game Service It is a service provider who provides a server for the online game user to get into the network to interact with each other by playing games. 1.7 Organization of the Report This study will be constructed into five different chapters and there are: Chapter 1 is presenting the introduction and a brief overview of the study. The problems of the study, objectives of the study, significance of the study, and the chapter outline of the research are stated in this chapter. Chapter 2 provides an extensive review of international journals, reports, and articles from online and offline resources. Besides, all the reviews in this chapter are related to the problem of the research that will guide to construct the conceptual foundation and hypothesis of the study. Chapter 3 is describing the methods used in conducting this study in detail. Besides, it also presents the development of the research framework which proposed the relationship between dependent variables and independent variables. Next, the methodology applied is provided, sampling procedures, hypothesis development, data analysis and measurement. Chapter 4 presents the findings and data analysis of the research. It analyses and discussed the data collected in the research using the research instrument which has been developed in chapter 3. The hypothesis will be tested and it is also presents the results of statistical analysis used in this study (t-test, ANOVA, and etc.). Chapter 5 is presenting the conclusion and recommendation. There is also discussion of the studys implications, recommendations, limitations and suggestion for the future research. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction Chapter 1 has discussed and highlighted the important issues which related online game service satisfaction and loyalty. All of these issues that mentioned in the chapter 1 are playing an important role for online game service industry in order to understand the expectation of the user and eventually grab more market share. As a result, to more understanding these issues, an examination of literature on related study were carried out. Generally, literature review provides the theoretical basis for the development of the research framework of this study, which will be discuss in the next chapter Chapter 3. This chapter consists of the following subject areas: (1) Definition of key terms; (2) online game satisfaction; (3) online game loyalty; (4) the factors might affect online satisfaction and loyalty; and (5) summary of literature review. 2.2 Definition of Key Terms 2.2.1 Online Game Service As technologies have became more advance, people have more rely on the technologies and they even expect technology will do all the things for us. Now, most of the people are prefer online rather than offline when they would like to purchase or acknowledge a transaction. In the olden day around 1980 where the technology has a limited growth, people can only play games in offline environment such as TV and handheld game console (Nintendo). In the late 1980s computer game was invented and started popular. Currently, computer games have been transformed into MMORPG (Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games) which is popular all around the world (Bizymoms.com). Besides, the multi-player online role-playing games also known as Net games (Lo, Wang, and Fang, 2005). Generally, net game can be divided into three which is web games, network games, and online games. The below is the definition of this three types of net games. Table 2.1 Types of Net Games Types Definition Players Web games Games which use a website as an interface. Players must register to play. Network games Games which allow multiple players to use their own PCs to interact via Local Area Networks (LANs) or the internet. Also, many of these closely resemble PC games. Players must purchase and install game software. However, it does not require any fees beyond those for internet connections. Online games Games where require players to connect to the service provider and log in to a server. Player must subscribe to the service provider and select a role to interact with other virtual roles. Source: Lo, 2008 Online game is requiring player to log in to a server in order to play the games. It is means that the players must have internet connection to connect with the service provider. After the player subscribe to the games, the user has to select a role to interact with the rest of the subscribers. The special characteristic of online game is the user can continue to play their role after they have log out for few days. The player can keep continue playing where they have stopped when they have log out last time with the experiences and assets are remain. Online game user must install a client program for internet connection and online game providers to attend the online game (Lo, 2008). This program is inexpensive and sometimes even free. However, there are some need additional fees are paid to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) (Lo, 2008). Commonly, the charges of online game is based on the time where the player spent to playing games and usually it is prepaid which pay before they play the games. Due to the technology advancement and the cheaper price for paying the internet connectivity, consumers are more easily to connect to the internet and playing online game. This golden business opportunity has been attracted lots of firms entered to this industry. Online game service is the company which provides a server for the players in order to play game with others. The company main activities is improve the performance of the online game also maintenance of the server to avoid any shut-down or system down of the server. There are some features have attracted lots of people subscribe to online game and the number of players is keep increasing each day. The online games allow the player to build the role based on their preference, beliefs, goal, or other factors and most of the time the players play it in a team (Klang, 2004). The features in the online games has play an important role in order to gain more subscriber and also some other factors. 2.3 Online Game Loyalty In general, loyalty can be defined as faithful. However, in terms of customer loyalty, it is hard to define (Bowen ad Chen, 2001). Dennis (2003) stated that loyalty is the feeling where a customer has about a brand. This could be explained as the customer has a positive perception about the brand and this brand will always come in the first of the mind of this particular consumer if compared to the other firms which have offer the same service or product. Edvarson, Johnson, Gustafsson and Strandvik (2000) define loyalty as a customers intention to repurchase from the same firm again. On the other hand, loyalty can be measured in three distinctive approaches and there are behavioural measurements, attitudinal measurements, and composite measurements (Bowen and Chen, 2001). Behavioural measurements can be defined as consistent, repetitious purchase behaviuor as an indicator of loyalty. For example, if the customer is often and repeat visit the same firm and purchase the product from the firm can be said as loyalty under the behavioural measurement. Next, attitudinal measurements can be defined as used attitudinal data to reflect the emotional and psychological attachment inherent in loyalty. Lets put it in a situation where a consumer holds a favourable attitude toward an online game service provider, but it is not necessary that consumer will subscribe o this service provider. It might be expensive to the consumer but the consumer will recommend it to others since he holds a favourable attitude towards the service provider (Toh, Hu, and Withiam, 1993). Composite approach is the combination of the first two dimensions and measure loyalty by customers products preferences, propensity of brand-switching, frequency of purchase, recency of purchase and total amount of purchase (Pritchard and Howard, 1997). This approach is valuable tool to understand customer loyalty in several fields such as retailing, upscale hotels and airlines (Pritchard and Howard, 1997). Many of the researchers and also in common think that loyalty is generating positive and measurable financial results (Dennis, 2003). In short, there is a positive relationship between loyalty and profit (Bowen and Chen, 2001). When a company is able to retain 5 percent more of its customers, consequently, profits will increase 25 percent to 125 percent (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990). The impact of loyalty has played an important role for the profit of the company. Based on the reasons mentioned above, online game loyalty (customer loyalty) is the independent variable for this study. On the past studies showed that online customer loyalty is result from customer satisfaction with the e-commerce channel. Also, the online satisfaction has the positive impact on online loyalty is the proved in the context of electronic commerce (Anderson and Srinivasan, 2003; Rodgers, Negash, and Suk, 2005. As proposed by Yang et al. (2009), online loyalty is the final result of their study. For this study, online loyalty is defined as a customers favaourable attitude and commitment towards online game service provider that results in sustaining in the same service provider which based on the study of Yang et al. (2009). Hence, this study is proposing online loyalty as the dependent variable. 2.4 Online Game Satisfaction Satisfaction is the â€Å"overall customer attitude towards a service provider† (Levesque and McDougall, 1996). Oliver (1980) defined customer satisfaction as customers evaluations of a product or service based on their needs and expectations. In the other way, it is an emotional customer anticipates and what they receive (Zineldin, 2000). Customer satisfaction could be the big challenges for all the firms and to satisfy the customer expectation is not an easy job because customers are human being who has a complex mind. As a human being, we have different characteristics and different expectation. Some people might expect a basic service from the service provider but some might expect a high service from the service provider. When people would like to defined something which involve human attitude, it is hard to find a common or universal definition. Gerpott, Rams, and Schindler (2001) proposed satisfaction is based on the customers estimated experience of the extent when the service provider is able to fulfill customers expectations. There are some benefits of customer satisfaction and the major benefits of customer satisfaction is stay loyal longer (Zineldin, 2000; Hansemark and Albinsson, 2004). Besides, Hansemark and Albinsson (2004) stated that satisfied customer are relatively less price sensitive, tend to purchase additional products, and they are relatively hard influenced by the competitors. They proposed many company view customer satisfaction as the crucial to a companys survival and must be satisfied those customer all the time as the company has been promised them. In general, much research no matter in offline environment or online environment, customer satisfaction is not really a new concept and lots of research efforts have been made to understand its antecedents and consequences (Bai, Law, and Wen, 2008). To assess a firms productivity and its marketing performance, the measures of perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty was being used (Cortina, Elorz, and Villanueva, 2004). Besides, the great number of study of customer satisfaction is because its potential influence on consumer behavioral intention and customer retention (Cronin, Brady, Hult, 2000; Yang et al., 2009). A study of online retailing stated that satisfied customer tend to have higher usage of service and have stronger repurchase intention (Kim, Jin, and Swiney, 2008). Also, this particular customer will often recommend the product or service to their friends than those who are not satisfied (Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman, 1996; Kim et al., 2008). Anderson and Srinivasan (2003) have investigated the impact of satisfaction on loyalty in the context of e-commerce. They concluded that online satisfaction has an impact on online loyalty. However, they also stated that the relationship is just moderated both by consumers individual factors and firms business factors. However, the relationship between online satisfaction and online loyalty also has been found in numerous studies (Yang et al., 2009; Kim et al., 2008; Anderson and Srinivasan, 2003; Rodgers et al., 2005). Hence, this study is going to propose online satisfaction might have a positive effect on online loyalty. 2.4.1 Online game satisfaction as a mediator Online game satisfaction will be the mediator between the online game loyalty and its determinants which are service quality, transaction cost, technology acceptance factor, and experience value. As proposed by Yang et al., 2009, service quality, transaction cost, and experience value will influence on online game satisfaction. However, this study is going to propose another antecedent which is technology acceptance factors which based on the studies of Lin and Sun, 2009; Hsu and Lu, 2003. In this model, online game satisfaction is a function of the four antecedents operating in a situation and helps to explain the influence of the antecedents on online game loyalty. As prior mentioned that online satisfaction has an impact on online loyalty, but, there are some factors might influence online satisfaction before it comes to online loyalty. To achieve the online satisfaction, the online game service providers have to meet the expectation of the consumer in some of the aspects as the four antecedents. Yang et al., 2009 stated that rare research examines the moderating effects of customer satisfaction in an integrated loyalty model and less formally tests that online game satisfaction in the online game service environment. Therefore, in this study, it proposes online game satisfaction as the mediator between the four antecedents and online game loyalty. The below table is to shows that the selected empirical research on determinants of customer satisfaction and loyalty (online). Table 2.2: Selected empirical research on determinants of customer satisfaction and loyalty (online) Independent Variables Key References Context Service Quality (SERVQUAL) Yang et al., (2009) Lin and Sun (2009) Lee and Lin (2005) Santos (2003) Online Game Service Online Shopping Online Shopping e-Service Quality Technology Acceptance Factors Lin and Sun (2009) Hsu and Lu (2003) Online Shopping Online Game Transaction Cost Yang et al., (2009) Liang and Huang (1998) Online Game Service Electronic M Factors of Affecting Online Game Satisfaction Factors of Affecting Online Game Satisfaction CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction Online gaming is one of the most popular entertainments among the citizen in this world no matter what ages they are. Due to the advancement in the technologies, it has brought lots of growth in this industry since early of 2000s. This growth has been developed online game market into the core of the world cultural industry (Sang, Yung, Jae, and Kyoung, 2004). Hsu and Lu (2003) stated that online game service has been a highly profitable e-commerce application in recent years and its market value has increasing markedly as well as number of player growth at the same time. Now a day, most of the household will owned at least one personal computer (PC) or a laptop and some even more than that due to the cheaper cost to have a computer. Consequently, the demand for computer has been grown rapidly throughout this recent year. The accessibility of internet also is easier with each passing year and the cheaper price to have broadband internet connectivity (Bizymoms.com). Generally, online game service can be categorized as business-to-consumer or B2C in e-commerce and it is also one the videogame and interactive entertainment industry. A strategic market research and consulting firm which focuses on the interactive entertainment and the emerging video game, online game, interactive entertainment and portable game markets namely, DFC Intelligence has made its forecast for worldwide videogame and interactive entertainment industry each year since year 1995. According to DFC Intelligence forecast on year 2008, the worldwide videogame and interactive entertainment industry revenue to reach USD 57 billion in 2009 with no signs of slowing due to the slumping economies and expensive hardware (Androvich, 2008). The rapid growth in videogame and interactive entertainment industry has been attracted lots of entrepreneur who would like to enter this profitable industry. Based on the report of DFC, PC was the top platform for games in 2007, with online game revenue alone eclipsing USD 7 billion on year 2006 and not including retail sales. The DFC also stated the total PC game revenue is expected to reach USD 19 billion by year 2013 (Androvich, 2008). In Malaysia, there were 15 million subscriber of internet and it was 62.8% out of the total population in 2008 (Internet World Stats, 2008). It was more than half of the citizens of Malaysia have used the internet and this has brought a great opportunity to the entrepreneur who would like to join this industry to be one of the online game service providers to share the profit since the number of internet users was increasing each year. It did not showed that the number of the online game subscribers but there is a business opportunity for the entrepreneur to start-up their business through online. Table 1.1: Internet Usage and Population Growth of Malaysia Year No. of Users Total Population % 2000 3, 700, 000 24, 645, 600 15.0% 2005 10, 040, 000 26, 500, 699 37.9% 2006 11, 016, 000 28, 294, 120 38.9% 2007 13, 528, 200 28, 294, 120 47.8% 2008 15, 868, 000 25, 274, 133 62.8% (Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/my.htm [2009, November 1]) A study showed that customer satisfaction is the immediate factor affecting the consumer retains loyalty (Cronin, Brady, and Hult, 2000). Most of the studies showed that higher levels of customer satisfaction will lead to customer loyalty. â€Å"A minor change in satisfaction could lead to a substantial change in loyalty increment† (Bowen and Chen, 2001). However, most of these studies were in offline environment. Wind and Rangasamy (2001) found that online environments offer more opportunities for interactive and personalized marketing. Eventually, these opportunities may influences customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the online environment if compared to the traditional market or offline environment (Shankar, Smith, and Rangaswamy, 2003). The main purpose of this study is to identify the factors affects the customer satisfaction towards online game services and which could lead to customer loyalty. It is including the service quality, transaction cost, experience value, and technology acceptance factor. These four antecedents of online game service satisfaction and loyalty will test associations based on the model that has been constructs. 1.2 Background of the Research In this century, computer might be a need for a person if compared to the olden days where there was a limited growth in technologies. Now, computer seems like a tool which can do everything for you such as searching information, payment, shopping, and so on. This powerful electrical appliance has gain a well response from the citizen of the world. It has many functions can perform through computer and one of the most popular functions of computer is gaming. In the earlier 2000s, most of the games were played offline since the limited internet connectivity and expensive prices to have an internet connectivity. However, this situation has changed due to the technologies advancements and the industry has achieved economic of scale. To more understand what online games is, it is a must to brief its history. The very first online gaming activities were introduced in the late of 1960s and early of 1970s. Later, they started gain more popularity within 1970s to 1980s when dial-up Bulletin Boards became popular and the users started playing online game over them. Clyde and Thomas (2008) stated that the development of arcade game in the 1970s, and video and computer games in the 1980s; digital games have become an influential part of popular culture. The bulletin boards provided a multi-user platform which allowed few users to play at the same time. Now, it has been transformed to MMORPG (Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games) which is popular all around the world presently (Bizymoms.com). At one time, games were used for educational purpose rather than entertainment (Clyde and Thomas, 2008). However, due to the changed in the perception of game role and the culture, it becomes an entertainment but there is still has some of the game designers and educators used it as educational purposed such as learning typing skills and so on. In the year of 1990s, due to the growth of internet technologies of Flash and Java, it has led to the increasing usage of the internet and the millions of new websites mushrooming across the World Wide Web. When enter to the millennium year, technological giants such as Sony, Microsoft and Ninetendo came out with advanced gaming consoles has changed the features of online gaming completely (Bizymoms.com). The people all around can play a same game with each other virtually at the same time. Currently, online gaming industry is growing each year and it has a great expansion in future. The online game service is one of the most competitive industries among the entire industries. The new and the existing online game service provider are delivering their best services to gain more market share to sustain its organization. To penetrate the market, the firm must meet the customer expectation which may lead to customer satisfaction. Eventually, it may bring customer loyalty. 1.3 Research Problem Customer is the one who contribute the profit to the firm because they are the one who are using the product or services. However, consumers are becoming wisely now a day when they would like to use certain product or services. They will tend to purchase the product only if the product can meet their expectation which might lead to satisfaction. To meet the customer expectation, it is a biggest challenge for the firm. Other than that, the growth of the online game has brought some a major problem to the service provider which is how to retain the existing online game users and will not shifting to other service provider or loyalty to the current provider (Yang, Wu, Wang, 2009). In order to survive in this competitive industry, many practitioners and academicians in this field have focused on how to improve online services to attract potential buyers as well as the current customers (Jun, Yang, and Kim, 2004). There are some of the factors to achieve customer satisfaction. However, the key factors especially in online game services which are able to make the customer satisfied with the products and services still under study or unknown (Dick, Wellnitz, and Wolf, 2005). If the key factors have been determined, the provider might be able to gain the competitive advantages which trying to meet the customer expectation. This research is emphasizing the customer satisfaction and loyalty in online game service. Specifically, it is trying to identify the key factors affects online satisfaction and online loyalty in order to guide the online game service provider to improve their service quality to garb more potential customers and retain the existing one. 1.4 Research Objectives The objectives were formed based on the research problem and there are formulated to achieve the main goal of this study which is to examine the factors of affecting the online game satisfaction and loyalty. To determine service quality has a positive impact towards online game satisfaction. To determine transaction costs has a positive impact towards online game satisfaction. To determine technology acceptance factor has a positive impact towards online game satisfaction. To determine experience value has a positive impact towards online game satisfaction. To determine online game satisfaction would have a positive impact on online game loyalty. To determine service quality, transaction cost, technology acceptance factors, and experience value will affect online game satisfaction and eventually online game loyalty. 1.5 Justification of the Study This study is significant for several reasons. First, it can identify the gaps between customer expectation and perception about online game service provider in order to guide them to provide better services. â€Å"It is commonly known that there is a positive relationship between customer loyalty and profitability† (Bowen and Chen, 2001). It is correct once the customer is loyal to the company because they will visit the firm after a purchase and some even recommend to their friends. In the online environment, the online satisfaction also grabs much attention from all of the researchers because to meet a customer expectation is the toughest challenges to the company. Also, it brings the profitability and the survival of the company. Online game service provider should concern about the medium which may influenced the online game satisfaction and online game loyalty. The importance of the study is to keep the online game service improvement in order to achieve the customer satisfaction from time to time. In online environment, the customer can easily compared the alternative than offline customer especially products and service (Shankar et al., 2003). As in online environment, the user is free to search the information to the product that they demand. As well as online game, there is large amount of online game service provider. Therefore, the user can easily compared the features of the game and service quality that provided by the firm. Once the factor has a positive impact on online satisfaction has been determined, the service provider is able to strengthen their weaknesses in order to sustain its market share. Besides, the study is providing guidelines for the service provider to develop their future or long-term plan. The importance of the online game satisfaction will give a direction to the service provider to plan for their future such as strategic plan. It also helps the company to gain competitive advantages in this industry. Commonly, most of the studies regarding to customer satisfaction and loyalty were did for offline environment and only limited for online environment. However, consumers still have some same characteristics in making decision when they would like to purchase a product. As the study has identified the factors affect the customer satisfaction and loyalty, the firms are able to fulfill the users need and wants. This action is trying to meet the customer satisfaction and eventually customer loyalty. Once the customer become loyal, the company may survive in this competitive market. On the other hand, it is also will benefit the user to gain a better service from the online game service provider once they have responded to what they are percept towards the online game service provider that they currently subscribed. Also, the service provider is able to understand what kind of service quality that the users perceived and expected. It will leads to a win-win situation if both of the parties could perform what they are request and give. 1.6 Definition of Important Terms There are some important terms in this study: Online satisfaction, online loyalty, service quality, technology acceptance factors, transaction cost, and experiences value. Online Game Satisfaction Online game satisfaction is customer satisfaction towards online game service. Oliver (1980) defines customer satisfaction as customers evaluation of a product or service with regard to their needs and expectations. It is just in virtual environment perspectives. Online Game Loyalty Online game loyalty is customer loyalty towards online game service. It can be defined as â€Å"a deeply held commitment to rebuy or repatronize a preferred product or service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behaviuor† (Oliver, 1997). Service Quality Parasuraman, et al., (1988) defined service quality as â€Å"a global judgement, or attitude, relating to the superiority of the service†, â€Å"and explicated it as involving evaluations of the outcomes (i.e., what customer actually receives from services) and process of service act (i.e., the manner in which service is delivered)† (Jain, and Gupta, 2004) Technology Acceptance Factors It is also known as technology acceptance model (TAM). Davis (1989) proposed TAM to explain and predict user acceptance of information systems (IS) or information technology (IT). In short, it is explaining â€Å"intention to use a technology† (Schepers and Wetzels, 2007). Transaction Cost It is a theory â€Å"seeks to explain why firms exist and how firm boundaries were determined† (Watjatrakul, 2005). Experience Value It refers to â€Å"shopping efficiency and making good product performance and functionality† (Wu and Liang, 2009). Wu and Liang (2009) added â€Å"its perceptions are based on interaction involving either direct usage or distant appreciation of goods or services†. MMORPG (Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games) It is known as a virtual environment where it allows multiple geographically distributed users interact with each other at the same time (Papargyris and Poulymenakou, 2005). Besides, it is â€Å"offering an alternative channel for players to communicate, share experiences, socialize, and eventually from virtual communities† (Chee, Zaphiris, and Mahmood, 2007) Online Game Service It is a service provider who provides a server for the online game user to get into the network to interact with each other by playing games. 1.7 Organization of the Report This study will be constructed into five different chapters and there are: Chapter 1 is presenting the introduction and a brief overview of the study. The problems of the study, objectives of the study, significance of the study, and the chapter outline of the research are stated in this chapter. Chapter 2 provides an extensive review of international journals, reports, and articles from online and offline resources. Besides, all the reviews in this chapter are related to the problem of the research that will guide to construct the conceptual foundation and hypothesis of the study. Chapter 3 is describing the methods used in conducting this study in detail. Besides, it also presents the development of the research framework which proposed the relationship between dependent variables and independent variables. Next, the methodology applied is provided, sampling procedures, hypothesis development, data analysis and measurement. Chapter 4 presents the findings and data analysis of the research. It analyses and discussed the data collected in the research using the research instrument which has been developed in chapter 3. The hypothesis will be tested and it is also presents the results of statistical analysis used in this study (t-test, ANOVA, and etc.). Chapter 5 is presenting the conclusion and recommendation. There is also discussion of the studys implications, recommendations, limitations and suggestion for the future research. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction Chapter 1 has discussed and highlighted the important issues which related online game service satisfaction and loyalty. All of these issues that mentioned in the chapter 1 are playing an important role for online game service industry in order to understand the expectation of the user and eventually grab more market share. As a result, to more understanding these issues, an examination of literature on related study were carried out. Generally, literature review provides the theoretical basis for the development of the research framework of this study, which will be discuss in the next chapter Chapter 3. This chapter consists of the following subject areas: (1) Definition of key terms; (2) online game satisfaction; (3) online game loyalty; (4) the factors might affect online satisfaction and loyalty; and (5) summary of literature review. 2.2 Definition of Key Terms 2.2.1 Online Game Service As technologies have became more advance, people have more rely on the technologies and they even expect technology will do all the things for us. Now, most of the people are prefer online rather than offline when they would like to purchase or acknowledge a transaction. In the olden day around 1980 where the technology has a limited growth, people can only play games in offline environment such as TV and handheld game console (Nintendo). In the late 1980s computer game was invented and started popular. Currently, computer games have been transformed into MMORPG (Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games) which is popular all around the world (Bizymoms.com). Besides, the multi-player online role-playing games also known as Net games (Lo, Wang, and Fang, 2005). Generally, net game can be divided into three which is web games, network games, and online games. The below is the definition of this three types of net games. Table 2.1 Types of Net Games Types Definition Players Web games Games which use a website as an interface. Players must register to play. Network games Games which allow multiple players to use their own PCs to interact via Local Area Networks (LANs) or the internet. Also, many of these closely resemble PC games. Players must purchase and install game software. However, it does not require any fees beyond those for internet connections. Online games Games where require players to connect to the service provider and log in to a server. Player must subscribe to the service provider and select a role to interact with other virtual roles. Source: Lo, 2008 Online game is requiring player to log in to a server in order to play the games. It is means that the players must have internet connection to connect with the service provider. After the player subscribe to the games, the user has to select a role to interact with the rest of the subscribers. The special characteristic of online game is the user can continue to play their role after they have log out for few days. The player can keep continue playing where they have stopped when they have log out last time with the experiences and assets are remain. Online game user must install a client program for internet connection and online game providers to attend the online game (Lo, 2008). This program is inexpensive and sometimes even free. However, there are some need additional fees are paid to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) (Lo, 2008). Commonly, the charges of online game is based on the time where the player spent to playing games and usually it is prepaid which pay before they play the games. Due to the technology advancement and the cheaper price for paying the internet connectivity, consumers are more easily to connect to the internet and playing online game. This golden business opportunity has been attracted lots of firms entered to this industry. Online game service is the company which provides a server for the players in order to play game with others. The company main activities is improve the performance of the online game also maintenance of the server to avoid any shut-down or system down of the server. There are some features have attracted lots of people subscribe to online game and the number of players is keep increasing each day. The online games allow the player to build the role based on their preference, beliefs, goal, or other factors and most of the time the players play it in a team (Klang, 2004). The features in the online games has play an important role in order to gain more subscriber and also some other factors. 2.3 Online Game Loyalty In general, loyalty can be defined as faithful. However, in terms of customer loyalty, it is hard to define (Bowen ad Chen, 2001). Dennis (2003) stated that loyalty is the feeling where a customer has about a brand. This could be explained as the customer has a positive perception about the brand and this brand will always come in the first of the mind of this particular consumer if compared to the other firms which have offer the same service or product. Edvarson, Johnson, Gustafsson and Strandvik (2000) define loyalty as a customers intention to repurchase from the same firm again. On the other hand, loyalty can be measured in three distinctive approaches and there are behavioural measurements, attitudinal measurements, and composite measurements (Bowen and Chen, 2001). Behavioural measurements can be defined as consistent, repetitious purchase behaviuor as an indicator of loyalty. For example, if the customer is often and repeat visit the same firm and purchase the product from the firm can be said as loyalty under the behavioural measurement. Next, attitudinal measurements can be defined as used attitudinal data to reflect the emotional and psychological attachment inherent in loyalty. Lets put it in a situation where a consumer holds a favourable attitude toward an online game service provider, but it is not necessary that consumer will subscribe o this service provider. It might be expensive to the consumer but the consumer will recommend it to others since he holds a favourable attitude towards the service provider (Toh, Hu, and Withiam, 1993). Composite approach is the combination of the first two dimensions and measure loyalty by customers products preferences, propensity of brand-switching, frequency of purchase, recency of purchase and total amount of purchase (Pritchard and Howard, 1997). This approach is valuable tool to understand customer loyalty in several fields such as retailing, upscale hotels and airlines (Pritchard and Howard, 1997). Many of the researchers and also in common think that loyalty is generating positive and measurable financial results (Dennis, 2003). In short, there is a positive relationship between loyalty and profit (Bowen and Chen, 2001). When a company is able to retain 5 percent more of its customers, consequently, profits will increase 25 percent to 125 percent (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990). The impact of loyalty has played an important role for the profit of the company. Based on the reasons mentioned above, online game loyalty (customer loyalty) is the independent variable for this study. On the past studies showed that online customer loyalty is result from customer satisfaction with the e-commerce channel. Also, the online satisfaction has the positive impact on online loyalty is the proved in the context of electronic commerce (Anderson and Srinivasan, 2003; Rodgers, Negash, and Suk, 2005. As proposed by Yang et al. (2009), online loyalty is the final result of their study. For this study, online loyalty is defined as a customers favaourable attitude and commitment towards online game service provider that results in sustaining in the same service provider which based on the study of Yang et al. (2009). Hence, this study is proposing online loyalty as the dependent variable. 2.4 Online Game Satisfaction Satisfaction is the â€Å"overall customer attitude towards a service provider† (Levesque and McDougall, 1996). Oliver (1980) defined customer satisfaction as customers evaluations of a product or service based on their needs and expectations. In the other way, it is an emotional customer anticipates and what they receive (Zineldin, 2000). Customer satisfaction could be the big challenges for all the firms and to satisfy the customer expectation is not an easy job because customers are human being who has a complex mind. As a human being, we have different characteristics and different expectation. Some people might expect a basic service from the service provider but some might expect a high service from the service provider. When people would like to defined something which involve human attitude, it is hard to find a common or universal definition. Gerpott, Rams, and Schindler (2001) proposed satisfaction is based on the customers estimated experience of the extent when the service provider is able to fulfill customers expectations. There are some benefits of customer satisfaction and the major benefits of customer satisfaction is stay loyal longer (Zineldin, 2000; Hansemark and Albinsson, 2004). Besides, Hansemark and Albinsson (2004) stated that satisfied customer are relatively less price sensitive, tend to purchase additional products, and they are relatively hard influenced by the competitors. They proposed many company view customer satisfaction as the crucial to a companys survival and must be satisfied those customer all the time as the company has been promised them. In general, much research no matter in offline environment or online environment, customer satisfaction is not really a new concept and lots of research efforts have been made to understand its antecedents and consequences (Bai, Law, and Wen, 2008). To assess a firms productivity and its marketing performance, the measures of perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty was being used (Cortina, Elorz, and Villanueva, 2004). Besides, the great number of study of customer satisfaction is because its potential influence on consumer behavioral intention and customer retention (Cronin, Brady, Hult, 2000; Yang et al., 2009). A study of online retailing stated that satisfied customer tend to have higher usage of service and have stronger repurchase intention (Kim, Jin, and Swiney, 2008). Also, this particular customer will often recommend the product or service to their friends than those who are not satisfied (Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman, 1996; Kim et al., 2008). Anderson and Srinivasan (2003) have investigated the impact of satisfaction on loyalty in the context of e-commerce. They concluded that online satisfaction has an impact on online loyalty. However, they also stated that the relationship is just moderated both by consumers individual factors and firms business factors. However, the relationship between online satisfaction and online loyalty also has been found in numerous studies (Yang et al., 2009; Kim et al., 2008; Anderson and Srinivasan, 2003; Rodgers et al., 2005). Hence, this study is going to propose online satisfaction might have a positive effect on online loyalty. 2.4.1 Online game satisfaction as a mediator Online game satisfaction will be the mediator between the online game loyalty and its determinants which are service quality, transaction cost, technology acceptance factor, and experience value. As proposed by Yang et al., 2009, service quality, transaction cost, and experience value will influence on online game satisfaction. However, this study is going to propose another antecedent which is technology acceptance factors which based on the studies of Lin and Sun, 2009; Hsu and Lu, 2003. In this model, online game satisfaction is a function of the four antecedents operating in a situation and helps to explain the influence of the antecedents on online game loyalty. As prior mentioned that online satisfaction has an impact on online loyalty, but, there are some factors might influence online satisfaction before it comes to online loyalty. To achieve the online satisfaction, the online game service providers have to meet the expectation of the consumer in some of the aspects as the four antecedents. Yang et al., 2009 stated that rare research examines the moderating effects of customer satisfaction in an integrated loyalty model and less formally tests that online game satisfaction in the online game service environment. Therefore, in this study, it proposes online game satisfaction as the mediator between the four antecedents and online game loyalty. The below table is to shows that the selected empirical research on determinants of customer satisfaction and loyalty (online). Table 2.2: Selected empirical research on determinants of customer satisfaction and loyalty (online) Independent Variables Key References Context Service Quality (SERVQUAL) Yang et al., (2009) Lin and Sun (2009) Lee and Lin (2005) Santos (2003) Online Game Service Online Shopping Online Shopping e-Service Quality Technology Acceptance Factors Lin and Sun (2009) Hsu and Lu (2003) Online Shopping Online Game Transaction Cost Yang et al., (2009) Liang and Huang (1998) Online Game Service Electronic M