Man is probably the only alive being on the Earth who has a lot of questions. Why was I born? Why will I die? What do I live for? Where did I come from? Who am I? Sooner or later each human being has to find his own way of life, make a decision and accept full responsibility for it. It’s not easy. However, there are many people who never think about the importance of their lives. Those people are just a small part of our society. We can be proud that our world is full of many intelligent, bright and wise people who care not only about themselves, but about their children, their future and other people around them. They are masters of their lives and destinies. Those people are spiritually strong and not afraid to make mistakes and admit them. They are strong personalities. This master thesis was prepared according to the empiric research made during 2004-2005 years. A survey of 300 adolescents from three different Shiauliai schools was carried out to find out what they think about the meaning of their lives and find out their opinion about values. The results of the research revealed that: • Instrumental values such as communication and self evaluation are the most important ones among the teenagers. Personal life values take the first place among terminal values. • The understanding about the life meaning among the pupils of senior forms is intermediate (71,33%). • The addition of the family does not influence the pupils... [to full text]

The highly competitive environment in which businesses operate today requires a skilful workforce in every organisation in order to remain a successful player in the competitive game of the industry. One of the main problems which occur in the workplace is the lack of training. A large number of employees can appear dissatisfied (Heinemann and Greenberger, 2002) due to being assigned responsibilities without-having the right knowledge and skills in that area. Training is an essential process which should be cautiously designed and implemented within all firms. The overall aim of this dissertation is to assess the importance of training- in work field.For many years now human capital has been regarded as vital for the efficient functioning of an organisation because of its contribution in improving productivity, business performance and economic growth (Schultz, 1961). Therefore it is important to invest in human resources through training (Lucas, 1988) in order to improve the competitive position of the firm, and because of the enhanced quality, innovation, continual increased productivity and in turn improved profitability that can be achieved through this (Taylor and Davies, 2004).Throughout this research the training system in Hilton Hotel will be examined and appropriate recommendations for a more effective training system will be given where appropriate. The overall aim of this study is to assess the importance of training in hospitality industry.

The major purpose of this study was to test the ability of the MyersBriggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to predict job satisfaction. Sixteen hypotheses were advanced and tested. They were grouped into four categories: (a) the ability of Judges to predict a subject's job satisfaction based upon their assessment that the subject's MBTI Type was compatible with their occupation; (b) the ability of the Minnesota Importance Questionnaire (MIQ) to predict job satisfaction; (c) acomparison of the predictive ability of the MBTI with the MIQ; (d) and, an exploration of the relationship of MBTI Type with the Needs measured by the MIQ.A review of related literature showed that the ability of the MBTI to predict job satisfaction had not been demonstrated satisfactorily in previous research while the MIQ had a demonstrated ability to predict satisfaction. Therefore, the MBTI was compared with the MIQ to see which could better predict satisfaction.The subjects used in this research were 369' Masters in Business Administration students from a medium sized private college in the Midwest. Sixty-five percent of the subjects were male and 35% were female. They had an average age of 30.5 years and 93% of the subjects were employed full-time.Three test instruments were used in this study. The MBTI was used to assess Psychological Type. The MIQ was used to measure Vocational Needs. A biographical information form was used to gather demographics on each subject. A question from the Hoppock Job Satisfaction Blank was included on the information form to measure job satisfaction.This study found that MBTI Type and various components of Type could be used by judges to predict job satisfaction based on judges' assessment of congruence between Type and occupation. It was found that the MIQ could predict job satisfaction based on congruence between MIQ profile and occupation. Comparison of the MBTI and MIQ showed that the MIQ was the better predictor of satisfaction but neither instrument was able to account for more than a small part of the satisfaction variance. Last, it was found that several of the MIQ Needs were related to components of the MBTI.This study provided support for the predictive ability of both the MBTI and the MIQ. It supported the use of the MBTI in career counseling and theory and pointed to several areas where additional research is needed. It provided an initial exploration into the relationship of the MBTI to the domain of vocational Needs as measured by the MIQ. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Background: Strategic capabilities are vital components for organisations to include in their business. Another essential elements in a strategy that can affect the performance of an organisation in both a negative and positive direction are critical success factors. This research will study if it possible to evaluate organisations CSFs in order to see whether a well performed CSF also can be identified as a strategic capability. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate organisations CSF in order to identify strategic capabilities Research question: What CSFs can be identified? Which CSFs are identified as strategic capabilities? Methodology: This thesis involved a qualitative pre-study consistent of a content analysis and semi-structured interview that were used to provide measurements to the quantitative survey. Conclusion: The findings indicate that it is possible to identify strategic capabilities by evaluating CSFs. In this study transportation, number of stores and the atmosphere were considered as strategic capabilities.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

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The cross-entropy method is an established technique for solving difficult estimation, simulation, and optimisation problems. The method has its origins in an adaptive importance sampling procedure for rare-event estimation published by R. Y. Rubinstein in 1997. In that publication, the adaptive procedure produces a parametric probability density function whose parameters minimise the variance of the associated likelihood ratio estimator. This variance minimisation can also be viewed as minimising a measure of divergence to the minimum-variance importance sampling density over all members of the parametric family in question. Soon thereafter it was realised that the same adaptive importance sampling procedure could be used to solve combinatorial optimisation problems by viewing the set of solutions to the optimisation problem as a rare-event. This realisation led to the debut of the cross-entropy method in 1999, where it was introduced as a modification to the existing adaptive importance sampling procedure, with a different choice of directed divergence measure, in particular, the Kullback-Leibler cross-entropy. The contributions of this thesis are threefold. Firstly, in a review capacity, it provides an up-to-date consolidation of material on the cross-entropy method and its generalisations, as well as a collation of background material on importance sampling and Monte Carlo methods. The reviews are elucidated with original commentary and examples. Secondly, two new major applications of the cross-entropy methodology to optimisation problems are presented, advancing the boundary of knowledge on cross-entropy in the applied arena. Thirdly, two contributions to the methodological front are (a) an original extension of the generalised cross-entropy framework which enables one to construct state- and time-dependent importance sampling algorithms, and (b) a new algorithm for counting solutions to difficult binary-encoded problems.

The cross-entropy method is an established technique for solving difficult estimation, simulation, and optimisation problems. The method has its origins in an adaptive importance sampling procedure for rare-event estimation published by R. Y. Rubinstein in 1997. In that publication, the adaptive procedure produces a parametric probability density function whose parameters minimise the variance of the associated likelihood ratio estimator. This variance minimisation can also be viewed as minimising a measure of divergence to the minimum-variance importance sampling density over all members of the parametric family in question. Soon thereafter it was realised that the same adaptive importance sampling procedure could be used to solve combinatorial optimisation problems by viewing the set of solutions to the optimisation problem as a rare-event. This realisation led to the debut of the cross-entropy method in 1999, where it was introduced as a modification to the existing adaptive importance sampling procedure, with a different choice of directed divergence measure, in particular, the Kullback-Leibler cross-entropy. The contributions of this thesis are threefold. Firstly, in a review capacity, it provides an up-to-date consolidation of material on the cross-entropy method and its generalisations, as well as a collation of background material on importance sampling and Monte Carlo methods. The reviews are elucidated with original commentary and examples. Secondly, two new major applications of the cross-entropy methodology to optimisation problems are presented, advancing the boundary of knowledge on cross-entropy in the applied arena. Thirdly, two contributions to the methodological front are (a) an original extension of the generalised cross-entropy framework which enables one to construct state- and time-dependent importance sampling algorithms, and (b) a new algorithm for counting solutions to difficult binary-encoded problems.

This study provides evidence between auditors' fees and earnings management in New Zealand. The fee measures used in this study are audit fees, non-audit fees and total fees paid by a client to the audit firm. For each of the three fee measures, I derive client importance fee measures that reflect a client’s economic importance to the auditor relative to other clients of the auditor at the city office and national levels. This study employs both performance adjusted discretionary accruals and current accruals as proxies for earnings management. Using a sample of 224 firm-years comprising firms listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the results of multivariate tests indicate an adverse association between non-audit fees and earnings management. In other words, non-audit fees paid by a client relative to fees paid by other clients, at the office and national levels, appear to impair the auditor’s independence because clients generating relatively more non-audit fees report greater discretionary and current accruals. Such evidence is more pronounced for income increasing accrual proxies for earnings management. The results also show that audit fee is not related to earnings management. As the results in this study are consistent across both discretionary and current accruals, the validity of the results is strengthened. This study contributes to the literature by providing insight into how auditors’ fee metrics indicating client importance affect earnings management in a legal and institutional environment of a small economy, and where the audit market is largely saturated with little room for growth. This study raises implications for relevant regulatory bodies in New Zealand pertaining to future developments of auditor independence and financial reporting regulations.