Essay on Great Expectations Theme Analysis - 1256 Words

Since it was first published over 150 years ago, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations has come to be known as a timeless and remarkably moving work of literature. It is considered to be one of Dickens’ most recognizable works, and is celebrated for its meaningful, universally-believed themes. In order for this novel to be properly understood, a thoughtful analysis of its major themes must be given. Socio-Economic Status and Hierarchy The ones who seem to be most affected by society’s beliefs about class and social order are Pip, his family, and his friends, who would definitely fall under the â€Å"lower† part of the socio-economic ladder. Throughout the novel, the â€Å"lower† characters have a heightened and even a bit unhealthy obsession with†¦show more content†¦Family The theme of family is shown mainly through Pip’s relationship with his brother-in-law, Joe Gargery. In the beginning of the novel, Pip makes it obvious that he dislikes his sister, and takes more of a liking to her husband Joe because Pip is able to sympathize with him (Dickens 40). Joe becomes his confidant, a fact that becomes apparent when Pip comes home to face a harsh interrogation by Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook after his first visit to Miss Havisham’s. Pip lies to the both of them about his experience, but feels guilty about doing the same to Joe and confesses his wrongdoing. Joe shows understanding towards Pip, and instead of sternly rebuking him for lying, he simply but seriously Pip about the dangers of lying, saying â€Å"if you can’t get to be oncommon (uncommon) through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through going crooked† (Dickens 100). While Pip’s relationship with Joe is being tested by his desire to gain a highe r social standing, Pip shows significant guilt over his mistreatment of Joe ( Dickens 296), proving that deep down, Pip never loses his deep love for Joe. It can be safely assumed that the point that Dickens wants to make through Pip and Joe’s relationship is that family is not necessarily determined by biological connections, but by who a person is closest to and feels most comfortable sharing their life with through the best and worst times. The importanceShow MoreRelatedCritical Analysis Of Great Expectations1449 Words   |  6 Pagesfrom a work of fiction is, however, dependant on who is reading it at the time. In the case of Great Expectations there are a number of themes running through the text including betterment through education, what it is to be a gentleman, respectability and crime, parental /family ties, and industry and idleness. Many of the original readers of the work were not concerned with analysing these various themes, and how Dickens put the work together. Rather, it was enjoyed as a populist piece of fictionRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s Twelfth Night1155 Words   |  5 Pagesrules that define their place in society. They often try to meet expectations that society has made for them based on gender and social status. William Shakespeare reinforces these ideas in his play Twelfth Night, which introduces many meaningful messages about situations that still occur in society today. He clearly develops important themes worthy of analysis. A few of these strong themes are about stereotypes and society’s expectations and rules, which he proves to be irrelevant most of the time.Read MoreBirth Trauma: in the Eye of the Beholder Critique1393 Words   |  6 Pageslabor, the results of this study can be used as a foundation for evidence- based practice. 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He is raised and spends his childhood in the area with Joe, his acquaintance. On a special day, Uncle Pumblechook takes Pip to go play at Miss Havisham’s house. 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Importance of Financial Decision-Making in the Business World Free Essays

In the business world, financial decision-making is important. Some organizations have trouble with accounting and the financial decision-making process in today’s diverse organizational ethics. In this world’s current economy, the expectation for organizations is to behave in an ethical manner. We will write a custom essay sample on Importance of Financial Decision-Making in the Business World or any similar topic only for you Order Now The business world consists of people with different ethical belief systems, which makes it difficult to define ethics (The Journal of Accountancy, 2007). Organizations that do enforce a code of ethics can create unwanted behaviors within the organizations. These unethical behaviors can affect every individual associated with the organization. When an organization instills good ethical behaviors, its rate of success and longevity is more likely to be high. Organizational ethics are a significant part in financial decision-making and accounting. Ethical principles set the foundation on which a cultured society exists. An exceptional illustration of ethics in accounting and finances is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. After several financial frauds reported in 2001 and 2002, the president signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July 2002. This act established major modifications to the financial practices and corporate governance regulations. According to n. d. 2006), â€Å"The given name is after Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley, who were its main architects, and it also set a number of non-negotiable deadlines for all organizations to comply† (para. 1). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, known as the corporate responsibility act, act gives considerable supervision responsibilities and control to the Securities an d Exchange Commission (SEC) above organizations external auditors and distribution of financial statements. The SEC must employ a public company accounting oversight board (PCAOB) with the authority to control the public accounting (Albrecht, Stice, Stice, Swain, 2005, p. 01). This law was put in place because of the involvement of Enron and Tyco International in several accounting scandals. For most organizations, making money is important; money is what makes the business successful. However, a business that becomes greedy and decides to make money illegally will eventually fail. In the article â€Å"Beyond Sarbanes-Oxley†, Neil S. Lebovits, advises businesses to ensure their ethical health by doing several things. Lebovits suggests that organizations must employ the following three ethical best practices to be successful: â€Å"cultivate ethical role models, demonstrate ethical ecision-making, and encourage pushback† (Lebovits, 2006, para. 5). The Directorate of Pl anning, Training, Mobilization, and Security (DPTMS) organization that I work for employs these three ethical best practices daily. The management always ensures that workers behave professionally while serving soldiers and making the right decisions that could affect the soldiers training during this time of war. The DPTMS leaders provide explanations on how to make decisions and why the selection of the judgment. The organizational managers have an open-door policy to listen to the workers concerns. Additionally, managers walk throughout the day asking employees if he or she has any issues that the managers could assist on. These types of actions create a sense of trust in the leadership that everyone worker wants to emulate. Lebovits also proposes that organizations can do more to ensure the organization workers behave ethically at all levels. Lebovits suggests that, first, organizations cultivate ethical role models. These role models structures’ must include natural influencers who exhibit strong ethical behavior in their day-to-day work in the financial departments of the organization. Organizations must give influencers proper recognition on every occasion possible. By involving influencers in assignments, the individuals can have an encouraging impact in the organization. When an organization rewards its influencers efforts’, the organization can cultivate ethical conduct (2006). Organizational ethical behavior starts at the top of the organization. The leadership must motivate individuals to follow its behavior. Employees watch and listen to their management carefully for signs of how to act. Leaders should behave accordingly and set the example for the workers to follow. When suitable, leaders must tell workers examples of their business decisions involving their ethics and how they used good judgment. This type of honest conversation provides employees with a quick look on how leaders act and think while representing the organization (2006). Moreover, Lebovits proposes that organizations should also encourage pushback. In other words, companies should encourage their employees to speak up if they question financial actions and decisions that affect them. Ethics hotlines, anonymous e-mails and â€Å"approachable† managers are ways for companies to obtain this type of feedback. Organizations and their key personnel should always conduct themselves ethically and legally. They should promote an environment in which employees can articulate work-related concerns without negative effects and free exchange of information (2006). The organizations that decide to implement and follow good ethical behavior will achieve success and an excellent status as ethical and fair instiution to the clients, employees, and the shareholders. These benefits will assist the organization in the financial phase, and when organizations fail to execute will result in poor financial performance. References Albrecht, Stice, Stice, Swain, (2005). Accounting: Concepts and Applications (9th Ed. ). Quebecor World, Versailles, KY: South-Western, Thomson. Lebovits, N. (2006, August, 2006). Beyond Sarbanes-Oxley: Three best practices to adopt in your organization. Retrieved March, 2011, from http://www. aicpa. org/pubs/jofa/aug2006/lebovits. htm N. D. (2006). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Retrieved from http://www. soxlae. com The Journal of Accountancy (2007). Retrieved March, 2011, from http://www. aicpa. org/pubs/jofa/joahome. htm How to cite Importance of Financial Decision-Making in the Business World, Papers

Corporate Reporting Theory and Practice

Question: Discuss about the Corporate Reporting Theory and Practice. Answer: Introduction The purpose of this report is to discuss and analyse the exposure draft, International Financial Reporting Statements (IFRS) practice statement: Application of Materiality to Financial Statement developed by International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). The purpose of this exposure draft is to enable the preparers of financial reports to understand and assist them in utilizing the concept of materiality to general-purpose financial statements to be developed in accordance with IFRS. The report, therefore, would review the Exposure Draft, the Comment Letters from interested parties on the Exposure Draft, and other related sources. The report, critically evaluate whether the proposed Practice Statements in the Exposure Draft would assist the preparers of financial statements in providing useful information and users of financial information (shareholders and investors) in making economic decisions. IFRS Practice Statement: Application of Materiality to Financial Statements The objective of general-purpose financial statements is to present relevant financial information about the reporting organization in such a manner that is beneficial to the current and potential investors, shareholders, and other creditors in making financial decisions. The Exposure Draft of the IFRS Practice Statement is formulated to provide guidance and to assist financial managers in implementing the concept of materiality to general-purpose financial statements to be prepared in accordance with IFRS. Further, information is said to be material if excluding or misrepresenting it could influence end users decisions, which is based on specific reporting entity (Singh and Peters 2015). a) Role of proposed Exposure Draft in assisting the preparers of financial statements in providing useful information The proposed Exposure Draft would enable the preparers of financial statements in improving the managements understanding and assessment of materiality and would improve communication between the reporting organization and other parties such as auditors by providing a common platform for materiality discussions. IASB have issued the guidance as a non-mandatory Practice Statement as this is a just a guidance and should involve judgement on the part of preparers of financial statements (Cornelissen 2014). Practice statement acts a productive tool for assisting finance managers and other individuals who are responsible for preparation of financial statements. It also helps to highlight and to focus on matters which are of significant relevance to users while analysing the investment options. Further, making the Practice Statement as mandatory may result in inappropriate disclosures in the long-term, as the reporting entity might feel constrained in applying judgement for the cases that are under consideration and may opt for the safer outcomes of including a disclosure with a view to reducing the risk of an unfavourable audit opinion (Frias et al. 2013). In addition, if the Practice Statement is issued as a mandatory form, preparers of financial reports in the small entities who are less sophisticated, might look for prescriptive guidance and the approach would become rigid, thereby reducing the element of judgement in defining, what an entity considers as material information and what does not (Edgley et al. 2015). It is difficult in Practice Statement to provide a clearly defined framework to cover all possible situations; hence, the examples provided are helpful to exemplify the thought process that needs to be applied while considering materiality, particularly while accessing the consideration of marginal situations. Despite the examples in the draft Practice Statements to be helpful, but is too straightforward. However, the guidance would be more helpful, es pecially to the preparers in small organizations; if it includes both straightforward or direct examples and the examples that address situations that are more difficult and where the materiality assessment is more subjective. Further, practice statement also deals with misstatements of information such as presenting information ambiguously or obscuring material information. Therefore, it would be beneficial for the preparers of financial statements, if Practice Statements provides an example to show how the materiality of ambiguous material information is accessed (Crawford and Power 2015). It would be helpful if the Practice Statement provides proper definition of materiality, its subjective nature, and the various concepts of materiality suitable to different classes of users of financial statements, together with an example both qualitative and quantitative elements of materiality that may influence the users before the publication of financial reports. The Practice Statement ha s described quantitative factors as being insufficient alone to formulate the materiality statement. Therefore, it is important to address the inconsistencies with the definition of materiality. Some additional and more practical recommendations that should be included in the Exposure Draft regarding material disclosure that would guide the thought process of preparers may include Purchases of property, cash used in plant and equipment as investing activities of the cash flow statements (Rehwinkel and Gouws 2015). Additionally, exploratory capital and intellectual property investments could be discussed further in notes. Further, it would be beneficial if the examples are presented in a flow chart to enable the preparers of financial statements to undertake materiality review as the final exercise in completing the financial reports (Christian and Ldenbach 2013). b) Role of proposed Exposure Draft in assisting the preparers of financial statements in making economic decisions The practice statement would provide an opportunity for the users of financial statements to make more determined and informed information based on the financial reports. With the proper consideration of materiality, the preparers would be able to make better financial statements that would enable the users (shareholders, investors) to make quality decision and help in improving comparability among peer companies (Picker et al. 2013). The concept of materiality needs application of judgement. As the proposed Practice Statement is a non-mandatory guidance, it will allow the users of financial statements to have better comprehend the concepts of materiality and its impact on the financial reports and investment decisions. The elements of measurable criteria in materiality such as quantitative thresholds, qualitative assumptions, key metrics, would guarantee appropriate presentation of all materially relevant disclosures that would further assist the users of financial statements to ma ke better financial decisions (Owen 2013). The Practice Statement aims at providing the users with greater assistance by providing consistency and comparability in financial statements across peer companies. In the absence of proper guidance and framework on what elements to be considered as materially important to be included in the financial statements, there is huge difference in the elements of materiality across the industry. Therefore, by providing a non-mandatory guidance the IASB aims at reducing the gap and provides end user a uniform platform to compare the financial statements and make relevant decision (Morris et al. 2013). Although, the Practice Statements basically targets the prepares of financial statements to make them understand the concept of materiality and its impact on the final financial reports, the users are also affected as the purpose of these financial statements is to inform the end-users to make financial decisions (Crawford and Power 2015). The proper identification of material elements would inform users of financial statements about the extent of investment outlays incurred in order to achieve the organizational performance goals. However, the proposed Practice Statements should suggest a method that requires certain decisive questions to be answered in order to establish the level of importance that should be given to a business transaction (Black and Maggina 2016). The current practice statement does not provide a systematic and step-by-step approach in reaching dependable and comparable conclusions across the peer organizations. Material information and its impact on the stakeholders decisions is governed by the degree to which their decisions to hold, buy or sell their stake in the entity could be confirmed, reinforced or altered. These decisions are based on many elements such as earnings in context to future performance; total capital investments, cash burn rate of the entity, and other factors and materiality play a big role in it (Deegan 2013). Conclusion From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the current draft developed by IASB that provides guidance to the preparers and users of financial statements is a positive step towards enhancing the corporate reportings. From the feedback provided by the preparers and users of financial statements, it is clear that the concept of materiality in the financial reporting is widely disputed and subjective issue. Therefore, IASB has proposed the draft as a guidance principle that allows for subjective nature of materiality. The current proposal is holistic and provides outline for understanding the materiality in financial reporting and its impact on the decision making by the users of financial statements. The proposed draft would assist the preparers of financial statement to have better understanding of the material components that needs to be included in a financial report of an entity. On the other hand it also assists the users of financial statement to have a transparent and tr ue representation of an entitys financial conditions and also assists in comparability of financial statements among peer business organizations for making investment decisions. References Black, E.L. and Maggina, A., 2016. The impact of IFRS on financial statement data in Greece.Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies,6(1), pp.69-90. Christian, D. and Ldenbach, N., 2013.IFRS essentials. John Wiley Sons. Cornelissen, J., 2014.Corporate communication: A guide to theory and practice. Sage. Crawford, L. and Power, D.M., 2015. Perceptions of external auditors, preparers and users of financial statements about the adoption of IFRS 8.Journal of Applied Accounting Research,16(1), pp.2-27. Deegan, C., 2013.Financial accounting theory. McGraw-Hill Education Australia. Edgley, C., Jones, M.J. and Atkins, J., 2015. The adoption of the materiality concept in social and environmental reporting assurance: A field study approach.The British Accounting Review,47(1), pp.1-18. Frias Aceituno, J.V., Rodriguez Ariza, L. and Garcia Sanchez, I.M., 2013. The role of the board in the dissemination of integrated corporate social reporting.Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management,20(4), pp.219-233. Morris, R.D., Gray, S.J., Pickering, J. and Aisbitt, S., 2013. Preparers' Perceptions of the Costs and Benefits of IFRS: Evidence from Australia's Implementation Experience.Accounting Horizons,28(1), pp.143-173. Owen, G., 2013. Integrated reporting: A review of developments and their implications for the accounting curriculum.Accounting Education,22(4), pp.340-356. Picker, R., Leo, K., Loftus, J., Wise, V.J., Clark, K. and Alfredson, K., 2013.Applying international financial reporting standards. Milton: Wiley. Rehwinkel, A. and Gouws, D., 2015. Towards the conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory.The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa,11(3), p.23. Singh, M. and Peters, S.J., 2015. Materiality: Investor Perspectives, Milton: Wiley.