What do you understand by the network society How has the network Essay

What do you understand by the network society How has the network society changed the ways in which we work and interact - Essay Example In essence globalization emerged with national boundaries becoming porous. Gradually, people began to view themselves as a ‘global village’ national and geographic boundaries began to disappear, and work began to have no distinction of time, space or organizational hierarchy in the information society (Malamud 1997). Through network society, Information, Communication Technology (ICTS) have come up with numerous social, political and economic phenomena, a term that emerged from various theorists to explain a society that is connected by mass and telecommunication networks. Additionally, the ICTs demonstrate a society as a transformation era from an industrial age to an information age, which is central to the working of the economy. This enables annihilation of space and facilitates globalization. Of importance to note is that, network society is a global network that has led to decentralization of organization from vertical hierarchies to horizontal corporations. Large corporations decentralize themselves as networks of semi-autonomous units (Barney 2004) In a network society there exist a network economy, which acts as a new, efficient form of organization of production, distribution and management that facilitates substantial increase in productivity growth rate especially in the United States and related countries that have adopted these new forms of economic organization. In fact, many businesses have increasingly adopted a virtual approach to work space. This situation has led to evolution of business into a large organization a network that contains workforce that is distributed over diverse locations and time zones. These working forms have continually created new cultures and forms of belonging, over and above, gaining identity (Nikravesh 2004). Social Networking In light of the network society, social network has enormously contributed to a global village as would be expected. Essentially, social networking incorporates informal, transien t forms of association such as gossip flow, mobilization of social movements and political movements with the inclusion of maintenance of patron -client relations, known or unknown to each other. Besides, social networking incorporates individuals or groups who are liked by a common bond, shared social status, similar or shared functions, as well as, geographic and cultural connection. Needless to mention, social networking as web based services that give individuals to generate a public or semi public profile that is within a bounded system. It further articulates a list of users with whom they share a connection over and above being able to see what has been generated by other users in the system (Dijk 2012). As part of the information age, social networking lays its focus building online communities of people who have share interests, or are interested in searching the interest of others. Such sites include facebook, my space, twitter among others. Communication in social net wor king includes instant messaging, email, blogging and many more. This makes it easier to maintain ties simultaneously with several people, a situation that would not be possible without the presence of ICTs. In workplaces, social networking has been rated as one among the technologies that have significantly led to business development in the twenty-first century. As a result of this, maintaining professional networking has become crucial to businesses in relation to project and teamwork. For instance, those organisations that have invested in social networking

Individual Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Individual - Assignment Example Comparative ratio analysis2 is effective if the financial statements of the organizations being assessed are of the same financial period. Financial period disparity may distort the effectiveness of ratio analysis and may therefore lead to unreliable conclusions. Therefore, I will compare the performance of these three organizations using financial statements based on averages for the last three years, 2011 to 2013. These financial statements are provided in the appendices. The primary concern of every firm is to increase its profitability, as most investors will first look at the profits in evaluating the performance of that firm. Profitability ratios measure the operating success of a company for a given financial period. When the profit figure is expressed as a percentage of sales or capital employed, these ratios can be compared with those of previous years, or those from companies in the same industry. The net profit margin shows how much of each sales dollar shows up as net income after all expenses are paid. The net profit margin measures profitability after consideration of all expenses including taxes, interest, and depreciation. Here the higher NPM indicates higher profitability of the firm. The calculation is:  Net Income/Net Sales = _____%. The Return on Equity ratio is perhaps the most important of all the financial ratios to investors in the company. It measures the return on the money the investors have put into the company. This is the ratio potential investors look at when deciding whether or not to invest in the company. The calculation is:  Net Income/Stockholders Equity  = _____%. Financial leverage ratios assess how much financial risk the company has taken on and measure the company’s ability to survive over a long period3. A company that has borrowed money obviously has a commitment to pay future