Let the Punishment Fit the Crime Essay

If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime or how about let the punishment fit the crime. These two statements have been around for years. If someone commits a crime they should be punish but to what extent? Should similar crimes be dealt with the same? Such as if a person had a small amount of marijuana for personal use in a car at school, or they had an ounce of marijuana in their vehicle in a school zone. Should the law treat these incidents the same? Or should they treat these cases differently? Some people believe you should be sentence to a mandatory jail term no matter what crime you commit. They feel this will deter people from committing crimes. Others feel criminals are doing too much time for mostly none violent criminal activity which put a strain on entire communities. This debate has been brewing for years. Are mandatory minimum sentences doing more harm than good? The movement to establish mandatory minimum sentences for drug related offenses began in the early 1950†s and gained momentum in the early 1970s (Carrillo, 2000). At this time the judge had the discretion of giving the defendant a mandatory sentence or a more lenient sentence. In 1986 the law was changed were as the judge lost the power to make a choice in the length of a sentence he or she could impose on an offender. They had to follow strict sentencing guidelines which some judges was even oppose to. The main reason for the mandatory minimum sentences during the earlier stages in the game was due to the growing drug trade. This was a losing effort by law enforcement to stop the trafficking of drugs into the United States. In the eyes of many this obviously didn’t work. As time went on the drug trade became bigger and better with more sophisticated technics and more potent drugs.

Killing vs Letting Die

In a paper entitled â€Å"Why Does Removing Machines Count as Passive Euthanasia?† Dr. Patrick D. Hopkins argues that â€Å"the removal of a machine which substitutes for a failed vital organ is equivalent to removing that life-sustaining organ.†( Killing 2004 p. 1). In this scenario, removing a breathing machine such as BiPap that essentially breathes for the patient when they are unable to breathe for themselves, would be tantamount to removing the patient’s lung in order to stop him from breathing. The ground becomes a little shaky if we rely on this theory; the patient or surrogate making decisions for the patient, when confronted with a terminally ill medical situation,   asks that all â€Å"life-support† machines and feeding tubes be removed. Is the doctor or nurse who performs this act of mercy â€Å"killing† the patient, or just removing artificial means of life and â€Å"letting die?†Ã‚   Unlike Dr. Hopkins, I don’t feel tha t â€Å"pulling the plug,† or ceasing life support machines is equal in any way to cutting out a vital organ. I believe â€Å"letting die† is a morally responsible act, while actively â€Å"killing† is quite another matter.Many people make a distinction between passive euthanasia and active euthanasia.   While the AMA maintains that people have a â€Å"right to die with dignity,† and believe it â€Å"morally permissible,† for a physician to allow the death of a person who is suffering unmercifully and has an incurable disease, they are unwilling to â€Å"countenance active euthanasia for a person who is in similar straits, but who has the misfortune not to be suffering from an illness that will result in a speedy death.† (Tooley 2006 p. 1).   Therefore, while a patient might have a terminal illness and be in extreme pain, if the illness is not likely to kill them fairly quickly, euthanasia is not an option, rather they are required to su ffer for a lengthy period of time before receiving assistance in ending their lives.This becomes a very touchy moral issue, with passionate arguments on both sides.   The motives of a person who intentionally kills someone is surely more evil than the motives of a person who lets someone die, most especially if the motives for letting that person die are purely non-selfish and a result of empathy for the person’s pain.   Watching a loved one die slowly and painfully is a hardship on those who love them as well as the person themselves. When a beloved member of your family is begging you to â€Å"let them go,† how can it be morally wrong to grant that wish?In the realm of withholding treatment versus withdrawing treatment, the consensus seems to be that if withholding treatment can be justified, then withdrawing it can be justified by the same criteria. (Jennings 2001 p. 2).   The reality is that while administering treatment that may, in fact, have to be later wi thdrawn buys time in the sense that the physician is able come to a solid prognosis of the patient’s chances for survival, many ethicists feel that it is â€Å"easier to justify not starting treatment.†Ã‚   (Jennings 2001 p. 2).   So, while administering treatment may allow the doctor, patient and family members time to accept the reality of the imminent death of a loved one, doctors are hesitant to administer treatment that they are fairly certain will have to be withdrawn somewhere down the line, and find it easier to let nature take it’s course in the first place.Life sustaining treatments are considered to be: mechanical ventilation, dialysis, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, antibiotics, transfusions, nutrition and hydration.   While most of us are relatively â€Å"okay† with the idea of withdrawing (or not administering in the first place) the mechanical ventilation, dialysis, or performing CPR, we are less okay with the idea of removing a feeding tube and iv’s or not administering antibiotics.We equate these acts in some sense as â€Å"starving† our loved one to death, or making them do without water, and we see this more as torture than assisting an inevitable death. The fact is that dehydration can produce a sedative effect on the brain, making the dying process more tolerable, so essentially it is an issue in our minds rather than one based on reality.   Technically it is all the same; if a person is unable to feed themselves in the traditional way, or drink a glass of water, then feeding tubes and IV’s are artificial means of keeping a person alive. However, if we were to disallow these basic medical care issues, many, many, people who go on to live happy, productive lives, would surely die.The question becomes to what degree are we good with measures to sustain life? Many times â€Å"comfort measures† are determined to be the most solid course, and, in general, family members are much more agreeable to allowing a loved one to die provided they are still administered IV’s, feeding tubes and pain medication.Extraordinary measures may in some cases be determined by the level of technological complexity, yet this can be misleading. â€Å"Certain procedures for providing artificial nutrition and hydration, for example, are technologically rather complex, whereas administering chemotherapy is not.†Ã‚   (Policy 2006 p. 3).   Therefore, we cannot say that administering chemotherapy is a rather simple procedure, therefore only an â€Å"ordinary† means of treatment while the complex artificial nutrition system must then be â€Å"extraordinary.†Ã‚   There must, therefore, be an assessment of the â€Å"benefits and burdens for the patient that each procedure or treatment provides.† (Policy 2006 p. 3).CPR is generally used to restore breathing capabilities to someone whose breathing has been interrupted for whatever reason. Because resuscitati on has no value in the management of terminal diseases, but is rather intended to return a person in a health crisis to a normal healthy state, CPR, while certainly an extraordinary, live-saving measure, is not a factor in a terminally ill patient. Mechanical ventilation may be ethically removed from a terminally ill patient at their request, just as blood transfusions may be refused by the patient who is terminally ill.Tony Bland was a victim of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster when football fans were crushed and 95 people died.   Tony survived but was in a coma that doctors believed he would never emerge from. (Tony Bland 2006 p. 1).   Tony could breathe on his own and all his vital organs functioned normally on his own. He could digest food but could not feed himself, so was put on feeding tubes.Because we don’t consider food and water â€Å"medicine,† but rather basic necessities to stay alive, the feeding tube for Tony Bland could not be considered â€Å"treatm ent,† and because Mr. Bland was not actually dying at the time, his food and fluids would have had to be withdrawn in order for him to die. The courts ordered, after four years of Mr. Bland being in a â€Å"permanent vegetative state,† that the fluids and feeding tubes be removed, and he be allowed to die, a process that took nearly two weeks as well as causing the suffering of his family.   (Tony Bland 2006 p. 2).The issue of medical euthanasia is one that will be debated passionately for many years to come, with ethical arguments on both sides.Works CitedJennings, Bruce (February 2001). Medical Ethics and Clinical Practice. Retrieved onMay 29, 2006 from:http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1071269Killing vs. Letting Die (June 13, 2004). Should Removal of Mechanical Life SupportMachine at the Request of a Patient be Considered Killing or Letting the PatientDie? Retrieved May 30, 2006 from:http://www.hsc.usc.edu/~mbernste/ethics.killingvs.lettingdie.h tmlPolicy (2006). Policy on Forgoing Life Sustaining or Death-Prolonging Therapy.Retrieved on May 30, 2006 from:http://www.clevelandclinic.org/bioethics/policies/policyonlifesustaining/ccfcode.htmlTony Bland. (2006). Tony Bland and PVS – Euthanasia. Retrieved June 1, 2006 from:http://www.spucscotland.org/education/students/euthanasia/tonyblandpvs.html.Tooley, Michael (2006). An Irrevelant Consideration: Killing versus Letting Die.Retrieved May 30, 2006 from:http://www.sunysuffolk.edu/pecorip/SCCCWEB/ETEXTS/DeathandDylingTEXT/Tooley

Oliver Twist- Development Phase Essay

In our drama class, our teacher Mrs. Oteng had asked us to develop on our performance of Oliver Twist. We had previously performed the response phase which was a role play with the main scenes of the novel by Charles Dickens. In the topic of crime in society, in which we were covering, the novel of ‘Oliver Twist’ had allowed the class to have an insight of crime in the olden periods compared to today. By seeing the angle in both perspectives, it allowed the class to realise the consequences today and before and how crime affected lives. The development phase was all based on developing the performance with the use of light, props, tone, levels and music. The change in the play would allow the audience to see how these strategies changed the emotion in a play and how it bought life to it. The people who I decided to work with were Vishna, Daanish and Moshgan. We worked well together and everyone in the group had imaginative ideas. With the idea of bringing out a different side to each character we enhanced the performance by taking on the role of just a few of the characters and showing a complete opposite to what they are really like. Bill Sikes was played by Daanish in the first scene. He played the usual murderer who killed without mercy and who never looked back. However, I played a homosexual and sensitive Bill Sikes who was the complete opposite to him. In this case I was his conscience and I was playing the same way he was but in my own version. This allowed the audience to see what a different personality of Bill would have done to the real play of Oliver Twist. Similarly, Vishna played Nancy as the gentle and kind-hearted woman we knew, while Moshgan played the cold-hearted, stuck-up complete opposite to the real character to Nancy. By doing this we could keep to the same storyline but we allowed the audience to see what it was like if the characters had a little change in their personality. We also focused on the relationship between Nancy and Bill Sikes. In the novel, they had a loveless and tactless relationship, while in our play we took it from the real angle and in a real, loving relationship. This created a contrast in the play which allowed the audience to see both perspectives. This was the aim of our play and I believe the audience easily understood that. I believe that our group did extremely well and the audience enjoyed it. It was one of the most complicated plays to put together because of the changes in the scenes and the change of characters as a group. However, the use of props allowed each of the characters to be distinguished easily and the audience understood who each one of us was; more efficiently. I wore a tight shirt, which showed my homosexual character and the way in which I was holding my body was convincing. Daanish wore a puffy jacket which showed his authority and toughness. Moshgan wore a tight pink top which showed of her body which showed that she was a prostitute while Vishna wore neutral clothes which did not need to reveal much. The use of props really helped to enhance our drama. Towards the end of our drama, Mrs. Oteng played a piece of sad and somber music which really enhanced our drama when Nancy was getting beaten by Bill Sikes which lead to her death. The music made the audience feel more connected to the drama and the music added emotion to the drama and bought sympathy for Vishna’s character. We did not use light in our performance as we found it was unnecessary. However, we used different tones in our voices’ and we used different levels on stage and even off stage. We used the explorative strategies well enough for top marks. On a whole, our class had many individual thought-tracks which showed how I characters felt which was equally as important. My thought-tracks were very comedic which made the audience laugh after all the violence and upsetting scenes which were to follow. By saying things like, ‘I shave the hairs on my chest’, made the audience laugh. I believe that a little humour would ease the audience a little bit and that is why I was the only comedic character as we had to keep to the topic of crime. Under the topic of ‘Crime in Society’, I believe that our play showed domestic violence the most and this was our main focus. Domestic violence occurs a lot in today’s society but also in the olden days. The points we were conveying were that it was as bad then, then as today. On a whole, I was pleased with my group’s performance and I enjoyed working with them. I was now told to observe another groups performance and comment on the way in which they developed their drama. The group that I decided to observe was with Louise, Mohammed, Aiman, Sumhar, Anthony and Maya. This group had six people and I believed that they worked very well together to come up with a performance which included everybody. They changed Sumhar’s role as ‘Oliver Twist’ to Olivia Twist. Each character kept in role and they used the drama equally as well. Each of the character’s thought-tracked and they used levels and tones in their voices to enhance their drama. Their play was based on the scene where Olivia gets kidnapped by Fagin and Bill Sikes for Nancy’s pleasure. Nancy played by Maya had also changed her role from being a nice, kind-hearted woman to a frail, evil woman. This was similar to our group’s idea and this was effective as only one of the characters had changed personality. I loved watching this performance, each c haracter was in role and I understood the storyline very well. The aspect of Crime in Society in this play was based on kidnappings, people owing money, poverty and how this all leads to deaths in society. On a whole, I believe that by developing the play of ‘Oliver Twist’, I learnt the consequences of crime in the olden days. I t also taught me how to enhance a play by taking a simple idea from a particular scene and by working on it to show the audience something they might not have realised or understood as much. I enjoyed working on the development phase and I believe that by developing the performance we encounter more. I would like to work on developing a performance in the future and I liked this part of the workshop the most.

Systems of Association Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Systems of Association - Assignment Example The company’s failure is believed to have been caused by the continued reliance on glory achieved during its years of success and the way in which the company responded to the new competition (Sull 352). Sull argues that failure to respond effectively to the new technology and competition caused the company’s failure. Firestone began experiencing rivalry in the mid 1960s, whereby its competitors had an ambition to restructure the tire market industry. They joined the market by introducing radial tires and achieved positive response. Statistics show that one million units were sold each year for almost five years (Olson and Levi 391). Their accomplishment is attributed to their mode of advertising whereby they ensured the right information reached their target markets. Their marketing policy involved promotions and presenting that the innovated tires had a longer life, improved safety and were considerably cheap. On the other hand, Firestone decided to restructure their tires into radial ones (Sull 360). Their decision was based on that complete transfer to the new technology would result to enormous investment. This decision resulted to accelerating activities in their past success. According to Professor Sull, the history of success acquired in the late 1960s turned out to be its greatest enemy, hence, its downfall. The article â€Å"Battles in the Seattle† aimed at clarifying the important nature of political expression that creates success in trans-nationalization of social movements. It also verified that protests do not always bring forth the expected results. In fact, strikes can provoke contradicting measures. According to the article, workers in Seattle have demonstrated thrice striking in 1919, 1934, and 1999. In 1919, a strike in the Seattle city caused a five-day shutdown of the city (Olson and Levi 389). In 1934, a group of protesters caused the closure of several cities among them Seattle and Tacoma (Olson and Levi 392). These battles had similar objectives, which revolved around better conditions for workers in the Seattle region. It is essential to note that the workers involved in the 1999 strike meant for a peaceful demonstration. However, intervention from an unknown group of people caused the government to turn the Seattle streets into police war grounds. The police demanded peace by using teargas, rubber bullets, pepper sprays and other items like grenades (Olson and Levi 399). In all the battles, a group of people demonstrated against the World Trade Organizations. Nevertheless, the strike was considered a failure and a waste of time since the workers did not achieve their goals. The strike ended without recognition of their demands that included bargains for salaries, improved work conditions, and benefits. According to a number of critics, the strike planners and leaders lacked an objective and an identifiable program for the five-day strikes. The leaders in all the strikes embarked on using sim ilar ways as used in the previous ones. Just like the failure experienced by the Firestone Company, the workers strike failed. Their failure can be attributed to the dependence of already used strategies. Firestone had experienced continued success with their methods of marketing and were not willing to adapt new ones. In my opinion, remaining with the already successful

Human diversity in working with individuals of minority status Essay

Human diversity in working with individuals of minority status - Essay Example How perceived discrimination against minorities affects the overall organizational behavior, and how supporting diversity negates the negative effects of this discrimination, is the research problem the author has brought forward. The problem statement very well goes with the title the author has suggested and has good scholastic importance. The problem can be well understood by an average reader and the research is not limited to the author’s own aptitudes and ideas. This research seeks to test the chief hypothesis that workplace racial discrimination leads employees to link the organization with procedural injustice. This is the main point the author has claimed in the different hypotheses that he has stated. The author’s main research questions are- why employees’ perception of racial discrimination leads to affected organizational environment? How is it linked to procedural justice or perception about it? And what steps organizations should make to support diversity so that procedural justice is fostered? The author has given an extensive review of literature citing other researchers’ works, and explaining them, in order to support the need to conduct this specific research. He has cited many researches which discuss the importance of diversity and procedural justice in organizations. The author asserts that despite all past research, this study is going to fill the gap in the existing literature by giving even greater consideration toward devising strategies to support organizational diversity. The author has studied literature which is almost current. The design of the research is quantitative. The author, with the help of past research works, has worked upon a grounded theory that explains the link between racial discrimination and overall organizational environment. The methodology used to gather statistics and

Investigation of variables for monitoring muscle fatigue in EMG Essay

Investigation of variables for monitoring muscle fatigue in EMG recordings - Essay Example Here the assessments are based on the analysis of signals produced during the activity of the muscle; contraction or relaxation. There are many algorithms used available for estimating the amplitude, frequency variables and conduction velocity of the surface EMG signal detected during voluntary contractions. Here the most widely accepted algorithms are studied and its advantages and drawbacks are outlined. Here the focus is made on the frequency analysis of surface EMG signal. The results obtained during the frequency analysis of surface EMG signifies the behavior of test signals based on mean and median frequency variables acquired using PSD estimation methods, namely Autoregressive and Periodogram. Here an electromyograph is record the signals generated during the electrical or neurological excitation of the muscle cells and these recorded signals are then subjected to spectral analysis. The frequency responses of the signals are considered assessments are made accordingly. â€Å" Surface EMG signals are decomposed into 32-subbands by using a cosine modulated filter bank. Both the instantaneous mean frequency (IMF) and the instantaneous amplitude (IA) are estimated from the sub bands and are used as indicators of muscle fatigue† (McGoron, et al, 2009, P. 267). Table of Contents 1. Introduction 7 1.1. Power spectral density (PSD) 7 1.2. Spectrum estimation techniques 8 1.2.1. Fast Fourier transforms 9 1.2.2. Blackman turkey approach 10 1.2.3. Autoregressive method 11 1.2.4. Auto regressive moving average model 12 1.3 EMG 13 1.4. Application of PSD in EMG 13 2. Literature on Application 14 3. Discussion 17 3.1 deterministic function 18 3.2. Stochastic function 18 3.3 induction of autoregressive approach 19 4. Results 31 4.1. Deterministic 31 4.1.1. Test signal 1 31 4.1.2 Test signal 2 37 4.2. Stochastic 46 4.2.1. Test signal 4 46 4.2.2 Test signal 5 53 4.2.3 Test signal 6 57 5. Advantages of EMG and PSD 63 5. Conclusion 64 1. Introduction: At the present era medical literature considers human muscle fatigue as a physical phenomenon that starts during the onset of a muscle contraction and develops progressively until the muscle cannot generate force, the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) reduces during muscle fatigue. Here spectral analysis is used to examine the nature of signals recorded in the electromyograph due the electrical activity of the muscle fibers. 1.1 power spectral density (PSD): Power spectral density (PSD) is the frequency response of a random or periodic signal and indicates where power is distributed as a function of frequency. PSD is deterministic and for certain types of random signals independent of time. It shows the strength and weakness of the signals at different frequency levels. The frequency level of the signal is drawn against time to get the spectra. Waveform can be represented by a plot of amplitude versus frequency together with a plot of phase versus frequency, respectively known as the amplitude a nd phase spectra. Amplitude and phase

Underdetermination and holism Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Underdetermination and holism - Coursework Example This fact from the history of the growth of science shows us that the issue that the problem of undeterminism of scientific theories raises is a real issue that cannot be merely dismissed as a case of philosophical doubt. 2. A critical look at Laudan’s proposed dissolution of undeterminism shows that the Laudan’s dissolution can be used in defence of scientific realism. In his critique of undeterminism, Laudan argued that scientists and philosophers use the term undeterminism in a very loose manner. Laudan went on to argue that due to using the term undeterminism in a loose manner, the scientists and philosophers magnify the problem of undeterminism in science than the problem is. For Laudan, scientific theories are not undetermined in the sense that the theories are wholly undetermined as undeterminism hold, but scientific theories are undetermined only in the sense that the theories cannot be absolutely verified by any set of evidence. For Laudan, although, scientific theories are not absolutely verifiable by any set of evidence, scientific theories, however, are testable and their conclusions are tentative. For this reason, Laudan concluded that scientific theories can give us object ive, but tentative knowledge. A critical look at this view shows that Laudan’s dissolution of undeterminism can be used in defence of scientific realism. This is because scientific realism hold the view that scientific theories are tentative and scientific knowledge, therefore, is tentative; Laudan holds the same view. 3. A critical look at Dunhem’s problem shows that the problem doesn’t really extend to the Quinean holism about about logic, mathematics and science. This is because Dunhem holds that scientific theories are undetermined because it is impossible to test a scientific hypothesis or theory in isolation since scientific theories are interrelated and the test of any scientific

Leadership in Difficult Times Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Leadership in Difficult Times - Research Paper Example A beautiful landscape comprising of Colorado Mountains: Mt. Antero, Mt. Princeton and Chalk Cliffs, surrounds the Ranch which increases the attraction of the place. The Wolmingtons have been the most gracious and kind hosts in the entire Colorado as their guests (more of clients) continue to repeat their returns year after year. There are guest rooms, family lunches and dinners, hunting time with exciting adventures and do-it-yourself guides that allow their clients to feel at home (â€Å"DVR†, 2012). After the death of Clara, Parker thought he was left alone. However, his fourth generation has now taken over the Deer Valley Ranch operations and continues to offer the same homely feeling and adventure to their guests which Parker and Clara together provided. At the age of 94, Parker died in 2011. Now, Levi, Halley, Cora, Daniel and Jordan are the heirs of the Deer Valley Ranch and have to ensure that it continues to thrive like before. Today is 19th March, 2012. Daniel woke up from his bed after a beautiful night sleep. It has been almost five months since Parker’s death, and things have been moving smoothly. Daniel smiled and lazily moved towards the morning newspaper lying on the breakfast table. Levi was in the kitchen and beautiful aroma of baked bread and hot coffee drifting from there and fresh morning air from the Colorado Mountains broadened Daniel’s smile even further. ... All of them like Daniel for his leadership qualities and the ability to envisage team working spirit in the Ranch that has only benefitted the entire Ranch family which includes its clients. But things do not remain all the same every day. Daniel took up the newspaper and all of a sudden, his smile turned into a horror stricken one. A shout from his mouth left Levi stranded between the desire to run to Daniel and the bread in the oven that was only seconds from ready. Levi’s mind decided for the former and she ran to Daniel who was pulling hard on the arm chair. â€Å"What happened?† asked Levi. Getting no response, she filled a glass of water and put it to Daniel’s lips. He took a long swallow of water and his mind started working. â€Å"We are in the recessions. Prices of food and inflation have risen tremendously and we have 7,000 deer and one goat in the Ranch to feed. How are we going to save our Ranch within no time?† said Daniel with a perplexed exp ression. â€Å"Don’t worry, everything will be alright†, answered Levi with a confident smile. â€Å"We just need to inform others and devise a strategy to save the deer from dying† said Levi. â€Å"Yes, you are right. Let me call Jordan, Halley and Cora. We should immediately sort out this matter†, exclaimed Daniel. Within an hour, all of the five heirs of Deer Valley Ranch were sitting outside the Ranch House. â€Å"We have to save our Grandparent’s Ranch as it means everything to us. The prices of the food have increased three times as of today’s newspaper. We have 7,000 deer and only one goat in the Ranch, which means we will not be able to provide the required level of food in terms of quantity and quality to

What are the arguments for and against the dropping of the atomic Essay

What are the arguments for and against the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan Was this decision justified What alternatives existed - Essay Example Did President Truman authorize the bombing solely as a means to put an end to a bloody, prolonged conflict and to ultimately save both American and Japanese lives due to an impending invasion on Japan’s homeland or was the decision based on assuring that the Soviet Union would not have a say in post-war Asia is it had in post-war Europe? Finally, even if it is assumed that the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima was necessary and justifiable, was the second bomb on Nagasaki justifiable as well? While the battles for the Philippines and Okinawa were taking place, President Truman, who had become president following the death of Roosevelt, was considering an invasion of the Japanese mainland. By now, the U.S. Navy had ships stationed just off the Japanese coast while its submarines were deployed in the Sea of Japan. Because the battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa were very fierce, it was estimated that half a million to a million soldiers would be killed if the scheduled November 1, 1945 invasion of Japan occurred (â€Å"Decision to Drop†, 2003). In addition, President Truman was contemplating that if the Japanese would quickly surrender prior to the Soviet Union becoming involved in the war, set for August 15, Russia could not demand a part in the post-war settlement. When America unleashed the atomic bomb on Japan, the act infuriated the Soviet Union because it wanted its say just as it had in the carving up of Eastern Europe. This was the beginning of the Cold War betw een the Soviet Union and the U.S. (Lewis, 2002). The war in the Pacific theater culminated in the dropping of two atomic bombs in 1945 on cities in Japan affecting surrender (Goldstein & Dillon, 1981). On the clear morning of August 6, the first atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, was dropped on the city of Hiroshima† (â€Å"Atomic Bomb†, 2007). The blast leveled more than half of that city. Seventy

Gaps Model of Service Quality Essay Example for Free

Gaps Model of Service Quality Essay Model are knowledge gap, standards gap, delivery gap and communication gap. Knowledge gap is the difference between customers’ expectations and the retailer’s perception of these customer’s expectations. This occurs when a person do not know what the customers expect or want. By applying knowledge gap to Hamp;M retail store, it refers to the salesperson not knowing what their customers expect/want. For example, a customer visiting the Hamp;M store may expect fast checkout at the cashier and shorter queuing time at the fitting rooms. However, the salesperson may think that the customers do not mind queuing for a longer time but would prefer friendly assistance from them and better quality clothes. Hence, such difference between customers’ expectations and retailer’s perception of their customers’ expectations will lead to knowledge gap. In order to reduce the knowledge gap, surveys, interactions and customer complaints can be done. Firstly, Hamp;M can carry out survey after each individual transaction. Hamp;M can conduct their surveys or feedback forms by distributing to every customer after they have made their payment. After they are done filling up the survey on their overall visit at Hamp;M, they can hand up their forms to the salesperson at the counter. Otherwise, Hamp;M can place a feedback box at the side to make things easier for everyone. Secondly, is through interacting with their customers and staffs. Hamp;M can get valuable feedbacks from their store employees on ways to improve on certain areas based on theirs or customer’s suggestions and comments. Apart from that, Hamp;M can actually interact with their customers through social media such as Facebook, Twitter etc. Since social media are widely used nowadays, customers would post constructive comments or feedbacks on social media such as on their Facebook walls. Hamp;M can effectively interact with their customers through such social platforms and better understand what customers expect or want. Lastly, through customer complaints, Hamp;M will then be able to find out their problem and rectify it to further improve on their services, etc. Standards Gap is the difference between the retailer’s perception of customers’ expectations and the service standards it sets. For example, the service standards Hamp;M sets for all their salesperson may be to bring the customer to that specific section when he or she asked where it is. However, the retailer’s perception of customers’ expectations may be just to direct and point out to them which level and which part it is located at instead of bringing them all the way to the area they want. Hence, such difference between the retailer’s perception of customers’ expectations and the service standards it sets will lead to standards gap. In order to reduce the standards gap, strong commitment to service quality by the top management should be done. Top management should give information and training to their service staff so as to provide quality service to their customers. Also, give clear definition of the roles of service providers by setting specific and measurable goals based on customer’s expectations. Lastly, to measure service performance of their service staffs, surveys and mystery shopping could be conducted to see how well their employees fare when they serve a customer. All these would help to set appropriate standards to deliver high quality service to their customers. Delivery gap is the difference between the retailer’s service standards and the actual service provided to customers. In this case, Hamp;M is not applicable to delivery gap as this service quality is immeasurable as there is no specific time a salesperson is given to assist or â€Å"clear† their customers. Communication gap is the difference between the retailer’s actual service and the service that the retailer’s communication programme promises. Likewise, this is also not applicable to Hamp;M as it is a retailer store rather than a transport service that needs to deliver an actual time to the customers.

Advantages of E-banking

Advantages of E-banking Chapter 1: Introduction Introduction Nowadays, Malaysia is a multi sector economy and technology development based on the presence of many technological inventions. Traditional banking act as physical bank and delivery channel which to give customers to place or get their money out of the bank safety deposit boxes, managing checking or current accounts, paying cheques drawn by customers. However, e-banking is one of the technological inventions that give conveniences to customers to manage financial transactions on a secure website performed by retail or virtual bank, credit union or building society. E-banking is also called electronic banking which is the automated delivery of new banking services and products directly to customers through electronic, interactive communication channels. It brings many benefits and capabilities to customer compared to traditional banking. E-banking is fast and convenient way of using computer to easy access to the bank in 24hours. E-banking utilizes the internet system as the delivery channel by which to accomplish banking activity, for example, paying bills, transferring funds, viewing checking and savings account balances, paying mortgages and purchasing financial instruments and certificates of deposits (Haque et al, 2009). Internet banking enable customers to access their general information and accounts of bank products and services through PC or other intelligent device using web browser software on 24 hours a day and 7days a week, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft internet explorer (Mohamad, Hanudin, Suddin, Noren, 2007). The development in information technology have had an tremendous effect in development of more flexible payment methods and more user-friendly banking services in the world of banking (Serkan, Safak, Eda, 2004). There are some features that fall into several categories of internet banking which are transactional, non-transactional, financial institution administration, support of multiple users having varying levels of authority, transaction approval process and wire transfer. In transactional, e-banking act as account and financial transactions, pay bills, wire transfer and apply for loan or new account, investment purchase or sale and others. Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) is an electronic billing which customer can pay bill and receives payment easily, faster, and conveniently over anywhere and any times. Customer perception is interpretation of sensory mind and experienced by customer. The convenience of e-banking are attracted customers and provided no cost charged to customers. Customers have started accepting this internet service and assessing the banks based on their easy to access and convenience. With great confidence toward e-banking, customers are willing uses the internet banking to transfer fund, pay bills, and lot more with a excellent-secured system. It also can establish the relationship between trust and loyalty of customer toward e-banking. Internet banking in USA and Europe The dramatic growth in internet usage has generated a segment of customers with the ability and desire to conduct banking transactions completely online (Mathew and George, 2003). The internet explosion in the late-1990s brings people more convenience with various applications over the web. In the mid-1990s, customers using internet as monetary business transaction over the web as the financial institutions had implemented e-banking. The majority of US-based banks are escalating their investment in technology and hedging their bets while research specifies that a substantial portion of the customer base may always demand the type of personal interaction that can only be provided by individual branch personnel (Alstad, 2002). TowerGroups prediction is highlighted by CRMToday on IT spending by large banks in USA, which the amounts is 24.1 billion in 2004 as compare to 22 billion in 2002. Besides that, many US banks, such as Bank of America and Umpqua Bank are lending from social media channels, offering social networking, pod casting, web casts and other interactive tools. Now competitors can establish an internet bank for as little as $6 million in the USA compared to the cost of setting up a traditional brick and mortar bank (estimated at between $25 and $30 million) (Nathan, 1999). CRMToday (2003a) also stated that without major consumers adoption internet banking would not achieve as profitable as promise although there are increasing in amounts of online banking customers. According to the European Central Bank in 2002 (centeno, 2003), the level of services and its quality differ according to the country and the banks even though all main banks provide internet banking services. Bughin, 2001 investigated that the adoption rate is examined to be averaging only 17% of internet users or less than 6% of total bank customers. The author also stated that there are 60% internet customers do not have subject in buying books, CDs or low valued item through online but are reluctant to create online banking transactions. Furthermore, there are differences of internet banking adoption also existed among some countries in Europe. Around 18-25% of populations in Estonia are utilizing internet banking services whereas Italian bank had about no on-line customers by early 2000, banks in Malta initiated internet banking services in December 2002 (Centeno, 2003). Furthermore, there are differences of adoption among banks within the same country. Bughin (2001) stated an example, a leading banks in France have diffusion rate over 11% while minor bank such as the credit commercial de France have translated only 2% of its customers to online for the same period. Internet banking in Turkey In Turkey, there are over 18% of banking customers using e-banking actively (Jamaluddin, Osman, Sukru and Kemal, 2008). Since 1997 internet banking has been recognized as a feasible alternative distribution channel by Turkish commercial banks due to the deregulation in the financial sector, escalation of computer literacy, the rapid diffusion of electronic commerce, strong commitments to reduce operating costs, changing customer demands for innovative financial products and services and create customer convenience (Hakan, 2008). Due to the low cost of attracting customer to utilize internet banking and retaining existing innovation-demanding customers during the past two decades, most of Turkish commercial banks found it irresistible to invest large amounts in online banking although the customer take up of internet banking appeared to be very slow. In addition, the actual number of utilizing e-banking users appeared to be between 1 and 1.2 million (30%) in 2003 although 2million people (50%) were forecasted to utilize e-banking by 2003 (Akinci, 2004; Celik, 2002; Ozkan, 2003). Furthermore, in turkey the numbers of active internet banking accounts are escalating from 150,000 in 2000 to 5.5 million in 2007 and grew annually by 68 percent (Higgs, 2000). In comparison, although this illustrates that internet banking has experienced strong and sustained growth since its inception, Turkey has a lower internet banking penetration rate than that of many European countries. The research on internet banking by individual customers in the country has been required to improve customers understanding of how their particular beliefs or motives affect their utilization of the services. Internet Banking In Australia Internet banking growth continued rapidly in Australia with a 26 % increase in the internet banking customer population to 5.5 million users (approximately 34% of the adult population) going on over the 12 months to May 2005 (ACNielsen, 2005). The report stated there are over 7.2 million consumers accessed 27 millions accounts in 2003 which is an increase of 31% compared to 16.2% in 2002 (MISC, 2004). The report showed that users are more efficient in utilizing Internet banking services and transacting more amounts utilizing fewer sessions. Furthermore, internet banking services are increasingly attracted among users women and 50+ years age group is the highest growing in all category. There are 54% of Australian adults were utilizing telephone banking and an estimated 25% of employed internet banking after a period of strong electronic banking market development between 1997 and 2002. Small and medium banks in USA provide more user-friendly services than larger banks and achieved well in the area of personal internet banking, and website reliability and transactional capabilities while larger banks in Australia offer more variety services than smaller banks. Nevertheless, small and medium sized banks in Australia have found to provide more user-friendly services than larger banks and are successful in offering personal banking services. Internet Banking In Malaysia Since achieving independence in the 1957 banking activities in Malaysia has changed enormously with appearances of new technology application. In the 1980, the first Automated teller Machines (ATMs) was introduced which was be the most visible piece of evidence of the emerging electronic banking in Malaysia. ATM is a computerized telecommunications device that used for transfer funds between checking, balance enquiry, cash withdrawal, savings and credit card accounts, bill payments, making cash and check deposits and making payments to application for initial public offerings in Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. This technology brought the revolution were longer banking hours which unlimited beyond office hours (BNM Annual Reports, 1985-1997). Apart from this, the next changes in this evolutionary process will be the telebanking and PC-banking in the 1990s. In the early 1990 telebanking was introduced in Malaysia as delivery channel for branch financial services via telecommunications devices connected to an automated system of the bank where customers can perform retail banking transactions through using Automated Voice Response (AVR) technology. The functions of telebanking are almost similar to the ATM services except withdrawal and deposit of cash. Telebanking brings convenience, extended access and significant time saving to the customers. The insufficiency of cash withdrawal function in telebanking leads to the poor customer response to telebanking. In the 1990s, ten local commercial banks are offering PC-banking or home banking services. PC-banking is an online banking device which customer can utilize their computers in anywhere anytime for account transactions by subscribing and dialing into the banks intranet proprietary software system. PC-banking can raise speed, decrease cost and enhance flexibility of business transactions which is more suitable among corporate customers. In the half of 1990, the number of customer that utilizes this service still small. This is because they faced some problems, such as risk in transacting on the internet, lack of trust and loyalty of customer and poor of product and service quality. In this table indicates that frequency of familiarity and usage of using ATM is the highest and PC-banking is the lowest percentage. ATM can attracted all of banking customer to use this service because it really brings convenience to the customer since it can save time, reduce difficulty, and enhance flexibility of business transaction to customers. There are 80% that not using telebanking because this service cant provide any cash withdrawal function. However, PC-banking also faced lack of attraction from banking customers due to the new banking service that introduced to this country, which most of customer still unable to accept this new internet service. When customer utilize PC-banking, they may face some problems, such as risk in transacting on the internet, lack of trust and loyalty of customer and product and service quality. Furthermore, e-banking in Malaysia is become increasingly popular on developments in information technology and telecommunications. In Malaysia internet banking service (IBS) was established in six years ago (The Star, 2005). IBS is a convenience and new physical banking service which is to attain more potential customers as it allows bankers to deliver banking services to a wider segment of customers through electronic and interactive communication channels (Goi, 2005), with 12 domestic banks offering IBS to 4.5million subscribers currently (Bank Negara Malaysia, 2007). So surprisingly internet banking has become one of the popular services with 51 percent out of 8,000 of total respondents once a month. In the beginning, there are 5 Malaysia banks have invested millions of ringgit in online banking but these banks are still functioning as dial up intranet facilities. The online service is still unavailable for customers because of the insufficiency of legal framework and security concerns. The investment may be wasted due to the deficiency of important business understanding to support customer adoption if a bank introduces Internet Banking Services without a clear understanding of factors influencing customer adoption (Goi, 2005; Pires and Aisbett, 2002). In table 1 it illustrates the demographic characteristics of the internet bank users and the non-internet bank users among the sample respondents was analyzed. Mean monthly income is the only significant difference appears which it assumed that the internet bank user monthly income is highly than non-internet bank user. It also shows that there is no significant difference between the mean age of the internet bank users and the non-internet bank users. These two groups are equal in percentage of graduates and undergraduates in which both of the groups are nearly about 85%. Background of study The purpose of this research is to identify and evaluate the consumers perception toward e-banking. Consumer perception is important to bankers because of that banker can only understand and determine what customer actually wants to and how e-banking service shall satisfy them. There are some variables will be discussed which are affecting the growth of e-banking in Malaysia. From the customers perspective, internet banking assists a convenient and effective approach to control personal finances without visiting the bank and from any locations, as it is accessible 24 hours a day and 365 days in a year (Rotchanakitumunai and Speece, 2003). Through this report we will discuss about different countries have different customers perception about e-banking. This research also studies whether service or service quality will influences the trust and willingness of customer for using e-banking. Besides that, we also explore the factors which are taken to assess customer perception toward various application of internet banking. The factors that will be assessed are convenience of account transaction, flexibility, reliability, save time and cost. Internet banking is convenient, no geographical barriers, low cost and isnt bound by operational timings (IAMAIs, 2006). More than 50% of total respondents agreed that e-banking is convenient and flexible ways of banking and it also have a variety of transaction related advantages (Divya and Padhmanabhan, 2008). The purposes of internet banking consist of customer convenience through personalized service, cost containment through decline in operating cost, revenue expansion through better quality and additional non-financial services, and performance enhancement by making the service from any location (Bradley Stewart, 2002; Chau Lai, 2003; Frust et al., 2000; Suganthi Balachandran, 2001). How saving of cost and time affect the p erception of customer toward e-banking are also analyzed. So this research main purpose is to examine the variables of the actual perception of customer toward e-banking. Problem statement This research explores and examines some topics which are important elements that help in consumers perception toward e-banking. Banker should understand the need of customer so that they can improve the insufficient of the services. Banker should find out the way to attract more customers to utilize their services. In line with global trends, most customers are not focusing on this internet application. So, we need to solve this problem regarding the importance of the e-banking among customer in the local area. Customer should learn to use internet banking which can bring conveniences without going to the bank. Then customers will obtain satisfaction with the system when it provides them maximum convenience while bank transaction is occurred. The convenience of internet banking is contributing to changing patterns in cash withdrawal and day to day money management and assisting people gain greater control of their finances (Beer, 2006). On the other hand, there are few factors that lead to this problem occurrence. Firstly, not many people start to use e-banking because they still not trust on the system through internet. They will worry and always have a doubt about whether their money is safe. In addition there are few cases of fraud have been reported in online banking. The hacker wills forgery information by entering person information without the owner knowing and takes out his/her money. Secondly, there are lacks of social contact because internet banking dont have any assistance will be served to customer. It will create difficulty to the customer since in the bank there will be banker which will helps and assists customer needs. They will easily give up since there are many lack of skill problems occurred when utilizing the systems. Besides that, it is difficult to do survey since there are a lot of public are faced limitation of time, because it may take times to explain to the public. Research objective To identify what influence consumers perception toward e-banking To determine the factors that affecting consumer perception toward e-banking To find out how service quality influences internet banking user To identify the reason why customer use internet banking To solve the problem customer face toward internet banking To increase the knowledge of customer toward internet banking To improve the insufficient of the internet banking services To enhance the loyalty and trust between consumer and e-banking Significance of study This research is contributed to give customers to better understand about e-banking. There are many features and characteristics of the e-banking that many people still no realize about it. Through this research, we will interview a numeral of people and will explain about internet banking to give consumer to better understand the services that already provided to help them to ease their life. For example, CIMB offers CIMB Bank AirAsia Savers Account, a paperless account which customer will directly enjoy the convenience of viewing their account statement online without require a passbook (AirAsia Berhad, 2007-2010). Such a good service provided by bank, customer wont know about it if they no utilize internet banking. This study has combined varieties of factors from past research to study consumers perception toward e-banking. Both practitioners and academics can obtain the advantages by to better understand the consumers perception in the value of internet banking services. Furthermore, they can also identify the deficiency of the service in e-banking through this research so that the service would be improved to match customers requirement. Hence, customer can properly understand and adapt the problem that they face as necessary. In Malaysia, Maybank has become the first bank to introduce internet banking services (Maybank2u.com) and an combined web-based cash management portal on June 1, 2000. The online banking services will allow customer to perform bill payment, banking enquiry functions, funds transfer, credit card payment and accounts summary as well as transaction history (Suganthi, Balachandher and Balachandran, 2001). However, the influence of consumers acceptance e-banking in Malaysia seems more challenging because of the deficiency of information and academic in e-banking. Scope of study The scope of study is only concentrate about consumer area and perception toward e-banking. In this study, the research will be focus on MMU student, CIMB banking users and businessman that will regularly using banking service. The reason that we choose MMU student is because MMU student will often using online banking systems to pay tuition fees, transfer fund to their friends, check for their transaction account anywhere anytime. Apart from this they can teach their parent to use these services since it is very convenience and saving time, especially to those parent that very busy with their work. Besides that, we also focus on CIMB bank users which they can provide some information through interviews or questionnaires. Then, we will determine how depth the respondents understand about internet banking and what their comment regarding e-banking. Through this research we will resolve the inadequate and insufficient of service of internet banking. In addition to this, for sure business man they want to utilize something that very fast, time-saving, and can assist to their business. They can conduct most of their business on the internet and make transactions between their businesses without going to the bank. It can guarantee service quality for users conducting business transactions while utilizing IT applications and infrastructure. Through this research we can ask for some suggestion or any dissatisfied regarding internet banking from different view of business man, CIMB bank users and MMU student. Limitation of the study The extension of this study include there are large amounts of people still dont have the internet connection in their home and some dont know how to use e-banking services which will result in lack of internet banking users. There is a need for public knowledge to deal with computers and browsers since there are a lot of public still unable to use the internet applications. Besides that, it will lead to the difficulty of development of e-banking in the country. Customer may prefer visiting the bank branch because there are lacks of social contact regarding e-banking will creates difficulty to the customer since in the bank there will be banker which will helps and assists customer needs. Then it may take some time to learn and get to use to internet banking, as it requires a lot of procedures. If banks server down, customer may not access to the website. Secondly, the limitation that I faced is the difficulty of communication with the respondents when interviewing and collecting data for my research. Some of the people will resist for doing the research survey because they thought I wanted to promote or sell something. The thing that I frequently faced is meeting people who reject to answer any question before I start to talk about my research purpose. Organization of research In chapter 1, the main title is introduction which is a beginning section that states the internet banking among difference countries. Background of study explaining what about of a particular topic is placed. Problem statement is focus on the attention of the problem solving team. Research objective is writing about the purpose of this research. In significant of study, I will shift from the particular to the general, and present the importance of the study from target beneficiaries to the people in the community, to the people in the region and nation. Scope of study is focus on the coverage of areas in this research such as student and businessman. The limitation of study is about the restriction that I facing during doing this research. In addition, Chapter 2 is literature reviews. In this chapter reviews and introduces the previous journals related age, income, education, gender, convenience, perceived ease of use, reliability, saving time and cost, service or service quality and trust. I will focus on how these independent variables influence consumers adoption of internet banking. There will be an overview of some journals about consumers adoption toward e-banking will be presented which will used to examine the relationship between independent and dependent variables. In Chapter 3 it is about research methodology that including theoretical framework, hypothesis of study, data collection and data analysis. In Theoretical framework, I will suggest the integrative interrelationships among important variables in the research which is includes age, income, education, gender, convenience, perceived ease of use, reliability, saving time and cost, service or service quality and trust. There are four method are used in data analysis, which are frequency distribution, Pearsons correlation coefficient, cross tabulation and descriptive analysis. Chapter 2: Literature Review Introduction In this chapter 2, I review many journals about this topic in the various area of e-banking. In the 2.2 those journals are investigating about demographic affects the consumers adoption toward e-banking. In the 2.3, those journals are investigating the factors that influence the consumers adoption toward e-banking. In the 2.4, those journals are investigating about the service or service quality which will influence consumers adoption. In the 2.5, those journals are investigating about influence of trust toward consumers adoption. Demographic According to Kim,Widdows and Yilmazer (2005), age were influencing the attitude of consumers towards internet banking and their ability for learning how to do investment. The younger age groups of consumers are more likely to invest the time to learn to utilize internet banking because this group of consumers can generate more advantages through time saving. Besides that, higher income of consumers will have higher value of time than consumers with lower income, so higher income of the consumer can generate more advantages through adoption of internet banking. More educated consumers may involve fewer training in response to technological change if their general skills facilitate them to be taught the new technology (Bartel and Sicherman, 1998). They also indicated that adoption internet banking of well educated individuals is faster than less educated individuals due to the internet banking, new technology, and warrantees reduction of the time required for money transactions. In Padachi, Rojid and Seetanah (2007) report examined that the younger generation the more they like to utilize the new technological advancements as they are more prefer to adopt e-banking compared to the older generation. Mean age of internet banking users is 45 and 47 for non-internet banking users. Furthermore, the higher of education and income ladder will lead to the greater the probability of customer adopting internet banking. There are 57% of respondent having an education level in the category post graduate and 33% in the category of undergraduate utilizes the service. There are 48% of people using the internet banking that have the income group of Rs 30000 to 49000, which means the higher income earners are more sensible in utilizing internet. In the Jane, Jeanne and Marianne (2004) report explores the discoveries of demographic correlates of technology acceptance have constructed varying results with respect to important relationships to adoption. Men and women show to have dissimilar acceptance rates of specific computer technologies which men will more prefer on adopting technologies application(Gefen and Straub, 1997), but gender appear not to be found to have a direct on adoption of technology in general (Taylor and Todd, 1995; Gefen and Straub, 1997). The research show that the probability of higher income households ($75000 or more) being current users of ABP was 15 points higher than low income households (under $25000) and was more likely to adopt e-banking. However, research examined younger persons are being more likely to adopt which has also linked age and adoption of technologies (Zeithaml and Gilly, 1987; Trocchia and Janda, 2000; Karjaluoto, 2002; Lee, 2002). The research shows that the age of 65 of respond ents were less likely to adopt phone banking and PC banking compared to medium and youngest group. People with married status are more likely to adopt than single males or females because when it comes to bank accounts, married couples may have jointly held accounts. In region variable households living in the northeast were more likely than in the midwest to have adopted or to intend to adopt phone banking or ABP. In the Demographic characteristics of Western Australian users of electronic banking journal published by Catherine, Simone and Katherine (2005) explored that most online banking customers were male while the majority of telephone banking customers were females. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2001 stated that consumers of Western Australia, who are between 18 and 24 years of age, employed, male, have higher levels of education, and higher incomes have been examined to be more likely to use information technology that those are older, unemployed, lower incomes and have lower levels of education. The authors also examined 58.4% of the internet banking users are being in professional, administrative, managerial or para-professional occupations. This is because males in these occupations often utilize technologies such as computers and the internet in the workplace, providing them access to the required hardware and possibly encouraging a preference for online interaction with pr oviders. Filoto, Tanzi and Saita (1997); Jayawardhena and Foley (2000); Thornton and White (2001); Pereira (2002) have found these customers may be on higher incomes due to their more educated and/or highly skilled and therefore they are in occupations that need them to be more practiced at using technology-based service delivery modes. Mitchell (1998) and Tan (1999) stated that education may not be an important aspect for EFTPOS users because transactions are usually performed in retail settings and they involve retail personnel who assist the completion of transactions for consumers. Jayawardhena and Foley (2000), Orenstein (1998) and Thornton and White (2001) argued that online banking consumers are more likely to have higher than average education and they may frequently be students because of their higher exposure to technologies such as internet and computer. Councils on the Ageing (2002) stated that in some studies have recommended that older consumers may be discouraged from the utilization of electronic banking by issues such as limitation of mobility and visibility. In Jun Wu, 2005 report examined that the products and services people purchase varies during the different stages of their lives. The result of demographic age profile in this research shows that the 21 to 29 age group is dominant. Furthermore, consumers that more educated will have more money available to spend because of better education, and this influences their life-styles. Wilkie (1990) stated that it will influences which type of products they purchase, what kind of stores to purchase them in, and what prices they are willing to pay as people achieve higher education. Customers with better educated be likely to have better paying occupations than not well educated customers (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2000) because a persons level of education can affect strongly on their ability to create income and their consumer spending potential. Polatoglu and Ekin (2001) explored that high levels of education improve a consumers ability to process more complicated information and make decision s. Income is a famous demographic variable for segmenting markets due to the income levels affect consumer wants and determines their purchasing power (Lamb, 2000). Purchasing power is influenced by inflation, recession, the international valu Advantages of E-banking Advantages of E-banking Chapter 1: Introduction Introduction Nowadays, Malaysia is a multi sector economy and technology development based on the presence of many technological inventions. Traditional banking act as physical bank and delivery channel which to give customers to place or get their money out of the bank safety deposit boxes, managing checking or current accounts, paying cheques drawn by customers. However, e-banking is one of the technological inventions that give conveniences to customers to manage financial transactions on a secure website performed by retail or virtual bank, credit union or building society. E-banking is also called electronic banking which is the automated delivery of new banking services and products directly to customers through electronic, interactive communication channels. It brings many benefits and capabilities to customer compared to traditional banking. E-banking is fast and convenient way of using computer to easy access to the bank in 24hours. E-banking utilizes the internet system as the delivery channel by which to accomplish banking activity, for example, paying bills, transferring funds, viewing checking and savings account balances, paying mortgages and purchasing financial instruments and certificates of deposits (Haque et al, 2009). Internet banking enable customers to access their general information and accounts of bank products and services through PC or other intelligent device using web browser software on 24 hours a day and 7days a week, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft internet explorer (Mohamad, Hanudin, Suddin, Noren, 2007). The development in information technology have had an tremendous effect in development of more flexible payment methods and more user-friendly banking services in the world of banking (Serkan, Safak, Eda, 2004). There are some features that fall into several categories of internet banking which are transactional, non-transactional, financial institution administration, support of multiple users having varying levels of authority, transaction approval process and wire transfer. In transactional, e-banking act as account and financial transactions, pay bills, wire transfer and apply for loan or new account, investment purchase or sale and others. Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) is an electronic billing which customer can pay bill and receives payment easily, faster, and conveniently over anywhere and any times. Customer perception is interpretation of sensory mind and experienced by customer. The convenience of e-banking are attracted customers and provided no cost charged to customers. Customers have started accepting this internet service and assessing the banks based on their easy to access and convenience. With great confidence toward e-banking, customers are willing uses the internet banking to transfer fund, pay bills, and lot more with a excellent-secured system. It also can establish the relationship between trust and loyalty of customer toward e-banking. Internet banking in USA and Europe The dramatic growth in internet usage has generated a segment of customers with the ability and desire to conduct banking transactions completely online (Mathew and George, 2003). The internet explosion in the late-1990s brings people more convenience with various applications over the web. In the mid-1990s, customers using internet as monetary business transaction over the web as the financial institutions had implemented e-banking. The majority of US-based banks are escalating their investment in technology and hedging their bets while research specifies that a substantial portion of the customer base may always demand the type of personal interaction that can only be provided by individual branch personnel (Alstad, 2002). TowerGroups prediction is highlighted by CRMToday on IT spending by large banks in USA, which the amounts is 24.1 billion in 2004 as compare to 22 billion in 2002. Besides that, many US banks, such as Bank of America and Umpqua Bank are lending from social media channels, offering social networking, pod casting, web casts and other interactive tools. Now competitors can establish an internet bank for as little as $6 million in the USA compared to the cost of setting up a traditional brick and mortar bank (estimated at between $25 and $30 million) (Nathan, 1999). CRMToday (2003a) also stated that without major consumers adoption internet banking would not achieve as profitable as promise although there are increasing in amounts of online banking customers. According to the European Central Bank in 2002 (centeno, 2003), the level of services and its quality differ according to the country and the banks even though all main banks provide internet banking services. Bughin, 2001 investigated that the adoption rate is examined to be averaging only 17% of internet users or less than 6% of total bank customers. The author also stated that there are 60% internet customers do not have subject in buying books, CDs or low valued item through online but are reluctant to create online banking transactions. Furthermore, there are differences of internet banking adoption also existed among some countries in Europe. Around 18-25% of populations in Estonia are utilizing internet banking services whereas Italian bank had about no on-line customers by early 2000, banks in Malta initiated internet banking services in December 2002 (Centeno, 2003). Furthermore, there are differences of adoption among banks within the same country. Bughin (2001) stated an example, a leading banks in France have diffusion rate over 11% while minor bank such as the credit commercial de France have translated only 2% of its customers to online for the same period. Internet banking in Turkey In Turkey, there are over 18% of banking customers using e-banking actively (Jamaluddin, Osman, Sukru and Kemal, 2008). Since 1997 internet banking has been recognized as a feasible alternative distribution channel by Turkish commercial banks due to the deregulation in the financial sector, escalation of computer literacy, the rapid diffusion of electronic commerce, strong commitments to reduce operating costs, changing customer demands for innovative financial products and services and create customer convenience (Hakan, 2008). Due to the low cost of attracting customer to utilize internet banking and retaining existing innovation-demanding customers during the past two decades, most of Turkish commercial banks found it irresistible to invest large amounts in online banking although the customer take up of internet banking appeared to be very slow. In addition, the actual number of utilizing e-banking users appeared to be between 1 and 1.2 million (30%) in 2003 although 2million people (50%) were forecasted to utilize e-banking by 2003 (Akinci, 2004; Celik, 2002; Ozkan, 2003). Furthermore, in turkey the numbers of active internet banking accounts are escalating from 150,000 in 2000 to 5.5 million in 2007 and grew annually by 68 percent (Higgs, 2000). In comparison, although this illustrates that internet banking has experienced strong and sustained growth since its inception, Turkey has a lower internet banking penetration rate than that of many European countries. The research on internet banking by individual customers in the country has been required to improve customers understanding of how their particular beliefs or motives affect their utilization of the services. Internet Banking In Australia Internet banking growth continued rapidly in Australia with a 26 % increase in the internet banking customer population to 5.5 million users (approximately 34% of the adult population) going on over the 12 months to May 2005 (ACNielsen, 2005). The report stated there are over 7.2 million consumers accessed 27 millions accounts in 2003 which is an increase of 31% compared to 16.2% in 2002 (MISC, 2004). The report showed that users are more efficient in utilizing Internet banking services and transacting more amounts utilizing fewer sessions. Furthermore, internet banking services are increasingly attracted among users women and 50+ years age group is the highest growing in all category. There are 54% of Australian adults were utilizing telephone banking and an estimated 25% of employed internet banking after a period of strong electronic banking market development between 1997 and 2002. Small and medium banks in USA provide more user-friendly services than larger banks and achieved well in the area of personal internet banking, and website reliability and transactional capabilities while larger banks in Australia offer more variety services than smaller banks. Nevertheless, small and medium sized banks in Australia have found to provide more user-friendly services than larger banks and are successful in offering personal banking services. Internet Banking In Malaysia Since achieving independence in the 1957 banking activities in Malaysia has changed enormously with appearances of new technology application. In the 1980, the first Automated teller Machines (ATMs) was introduced which was be the most visible piece of evidence of the emerging electronic banking in Malaysia. ATM is a computerized telecommunications device that used for transfer funds between checking, balance enquiry, cash withdrawal, savings and credit card accounts, bill payments, making cash and check deposits and making payments to application for initial public offerings in Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. This technology brought the revolution were longer banking hours which unlimited beyond office hours (BNM Annual Reports, 1985-1997). Apart from this, the next changes in this evolutionary process will be the telebanking and PC-banking in the 1990s. In the early 1990 telebanking was introduced in Malaysia as delivery channel for branch financial services via telecommunications devices connected to an automated system of the bank where customers can perform retail banking transactions through using Automated Voice Response (AVR) technology. The functions of telebanking are almost similar to the ATM services except withdrawal and deposit of cash. Telebanking brings convenience, extended access and significant time saving to the customers. The insufficiency of cash withdrawal function in telebanking leads to the poor customer response to telebanking. In the 1990s, ten local commercial banks are offering PC-banking or home banking services. PC-banking is an online banking device which customer can utilize their computers in anywhere anytime for account transactions by subscribing and dialing into the banks intranet proprietary software system. PC-banking can raise speed, decrease cost and enhance flexibility of business transactions which is more suitable among corporate customers. In the half of 1990, the number of customer that utilizes this service still small. This is because they faced some problems, such as risk in transacting on the internet, lack of trust and loyalty of customer and poor of product and service quality. In this table indicates that frequency of familiarity and usage of using ATM is the highest and PC-banking is the lowest percentage. ATM can attracted all of banking customer to use this service because it really brings convenience to the customer since it can save time, reduce difficulty, and enhance flexibility of business transaction to customers. There are 80% that not using telebanking because this service cant provide any cash withdrawal function. However, PC-banking also faced lack of attraction from banking customers due to the new banking service that introduced to this country, which most of customer still unable to accept this new internet service. When customer utilize PC-banking, they may face some problems, such as risk in transacting on the internet, lack of trust and loyalty of customer and product and service quality. Furthermore, e-banking in Malaysia is become increasingly popular on developments in information technology and telecommunications. In Malaysia internet banking service (IBS) was established in six years ago (The Star, 2005). IBS is a convenience and new physical banking service which is to attain more potential customers as it allows bankers to deliver banking services to a wider segment of customers through electronic and interactive communication channels (Goi, 2005), with 12 domestic banks offering IBS to 4.5million subscribers currently (Bank Negara Malaysia, 2007). So surprisingly internet banking has become one of the popular services with 51 percent out of 8,000 of total respondents once a month. In the beginning, there are 5 Malaysia banks have invested millions of ringgit in online banking but these banks are still functioning as dial up intranet facilities. The online service is still unavailable for customers because of the insufficiency of legal framework and security concerns. The investment may be wasted due to the deficiency of important business understanding to support customer adoption if a bank introduces Internet Banking Services without a clear understanding of factors influencing customer adoption (Goi, 2005; Pires and Aisbett, 2002). In table 1 it illustrates the demographic characteristics of the internet bank users and the non-internet bank users among the sample respondents was analyzed. Mean monthly income is the only significant difference appears which it assumed that the internet bank user monthly income is highly than non-internet bank user. It also shows that there is no significant difference between the mean age of the internet bank users and the non-internet bank users. These two groups are equal in percentage of graduates and undergraduates in which both of the groups are nearly about 85%. Background of study The purpose of this research is to identify and evaluate the consumers perception toward e-banking. Consumer perception is important to bankers because of that banker can only understand and determine what customer actually wants to and how e-banking service shall satisfy them. There are some variables will be discussed which are affecting the growth of e-banking in Malaysia. From the customers perspective, internet banking assists a convenient and effective approach to control personal finances without visiting the bank and from any locations, as it is accessible 24 hours a day and 365 days in a year (Rotchanakitumunai and Speece, 2003). Through this report we will discuss about different countries have different customers perception about e-banking. This research also studies whether service or service quality will influences the trust and willingness of customer for using e-banking. Besides that, we also explore the factors which are taken to assess customer perception toward various application of internet banking. The factors that will be assessed are convenience of account transaction, flexibility, reliability, save time and cost. Internet banking is convenient, no geographical barriers, low cost and isnt bound by operational timings (IAMAIs, 2006). More than 50% of total respondents agreed that e-banking is convenient and flexible ways of banking and it also have a variety of transaction related advantages (Divya and Padhmanabhan, 2008). The purposes of internet banking consist of customer convenience through personalized service, cost containment through decline in operating cost, revenue expansion through better quality and additional non-financial services, and performance enhancement by making the service from any location (Bradley Stewart, 2002; Chau Lai, 2003; Frust et al., 2000; Suganthi Balachandran, 2001). How saving of cost and time affect the p erception of customer toward e-banking are also analyzed. So this research main purpose is to examine the variables of the actual perception of customer toward e-banking. Problem statement This research explores and examines some topics which are important elements that help in consumers perception toward e-banking. Banker should understand the need of customer so that they can improve the insufficient of the services. Banker should find out the way to attract more customers to utilize their services. In line with global trends, most customers are not focusing on this internet application. So, we need to solve this problem regarding the importance of the e-banking among customer in the local area. Customer should learn to use internet banking which can bring conveniences without going to the bank. Then customers will obtain satisfaction with the system when it provides them maximum convenience while bank transaction is occurred. The convenience of internet banking is contributing to changing patterns in cash withdrawal and day to day money management and assisting people gain greater control of their finances (Beer, 2006). On the other hand, there are few factors that lead to this problem occurrence. Firstly, not many people start to use e-banking because they still not trust on the system through internet. They will worry and always have a doubt about whether their money is safe. In addition there are few cases of fraud have been reported in online banking. The hacker wills forgery information by entering person information without the owner knowing and takes out his/her money. Secondly, there are lacks of social contact because internet banking dont have any assistance will be served to customer. It will create difficulty to the customer since in the bank there will be banker which will helps and assists customer needs. They will easily give up since there are many lack of skill problems occurred when utilizing the systems. Besides that, it is difficult to do survey since there are a lot of public are faced limitation of time, because it may take times to explain to the public. Research objective To identify what influence consumers perception toward e-banking To determine the factors that affecting consumer perception toward e-banking To find out how service quality influences internet banking user To identify the reason why customer use internet banking To solve the problem customer face toward internet banking To increase the knowledge of customer toward internet banking To improve the insufficient of the internet banking services To enhance the loyalty and trust between consumer and e-banking Significance of study This research is contributed to give customers to better understand about e-banking. There are many features and characteristics of the e-banking that many people still no realize about it. Through this research, we will interview a numeral of people and will explain about internet banking to give consumer to better understand the services that already provided to help them to ease their life. For example, CIMB offers CIMB Bank AirAsia Savers Account, a paperless account which customer will directly enjoy the convenience of viewing their account statement online without require a passbook (AirAsia Berhad, 2007-2010). Such a good service provided by bank, customer wont know about it if they no utilize internet banking. This study has combined varieties of factors from past research to study consumers perception toward e-banking. Both practitioners and academics can obtain the advantages by to better understand the consumers perception in the value of internet banking services. Furthermore, they can also identify the deficiency of the service in e-banking through this research so that the service would be improved to match customers requirement. Hence, customer can properly understand and adapt the problem that they face as necessary. In Malaysia, Maybank has become the first bank to introduce internet banking services (Maybank2u.com) and an combined web-based cash management portal on June 1, 2000. The online banking services will allow customer to perform bill payment, banking enquiry functions, funds transfer, credit card payment and accounts summary as well as transaction history (Suganthi, Balachandher and Balachandran, 2001). However, the influence of consumers acceptance e-banking in Malaysia seems more challenging because of the deficiency of information and academic in e-banking. Scope of study The scope of study is only concentrate about consumer area and perception toward e-banking. In this study, the research will be focus on MMU student, CIMB banking users and businessman that will regularly using banking service. The reason that we choose MMU student is because MMU student will often using online banking systems to pay tuition fees, transfer fund to their friends, check for their transaction account anywhere anytime. Apart from this they can teach their parent to use these services since it is very convenience and saving time, especially to those parent that very busy with their work. Besides that, we also focus on CIMB bank users which they can provide some information through interviews or questionnaires. Then, we will determine how depth the respondents understand about internet banking and what their comment regarding e-banking. Through this research we will resolve the inadequate and insufficient of service of internet banking. In addition to this, for sure business man they want to utilize something that very fast, time-saving, and can assist to their business. They can conduct most of their business on the internet and make transactions between their businesses without going to the bank. It can guarantee service quality for users conducting business transactions while utilizing IT applications and infrastructure. Through this research we can ask for some suggestion or any dissatisfied regarding internet banking from different view of business man, CIMB bank users and MMU student. Limitation of the study The extension of this study include there are large amounts of people still dont have the internet connection in their home and some dont know how to use e-banking services which will result in lack of internet banking users. There is a need for public knowledge to deal with computers and browsers since there are a lot of public still unable to use the internet applications. Besides that, it will lead to the difficulty of development of e-banking in the country. Customer may prefer visiting the bank branch because there are lacks of social contact regarding e-banking will creates difficulty to the customer since in the bank there will be banker which will helps and assists customer needs. Then it may take some time to learn and get to use to internet banking, as it requires a lot of procedures. If banks server down, customer may not access to the website. Secondly, the limitation that I faced is the difficulty of communication with the respondents when interviewing and collecting data for my research. Some of the people will resist for doing the research survey because they thought I wanted to promote or sell something. The thing that I frequently faced is meeting people who reject to answer any question before I start to talk about my research purpose. Organization of research In chapter 1, the main title is introduction which is a beginning section that states the internet banking among difference countries. Background of study explaining what about of a particular topic is placed. Problem statement is focus on the attention of the problem solving team. Research objective is writing about the purpose of this research. In significant of study, I will shift from the particular to the general, and present the importance of the study from target beneficiaries to the people in the community, to the people in the region and nation. Scope of study is focus on the coverage of areas in this research such as student and businessman. The limitation of study is about the restriction that I facing during doing this research. In addition, Chapter 2 is literature reviews. In this chapter reviews and introduces the previous journals related age, income, education, gender, convenience, perceived ease of use, reliability, saving time and cost, service or service quality and trust. I will focus on how these independent variables influence consumers adoption of internet banking. There will be an overview of some journals about consumers adoption toward e-banking will be presented which will used to examine the relationship between independent and dependent variables. In Chapter 3 it is about research methodology that including theoretical framework, hypothesis of study, data collection and data analysis. In Theoretical framework, I will suggest the integrative interrelationships among important variables in the research which is includes age, income, education, gender, convenience, perceived ease of use, reliability, saving time and cost, service or service quality and trust. There are four method are used in data analysis, which are frequency distribution, Pearsons correlation coefficient, cross tabulation and descriptive analysis. Chapter 2: Literature Review Introduction In this chapter 2, I review many journals about this topic in the various area of e-banking. In the 2.2 those journals are investigating about demographic affects the consumers adoption toward e-banking. In the 2.3, those journals are investigating the factors that influence the consumers adoption toward e-banking. In the 2.4, those journals are investigating about the service or service quality which will influence consumers adoption. In the 2.5, those journals are investigating about influence of trust toward consumers adoption. Demographic According to Kim,Widdows and Yilmazer (2005), age were influencing the attitude of consumers towards internet banking and their ability for learning how to do investment. The younger age groups of consumers are more likely to invest the time to learn to utilize internet banking because this group of consumers can generate more advantages through time saving. Besides that, higher income of consumers will have higher value of time than consumers with lower income, so higher income of the consumer can generate more advantages through adoption of internet banking. More educated consumers may involve fewer training in response to technological change if their general skills facilitate them to be taught the new technology (Bartel and Sicherman, 1998). They also indicated that adoption internet banking of well educated individuals is faster than less educated individuals due to the internet banking, new technology, and warrantees reduction of the time required for money transactions. In Padachi, Rojid and Seetanah (2007) report examined that the younger generation the more they like to utilize the new technological advancements as they are more prefer to adopt e-banking compared to the older generation. Mean age of internet banking users is 45 and 47 for non-internet banking users. Furthermore, the higher of education and income ladder will lead to the greater the probability of customer adopting internet banking. There are 57% of respondent having an education level in the category post graduate and 33% in the category of undergraduate utilizes the service. There are 48% of people using the internet banking that have the income group of Rs 30000 to 49000, which means the higher income earners are more sensible in utilizing internet. In the Jane, Jeanne and Marianne (2004) report explores the discoveries of demographic correlates of technology acceptance have constructed varying results with respect to important relationships to adoption. Men and women show to have dissimilar acceptance rates of specific computer technologies which men will more prefer on adopting technologies application(Gefen and Straub, 1997), but gender appear not to be found to have a direct on adoption of technology in general (Taylor and Todd, 1995; Gefen and Straub, 1997). The research show that the probability of higher income households ($75000 or more) being current users of ABP was 15 points higher than low income households (under $25000) and was more likely to adopt e-banking. However, research examined younger persons are being more likely to adopt which has also linked age and adoption of technologies (Zeithaml and Gilly, 1987; Trocchia and Janda, 2000; Karjaluoto, 2002; Lee, 2002). The research shows that the age of 65 of respond ents were less likely to adopt phone banking and PC banking compared to medium and youngest group. People with married status are more likely to adopt than single males or females because when it comes to bank accounts, married couples may have jointly held accounts. In region variable households living in the northeast were more likely than in the midwest to have adopted or to intend to adopt phone banking or ABP. In the Demographic characteristics of Western Australian users of electronic banking journal published by Catherine, Simone and Katherine (2005) explored that most online banking customers were male while the majority of telephone banking customers were females. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2001 stated that consumers of Western Australia, who are between 18 and 24 years of age, employed, male, have higher levels of education, and higher incomes have been examined to be more likely to use information technology that those are older, unemployed, lower incomes and have lower levels of education. The authors also examined 58.4% of the internet banking users are being in professional, administrative, managerial or para-professional occupations. This is because males in these occupations often utilize technologies such as computers and the internet in the workplace, providing them access to the required hardware and possibly encouraging a preference for online interaction with pr oviders. Filoto, Tanzi and Saita (1997); Jayawardhena and Foley (2000); Thornton and White (2001); Pereira (2002) have found these customers may be on higher incomes due to their more educated and/or highly skilled and therefore they are in occupations that need them to be more practiced at using technology-based service delivery modes. Mitchell (1998) and Tan (1999) stated that education may not be an important aspect for EFTPOS users because transactions are usually performed in retail settings and they involve retail personnel who assist the completion of transactions for consumers. Jayawardhena and Foley (2000), Orenstein (1998) and Thornton and White (2001) argued that online banking consumers are more likely to have higher than average education and they may frequently be students because of their higher exposure to technologies such as internet and computer. Councils on the Ageing (2002) stated that in some studies have recommended that older consumers may be discouraged from the utilization of electronic banking by issues such as limitation of mobility and visibility. In Jun Wu, 2005 report examined that the products and services people purchase varies during the different stages of their lives. The result of demographic age profile in this research shows that the 21 to 29 age group is dominant. Furthermore, consumers that more educated will have more money available to spend because of better education, and this influences their life-styles. Wilkie (1990) stated that it will influences which type of products they purchase, what kind of stores to purchase them in, and what prices they are willing to pay as people achieve higher education. Customers with better educated be likely to have better paying occupations than not well educated customers (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2000) because a persons level of education can affect strongly on their ability to create income and their consumer spending potential. Polatoglu and Ekin (2001) explored that high levels of education improve a consumers ability to process more complicated information and make decision s. Income is a famous demographic variable for segmenting markets due to the income levels affect consumer wants and determines their purchasing power (Lamb, 2000). Purchasing power is influenced by inflation, recession, the international valu