The Life and Legacy of William Shakespeare Essay Example for Free

The Life and Legacy of William Shakespeare Essay Seven years later after their wedding, William Shakespeare was born in April 26, 1564 in Stratford (accepted birth and birth place) to Mr. and Mrs. John Shakespeare. William had eight siblings, and although he didn’t get a chance to meet all of them, they were still part of his family. Joan (Oldest Sister), the first child brought a huge amount of joy to the young, and ambitious couple, only to be dealt a dreadful blow shortly after her birth; On September 15,1558 Joan was baptized (only survived two months). Margaret (Older Sister), was born in 1562 and was baptized on December 2. Once again family life was devastated as the little Margaret only lived for one year. Two years after William’ birth, the Shakespeare’s fourth child, Gilbert was born. Gilbert was baptized at Holy Trinity on October 13, 1566, at Holy Trinity. He followed his older brother (William) to London where he established a good and successful career later in life. Joan (Younger Sister), was born in 1569, she was named after her oldest sister, Joan. She had a dissimilar childhood to her older brothers. She was known, like her parents, to be unable to read or write. Joans childhood would have therefore been close to the family and helping her mother with the chores. Anne (Youngest Sister), was born September 28 1571, when William was seven years old, Gilbert was five and Joan was two providing the three brothers and sisters with another sister. Another catastrophe struck the family in 1579 when little eight year old Anne Shakespeare died. Richard (Younger Brother), was born 1574 and baptized on March 11, when William was 10 years old, Gilbert was 8, Joan was five and Anne was three providing the four brothers and sisters with another brother. In 1578 his elder brothers were removed from school to help with the business and it is therefore doubtful that Brother Richard received much of an education. Edmund (Youngest Brother), was born in 1580, he was christened on May 3. He had four, healthy, living siblings; Brother William aged 16, Brother Gilbert aged 14, Sister Joan aged 11 and Brother Richard aged 6. He never had the chance to meet his other older sisters Anne, Joan (eldest sister), and Margaret. William Shakespeare Brothers Sisters. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2012.

Organisational Structure Key terms Chain of command Essay Example for Free

Organisational Structure Key terms Chain of command Essay Chain of command Line linking the top of the structure to the bottom workers Top to bottom Responsibility Accountability Horizontal People on the same line, but usually in different departments. A span of control is the number of people one person is in charge of. Tall Hierarchal structures Those with a long chain of command Management communicate with those directly below them and further down the line. Example: Marks and Spencer, Next, theyre normally formal organisations. They are tall because there are a lot of people working for them. Advantages Clear chain of command Staff know where they stand They know who there boss is Chances of promotion They know there entitlements and rights Specialist departments Disadvantages Takes more time to make a decision Inflexible, people only know there area of work, and cant cover for someone who is not in that works in another area. Information might get misinterpreted and distorted along the line of communication because there are so many links in the chain. Read more:Â  Walgreens Organizational Structure Matrix Structure Sometimes an organisation needs to run according to what projects they have to do. In these situations people usually work together in a team to achieve their projects goals. A person working on a project would have two bosses, the boss of the department that they work in and the leader or manager of the particular project that they are working on at the moment. A project may cover some or all of the organisations departmental areas. Senior manager heads a division or team of specialists drawn from different departments. A specialist (e.g. finance) can be part of a number of teams or divisions Advantages Promotes coordination between departments cuts across departmental boundaries flexibility and creativity Mixture of knowledge and skills Allows a range of staff to be involved which gives good experience. Disadvantages Confusion between managers who are dealing with a number of projects at one time Projects may be temporary Too many people involved to make decisions.

Scope Of Technical Writing In India

Scope Of Technical Writing In India The outsourcing explosion started with software and expanded to call centers and is now spreading to other fields and technical writing is one of them. The Indian education system has produced many a talented software professionals, technical writers and many other experts. It would be very difficult to find a country like India with higher level of English writing and editing skills. The outcome is large number of qualified professionals willing to provide quality content to a variety of global audience. The outlook of Indian professionals especially technical writers in India has been very global. With the current outsourcing rush the Indian technical writers can easily create and write from the customers viewpoint. The internet also gives Indians an insight to the global trends and makes their output worthwhile. Scope of technical writing in India Technical writing in India is new but upcoming profession. There are over 14000 jobs for Technical Writing on a job portal in India which is not very far behind other esteemed jobs like engineering and management. Technical writing in India is a lesser known profession which is fast gaining recognition. Looking at the technical writing job vacancies in India, majority of them are with the software companies and web development companies. Software companies require technical documentation to be done for their products and technical processes like user manuals, guides, online help etc. Web development companies expect their technical writers to write and edit content for their websites. Technical writers are also responsible for high website ranking in the various search engines for applicable key words. This sphere of technical writing is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are other sectors also which hire technical writers like telecom, banking, energy, insurance etc. So broadly speaking, job of a technical writer is to develop broachers, user guides, reports and white papers for different types of products. These jobs are not new in, but their classification of these activities under technical writing in India is rather new. Impact of technical writing in India In the 1990s technical writing in India was practically unknown. But there were some IT giants who realized the need of technical documentation and started setting up teams for the same. It has literally become a key factor for an organizations growth and progress as technical writers have bridged the gap between a companys product and its users. Technical writing in India as well as in other countries has become a procedure to deliver information in the form of speech or document to a particular audience like programmers, technical support staff, end-users, potential customers and business partners. The process of getting or loosing a business deal depends on the efficiency of a technical writer as the technical documents and write-ups form the face of company. Consumers hardly buy a product (software or hardware) with high technology without proper documentation. They look at the documentation to understand the technology and configure, deploy, install and use these products. Hence, technical writing in India and other countries has a major role to play. Global Trends in technical writing With evolving technologies and new tools there should be some trends that should be kept in mind. Below mentioned are the trends in the field of technical writing that one can follow: Shared authoring Technical writing in India as well as in other countries is no longer done by a single writer from a single point of view. Projects need inputs from various SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) who thrive in various locations and departments. A technical writer should know how to extract information from them and put together in one place. Social Networking Sites There are so many social media sites like facebook, linkedIn etc. where discussions are taking place on the products and services you document. So to become successful companies participate in social media, take feedback and strengthen ties with their customers. Fusion technical writer To be a successful technical writer it is not enough that you can write. One has to play various roles like web designer, motivational speaker or a QA tester etc. Multimedia Small video tutorials embedded on youtube or other video sharing sites are quite narrative for visual learners. Globalization A technical writer may have to work with peers distributed globally. And a product is also distributed globally often, which means you should write in plain and simple business English which everyone understands. It is important to be understood by people from various cultures across the globe. User-created content Instead of users just being passive consumers of your product or service, you can encourage them to post comments, become forum moderators and post articles and participate actively. Qualification and Skills required for technical writing in India Though companies decide roles and duties for technical writers in the job advertisements, but no specifications are given for the qualification requirements that a person must possess. Since technical writing involves both good communication skills, a flair for writing, a methodical way of presenting the information and technical bent of mind, therefore in India a person from technical background as well as humanities background can become a technical writer. As there are no formal training courses run by the Universities for technical writing in India unlike other countries like USA, there are no specific qualification parameters defined to become a technical writer. Though there are some privately run institutes who train students to be future technical writers in some metro cities in India like Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore etc. There are some common skill set required to be a technical writer: Technical skills A technical writer should be aware of the technology being used for a product or service for documentation purpose. When a technical writer interviews the SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) for details he should have the technology specific expertise so as to understand the information and later document it. Writing skills It is mandatory for a technical writer to have a flair for writing. A technical writer should be able to document software, products etc. in a very concise and error free approach. Tools skills A technical writer needs to know various software tools, since they have to develop documents in different types of formats. Particular tools, like Adobe FrameMaker, RoboHelp, MS Word, Captivate etc. or maybe some other tool the company depends for technical writing in India. Interpersonal skills The ability to extract information for documentation purpose is very important for a technical writer. Generally SMEs do not have enough time. This is where a technical writers interpersonal skills come handy to gather as much information as possible in a very short time. Analytical or Diagnostic skills A technical writer should possess logical ability to interpret the given information for documenting it. Drawing or Design skills Technical writers should understand the usage of visuals to convey their thoughts in a document. Also formatting is very important and audience would understand the things better by the way of visuals. Testing skills A technical writer may be asked to test the technical procedures etc. Even if they dont do it, they understand that verification of the documentation should be done for authentication purpose. The above mentioned skills like analytical, interpersonal are natural skills, others are acquired skills like technical skills and tool skills. For the various tool skills you can get trained from various institutes in India which run technical writing courses. Training for technical writing in India If you want to be a full-time technical writer or a freelancer, you will have to write instructions to assist people use a product or service. Following are listed some the projects that a technical writer has to do: Documenting User Manuals from computer software to automobiles to electronic gadgets to kitchen appliances. Documenting Assembly Instructions for furniture, computers or other gadgets. Documenting training manuals. Writing online help documents. When audiences need help they can click on the Help link like in your internet browser. Documenting procedure manuals for businesses. Documenting for the internet. Technical writing involves writing a web page for a website describing how to use the website and what it does. The sector of technical writing in India is relatively new. Therefore, there is no formal training for technical writing in India. Candidates who want to be technical writers can go for some online courses or there are some privately run institutes in metro cities like Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore etc. where one can be trained to become a technical writer. This will definitely increase career prospects for the technical writers. There are so many basic and advanced courses run by a typical institute like: Certificate course in technical writing which has duration is one month. Diploma course in technical writing which has duration of three months. Advanced or PG diploma course in technical writing which has duration of six months. These courses prepare you for a technical writing career in India. Not only they provide you with tips for getting hired as a technical writer but also they give you assistance for the same by organizations they have tie ups with. A typical course of technical writing in India has to offer things like: How to develop skills you need as technical writer like writing skills and tools skills where you will be trained on tools like Adobe FrameMaker, RoboHelp, Snagit, Captivate, MS Word etc. How to build your self-confidence in your technical writing capability. How to complete several tasks that you may be assigned as technical writer like Help systems, Screen shots and Flowcharts. How understanding the audience is beneficial in technical writing. Training on various style guides and sample technical writing manuals. Pros and cons of freelancing, contract and permanent jobs. Dos and donts for writing your CV or resume. Practice assignments to help learn technical writing. Technical writing evolving as an industry in India Looking at the global picture the technical writing industry is 15% of the total software industry. Though, in India the trend is operational by the rising aerospace and defense divisions, also with the rise of the digital market and the increasing focus on other engineering sectors. Also, with the growth of technical writing in India, innovation and entrepreneurship is required to be upbeat to make the most of the prospects available in India. The technical writing sector has seen a rush of the outsourcing projects in India, which has risen after the US economic recession. The number of organizations doing vast number of technical writing projects has also risen in India. This is accompanied by the increase in the availability of the trained and experienced workforce available. This assurance in this budding industry is also reinforced by a huge number of local companies spending a considerable proportion of their funds on technical writing and documentation requirements. The huge number of career prospects available, supported by global standard of education and training services have changed technical writing into a growing and striking career option for many. The clientele for technical writing in India as well as abroad are divisions like IT products, manufacturing, banking, financial, insurance, defense, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, education and business consulting. Market Survey and Pay scale for a technical writers in India Salary Chart Median Salary by Skill/Specialty Job: Technical Writer Country: India | Currency: INR | Updated: 18 Jun 2010 | Individuals Reporting: 591 A survey conducted by one of the community for technical writing in India shows the rise in salary of technical writers. The survey shows that salaries of technical writers have grown more than 200% in the last couple of years. The median yearly salary for a technical writing professional has grown from Rs. 2.75 lakhs in 2002 to nearly Rs. 6 lakhs in 2008. The survey also shows that current average salary of a fresher in this field is Rs. 2.50 lakhs approximately and that of a senior level technical writer with say 10 years of experience is around Rs. 13 lakhs yearly. Technical Background In India if technical writers set according to their technical and non technical background the following chart shows the division: Here technical writers with technical background not necessarily have a technical degree or a diploma; some might have just worked in that profession in technical capacity. English Literature, Advertising and Marketing, Journalism Background A considerable number of Indian technical writers are English Literature graduates, have a background in Journalism or Advertising Marketing: Here, all technical writers who are from these categories may not necessarily have a writing background. Writing Background Around one-third of technical writers were involved in some kind of writing before switching over to technical writing in India. While most of them were into journalism, there were a few involved in copy writing, freelance writing and research oriented writing. Fresher or Experienced Technical Writers Though there are no formal courses of technical writing in India, and knowledge of technical writing is also less, but quite a number of technical writers have started into a career of technical writing as there first ever job. How technical writers got into this field Majority of technical writers came to know about the technical writing profession through the organization they were working in, also through friends and family members who were already into this field, advertisements etc. Experience range of technical writers in India About half of technical writers in India are in the work experience range of 2 to 4 years. There are some in the profession with more than 8 years of work experience. The above technical writing survey in India, done by www.tc-forum.org and www.payscale.com shows us the salary range, the growth of technical writing and the kind of people coming into the profession. Benefits of Outsourcing technical writing to India There are many benefits of outsourcing technical writing services to India. Most important being saving money and time, followed by improved productivity and updated processing. When someone is thinking of technical writing in India, one can add proficiency and modified approach to the list. The IT has seen a complete boom in the sector, creating professionals who are skilled and expert in technical writing. India has a very large population that knows fluent English. With the IT revolution in India the young technical writers have been shown the needs of global market so they very well understand demands of the international audience, which enable them to write technical documents in global viewpoint. India has produced many young talented professionals who have specialized in various fields like IT and medicine etc. and are willing to take up technical writing as a full time career. Therefore, one can think of outsourcing specialized projects for technical writing in India without worrying about content accuracy and innovative solutions. With the outsourcing being a big income generator for the Indian economy, the government is taking proper measures that international customers derive maximum benefits from Indian professionals. This makes better the chances of budding professions like technical writing in India. Future of technical writing in India Indians must keep reminding themselves that technical writing jobs were not created here. To keep up with these good times we must be able to foretell the future trends of technical writing in India and try to transform accordingly. In various companies in India where technical writers are employed, writing is taken to be a deliberate business function. One has to work hard to make his presence felt by making the technical writing profession center of the business function. It is our duty to instruct stakeholders about the importance of this profession and why they should hire a technical writer. Right now we are not at a point where a technical writer can put documentation in their final business project schemes. Companies are constantly concerned about the budgets which are attached with the resources. These days companies are harping upon making profits with reduced manpower. This thing directly impacts the profession of a technical writer. A technical writer must continuously remind the management about the values he presents the company with. For this we need people with leadership skills who can create effective opportunities for technical writers. The next thing is to understand where we are heading as a profession. For this, there is a need to get involved into technical expertise, innovation and doing business. The first and foremost thing is to be recognized as division of development team. This requires you to be well versed with the technology being used. The second step is to make your existence felt on a managerial level, which needs innovation. You have to have business skills to show your contribution in generating a firms revenue. Attend meetings with the development teams and try and influence their decisions. You have to move out of your work place and understand the functioning of the business. Also, instead of wasting time on how a tool works, our focus should be on rational or intellectual skills and how we can make the most of it. For those just beginning to enter this career, the foundation has already been laid. Now we carefully need to watch the path we take from here. Technical writing in India is not simply about gaining knowledge and writing about new technologies, products, services and processes. Its about setting new business directions and motivating others and delivering results. Conclusion A technical writers job is to write technical jargons into easily understandable language for a common person. With the technology evolving and laypersons accessing scientific and technical products and services also on a rise, the necessity for technical writing is only going to go up. Because of the US economic recession and outsourcing to countries like India for cost cutting and time saving purposes, technical writers will be in great demand. So due to the demand for instruction manuals increasing, it is making technical writing a profitable career course for writers of India.

Liberation Of Women In Foreign Countries :: essays research papers fc

Liberation of Men’s â€Å"Better Half†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Throughout history, stereotypes of women- ideological, ethnic, and sexual- seem to exist in all societies. Today and throughout history, women have benn viewed on many, many different ways. Throughout most of history, and in most cultures and societies, women were viewed as â€Å"the weaker half† and their purpose was to run the house and take care of things such as cooking and the kids. Via much reform in the United States, American women today are for the most part, viewed as equals to men, and given an equal chance to succeed in life. Unfortunately, many countries and regions of the world, even today, treat women terribly and with no respect.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The subject of women and their placement in Chinese society has been an ongoing topic for years, dating back to the beginning of China, as we know it. In China it has taken an entire political movement to reveal the importance of one half of the human race. In many books such as William Hinton’s Fanshen, Jack Belden’s China Shakes the World, and Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China, the changing placement of Chinese women is a major part of the story. Women fought and started working, women spoke out and marched and they stood up for themselves. The idea of women’s Liberation (women obtaining equal status with men) in China was a long and hard fought struggle that took much fighting and brave people.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Women’s Liberation in China began with the democratic revolution (attempt to overturn the feudal rule of a landlord class), and completed in the socialist revolution. With the increasing amount of bankruptcy in the rural economy over the past few years, men’s domination over women has been weakened. â€Å"The authority of the husband is getting shakier every day†. (Ching-Ling, 202)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The speed of the Women’s Liberation movement closely resembled the advance of the democratic revolution. In 1930, women’s status was apparently raised because of the eve of the war against Japanese aggression. At the time, there were already schools where co-education was established. Some, not just a few, were employed as doctors, teachers and hospital nurses. At this time, there were many women engaged in textile industries, but they were discriminated against because they received lower wages than their male counterparts.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  At the end of the war against the Japanese, (around 1950) under the Communist government, the movement was accelerated. Women began to work in all different fields, even the military.

An Unlikely Holiday Tradition :: A Christmas Story Essays

An Unlikely Holiday Tradition â€Å"People look forward to this,† Ward said. â€Å"It’s become a Christmas hit for us. People just keep their TV’s on.† Walter Ward is a spokesperson for the television station TNT. In 1998, TNT called it a â€Å"Ralphie marathon.† According to Ward, it was only a â€Å"stunt† but, when TNT saw how much the viewers liked it, it became a sort of tradition. Each year TNT runs a twenty-four hour marathon of the movie, A Christmas Story. That’s seventeen times from seven o’clock on Christmas Eve until seven o’clock on Christmas Day. The question remaining is, â€Å"how has A Christmas Story become a holiday television tradition?† A Christmas Story is a â€Å"low budget movie about a sort-of-dysfunctional family.† The movie took place in a small Indiana town in the 1940’s and follows a boy’s quest for a weapon, â€Å"that would now be illegal at any school† (Bryant). Ralphie Parker wanted just one thing for Christmas that year, â€Å"an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle† (Shepherd). His mission was to convince his parents, his teacher and even Santa that it was the perfect Christmas gift for a nine year old boy. To Ralphie’s dismay, they all disagreed and thought that a football would be a much better Christmas present and responded with, â€Å"You’ll shoot your eye out!† The movie was based on the novel written by Jean Shepherd called In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. It was a book based upon the opinion that, â€Å"childhood seems good in retrospect because we are not yet aware of the basic truth : that we’re all losers, that we die and death is a defeat† (Shepherd). Considering the circumstances of the movie, it is baffling that a Christmas movie which seems to be filled with dysfunction has become such an annual Christmas tradition. And tradition it is. In my family, A Christmas Story is on all throughout the day. Each year there is a battle at my grandparent’s house between the children and parents. The children cannot seem to pull themselves away from the television, while the parents beg for the children to join them at the table for Christmas dinner. In my opinion watching the movie over and over again never seems to get old.

Key Features of Lavertys Father and Son :: Bernard Mac Laverty

Describe the key features if a short story you have enjoyed, saying what has impressed you most about it. â€Å"Father and Son† is written by Bernard Mac Laverty. One of the main themes of â€Å"Father and Son† is the breakdown of a family relationship. A main feature of â€Å"Father and Son† is repetition and this feature helps to show the relationship between the father and son. Another feature is tones, each character reveals different examples of tones. The son has an aggressive tone, while the father has a caring and almost frail tone. These key features help the reader to enjoy the short story â€Å"Father and Son†. â€Å"Father and Son† helps to highlight the theme of family breakdown after the boss of a family member. This can be shown by â€Å"I love him so much it hurts but he won’t talk to me†. This shows the father tries to keep a close bond between them both. However, the son wants to create a large distance between them this maybe because of him growing up and wanting to become an adult. These helps most readers to relate to the characters and enjoy this book as most readers have been teenagers or are parents and can sympathize with their situation. This father and son relationship is very strained. A previous incident it is suggested that the son was close to death. The reader can pick this up with the quotation â€Å"Look, Da, I have not touched the stuff since I came back†. This helps to explain why the father has became so needy to be a part of his son’s life, because they have already lost a family member and almost losing his son scared him deeply, however this incidentally pushes his son further away. The father cares greatly for his son. The writer helps us to understand this by not naming the son. This encourages the repetition of â€Å"my son†, which shows the pride and love this father has for his son. This helps us to comprehend the pain the father feels about the distance in his relationship with his son. The pleasure of understanding and empathizing with the father helps us to enjoy â€Å"Father and Son†. The tone is very important in this short story as it helps to increase the knowledge of each character. The son, for instance, has a very aggressive tone as the reader may expect from a young frustrated man, an example of that is â€Å"I would like to slap his face and make a man out of him†.

Journal of Consumer Behavior Essay

Consumer complaints and recovery through guaranteeing self-service technology NICHOLA ROBERTSON1*, LISA MCQUILKEN1 and JAY KANDAMPULLY2 1 Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia 2 Ohio State University, 266 Campbell Hall, 1787 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA ABSTRACT Self-service technologies are shaping the future of consumer behaviour, yet consumers often experience service failure in this context. This conceptual paper focuses on self-service technology failure and recovery. A consumer perspective is taken. Recovering from self-service technology failure is fraught with difficulty, mainly because of the absence of service personnel. The aim of this paper is to present a theoretical framework and associated research propositions in respect to the positive role that service guarantees can play in the context of self-service technology failure and recovery. It contributes to the consumer behaviour domain by unifying the theory pertaining to consumer complaint behaviour, service recovery, specifically consumers’ perceptions of justice, and service guarantees, which are set in a distinctive self-service technology context. It is advanced that service guarantees, specifically multiple attribute-specific guarantees, are associated with consumer voice complaints following self-service technology failure, which is contingent on the attribution of blame in the light of consumers’ production role. Service guarantees are argued to be associated with consumers’ perceptions of just recovery in the selfservice technology context when they promise to fix the problem, compensate only when the problem cannot be remedied, offer a choice of compensation that is contingent on failure severity, afford ease of invocation and collection, and provide a personalised response to failures. Previous classifications of SSTs are used to highlight the applicability of guarantees for different types of SSTs. Managerial implications based on the theoretical framework are presented, along with future research directions. Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. INTRODUCTION The growing application of technology in services has  transformed the way that organisations interact with consumers (Liljander et al., 2006). Self-service technologies (SSTs) are technological interfaces that enable consumers to generate benefits for themselves, without the presence of the organisation’s personnel (Meuter et al., 2000). They enable consumers to take an active role in the production of their service experience. As SSTs are a major force shaping consumer behaviour (Beatson et al., 2006), the implications for both consumers and organisations need to be considered. The failure of SSTs is commonplace (Forbes, 2008; Robertson and Shaw, 2009). SST failure, or consumers’ perception that one or more aspects of SST delivery have not met their expectations, is attributed to poor service and failing technology (Meuter et al., 2000). Failures are inevitable with all services, especially SSTs that introduce new types of failures, such as consumer failures (Forbes, 2008; Meuter et al., 2000). However, SST recovery, e.g., fixing the problem and providing compensation, is generally reported to be poor (Forbes, 2008). While consumers demand a superior response to SST failure, complaints are largely ineffectively handled in this context (Collier and Bienstock, 2006). This is despite the fact that SST failure intensifies the need for recovery because consumers are often remote from service personnel (Collier and Bienstock, 2006). SST providers have ignored consumers, denied responsibility for failure, blamed consumers for the problem, *Correspondence to: Nichola Robertson, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia. E-mail: nichola.robertson@deakin.edu.au  and provided a generic complaint response (Forbes, 2008; Holloway and Beatty, 2003). Unsurprisingly, consumers might not bother voicing because they believe that it will be useless (Holloway and Beatty, 2003; Snellman and Vihtkari, 2003). If consumers are dissatisfied with an SST encounter and service recovery is perceived to be inept, they will switch and/or spread negative word of mouth and/or mouse (Collier and Bienstock, 2006; Dong et al., 2008; Harris et al., 2006a). In the interpersonal service context, it has been argued, albeit rarely, that service guarantees, or explicit promises made by organisations to deliver a certain level of service to satisfy consumers and to remunerate them if the service fails (Hogreve and Gremler, 2009), are an effective recovery tool (Bjà ¶rlin-Lidà ©n and Skà ¥là ©n,  2003; Kashyap, 2001; McColl et al., 2005). In a recovery encounter, service guarantees have been found to provide benefits, such as reducing consumer dissatisfaction, negative word of mouth, and switching (Wirtz, 1998). We argue that in the context of SST failure, service guarantees could act as a surrogate for service personnel who, in the interpersonal service context, encourage consumer complaints and facilitate recovery. Following our extensive review of service guarantees employed in the SST context, it was revealed that guarantees are uncommon in practice for non-Internet SSTs, such as kiosks and interactive voice response (IVR). However, in the Internet context, they appear to be more widespread. For example, guarantees are often used in the context of online banking, where online security, in particular, is guaranteed. They are also prevalent in the hotel context, typically in the form of online price matching guarantees. Therefore, the ‘real-life’ examples of SST guarantees provided throughout this paper are skewed toward Internet SSTs. However, in  N. Robertson et al. guarantees also have the ability to enhance consumers’ perceptions of fairness following failure. SST guarantees indicate justice in a context that is mostly devoid of interpersonal and other external cues, thereby encouraging consumer voice, facilitating service recovery, and, ultimately, retaining the organ isation’s reputation and its consumers. Our paper contributes to the consumer behaviour domain by adding to the underdeveloped literature on consumer complaints, consumer recovery perceptions, and service guarantees in the SST context, in addition to bringing these independent streams of literature together. As SST recovery in practice is reported to be deficient from the consumer perspective, further exploration of this topic is warranted. The remainder of this paper justifies a conceptual framework that describes how guarantees applied to different types of SSTs can encourage consumers to voice following failure and enable organisations to provide just recovery for consumers. We close with theoretical contributions, managerial implications, and an agenda for  future research. developing our propositions, we apply the SST classification schemes developed by Dabholkar (1994) and Meuter et al. (2000) in respect to technology type, purpose, and location. These schemes will be used to highlight the SST contexts that best fit the application of guarantees, which is beyond Internet SSTs. There are two key types of guarantees commonly offered in interpersonal services, unconditional and attributespecific, that also appear to be relevant in the SST setting. An unconditional guarantee covers the core service offering, and consumers are free to invoke it whenever they are dissatisfied (Wirtz et al., 2000). The attribute-specific guarantee is narrower in breadth, covering either a single or multiple service attributes (Van Looy et al., 2003). It is directed to areas within an organisation where consumers perceive that the guarantee adds value (Hart et al., 1992). The attribute-specific guarantee is the type most common in interpersonal services (Van Looy et al., 2003 ). Our review revealed that this also applies to SSTs. For example, Hertz car rental offers its consumers online check-in for rentals. It guarantees that online check-in enables consumers to pick up a rental vehicle within 10 minutes or less. If it fails to fulfil this specific promise, consumers are credited $50. In another example, match.com, an online dating service, guarantees via its ‘Make Love Happen Guarantee’, that if consumers do not find someone special in six months of using its site, it will provide them with six months free service. In the interpersonal service context, consumers have been found to prefer attribute-specific guarantees when they consider invoking the guarantee, ‘. . . probably for their clarity and manifest nature’ (McDougall et al., 1998: 289). We further argue that in the SST context, generally devoid of service personnel and, therefore, with reduced opportunities for consumer monitoring, the clarity of an attribute-specific guara ntee is less likely to attract consumer abuse (McCollough and Gremler, 2004). Therefore, we advocate and assume for the remainder of this paper an attribute-specific guarantee. This can cover multiple SST attributes, which is referred to as a multiple attribute-specific guarantee. For example, BestPrintingOnline.com, an online printing service, guarantees both the quality of its product and on-time  delivery. This type of guarantee provides consumers with the opportunity to complain about several SST problems via guarantee invocation (Bjà ¶rlin-Lidà ©n and Skà ¥là ©n, 2003). In the context of service recovery, the examination of service guarantees has been scarce, and the use of service guarantees in the SST context has not been examined before. This is confirmed by Hogreve and Gremler (2009) in their review of the past 20years of service guarantee research. To begin to address these gaps, our paper conceptualises the role of service guarantees in the SST failure and recovery context from the consumer perspective. We consider different types of SSTs in developing our propositions. We argue that SST guarantees encourage consumers to voice their complaints via guarantee invocation in the absence of service personnel. In line with the call for research examining the justice dimensions (i.e., distributive, procedural, and interactional justice) of service recovery in the SST context (Forbes et al., 2005), we propose that SST Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK The conceptual framework proposed (see Figure 1) is grounded in the theory pertaining to service guarantees, consumer voice, attribution theory, and justice theory. In justifying the framework, the distinctive characteristics of the SST context were considered, including the requirement of consumer co-production that is independent of service personnel, a lack of interpersonal interaction with service personnel, and consumers being obliged to interface and interact with technology (Robertson and Shaw, 2009). When studying SSTs, it is important to distinguish meaningfully between their types (Meuter et al., 2000). In terms of categorising SSTs, two key classification schemes can be drawn. The most cited classification scheme is that proposed by Dabholkar (1994). Her classification scheme considers the following variables: (i) who delivers the service (degree and level of consumer participation); (ii) where the service is delivered (location of the SST, i.e. remote, such as IVR or onsite, such as kiosks); and (iii) how the service is delivered (technology type, i.e. Internet and non-Internet, such as kiosks and IVR). More recently, Meuter et al. (2000) proposed a similar classification of SSTs. As per Dabholkar’s (1994) scheme, they included the different types of technologies that organisations use to interface with consumers (i.e.,  Internet and non-Internet) and the purpose of the technology from the viewpoint of consumers, that is, what consumers accomplish from using the technology (i.e., transactions and/or customer service).