Factors That Influence Food Habits and Culture Essay

How do you choose your food? This is a very simple question for most people,but we may get a hundred of different answers. Therefore,What factors actually influence our food habit and culture ? During the long history of human, food habits and culture are influenced by many factors. I want to discuss how food habits and culture influenced by geographical factors, religions factors,social factors and economic factors. First of all, climate is a very important factor of geography that affects our eating habits. â€Å"Climate affect local food habits by determining how long a growing season is and how many growing seasons there are per year. â€Å"(lisabeth hughes, 2011) The different weather in different region make the produce different. In warm region, most produces are up to three to four crop cycles per year. But in some cold region, the growing season will be short and crop cultivation is limited to one cycle. Compare to food in cold region, food in temperate regions can be more various. At the same time, season also have effect on our eating habits and culture. People will choose different food between summer and winter. This may not so common in California, but it is a very common phenomenon in my hometown. Chinese people like to eat hot pot in winter, because hot pot can make us feel warm. However, less of Chinese will like hot pot in summer. In addition, the living position is also a main element that impact on our food habits and culture. People who live around sea would like to eat more seafood than people live in inland city. Like people live in California are easy to get fresh seafood than people live in Colorado. That’s why I believe geographical factors affecting food habits and culture. Secondly, religions factor influence our food habits and culture. Religious proscriptions range from a few to many, from relaxed to highly restrictive. This will affect a follow’s food choices and behaviors. Much of religions have their unique food habits and culture. Fro instance, Muslims and Jewish do not eat pork. They believe that Pork is not a clean food. Also, Within Christianity, the Seventy-day Adventists discourage â€Å"stimulating† beverages such as alcohol,which is not forbidden among Catholics. As religions are have big effect on people, the rule in religions for the food also influence our eating habits and culture. Thirdly, social factors which include family and peer pressure play a important role in our food habits and culture. In the article, Eating Habits, the author shows us that people in a social group will influence each other’s behaviors and values. They also share a common culture. A person’s membership in particular peer, work, or community group impacts food behaviors. For example, we live with our family since we born. It is easy for us to follow our family’s food habits and culture when we were small. So, it is difficult for us to change our habits even it is bad. That’s why our food habits and culture can not easily change. It’s a heritage we inherit from our ancestor. Finally, economic factors influence our food habits and culture as well. Population studies show that it is obviously to see the food difference in different social classes. Money,values, and consumer skills all affect what a person purchases. If we wish to choose some healthy food, we have to pay much than some unbalanced diets. For this reason, Low-income group have a greater tendency to consume unbalanced diets and have low intakes of fruit and vegetables. It is clearly to see how economic factors affect on food habits and culture in our daily life. To sum up, I hold the view that geographical factors, religions factors,social factors and economic factors are the most important factor influence our food habits and culture. Reference Hughes, L. (2011). Geographical factors affecting food habits. http://www. ehow. co. uk/info_8210829_geographical-factors-affecting-food-habits. html Yvonne,M. (2010). What influence the eating habits of the American people? http://voices. yahoo. com/what-influences-eating-habits-american-5588233. html? ca t=5 Food today(2004). Why we eat what we eat:social and economic determinants of food choice. http://www. eufic. org/article/en/health-and-lifestyle/food-choice/artid/social-economic-determinants-food-choice/.

2nd Generation Reforms Essay

Economic Reforms in India since 1991 India was a latecomer to economic reforms, embarking on the process in earnest only in 1991, in the wake of an exceptionally severe balance of payments crisis. The need for a policy shift had become evident much earlier, as many countries in East Asia achieved high growth and poverty reduction through policies which emphasized greater export orientation and encouragement of the private sector. India took some steps in this direction in the 1980s, but it was not until 1991 that the government signaled a systemic shift to a more open economy with greater reliance upon market forces, a larger role for the private sector including foreign investment, and a restructuring of the role of government. In 1980s growth was unsustainable, fuelled by a buildup of external debt which culminated in the crisis of 1991. In sharp contrast, growth in the 1990s was accompanied by remarkable external stability despite the East Asian crisis. Poverty also declined significantly in the post-reform period, and at a faster rate than in the 1980s according to some studies. In the following paper, five major areas are covered by the reform program: fiscal deficit reduction, industrial and trade policy, agricultural policy, infrastructure development and social sector development. Savings, Investment and Fiscal Discipline Fiscal profligacy was seen to have caused the balance of payments crisis in 1991 and a reduction in the fiscal deficit was therefore an urgent priority at the start of the reforms. The combined fiscal deficit of the central and state governments was successfully reduced from 9. 4 percent of GDP in 1990-91 to 7 percent in both 1991-92 and 1992-93 and the balance of payments crisis was over by 1993. The fiscal failures of both the central and the state governments have squeezed the capacity of both the center and the states to undertake essential public investment. High levels of government borrowing have also crowded out private investment. Unless this problem is addressed, the potential benefits from reforms in other areas will be eroded and it may be difficult even to maintain the average growth rate of 6 percent experienced in the first ten years after the reforms, let alone accelerate to 8 percent. Reforms in Industrial and Trade Policy Reforms in industrial and trade policy were a central focus of much of India’s reform effort in the early stages. Industrial policy prior to the reforms was characterized by multiple controls over private investment which limited the areas in which private investors were allowed to operate, and often also determined the scale of operations, the location of new investment, and even the technology to be used. The industrial structure that evolved under this regime was highly inefficient and needed to be supported by a highly protective trade policy, often providing tailor-made protection to each sector of industry. The costs imposed by these policies had been extensively studied (for example, Bhagwati and Desai, 1965; Bhagwati and Srinivasan, 1971; Ahluwalia, 1985) and by 1991 a broad consensus had emerged on the need for greater liberalization and openness. A great deal has been achieved at the end of ten years of gradualist reforms. Industrial Policy Industrial policy has seen the greatest change, with most central government industrial controls being dismantled. The list of industries reserved solely for the public sector — which used to cover 18 industries has been drastically reduced to three: defense aircrafts and warships, atomic energy generation, and railway transport. Industrial licensing by the central government has been almost abolished except for a few hazardous and environmentally sensitive industries. The requirement that investments by large industrial houses needed a separate clearance under the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act to discourage the concentration of economic power was abolished and the act itself is to be replaced by a new competition law which will attempt to regulate anticompetitive behavior in other ways. Industrial liberalization by the central government needs to be accompanied by supporting action by state governments. Private investors require many permissions from state governments to start operations, like connections to electricity and water supply and environmental clearances. They must also interact with the state bureaucracy in the course of day-to-day operations because of laws governing pollution, sanitation, workers’ welfare and safety, and such. A recently completed joint study by the World Bank and the Confederation of Indian Industry (Stern, 2001) found that the investment climate varies widely across states and these ifferences are reflected in a disproportional share of investment, especially foreign investment, being concentrated in what are seen as the more investor-friendly states(Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu) to the disadvantage of other states (like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal). Investors perceived a 30 percent cost advantage in some states over others, on account of the availability of infrastructure and the quality of governanc e. These differences across states have led to an increase in the variation in state growth rates, with some of the less favored states actually decelerating compared to the 1980s (Ahluwalia, 2002). Because liberalization has created a more competitive environment, the pay off from pursuing good policies has increased, thereby increasing the importance of state level action. Infrastructure deficiencies will take time and resources to remove but deficiencies in governance could be handled more quickly with sufficient political will. Trade Policy Trade policy reform has also made progress, though the pace has been slower than in industrial liberalization. Before the reforms, trade policy was characterized by high tariffs and pervasive import restrictions. Imports of manufactured consumer goods were completely banned. For capital goods, raw materials and intermediates, certain lists of goods were freely importable, but for most items where domestic substitutes were being produced, imports were only possible with import licenses. The criteria for issue of licenses were nontransparent, delays were endemic and corruption unavoidable. The economic reforms sought to phase out import licensing and also to reduce import duties. Import licensing was abolished relatively early for capital goods and intermediates which became freely importable in 1993, simultaneously with the switch to a flexible exchange rate regime. Import licensing had been traditionally defended on the grounds that it was necessary to manage the balance of payments, but the shift to a flexible exchange rate enabled the government to argue that any balance of payments impact would be effectively dealt with through exchange rate flexibility. Removing quantitative restrictions on imports of capital goods and intermediates was relatively easy, because the number of domestic producers was small and Indian industry welcomed the move as making it more competitive. It was much more difficult in the case of final consumer goods because the number of domestic producers affected was very large (partly because much of the consumer goods industry had been reserved for small scale production). Quantitative restrictions on imports of manufactured consumer goods and agricultural products were finally removed on April 1, 2001, almost exactly ten years after the reforms began, and that in part because of a ruling by a World Trade Organization dispute panel on a complaint brought by the United States. Progress in reducing tariff protection, the second element in the trade strategy, has been even slower and not always steady. As shown in Table 3, the weighted average import duty rate declined from the very high level of 72.percent in 1991-92 to 24. 6 percent in 1996-97. However, the average tariff rate then increased by more than 10 percentage points in the next four years. In February 2002, the government signaled a return to reducing tariff protection. The peak duty rate was reduced to 30 percent, a number of duty rates at the higher end of the existing structure were lowered, while many low end duties were raised to 5 percent. The net result is that the weighted average duty rate is 29 percent in 2002-03. Although India’s tariff levels are significantly lower than in 1991, they remain among the highest in the developing world because most other developing countries have also reduced tariffs in this period. The weighted average import duty in China and southeast Asia is currently about half the Indian level. The government has announced that average tariffs will be reduced to around 15 percent by 2004, but even if this is implemented, tariffs in India will be much higher than in China which has committed to reduce weighted average duties to about 9 percent by 2005 as a condition for admission to the World Trade Organization.

Impacts and implications on the performance and growth of small and Dissertation

Impacts and implications on the performance and growth of small and medium-sized enterprises in London - Dissertation Example In this research paper, after a review of the existing literature, new econometric results on the impact and implications on the performance of SMEs, the ongoing evidences of 2009 and forecasts (2010-2013), and drive some key financial and economic policy implications. Financial crises have impacts on all the economic units as is in accordance to the case study of London and SMEs’ structure at micro and macro stages. The main purpose of this study is to determine how SMEs, which are considerably the smallest sections of economics and have a share rate of about 95% (percent) of both developing and developed countries’ economic compositions, have been both negatively and positively been influenced by the effects of financial downturn in London. Small and medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) have been recognized as catalysts to spur the economic advancement of London. In this regards therefore, special focus has been given to the well being of these SMEs in recognition of the f undamental roles they play in economic advancement of the London’s economy. Several research findings indicate that the small business sector has a greater importance for the national economy, the employment and the innovative environment of a country-London. Despite the encouragement and support given to the SMEs, their success and failures compared gives a more picture of frequent failures due to internal and external environmental factors. This study, therefore, gives some recent and final data for the 2009 and forecasts for 2010-2013 on financial and economic downturn impacts on the SMEs’ performance in London. Key words: financial crisis, economic downturn, econometrics, Access to Finance (ATF), small and medium-sized enterprises. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦.†¦Ã¢â‚ ¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. i 1. CHAPTER ONE: GAP IN THE RESEARCH 1.1. Background of the study†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦. 1 1.2. Competitive Advantage as Determinants of Success†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 3 1.3. Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in London †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦...†¦.. 4 1.4. Research Problems†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 5 1.5. Main Objectives of the Study†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 7 1.6. Specific Objectives of the Study†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã ¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦....†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 7 1.7. Research Questions†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 7 1.8. Research Hypotheses†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦....†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 8 1.9. Significance of the Study†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦...†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦.†¦.. 11 1.10. Scope and limitations†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦11 2. CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Financial and Economic Crises and Notion of SMEs†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ †¦...†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..13 2.2. The Concept of Strategic Management †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 15 2.3. The Effects of Financial and Economic downturn and External Environmental Factors on Performance and growth of SME in London†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 17 2.3.1. Porter’s generic strategies†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦...†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦.. 20 2.4. Threats of New Entrants†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦

You can create this Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

You can create this - Research Proposal Example Welcoming international trade, the country is expanding its business relations with Spain (its closest neighbor), the US, and African countries. In many cases goods shipped to Portugal do not arrive there directly, but come to some other country of the EU, and only then travel to Portugal – in order to use the advantage of lower value added tax rates of the other country. Companies entering the Portuguese market are welcome to contact the closest US Export Assistance Center which supports exporters. U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service (100) recommends entering the market with an assistance of a local partner. Besides, finding a group or a right person to obtain useful advice and contacts is considered to be very beneficial because personal contacts are important for conducting a successful business in the country. In order to establish an office in Portugal, one should create a Portuguese company according to the country’s law. For most tenders and goods price is more important than quality. So, in order for a product to be competitive, the price must not be higher than that of the rivals. Portuguese importers now prefer to receive C.I.F. or F.O.B. quotations that include a product description, shipping weight, volume and time of shipment and delivery. Though such invoices (with all the mentioned above information) are not mandatory, they are very desirable. The largest part of the businesses of the country is concentrated in Lisbon, a capital of Portugal. Modern techniques of conducting business are widely spread in the country. However, traditional values are still in a great respect: personal contact and a handshake are still considered by many Portuguese businessmen to be more valuable than a signed contract. At the same time, a request for a formal contract will not offend them. At the same time, personal relations are valued and respected more than any legal

Death And Its Significance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Death And Its Significance - Essay Example The attribute of death being evil was picked up due to people not being able to justify a person’s death. Some people would have been better off alive than dead according to some people’s interpretation. The idea of death is however ruled out by Fieldman, as he considers dead people not to have any feeling whatsoever lest an opinion (1992).His perception of a dead person thus means that he has become non-existent. Death in Medieval/ Middle Ages In the medieval years, death was viewed as a way of life. Everyone had the concept that that was where they were all headed; that they would eventually die. This shows that people in the middle ages were more proverbial with the term death and what it actually brought. It was more welcome in their lives than feared (Aries, 1974). They were all resigned to their fate, which was to die. This was the eventuality of everyone and everything. People’s experience with death began at birth where in communities like the African one s, new-borns were named after those who had already passed on. They considered it a reincarnation or rebirth of their loved ones who had already passed on. This was probably in a bid to keep their memories alive and the belief that there was life after death. This is how Buddhists view death even up to date. They are at ease with death and just think of it as relocation, where one moves from one place to another or switching houses for a particular convenience. In the ancient times, the thought of death was rather comforting than it is worrying in the days we now live in. It was as if they had a premonition of death and were somewhat prepared for it waiting for the day it come knocking at their door. It was as if they had it all figured out; the surrendering of oneself to death (a better place full of peace and serenity) until it was time to return to this world by being reborn. The middle ages’ people saw death as this obvious and restrained thing la mort apprivoisee; which is a complete opposite of the present times, where death is seen as strange and feared by people. These people also had mourning and burial rituals and traditions that followed a death encounter. This again is in support of how the people in those times were at ease with death and were prepared for the loss that comes with death. Death was a rite of passage in life. Death in Present Times In most recent times, death has become a taboo rarely spoken about and with myths surrounding it. It is still though a mystery but people have become more detached from it due to fear of the ‘evil’ that is mostly accompanied with death (Aries, 1974). Instead of people accepting death as a way of life like in the past ages, they are forced to actually be terrified of death. Death is now met with anxiety as people wonder what will happen to them later. People grief their loved ones and some even go to the extent of mental depression due to the loss of their loved ones. In addition, peopl e have now become attached to their earthly possessions such as pets, and things like power and wealth. These things matter more to human beings so much that the thought of being away from them is too scary to even think about. Instead of the resignation which usually met death in early ages, people panic at the thought of dying, or otherwise losing their loved ones (Aries, 1974). The universally accepted notion that everyone is bound to die has now become completely forgotten such that an estranged person would rather

Operations and Business Systems Management Research Paper

Operations and Business Systems Management - Research Paper Example Cadbury’s have been a renowned English manufacturer of chocolate products for more than 100 years. Today, as Cadbury – Schweppes, the firm is a major food products conglomerate, but one with very deep roots. Indeed, the current mission statement of the company echoes the philosophy of John Cadbury, the committed Quaker who founded the company in 1794. Cadbury’s mission stresses on many objectives. It also explicitly sets out a commitment to encourage the personal fulfillment of employees and a major thrust is given to customer satisfaction. How the company manages its different processes as such – manufacturing, distribution, etc and its various operations and sub-operations would be detailed here. There have been a large number of strategic decisions and a operational research and development involved in making the products a huge success throughout the world. The emphasis was laid not only on the major operations of manufacturing, marketing and distributing but also on a large number of sub-operations which are essential in very process. Cadbury is now market leader in UK chocolate confectionery, with worldwide exports and volume is continuing to increase by about ten percent per year. Volume in general refers to the number of times an operation has to deliver a service or product. The usual descriptors for the volume dimension are high volume, medium volume and low volume. The distinction between these three categories is usually drawn on a subjective basis. The firm deals with high volume operations.... The firm deals with high volume operations supplying repetitive or standardized products and services. This allows for repeatability, specialization and systemization usually resulting in relatively low unit costs. Higher volume operations can gain efficiency by breaking down the tasks into small units so staff specializes in only a small part of the total work. It is a known fact that volume is the inverse of variety. A low variety market is by definition high volume. Operations can be set up to produce a single product or service, or a range of very similar products, very efficiently. There is no need to allow for variation in material, specification or process. Indeed Cadbury's deal with similar products mostly chocolate based - cocoa, drinking chocolate, chocolate bars and so on, thus the operations could be set up to produce them more effectively and efficiently. The major challenge here would be global deployment of a set of volume products. This could also be overcome if correct measures are taken and right strategies are being followed. Similarly, the greater the variety of product or services produced, the more flexible the operation has to be. Flexibility can be seen as a response to two types of stimuli - variety and uncertainty. Variety indicates the necessity of the processes to adopt a range of operating conditions. For example, to cope with the existing range of service parts, components or products, to adapt products or services to varying customer requirements, to be able to adjust output levels to cope with seasonality, or to be able to expedite orders to different levels of priority. Initially, Cadbury Ltd sold only tea, coffee, cocoa and drinking

Exam Topics (Operations Management) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Exam Topics (Operations Management) - Essay Example Operations is one of the most important and primary functions in any sort of firm or business. "While marketing induces the demands for products and finance provides the capital, operations produces and delivers the product (goods and services)." (Hall, Johnson, & Pyke, 2005). By discussing these five questions, we can come to a clearer and more knowledgeable viewpoint on the subject matter. The aim of this paper is to discuss all of this, while also examining the other key elements which fit within this profile of subject matter. This is what will be dissertated in the following. Inefficiency drains valuable components such as money, time, quality, and talent. There is no chance in optimizing or making more positive any of the steps involved in the process if the process itself is deemed as inefficient. "Incidentally, process optimization is a continuous phenomena. It is not like you can do it once and forget about it. External conditions keep changing, other dependant processes keep changing, and so on." ("TopSigma", 2005). The nature of inefficient processes management is to make sure that these valuable components (money, time, etc.) are not wasted, but rather are used to the fullest extent possible; the ideal is to have all members working at their absolute top strength, which creates a cycle of efficiency, which in the end creates a positive result. What is the Role of Operations Management The role of 'operations' varies from business to business, but the basics always remain: the operations management looks at every process in the business, breaks it down, analyzes it, and makes it better. Their goal is to have overall customer satisfaction, and to continue the business in a positive, efficient, and effective way. "Operations management revolves around the design, organization, leadership and control of the productive assets of the enterprise, including people and technology." (Merrett, n.d.). Regardless of the size or type of business, there are always processes and operations issues that must be dealt with. Operations managers find the inefficiencies or problems in the work flow of the business, and re-engineer these processes in order for them to be more efficient and profitable for the company. Operations management involves all of the tools and processes of the business, including components such as: the supply chain, product quality, manufacturing, sales and marketing, safety and health, and environmental concerns. "Operations managers use tools like performance measurement, flowcharts, best practices information, and benchmarking to determine where the problems are and the best methods to correct them." (Obringer, 2006). Some of the processes that are linked to the operations ma

Marketing in the United States Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Marketing in the United States - Article Example From this study it is clear that due to this fact, the article describes the changes that are currently observed in the marketing strategy. Most businesses are now shifting the focus of their marketing to this generation. This is in line with the responses to demographic changes of the market. This article is important in that it exposes the changes in the market that warrant changes in marketing strategy. To reach a large population, any marketer must be aware of demographic changes in the market and seek to focus attention on the most viable group. It also justifies the focus that most businesses are taking in advertisements, the internet. This generation will, therefore, be the main focus for many businesses in the present and the future. The marketing strategies should now focus on addressing the demographic changes.This paper discusses that despite the long-held perceptions that the millennial generation is indecisive, lazy and possibly inactive in the business, the marketers ar e now finding a new consumer generation in these individuals. The change is related to the fact that the millennial generation, which encompasses the young people in their twenties, forms the largest part of the American population. To achieve a considerably larger exposure of their products, the marketers are, therefore, focusing on this generation that is also easily reachable through the internet.

Integrity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Integrity - Essay Example y is a concept that has an ethical angle in itself serves to indicate that it is a complex concept, which can then be defined in different terms, considering the fact that ethics has no definitive interpretation due to the subjectivity of ethical interpretations in the realms of either right or wrong. At this point it becomes inevitable to ask the question; what is integrity? The term integrity can be defined as the consistency and the commitment to honor whatever choices that an individual has made (Killinger, 2). Thus, the concept of integrity cannot be divorced from three major aspects; the consistency of principle, the soundness of mind and the commitment not to adulterate. The ethical and moral perspective views integrity from the point of the honesty of one’s actions (Killinger, 9). Honesty is the aspect of truthfulness that guides both the talk and action of an individual to ensure that both of them are consistent. It is therefore not possible to term a person as being a man of integrity, where the actions of that person are not in line with whatever the person says. Integrity demands that an individual will talk and at the same time, walk the talk (Killinger, 4). Therefore, when the ethical angle of defining integrity is taken, then it demands that no aspect of contradiction should be found within a person. In case an individual is holding conflicting beliefs within, it is only fair that the individual discards the conflicting beliefs and stands for one principle, so as to be regarded as a person of integrity. This is because; integrity and contradiction are two aspects that cannot coexist (Killinger, 8). This aspect fulfills the requirement for consistency of principle as a major element of integrity. The soundness of mind is yet another aspect that integrity must fulfill. The soundness of mind simply means that an individual makes a choice that is well informed, well thought-out and fully considered, so that the individual can be able to stand by that

The Innocence Commission Essay Example for Free

The Innocence Commission Essay Introduction:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Criminal justice in most of the judicial bodies should be based on truth and fairness in order to give a rightful conviction. Effectiveness of criminal justice is portrayed by their ability to identify offender after thorough investigations are carried out so that one can be sure that the person being accused of offence is truly guilty. Fairness is reached when there is enough evidence given at all points, there is legal representation of prongs in criminal justice which are undermined by wrongful conviction. Wrongful conviction makes one to face torture or punishment for the mistake that he or she did not commit and the one who has actually committed crime finally goes free. Causes of wrongful conviction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   There are quite a number of issues which cause wrongful conviction to individuals who are innocent. Wrongful conviction results to someone being arrested for crime which he or she has not committed. Wrongful conviction can be caused by:- Government mis-conduct Junk science False confession Government mis-conduct.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Wrongful conviction can be facilitated by misconducts by the government. This is evidenced when police use their powers excessively to deal with a crime which they are not fully aware of its cause. In this case individuals are convicted for their honest mistake that they make. They are usually convicted and no evidence is used to show that they have committed that mistake. In other cases weak evidence are portrayed but they do not show or indicate that, that particular person has committed that crime. Corruption in police force and in various judicial bodies has lead to wrongful conviction of individuals who have not committed crime. In most cases the accused can be judged wrongfully when the accuser give bribe to the police or judge who in return does no listen or take evidence from the accused and therefore he or she ends up being confirmed guilty of the mistake which he or she did not commit.   Mistaken identity can be another factor that can facilitate government mis-conduct. This happens when police do not take time to get enough details of the person that they are supposed to arrest and therefore they end up arresting someone similar to the one who committed the crime (DPIC. 2008). In other cases, people can bear the same name and when police are investigating on the crime, they do not take time to know the exact person they are supposed to arrest. In resent days, government mis-conduct has remained as one of the major cause wrongful conviction in most individuals who fails victims of wrongful conviction. Junk science   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In confirming an individual who has committed crime, various scientific studies can be carried out by trained experts. These studies help to reveal the identity of the one who committed crime. When the evidence of identifying the person is mis-handled or unqualified individuals are used to carry out the research, wrongful conviction can occur since the pure identity of the one committed crime is not revealed and this can else show identity of another individual. Evidence is usually collected at the scene of crime and when its not handled accurately it can be mis-handled or labeling exchanged which end up giving false results in regard to crime. The task should be carried out by experienced individual who are fully trained so that reliable results in regard to the one who committed crime are produced. This however, can be possible by ensuring that there is quality control and assurance when conducting the laboratory procedures. Therefore in carrying out scientific study to help in determining the one who committed crime, care need to be taken so that the evidence is handled correctly to give reliable results which would not result in wrongful conviction. False confession.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In most cases, wrongful conviction has been caused by false confessions. False confession can come about when the one confessing or giving evidence of the crime is mentally ill. Mental illness can make someone to confess on a crime which he or she has not committed or if the mentally ill person is giving evidence he or she can give wrong allegations concerning the accused. In other cases, police can use force and torture to individual to force someone to confess crimes which they have not committed. Police can false individual to give evidence after torturing individuals who finally gives up and decide to give wrong evidence out of torture that they get. Individual can be tortured also to give wrong allegations on someone else who has been convicted wrongfully (Holligan, 2003). These wrong evidences consequently results to convicting individuals wrongfully. During conviction of individuals, correct evidence should be gathered from mentally fit individual and police should not be allowed to torture individuals to give evidence in regard to crime and therefore they should be left to give evidence freely.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Court should come up with various ways to ensure that cases of wrongful conviction are fully eliminated or they are reduced to minimum level to help those individuals who suffer greatly in prison while they are innocent as a result of being convicted wrongfully. The court has established various ways of ensuring that the problem is dealt with accordingly. This ways include: The court should first establish the main causes of wrongful convictions. Court should carry out research on these causes so as to ensure that they are dealt with fully. The court should review cases so that they can have better understanding of wrongful conviction. Appropriate constituent should ensure that they have the best practice. Issues of systematic level in examination of wrongful conviction should be examined. This can be enhanced when court get involved in commission which will ensure that all the above is addressed and the issues of wrongful conviction are reduced.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The court before giving their final ruling on the one who committed crime, the magistrates should first ensure that they are aware of the many causes of wrongful conviction so that they can establish them and understand them fully before giving their judgment on crime. By being aware of these causes, the courts ensure that judgments are not based on unreliable evidence and therefore judgment should always be based on reliable evidence (Sprouts, 2005). This evidence should be given forth by reliable individual who can be fully trusted of evidence that they produce in court to help in ruling of the convicted individual.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Before giving out ruling, the court should ensure that it has carried out reliable research so that they can deal with cases which are brought forth rightfully (Rosen, 1992). These researches will help to establish whether the evidence collected is reliable. Research such as cause and result of wrongful conviction should be carried out so that the court can understand the torture that those who are convicted wrongly undergo. Therefore, by carrying out various researches, the court can finally be able to always give the rightful conviction.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another way of reducing these wrongful conviction the court need to review various cases which have been wrongfully convicted so that they can evaluate the cause of those cases and come up with measures of ensuring that they are finally resolved. Best practices should be carried out by the court to ensure that those cases that they handle and the evidence that they use in ruling are reliable so that they can avoid unreliable sources which will cause wrongful conviction of individuals. Such practices includes, using experienced experts to gather enough information in regard to the crime being investigated.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Systemic levels of examining various cases should be enhanced by court which will help the court to follow the case step by step so that the ruling given is the right one. Step by step follow up of cases can give reliable results to base judgment on. These systemic orders should be carried out by the court from the time the crime is committed and the scene of crime, to collection and presentation of evidence to the court by reliable individual. When these are followed, reliable evidence is finally gathered which prevents wrongful conviction.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   There are quite a number of individuals who were convicted wrongly in and faced trial of crimes that they did not commit. One of the outstanding examples of an individual who was wrongfully convicted is David Milgaard who was wrongfully charged of raping Gail Miller out of false confession. Out of pressure and continued intellogation by the police, David’s finally changed the truth concerning the evidence they had in regard to the crime until it took to the version of police which lead to arrest of David. All the witnesses who were called upon to give testimony in regard to David were intimidated by the police who made them to give wrong information. After going through torture, the witness had to give information which pleased the police so that they could use it to file charges on David for crime which he had not committed. David tried to persuade the court but no one could listen to him since they believed that they had enough evidence. But after a lot of effort which was employed by David and the family, they finally managed to get reliable evidence out of DNA testing which they used to prove that David did not actually commit that crime. According to federal government, they compensated David for being convicted wrongfully. In this case, torture should not be used to get evidence and reliable evidence should be used before convicting an individual.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another victim of wrongful conviction is Richard Alexander who was accused falsely of four rape cases after the statement which was released by the victim. After DNA study was carried out, it did not show him as the suspect of the case but the victim confessed that he was the one who committed that crime. During his stay in court, investigators were convinced that he is guilty since there are more rape cases which occurred when he was in custody. This enabled him to prove himself innocent since the other three cases mentioned him but by that time he was in police custody.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another individual who was wrongfully convicted was Alan Crotzer who was sent to prison in 1982. Alan was convicted of being among the three men accused of robbing white occupants in their apartment in Timpa and rapped a woman and a child (Wickham, 2007). They were accused of sexually assaulting them and leaving them tied to a tree. Crotzer was arrested since his picture was picked at the scene of crime. Crotzer was convicted wrongful and sentenced for a period of 130 years. He was behind bars for 24 years but after DNA test was carried out he was finally released and proved innocent.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Therefore, in conclusion, wrongful conviction has caused many innocent individuals to suffer for mistake committed by other individuals who finally goes free. For fairness to be reached, the court should ensure that investigation and reliable evidence are used to determine the one who has actually committed the crime. Wrongful conviction results to torture and should be minimized and avoided at all levels. Reference: Rosen P. (1992). Wrongful conviction in Criminal Justice. Retrieved from: http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/BP/bp285-e.htm Wickham D. (2007). Wrongfully convicted man. Retrieved from: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/05/wrongly_convict.html Sprouts M. (2005). Swanns way. United State: Barne and Noble Holligan B. (2003). Adventure and Law and Justice. Sydney: UNSW DPIC. (2008). Causes of Wrongful Conviction. Retrieved from: file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/user/Desktop/Causes%20of%20Wrongful%20Convictions.htm

Business Entrepreneurship: Strategy Of Bill Gates

Business Entrepreneurship: Strategy Of Bill Gates William Henry Bill Gates born 28th October, 1955 and he is an American business magnate and chairman of Microsoft, the leading software company. He is consistently ranked among the worlds richest people and the wealthiest overall as of 2009. Gates is the most successful entrepreneurs of the world. He is capable to run a successful and a profitable entrepreneurship for many years and even today, we cannot survive in this competitive world without it. Vision and dedication are the key factors of being a successful entrepreneur and these skills were present in Bill Gates from the beginning. He has got the skills to identify the most suitable employee for recruitment. The success of Microsoft is the true example of the entrepreneurial skills of Bill Gates. The success story of Bill Gates is highly motivating for all the upcoming entrepreneurs. His hard work, dedication and self-confidence helped him to earn everything he has. He is a simple man and slightly conservative in regards of money although he is one of the richest people of the world. The youth can take inspirations from the life of Bill Gates. 2nd Entrepreneur Steven Paul Jobs another person like Bill Gates. He was born 24th February, 1955. He is a computer technical entrepreneur and at presently he is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Apple inc. as a result I think the comparison between him and Billgates are perfect. His comparison with Bill gates discussed bellow. Until recently, Bill Gates has been viewed as the villain of the tech world, while his archrival, Steve Jobs, enjoys an almost saintly reputation. Gates is the cutthroat capitalist. A genius maybe, but one more interested in maximizing profits than perfecting technology. Hes the ultimate vengeful nerd. Ostracized at school, he gets the last laugh by bleeding us all dry. On the other hand, Jobs has never seemed much concerned with business, though hes been very successful at it of late. Instead, Jobs has been portrayed as a man of art and culture. Hes an aesthete, an artist; driven to make a dent in the universe. But these perceptions are wrong. In fact, the reality is reversed. Its Gates whos making a dent in the universe, and Jobs whos taking on the role of single-minded capitalist, seemingly oblivious to the broader needs of society. Gates is giving away his fortune with the same gusto he spent acquiring it, throwing billions of dollars at solving global health problems. He has also spoken out on major policy issues, for example, by opposing proposals to cut back the inheritance tax. In contrast, Jobs does not appear on any charitable contribution lists of note. And Jobs has said nary a word on behalf of important social issues, reserving his talents of persuasion for selling Apple products. Giving USA Foundation, a philanthropy research group which publishes an annual charity survey, said Jobs does not appear on lists of gifts of $5 million or more over the last four years. Nor is his name on a list of gifts of $1 million or more compiled by Indiana Universitys Centre on Philanthropy. Jobs wife is also absent from these philanthropic lists, although she has made dozens of political donations totalling tens of thousands of dollars to the Democrats, according to the Open Secrets database. Of course, Jobs and his wife may be giving enormous sums of money to charity anonymously. If they are funnelling cash to various causes in private, their names wouldnt show up on any lists, regardless of the size of their gifts. For a person as private as Jobs, who shuns any publicity about his family life, this seems credible. If so, however, this would make Jobs virtually unique among moguls. Richard Jolly, chairman of Giving USA Foundation, said not all billionaires give their money away, but a lot do, and most do not do it quietly. We see it over and over again, he said. Very wealthy individuals do support the organizations and institutions they believe in. Thats certainly true of Gates, who not only gives vast sums away, but also speaks up in support of the organizations and institutions he believes in. This is not the case for Jobs. To the best of my knowledge, in the last decade or more, Jobs has not spoken up on any social or political issue he believes in with the exception of admitting hes a big Bob Dylan fan. Rather, he uses social issues to support his own selfish business goals. In the Think Different campaign, Jobs used cultural figures he admired to sell computers figures who stuck their necks out to fight racism, poverty, inequality or war. Jobs once offered to be an advisor to Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election, and he invited President Clinton over for dinner when Bubba visited Silicon Valley in 1996 hardly evidence of deep political convictions. Jobs cant even get behind causes that would seem to carry deep personal meaning, let alone lasting social importance. Like Lance Armstrong, he is a cancer survivor. But unlike Armstrong, Jobs has so far done little publicly to raise money or awareness for the disease. On the evidence, hes nothing more than a greedy capitalist whos amassed an obscene fortune. Its shameful. In almost every way, Gates is much more deserving of Jobs rock star exaltation. Life Story of Bill Gates It can be concluded that Bill Gates is one of the ideal personalities of the world who has honestly contributed towards the worlds success. Gates was born and grew up in Seattle, Washington USA. His father, William H. Gates was an attorney and his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates was a school teacher. She was also head of the United Way Charity. Gates attended a public grade school and then the Lakeside School, a private school. When he was in Lakeside his first interest is in the relatively new field of computer programming. That time he met his friend and future business partner Paul Allen, and developed his first computer software program when his age is only 13. In 1973, Bill Gates started studying at Harvard University. That time he spent time with Paul Allen. Gates and Allen were working on a version of the programming language BASIC. He was so busy with the computer and computer software and at last he did not go on to graduate from Harvard University because he left in his junior year to start the largest computer software company in the world; Microsoft Corporation. But it is an astonish matter Gates did not think about the software giant Microsoft. Early Life (Business Development) After leaving out of Harvard University Bill Gates and his partner Paul Allen created revolution to the computer industry. Gates believed there should be a computer on every office desk and in every home and now it is not the dream it is real fact. The Microsoft real giant software company was formed in 1975. Its abbreviation is microcomputer software. It soon became popular and went on to completely change the way people use computers. The company helped to make the computer easier to the users with its developing and purchasing software, and made it a commercial success. The big success of Microsoft began with the MS-DOS computer operating system and Bill Gates licensed it to IBM. Gates also set protecting the royalties and he could acquire from computer software by fighting against all forms of software piracy. At age 25, Gates obliged IBM to let him keep the proprietary rights to the DOS operating system they had him develop for a program called the pc. Actually he purchased the program from other company and modifying for the PC. Thinking the program would be quickly replaced anyway, IBM agreed to pay for a license to use it rather than purchase it outright. Now Microsoft software operates 90 percent of the worlds desktop computers. Microsoft launched Windows 1.0 in 1983, which produced a graphical user interface better graphics and multitasking. After five years Microsoft reproduced a number of windows versions which added many programs, flexibility and character. When Microsoft grew, the share price goes to the mountain, and Bill Gates became the youngest billionaire at the age of 31 in USA. In 1990 Microsoft actually organised by Bill Gates made a new version of Windows named Windows 3.0 with an improved graphics and features and it sold 10 million copies or more. After followed by Windows 3.1, 3.11 Microsoft added networking support. On success of that type of OS Microsoft developed Windows 95 and upgraded the new windows 98, windows 98se, windows 2000, Millennium Edition, Windows XP, Windows Vista and the latest version windows 7. While innovative windows came out Microsoft take market share more and along with their popular software such as Office, games etc has seen Gates become the richest man in the world and his estimated property US$46 billion. Gates also has interests not only the computer software but also in other business. He has many investments as including Corbis Corporation, Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Teledesic Corporation. Being the richest man in the world Bill Gates created one of the worlds largest charity90. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donates totally more than $1 billion every year. The foundation was formed in 2000 after merging the Gates Learning Foundation and William H. Gates Foundation. The aim is to bring innovations in health and learning to the global community. From the foundation in 1975 until 2006, Gates had major task for the corporation product strategy. He effectively launch various type of products, and as a result Microsoft attained a dominant position. Hence Gates is an executive. met randomly with the senior managers and program managers. Gatess responsibility at Microsoft for most of its history was mainly a management and executive role. However, he was an active software developer in the previous years. He was officially been on a development team since working on the TRS-80 Model 100 line, but wrote code as late as 1989 that lauched in the companys products. On June 15, 2006, Gates told that he would transition out of his day-to-day role over the next two years to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He divided his responsibilities between two successors, placing Ray Ozzie in charge of day-to-day management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy. Bill Gates is playing a very active role in the workings of the Microsoft Company, but he has handed the position of CEO to Steve Ballmer. Now Gates holds the positions of Chairman and Chief Software Architect. Now His plans to take on fewer workings at Microsoft and try to devote all his time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Time magazine called Gates, one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005, and 2006. Time also collectively named Gates, his wife Melinda and rock band U2s lead singer Bono as the 2005 Persons of the Year for their caring efforts. He got vote eighth in the list of Heroes of our time in 2006. In 1999 Gates was listed in the Sunday Times power list. CEO of the year by Chief Executive Officers magazine in 1994, ranked number one in the Top 50 Cyber Elite by Time in 1998, ranked number two in the Upside Elite 100 in 1999 and was included in The Guardian as one of the Top 100 influential people in media in 2001. He has taken honorary doctorates from Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands, in 2000; the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2002; Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, in 2005; Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in April 2007; Harvard University in June 2007; the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, in January 2008, and Cambridge University in June 2009. He was also an honorary trustee of Peking University in 2007. An honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 was taken by Bill Gates. Some entomologists name the Bill Gates flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor. In November 2006, he and his wife were awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle for their philanthropic work around the world in the areas of health and education, particularly in Mexico, and specifically in the program Un paà ­s de lectores. In October 2009, it was declared that Gates will be awarded the 2010 Bower Award for Business Leadership of The Franklin Institute for his success in business and for his philanthropic work. With his great success it came many criticisms. With his ambitious and aggressive business philosophy, Gates or his Microsoft lawyers are fighting legal battles almost since Microsoft began. The Microsoft is dominating every market through acquisition, aggressive business policy or a combination of them. Many of the largest technology companies have fought legally against the actions of Microsoft, including Apple Computer, Netscape, Opera, WordPerfect, and sun Microsystems. The Ceativity. It is common, particularly within the management literature, to associate entrepreneurship with boldness, daring, imagination, or creativity.  [1]   These accounts emphasize the personal, psychological features of the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship, in this conception, is not a required component of all human decision-making, but a specialized activity that some individuals are well able to perform  [2]  . If these characteristics are the essence of entrepreneurship, then entrepreneurship has no obvious link to the theory of the firm at least not without further arguments. The necessary personal features can presumably be taken by contract on the market by buying advising services, project management, and the like. Moreover, the literature does not explain clearly whether imagination and creativity are necessary, sufficient, or incidental conditions for entrepreneurship. Clearly the founders of many firms are imaginative and creative. Fortunately Bill Gates have this character and he build the big software company Microsoft. Intelligent. He believes that if you are intelligent and know how to apply your intelligence, you can achieve anything. From childhood Bill was ambitious, intelligent and competitive. These qualities helped him to attain top position in the profession he chose. Visionary. Microsofts vision is A computer on every desk and Microsoft software on every computer he will continue to stomp out the competition until he dies. Every business and household must have a computer and must run Microsoft software, was the basic guiding vision of Bill Gates. Passion. When as a student at the Harvard University, every single student would have wanted to be part of the great institute and graduate to be successful, Bill Gates decided to stop studying and pursue his dream of writing softwares for every computer in the world He was just passionate about software, coding and technology that incidentally also made him the richest man in the world Innovation. The best-known concept of entrepreneurship in economics is Joseph Schumpeters idea of the entrepreneur as innovator. Schumpeters entrepreneur informs new combinations new products, production methods, markets, sources of supply, or industrial combinations shaking the economy out of its previous equilibrium through a process Schumpeter termed creative destruction. The entrepreneur innovator is introduced in Schumpeters ground-breaking Theory of Economic Development (1911) and developed further in his two-volume work, Business Cycles (1939). Understanding that the entrepreneur has no place in the general-equilibrium system of Walrus, whom Schumpeter greatly admired, Schumpeter gave the entrepreneur a role as the source of economic change. In capitalist reality as distinguished from its textbook picture, it is not price competition which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organization . . . competition which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which strikes not at the margins of profits and the outputs of existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives.  [3]   Schumpeter carefully distincted the entrepreneur from the capitalist. His entrepreneur need not own capital, or even work within the confines of a business firm at all. While the entrepreneur was an owner of a firm, he is more likely to be an independent. In Schumpeters conception, people act as entrepreneurs only when they actually carry out new combinations, and lose the character of entrepreneurs as soon as they have built up their business, after which they settle down to running it as other people run their businesses.  [4]   This suggests a rather relationship between the entrepreneur and the firm he owns, works for, or contracts with. Entrepreneurship is exercised within the firm when new products, processes, or strategies are introduced, but not otherwise. Gates and Allen were assisted by a staff of six, which included four programmers. In late 1977, Gates released a version of FORTRAN language for microcomputers. In 1978, Gates and Allen introduced a version of COBOL. Around this time, Microsoft emerged as the market leader in microcomputer languages with sales exceeding $1 million. In 1979, Microsoft developed a new version of BASIC He had an early interest in software and began programming computers at the age of thirteen. Risk Taker. In his junior year, Gates dropped out of Harvard to devote his energies full-time to Microsoft, a company he had started in 1975 with his boyhood friend Paul Allen development of new products. Charismatic leadership. Another strand of literature, incorporating insights from economics, psychology, and sociology and leaning heavily on Max Weber, associates entrepreneurship with charismatic leadership. Entrepreneurs, especially in communication the ability to articulate a plan, aset of rules, or a broader vision, and impose it on others. Casson (2000) calls these plans mental models of reality. The victorious entrepreneur exceeds at communicating models one to another, who come to share the entrepreneurs vision. Such entrepreneurs are also typically self-confident. Witt (1998a, 1998b) states entrepreneurship as cognitive leadership. He outlines an entrepreneurial theory of the firm that combines recent literature on cognitive psychology with Kirzners concept of alertness. Entrepreneurs require complementary factors they argues, which are coordinated within the firm. For the firm to be successful, the entrepreneur must establish a implicit, shared frame-work of goals, which governs the relationships among members of the entrepreneurs team. As Langlois (1998) points out, it is often easier for individuals to commit to a specific individual, the leader, rather than an abstract set of complex rules governing the firms operations. In Fiedlers model, leadership effectiveness is the result of interaction between the style of the leader and the characteristics of the environment in which the leader works Bill gates style as Fiedler Model In Fiedlers model, leadership effectiveness is the result of interaction between the style of the leader and the characteristics of the environment in which the leader works According to Fiedler, the effectiveness of a leader is determined by the degree of match between a dominant trait of the leader and the favorableness of the situation for the leader. The dominant trait is a personality factor causing the leader to either relationship-oriented or task-orientated Relation-oriented leadership: Leaders who describe their preferred coworker in favorable terms, with a high LPC, are purported to derive major satisfaction from establishing close relationships with felow workers. High LPC leaders are said to be relationship-orientated. These leaders see that good interpersonal relations as a requirement for task accomplishment. Task-oriented leadership: Leaders who describe their least preferred coworker unfavorable terms, with a low LPC, are derived major satisfaction by successfully completing a task. These leaders are said to be task-orientated. They are more concerned with successful task accomplishment and worry about interpersonal relations later The second major factor in Fiedlers theory is known as situational favourableness or environmental variable. This basically is defined as the degree a situation enables a leader to exert influence over a group. Fiedler then extends his analysis by focusing on three key situational factors, which are leader-member, task structure and position power. Each factor is defined in the following. 1. Leader-member relations: the degree to which the employees accept the leader. 2. Task structure: the degree to which the subordinates jobs are described in detail. 3. Position power: the amount of formal authority the leader possesses by virtue of his or her position in the organization. So in this case Bill Gates found most favorable place where positional power is high as he has most authorities in the firm, task structure is also defined as he gives the direction to subordinate/follower to fulfill his vision, and last leader-member relation is also good. Thats mean Bill Gates is more likely Task-oriented leader who want performance from his subordinate/follower and work has to be done to achieve the goal/objective of the company. Hard work. Bill Gates is a hard worker since the beginning of his life. In his college days, he used to work all night long on his computer. When Microsoft was started, Bill Gates used to sleep only for 6 hours in a day without skipping a single day of office. For Bill Gates, hard work is one of the main keys of success. Lackings or Criticism. The critics argued that Microsoft was not an innovative company. They said that Gates reformed existing products to satisfy customer needs instead of inventing new ones. Analysts also argued that Microsofts overwhelming market share was a major impediment to innovation in the software industry. Microsoft was not just the market leader, but also the standards provider for the industry. Impediment in development of smaller firms: Critics claimed that winning was so important to Gates that he would go to any extent to beat his opponent. James Wallace of Seattle Post-Intelligencer said, Bill Gates not only wants to win, but he wants to kill the competition. He wants to bury the wounded Sometimes Gates took things so much to heart that his emotional feeling overshadowed his rational thinking. They said that Gates intense rivalry with some of his competitors made him personalize every battle and obscured his judgment. With his ambitious and aggressive business philosophy, Gates or his Microsoft lawyers have been in and out of courtrooms fighting legal battles almost since Microsoft began. Many of the largest technology co. have fought legally against the actions of Microsoft , including APPLE COMPUTER, NETSCAPE, OPERA, WORD PERFECT , AND SUN MICROSYSTEME ETC. Penrose maintains that The term entrepreneur throughout this study is used in a functional sense to refer to individuals or groups within the firm providing entrepreneurial services, whatever their position or occupational classification may be.  [5]   The theory of entrepreneurship comes in many guises. Management scholars and economists have made the entrepreneur an upgrador, a leader, a creator, a discoverer, an equilibrator, and more. In only a few of these theories, however, is entrepreneurship connected to asset ownership (examples include Knight, 1921; Mises, 1949; Casson, 1982; Foss, 1993; Langlois and Cosgel, 1993; and Foss and Klein, 2005). Still, these approaches are not founded on any systematic theory of capital or asset attributes. This paper outlines the capital theory associated with the Austrian school of economics and derives implications for entrepreneurship and economic organization. Entrepreneur is an agent who collects the materials for manufacturing the product and prepares the goods by adjustment whose selling price is uncertain.  [6]   Entrepreneurship is the act of being an entrepreneur, which is a French word meaning one who undertakes an endeavour. Entrepreneurs organises resources including innovations, finance and capital in a trying to transform up gradation into economic goods. This may occur in recent organizations or may be part of mature organizations in response to get opportunity. The most obvious form of entrepreneurship is that of starting new businesses; however, in recent years, the term has been extended to include social and political forms of entrepreneurial activity. When entrepreneurship is describing activities within a firm or large organization it is referred to as intra-preneurship and may include corporate venturing, when large entities spin-off organizations.[1] Participating in a new business creation is a common activity among U.S. workers over their course of their careers. And in recent years has been documented by scholars such as David Audretsch to be a major driver of economic growth in both the United States and Western Europe.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Essay -- Literary Analysis, Gray

The Declaration of Independence contains a snippet about the equality of men; a topic interesting to 18th century authors. The speakers in Gray’s â€Å"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard† and in Goldsmith’s â€Å"The Deserted Village† utilize the themes of death and isolation in order to represent the different social classes. Goldsmith’s speaker idealizes and mourns the decay of rural life, while Gray’s speaker equalizes the different classes. . This essay examines the difference between these two depictions and shows how Gray’s use of stylistic features creates a more convincing argument. Goldsmith’s speaker begins nostalgically for the â€Å"loveliest village of the plain,† (1) by listing the town’s virtues which include â€Å"The never-failing brook, the busy mill, The decent church [.]† (11-12) Goldsmith uses this imagery to contrast the current state of the village, he goes on to say that â€Å"These were thy charms—But all these charms are fled.† (34) Here, the speaker urges readers to admonish the loss of the village’s charms by destroying the imagery created by the first 33 lines. He continues the description of the land as â€Å"forlorn† (76), but while the villagers were forced to abandon the area, the speaker’s nostalgia implies that he chose to leave. This nostalgia implies that the speaker’s depiction of the village could be highly romanticized. The speaker likens the loss of the village with a much greater problem, â€Å"The country blooms—a garden, and a grave.† (302) He suggests that this is not an isolated problem, but an epidemic that is happening all over the country. The village is lost to make room for a garden and a grave; the first belongs to the nobility and the later to the peasant. His portrayal of the New World supports th... ...dsmith seems to associate with the nobility. He goes on to speak of wealth saying â€Å"This wealth is but a name That leaves our useful products still the same.† (273-274) The use of enjambment forces the reader to quickly read over wealth, the effect makes wealth seem less important which mimics the actual words themselves, thus Goldsmith suggests that wealth is of very little importance in life. Both speakers advocate a respect for the rural class, while Gray’s speaker does it by likening the greats to the common men; Goldsmith uses hyperbole to lessen the appeal of the upper class. Gray’s work is succinct and contains many stylistic elements that encourage readers to see social classes as transparent and not as limiting. Goldsmith portrays the upper class as the death of rural life, whereas Gray’s speaker portrays the classes as not being mutually exclusive.

The Nature of Ghosts in The Woman Warrior Essay -- Maxine Hong Kingsto

The Nature of Ghosts in The Woman Warrior "Ghost." What images does this word conjure up in the average American mind? Perhaps you think of little kids draped in white sheets begging for candy on Halloween. Perhaps you imagine transparent versions of dead people wandering the earth for eternity. Perhaps you are reminded of a person who just saw something especially scary; they are "pale as a ghost". So the word "ghost" - a word with many meanings - calls forth these images. What do they have in common? There's the idea of paleness - when was the last time you ever saw a black ghost? Silence - ghosts don't say much, except maybe they go "Boo!" once in a while. And, just maybe, there's a hint of unfamiliarity in the idea - it's always a stranger's soul wandering the earth, not someone you know, and somehow - maybe with a white sheet - the ghost's identity is hidden from the world. Perhaps these have something in common with the "Chinese" idea of the ghost as it is played out in Kingston's The Woman Warrior. I have placed "Chinese" in quotes to acknowled...

jeremiah healy :: essays research papers

Jeremiah Healy is the award-winning author of the John Francis Cuddy private-investigator series and the Mairead O'Clare legal-thriller series, both set primarily in Boston. Born in Teaneck, New Jersey on May 15, 1948, he graduated from Rutgers University in l970, got his JD at Harvard Law School in l973, and passed the Massachusetts Bar in 1974. He was an associate with a Boston law firm, from l974 to 1978, gaining a lot of courtroom experience. (Michaels, 2003) The Army ROTC helped pay for his education, and Healy served as a military police officer, leaving the Army in 1976 as a captain. He married Bonnie M. Tisler on Feb. 4, l978, the same year he began teaching at the New England School of Law in Boston. His first novel, Blunt Darts written during the summer of 1981, was rejected 28 times before it was published in 1984. The book is dedicated â€Å"To Bonnie, who is Beth.† Healy has served as President of the Private Eyes Writers of America for two years, and is a past Awards Chair for the Shamus. In October 2000, he was elected President of the International Association of Crime Writers (IACW). Books of his have been translated into French, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, and German. He was toastmaster at the 1996 World Mystery Convention (Bouchercon) and will be International Guest of Honor at Bouchercon 2004 in Toronto. (Michaels, 2003) Healy has written seventeen novels and over sixty short stories. Fifteen of these works have won or been nominated for the Shamus Award. The Mairead O'Clare legal thrillers are UNCOMMON JUSTICE, JUROR NUMBER ELEVEN, and A STAIN UPON THE ROBE, which has been optioned for Hollywood by Flatiron Films (producer of PAY IT FORWARD, starring Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey). Healy's later Cuddy novels include RESCUE, INVASION OF PRIVACY, THE ONLY GOOD LAWYER, and SPIRAL. A stand-alone private-eye thriller, TURNABOUT, appeared in December, 2001, and the second collection of his Cuddy short stories, CUDDY PLUS ONE, was published in the summer of 2003. The first collection of Healy's non-Cuddy stories, OFF-SEASON AND OTHER STORIES, appeared from Five Star in June, 2003. (Cincinnati Media, 2005) Healy’s most recognized character, private investigator John Francis Cuddy, is more moral than religious, a man who believes strongly in representing his clients, keeping his promises, and ferreting out the truth. He stays sexually faithful to the memory of his dead wife; waiting until he finds someone he thinks can replace Beth in his life.

Deception Point Page 75

Built by Lockheed, the Aurora looked like a flattened American football. It was 110 feet long, sixty feet wide, smoothly contoured with a crystalline patina of thermal tiles much like the space shuttle. The speed was primarily the result of an exotic new propulsion system known as a Pulse Detonation Wave Engine, which burned a clean, misted, liquid hydrogen and left a telltale pulse contrail in the sky. For this reason, it only flew at night. Tonight, with the luxury of enormous speed, the Delta Force was taking the long way home, out across the open ocean. Even so, they were overtaking their quarry. At this rate, the Delta Force would be arriving on the eastern seaboard in under an hour, a good two hours before its prey. There had been discussion of tracking and shooting down the plane in question, but the controller rightly feared a radar capture of the incident or the burned wreckage might bring on a massive investigation. It was best to let the plane land as scheduled, the controller had decided. Once it became clear where their quarry intended to land, the Delta Force would move in. Now, as Aurora streaked over the desolate Labrador Sea, Delta-One's CrypTalk indicated an incoming call. He answered. â€Å"The situation has changed,† the electronic voice informed them. â€Å"You have another mark before Rachel Sexton and the scientists land.† Another mark. Delta-One could feel it. Things were unraveling. The controller's ship had sprung another leak, and the controller needed them to patch it as fast as possible. The ship would not be leaking, Delta-One reminded himself, if we had hit our marks successfully on the Milne Ice Shelf. Delta-One knew damn well he was cleaning up his own mess. â€Å"A fourth party has become involved,† the controller said. â€Å"Who?† The controller paused a moment-and then gave them a name. The three men exchanged startled looks. It was a name they knew well. No wonder the controller sounded reluctant! Delta-One thought. For an operation conceived as a â€Å"zero-casualty† venture, the body count and target profile was climbing fast. He felt his sinews tighten as the controller prepared to inform them exactly how and where they would eliminate this new individual. â€Å"The stakes have increased considerably,† the controller said. â€Å"Listen closely. I will give you these instructions only once.† 89 High above northern Maine, a G4 jet continued speeding toward Washington. Onboard, Michael Tolland and Corky Marlinson looked on as Rachel Sexton began to explain her theory for why there might be increased hydrogen ions in the fusion crust of the meteorite. â€Å"NASA has a private test facility called Plum Brook Station,† Rachel explained, hardly able to believe she was going to talk about this. Sharing classified information out of protocol was not something she had ever done, but considering the circumstances, Tolland and Corky had a right to know this. â€Å"Plum Brook is essentially a test chamber for NASA's most radical new engine systems. Two years ago I wrote a gist about a new design NASA was testing there-something called an expander cycle engine.† Corky eyed her suspiciously. â€Å"Expander cycle engines are still in the theoretical stage. On paper. Nobody's actually testing. That's decades away.† Rachel shook her head. â€Å"Sorry, Corky. NASA has prototypes. They're testing.† â€Å"What?† Corky looked skeptical. â€Å"ECE's run on liquid oxygen-hydrogen, which freezes in space, making the engine worthless to NASA. They said they were not even going to try to build an ECE until they overcame the freezing fuel problem.† â€Å"They overcame it. They got rid of the oxygen and turned the fuel into a ‘slush-hydrogen' mixture, which is some kind of cryogenic fuel consisting of pure hydrogen in a semifrozen state. It's very powerful and very clean burning. It's also a contender for the propulsion system if NASA runs missions to Mars.† Corky looked amazed. â€Å"This can't be true.† â€Å"It better be true,† Rachel said. â€Å"I wrote a brief about it for the President. My boss was up in arms because NASA wanted to publicly announce slush-hydrogen as a big success, and Pickering wanted the White House to force NASA to keep slush-hydrogen classified.† â€Å"Why?† â€Å"Not important,† Rachel said, having no intention of sharing more secrets than she had to. The truth was that Pickering's desire to classify slush-hydrogen's success was to fight a growing national security concern few knew existed-the alarming expansion of China's space technology. The Chinese were currently developing a deadly â€Å"for-hire† launch platform, which they intended to rent out to high bidders, most of whom would be U.S. enemies. The implications for U.S. security were devastating. Fortunately, the NRO knew China was pursuing a doomed propulsion-fuel model for their launch platform, and Pickering saw no reason to tip them off about NASA's more promising slush-hydrogen propellant. â€Å"So,† Tolland said, looking uneasy, â€Å"you're saying NASA has a clean-burning propulsion system that runs on pure hydrogen?† Rachel nodded. â€Å"I don't have figures, but the exhaust temperatures of these engines are apparently several times hotter than anything ever before developed. They're requiring NASA to develop all kinds of new nozzle materials.† She paused. â€Å"A large rock, placed behind one of these slush-hydrogen engines, would be scalded by a hydrogen-rich blast of exhaust fire coming out at an unprecedented temperature. You'd get quite a fusion crust.† â€Å"Come on now!† Corky said. â€Å"Are we back to the fake meteorite scenario?† Tolland seemed suddenly intrigued. â€Å"Actually, that's quite an idea. The setup would be more or less like leaving a boulder on the launchpad under the space shuttle during liftoff.† â€Å"God save me,† Corky muttered. â€Å"I'm airborne with idiots.† â€Å"Corky,† Tolland said. â€Å"Hypothetically speaking, a rock placed in an exhaust field would exhibit similar burn features to one that fell through the atmosphere, wouldn't it? You'd have the same directional striations and backflow of the melting material.† Corky grunted. â€Å"I suppose.† â€Å"And Rachel's clean-burning hydrogen fuel would leave no chemical residue. Only hydrogen. Increased levels of hydrogen ions in the fusion pocking.† Corky rolled his eyes. â€Å"Look, if one of these ECE engines actually exists, and runs on slush-hydrogen, I suppose what you're talking about is possible. But it's extremely far-fetched.† â€Å"Why?† Tolland asked. â€Å"The process seems fairly simple.† Rachel nodded. â€Å"All you need is a 190-million-year-old fossilized rock. Blast it in a slush-hydrogen-engine exhaust fire, and bury it in the ice. Instant meteorite.† â€Å"To a tourist, maybe,† Corky said, â€Å"but not to a NASA scientist! You still haven't explained the chondrules!† Rachel tried to recall Corky's explanation of how chondrules formed. â€Å"You said chondrules are caused by rapid heating and cooling events in space, right?† Corky sighed. â€Å"Chondrules form when a rock, chilled in space, suddenly becomes superheated to a partial-melt stage-somewhere near 1550 Celsius. Then the rock must cool again, extremely rapidly, hardening the liquid pockets into chondrules.† Tolland studied his friend. â€Å"And this process can't happen on earth?† â€Å"Impossible,† Corky said. â€Å"This planet does not have the temperature variance to cause that kind of rapid shift. You're talking here about nuclear heat and the absolute zero of space. Those extremes simply don't exist on earth.† Rachel considered it. â€Å"At least not naturally.†

Bimbo in China Essay

Bimbo has always been a leading company in its industry. Its distribution and logistics operations have been the keys to the company’s success. Its products are always fresh and it is always in contact with its consumers in order to keep up with needs and tendencias. The company is based in Mexico, though it began expanding into other markets such as U.S., Central America, Brazil and China. Bimbo entered the U.S. market in 1984 through a joint venture and then bought Sara Lee and Wonder later on. In the year 2000, it entered the Brazilian market. Another important market for this company is China because it represented a great challenge. Bimbo had to modify its flavors and its strategies, since its logistics operations could not be the same as in its previous markets.In this market, it was called Bao How, which means tasty bread. It currently has 72 factories and 900 distribution centers in 17 countries. It entered China in 2006 as Beijing Bao How and its name was changed to Bim Bao, which means guest, alluding to the fact that it was now in the Chinese Forbidden City. It has to factories in China, 11 distribution centers and over 100 products in over 11 cities. China represents 5% of its worldwide sales. In order to successfully enter this market it had to tropicalize its products, making them less sweet and more appealing to Chinese taste preferences. Some examples of these are the Meat Loaf, the Green Corn Bread with Pickles, and the Sweat Bean Feal Pun. Its Distribution and logistics strategies changed and its delivery system is executed with turquoise bicycles. Today it has 1876 trucks and 38 bicycles for convenient store distributions as well as to the most marginalized places.

Managerial tasks Essay

A. Every business requires managers to control and execute the business. But the skills required for each individual industry will vary. Here we will study the managerial skills required for a manager of a vending machine business, a housecleaning service and an appliance repair business. Vending Machine business: The markets for such business are targeted to the pedestrians and passersby. The vending machine should have sufficient stock and should be refilled at regular intervals. The manager concerned must have the idea about the demand and supply of the product, have the idea about stock taking and to identify locations with maximum sales. The manager should be mobile in order to verify the potential of each vending machine and identify any shortfall or lacuna. Also, have idea about advertising and marketing at vantage locations. Housecleaning service: The business is more about relationship, because the clients will be repeat customers. The better service you can provide the better business you can generate. The manager should know where to tap customers, should be a good man manager and ensure quality of work. Good PR skill is a must. The manager should also ensure the safety precautions required during house cleaning. Appliance repair business: This business also requires good PR and is based on repeat customers. But, the manager also need to be technically sound, and should have knowledge about repairing the specific range of product. He should be a good man manger, stick to tight schedules and ensure quality service. The manager should keep himself and his team upgraded with the newest technologies and latest changes in the product. It is a technology driven business, which requires lot of excellent technical skill set apart from the basic requirements of marketing and sales.

Carl Jung’s Theory: Personality Types and How They Help Therapists Essay

In this essay I aim to describe and evaluate Carl Jung’s theory concerning personality types and show how they might usefully help a therapist to determine therapeutic goals. I will also look at the origins and characteristics of attitudes and functions and show how these can be related to psychological disturbance. Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung was born in 1875 to a reverend who had lost his faith and was the only surviving son; which lent him to a rather solitary childhood which was emotionally deprived. His mother had bouts of mental anguish and illness and spent long periods of time in hospital. He was a lazy scholar and pretended to faint regularly to avoid school work, but after hearing his father voicing concerns he would amount to nothing in life, he stopped this and engaged with his studies. This is relevant in that he used this experience of his own behaviour as an example of how neurotic behaviour can be overcome when subjected to the realities of life. Jung studied medicine at University, then trained as a psychiatrist specialising in schizophrenia. He spent time studying with Freud, with Freud even seeing Jung as his main partisan, but he struggled with Freud’s theory of everything being influenced by sexuality and they split their alliance in 1913. Jung was deeply affected by this split and experienced his own psychological ‘crisis’ resulting in him withdrawing to Zurich for six years, exploring his own unconscious. Patients still visited him however and he became renowned worldwide for his skills as a psychoanalyst. â€Å"During this period, Jung spent considerable time working on his dreams and fantasies and seeking to understand them as far as possible, in terms of his everyday life† (Memories, Dreams, Reflections p. 170, New York Vintage Books), this led to Jung developing his own theories and he travelled far and wide becoming fascinated with how culture affects the psyche (the word he uses for personality). This fascination with culture greatly influenced the theory Jung created. According to Hayes (1994, pg. 233), Jung â€Å"saw libido as being the basic energy of motivation and pleasures but Jung’s concept of libido was a non-sexual life force encompassing religious awe and mystical life affirming experiences as well as sexuality. † Although different to Freud’s interpretation of libido, the influence of Freud when Jung created his theory is evident. This was the beginning of his journey investigating different factors which affect the personality; which he believed were influences of a higher order. Upset by his split with Freud and to help him understand the root cause of their difficulties Jung tried analysing one patient’s case history from the perspectives of Freud and also from Alfred Adler, who saw the origins of neurosis as being due to how one relates to society and in particular, the desire for power. The outcome was that dsepite both methods being incompatible with each other, both were valid and made sense in the understanding of the patient’s pathology. Jung reasoned this was due to the different personalities of Freud and Adler and the way each viewed the world differently, meaning that different personality types make people behave and think in different ways because their individuality influences their attitudes. Jung’s theory is based upon structures within the psyche, the Ego, the Personal Unconscious, the Collective Unconscious and Archetypes. The Ego (different to the one identified by Freud) is the ‘Self’ or the total personality including the conscious and unconscious. This is the part which combines all mental processes, characteristics, contents, positivity and negativity as well as constructive to destructive thinking and behaviour. The ‘Self’ contains conscious thoughts and feelings about our own behaviour and feelings, our memories of past experiences and our inner sense of our identity. Jung claimed that the Self is not always achieved and never occurs until middle age. The Personal Unconscious Jung believed contain our personal experiences which we are unaware of, blocked or repressed because we find them unacceptable, but memories which can be revived through hypnosis or psychoanalysis. The ‘collective unconscious’ is central to Jung’s work, although not invented by him, since for centuries this theory had come to the fore in philosophical, literary and psychological works; however it was Jung who defined it further. Jung’s development of this theory was empirical because he felt that if anyone had his experiences then they would arrive at the same conclusion. Hayes (1994 pg 233) cites that Jung â€Å"accepted Freud’s model of conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious but believed in a further level to the unconscious – the ‘collective unconscious’, Hayes (1994 pg 234) also states, â€Å"The deepest levels of the unconscious, Jung thought, were shaped by all humans and date back to our primeval ancestry† . In simple terms this means that not everything is learned or due to experiences, but that there is a higher order which we have no control over and that certain parts of our unconscious are built in before we are born. In his dealings with schizophrenic patients, Jung observed that many of their fantasies, dreams and hallucinations were similar to one another and also similar to ancient cultures and myths. From this he deduced that these contents were far beyond personal experience and had therefore come from evolutionary development, were shared from ancestors and so were innate. Jung called these similarities across cultures, these ideas of universal themes and symbols ‘Archetypes’. He described many archetypes such as God, Mother, Father, Hero, Child and many more and believed that different archetypes exert their influence on us in different situations. The Persona is one such archetype. Jung described the persona as being the mask or role that we allow others to see, disguising our inner feelings to ensure we behave in a socially acceptable way. We have personas for all our different roles and adapt accordingly, however this sometimes causes internal issues when different personas meet and they are too different to be comfortable, such as the role our persona projects in our work will often be very different to that we project with our friends. The shadow, another archetype, describes the dark side our nature, the sinister within; holding repressed material in our personal unconscious and universal evil images from our collective unconscious. Jung believed that we never really know our shadow since it is too frightening to explore the potential we have to think evil thoughts or do harm. Mattoon (2005 pg 28) states, â€Å"the expression of the shadow is likely when a person is in the grip of anxiety, under the influence of alcohol or otherwise subject to a diminution of consciousness†¦ [sic] we repress our shadows to a degree that we are not aware of their behaviour†¦ [sic] Under these conditions, the shadow is autonomous and may express itself in moods, irritability, physical symptoms, accidents, emotions and behaviours, even cruelty†. You can see therefore that the archetype of the shadow can play a major part in the psychological disturbance a client may be suffering, displaying these kinds of behaviours can be indicators of a darker side of an individual affecting their life and can help the therapist in identifying the repressed content, which in turn can lead them to assess the progression necessary to improve things for the client. Jung’s other two main archetypes are the anima and animus. The anima, the feminine element of the male psyche, contains inherited ideas of what constitutes woman, their experiences of women and incorporates positive and negative qualities usually associated with women, such as emotionality, seductiveness, demanding, vanity and moodiness. The animus, the masculine element within the female psyche, is derived in the same way as the anima but from the opposite perspective; females’ experiences of men. It consists of male qualities such as reason, logic, leadership and social insensitivity. Jung felt that having these archetypes enabled men and women to understand each other better. An issue here would occur when animus types try to live in an anima role which can cause depression, anxiety, hostility or other, again, identifying this would enable the therapist to focus on these archetypes and find how they fit into the psyche of the individual to help determine the therapeutic goal. According to Begg (2001), Jung also invented Synchronicity which is the term he used for the idea of meaningful coincidences. He felt that a synchronistic event was otherworldly, inexplicable and wondrous and was an â€Å"acausal connective principal† meaning links between two apparently unconnected events occur and again, this supported his spiritual beliefs that our psyche is subject to a higher order. He believed these synchronistic events were a result of the archetypal forces guiding us in certain directions which led to the ‘individuation process’ or the wholeness and completeness of personality. Jung considered individuation to be a driving force leading to uniqueness, he wrote (Collected Works – 12 par 330) that â€Å"every life is the realisation of a whole, that is, of a self;†¦. this realisation can also be called individuation†. The process of individuation includes positive and negative elements and can begin with psychic pain such as depression and anxiety, from a therapy perspective this is severe enough to arouse desire for change but will involve facing one’s shadow. Jung’s theory is a complex one and although has underlying Freudian theories to an extent, much of this faded as he explored the psyche over the years. Jung, like Freud, believed that there were clear stages in development; however Jung describes development as having only three main stages. The first being the ‘Pre-sexual’ stage; birth to approximately five years old. This is where he felt the individual is preoccupied with nutrition and growth. According to Carl Jung’s Collected Works – 8, paragraph 668, he stated that, â€Å"there is no demonstrable ego-consciousness in childhood, for which reason the earliest years leave hardly any traces in the memory†. This indicates  that Jung thought that young children live largely in the collective unconscious, it suggests that until around age five, a child lives in a fantasy where they experience an almost archetypal world in terms of the parental image they have and the fact that many children of this age have an imaginary playmate, Jung felt supported this view. The next stage, from five to puberty, the ‘pre-pubertal’ phase, was the real beginning of sexuality. In Carl Jung’s Collected Works – 8, paragraph 756, Jung states, â€Å"Psychic birth occurs at puberty with the conscious differentiation from the parents†¦ [and] the eruption of sexuality. This differs significantly from Freud’s theory, which suggests that we are tied to our sexual urges from birth. Jung acknowledges the stages in a less controversial way and more in keeping with how we view stages of development in the modern day. Things have not really changed as much as we are led to believe. Mattoon (2005) quotes Socrates from the 5th Century â€Å"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect for their elders and love to chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when others enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers†. This example from history backs up Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious to some extent. It suggests that behaviours of adolescents are not learned at all and that they behave the way they are naturally meant to be; since this has been the way for centuries. Should the behaviours be purely ‘learnt’, then why would adolescent behaviour be so similar all over the world, in other cultures and before technology brought us closer together? The final stage he named ‘maturity’ which he identified as being from puberty to adulthood including old age. Jung describes three stages within ‘maturity’, the first (adolescence and young adulthood), being about learning about a particular society and how to live in it, the second (middle life) focussing on establishing oneself into society through work and personal relationships, in particular marriage and the third (old age) being the time one acquires wisdom. Within this ‘maturity’ stage, the ‘middle-life’ he talks about is what today we would describe as a ‘mid-life crisis’. This has happened in the past at 35-40 years mark; although this is getting later as longevity increases. This is the time Jung felt that concerns arose about youthful objectives having not been met or given up on. Also a time when physical energies subside and there are fewer possibilities for achievements and adventures. Jung suggested that at this stage there is an inward turn of psychic energy and refocusing on relationships, goals and the meaning of life. The second half of ‘maturity’ is old age and it is at this stage we search for meaning and movement towards wholeness. The Personality model within Jung’s theory explains the unconscious as a mirror image of the conscious, meaning that an extravert person would have an introvert unconscious and vice versa, which links back to the anima/animus archetypes. He believed that the personality is complex and many sided, in that we have intuition, emotion, thought, intentionality and so on. Jung felt that the individual should be competent in developing different facets to the personality evenly and in congruence with one another but if this development was uneven, one side developed and others repressed, this would produce neurotic conflict. He decided the solution to this was that the individual needed to get in contact with the collective unconscious which in turn would itself heal the psyche, restoring psychological integrity. To do this would involve psychoanalysis or hypnotherapy. The introvert takes longer to condition to stimulus, however, once conditioned it is long lasting, they pay attention to subjective factors and inner responses, enjoy being alone, have few friends but are incredibly loyal and may be clumsy in social situations. Whereas the extravert is more ready to form new associations between stimulus and response but although this happens quickly, it is not long lasting, they attend to their outer world such as people, events and things and can be seen as quite superficial, these extraverts are disinclined to be alone and seem afraid of their inner world. Jung called Introverts and Extraverts ‘types’ but he meant this relating to attitudes and functions, the dimensions of conscious and unconscious not by way of putting people into ‘boxes’ and he used their preferences as a way of identifying ‘type’. Mattoon (2005 pg 23) describes Jung’s description of the Introversion-extraversion (IE) as being one of the best substantiated dimensions in academic psychology. The IE dimension stood alone but Jung was not convinced it was sufficient and later identified two pairs of functions: sensation – intuition (SU) and thinking-feeling (TF). The sensing function relates to how we experience stimuli through our senses without evaluation, the feeling function evaluates the degree of importance of an object or stimuli and is different to an emotional response, the thinking function uses reason and logic and assigns meaning and the intuition function is how we relate to the world without reason, in the form of hunches. Each of these functions is either dominant or non-dominant and largely excludes the other. Jung saw that any function can be associated with either attitude (introversion/extraversion) and also with either gender. German psychologist Hans Eysenck took on Jung’s theory of extraversion-introversion personality traits but also linked biology of brain function to the equation, suggesting that the brain has two sets of neural mechanisms, excitatory and inhibitory, the former responsible for stimulating brain activity, the latter inhibiting activity of nerve cells. He said balance is required which is regulated by the Ascending Reticular Activating System and it is the arousal produced that links his personality dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism, with neuroticism personality traits including anxiety and worry. He also talks of Second Order Personality where first order traits are grouped and the range from neuroticism to stability is biologically decided. He found that neurotic individuals react readily to stressful stimuli whereas stable individuals took longer to react, with a lesser reaction. Some of Eysenck’s theory is comparable with Jung’s but is more scientifically testable compared to Jung’s studies which were empirically based, however Eysenck examined the introversion-extraversion element with success. Jung’s theory of personality types can be useful to the therapist in that it gives many options to explore; the overlapping functions however can be confusing regarding assessing whether the influences are a result of the shadow, the collective unconscious or the influence of one of the many archetypes. Despite this, Jung’s theory has been influential in modern psychology and much of his resulting work is still used today, such as his word association tests which are used to explore the unconscious. His theory would be useful to a therapist in the quest to uncover underlying factors in the individual of which they are unaware, using the indicators to explore what is behind their issues and giving insight to allow the therapeutic goals to be achieved. Bibliography Begg, DeikeSynchronicity – 2001 Hayes, NickyFoundations of Psychology – 1994 Jung, Carl Collected Works – Volume 8 – The Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche Jung, CarlCollected Works – Volume 12 – Psychology and Alchemy N. York Vintage BooksMemories, Dreams, Reflections Mattoon, Mary AnnJung and The Human Pscyhe.