Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Bankruptcy of Companies in Qatar Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Bankruptcy of Companies in Qatar - Assignment Example Despite this, there is a well laid-down framework that governs the insolvency and subsequent liquidation of companies in Qatar. These rules and regulations mainly anchor on Chapter 10 of the Qatar Commercial Companies Law, Law No.5 of 2002. This legal regime in Qatar resembles the one that governs bankruptcy and insolvency in the United Arab Emirates. The only difference is that the Qatar regime lacks the provision that gives shareholders, with more than 25 per cent of the company’s shares, the right to declare the company bankrupt. This is usually a provision when a company suffers capital losses amounting to more than 75 per cent of its capital turnover. Instead, the provisions of Article 290 of the Qatari Code stipulate that if a limited liability company suffers losses amounting to equivalent of 50 per cent of the company’s capital, the directors of the company are expected to consider dissolving the company. Failure to institute a dissolution procedure makes the di rectors solely responsible for any further losses that may accrue from the company’s failure, to meet its legal obligations. According to (Latham & Watkins 2011), the legal framework that governs the application for dissolution of a company in Qatar still resembles that of the United Arab Emirates. ... There may be other circumstances such as the expiry of the term of the company as noted in the constitution of the company. A merger between two companies may also require the liquidation of the companies as per the constitutional terms. Dissolution due to bankruptcy materializes when a company incurs losses amounting to more than 50 per cent of the company’s financial capital. In such circumstances, the company directors are required to convene an extraordinary general meeting in order for the shareholders to make a determination on whether to dissolve the company. In cases where the board fails to convene the general meeting or where the general assembly fails to reach a general resolution pertaining to the dissolution of the company, any interested shareholder may initiate legal proceedings for the dissolution of the company as stipulated in Article 285 of the Company’s Law. The meeting of the general assembly is at liberty to dissolve the company if a majority of th e shareholders support the resolution to dissolve the company. Similarly, dissolution may be initiated by any shareholder with more than 25 per cent of the company’s shareholding. However, this only applies when the company returns a loss amounting to more than 75 per cent of its total financial capital for any given financial year. This framework is anchored on Article 289 of the Companies Law. When the liquidation of a company gets approved by the required majority, the dissolution process commences immediately and the term ‘liquidation’ is incorporated to the company’s name. It is worth noting that the Companies Law only stipulates the general guidelines that should govern the liquidation process. It does not lay out a formal dissolution

Monday, October 28, 2019

Relationships with Government Regulators and Policymakers Essay Example for Free

Relationships with Government Regulators and Policymakers Essay No, I did not believe that Merck acted in a socially responsible and ethical manner with regard to Vioxx. Vioxx is a prescription medicine used to relieve signs and symptoms of arthritis, acute pain in adults and painful menstrual cycle and Merck was one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical firms. Corporate social responsibility means that a corporation should act in a way that enhances society and its inhabitants and be held accountable for any of its actions that affect people, their communities, and their environment. I didn’t believe Merck acted in a socially responsible and ethical manner with regard to Vioxx is because Merck had long enjoyed a reputation as one of the most ethical and socially responsible of the major drug companies. Drug development and testing Merck was renowned for its research labs, which had a decades-long record of achievement, turning out one innovation after another, including drugs for cholesterol, hypertension, tuberculosis and other. In product development and testing, scientists know Vioxx there are serious health risks and the drug may have side effects such as cardiovascular complications but scientists think that the lives that could have potentially been and now know that the effects of the medication can improve then change and it can minimize the harmful side effects. During the development and testing phase for Vioxx has many issues regarding the safety of the drug were questioned due to the many cases of heart attacks and strokes resulting from the medication but also have people think heart attacks and strokes were common and they had multiple causes, including genetic predisposition, smoking, obesity and a sedentary lifestyles. Marketing and advertising This was new in the pharmaceutical industry as it was the first time the FDA were allowed to advertise to consumers and the advertising technique of Vioxx that was used was thru direct-to-consumer. Merck used an Olympic figure skater as the primary character within their commercials and telling viewers that she would â€Å"not let arthritis stop me.† The drug companies defended DTC ads, saying they informed consumers of newly available therapies and encouraged people to seek medical treatment so consumers then would request this medication, making doctors feel obliged to prescribe. Drug company focused most of their marketing efforts on prescribing physicians and as a result of this fiasco, implications for big pharmaceutical firms like Merck are clear, they have take more time to conduct more clinical studies and assess the health risks associated with the drugs even if it means a delay in the entry of the drug into the market. Relationships with government regulators and policymakers Vioxx were regulated by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and work of FDA is whether or not to approve a new drug. Some evidence suggested that the morale of FDA staff charged with evaluating the safety of new medicine had been hurt by relentless pressure to bring drugs to market quickly. The government and policymakers received large sums of money from the development company during the advertising phase and market introduction. The Agency has not had an opportunity to review the data from the study that was stopped in the depth that Merck has, but agrees with the company that there appear to be significant safety concerns for patients, particularly those taking the drug chronically and FDA plans to work closely with Merck to coordinate the withdrawal of this product from the US market. Handling of the recall Merck announced a voluntary worldwide withdrawal of Vioxx. From the published evidence of Vioxx is crystal clear risk of heart attack, as early as in the late 1990s, the company should be aware of risk awareness and the companys internal documents confirmed the the companys awareness of the risks. Yet Merck continued not only to sell the drug, but to market it heavily and as a first line choice, not merely for those thought to be at higher risk of stomach bleeding. Merck decisions and judgments of certain problems with Vioxxs launch can be faulted. They are either ignored or dismissed early signs of an increased risk of heart attack, whether it is in their own research and other post, trying to get to market faster. This proved to be deadly further studies in line with the concerns, and lead ultimately to lead to another wrong decision to recall the drug from the market and Merck would have hoped for, instead they lost the market of customers who would still have taken Vioxx in spite of the risks.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

The Morphing of Child Pornography Essay -- Exploratory Essays Research

Morphing of Child Porn      Ã‚   At issue before the Circuit Courts has been the constitutionality of the 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) in which Congress sought to modernize federal law by enhancing its ability to combat child pornography in the cyberspace era(Free Speech). There is a split in the circuit courts regarding this bill, and this essay will address the discrepancy.    This piece of legislation classifies an image that "appears to be" or "conveys the impression" of a minor engaging in sexually explicit acts as "virtual" child pornography. Such images include a photograph of a real child that may be scanned, replicated and manipulated by computer to create a sexually-oriented photo, or a wholly fake child that may be generated solely by computer graphics.    Congress recognized a loophole in the child pornography law, in that technological improvements have made it possible for child pornographers to use computers to "morph" or alter innocent images of actual children to create a composite image showing them in sexually explicit poses. With this in mind Congress intended to (1) ban computer-generated images that are "virtually indistinguishable" from those of real children, (2) to protect the privacy of actual children whose innocuous images are altered to create sexually explicit images and (3) to deprive child abusers of a "criminal tool" frequently used to facilitate the sexual abuse of children.    On December 17, 1999, in Free Speech Coalition v. Reno, the Ninth Circuit struck down the law as a content-based restriction on protected speech not in furtherance of any compelling governmental interest because the prohibited images are not of actual children. According to that C... ...guage of the statute "sufficiently narrowly tailored to promote the compelling government interest in preventing harm to actual children, based on substantiated Congressional findings that virtual pornography was used to seduce actual children into sexual activity, and thus comported with free speech guarantees."    WORKS CITED: Eleventh Circuit Opinions.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.law.emory.edu/11circuit/nov99/ Free Speech Coalition v. Reno, 198 F.3d 1083 (9th Cir. 1999), United States v. Hilton, 167 F.3d 61 (1st Cir. 1999), United States v. Acheson, 195 F.3d 645 (11th Cir. 1999), and United States v. Pearl, 89 F.Supp.2d 1237 (D.Utah 2000). Holder v. Free Speech Coalition, Docket No. 00-795).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/docket/features2001.html United States v Hilton  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.law.emory.edu/1circuit/july2001/00-2545.01a.html

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Fun Should be the Focus of Youth Sports :: Argumentative Persuasive Essay Examples

  Ã‚   Over the last two decades the growth of youth sports has reflected the popularity of professional sports in our society. To a foreign observer of the American culture we appear to be a sport's obsessed society. Sporting events and news are available to us twenty-four hours a day on television and radio; sports are an enormous industry. In 1995 it was determined that the sporting industry generated 85 billion dollars worth of business. It is now estimated that by the year 2005 the sporting industry will be worth more than 150 billion dollars, making one of the top ten industries in the U.S. (Murphy 32). The outstanding popularity of the sports industry has had a profound affect on youth sport's organizations. Recent surveys place the number of children participating in various team sports at around 20 million. However, critics estimate that as many as 73 percent quit sports by age thirteen. The majority of children drop out by middle school age because sports are no longer fun for them. There are several contributing factors to this phenomenon, parents and coaches putting excessive pressure on children, over competitiveness, anxiety, and simple loss of interest.    Children join sports at a young age, and it is usually the parent who decides what sport the child will play. Parents are often very involved in their child's sport. The parents buy the team trophies, uniforms, and equipment and shuttle their child to and from games and practices. Most children enjoy this time they spend with their family and friends. There is little emphasis placed on competition and children all have an equal chance to participate. They are able to "play" with their friends outside the school environment and simply have fun, which in turn keeps children interested and involved in their sport.    As children get older they ascend to a higher level in their sport, for instance, from T- ball, to little league. During this time pressure to succeed starts to rise. Parents and coaches often become more involved with the game than with their children, attention starts to focus to the more "talented" players on the team, and competition and "who wins" takes precedence over having fun. In his book The Cheers and the Tears, sport's psychologist Shane Murphy Ph.D., claims that "One way in which many traditional youth sport programs fail to meet the needs of children is by introducing too much competition too early.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Comic Relief

Kaylee King Per. 2 Comic Relief Shakespeare’s element of comic relief in his plays provides more than just mere pieces of entertainment for the groundlings; it allows a break from the dense and sometimes evil continuity of the play. Comic scenes provide relief to the audience while building up the intensity from earlier scenes. Sometimes appearing out of place within the play, the scenes and characters are still significant roles in advancing the play. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet comic relief is supplied throughout the plot through the character of Polonius.Polonius, a foolish old man with a lot to say, is able to produce the amount of relief necessary to his audience. With his long speeches and pleasing manner, Polonius sets a certain tone towards the entirety of the play. Time and time again he gives the old â€Å"when I was your age speech† and assumes the role of a parent to everyone, giving his unwanted and disregarded opinion. When a player about the death of P riam makes a deep and eloquent speech, Polonius interrupts by simply saying, â€Å"This is too long. † This being said was entirely ironic because of the long and seemingly pointless speeches that Polonius dishes out to anyone able to hear.Shakespeare’s use of Polonius as a comic character is significant towards the overall tone of the play. The depressing and death filled play needs a comic way to show its tragic nature through a sort of dark humor. Hamlet’s many remarks regarding death and old age towards Polonius is a prime example of this. Polonius being the foolish elderly man he is, provides an easy target for Hamlet so called ‘humor. ’ Jokes of murder and death, although humorous, provide an edge of darkness to the tone of Hamlet.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

The above statement and discuss its accuracy in relation to airspace and subterranean space Essays

The above statement and discuss its accuracy in relation to airspace and subterranean space Essays The above statement and discuss its accuracy in relation to airspace and subterranean space Essay The above statement and discuss its accuracy in relation to airspace and subterranean space Essay Essay Topic: Law The law concerning airspace and subterranean space appears to be exceptionally complex and to an extent even outdated. Sir William James attempt to clarify the law using the Latin maxim cuis est solum eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos1 seems to have created even more legal uncertainty and appears to have done more harm than good. The maxim is now subject to vast exceptions as well as having been denounced by contemporary legal commentators and even senior judges. This essay will explore the accuracy of Sir William James judgement; it will also question the argument that the maxim is still considered the ordinary rule of law2 and will look at how modern land law has gone about dealing with the legal confusion caused by this judgement, focusing primarily on airspace and subterranean space. Firstly, in order to explain the above statement, it may be beneficial to look closely at the facts of the case in which the judgement was made (Corbett v Hill 1870)3. In brief, the case concerned the trespass of land where the claimant failed in attempting to seek an injunction to stop the defendant building a room over-looking the claimants property. After citing the maxim as being the ordinary rule of law4, Sir James admitted its exceptional level of legal ambiguity and even conceded that no doubt, [the maxim] is frequently rebutted5, especially in regards to property in towns [by] other adjoining tenements6. Thus, in relation to the accuracy of the statement, one must appreciate the case is from the 19th century; during a time when technology had not progressed as much as it has today and accordingly airborne methods of transport had not yet been invented. This meant trespassing through the higher levels of airspace would not have been an issue and consequently, detailed legislation regarding the law of airspace may not have been considered necessary at the time. Hence, it may be argued that Sir William James simply cited the maxim with the intention of it serving merely as a rough direction of law but, unaware of the rapid advancement of technology within the 21st century, and so the inventions of aeroplanes and other methods of aerial transport have subsequently required clarification within the law of airspace and have demonstrated the impracticality of applying the maxim in modern times. Inevitably, the judgement has caused vast legal uncertainty and for this reason has been at the centre of immense criticism from both legal commentators7 as well as even senior judges. The suggestion that a land owner has complete control of everything up to the sky and down to the centre of the earth is not only practically unrealistic, but also, theoretically delusional which has resulted in Sprankling8 dismissing the maxim as merely a poetic hyperbole9 suggesting its over-dramatic implications regarding a landowners rights in airspace and subterranean land. This criticism is supported by Lord Wilberforce who has openly criticized the maxims feasibility as being sweeping, unscientific and impractical10. Furthermore, its implication that land is only measureable on a two-dimensional level (in terms of its physical structure) is an argument that has been strongly dismissed by Gray and Gray (2009)11 who claim that portions of a land may be owned by several different owners and thus claim that a transfer of a merely two-dimensional plot of land would have little meaning and even less utility12. They argue that a third dimension of land should have been recognised within the maxim and should now be explicitly acknowledged by the courts as they believe it can exist as as an independent unit of real property13. Gray and Gray (2009) further criticise the maxim for being virtually worthless suggesting it holds very little, if any, legal value in the modern legal system. Hence, these strong dismissals and denunciations of the maxim by senior academics and legal professionals may be argued as representing the modern attitude towards it; suggesting its significance in modern land law is not as much as it was when cited in the 19th century or at the time of its creation. Inevitably, as a result of the vast legal ambiguity and immense criticism that the judgement has faced, a major attempt to rectify the confusion regarding airspace finally came about with the establishment of the terms the lower stratum and the upper stratum. Although these terms appeared to contradict the maxim, they created a groundbreaking change in the law of airspace by splitting airspace into two categories. The lower stratum is that which was necessary for the landowners reasonable enjoyment. In Bernstein14 it was held that determining the requirement of reasonable enjoyment15 is dependent on the type, height and size of the property. Whereas, the upper stratum is that which is above the height which is reasonably necessary for the ordinary enjoyment16. In Bernstein17, Griffiths J also stated that a landowner has no greater rights in the upper stratum than any other member of the public. This is also identically reflected with the obiter dicta of Lord Brown in Bocardo SA (2010)18 where he stated that the air is a public highway19 and if that was not true then every transcontinental flight would subject the operator to countless trespass suits. 20 Both statements appear to be valid and rational as there can be no private ownership of airspace which is entitled to the public. However, both of these statements appeared to be expressly undermined in Kelsen (1957)21 where it was held that the placing of an advertisement banner on (the upper stratum of) another persons land, although did not interfere with the defendants reasonable enjoyment, yet still constituted a trespass. This judgement can be criticised on the basis that it appears to overtly contradict the basic judgement in Bernstein and the consequently conventional principle that the upper stratum is open for the use of the public and that the landowner has no greater rights to it over any other public. However, in Liaqat v Majid22, Silber J justly diverged from the judgement in Kelsen23 and rightfully re-emphasized the principle established in Bernstein24 stating where the interference of land was at a height that did not interfere with the claimants airspace25 then it does not constitute a trespass. This principle was further re-emphasized in Manitoba and Air Canada (1978)26 in which the state of Manitoba argued that goods being sold on an aeroplane flying over Manitoba could be subjected to domestic taxing. Prima facie, it appears that if the maxim is applied retrospectively then technically Manitoba argument should be accepted, however, the maxim was again dismissed by the court and the claim failed as they emphasized the judgement in Bernstein27 that there can be no ownership of the upper stratum. The inaccuracy of the maxim is further demonstrated by the enactment of The Civil Aviation Act (1982)28. Section 76(1)29 discusses grounds for trespass30 and nuisance31 stating that no action can arise if an aircraft is flying over a property, providing it has shown consideration to the wind, weather and so long as all circumstances of the case [are] reasonable. The wording of this statute appears to be as equally ambiguous as the maxim itself in the sense that it leads to the question how would a mere bystander or a reasonable man know if an aircraft has had taken the wind and the weather into consideration and that all the circumstances of his flight are reasonable before establishing if his/her airspace had been trespassed?. Although there are exceptions for aeroplanes landing and taking off, the general rule stated in the Rules of the Air (Amendment) Regulations 200532 is that it is not permissible for an aircraft to fly any closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle or structure. 33 Both statues have considerably clarified the confusion regarding invasion of airspace and have further demonstrated the inaccuracy of Sir James statement. Additionally, Gray and Gray (2009)34 further go on to emphasise the importance of remedies for trespass in modern land law. In particular, the rise in privacy laws such as Article 8(i) of the European Convention on Human Rights35, which give landowners the right to respect of his private and family life, his home and his correspondence36, have also had a big impact on modern land law. The question that subsequently arises is how does the law protect a landowner from invasion of his airspace or violation of his convention rights? The answer to this is damages are available on the grounds of trespass37 or nuisance38. It should be noted that trespass does not have to include damage to the property and can simply be interfering or crossing over onto another property without lawful consent. This is demonstrated in Lewvest Ltd (1982)39 where the court held that construction cranes which operated over the upper stratum40 of the claimants property constituted a trespass and thus, the defendants were required to pay damages. Prima facie, this judgement can be criticised on the basis that there was no direct or indirect damage to the claimants property as the claimant did not even suffer any physical loss but it was merely the defendant attempting to make use and benefit out of the claimants airspace. Consequently it may also be argued that the cranes were being operated on the upper stratum of the claimants property as it was out of the level of that which was necessary for the claimants reasonable enjoyment41 and so under the Bernstein principle that there is no ownership of the higher stratum. On the other hand, one can understand why the courts came about this judgement. In particular, the flood gates argument comes to mind in that, if the court held that large construction companies were able to use machinery over nearby property without facing any legal charges, this would cause an enormous influx of cases on the grounds of both trespass and nuisance. Hence, with the benefit of hindsight it appears that the judgement was valid. Similarly, there has been a substantial attempt to clarify the meaning, scope and invasion of the lower stratum through the aid of subsequent case law. Everyday scenarios such as cutting off your neighbours overhanging branches have been declared lawful however, after cutting the branches off they must be returned to the neighbour (Lemon v Webb)42. Subsequently, taking the fruits off the branch either for personal benefit or to sell them on has been declared unlawful (Mills v Brooker)43. It may be argued that all these judgements (regarding both the upper and lower stratum) have drastically moulded the modern law of airspace in an attempt to adapt to the lifestyle of the 21st century; in particular acknowledging the development of technology and airborne methods of transport. However, there still seems to be some unanswered questions which remain; for example, if a child playing football accidently kicks the ball over the fence does that encompass trespass? Alternatively, if youre next door neighbours pet comes into your garden and eats the food youve left for your pet does that include trespass? Likewise, the decision in Lemmon and Webb (date)44 appears to answer the obvious question regarding over-hanging branches, but fails to explicitly recognise or answer the somewhat un-obvious questions. For example, if someone puts their hand across the garden fence to try and cut a tree belonging to them but over-reaches onto their neighbours side of the garden; does this constitute trespass? Although, these are mere policy arguments and are not as common as the cases cited above, these scenarios should be taken into consideration by the courts and clarified before possible future cases arise and thus avert them from causing even more confusion regarding airspace. In relation to subterranean land, the maxim has caused just as much legal uncertainty and confusion as it has in regards to airspace. Although, it is certainly true in stating that a land owner has rights to land under the soil, however, the suggestion that these rights go down to the centre of the earth is equally as misleading as the suggestion his rights go up to the sky. The general rule regarding subterranean land, in particular treasure, is that if an item found fits under the definition of treasure (as defined in the Treasure Act 1996)45 then it automatically belongs to the crown. Under this definition, treasure is any object at least 300 years old with a metallic content of which at least 10% is precious metal. Subsequent case law has determined that, minerals, treasures and other inorganic substances which are found underneath the grounds of the owner all belong to landowner46. However there are exceptions regarding coal47 which has not been worked on and petroleum48; both of which belong to the Coal Authority and the Crown respectively. Gray and Gray (2009) further state that the landowner has no absolute title to the water that flows through his/her land whether it is through a channel or river. Although, in Embrey (1851) it was declared that the landowner has the right to reasonably enjoy the flow of water, however, this was later amended in John Young Co [1893] where it was held that this right only exists providing that the flow of water or its purity is not diminished for others to use. Likewise, in Fothringham (1984)49 it was held that the landowner has the right to fish in the water flowing through his land as far as he can reach by normal casting or spinning50. This was later strengthened and clarified in Nicholls[1936]51 where it was held that the landowner has the right to the fish once he/she catches and kills them they then become his/her property. As subterranean land is included within a landowners property, it is therefore possible to constitute trespass through the subterranean zone; the area beneath the land which is owned by the landowner. Subsequent case law has demonstrated various ways in which trespass of the subterranean zone have occurred including trespass via entry to a cave as demonstrated in Edwards (1930)52 or alternatively by installing sewage and draining pipe underneath the owners land without lawful consent or authorisation from the landowner as was the case in Roberts (2001). 53 Consequently, before identifying if there can be a possible claim of adverse possession, there are certain statutory and common law requirements which need to be fulfilled. These statutory requirements are listed within the Limitation Act (1980)54 which state that no action can be brought by a landowner in an attempt to recover his land after the expiration of twelve years from the date on which the right of action accrued to him, or from the date on which the right accrued to some person through whom he claims. The right of action is perceived as having accrued once a landowner has been dispossessed of his land or has discontinued use of it. In terms of airspace it is both practically and legally impossible for adverse possession of the higher stratum. This is because the higher stratum has been identified as being open for the use of the public55. Likewise, in terms of adverse possession of subterranean land, though it appears theoretically and to some extent lawfully possible however, it appears impractical and unfeasible. Moreover, in regards to classifying landowners subterranean rights including that of adverse possession, legal commentator Dr Jean Howel56 suggests that the same test that has been applied by Griffiths J in Bernstein57 should also be applied to identify ownership of subterranean land. This argument appears to be supported by the Supreme Court in Bocardo SA v Star where the court reduced damages in regards to subterranean trespass. They did so on the grounds that the defendants actions occasioned no harm whatsoever to the land and more importantly it did not interfere with Bocardos [the claimants] use or enjoyment of its land58. This judgement appears to be sensible and makes a substantial attempt to clarify the law regarding subterranean land by referencing the reasonable enjoyment of land principle established in Bernstein. However, although the principle seems to be an established precedent, it may be criticised for lacking practicality in regards to how it can be applied to subterranean land. The biggest problem being how would one classify what is reasonably necessary for enjoyment in terms of land under the ground? It is not as easy as classifying the lower and upper stratum of airspace as subterranean land is not as widely used as airspace. Hence, if Howels theory is applied, the courts will have the complex task in overtly establishing how far below the soil a landowner has rights to; with consideration to Gray and Gray (2009) who suggest that it is unlikely to be much further than 200 metres below the surface59. Furthermore, one must clearly comprehend and differentiate the fact that Spranklings commentary in Owning the Centre of the Earth60 and opinions therein reflect his thoughts on American land law which, although can be compared to Britain in some respects, cannot be applied wholly or generalised entirely to British land law .

Monday, October 21, 2019

Marketing Communication in Benetton

Marketing Communication in Benetton The advertising objectives of the two companies The advertising objective of Benetton group was to create awareness about the brand and at the same time inform potential consumers about the ideals that the company supports.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Marketing Communication in Benetton specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This strategy was supposed to evoke emotions and to attach them to the company’s brand so that consumers can see it either as an agreeable personality or as an offending one or even a controversial personality. In this strategy, the objective of the company, which was to create awareness and imprint its logo in consumer’s memory, would be realized easily. Benetton used its controversial approach to advertising as a way to appear unique among its competitors. On the other hand, the objective of Yeo Valley was to inform customers of its products and to demystify the notion that organic foods must always be expensive and only to the rich. Several theories can explain the way advertising works, and these theories are useful for understanding the objectives of the two companies and their reason for the particular advertising strategies that they chose. Theories can either be on a singular version relating to the notion of hierarchy-of-effect. They can also be considering a multiple process approach and at the same time highlight the importance of location or brand attitude as the main communication objective. Irrespective of the underlying theory, communication ideas for advertising usually require companies to include six steps in separate or combined form. The steps are to become an advocate of the product, service or cause and then learn everything about it before going on to create an ad.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The second one is to lear n about the target audience in conventional and specific terms that relate to the business such as their location and their opinion about the competition. The third step is to take the information learned about clients and target audience and to use it to come up with ideas and philosophies or techniques that can work. With several ideas in place, the fourth step is to expand on a few main ideas to ensure they communicate the message well. The next step is execution of the ideas and the last one is to collect feedback about the advertising. Based on the above six steps, the two companies appear to have met the criteria and this enabled them to achieve their objectives. For example, Benetton first defined its communication message and then proceeded to come up with advertising ideas that would help it create the relevant ads. The use of an internal ad team allowed it to control the process and to use ads that were coherent with the intentions of top management at the firm. The compan y collected feedback through media reactions of the ads it ran. In some cases, the feedback was bad and required public apologies from the company. Overall, Benetton could tell the success or failure of the ads by its performance in the market (Wardle, 2002). Yeo Valley also followed the steps to achieve its objective of reversing misconceptions about organic food and to promote its organic milk product.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Marketing Communication in Benetton specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More It collected feedback through surveys and was able to engage consumers using social media, which helped Yeo Valley to determine whether its strategy was working or not. This came after extensive research into consumer trends and opinions on organic foods (Tiltman, 2011). Discussion on advantages and disadvantages of the advertising campaign used by Benetton for many years Benetton opted to capture social issues and h ighlight them in its advertisement for company values of promoting equality for all. When evaluating the ads in a postmodern society, they appear suiting to the characteristic of restlessness and use of an uncertain environment. They show that the company is not taking a business as usual approach and instead is trying to rearrange social power though advertising activism. In society, advertising works as a source of propaganda and people gain satisfaction when they purchase. Advertising at its core tries to sell a product by associating it with a particular socially efficacious characteristic such as what Benetton did with its â€Å"united colours of Benetton† ad campaign. The ads point to a preindustrial age where the object was to focus on events rather than objects where consumers would look at particular events such as arrival of ships and remember that it was time to make particular purchases. Today, the same would be applicable when talking of the arrival of new stock or holidays that come with massive sales from most companies (Bernardin et al., 2009). Advertising as Benetton case showed is a powerful social force but it caters mostly for mass consumers and does not actually change their attitudes and behaviours.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The disadvantage of the Benetton historical approach is that it was concerned with changing people’s opinions about social issues that may or may not relate to the brand (Tungate, 2007). Although the brand would benefit by staying in the news for various reasons, it also clearly demarcated itself. In one communication, it would appeal to a segment of consumers only to lose them in another communication attempt. The campaign failed to realize that people harbour different sentiments on different social issues. Thus, being controversial alienates some of its customer bases (Tiltman, 2011). The ad campaign did well in packaging people’s emotions and selling it back to them in a classic sense of what advertising is supposed to do (Wardle, 2002). Good advertising works as a mirror to society where individuals see their fears and aspirations and channel the feelings into consumer choices. Thus, by using already existing social concerns, the ads excelled because they function ed by redirecting issues that target audiences already shared. For example, some ads by Benetton used images that highlight social attitudes about poverty and homosexuality as cues to sell to people. Since the ads were using contrasting images, they were very attractive and the social nature of the contrast created enough interest to cause viewers to take more time and analyse the ad. As they did, they internalized the message and the slogan of the company. They would recall it later when making purchases. The same would happen whenever they interacted with the company slogan again. This method allowed ads by the company to remain timeless as compared to the competition (Sutton, 2009). A disadvantage of controversial advertising strategy is that provoking thoughts of consumers does not always work as expected. It can backfire not only on the company’s reputation but also on its finances. In the US, Benetton had to pay fines and it was banned in Germany (Ganesan, 2003). These outcomes can create adequate public hype about a company or a brand, but without access to particular markets, they end up being advertising funds spend for no monetary benefits in return (The Economist, 2004). The ad campaigns by Benetton were also not working because the company was relying on one strategy when pursuing a global brand building campaign. It should have recognized differing cultures, ideologies and opinions among and within countries (Percy, 2008). Disadvantages of overlooking cultural and market differences in advertising arise when words have different meanings to different people yet the company persists with one slogan and communication method. For example, the company sought to express its values of equality using images, but the same equality message would be empowering to some people and disempowering to others. Instead of noticing these differences caused by people’s culture in some countries, it went ahead to create additional ads with the same under lying message. This only worked to alienate some people from the brand. Those oppressed because of allowing equal access to dangerous people or groups in society would not take the message well (Phillips, Doole Lowe, 2008). A universal approach fails to recognize the predominant stereotype that could be influencing perceptions of equality (Pincas and Loiseau, 2008). In predominant white populations as in most of the Western world, minorities are interpreted in the mainstream according to the way the overall white population accepts and views them. Thus, in advertising, equal representation will seek to make minorities of race, economic states or cultures achieve similar standards as the dominant population. However, since the view used is the one popular with the majority, it may not capture the actual wishes of the minority. In the Benetton case, a disadvantage of its adverting approach was that, the message communicated to the majority in any particular issues was not the same as the one communicated to the minority despite the use of a universal message. For example, some African-Americans felt offended by an image of a black woman feeding a white baby, and some white people may be offended by the same image for its associated corruption of the white race. Nevertheless, these sentiments belong to minorities, but highlighted them can have a negative impact on the overall association of the ad communication strategy of Benetton (Ganesan, 2003). Although the appeal by Benetton was well intentioned, its effect could be fearful and tormenting to some audiences. The emotions evoked could linger in the target person’s memory for long after viewing the ad and can even spark social discussions on the issues to arouse additional negative emotions that will channel back to the brand. In the end, the brand becomes very popular, but rather than promote equality, it creates more animosity for those who like it against those who do not agree with its adverting pri nciples (Nan and Faber, 2004). However, there is a benefit associated with controversially separating the target community. The ad ends up creating a community of loyal followers and defenders of its ideals, which translates to brand ambassadors that act as key influencers in the rest of society and help the company to achieve its objectives of growing sales or increasing awareness without incurring additional costs. Controversy is an essential element for making advertising messages go viral (Scott Scott, 2011). Types of companies that might find the type of advertisement effective The mandate for companies to support social and environmental issues is loud and comes from increasing global consumer awareness and activism practices. Companies have to embrace social issues as part of their business growth strategies (OBarr, 2010). Therefore, embracing social issues as part of advertising can be a welcome twist that connects them well with their target consumer communities. Neverthel ess, the suitability of a given advertising strategy to controversial social issues remains limited to particular industries and nature of business together with company objectives. In this regard, the following are some of the companies that are use the model of Benetton in advertising and be effective (OBarr, 2007). Companies believing that there are only shocking realities and no shocking pictures could include advocacy and consulting companies seeking to promote corporate or individual behaviour change. Here companies seek to make subsequent images of their advertising unique so that they can be provocative and create a scandal (Moriarty et al., 2015). A company that is entering a highly competitive market can benefit greatly from shock advertising because it will be able to create a lot of buzz in a short time with a limited budget. Companies dealing in high street fashion are an example, because they need to create hype about their new clothing lines just in time for a particu lar season and use up the generated attention to make sales before rivals react to the marketing strategy (Schultz and Schultz, 2004). A company that is seeking to promote an alternative product to an addictive product is also a good candidate for shock advertising. A company that is making electronic cigarettes can use shocking images of traditional cigarette smokers or associated effects of the smoking to pass its message (Mooij and Hofstede, 2010). Another good candidate for shock advertising is a children’s home, a charitable organization or a company that is carrying out social sensitive corporate social responsibility projects such as feeding the homeless. Concordia Children’s Services, an organization from Philippines in 2008 carried out a print and online ad campaign showing pig breastfeeding human babies similar to the way it would breastfeed several piglets concurrently. The ad was controversial and included a copy message of â€Å"if you don’t help t hem, who will?† It also included a number and the name of the organization. The contrast was interesting and thought provoking just as Benetton ads are (Bashin, 2011). Analysis of Yeo Valley’s 2010 campaign The Yeo Valley’s 2010 campaign was successful in its attempt to create seek attention, create interest and drive through a particular communication to compel viewers to act in a certain way. With the hierarchy model of advertising, which contributes to the hierarchy-of-effects theory, a consumer moves through three main stages namely cognitive stage, affective stage and finally behavioral stage. An effective ad is the one that allows consumers to transition smoothly through all the three stages. Ads that fail and lose consumers in any part of the process will not succeed overall. Therefore, every part of the model is essential. In the actual hierarchy-of-effects theory, consumers move from awareness to knowledge and this are all parts of the cognitive stage (G anesan, 2003). In the Yeo Valley’s 2010 campaign, consumers already first become aware of the farmers and the musical nature of the ad and then they realize that is actually farmers who are rapping. The ad uses their knowledge of hip-hop culture of rapping and they might have seen in popular hip-hop music videos. The ad combines it with their awareness of farmers and the familiarity of a farm with its machinery and buildings. Shooting the video in a farm quickly places the ad in context. The controversial image of farmers rapping creates interest, but to sustain the interest, which comes as the next step in the hierarchy-of-effects theory, the farmers mimic actual hip-hop videos and glorify their farm equipment, their clothing and the product, which is Yeo Valley’s yoghurt. There are scenes of cows with tags and neckbands that mimic scenes in actual rapping videos where rappers show their chains and glamorous wristwatches. There is a repeated scene of a tractor lifting itself on its back wheel and excavator (Covert, 2011). The interest in the ad is sustained by actual lyrics of the ad that communicate the brand message, informing people about the culture of consuming organic milk products is cool just the way hip-hop and rap music is cool. The strategy is appealing to a young population that is the target market, and this makes the ad effective (Barker Angelopulo, 2006). The final steps of the advertising model are evaluation, trial and evaluation. The ad succeed in making customers evaluate its products, and try them from stores then evaluating the product in relation to its advertised ideals as captured by customer feedback on the ad and on social media (BBC, 2011). The source of the ad communication is Yeo Valley and its message is that the company is capable of coming up with slick products and practices that make its customers appeal cool. In addition, the company is passing on the message that it is in harmony with nature. Customers receiv e cues about Yeo Valley showing the company following natural farming practices in a passionate way to make a difference in people’s lives. The channel for communication was online video, traditional media and social media. The traditional media airing of the video helped to create awareness, while the other two channels allowed the company to benefit from the awareness through sustained word-of-mouth referrals for the ad and adequate sensitization of the brand and the product. This eventually compelled people to try the product and evaluate it (Scott and Scott, 2011). Effect of marketing communication strategy of Benetton and Yeo Valley on the society The communication strategies of the two companies create new goals for advertising because they shatter social expectations. They increase the achievement threshold of advertising by extending the scope of traditional channels and designs of communication brand awareness beyond features that already familiar to consumers. On th e other hand, the brands make it possible for companies to change consumer perception about particular social issues that go beyond a particular product or brand. Benetton succeeded in highlighting plight of the minority and needy is several aspects of conventional stereotype images. Yeo Valley succeed in changing perception of its target community about organic foods in general and to increase support for natural farming practices by dissociating the practice with wealthy consumers and instead attaching it to a sustainability cause for the environment (Acton, 2011). Advertising that breaches social norms ends up creating more fear as the ideal method of advertising and the overall effect is that companies heighten fear levels in society than may work in the short term but alienate consumers in the end. Society ends up getting used to more stimulating images and videos of advertisements and immunity to advertising increases overall. Even with shock advertising, there is always a bet ter and more effective method of arousing interest and causing scandal compared to what currently works in the market. Therefore, firm are always playing catch-up to each other, and end up desensitizing consumers on the issues that they are supposed to arouse caring feelings (Batra, Myers and Aaker, 2006). However, the advertising strategy of the two companies also demonstrates the capabilities of non-verbal communication as an effective way of penetrating particular messages to consumers without risking alienation. It also shows that advertising is merging with other traditional forms of marketing to become a continuum rather than discrete segments. With interactivity built into advertising, the society is getting powers to shape advertising by companies through real-time reactions that defend a brand or tarnish it in public. Thus, companies are able to embrace advertising as a cyclic process in their marketing communication strategy. Conclusion The marketing communication strategy by Benetton and Yeo Valley is unique because it relies on novelty of concepts and communication messages. This paper analysed the two company marketing communication strategies to show some similarities sand unique features. The two companies succeed in different ways, but the turnaround in the Benetton strategy as explained in the case study shows that a shock-advertising model might not work so well for many companies. The controversies created by ads require additional marketing campaigns to correct and this can defeat the purpose of going with the strategy in the first place. Reference List Acton, A. (ed.) (2011) Issues in advertising, mass communication and public relations, Scholarly Editions. Barker, R. and Angelopulo, G. (2006). Integrated organisational communication. Cape Town: Juta. Bashin, K. (2011) 26 incredibly daring ads that were made to shock you, 16 July, Web. Batra, R., Myers, J.G. and Aaker, D.A. (2006) Advertising management, Delhi: Dorling Kindersley (India) P vt. Ltd. BBC (2011) Ad breakdown: Yeo Valley boyband, Web. Bernardin, T., Kemp-Robertson, P., Stewart, D.W., Cheng, Y., Wan, H., Rossiter, J.R., Erevelles, S., Roundtree, R., Zinkhan, G.M. and Fukawa, N. (2009) Envisioning the future of advertising creativity research: Alternative perspectives, Journal of Advertising, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 131-150. Busch, R., Seidenspinner, M. and Unger, F. (2007). Marketing communication policies. Berlin: Springer. Covert, T.K.A. (2011) Manipulating images: World War II mobilization of women through magazine advertising, Lanham: Lexington Books. Ganesan, S. (2003) Benetton Group: Evolution of communication strategy, Hyderabad: ICPEA. Mooij, M.D. and Hofstede, G. (2010) The Hofstede model: Applications to global branding and advertising strategy and research, International Journal of Advertising, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 85-110. Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N.D., Wells, W.D., Crawford, R., Brennan, L. and Spence-Stone, R. (2015) Advertising principles and pract ices, Melbourne: Pearson Australia. Nan, X. and Faber, R.J. (2004) Advertisement theory: Reconceptualising the building blocks, Marketing Theory Articles, vol. 4, no. 1/2, pp. 7-30. OBarr, W. (2010) A brief history of advertising in America, Advertising Society Review, vol. 11, no. 1. OBarr, W.M. (2006) Representations of masculinity and femininity in advertisements, Washington: Advertising Educational Foundation. OBarr, W.M. (2007) Ethics and advertising, Advertising Society Review, vol. 8, no. 3. Percy, L. (2008). Strategic integrated marketing communications. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Pincas, S. and Loiseau, M. (2008) A history of advertising, Los Angeles: Taschen. Prakashan, N. (2007) Advertising and sales promotion, Mumbai: Pragati Boks Pvt. Ltd. Schultz, D. and Schultz, H. (2004). IMC, the next generation. New York: McGraw-Hill. Scott, D. and Scott, D. (2011). The new rules of marketing PR. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley Sons. Sutton, D.H. (2009) Globalizing ideal beauty: How female copywriters of the J. Water Thompson Advertising Agency redefined beauty of for the twentieth century, New York: Palgrave Macmillian. The Economist (2004) The future of advertising: The harder hard sell, The Economist, 24 June. Tiltman, D. (2011) Yeo Valley: How a little TV can go a long way, Web. Tungate, M. (2007) A global history of advertising, London: Kogan-Page. Wardle, J. (2002) Developing advertising with qualitative market research, New York: Sage Publications.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

buy custom Technology, Science, and Culture essay

buy custom Technology, Science, and Culture essay Technology is the usage of tools, techniques, or systems in a manner aimed at solving problems or serving some purposes. It is a science that involves analyzing, developing, and applying machines, devices, and techniques with the aim of enhancing productive and manufacturing processes. Technology is the method of employing technical knowhow and tools to achieve specific goals. For example, video editing which involves the application of technical ability in editing motion picture. This means technology is the elaborated understanding of something that when skillfully applied, a specific ambition is fulfilled. Technology is the machines and systems that aid in making a production process, or any other activity, efficient. Usually technology in this context defines a situation whereby these machines and systems are used as a unit. For example, a seismograph is technology because it is a machine that makes the process of measuring and detecting the direction, duration, and intensity of earthquakes proceed in an efficient manner. Technology is a cultural anthropology. In this context, its a definition of the ways of conducting cultural or societal affairs, or the method of organization. For example, democracy may be regarded as a social technology. Technology as a cultural anthropology means it is used for social purposes. Social technologies include hardware and software that accommodates social procedure in interpersonal communication, e.g. telegraphs, telephones, and postal systems. The impact of television on cultures Some technologies have had great impacts on cultures, e.g. television. Television has a great effect on the subconscious mind and their induction on people is easy and rapid. As an example, te most effective adverts are those broadcasted on television. Motion picture on television has weakened individuals ability to behave autonomously due to its strong influence reminiscence on cultures worldwide. This influence is as a result of the events that are broadcasted as well as those that are withheld a scenario that makes television broadcasting has an extensive social control on people. On morality, since television has connected societies into a global village, a specific cultures norms have been eroded and considered as backwardness. This has lead to people loosen ethical boundaries to accommodate modes of behavior that they see on television. Television has also diversified political opinions and enhanced consumer participation levels. They have been utilized to influence sentiments, beliefs, and judgments; and a notable example is when governments apply television broadcasts with the aim of wining the citizens support on important issues. It is widely believed that television influences the way people vote, and this belief has lead to televised political debates. Lastly, media moguls have become some of the most powerful unelected persons in the world. Rupert Murdoch is the best example in this case. The future of internet Information technology refers to data processing and distribution using computer systems and telecommunication channels. There has been rapid growth in the number of users in recent years due to its effectiveness and efficiency. The use of the internet is growing at a phenomenal rate, and it is part of technology that will have a lot of impact on the future of the world. With regard to this, scientists are enhancing its capacity to enable accommodation of increasedd traffic as more people embrace its use while the existing users increase the amount data they send. Technologies like the Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) are being developed so as to reduce congestion on the internet because it allows per second data transfer across faster medium like optic fiber. Faster packet handling equipments have been developed to ensure its sustained growth in the use. It would be difficult to do without the internet because most other forms of technology rely on it in many ways. For example, television broadcasts on the internet have gained popularity just like the internet application in education and medicine has. The Telephone Many technological innovations have been inspired by social needs, for example, the telephone. Telephone was first introduced for societal use in 1876. This invention by Alexander Graham Bell made communication easier previously. The use of telephone left an indelible mark in the society, and its impacts are evident in business and war correspondences. The basic demand that necessitated research in this area was the need of people to establish contacts with relatives and friends overseas a situation which was difficult before. It has had some negative impacts too, like the sophistication of criminal activities. In spite of the fact that this innovation was to become an important part of our lives, most people had at first neglected its use taking it as a toy or a fake gadget. When its capabilities became clearer the skepticism ended, and people embraced it which lead to growth in its use. The telephone innovation has grown to fulfill the need of people to converse conveniently and cheaply, which was the main cause of the introduction of mobile phones. Buy custom Technology, Science, and Culture essay

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Choose two potential markets( construction related, such as railway or Essay

Choose two potential markets( construction related, such as railway or civil etc. ) for a contracting organisation to enter for - Essay Example Overall, construction advanced by 8% in the year 2010 and in the subsequent year by 2.8% (DKM Economic Consultants, 2009, P.15). Nevertheless, by the later part of the year 2011, the entire construction industry’s growth had started to become slow with a relative downturn in the year 2010. For instance, new construction orders in the year 2012 were below the preceding quarter’s level, by 8.5% (DKM Economic Consultants, 2009, P.17). At this time, the house construction sector, both public and private suffered a major blow, and only infrastructure construction showed slight signs of development, as the government made the attempt to keep the civil works running, through collaboration with private investors. This implies that, by the year 2012, the house construction segment had been surpassed by civil engineering in terms of performance and industry leadership. The United Kingdom’s construction industry is a major economic pillar, since it contributes about a tenth of Britain’s (GDP), provides work to approximately 1.4 million individuals and accrues revenue of about ?65 billion per year. This industry is also ranked among the world’s top ten industries, further emphasizing its significance and the wide array of opportunities it has for new engineering companies. Construction Market Sectors The United Kingdom building and engineering industry comprises of large and dominant companies, which operate along with smaller establishments. Competitive rivalry in the industry is slightly eased when companies diversify their operations into different sectors. Key among these sectors, are the house construction and civil engineering sectors, which are analyzed hereunder, for the purpose of advising a potential construction contractor (Greenhalgh and Squires, 2011, P.35). Civil Engineering Sector Civil Engineering, which encompasses public works like railway, highway and other infrastructure constructions, is UK’s building and const ruction industry’s largest segment. This sector accounts for approximately 52.9% of the overall value of the industry (Data Monitor. 2012, P.7). In 2012, the output from infrastructure construction amounted to ?14,181 million, whereas infrastructure maintenance stood at ?7,775m (Data Monitor. 2012, P.10). Division of the civil engineering sector into its sub-sectors indicates that, railways, roads, as well as, water and sewerage subdivisions represent the greatest infrastructure construction components, at 25%, 24% and 22% in that order (Data Monitor. 2012, P.16). In the duration running from 2007 to 2011, all the new civil engineering sub-sectors depicted relatively steady annual growth. For instance, the water and sewerage sub-sector depicted a 10% growth, the roads sub-division a growth of 9%, while the railway construction sub-sector was at 24% (Data Monitor. 2012, P.18). One of the principal leaders in this sector is Balfour Beatty. This renowned civil engineering compan y deals with construction, business investment and overall engineering services. Balfour Beatty offers its specialized services in complex structure, road, utility systems and rail construction, not only to the United Kingdom, but to the entire globe as well. The company’s operations cover the entire European region, the Americas, as well as, the Asia Pacific area. This

Friday, October 18, 2019

Compare and Contrast Smoking in USA and Smoking in Saudi Arabia Essay - 1

Compare and Contrast Smoking in USA and Smoking in Saudi Arabia - Essay Example The global aspect of smoking occurrence is well documented. For instance, Audrain, Janet, and Jon (1743) provide a general findings on how smoking is a major problem affecting the modern society. This research provides a detailed account of the increase in the number of smokers from 19th to 21st century. With its severity in mind, many nations across the globe have implemented laws that ban smoking in public places. This research seeks to compare and contrast smoking in the USA and smoking in Saudi Arabia. In his article, Alturki (72) affirm that smoking level in developing countries is quite alarming. While the developed countries such as Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, and the United States have enjoyed the benefits of, decreasing rate of smoking for the past four decades, developing countries such as Saudi Arabia still report rapid smoking rate. Tobacco smoking has been the main cause of death in developing countries with the number of addicts increasing rapidly. Based on a recent study conducted in 2007, Al-Haqwi All, Hani, and Asery (146) argue that, 11% of female and 34% of male secondary students were smoking in their teenagehood. Likewise, Saudi Arabia estimates that 30% of adult men smoke while 10% of adult women smokes. This indicates a major difference between smoking habits in Saudi Arabia and other settings such as the United States where the number of female smoking is considerably higher than Saudi Arabia. Obaidullah and David (4) also noted that, the highest rate of smoking is among the young generation between the age 21 to 45 years. Additionally, tobacco smoking is more common among married couple, uneducated, and those in certain occupations such as army officers, businessmen, and manual workers just to name a few. Since 1960, there has been a tremendous increase in the quantity of tobacco import,

Product launch Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Product launch - Essay Example Research on the market of this product had been underway for years and it was proven that the people of Canada were more than willing to install this radiant heating process in their homes so this will be a huge success due to the availability of a ready market. Twenty slides and video presentations were made to inform the prospective customers on how to use and install and maintain this system. The product manager also ensured of teamwork within the different departments of the company providing this service. This has contributed to the great success of this product in the market. With several trials of this product in the market, it was evaluated and the best model developed. The competition from competitors is low as the Can-A-Floor has been embraced by the people due to the massive campaigns and advertisement. The prices are also customer friendly making it affordable to almost if not all citizens. Highly trained sales and support people have been deployed into the market for customer assistance. The installation personnel is also highly skilled ensuring that customer satisfaction is achieved. It is a high time that people kicked cold floors out of their lives by using

Thursday, October 17, 2019

The Positives of Online Gaming Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Positives of Online Gaming - Essay Example The term online gaming is used to refer to the technology through which gamers connect with each other and play different kinds varieties of games over different forms of computer based networks such as the internet. Online games can be played along with other gamers throughout the world and individuals can even play these games at the individual level. For several years, stakeholders such as parents, teachers and researchers have stated that online gaming is a devil and is negatively impacting the society. Several problems such as obesity, decrease in socialization and online gaming addiction have been associated with online games (Wilkinson 6). Online games are not really as bad as portrayed and have several benefits including: helps individuals and children create friends and relationships; cope with emotional issues and helps in expression of creativity. Body Online video games help children socialize and make more friends. Online video games are mostly criticized by parents beca use they believe that these video games are making their children lonely and completely removed from the society. They believe that their children are so involved in online gaming that they tend to ignore other important activities such as socialization. The reality is that online video games are played individually as well as with players all over the world. When players from different parts of the world join together in online gaming, they tend to create friendly relationships and thus their level of socialization increases. According to Yee, online gamers do not only play online games to compete against each other, they even play games to connect with other online gamers. Yee conducted a study on 30,000 online video game players for several years and these players were involved in playing online MMORPG games which included the game named Everquest (Yee 322). Through this research, Yee figured out that around 54% of the female online game players and 30% of the male online game pl ayers had ample amount of trust in their online gaming friends and had shared their secrets with them (Yee 327). Online video games assist children in coping with their emotional issues. Children experience a lot of emotional issues on daily basis; they experience emotional issues as a result of hazardous conditions at their homes and problems such as child abuse. They may not be direct victims of household abuse but they may witness a loved one such as a mother being abused and they may feel the emotional stress and anger caused due to such abuses. Children even experience emotional issues as a result of being bullied or due to their failure to achieve good grades. In order to cope with these issues they use online video games to forget these issues and change their emotional state. A study was conducted by Cheryl K. Olson and through this study; the researcher figured out that 62% of the boys and 44% of the girls who were surveyed stated that they used video games in order to gain relaxation and to fight emotional issues such as anger (Olson 182). Online videos games are of diverse nature and design and these games helps children in using their creative side of cognition. Parents are of the idea that children who are continuously involved in online video games

The impact of the financial crisis on the British Airways company Research Paper

The impact of the financial crisis on the British Airways company - Research Paper Example In a span of 5 years, 2005 to 2009, the airline progression in passenger and cargo traffic had picked up, only to be drastically pulled down after the recession. The passenger load factor and overall load factor dropped from 79.1 to 77.0 and 73.4 to 72.0 percent respectively, passengers and tones of cargo carried dropped from 34613 to 33117 and 805 to 777 (000s) respectively (â€Å"Operating and financial,† britishairways.com). 6 2.4 Profit downturn 7 Following the decline in travels and cargo flow, British Airways revenues dropped substantially, which was associated with the high reliant on the premium tickets. The shift of passenger demand to other airlines was because of the extra fuel surcharge, which the British Airways charged its customers after the fuel price increase; together with the 300 million euro fine in 2008, by the British department of justice, it was easy for the airline to slip into financial struggles. The trend of revenue generation in 2008 and the previo us years to 2005, aimed at the 10 percent operating margin which was possible in the period of 2007/08; the only problem was that the growth in revenue generated come 2009 would be used to cover the increasing operational cost, hence profit turning into a loss (â€Å"Financial performance of British,† ukessays.co.uk). ... 7 As of 2009, the airline recorded a pre- tax loss of 401 million pounds, experiencing a negative growth of passengers by 4.4 percent, compared to 2008 profits of 922 million pounds, (Welham and Wang xinhuanet.com). A company with huge amount of stock, had to suffer loses again since the exchange rates of the stock market were altered to accommodate the economic situation in Europe and the rest of the world, where it is a share holder. The share price of British Airways was in its climax during between 2006 and 2007 in the last decade, which later declined to its lowest mark in 2009 in the event of the crisis. (See fig. 2) It was a period that the company took a strategic decision of selling some of its convertible shares to avoid going bankrupt. Each share was worth 6.60 Euros in 2007, but by 2009, it had declined to 1.34 Euros; however, it has survived through the difficult time to recover though in a slow development (â€Å"Financial performance of British,† ukessays.co.uk) . 8 British Airways | IAG share prices 8 2.5 Employment issues 9 3.0 Conclusion 10 1.0 Introduction British Airways Company is one of the major European airline service providers, to the numerous numbers of the passengers within the local and international dimensions. It is a company that has long history since World War I, when air travelling was more of an adventure compared to the modern society. The company has evolved over time to meet customers’ demands and overcome the economic challenges that also change unexpectedly. It is a company known to have formed mergers with other companies and engaged in privatization to reach where it is today. However, the global financial crisis that began in late

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

The Positives of Online Gaming Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Positives of Online Gaming - Essay Example The term online gaming is used to refer to the technology through which gamers connect with each other and play different kinds varieties of games over different forms of computer based networks such as the internet. Online games can be played along with other gamers throughout the world and individuals can even play these games at the individual level. For several years, stakeholders such as parents, teachers and researchers have stated that online gaming is a devil and is negatively impacting the society. Several problems such as obesity, decrease in socialization and online gaming addiction have been associated with online games (Wilkinson 6). Online games are not really as bad as portrayed and have several benefits including: helps individuals and children create friends and relationships; cope with emotional issues and helps in expression of creativity. Body Online video games help children socialize and make more friends. Online video games are mostly criticized by parents beca use they believe that these video games are making their children lonely and completely removed from the society. They believe that their children are so involved in online gaming that they tend to ignore other important activities such as socialization. The reality is that online video games are played individually as well as with players all over the world. When players from different parts of the world join together in online gaming, they tend to create friendly relationships and thus their level of socialization increases. According to Yee, online gamers do not only play online games to compete against each other, they even play games to connect with other online gamers. Yee conducted a study on 30,000 online video game players for several years and these players were involved in playing online MMORPG games which included the game named Everquest (Yee 322). Through this research, Yee figured out that around 54% of the female online game players and 30% of the male online game pl ayers had ample amount of trust in their online gaming friends and had shared their secrets with them (Yee 327). Online video games assist children in coping with their emotional issues. Children experience a lot of emotional issues on daily basis; they experience emotional issues as a result of hazardous conditions at their homes and problems such as child abuse. They may not be direct victims of household abuse but they may witness a loved one such as a mother being abused and they may feel the emotional stress and anger caused due to such abuses. Children even experience emotional issues as a result of being bullied or due to their failure to achieve good grades. In order to cope with these issues they use online video games to forget these issues and change their emotional state. A study was conducted by Cheryl K. Olson and through this study; the researcher figured out that 62% of the boys and 44% of the girls who were surveyed stated that they used video games in order to gain relaxation and to fight emotional issues such as anger (Olson 182). Online videos games are of diverse nature and design and these games helps children in using their creative side of cognition. Parents are of the idea that children who are continuously involved in online video games

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

But is it Art-Gender Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

But is it Art-Gender - Essay Example in this way, such as Gender and Genius written by Christine Battersby arguing about how the term genius came to be applied to men only and Gender and the Musical Canon by Marcia J. Citron in arguing why the female composer has been left out of academic texts recognizing the brilliant composers of history. It is presented as something different from sexual orientation as examples of Maplethorpe and the at least partially homoerotic depictions of Leonardo and Michelangelo are described. However, it is also used to apply to the images of art as being gendered. For example, the author talks about the image of flowers being primarily the subject of female artists while the images of people and historic events are the province of men, thus introducing gender into the very subject of the paintings. As the author points out, though, these definitions are not always as clear as they might seem, indicating the flower paintings of Monet and Van Gogh while also mentioning the restriction on wome n throughout much of history from participating in art classes that contained nude figures, making classical and historic depictions difficult if not impossible for the female artist. They pointed out the great absence of women in the creative world as creators and writers rather than as subjects to be consumed. In their posters and other publications, they made it clear that there were many more female creators operating in these fields than had been ‘discovered’ by the established art societies including fine art, theatre and film. They also made it clear that the voices of women can never be heard when translated through the medium of a man’s understanding by illustrating how the sexual imagery of recognized painters such as Georgia O’Keefe are denounced as overly obsessed with the concept of sex while similar imagery by male artists is honored as deeply philosophical, alluding to something greater than mere sex and compelling to the modern audience. This continued

Bees. Solve the problem. Essay Example for Free

Bees. Solve the problem. Essay Solve the problem. 1) Find the critical value that corresponds to a degree of confidence of 91%. A) 1.70B) 1.34 C) 1.645 D) 1.75 2) The following confidence interval is obtained for a population proportion, p:0.817 p 0.855 Use these confidence interval limits to find the point estimate, A) 0.839 B) 0.836 C) 0.817 D) 0.833 Find the margin of error for the 95% confidence interval used to estimate the population proportion. 3) n = 186, x = 103 A) 0.0643 B) 0.125 C) 0.00260 D) 0.0714 Find the minimum sample size you should use to assure that your estimate of will be within the required margin of error around the population p. 4) Margin of error: 0.002; confidence level: 93%; and unknown A) 204,757 B) 410 C) 204,750 D) 405 5) Margin of error: 0.07; confidence level: 95%; from a prior study, is estimated by the decimal equivalent of 92%. A) 58 B) 174 C) 51 D) 4 Use the given degree of confidence and sample data to construct a confidence interval for the population proportion p. 6) When 343 college students are randomly selected and surveyed, it is found that 110 own a car. Find a 99% confidence interval for the true proportion of all college students who own a car. A) 0.256 p 0.386 B) 0.279 p 0.362C) 0.271 p 0.370 D) 0.262 p 0.379 Determine whether the given conditions justify using the margin of error E = when finding a confidence interval estimate of the population mean . 7) The sample size is n = 9, is not known, and the original population is normally distributed. A) Yes B) No Use the confidence level and sample data to find the margin of error E. 8) Systolic blood pressures for women aged 18-24: 94% confidence; n = 92, x = 114.9 mm Hg, = 13.2 mm Hg A) 47.6 mm Hg B) 2.3 mm Hg C) 2.6 mm Hg D) 9.6 mm Hg Use the confidence level and sample data to find a confidence interval for estimating the population . 9) A group of 52 randomly selected students have a mean score of 20.2 with a standard deviation of 4.6 on a placement test. What is the 90 percent confidence interval for the mean score, , of all students taking the test? A) 19.1 21.3 B) 18.7 21.7C) 19.0 21.5 D) 18.6 21.8 Use the margin of error, confidence level, and standard deviation to find the minimum sample size required to estimate an unknown population mean . 10) Margin of error: $100, confidence level: 95%, = $403 A) 91 B) 63 C) 108 D) 44 Formula sheet for Final Exam Mean Standard deviation Variance = Mean from a frequency distribution Range rule of thumb Empirical Rule 68-95-99.7 z – score weighted mean Outliers if A and B are mutually exclusive if A and B are not mutually exclusive if A and B are independent if A and B are dependent Complementary events mean of a probability distribution standard deviation of a probability distribution Binomial probability Binomial probability calculator Exactly binompdf(n,p,x) At least 1 – binomcdf(n,p,x –1) At most binomcdf(n,p,x) Binomial mean Binomial standard deviation Expected value Margin of error p Sample size p or Margin of error mean Sample size mean Margin of error mean

Monday, October 14, 2019

The History Of Markup Languages Information Technology Essay

The History Of Markup Languages Information Technology Essay Document markup is a process of writing codes in a document to identify structure and format of a final appearance of a document. Markup was done by copy editor writing instruction on document that was followed by typesetter, before the computerization of printing industry. After computerization, text formatting languages were written. Copy editors markup was converted into the normal markup by a typesetter. When computers spread over the world, people began using word processing software to write documents. Each word processing program had its own feature and technique of markup. All electronic documents which store text use some form of markup. These markups can be visible, hidden or self-generated. Document markup divided into two categories specific markup and generic markup. Specific markup uses instructions which are specific to the certain software that produces document. Generic markup indentifies structure of a document. The beginning of generic markup was macros for typesetting language. Series of commands can be executed by software instruction which called macro. Furthermore, macro keeps track of chapter numbers in document and the change of macro can modify the feature of the chosen chapter. The first presentation about markup languages was made by William Tunnicliffe at Canadian Government Printing Office in 1967. Later in 1969 Raymond Lorie, Edward Mosher, and Charles Goldfarb created Generalized Markup Language (GML). GML was based on ideas of Tunnicliffe. In 1978 GML committee decide to make changes in markup and make it generic. They limited database searches to title by marking title as instead of and . It was a beginning of SGML which was based on both GML and Gencode. SGML was developed during the years and now it is used by major government agencies. HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language that creates web pages. Nowadays, all web pages are made by using HTML or another language which uses basic elements of HTML. Since 1990 when Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML, this markup language started to advance and now it is the most primary language in a world of web. HTML developed from HTML 1.0 to HTML 4.0 in 7 years. In 1994, first HTML 2.0 document was released First draft HTML 3.0 was released in 1995 In 1996, HTML 3.0 was developed to HTML 3.2 HTML 4.0 was released later in 1997. HTML 4.0 is the current version of HTML. -XML XML was created in 1996 by XML Working Group which was lead by Jon Bosak. The design goal of XML was: XML should be easily accessible over the internet Various applications must be supported by XML XML should be similar to SGML. SGML is another markup language which was created before SGML. More precise information about SGML will be given in the next section XML should be designed brief and official. It should be easy for beginners to create documents in XML XML, Extensible Markup Language, is a standard for document markup which is supported by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). XML is markup language and a restricted form of Standardized General Markup Language (SGML) which provides a standard format for electronic documents. This format can be easily customized for web sites, vector graphics, object serialization and voice-mail systems. Programs which control data in XML documents can be written by users. So, the availability of libraries in different languages that can write and read XML, allows users to concentrate on the unique needs of their program. Moreover, XML documents can be modified using text editors and web browsers. Data of XML is included as strings of text in this type of documents. XML and HTML documents look similar. However; there are some important differences. First of all, XML is a matemarkup language. That means XML provides sets of elements and tags that can work for everybody in different areas of interest. For example, Chemists can use molecules, atoms and reactions by using appropriate elements. Musicians can use elements notes, lyrics and much more that concerns their job. XML is a language that can be adapted to meet different requirements. Basic unit of data of XML is called an element. XML identify how elements surrounded by tags, the specification of tags and the names which appropriate for elements. The documents which satisfy these requirements are successfully formed; Otherwise documents containing errors will be rejected by XML. Documents in XML are compared with specific scheme. If a document matches scheme then this document considered valid. Invalid documents are not equivalent to scheme, but it is not important for all documents to be valid. There are various XML schemes. Document type definition (DTD) is the mostly supported scheme which is the only scheme that supported by XML 1.0. DTD contains the entire legal markup and identifies places where these markups can be inserted in the document. -SGML Worldwide standard for the explanation of device-independent, system-independent ways if representing texts in electronic form called Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). SGML documents are not limited by size and can form an independent unit that transported either electronically or in printed form. SGML documents contain interconnected elements that hold data serving for specific purpose. Document Type Definition (DTD) characterizes documents structure according to the elements it contains and the order of these elements. DTD is linked with a SGML. Within the DTD each element in the document named in order to recognize the role of this element. The recognized elements can form the tags that identify the start and the end of elements, when they placed within markup delimiters. SGML parses must authorize files that positioned into the repository. SGML system can be constructed from interrelated software components. Data repository is a central part of SGML system. Before the documents are dispatched from the repository another validation needed in order to guarantee that referenced data has not been neglected from the transmitted data set. SGML documents can be formatted according to features required by the author. There is a standard for defining: the structure of documents classes; characters for markup, and in the text of document; common text that will be written; special marking up techniques like tag minimization or identification of various versions of document; Attributes qualify some SGML markup tags. These attributes can help to identify specific tags, recall data that is externally stored and indicate the role of elements. Moreover attributes can control the way of presenting text to readers. SGML not only make easy to associate feature to text by short form of tags, but also named character references can be used to demand characters that are not included in character set of word processor. In order to modify SGML-coded document, it needed to be converted into form that word processors can understand. It is a complex process for generalized SGML document and there one application which is specifically designed for converting word -processed text into and out of SGML. This application is called HyperText Markup Language (HTML) that is used on the World Wide Web. -HTML and XHTML HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the computer program that allows user to create own web page by formatting text and present it to the Internet public. First of all, hypertext and universality are the main qualities of HTML. Hypertext means that it possible to insert a link in a webpage that leads to another webpage. So, it is possible to access information on the internet from various places. Secondly, HTML is universal language, because these types of documents can be accessed from any computer such as Macintosh, UNIX and Microsoft. Special programs were designed in order to read HTML pages. These programs called browsers and the popular ones are Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape operator and Opera. XML looks like HTML language; However , XML is a language that not only helps to create web pages, but also the program by which author can create his custom markup language to format documents. By using XML It is possible to use written data as custom information and used it further in the text. Nevertheless, XML is not as merciful as HTML. XML need careful coding, since XML is sensitive to upper and lowercase letters, quotations and tags. There is a huge number of HTML pages that can be read by any browser. So, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) decided to write HTML in XML. This new invention that called XHTML had all features of HTML as well as XMLs power and flexibility. -TEX There are two different categories of text processors: WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) system. User can see exactly what his document will look like while typing text. Markup system, Authors type text scattered with formatting commands, but they are unable to see appearance of their document while working on text. In order to see final result user must run the program. Since the final product can be seen by author, WYSIWYG systems have the obvious advantage; however, person can easily be distracted by the appearance of the document and will be unable to write the paper effectively. Because of these reasons, people who want academic paper prefer markup systems. TEX is an example of the markup system that was built in early eighteens, before WYSIWYG systems were widespread. Advantages of TEX TEX documents formed by the help of macros, that define format of each component. By the help of macros users dont have to write unnecessary formatting commands. For example, in order to write a footnote it is enough to write footnote command, instead of moving text to the bottom of page. Macros make TEX flexible. By changing definition of certain macro, the appearance of a document can be changed. TEX is easily adaptable, since new commands can be created. In order to print document which is written in TEX, user needs to give the output to a driver program which will convert descriptions into commands that understood by printers. Tex is doesnt rely on technology of printers; you just write a new driver when technology changes. TEX is freely available over the internet. TEX is an ideal program to create academic papers and even books. Disadvantages of TEX First of all, beginners have difficulty at getting used to TEX programming. It is easy to write primary macros, but writing complex macros is not a beginners work. Moreover, memory and design of TEX is limited, it doesnt grow dynamically and it uses only its own fonts. The most spread problem is interactivity of TEX. However, there is a solution to this problem. Many programs that give additional features to TEX are available. For example, Macintosh users can access the program named TEXtures that helps user to: Edit multiple texts at the same time with a multi-window editor; View the output of the program on the screen by the help of previewer; A printer driver; TEX proper. PC clone users can only edit one text at a time. User, should first of all edit a file, then run this document by the help of TEX, afterwards use previewer in order to see the output on the screen. If there are mistakes in the text user must write all of them down then edit file again. Nowadays, most common used systems are WYSIWYG programs that use a TEX engine. User can easily change appearance by few mouse clicks without having any knowledge about TEX.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Frederick Douglas Essay -- Frederick Douglas report

Paper on Frederick Douglass In the 1800's, slavery was a predominant issue in the United States, one that most Americans in the South dealt with daily. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass reveals much about American history during the time of slavery as well as expounds arguments for the abolition of slavery. As a historical document, it conveys information about the slave family, work, the master-slave relationship, and the treatment and living conditions of slaves. As an antislavery tract, it argues against commonly held beliefs about slavery's benefits and its morality, making strong points for getting rid of slavery. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass reveals, through the story he tells "the core of the meaning of slavery, both for individuals and for the nation."(2) Slave families were often torn apart by the master separating them. Douglass states that often mothers were taken away before the baby reached one year old. He believes this was probably done to break the bond of affection between the mother and the child. In Douglass' own case, he only remembered seeing his mother four or five times, during the night, when she had to walk twelve miles each time just to be able to see her own son for a little while. When she died, Douglass wasn't allowed to go to her burial. He was just told she was dead afterwards. Douglass didn't feel much hearing the news because he barely knew her. Douglass also wrote of how members of the slave family were always at risk of being separated. They could be sold at the master's whim, or when the master died, the slaves would be gathered with the rest of the property to be sold to different masters. Frederick Douglass tells how after his master died, th... ...ample, when he tells how people who could be chosen to work on the Great House Farm would sing songs filled with great anguish. When he heard these songs, he got his "first glimmering conception of the dehumanization character of slavery."(51) The second main idea was how knowledge equals power. His growing understanding about how education would be "the path from slavery to freedom."(64) He tells how the more his master, Mr. Auld, argued his education, the more clearly he knew its supreme importance. His third main point was that freedom is essential for every human being. He showed all of his renders a glimpse of this when he "imagines himself on one of [the ships] ‘gallant decks,' speaks to us and the ships alternating voices of anguish and triumph, pouring out his ‘soul's complaint,' and converting it into an unforgettable image of the meaning of freedom."(23)

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Essay --

Mount Vernon; George Washington's Mansion There are many historic Memorial in the United States, but Mount Vernon is the most popular and visited site. It is one of the most unique home built in the eighteenth century. Thousands of people visit Mount Vernon yearly become educated about the life of George Washington and how he lived. Mount Vernon is a beautiful, luxurious estate home to the first president of our country, George Washington. Mount Vernon sits at 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Washington’s family owned the land since the time of Washington’s great grandfather in 1674. Washington older brother owned the land until he died in 1752. Lawrence’s will said that his widow should own a life at Mount Vernon. Two years after George’s brother died, George began leasing the land from Lawrence’s widow, Anne Fairfax. George got possession of the estate in 1754, but did not become it’s sole owner until 1761. In 1739 George Washington launched on an expansion of the estate. He constructed the mansion between 1757 and 1778. Its currently 11,028 square feet, ten times larger of an average home in colonial Virginia. Over four decades, Washington expanded and refurnished Mount Vernon twice. The architect of this estate is unknown, but George Washington is said to have many helpers and sources to constructing his dream home. The exterior of his mansion appears to look like stone, but is actually made of yellow pine siding.It is built of wood in a loose Palladian style. Most rooms at Mount Vernon have been touched up since George Washington and his wife, Martha, lived in the mansion. Mount Vernon is not only a mansion; it also includes the Ford Orientation Center, mansion outbuildings,Gardens, Martha and G... ...t. In the months March, September, and October, its opened from nine to five. In November through February the estate is open from nine to four. Mount Vernon is open 365 days a year. When travelling with a school group student’s tickets cost eight dollars, while adult tickets cost fourteen dollars. An adult chaperone is required to visit Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon will help our class understand how George Washington lived. This is an extremely important site because George Washington was the first leader of our country. I think our class will get a ton of information from visiting this ancient estate. Mount Vernon will remind why George Washington is called â€Å"the father of our country.† This gorgeous estate is a must see site. Its beauty and perfection will hopefully change they way we viewed how George Washington lived his life when he was not serving our country.

Friday, October 11, 2019

Organizational Culture Essay

It is extensively acknowledge that organizational culture plays an increasingly essential role in a successful company. However, in the meanwhile whether organizational culture should be changed constitutes a controversial issue. Many managers assert that organizational culture must be changed while few others argue that organizational culture needs not to be changed. As far as I am concerned, I am in favor of the former view. In this essay, firstly, I will talk about what is organizational culture and what do organizational cultures do. In the second place, I will discuss why organizational culture should be changed. Thirdly, I will analyze the risks of organizational culture change. Finally, I will expatiate how to prevent risks of organizational culture change. What is organizational culture? A number of years back, I watched an American reality television The Apprentice, and I remember a player was asked what he thought organizational culture mean by Doanld Trump. He said: â€Å"I can’t express it, however,I get it when I see it. † Most people cannot define organizational culture accurately by concise word. However there seems to be widely recognized that organizational culture indicates a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations. (Becker, 1982, pp. 513-27; and Schein 1985 p. 168) This shared system meaning is, on further investigation, a series of important features that the organization values. The investigation advises that there are seven main features that, gather up the threads, constitute the essence of an organizational culture. (Reilly III, Chatman, Jehn, 1991, pp. 487-516; and Chatman, Jehn, 1994, pp. 522-553; Ashkanasy, Wilderom, Peterson, 2000) 1. Innovation and adventure: the extent to which employees are encouraged to be make innovations and adventure. 2. Detail oriented: the extent to which employees are anticipated to exhibit meticulous, analysis and detail oriented. 3. Attention to outcome: the extent to which management attach importance to results or outcomes rather than on the skills and processes used to achieve those outcomes. Attention to people: the extent to which management decision take into regard the influence of results on people within the organization. 5. Attention to team: the extent to which job activities are organized around teams rather than individuals. . Aggressiveness: the extent to which people are aggressive and competitive rather than easygoing 7. Stability: the extent to which organizational activities stress keeping the status quo by comparison to growth and development. There is no denying that organizational culture is just a descriptive concept, because of organizational culture is paid attention to how employees perceive the features of their organization’s culture, not with whether or not they like it. Furthermore, it is obvious that a company cannot have only one organizational culture. As we know, there are many employees who have different background or at different levels in a company, so they must have different perspective with organizational culture. In the mean time, there are two different cultures in one company, dominant culture and subculture. Dominant culture describes the core values that are shared by a most of the employees, when we talk about an organizational culture, we are referring to its dominant culture; In general, subculture develop in a big company to reflex conjunct problems, situations or experiences that staff meet. What do cultures do? Culture has a variety of functions in an organization. First, it creates distinctions between one organization and others. Second, it expresses a sense of identity for employees. Third, it precipitates employees not only care one’s individual self-interest, but also care whole organizational interest. Fourth, it improves the stability of the organization. Finally, culture serves as a sense- making and control mechanism that guides and shapes the attitudes and behavior of employees. (Reilly, Chatman, Staw, Cummings, 1996). Why organizational culture should be changed? Compelling arguments can be made that organizational culture should be changed, immediately. The first point with respect to this is that our society is advancing at an amazing speed in this day and age, more and more organizations face a dynamic and changing environment. As a consequence, all organizations must adapt to the changeable society. ‘Change or die! ’ is the rallying cry among today’s manager worldwide. In the second place, with the development of technology and science, the sense of distance between people getting closer, our world became a multicultural environment. Therefore, many companies have to do adjustment to adapt environment. More precisely, many companies must spend large amount of money and much energy on training to improve skills of employees. Last but not least, in this world, competition is a part of our lives, never disappear. Especially in the business society, the weaks are the prey of the strongs, increasing competition makes it inevitable for builded organizations to defend themselves against both traditional competitors who develop new products and services, and small entrepreneurial firms with innovative offerings. This makes sense in that a good organization will be the ones that can change according to the competition. They followed the steps of the times, able to develop new products quickly and put them on the market. They accelerate production operations, shortened product cycle and constantly produce new products that can adapt to radically-changing environment. The risks of organizational culture On the other hand, colorable arguments can be made that organizational culture should not to be changed. This argument has considerable merit in that every little change can bring huge risks, especially for a business organization. For example, a change is scheduled and employees as soon as possible respond by voicing complaints, demotivation, even threatening go on strike and so on. In general, risk can be divided two big parts, individual risks and organizational risks. Individual sources of risk belong to primary human characteristics such as consciousness, characteristics and requirements. There are five different risks in individual resources. Custom (Habit): Do you go to school or work always through same route every day? Most people’s answer: â€Å"Yes! † Our lives are so complicated, we have to make hundreds of decisions. Therefore, face to life’s complexities, we lean upon habits or programmed responses. However, when faced with change, this tendency to respond in our usual ways becomes a source of risk. For instance, when your department moves to another new building, it means you have to change your habits: get up earlier ten minutes; pass a new street go to work; look for a new parking; adapt to new office’s overall arrangement and so on. . Security: People with a high need for security are likely to resist change because it threatens their feelings of safety. For example, when Sony&Ericsson announced to lay off 17000 employees or Ford will introduce new robots, these employees feel their job unsafe. 3. Economic: Changes in work tasks or job specification can lead to economic fears if people are cared that they would not be able to adapt to new tasks or standards, especially when reward is closely related to productivity. 4. Fear of the unknown: Change replaces vagueness and indetermination for the unknown. When we graduated from high school ready enter university was a wonderful example. In high school, we understood that what things need to do, you maybe dislike high school life, but at least, you know this system. We faced a fresh and uncertainty system in university, you have to sacrifice your know to exchange unknown, it was associated with uncertainty fears. 5. Selective information processing: Individuals are sinful of selective processing information in the cause of maintain their whole consciousness. They hear what they want to hear and they ignore information that challenges the world they have created. Organization is conservative for its essentially, it resist change energetically. (Hall, 1987) This phenomenon can be seen everywhere, for example, governmental agencies want to continue devote oneself to their work, no matter what the market need to change; The organized religion has ineradicable history, changing religious doctrine need great perseverance and patience; Many business companies also think change can bring many risks. There are six organizational sources of risk. (Katz, Kahn, 1978) 1. Structural inertia: Organizations keep their stability by inner mechanism, like their selection processes that choose employees in or out very systematically; Training and other socialize technology strengthen requests and skills for every concrete role; Organizational normalization provides job specifications, rules and regulations to employees. After selection, the satisfactory employees can enter organization, then, organization will model and guide their behaviors by kind of way. When an organization is meted with change, this structural inertia act as risk (even counterbalance) to maintain stability. 2. Limited Change attention: Organizations are made up of a quantity of interdependent subsystems. One cannot be changed without influencing the others. More exactly, in the meantime, organizations just change technological process, and not change organizational structure for match it, so technological change cannot adapt to. It seems that limited change in subsystems tend to be nullified by the lager system. 3. Group inertness: Even though individuals want to change their behavior, group criterion may act as a force of constraint. For instance, an unionist maybe accept job change from capital, but if union regulation provide that resist any change by capital unilaterally change, therefore risk will appear. 4. Threat to professional knowledge: Changes in organizational model may threaten the expertise of specialized groups. In 1980s, the process of adopting distributed personal computer was a good example. This computer can let user direct got information from host computer of company, but it encountered many information departments’ counterview. Why, because the use distributed computers can bring risks for special technology of information departments. 5. Threat to established power relationships: Any reapportionment of decision-making power can threaten long-established power relationships within organization. Participative decision and self-management work team are belong to this change, it used to be threaten by low-level managers. 6. Threat to established resource distributions: Groups in the organization that control considerable resources see change as a risk. They tend to be gratify with the way things are. For instance, whether change means their budget or members decreasing? Those groups which can get much benefit from existing resource allocations used to be threaten by future allocations. How to prevent risks of organizational culture change? Although Organizational change brings many risks, in some ways, this is positive. It regulates a degree of stability and predictability to behavior. If there were not some risks, organizational behavior would take on the representatives of chaotic randomness. According to these risks, there were six tactics have been suggested for use by change planners in dealing with preventing risks. (Kotter, Schlesinger, 1979) 1. Education and Communication: Risk can be reduced through communicating with employees to help them understand the logic of a change. The fundamental assumption of this strategy is the reason of producing risks that fights the effects of misinformation and miscommunication; if employees see all facts and eliminate entire misread, risks should disappear. Our communication could through talk personally, group discussion, memorandum, report and so on. Indeed, research shows that the way the need for change is sold matters-change is more likely when the necessity of changing is packaged properly. (Dutton, Ashford, O’Neill, Lawrence, 2001) By the way, when the risk of change definitely from miscommunication and labor relations character by mutual trust, this tactic does work; if these conditions cannot be have, it does not work. 2. Participation: It is difficult for individuals to hit back a change decision in which they participated. Before changing, those opposed can be brought into the decision process. Presuming that the participants have the professional knowledge to make a meaningful contribution, their participation can reduce risk, obtain promise, and improve the quality of change decision. However, this tactic has two disadvantages. First, it maybe has potential poor decision; second, it would take much time. 3. Support and Promotion: Change planners can provide a range of supportive measures to reduce risk. When employees feel fear and worried, the company should offer recommendation and counseling psychology, new-technologies training or a short paid leave of holiday may promote adjustment. Research on middle managers has shown that when managers or employees have low emotional commitment to change, they favor the status quo and resist it. (Huy, 2002, pp. 31-69) 4. Negotiation: Another way for the change planner to cope with potential risk to change is to exchange something valuable for waken risk. For example, if the risk is concentrated in some powerful individuals, a detailed payment scheme can be negotiated that will satisfy their individual needs. Negotiation as a tactic may be necessary when risk comes from a powerful provenience. But, planner cannot ignore its potentially high costs. On the side, if change planner negotiates with one party to avoid risk, he or she is open to the possibility of being extorted by other individuals which have power. 5. Control and Cooptation: Manipulation deal with concealed influence attempts. Some illustration of this are twisting and misinterpretation facts to make them more attractive, blocking undesirable information, and creating rumors to get employees to accept change. If managers threatens to closed down a extraordinary manufacturing plant if that plant’s employees do not accept an across-the-board pay cut, and if the threat is actually untrue, managers is using manipulation. Cooptation, on the other side, is a mode of both manipulation and participation. It try to find ‘buy off’ the leaders of against group by giving them an important role in the change decision. The leader’s suggestion is explored, not to seek a good decision, but to get their authorization. Both manipulation and cooptation are comparatively low-cost and easy ways to enhance the support of opponents, but the tactics can backfire if the targets become conscious that they are being tricked or used. If by any chance detected, the change planner’s reputation may drop to zero. It used by change planners in dealing with opponents to change; that is, the application of direct thrusts or force on the opponents. The color is quite mandatory, if the company management indicated to in the previous discussion really is determined to shut down if employees do not agree with a pay cut. Other examples of coercion are threats of transfer, loss of promotions, negative performance appraisal and so on. The advantages and disadvantages coercion are similar to the benefits and drawbacks of manipulation and cooptation. For my part, after considering the arguments above, I would concede that organizational change can bring many risk, the members of conservative not support change. Nevertheless, despite that I think the organizations should be changed, every day is different, anything would be changed as time goes on. Overall, I am convinced that with development of society, managers will discover many effective change plans to adapt to market competition.