Making Ebay Work

Table of Contents Introduction:2 PART A: Chapter Summary3 PART B: Background and Case summary5 EBay’s Background5 Case Summary: Making eBay work6 PART C: Case Questions7 Case Question #1:7 Case Question #2:10 Case Question #310 PART D: Implications and Recommendation12 Implications12 Recommendations13 Introduction: Strategic capabilities have become a source of competitive advantage for both small and large organization. Organizations that wish to survive and compete in today’s dynamic business world need to implement unique and high-value strategic capabilities. This paper takes you through in depth analysis of strategic capabilities and how it relates to the business environment. The organization in focus is eBay, an online sales company. EBay is one of the largest online sales and auction company with branches in over two dozen countries. Its unique resources and key competences are paramount to its ever-growing success in the industry. The first part of this paper will take you through the concept of strategic capability. This is the summary of the chapter 3 from the textbook, Exploring Corporate Strategy. This part will focus on definition of strategic capability, the importance of resources and competencies to achieving strategic capabilities, cost efficiency, and how strategic capabilities can lead to sustainable development. The second part focuses on the background of the case study company, eBay. There is a brief background about the company and summary of the case study. Part three seeks to answer the case questions. The questions are divided into three; the first talking about the analytical framework for analyzing eBay’s strategic capability. There are several analytical frameworks in the textbook, for in-depth and better understanding, the SWOT analysis was used. The second question seeks to know what kind of capabilities have provided eBay with competitive advantage. The last questions deals with managing capabilities such as new resources, investing and divesting in resources, and extending resources given new entrants in the marketplace and the changing nature of eBay. Each question has been answered by expert individuals with good knowledge of strategic capabilities. The paper concludes by taking into consideration possible lessons learnt from the chapter and case study. We also give recommendations for development in eBay or other organizations that seek to achieve the feat of successful organizations like eBay. PART A: Chapter Summary Strategic capability can be defined as the adequacy and suitability of the resources and competencies of an organization for it to survive, prosper and deliver in the future. The strategic capability contributes to the competitive advantage of an organization by creating and implementing strategies that competitors find difficult to imitate or match. Unique and rare strategic capabilities give organizations better reputation and goodwill when compared with their competitors. Importance of resources, competences, core competences and dynamic capabilities: An organization’s strategic capabilities mainly revolve around its resources. The resources are either tangible or intangible and they are grouped into four categories; an organization’s resources can be: Physical, Financial, Human, and intellectual. Physical resources include machines, building or production capacity of the organization. Financial resources are used in the day to day running of the business; they include capital, cash, debtors, creditors among others. Human resource includes the number and mix of people in an organization. Most organizations have human resource departments that help manage the welfare of the personnel in the organization. Intellectual resources are intangible resources that include patents, brands, business system, and customer database. Resources are important to an organization because they allow the organization to produce at lower cost or generate superior product or service. The resources in an organization are of no worth if they are not being utilized effectively. Organizations must utilize their resources by being competent. Competences in business policy are used to mean the activities and processes through which an organization deploys it resources effectively. Competences can either be threshold or core. Threshold competences are the essentials needed to compete in a given market, while core competences are the effective use of resources to gain competitive advantage. Importance of cost-efficiency: The management of cost-base of an organization can be a basis of achieving competitive advantage. Cost efficiency is driven by a number of cost drivers. [pic] How strategic capabilities can lead to sustainable competitive advantage: †¢ Value: Have resources that customers value in terms of products and services. Product or services must exceed consumer want and taste. †¢ Rarity: Having unique resources and competences in terms of personnel intellect, unique services rendered among other things. †¢ Robustness: A strong and well-built form of strategic capabilities that annot be imitated by competitors. †¢ Non-substitutability: Providing value to customers and possessing competences that are complex and casually ambiguous. Diagnosing Strategic Capability If organizations are to achieve competitive advantage by delivering value to customers, they need to understand how it is created. †¢ Value Chain: describes the activities within and around an organization whic h together create a product or service. †¢ Value Network: is the set of inter-organizational links and relationships that are necessary to create a product or service. Activity Maps: it shows how the different activities of the an organization are linked together †¢ Benchmarking: comparison of programs and strategic positions of competitors. †¢ SWOT: summary of key issues which affect the business environment. Managing and developing Strategic Capability: In order for managers to manage and improve the strategic capability of an organization, there are certain decisions and actions which can be taken which relate to the development of strategic capabilities within the organization and external environment. These include: Extending best practices: managers might identify strategic capabilities in one area of the business and then seek to extend this throughout all the business units. †¢ Adding and changing activities: this involves adding or changing capabilities so that they become more reinforcing of outcomes. †¢ Stretching competencies: managers may see the opportunity to build new products or services out of existing capabilities. †¢ Entrepreneurial Bricolage: strategic capability can be built by exploiting resources, skills, and knowledge which have been ignored: which is often what entrepreneurs who develop new business models do. Ceasing Activities: involves doing away with current activities not central to the delivery of value to customers. †¢ External Capability development: developing capabilities by entering into alliances and joint ventures. PART B: Background and Case summary EBay’s Background EBay is an online shopping and auction website where people and businesses buy and sell products and services. EBay was created in 1995 and they have over the years grown and expanded to over two dozen countries such as the United Kingdom, China and India. EBay recorded a profit of $367 million according to GAAP in their fourth quarter in the year 2008. Millions of collectibles, decor, appliances, computers, furnishings, equipment, vehicles, and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, and sold daily on eBay. In 2005, eBay launched its Business & Industrial category, breaking into the industrial surplus business. Some items are rare and valuable, while many others are dusty gizmos that would have been discarded if not for the thousands of eager bidders worldwide. Case Summary: Making eBay work The ‘Making eBay Work’ case study is divided into three sections namely; eBay’s business model, eBay’s management and Competition and cooperation. EBay’s business model A business model describes the structure of product, service and information flows and the roles of the participating parties. Therefore the business model in eBay’s case includes its products and services and the interactions between buyers and sellers. The business model includes Value in eBay which is created by providing a virtual market for buyers and sellers. EBay listens to its customers and organizes Voice of the Customer groups which involve flying in a new group of about 10 sellers and buyers from around the country to its offices every few months to discuss the company in depth. Technology allows every move of every potential customer to be traced. Workshops and classes are held to teach people how to make the most of the site. EBay is governed from outside and within in the sense that the company’s system has a source of automatic control in the form of buyers and sellers rating each other on each transaction. Sales of illegal products are dealt with by withdrawing the item on sale and then banning the seller. EBay’s management Meg Whitman, an ex-consultant joined eBay in 1998 and has seen then heavily influenced the company’s management. Meg Whitman met a collection of Information Technology (IT) geeks who were handpicked by eBay’s founder Pierre Omidyar as top management of the company. Meg Whitman felt she needed to reshuffle and change the management as most of the top executives understood more of the IT side of the company rather than understanding the business side of the company. Respected consultants were then assigned senior management roles. This change brought about the company becoming data and metric driven: ‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t control it. ’ This simply means that category managers made decisions based on measuring and acting upon the data within their fiefdom or departments. EBay has in time upgraded its ability to ensure that technology does not fail. The company’s website was plagued with outages in 1999 which shut down the site for a period of 22hours. The problems were as a result of software problems and lack of backup systems. Maynard Webb joined eBay to become the president of the company’s technology unit and has since then ensured a secure website by constantly upgrading the system. Meg Whitman is a manager who is known for leadership qualities such as understanding and flexible. She is a leader who buys into the company in more ways than one by auctioning some of her furniture from her ski condo in order to have an eBay selling experience. Competition and cooperation As the internet has become a more competitive arena, eBay has definitely not stood still. The company tries to be aware and flexible. EBay bought Skype, the internet telephony organization in 2005 at the cost of $2. 5 billion. A lot of controversy marked this acquisition as people considered it too risky and eBay fired back by saying the company can create an unparallel e-commerce engine, pointing to their 2002 purchase of the online payment system, PayPal. eBay also supported their action by saying three benefits would be realized as a result of the purchase; ‘the more members the company will acquire, the more valuable the company will become, and lastly the more likely eBay will become a world leader in managing network effects. In 2006, eBay announced a deal with Google and has since then become one of Google’s biggest advert customers. EBay also partnered with Baidu Inc, a Chinese web portal bought by eBay in 2002. Baidu promotes PayPal Beibao as the preferred method of payment on Baidu. Despite eBay success in the west, it is not as successful in the east. EBay had to pull out of Japan and is cur rently struggling in Taiwan and lagging behind a rival in China. GMarket in Korea had a less complex system and so had a larger market base; so eBay had to come up with eBay express to meet up to the customer needs in Korea. PART C: Case Questions Case Question #1: Analyze eBay strategic capability using an analytical framework from the chapter Strategic Capability can be defined as the resources and competences of an organization needed for it to survive and prosper. EBay’s case shows us the necessity of an organization having sustainable resources and competences. In analyzing their strategic capability, the SWOT framework (strength, weakness, opportunities and threats) projects, clearly, the issues surrounding a business and deduces how this issues makes them strategically capable. Strengths: Bay’s greatest strength is that it is the first online auction site. Because of that, eBay is well trusted. The customer’s perception that he/she can buy a good without worrying, keeps him/her coming back. That is why, in 2006, eBay had 200 million customers. Out of that, 750,000 made their living from eBay. (Johnson, Scholes, & Whittington, 2008) From the case study, you can see a strong rel ationship between the business-to-customer and customer-to-customer relationship. For example, when a category manager sees a customer is having difficulty selling a product, he helps the customer by improving their presentation of the product. Also, eBay organizes â€Å"Voice of the Customer† were a group of 10 sellers and buyer are flown in from around the world, to discuss the company in depth. In regard to the customer to customer relationship, customers help each other by creating rules and norms to keep themselves safe from fraud. They also have websites, offering advice on how to sell on eBay. This relationship seems little, but it is not. It has taken at least 13 years to build it; that is why it would be very difficult for another company to break in. Another major strength eBay has is Meg Whitman who is a unique resource. She is well experienced. She previously worked with Procter and Gamble, Hasbro and Stride Rite, and went to Harvard business school. When she came in, she multi-tasked, filling many of the senior management roles such as the head of the US business, head of international operations and vice president of consumer marketing with consultants. Through her eBay has been re-defined; eBay has over thirty categories now (you can buy items ranging from books, cars, antiques to houses), their sales have increased and have acquired several firm- like Skype and PayPal- strengthening eBay alive and keeping it flourishing. Weakness Although things seem perfect, eBay has a number of weaknesses: Because items are sold online you can’t be certain of the person you are transacting with. EBay customers suffer from other fraudulent activities by other customers. For example, another customer maybe selling a Gucci hand bag for a reasonable price. When you pay for it and receive the bag, you realize the bag is not original. Another case of fraud occurs when stolen goods are sold. Fraudulent situations affect the customer to customer relationship. In addition, according to the case, in 1999 the site was shut down for 22 hours courtesy of software problems. This is a major weakness because eBay’s site cannot function when the system breaks down; auctioning cannot take place. During these periods, a lot of profit will be lost, affecting the business and customers. EBay would be affected more because of the amount spent on repairing. In the past, even the payment system, PayPal, has been shut down. Opportunities Opportunities are lucky breaks entrepreneurs use to get ahead of competition. Acquisitions provide new business strategy opportunities. In 2005, according to the case study, eBay bought Skype. It is an online telephone company. EBay acquired the firm for $2. 6 billion. Skype's software lets PC users talk to each other for free and make cut-price calls to mobiles and landlines. A lot of critics didn’t see the essence but for eBay it was a great opportunity. They were strengthening their threshold and unique resources. Skype is a unique resource because not a lot of businesses can afford to imitate that feat (spending $ 2. 6 billion). It is a threshold resource because Skype helps customers communicate more effectively. Through Skype, customers can see and hear each other; reducing the rate of fraudulent activities. In addition, eBay has opportunities through new and emerging markets. EBay has over 30 sites, were language differs. For example, if you go to the Chinese site, it wouldn’t be in English. But it wasn’t always like that before. This opportunity occurs when a country becomes more modernized, like Singapore. When it happens, eBay has an opportunity to increase its market segment. This is how eBay has been able to grow, over the years. Also, a product produced 5 years ago can still be sold and found on eBay. In a way, eBay keeps products alive. You can find a first edition magazines and old models of cars on eBay. This is one of eBay’s core competences. EBay keeps Markets current. Threats As with many of the global Internet brands, success attracts competition. (SWOT Analysis: Lesson, 2008) Competition is a threat because it reduces the amount of customers you have. From the case study, eBay has a big threat in Korea. GMarket is the Korean version of eBay. It is partly owned by Yahoo. Although Yahoo’s auctioning unit isn’t as strong as eBay, it can become a threat in the future. Already, because of Yahoo in Japan, eBay has pulled out. It doesn’t do well in the East because international competitors have a cultural edge over them. Furthermore, some costs cannot be controlled by eBay, which is a threat. â€Å"It is a threat because if a customer doesn’t understand why he has to pay extra, for example delivery charges and credit card charges, he might feel cheated. If fuel prices were to rise, the cost is passed on to the consumer in terms of delivery and postal fees. This could make the overall cost of an auctioned item too expensive, making customer’s look for cheaper prices†(SWOT Analysis: Lesson, 2008) Also, individuals pretend to be eBay staffs, using their logos, the send illegal e-mails. Case Question #2: What are the capabilities that have provided eBay with competitive advantage and why? hjogdnfjuhfe Case Question #3 Using the concept of sustainability and dynamic capabilities how would you manage (creating new resources and competences, investing/divesting in others extending others) Given: New entrants to market and the changing nature of eBay. Concept of Sustainability: Concepts of sustainability and dynamic capabilities are major strategies that organizations use to capture competitive edge over competitors. Sustainability of strategic capability deals with the criterion that organizations use to achieve and maintain competitive advantage over a long and sustainable period of time. Three main factors influence sustainable strategic capabilities; Inimitability, Rarity, and Value. Inimitability refers to the robustness or sturdiness of the strategic capability. It involves â€Å"identifying capabilities that are likely to be durable and which competitors find difficult to imitate or obtain† (Johnson, Scholes, & Whittington, 2008). Inimitability can be achieved through three main ways, they are; Complexity: Complexity of strategic capabilities is the quality of being intricate and compounded. When organizations like eBay have very complex strategies, it will be very difficult for new entrants to the market to imitate such strategies. An example of a complex strategy in eBay could be the internal linkages in the organization. These internal linkages deal with how eBay internally links activities and processes together to deliver customer value. Internal linkages can be in form of relationship between top-management, middle-management and lower management staff. EBay has a very good communication network that allows for efficiency which will in turn produce efficiency and increase customer satisfaction. Organization can also build external interconnectedness with its customers to make it difficult for their strategies to be imitated. When developing new resources, organizations can seek opinions or partner with their customers or clients to generate idea that will add value to the company and also generate strategic capabilities that are robust in nature. †¢ Culture and history: Culture and history are very unique to each organization. It is almost impossible to find two organizations with similar cultural background. When investing or divesting in resources, organization should make sure their investment is culturally inclined. When strategies are linked to cultural embeddedness, there is the â€Å"likelihood that such competences have developed over time and in particular way. The origins and history by which competences have developed over time are referred to as path dependency, are specific to the organization and cannot be imitated† (Johnson, Scholes, & Whittington, 2008). Causal Ambiguity: Ambiguity deals with not being able to discern the meaning or cause of a particular effect. It is very difficult for organizations to imitate another organization when the former cannot easily discern the cause and effect of the latter’s success. Organizations like eBay have varying causal factors that affect its success in the industry that other competitors find hard to discern. Other factors that affect su stainable development include the rarity and value of the strategic capability. When an organization is seeking competitive advantage, it needs to make sure the resources it’s investing in have huge values to the customers and they should be very unique and rare capabilities. Unique resources and competences can include marketing strategies that are peculiar to the particular organization. Dynamic Capabilities The changing environment in the business world today calls for the implementation of dynamic capabilities. Dynamic capabilities are â€Å"an organization’s abilities to renew and recreate its strategic capabilities to meet the needs of a changing environment† (Johnson, Scholes, & Whittington, 2008). Dynamic capabilities help organization to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address the ever changing environment. When an organization is developing, investing, divesting or extending in resources, it should be able to transfer and modify existing resources to keep competitive edge over its competitors. The organization should have intellectual skills that can easily implement new capabilities to foster development. PART D: Implications and Recommendation Implications The following are the implications of the case study Making eBay Work: Competitive and Cooperative: Competition and Cooperation are one of the major elements used to successfully excel in the business world. Form the case it is observed that eBay is very competitive and cooperative. Competitive in the sense that eBay bought companies like Skype, the internet telephony organization (http://www. skype. com/) and PayPal an online payment system (www. paypal. com/) in order for it to keep up with the evolving activities on the internet. GMarket in Korea had a less complex system; so eBay created eBay express to meet up to customer needs in Korea. Bay is cooperative in the sense that it partnerships with companies like Google, yahoo and Baidu in other for it to be more effective in its services. Customer Friendly: Some organizations do not pay attention to the needs or complaints of their customers and take the appropriate measures to satisfy them, but eBay listens to customers and tries to keep up with what they want to sell, buy and how they want to do it. This brings about profitability, good reputation and more customers. So every organization should try to be customer friendly because it serves as an advantage to them. The great importance of Technology: The basis on which eBay operates is technology that’s why it’s of great importance to them. eBay endeavours to up grade their systems to fit the latest technology, make sure the site is accessible at all times, ensure no fraudulent activity or illegal transaction is carried out in the site and also ensures that the site is virus free. This helps eBay to operate effectively. Staying Aware and Flexible: eBay tries to stay aware and flexible at all times. The company tires to get feedback from customers, complaints, suggestions and also take note of customer activity on the site. This helps eBay to make necessary adjustments in other to satisfy their customers. Nearly all of its fastest-growing new categories emerged from registering seller activity in the area and quietly giving it a nudge at the right moment. For example eBay noticed a few car sells on the site so the company created a separate site called eBay Motors which has special features such as vehicle inspection and shipping. Organizations should try and stay aware and flexible in running while running their business. Good management can make a positive difference in an organization: Having a good manager or management body in an organization can make the organization excel. When Meg Whitman came into eBay in 1998 she made eBay become data and metric driven and she also brought about strategies which made eBay work better. eBay had a software problem and this caused the site to be shut down for 22 hours. When Maynard Webb was brought into the company as the president of eBay he quickly upgraded the systems and make sure they are upgraded constantly and this makes the site function more effectively. Have a good knowledge about a particular market before entering it: It is observed from the case that eBay is not doing well in the east but is doing well in the west. It pulled out of Japan, is suffering in Taiwan and it lags behind a rival in China. This shows that eBay those not have the right strategy to excel in those areas so it is advisable to have a vivid knowledge and strategy about a particular market or area before entering it in order to excel. Recommendations The following are the recommendations for the case Making eBay Work. eBay is not doing well in the east, in order for eBay to do well in the east it should either buy GMarket or partnership with GMarket in other to be successful. Since GMarket is big and successful it would not allow eBay to buy them so if eBay partnerships with GMarket it will be more successful in that area. If eBay is very tactical they can be better than GMarket in the long run. Like the saying goes â€Å"If you can’t beat them join them †. So eBay will be better off if it partnerships with GMarket. eBay pulled out of Japan, is suffering in Taiwan and it lags behind a rival in China. In business it is advisable never to give up so eBay should reengineer its self so it can function better in countries like Japan, Taiwan and China. †¢ One of the lessons of the chapter 3 (Managing strategic capability) is that strategic capability often lies in the day-to-day activities that people undertake in organizations. So developing the ability of the people at eBay in other to recognise the relevance of what they do in terms of strategic capability of the organization is important. Bay should organize training and development in specific areas and also develop people’s awareness that what they do in their jobs matters. This will help achieve competitive success and increase their motivation. Bibliography Johnson, G. , Scholes, K. , & Whittington, R. (2008). Exploring Corporate Strategy. Essex: Prentice Hall. S WOT Analysis: Lesson. (2008, February 12). Retrieved March 23, 2009, from Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT): http://www. marketingteacher. com/Lessons/lesson_swot. htm ———————– Experience Supply cost Product/process design Economies of Scale Cost Efficiency

Anowa- Whose Fault?

African Women Writers Tragic Responsibility Anowa is the second, last, and most accomplished play written by Ghanaian playwright, poet, short-story writer, and novelist Ama Ata Aidoo. Anowa was first published in 1970 and had it’s British premiere in London in 1991 (Enotes, 2013). It tells the story of a young African woman named Anowa. She is not like any of the other traditional women in the town. Anowa likes to make her own choices and lives by her own opinions. The elders call her stubborn, she won’t marry any of the sturdy men in the town, she laughs at her own jokes, listen to her own tales, and follows her own advice (67).They all believe her vision is clouded. Her mother, Badua, wishes to see her marry a man and her father could care less what she does. She ends up meeting a man, Kofi, in the village and falls in love with him. She irrationally runs off with him and marries him. She completely disowns her family and begins a life with Kofi. Over time, they fall away from each other do to communication issues and fertility issues. Due to the massive pain and heartache from the situation, Kofi and Anowa both kill each other in the end. There is debate within the text about who was at fault for the tragic ending.Many say that Anowa was the sole reason for their suicides. Although everyone in the society is at fault. Anowa’s parents, Anowa, Kofi, and the traditional society are at fault. Badua has spoiled Anowa for most of her life. She has allowed her daughter to act and think as she wishes. Badua states, â€Å"how can she come to any good when everyone is always gossiping about her? † (70). The mother is at fault for allowing her child to let her mind run free as a child and into her adolescence. She wanted her daughter to have control and then when she had it and chose to be with Kofi, her mother became very controlling and angry.As Badua complains to Osam, Anowa’s father, about her daughter not finding a husband, Osam writes her complaining off by saying that his only duty was to create children (71). Osam goes on to explain that he wanted her to become a priestess. Badua would not listen to him. She covered her ears and explained that priestess’ are not people; they are too much like Gods they interpret, they don’t feel and they have no shame (72). Osam is at fault because he avoids the situation. He doesn’t care what Anowa chooses and he doesn’t care to listen to his own wife.On page 78, Osam states his view about Anowa being immature. Even though he knows this, not once did he do anything to make her a more â€Å"mature† woman (78). On page 91, Badua states how she should have â€Å"taught (Anowa) to marry a man. † It is ironic considering she doesn’t have a great marriage and chose a man who doesn’t care. Badua and Osam are to blame for Anowa’s behavior. Anowa plays a massive role in the tragedy. Although she is not the only one t o blame, she is by far one of the main reasons for the suicides. There is nothing wrong with her wanting to think and choose on her own.Yet she chooses a man she met off the street; A man whom many find to be unsuitable for any woman in town. When she meets him, she has her legs and her breasts exposed (69). While Kofi and Anowa were swooning in the village, a woman looked back at them and falls over. They both laugh, finding the situation hilarious, but it shows the low maturity level they both have (69). When Kofi proposes, Anowa runs home and is screaming in the streets. Badua tells her she is marrying a â€Å"fool,† a â€Å"watery male. † Badua explains to Anowa that â€Å"marriage is like a piece of cloth†¦it’s beauty passes with wear and tear. She was trying to explain that what counts is what is on the inside, not the outside. Anowa immediately responds with, â€Å"I don’t care! † (77). She is being childish and impulsive. She isn†™t thinking about what is best for her. She is thinking about her own desires and is being selfish. No one in the story truly knows what is right or wrong. After she runs off with Kofi, she constantly argues with him. She states that she doesn’t need any protection and that she can take care of herself. She believes she can do everything on her own. She is ignorant. Kofi responds with realism but she always wants to fight him regardless.There are times when Kofi wants to enlighten her with a new concept, such as medicine, but she immediately shoots him down. She is not open-minded and isn’t willing to sacrifice anything for him (85). Yet she expects everyone else and Kofi to be open-minded. Anowa will talk to herself about Kofi rather than just talking to Kofi about what’s going on in her head. If she does not get her way, she exaggerates her emotions, like saying she was going to â€Å"cut her throat. † (90). For years, she knows she is unhappy and tha t she sees no future for herself with him.Instead of confronting that, she fights Kofi and rebels against everything he chooses. Anowa’s immaturity is seen even at the end of the book when she calls in everyone from town to tell of Kofi’s decision to kick her out of the house and to expose him of his infertility and lack of masculinity (121). You can’t blame people for not having the correct answer to everything, but it’s obvious that Anowa is partly to blame. Throughout the whole story, Kofi plays the victim. He manipulates the situation to make it seem as if he isn’t at fault for anything and that he has made all the best choices he thinks he could have made.Just like Anowa, he talks to himself often about the problems within their relationship and how he feels but they never communicate those things together. When Anowa speaks her mind, Kofi asks who told her that information, as if she couldn’t think for herself. Kofi only lives by what other people say is right or wrong, rather than listening to himself. Anowa wants to keep working but he thinks they have the right to rest. He never makes a compromise with her stating that she could work if she really wanted to. Kofi can tell that Anowa is unhappy but he could care less.He does nothing to make her feel happier. From the beginning of the story, the question of his masculinity is evolving. The old women explains how he â€Å"combs his hair too much. † (80). When Anowa begins to notice they are not able to have children, she believes she is at fault. When she offers to find Kofi another woman. This is the normal tradition for their culture, yet he becomes annoyed at her help. This is one time in the story where he chooses not to follow traditional ways. At one point, he wants to buy men and Anowa does not like this idea.She states that she doesn’t need help from other men. Kofi says, â€Å"if you don’t, I do. † (90). Which is still not a g ood explanation or reason for buying them. He explains that they will be helpers and that they won’t be â€Å"carrying† him or anything of that sort. By the end of the book, these men are carrying him. â€Å"But the Kofi of the trade in slavery, who ultimately depends on slave labor, is the Kofi of the excess that corrupts the soul. The new Kofi, who has made a pact with the devil of material success no matter at whose cost, is already dead long before his suicide† (Ngugi wa Thiong’o).Over time, Kofi begins to dress better and is always with the men he bought. He sees a doctor at one point in the story and finds out that he is unable to have children. Even though he has this information, he still blames Anowa as if it was her fault they couldn’t have children. He never tells her that he is the one with the issue. Anowa brings up the issue again towards the end of the book. She says she wants to find him another wife to have children with and he get s mad at her. Anowa has an epiphany and asks, â€Å"Are you dying? † (117).She realizes that he is the one with the fertility problem and has keeping it from her. She states that his has â€Å"exhausted his masculinity,† that he is â€Å"dead wood. † (122). She does all of this in front of everyone in the community. She humiliates him and he runs off and shoots himself. She then drowns herself soon after. Everyone in the story was blaming everyone else. They all had different reasons and different opinions about who was to blame for the tragedy. Due to Anowa’s untraditional spirit, many of the people blamed her for everything. The truth of the matter is that everyone in the story was at fault.No one wanted to communicate properly, no one was disciplined correctly, everyone had a huge ego and no one was willing to work anything out. Everyone was irrational and immature. Everyone is to blame for the suicides. Bibliography Literature of Developing Nations fo r Students,  ©2013 Gale Cengage. Retrieved at: http://www. enotes. com/anowa. Ngugi wa Thiong’0. Ama Ata Aidoo: A Personal Celebration. April, 2012. Retrieved at: http://www. newafricanmagazine. com/features/culture/ama-ata-aidoo-a-personal-celebration. Aidoo, Ama Ata, Anowa, Longman Group, 1970.

HUnting laws Essay

I’ve never really paid attention to who makes the laws for hunting to be honest I’ve only just followed them. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is a citizen board, chosen by the Governor, which sets regulations and policies for Colorado’s state parks and wildlife programs. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife is who enforces the laws that the commission makes, there job is to protect, preserve, enhance, and manage wildlife for the use of the people of this state. There are several types of hunting allowed in Colorado such as Archery, Rifles, Muzzle loading, shot gun. And just about every type of mammal can be hunted in regulation elk, mule deer, black bear, mountain lion, antelope, bighorn & Desert Bighorn, moose, mountain goat and whitetail deer, bobcat, fox, coyote, and badger. There is also birds such as Partridge, dove, grouse, quail, chucker, turkey, duck, geese, ptarmigan, snipe, and many other birds I don’t feel like naming. I understand why some people are against hunting, I mean when you only know part of the story all you hear is killing an innocent animal. And some people only see the stereotype a think it’s just a bunch of banjo stringing rednecks going Rambo on Bambi’s mom. But there are several laws and regulations keeping all hunting safe and even necessary to keep species size under control. I have hunted all my life, and I’ve learned most of my life lessons sitting on the cold ground with a 30. 6 in my hands waiting for an elk to pass by. So hunting is a part of me, my family doesn’t hunt to just kill an animal, every piece of meat we eat is either a cow from our pasture or elk we killed during hunting season. That is the meat we eat all year, so even though I know why we hunt and why it’s not bad I understand why some people think it might be barbaric. I’m also not saying that some people don’t disrespect the right to hunt and kill anything they see, just like anti-hunters think.

Analysis of investment decisions in new product launch Essay

Analysis of investment decisions in new product launch - Essay Example The paper tells that launching of a new product is a major investment decision for any corporation and hence needs to be evaluated thoroughly in order to avoid huge financial setbacks. A good number of big and a host of slightly smaller business have, nowadays, become extremely cautious and refined in the manner in which they economically assess key investment decisions concerning substantial fixed assets. This fact has been authenticated by the abundant research studies which document the need felt by companies to appraise the economic viability of the new product and take into consideration various key investment decisions prior to plunging into the relatively new territory. However, there is still a dearth of comprehensive studies concerning the actual investment decisions taken by these large corporate houses, with respect to launching and/ or marketing of new products in the market. Researchers such as Barwise, Marsh and Wensley investigated the role of finance and investment de cisions with respect to strategic decision making process. Any type of strategic investment entails a detailed analysis of its long term prospects as well as its economic viability. With respect to organizations, it commences with a decision to develop a wide-ranging long term development agenda, which is followed by a detailed analysis of the various short term measures, for instance, premeditated obsolescence, which is done with a view to acquire an edge over their corporate rivals.

Case Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 4

Case Study - Essay Example During the period of 2001 to 2004, both HMA patient revenue and HMAs earnings per share increased by approximately 70 percent. However, during this same period, RRMC experienced a significant downturn in patient volume in several key areas. Open heart surgery, cardiac catheterization, and outpatient visits were all down significantly. In addition, the hospital was forced to close its Womens Pavilion in 2003 and no longer operates an obstetrics department. Adding to this low rate of growth is the declining population in the area. Etowah County is 103,000 people, the same population it had in 1980, while Gadsdens population has steadily declined by 50 percent since 1960 and today has fewer than 40,000 people. RRMC executive director Matt Hayes faces significant challenges in the next few years, as he tries to maximize his resources and find areas for growth. This paper will analyze RRMCs market position and make recommendations for Matt Hayes and RRMC to help guide them into an uncerta in future. The general operating environment that RRMC is in is very competitive both locally and regionally. Several large urban areas are a short drive from Gadsden and they have numerous health care facilities available with state of the art care. These include Atlanta Georgia, Chattanooga Tennessee, Birmingham Alabama, and Huntsville Alabama. It has been estimated that Birmingham alone draws as much as 25 percent of the business out of the Gadsden area. The patient revenue lost due to the combined out migration could be responsible for as much as half of RRMCs potential business. Locally, RRMC competes with Gadsden Regional Medical Center, with 248 beds, and to a lesser extent Mountain View Hospital, which specializes in addiction and psychiatric services. In addition to the competitive market, the factor of poverty also plays a significant role in the management of RRMC. Eighty percent of RRMCs patients

OSHA violations for a hospital Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

OSHA violations for a hospital - Assignment Example However, in the United States of America, it has been proved that some organizations or facilities do not satisfactorily comply with the health and safety standards indicated in the Occupational Health and Safety Act (1970), (Singh, D. 2010). In March, 2013, an employ filed a complaint at the OSHA offices against the Health East Ambulatory Surgical Center in Englewood, New Jersey for a serious Sharps Safety Violations. Upon a thorough inspection by the OSHA officials, the facility was found to have seriously violated safety and health regulations. It was concluded that it has failed to adequately protect their employee from exposure to bloodborne pathogen hazards which had occurred as a result of the surgical procedure done within the facility. Besides, the organization was found to be liable for other violations including failing to have a written procedure, not involving non-managerial staff in the rescue process and failing to conduct a blood test on the staff member immediately after the incident. These were indeed, serious violations which would have resulted into death or serious physical bodily harm on the victimized staff. Because of this, Health East Ambulatory Surgical Center was fined a total of $68,000. I would like to emphasize that this was a very intentional occurrence. It would have been prevented if the management had strictly complied with the stipulated occupational heath and safety standards. For instance, if the employee would have been immediately attended to just after the accident, he would have been saved. However, the management never demonstrated any concern. Instead of collaborating with other staff members to offer immediate assistance to the employee, nothing was done so far thus, putting the life of this particular worker in danger. This was a high degree of negligence which had to be severely

As chief accountant of Curtis you are required to write a report to Essay

As chief accountant of Curtis you are required to write a report to the Chairman - Essay Example A Comparison of financial year 2012 with the financial year of 2011 presents that fact that the volume of sales in the retail industry in UK increased by 2.7 percent. Changes in reported retail sales between August 2011 and August 2012 standard reporting periods (by size of business)       Pre-dominantly food Non-specialized pre-dominantly non-food Textile, clothing and footwear House-hold goods Other non-food Non-store retailing Pre-dominantly automotive fuel Total All Retailing including automotive fuel                               increase 107 32 138 72 375 64 23 811 All decrease 97 33 104 77 306 46 50 713    total 204 65 242 149 681 110 73 1524                               Large increase 66 32 110 42 158 30 n.a. 438 decrease 56 33 73 47 107 19 n.a. 335    total 122 65 183 89 265 49 n.a. 773 Small increase 41 n.a. 28 30 217 34 23 373 and decrease 41 n.a. 31 30 199 27 50 378 medium total 82 n.a. 59 60 416 61 73 751 [Ons.gov.uk (1999 ) Retail Sales: August, 2012] With respect to the food merchandise business, there were certain hardships that were faced by the retailer. During the year 2012, costs of both food items and fuel increased, particularly of fuel which resulted in an escalation in the manufacturing cost of the merchandise. Tate & Lyle Plc has in place an import team which constantly monitors the fluctuation in prices of cotton. For the purpose of reducing the cost of fuel, the retailers are now acquiring the help from the appropriate technology to manage the distribution in the most cost effective manner. In addition to that, retailers are now opting annual fixed price contracts. It is considered that the food industry is comparatively remaining consistent. However, it the prevailing market condition especially the low demand of food ingredient in EU countries significantly influence the market and brought the fluctuation the food market. The deterioration in macroeconomic environment as the result of existing financial crisis also negatively affects this sector. Additionally, the market is passing through from the bad time because the consumer and government are more focusing on the healthy lifestyle. A lot of advertisement is doing on the published media, social media to create awareness among consumers to adopt the healthy life style. The second main reason of downward trend of the food market is increase in the sugar prices and other various raw materials. The increase in the input material results in the high price of the end food products. The consumers are price conscious. The purchasing power of the consumer has been tightening due to low income. (b) As the companies being evaluated are situated in Hong Kong, the primary risk that the acquisition of any of these companies entails is that of the currency risk. Curtis Plc needs to have an adequate understanding of what these risks here and how they can be mitigated. The global operations of any multinational require it to a ctively participate in international trade which causes it to be exposed to a great deal of foreign exchange risks. These companies engages in international trade through foreign exchange forward contracts and options and cross currency swaps to hedge various currency exposures. These exposures primarily include assets, liabilities and bonds denominated in foreign currency. Effective financial management requires identification of

Critically examine and assess the importance in the development of Essay

Critically examine and assess the importance in the development of judicial review of the case- Roy v kensington & chelsea & westminster family practitioner com - Essay Example Different views can be held of the role of the courts in this area, but they all have one thing in common; they see the prime function of judicial control as essentially negative, namely to ensure that government bodies do not overstep the proper blends of their powers and to protect individuals and the interests of groups and of the public against undue encroachment by government agencies. The two judicial reviews which make it less than ideally adapted to the function of ensuring administrative efficiency are; first is unsystematic nature of judicial review; Courts will review the activities of government only when asked to do so, within a time, by an applicant with the required interest in the outcome of the review. Judicial review cannot be used to conduct wide-ranging and coordinated investigations into the conduct of government business and secondly judicial review is essentially retrospective; its primary concern is with past conduct, and its effect 1on the future conduct of t he administration is incidental (Cooper, 1988). In United Kingdom constitution, the major weapon of judicial control over the exercise of governmental power is provided by the action for judicial review. This action serves to keep public bodies within the scope of the power conferred on them by the law. Prior to the present law commission inquiry into procedural aspects of judicial review, there have been significant changes in the ways in which governmental power is exercised and controlled. This focuses on the law commission’s report number 226 the ‘Judicial Review and Statutory Appeals’ which examines specific proposals contained therein arguing that, underlying the reforms there exists no coherent vision of the future role of public law. But instead, what is revealed is a confused cocktail of measures in which the tension between the legitimate needs of public administration and the opposing requirement that

Geography Master Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Geography Master - Essay Example It had been branching out for a long time, more so, with the new discoveries. History of physical geography starts with the cartography of early Greeks, developed by Eratosthenes, Strabo and Aristotle, and later popularised by Ptolemy, who even thought of latitude and longitude. The voyages of the discoverers and adventurers, conquests of Alexander the Great, geographical exploration and the broadening of the scientific outlook in humans, contributed immensely to the development of physical geography. Physical/Environmental geography includes hydrosphere, Lithosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. Physical geography is considered to be a branch of two disciplines, Geography and Earth Sciences. . "The main purpose of Physical Geography is to explain the spatial characteristics of the various natural phenomena that exist in Earth's hydrosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, and lithosphere," http://www.physicalgeography.net/home.html Study of Physical geography consists of rocks, minerals, land formations, animals, water, plants, environment, water bodies, oceans, atmosphere, rivers, weather and climate etc. It also covers Meteorology, Climatology, Biogeography, Geomorphology, Pedology, and Hydrology and every natural aspect, shape on the outer skin of Earth. It also consists of a history of uniformitarianism, Charles Darwin's Evolution, constant exploration and survey, and the recently popularised conservation. It explains the quantitative revolution with statistics and measurement and determines man's relationship with the land. It deals with global warming and greenhouse effect. It explains the environment as it is found on Earth today, points out the natural and human-made changes and assimilates efforts of restoration. There are many future scopes of physical geography research. Applied physical geography is used for solving human-induced environmental problems. It has solutions for many daunting riddles, posed by an ecologically imbalanced world. It also can be used for new techniques like Remote Sensing to monitor the resources of the earth and atmosphere. Cartography combined with the modern scientific methods, could be a formidable force. These are the fundamentals of physical geography: It is concerned with the atmospheric composition and the layered atmosphere, consisting of troposphere, tropopause, stratosphere, influence by the polar jet stream and the subtropical jet stream, isothermal layer, ozone layer, mesosphere, stratopause and mesopause, and thermosphere. It learns the physical behaviour of the atmosphere and gas laws, temperature, density, pressure, volume, proportional atmosphere, proportional and inversely proportional volumes. It studies mass, gravity, force of acceleration, terminal velocity, ultra violet radiation, atmospheric effects on incoming radiation, absorption, patterns of solar radiation absorption, greenhouse effect and photosynthesis, short and long wave radiations, global heat balance, meridional transport, sensible, latent and surface heat flux, ocean currents, the concept of temperature, daily and annual cycles of temperature, global surface temperature distribution, forces acting to cre ate wind, local and regional wind systems, global scale circulation of the atmosphere, upper air winds and the jet streams, air masses and frontal transitional zones, the mid-latitude cyclone, thunderstorms and

Aboriginal native of canada Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Aboriginal native of canada - Essay Example ossible for the government to determine the land base for these groups in the form of reserves, and defined who qualified to an Indian in the form of Indian status. The governing structures on Aboriginal communities used the Indian Act to come up with band councils that has control over the rights of Indians to practice their culture and tradition. However, this legislation in now regarded as obsolete since what it stood for in the past does not apply in the modern world. Modern land claim settlement have been formulated which has overshadowed the authority of the Indian Act over specific Indigenous groups. The Indian Act has been the cornerstone for the Aboriginal natives in Canada since its inception into the parliament in 1876 (Steckley & Cummins, 2008). The Act continues to be an important element in the management of Aboriginal affairs in the country. However, the act was legislated without the Indian consent, participation or meaningful consultation. The act became a means to separate the indigenous people from the rest of Canadian society by members of the dominant society until they are ready for transition. The government gave itself authority over the lives of Aboriginal people in order to control their lands and lives, denying them of their basic Canadian civil and personal rights. The Aboriginal people got the Indian status under the act, which gave them membership to the Indian bands created and recognized under the act. The government appointed Indian Agents who however had more powers than the Aboriginal officials did. The indigenous people also had fewer rights than the Canadians, which meant that they could not get the opportunity to vote. The government tried to make the act work by introducing the concept of enfranchisement, which involved the removal of an individual from the list of status Indians. The government considered these individuals ready for entry into the Canadian mainstream. They enjoyed the freedom of being a Canadian citizen.

Lab Report on TLC analisys of Analgestic Drugs Essay Example for Free

Lab Report on TLC analisys of Analgestic Drugs Essay In this experiment, thin-layer chromatography (TLC) was used to determine the composition of various over-the-counter (OTC) analgesics: Anacin, Bufferin, Excedrin, and Tylenol. The TLC plates were first viewed under ultraviolet (UV) light and then treated with iodine vapor in order to visualize the spotting. Experiment Scheme Initially, sixteen capillary micropipets were created in order to spot the TLC plates. Two TLC plates were then obtained and marked with pencil for spotting. A line was drawn 1 cm from the bottom of each plate, and five small, evenly spaced marks were made along those lines (see Figure 1). Each mark indicated where a substance would be spotted. All compounds used were in solutions of 1g of each dissolved in 20 ml of a 50:50 mixture of methylene chloride and ethanol. The first plate made was the reference plate. Capillary micropipets were used to spot the first four marks with acetaminophen, aspirin, caffeine, and salicylamide (in that order). (See figures 2-5 for chemical structures.) The last mark was spotted with a reference solution of all four chemicals. The second plate made was the sample plate. The first four marks were spotted with Anacin, Bufferin, Excedrin, and Tylenol. The fifth mark was spotted with a reference solution of all four drugs. Figure 1. Prepared TLC plates Figure 2. AcetaminophenFigure 3. Aspirin Figure 4. CaffeineFigure 5. Salicylamide A development container was created with a wide-mouthed screwcap jar. It was filled with the development solvent, which was .5% glacial acetic acid in ethyl acetate, so that the solvent was approximately . 5 cm deep.The first TLC plate was then carefully placed into the development container. Great care was taken to ensure that the plate went in evenly so that the solvent could rise evenly up the plate. Once the solvent front had reached approximately 1cm from the top of the plate, the plate was removed, the solvent front was marked with a pencil, and the plate was allowed to dry. The second plate was then placed in the development chamber in the same manner as the first. Once the solvent front reached approximately 1cm from the top of the plate, the plate was removed, the solvent front was marked with a pencil, and the plate was allowed to dry. Each plate was then viewed under the UV light. Any spots that were seen were lightly circled with a pencil, and their color was noted. The orders of elution (Rf values) were calculated by dividing the distance from the baseline to the center of the spot by the distance from the baseline to the solvent front. After all observations and calculations were made, the plates were placed in a jar containing iodine. The jar was warmed with hands so that the iodine vaporized. The plates were then removed from the jar and observed. The reference and sample plates were then compared to determine which compounds the drugs on the sample plate contained. Data

It Is Hard to Possess a Sense of Belonging When We Are Unsure of Our Own Identity Essay Example for Free

It Is Hard to Possess a Sense of Belonging When We Are Unsure of Our Own Identity Essay The journey in finding our identity and belonging can often be a struggle, since we ask ourselves, ‘who am I’ vs. whom do others want me to be? And where do I belong? This point in our live is subjective, because we want to feel accepted in society we deny ourselves of what we really are. It’s hard to have a sense of belonging when we ourselves are unsure of our own identity. There comes a time where our opinions and beliefs are differentiated from those around us, during this time some people may discover where they belong, where as many others do not. We are all different in our own ways no one is born equally some may take their differences as an advantage and some take it as a disadvantage and tries to hide this imperfection in order to fit in. Although we all live in the same world we are all different be it the shape of our eyes, the colour of our skin, the country we were born or the accent that we speak in and to others their sexuality. These are all the traits that come together and create our identity, however this differences are sometimes not accepted in the society that we live in, and the sad part is that even if we know what we really are deep inside, our society tells us otherwise. Shuffling through the book Growing up Asian in Australia, I read a lot of stories that made me feel nostalgic, having flashbacks in my head when I first step in Australia and the feeling of deja vu overwhelms me with emotions, while flipping through the stories I read something that caught my attention ‘My First Kiss’ by Lian Low. Her story is not something I would say that I could relate to completely, She grew up in country where ‘homosexuality is a criminal offence’, and deep inside she knew she was different but her surrounding kept her from being true to herself, â€Å"becoming more ‘womanly,’ I suddenly lost foot of my tomboy world† she denied herself in order for her to blend in. She wanted to be equal with the people around her but the difference can’t hide what she is â€Å"I felt a foreigner whenever I open my mouth. Whenever I spoke my accent betrayed my origins† â€Å"My attempt to blend in failed me as soon as I opened my mouth†. The reason why we are all unique is because we ultimately choose what does or does not impact us in a crucial or unimportant way, we have the choice to accept or deny our uniqueness but whichever we choses influences our form of distinctiveness. Everything and everyone can influence a person’s identity, while some influences can be minor, some can have a major effect on our lives just like Lian Low’s story after concealing and denying her sexuality she finally learned to accept her difference after her first kiss with a girl. She erudite in writing that once became her source of comfort and used to bury herself with, â€Å"Writing and performance have been outlets, `they have let me be myself, express myself and explore my multiple identities: Asian, woman, queer, migrant, Chinese-Malaysian-Australian. † It is not solely one stage of our lives when we are confronted with an identity crisis, but a continuous challenge throughout our lives as we encounter new experience that will alter our thoughts, emotions and perspective on ourselves. We have to learn to love and accept our individuality, In order for us to feel welcomed and accepted by someone or something In fact as suggested by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a psychology theory cantered on human’s innate desire of fulfilment, belonging is a need that we naturally seek in order to feel loved. Whether it’s belonging with your friends’ family or surrounding, we need to embrace our individuality to know what we want, what we are, and what we’re not.

There Are Serious Concerns Over Food Waste Environmental Sciences Essay

There Are Serious Concerns Over Food Waste Environmental Sciences Essay Food waste is a serious environmental, social and economic concern not only to United Kingdom but also to the whole world. Even though Food waste was recognized as a considerable problem, it was not identified as a serious concern to the environment till recently. Among environmentally significant activities, the production, trade, and consumption of food products have been identified as crucial contributors to numerous environmental problems One of the greatest threats of the century is Global Warming and Climate change. The need of the hour is to effectively tackle the climate change issue and GHG emission. According to Waste and resources action program (WRAP), about 20% of climate change emissions are related to the production, processing, transportation and storage of food. Agriculture contributes significantly to GHG emissions The domestic household in uk produces around 8,300,000 tons of food waste and is the single largest producer of food waste. Local authorities spend 1 billion pound a year disposing food waste. The foods we throw out to the landfill gets broken down to carbon dioxide and methane gas (green house gases) and are the prime reasons for global warming. If UK has to meet the international targets  on climate change and GHG emissions, it is important to reduce the amount of food waste going to the landfill. Spaces for land filling of wastes are rapidly diminishing, alongside European Union legislation that demands large amounts of waste be diverted from landfill over the next 15 years* Food waste puts a large burden on the finances of each household and  local councils in the UK; Local authorities spend 1 billion pound a year disposing food waste. Wasted food is estimated to cost each British household  £250- £400 per year,  accumulating to  £15,000- £24,000 over a lifetime.. Objectives and Methadology Love Food Hate Waste is a social campaign, launched by WRAP, in 2007,with the aim of reducing the amount of food waste in UK. The campaign is focused on raising consumer awareness about the various problems caused by food waste. WRAP calculated that preventing good food going to waste could reduce the annual emission of carbon dioxide by 18 million tones, the same effect as taking one in 5 cars off the road. Love Food Hate Waste campaign is supported by the government and is backed by celebrity chefs. Love food Hate waste also has a website which provides practical advice and tips on how to use most of the food they buy. The objective of the campaign is to raise awareness of easy, practical, everyday ways that households can reduce food waste. Everyone including local authorities, community groups, retailers, food manufactures and consumers are part of this campaign. For example, Resource Futures recruited and managed two embedded Outreach Workers to support the North London Waste Authoritys, WRAP funded, Love Food Hate Waste campaign. During the seven month period, the Outreach Workers organized and delivered over sixty road shows in supermarkets, businesses, libraries and at community groups, across NLWAs seven constituent boroughs, to engage more than 3,500 people with the campaign. It focuses on consumers strong desire to reduce wastefulness by sending positive messages about the rewards and benefits that can be achieved through specific behavioral change. The campaign benefits the consumer and the environment by reducing budgets and minimizing land fill and carbon emissions. Some of the methods which can be used to reduce waste in an house hold are: Reduce your proportion size: Love Food Hate Waste website has a tool to help you calculate appropriate portion sizes. The portion planner removes the guesswork by suggesting how much to cook, depending on whos coming for dinner, and ways to measure it Plan ahead: By planning the meal for a week and by shopping accordingly can save you a lot of money and prevents good food going to the waste bin. Tips on storage: Gives you easy tips on how to store things and encourage you to make effective use of fridge and freezers if necessary. Special Recipes: which makes use of use of all the odds and ends that invariably get leftover from previous meals or forgotten in the fruit bowl or the back of the fridge If nothing above works, recycling can be done. Composting is one good option. Only Those waste which nothing can be done is dumped in to landfill The Love food Hate waste Organize Door stepping campaigns providing information packs and Advice, targeted at reducing household waste. They also organize road shows, surveys and do advertising through radio and printed Medias. It owns a website love food hate waste.com where you can find many useful tips to reduce food waste. Analysis of the Sustainable Consumption approach One of the main cause for environmental degradation is the over consumption by the developed countries and a switch towards sustainable consumption pattern is very essential. The definition proposed by the 1994 Oslo Symposium on Sustainable Consumption defines it as the use of services and related products which respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life while minimizing the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product so as not to jeopardise the needs of future generations.  The two approaches towards sustainable consumption are the Main Stream approach and an alternative New Economics approach. The strategy of UK government in 2003 was continuous economic growth and social progress that respects the limits of earths eco systems to have a better quality of life. The concept of mainstream approach is of a strong stable and sustainable economy and include initiatives like   initiatives for product labeling, consumer education and environmental taxation. mainstream economics is deeply embedded in modernitys vision of progress and growth. The critics of this approach claims that this method is quite ineffective and doesnt address the fundamental problem of consumption. Based on several factors on the environment and society, the critics of main stream model proposed a new model collectively known as New Economics. They argue that economics cannot be separated from its understructures in environmental and social contexts. The Love food hate waste is one such campaign which follows the alternative approach of sustainable consumption. The diagram below shows how the campaigns approach towards sustainable consumption. ECO-EFFICIENCY more productive use of materials and energy Green growth Efficiency INCREASED . PRODUCT LIFE SPANS Sustainable Consumption Sufficiency SLOW CONSUMPTION reduced throughput of products and services Recession The campaign aims to reduce the amount of waste by consuming less by reducing your portion size and shopping less. In other words sufficiency is achieved by reduced consumption of products. The approach also defines green economics which means to increase the efficiency by more productive use of materials and energy. The model defines efficiency and sufficiency as the key towards sustainable consumption. The greater focus on sufficiency alone may lead to economic instability on a wider focus. Increased product life spans, may enable such problems to be overcome by providing for both efficiency and sufficiency. The efficiency can be increased by using the left overs and reusing and recycling. Theories Linked to LFHW Campaign. LFHW is basically a social marketing campaign aiming for a behavioral change by consuming more sensibly and thereby producing less waste. To understand the theories it is important to understand the driving forces to the same. Some of the forces influenced are: Knowledge, information, fashions beliefs (education, media, marketing) Price / affordabilit Tastes and Habits Demographic changes: ageing population, single person society, wealth Culture, social family expectations, norms, aspirations Availability Time and Season The campaign does its focus on the utilitarian theory and more importantly on social and psychological theories. The campaign targets the people who behave unsustainable because they lack information and help them to overcome the problems by rendering information to the needy. The utilitarian approach says that consumers seek to spend money on goods which gives greatest satisfaction or in other words consumers behave as utility maximizers. The LFHW campaign helps and encourage in cognitive thinking before you shop. It spread the importance of prior planning before shopping. By planning your meals for the whole week, you know what to buy and from where to buy. In the present scenario, people get tempted and buy things with offers like buy 1 get 1 free, even though they really dont need that. Its found that one in every 3 shopping bags goes directly to the waste bin. The campaign educates people how the value of food can be increased if the left over can be used to make new dishes. Human behavior is formed and routinized by social structure Apart from the conventionally acknowledged constraints like price and information, campaign also negotiates social, psychological and structural constraints. LFHW organizes public campaigns with celebrity chefs and attracts the whole society for a behavioral change. As a social marketing campaign, the main themes of the campaign are 4Es (Engage, Encourage, Enable and Exemplify). Engaging consumers and households to rethink their behavior is one of the main ways in which waste prevention can be progressed. Enabling households to take action or overcome barriers, through the provision of services like reduce reuse and recycling. Policy measures -Encouraging households to rethink their behavior so as to reduce their waste generation. The most frequently applied suite or package of waste prevention policy measures Appears to include most or all of the following activities. Collaboration between public, private and third sectors. Producer and responsibility. Variable rate charging (pay as you throw) systems (generally applied to householders residual waste). Public sector funding for pilot projects. Exemplified by means of monitoring and evaluation; Measuring and evaluation of waste prevention is challenging. The data collected should be true and of high quality. Some of the methods adopted are self-weighing Surveys done before and after the campaign, focusing on attitudes and behaviours and/or on participation rates Tracking the amount of waste from collection data and/or compositional nalysis estimation/modelling. Strength and weakness of Love food hate waste campaign Love food hate waste campaign claims that it has already prevented 1,37000 tonnes of waste goin to waste bin and   have helped close on two million households reduce their food waste, amounting to savings of almost  £300 million. A persons willingness to change along with action and appropriate policies from the local authorities is essential to bring a social change. The campaign is funded and supported by the governmentand almost every county council has given its support to the campaign. Retailers and food manufacturers also support to reduce food waste and they are the official sponsors of the campaign. Unlike Other campaigns, consumer is also economically benefited and hence more people are willing take part in the campaign. It also helps in reducing the so called Value Action Gap. The campaign is both focused at individual and social aspects and hence is more effective. a large body of studies asserts that personal factors are necessary and essential to foster behavioral changes, even though the correspondence between attitudinal variables and behavior is often moderate {reference*(2} The website lovefoodhatewaste.com gives you a lot of information and makes it easily accessible at any point of time. A lot of people gives their experience and valuable opinion which encourage other people to minimize waste. Some of the weaknesses of the campaign are: The campaign is too focused on using left overs and freezing, whereas shopping storage and portion control are effective strategies. The campaign deals with utilitarian concept and socio-psychological theories where as doesnt consider Infrastructure of provision approach. The campaign doesnt focus on the production part of food. food that goes to waste during Production and distribution accounts for 5 percentage of the GHG emissions. Globally 15-50% of food produced is wasted post harvest and no action is taken prevent those waste. The campaign is more concentrated on the food after consumption and doesnt look in to the broader aspects of food. Food has different utility and meanings when it comes to Entertainment, pleasure satisfaction, love status, comfort, time pass, bribery, religious significance, social glue, power, habbit, need, guilt, culture and so on. The amount of waste generated differs for each case and no effort has been taken to realy understand this complex system. Oxfordshire council-tax payers have saved over  £50,000 in waste disposal costs by throwing away less food since Oxfordshire Waste Partnership (OWP) launched its Love Food Hate Waste campaign last March Love Food Hate waste Campaign is still in its early stage and has long way to go. The measurement of success of the campaign can be found by looking the amount of waste reduced as a result of this campaign. In the very first year, the campaign is successful in reducing 1,37000 tones of household waste. The initial statistics of the campaign sounds too intresting and shows how successful it has been. The campaign is successful in attaining attention of the large public. Even though the results are impressive, when compared to the true scale of the problem, it is just a mere drop in the ocean. To address the big issue like climate change we need to do a lot more to reduce the amount of waste produced. Some of the limitations are Lack of interest of certain individuals can be setback to the campaign. Some people consider that the protection of environment is governments job and are not concerned about the same. Some people think that their contribution is just marginal and hence dont do anything. Reduction of waste is moreover a private thing and since its not public there is no social pressure to do it. The lack of strong policies is certainly a limitation to the campaign Measuring and monitoring is a tough task to perform. The reliability on survey is questioned. Conclusion The sustainable consumption doesnt always means consuming less but It certainly should in the case of developed countries and in underdeveloped countries sustainable consumption means consuming more. Thus the aim of sustainable consumption is a high quality of life for every one- brought about by everyone consuming in ways that reduce the impacts of production and consumption. (UNESCO) Some of the challenges in achieving sustainable consumption are: Reccomendations The amount of waste produced by the supermarkets should be controlled and policy should be made to publish the waste generated by the supermarkets. The Whole concept of supermarket should change. The people should make some list for shopping and hand it over to the shopkeeper/salesman so that he will hand over the things you need. By doing so you wont be tempted by the offers like buy one get one free. The online shopping should be encouraged by avoiding tax. Refrigerant leakage accounts for 30 percentage of supermarkets direct GGHG emissions.( Environment investigation agency 2010). There should be some measure to control this pollution. Government should make strong policies and should introduce certain limits to the amount of waste that can be produced by each house. The threshold can be based on the total number of people living in the house. The waste above threshold limit should be fined. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ http://apps.oxfordshire.gov.uk 2) Promoting sustainable consumption: Determinants of green purchases by Swiss consumers Carmen Tanner1,*,   Sybille Wà ¶lfing Kast2 Article first published online: 12 SEP 2003 DOI:  10.1002/mar.10101

The Great Sheep Debate :: essays research papers fc

The Great Sheep Debate My high school was relatively small. To put it into perspective, I graduated with eighty-six people. In my class there were the usual cliques. There were the smart kids, the athletes, the cheerleaders, the drug users, and the slackers. But somehow I didn’t fit into all of this. I wasn’t, and still am not, the smartest person in the history of the world. I’m way too clumsy to play any sports. I wasn’t the right size to be a cheerleader. I wouldn’t even consider using drugs, and I certainly am not a slacker. I was just Nikki the girl that no one liked. I just wasn’t like them. I dressed differently, and had my own opinion, and that just didn’t fly with them. Day in and day out, I saw the struggle. It happened most with the incoming freshman every year. I saw people almost killing themselves with dieting so they could fit the cheerleader mold. I saw some of the most intelligent people not apply themselves, just because it’s not â€Å"cool† to be smart. I really think that is sad. These people could really have made something of themselves, but instead they chose being â€Å"cool† over having a future. I was teased and mocked for attempting to be an individual. Even one of my teachers told me one day that I only dressed differently so I could get attention. Her saying that really made me think. Is it really so bad to not want to be a conformist sheep? Has the world really come to either being alike or being miserable? I hope not. I’ll admit to sometimes wishing I could be like them. But I know that I wouldn’t be here now if I had been. As Doris Lessing said, â€Å"It is the hardest thing in the world to maintain an individual dissident opinion, as a member of a group† (334). She also said, â€Å"the hardest thing in the world is to stand out against one’s group of peers† (334). I don’t exactly find this to be true. High school wasn’t exactly the easiest time for me, but I got by. I would have rather gone through it without friends, than to have changed whom I was just to belong. I was relatively happy just being myself. I liked wearing clothes that had color, and I liked for people to notice me. People who change to fit into a mold aren’t happy as themselves. The Great Sheep Debate :: essays research papers fc The Great Sheep Debate My high school was relatively small. To put it into perspective, I graduated with eighty-six people. In my class there were the usual cliques. There were the smart kids, the athletes, the cheerleaders, the drug users, and the slackers. But somehow I didn’t fit into all of this. I wasn’t, and still am not, the smartest person in the history of the world. I’m way too clumsy to play any sports. I wasn’t the right size to be a cheerleader. I wouldn’t even consider using drugs, and I certainly am not a slacker. I was just Nikki the girl that no one liked. I just wasn’t like them. I dressed differently, and had my own opinion, and that just didn’t fly with them. Day in and day out, I saw the struggle. It happened most with the incoming freshman every year. I saw people almost killing themselves with dieting so they could fit the cheerleader mold. I saw some of the most intelligent people not apply themselves, just because it’s not â€Å"cool† to be smart. I really think that is sad. These people could really have made something of themselves, but instead they chose being â€Å"cool† over having a future. I was teased and mocked for attempting to be an individual. Even one of my teachers told me one day that I only dressed differently so I could get attention. Her saying that really made me think. Is it really so bad to not want to be a conformist sheep? Has the world really come to either being alike or being miserable? I hope not. I’ll admit to sometimes wishing I could be like them. But I know that I wouldn’t be here now if I had been. As Doris Lessing said, â€Å"It is the hardest thing in the world to maintain an individual dissident opinion, as a member of a group† (334). She also said, â€Å"the hardest thing in the world is to stand out against one’s group of peers† (334). I don’t exactly find this to be true. High school wasn’t exactly the easiest time for me, but I got by. I would have rather gone through it without friends, than to have changed whom I was just to belong. I was relatively happy just being myself. I liked wearing clothes that had color, and I liked for people to notice me. People who change to fit into a mold aren’t happy as themselves.

Business Proposal :: essays research papers

General company description â€Å"It’s a dog thing!† it’s a company that will provide dogs clothing and accessories using the Internet as a selling distribution. Mission statement: â€Å"It’s a dog thing!† aim to retail and distribute unique customize dog apparel at affordable prices. â€Å"It’s a dog thing!† always has that perfect gift for your own or someone else’s four legged friends. Don’t let your dog be wagged behind. Company goals and objectives: Our goals are to grow in this niche market thus aim to attain a high market share, doing so, will help the company achieve the main goal which is to be a market leader in this field. Our objective is to obtain our annual sales targets and to increase the company’s profit margins; this will help us achieve our goal. Another important objective is to meet customers specific needs in order to maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty. Business philosophy: In this business what’s important is to stay positive and to liaise together as a team in order to solve any problems that may occur and to make important business decisions. Target market: The target market would be dog owners of all ages. The products will be set at affordable prices for customers that are seeking the lifestyle of the upper class person. (to be continued†¦ this time next week) Products and services Products & Services  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Wholesale Cost  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Selling Price   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   T-Shirts (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £8.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £14.99 Vest Tops (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £8.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £14.99 Polo Shirts (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £13.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £22.99 Hooded Tops (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £11.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £21.33   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Name Tags (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £1.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £5.99 Crystal Band Collars (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £15.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £25.99 Sparkling Collars (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £19.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £10.99 Leads (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £9.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £29.99   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Boots (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £14.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £30.00 Bags (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £9.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £17.99   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Necklace (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £14.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £24.99 Silver Necklace (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £54.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £75.00 Hair Accessories (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £0.50  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £3.00 Tiara  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £7.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £14.99 Banadana (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £2.50  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £12.00   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   All-In-One Bathrobe (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £15.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £24.99 Bathrobe (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £17.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £26.99   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Shampoo & Conditioner  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £4.50  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £9.99 Perfume  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £3.00  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £7.50 Dental Kit  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £3.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £9.99   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Beds (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £20.00  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £55.00   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Customisation (Various Design)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  From  £5.99 Engraving  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £2 Per Letter Marketing plan Market Overview: Market size The UK market for pet accessories was  £296 million in 1999. An increase of 36% since 1995 but in 2003 the market size is over  £400 million. Business Proposal :: essays research papers General company description â€Å"It’s a dog thing!† it’s a company that will provide dogs clothing and accessories using the Internet as a selling distribution. Mission statement: â€Å"It’s a dog thing!† aim to retail and distribute unique customize dog apparel at affordable prices. â€Å"It’s a dog thing!† always has that perfect gift for your own or someone else’s four legged friends. Don’t let your dog be wagged behind. Company goals and objectives: Our goals are to grow in this niche market thus aim to attain a high market share, doing so, will help the company achieve the main goal which is to be a market leader in this field. Our objective is to obtain our annual sales targets and to increase the company’s profit margins; this will help us achieve our goal. Another important objective is to meet customers specific needs in order to maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty. Business philosophy: In this business what’s important is to stay positive and to liaise together as a team in order to solve any problems that may occur and to make important business decisions. Target market: The target market would be dog owners of all ages. The products will be set at affordable prices for customers that are seeking the lifestyle of the upper class person. (to be continued†¦ this time next week) Products and services Products & Services  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Wholesale Cost  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Selling Price   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   T-Shirts (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £8.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £14.99 Vest Tops (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £8.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £14.99 Polo Shirts (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £13.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £22.99 Hooded Tops (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £11.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £21.33   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Name Tags (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £1.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £5.99 Crystal Band Collars (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £15.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £25.99 Sparkling Collars (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £19.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £10.99 Leads (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £9.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £29.99   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Boots (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £14.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £30.00 Bags (Various Colours & Sizes)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £9.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £17.99   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Necklace (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £14.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £24.99 Silver Necklace (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £54.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £75.00 Hair Accessories (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £0.50  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £3.00 Tiara  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £7.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £14.99 Banadana (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £2.50  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £12.00   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   All-In-One Bathrobe (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £15.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £24.99 Bathrobe (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £17.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £26.99   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Shampoo & Conditioner  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £4.50  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £9.99 Perfume  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £3.00  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £7.50 Dental Kit  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £3.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £9.99   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Beds (Various)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £20.00  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £55.00   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Customisation (Various Design)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  From  £5.99 Engraving  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚ £2 Per Letter Marketing plan Market Overview: Market size The UK market for pet accessories was  £296 million in 1999. An increase of 36% since 1995 but in 2003 the market size is over  £400 million.

Why Do People Help Others? Essay -- essays research papers

To discuss why people help others we must consider whether people are by nature selfless or selfish. The dominant view today in psychology is of universal egoism; that we are fundamentally selfish, and that altruism (helping motivated by the wish to benefit another person) an impossibility.One form of universal egoism is Piliavin et al’s "arousal: cost-reward" model, whereby faced with a potential helping situation we weigh the probable costs and rewards of alternative courses of action, then arrive at a decision which produces the best outcome for ourselves.Darley and Batson (1973) conducted an experiment into the effect of the cost time in the decision to offer help. They found that 63% of students with plenty of time to get to their next lecture helped a man clearly ill in the doorway, whilst 45% who were right on schedule helped, but only 10% of those who were late. However, although a natural setting was used, as an experiment this evidence is not very ecologic ally valid.The Sociobioligical approach also sees helping as egoistic, but in terms of the individual maximising their inclusive fitness (increasing the chances of their genes being passed on), rather than their personal fitness. This seems to be the case when we look at the apparent altruistic behaviour of various species. For example, when a honey bee dies when stinging an enemy, "...by their sacrifice they are increasing the reproductive chances of their fertile relatives thus ensuring that the...

Teaching Ethics

School for scandal? Business schools turn their attention to ethics education This case examines the role of the business school in encouraging corruption in business, and looks at the potential impacts that business ethics training might have on students. It offers the opportunity to explore the significance of the individual and their education and experience for understanding ethical decision-making. It also provides a context for investigating the specific role, purpose, and impact of business ethics courses on business behaviour.When it turns out that the key figures in some of the most infamous cases of fraud and corruption in business are alumni from leading business schools, it is perhaps not surprising that the business schools themselves might come in for some criticism. After all, if people like Andrew Fastow, the convicted chief financial officer at Enron, or his boss Jeffrey Skilling, could have got MBAs from two of America’s premier business schools (Northwestern and Harvard, respectively) and , then it is inevitable that questions will be raised about what kinds of principles and practices business school students are being taught.In the last few years, a number of business gurus and commentators have publicly condemned business schools in general, and MBA programmes in particular, for their perpetuation of ‘misguided’ amoral theories and techniques, and the lack of attention to ethics in the curriculum.For example, Henry Mintzberg, the Canadian management expert has famously condemned the MBA model, suggesting that it ‘trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences’, whilst Sumantra Ghoshal, the late London Business School professor has argued that the ‘worst excesses of recent management practices have their roots in a set of ideas that have emerged from business-school academics over the last 30 years. Ghoshal’s ire is directed to typical theories taught at business schools s uch as agency theory and Porter’s ‘5 forces’ model, which he claims perpetuate an idea that everyone is self-interested, managers cannot be trusted, business is a zero-sum game, and shareholder value is the only legitimate aim of business. The perpetuation of such assumptions, he suggests, leaves business school students devoid of any sense of moral responsibility. These criticisms have received a lot of attention in academic debates, but have also been readily recounted in the media and the business community.For instance The Economist ran a 2005 article headlined ‘Business schools stand accused of being responsible for much that is wrong with corporate management today’ which brought the arguments from Ghoshal, Mintzberg, and others to a wider audience – albeit in a context where the magazine rather predictably mounted a strong defence. After all, as The Economist argued, there are plenty of examples of corporate crooks who have not had a bu siness school education, so there are clearly other aspects to consider too.Nevertheless, whatever else the debate has done, it has certainly helped refocus the attention of business schools on their curricula, and especially on the provision of courses on ethics and social responsibility. At one level, this debate is simply about whether more business schools should be encouraged to introduce such courses into the curriculum. Whilst some schools have long included ethics in their curricula, others have tended to focus more on areas such as strategy, innovation, marketing and finance, whilst others have even dropped ethics courses due to low enrolments or political manoeuvring by sceptical colleagues.As one Wall Street Journal article put it, ‘MBA students and professors bristle at ethics requirements. Some faculty members resent being forced to squeeze ethics lessons into an already jam-packed syllabus, while students grumble that ethics classes tend to be preachy and philoso phical. ’ In this context, the evidence on the scale of ethics teaching is revealing. A recent survey of US schools found that 34 per cent required an ethics course at undergraduate level whilst only 25 per cent did so on MBA degrees.In Europe, the figures are if anything a little lower for compulsory courses, but more than 50 per cent of business schools report having an optional module on ethics or responsibility at undergraduate level and more than 30 per cent at masters level. Essentially, though, most business students can still complete a degree having had hardly any exposure to these subjects in the classroom – a situation that some are now trying to change. One development comes from the US, where a long running campaign by business ethics professors has been trying to make courses on ethics and responsibility compulsory for business students.Over 200 professors offered support to the campaign, but the AACSB (the body responsible for accrediting business degree programmes) appears, so far, to be unconvinced. A recent redraft of their guidelines for accreditation did not bow to the campaigners’ demands, and business ethics remains outside of their list of accredited subjects. Diane Swanson and Bill Frederick, the campaign leaders responded by condemning the AACSB’s arguments for excluding ethics as ‘desperate and out of date against the backdrop of unprecedented corporate scandals, increased public distrust of business, and a virtual sea change in corporate governance. However, some leading schools have moved towards greater attention to ethics. Harvard Business School, for instance, introduced a compulsory course on ‘Leadership and Corporate Accountability’ for all first year students in 2004 – a development that the school claimed represented ‘the most far-reaching course we’ve ever introduced on this subject’. In Europe, the situation is also changing, and in fact there appears to be significantly more support than in the US from European accrediting bodies.The Association of MBAs for example, has issued new criteria for the accreditation of MBA programmes that stipulate that the curriculum ‘should pay attention to ethical and social issues’, while the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) is also considering ways to integrate CSR into its EQUIS accreditation. New academic departments and centres have also sprung up in universities to lead ethics and responsibility teaching, such as the Business and Society Management department at Rotterdam School of Management and the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility in Nottingham University Business School.Whilst there is still a long way to go before schools successfully infuse ethics education across all of their courses, such developments certainly point to an increased emphasis over the past decade. Ethics and corporate responsibility feature far more prominently in the prospectuses of business schools than they did even a few years ago. Questions remain though about how ethics should best be integrated into the curriculum, and even whether exposure to the subject really has a positive effect on the decisions made by managers.While some maintain that a stand alone course on ethics is necessary to develop a suitable understanding of the subject and to consolidate its importance on the curriculum, others argue that this raises the prospects of generating an ‘ethics ghetto’ unconnected to mainstream business subjects such as finance and marketing. And the jury is still out on just how much of an effect any form of ethics training is likely to have on individuals. Various objections have been raised over the years, including the suggestion that students’ morality is already fixed and cannot be improved, and the accusations that ethics teaching is abstract, mbiguous, subjective, and little more than indoctrination from self-r ighteous ideologues. Of course, the extent to which some of these accusations are true will vary from course to course, and on the goals of any specific programme. In the main, evidence suggests that courses are rather better at enhancing students’ recognition of ethical issues, stimulating their moral imagination, and developing their analytical skills rather than improving students’ moral development or changing their values.As one business ethics professor puts it, ‘I do not want to teach moral standards; I want to teach a method of moral reasoning through complex issues so that students can apply the moral standards they have. ’ This highlights another growing debate among business ethics professors about the very purpose of business ethics education – and even what a business ethics course should consist of. Whilst one camp retains belief in the established practice of teaching moral philosophy to develop better normative thinking among student s, other camps have started to emerge.Some business school professors see more need to focus on practical management concerns, such as managing the corporate reputation or preventing accounting fraud, whilst others point to the need to understand ethics within wider social, political, and economic structures. One recent business ethics textbook (by Jones et al. 2005) was even introduced by the authors with an admission that they were ‘not particularly fond of business ethics’ because ‘business ethics in its present form is at best window dressing and a worst a calculated lie’!Ultimately then, developments in the field of business ethics education suggests that business schools and accreditation bodies may be beginning to take the subject more seriously, especially in Europe where something of a momentum appears to be building. However, the future direction of business ethics remains in some doubt. Not only will its integration into the curriculum remain pro blematic for some time yet, but as the subject expands and develops, the approach to teaching business ethics will probably shift quite considerably into new conceptual territory.Whatever the outcome, business ethics will have to go a long way before it presents a completely convincing antidote to corporate wrongdoing, and misconduct in the workplace. Questions 1. What are the main factors encouraging business ethics education and what are the main barriers to its further development and expansion? 2. To what extent can business education cause or prevent ethical infractions in business? Give arguments for and against. 3. Given the importance of situational factors in shaping ethical decision-making, what are the limitations posed by business ethics courses that focus on individual students?How would you design a course to focus primarily on situational issues? 4. Consider the aims and approach of the business ethics course that you are currently studying. What are these, and how ef fective is the approach for achieving these aims? What would you like to see done differently? Sources Alsop, R. 2005. At MBA programs, teaching ethics poses its own dilemmas. Wall Street Journal, 12 April. wsj. com. Boston Globe. 2003. Harvard raises its hand on ethics. Boston Globe, 30 December. Ghoshal, S. 2003.Business schools share the blame for Enron. Financial Times, 18 July. Ghoshal, S. 2005. Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4 (1): 75–91. Jones, C. , Parker, M. , and ten Bos, R. 2005. For business ethics. London: Routledge. Lacy, P. 2005. From the margins to the mainstream: corporate responsibility and the challenge facing business and business schools. Business Leadership Review, 1 (2) (April): 3. Matten, D. and Moon, J. 2004.Corporate social responsibility in Europe. Journal of Business Ethics, 54: 323–37. McDonald, G. M. and Donleavy, G. D. 1995. Objections to the teaching of busi ness ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 14: 839–53. Mintzberg, H. 2004. Managers not MBAs: a hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall. Swanson, D. and Frederick, W. 2005. Campaign AACSB: status report, January. www. pitt. edu/~rorst6/sim/aacsb. The Economist. 2005. Business schools, bad for business. The Economist, 17 February. Teaching Ethics School for scandal? Business schools turn their attention to ethics education This case examines the role of the business school in encouraging corruption in business, and looks at the potential impacts that business ethics training might have on students. It offers the opportunity to explore the significance of the individual and their education and experience for understanding ethical decision-making. It also provides a context for investigating the specific role, purpose, and impact of business ethics courses on business behaviour.When it turns out that the key figures in some of the most infamous cases of fraud and corruption in business are alumni from leading business schools, it is perhaps not surprising that the business schools themselves might come in for some criticism. After all, if people like Andrew Fastow, the convicted chief financial officer at Enron, or his boss Jeffrey Skilling, could have got MBAs from two of America’s premier business schools (Northwestern and Harvard, respectively) and , then it is inevitable that questions will be raised about what kinds of principles and practices business school students are being taught.In the last few years, a number of business gurus and commentators have publicly condemned business schools in general, and MBA programmes in particular, for their perpetuation of ‘misguided’ amoral theories and techniques, and the lack of attention to ethics in the curriculum.For example, Henry Mintzberg, the Canadian management expert has famously condemned the MBA model, suggesting that it ‘trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences’, whilst Sumantra Ghoshal, the late London Business School professor has argued that the ‘worst excesses of recent management practices have their roots in a set of ideas that have emerged from business-school academics over the last 30 years. Ghoshal’s ire is directed to typical theories taught at business schools s uch as agency theory and Porter’s ‘5 forces’ model, which he claims perpetuate an idea that everyone is self-interested, managers cannot be trusted, business is a zero-sum game, and shareholder value is the only legitimate aim of business. The perpetuation of such assumptions, he suggests, leaves business school students devoid of any sense of moral responsibility. These criticisms have received a lot of attention in academic debates, but have also been readily recounted in the media and the business community.For instance The Economist ran a 2005 article headlined ‘Business schools stand accused of being responsible for much that is wrong with corporate management today’ which brought the arguments from Ghoshal, Mintzberg, and others to a wider audience – albeit in a context where the magazine rather predictably mounted a strong defence. After all, as The Economist argued, there are plenty of examples of corporate crooks who have not had a bu siness school education, so there are clearly other aspects to consider too.Nevertheless, whatever else the debate has done, it has certainly helped refocus the attention of business schools on their curricula, and especially on the provision of courses on ethics and social responsibility. At one level, this debate is simply about whether more business schools should be encouraged to introduce such courses into the curriculum. Whilst some schools have long included ethics in their curricula, others have tended to focus more on areas such as strategy, innovation, marketing and finance, whilst others have even dropped ethics courses due to low enrolments or political manoeuvring by sceptical colleagues.As one Wall Street Journal article put it, ‘MBA students and professors bristle at ethics requirements. Some faculty members resent being forced to squeeze ethics lessons into an already jam-packed syllabus, while students grumble that ethics classes tend to be preachy and philoso phical. ’ In this context, the evidence on the scale of ethics teaching is revealing. A recent survey of US schools found that 34 per cent required an ethics course at undergraduate level whilst only 25 per cent did so on MBA degrees.In Europe, the figures are if anything a little lower for compulsory courses, but more than 50 per cent of business schools report having an optional module on ethics or responsibility at undergraduate level and more than 30 per cent at masters level. Essentially, though, most business students can still complete a degree having had hardly any exposure to these subjects in the classroom – a situation that some are now trying to change. One development comes from the US, where a long running campaign by business ethics professors has been trying to make courses on ethics and responsibility compulsory for business students.Over 200 professors offered support to the campaign, but the AACSB (the body responsible for accrediting business degree programmes) appears, so far, to be unconvinced. A recent redraft of their guidelines for accreditation did not bow to the campaigners’ demands, and business ethics remains outside of their list of accredited subjects. Diane Swanson and Bill Frederick, the campaign leaders responded by condemning the AACSB’s arguments for excluding ethics as ‘desperate and out of date against the backdrop of unprecedented corporate scandals, increased public distrust of business, and a virtual sea change in corporate governance. However, some leading schools have moved towards greater attention to ethics. Harvard Business School, for instance, introduced a compulsory course on ‘Leadership and Corporate Accountability’ for all first year students in 2004 – a development that the school claimed represented ‘the most far-reaching course we’ve ever introduced on this subject’. In Europe, the situation is also changing, and in fact there appears to be significantly more support than in the US from European accrediting bodies.The Association of MBAs for example, has issued new criteria for the accreditation of MBA programmes that stipulate that the curriculum ‘should pay attention to ethical and social issues’, while the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) is also considering ways to integrate CSR into its EQUIS accreditation. New academic departments and centres have also sprung up in universities to lead ethics and responsibility teaching, such as the Business and Society Management department at Rotterdam School of Management and the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility in Nottingham University Business School.Whilst there is still a long way to go before schools successfully infuse ethics education across all of their courses, such developments certainly point to an increased emphasis over the past decade. Ethics and corporate responsibility feature far more prominently in the prospectuses of business schools than they did even a few years ago. Questions remain though about how ethics should best be integrated into the curriculum, and even whether exposure to the subject really has a positive effect on the decisions made by managers.While some maintain that a stand alone course on ethics is necessary to develop a suitable understanding of the subject and to consolidate its importance on the curriculum, others argue that this raises the prospects of generating an ‘ethics ghetto’ unconnected to mainstream business subjects such as finance and marketing. And the jury is still out on just how much of an effect any form of ethics training is likely to have on individuals. Various objections have been raised over the years, including the suggestion that students’ morality is already fixed and cannot be improved, and the accusations that ethics teaching is abstract, mbiguous, subjective, and little more than indoctrination from self-r ighteous ideologues. Of course, the extent to which some of these accusations are true will vary from course to course, and on the goals of any specific programme. In the main, evidence suggests that courses are rather better at enhancing students’ recognition of ethical issues, stimulating their moral imagination, and developing their analytical skills rather than improving students’ moral development or changing their values.As one business ethics professor puts it, ‘I do not want to teach moral standards; I want to teach a method of moral reasoning through complex issues so that students can apply the moral standards they have. ’ This highlights another growing debate among business ethics professors about the very purpose of business ethics education – and even what a business ethics course should consist of. Whilst one camp retains belief in the established practice of teaching moral philosophy to develop better normative thinking among student s, other camps have started to emerge.Some business school professors see more need to focus on practical management concerns, such as managing the corporate reputation or preventing accounting fraud, whilst others point to the need to understand ethics within wider social, political, and economic structures. One recent business ethics textbook (by Jones et al. 2005) was even introduced by the authors with an admission that they were ‘not particularly fond of business ethics’ because ‘business ethics in its present form is at best window dressing and a worst a calculated lie’!Ultimately then, developments in the field of business ethics education suggests that business schools and accreditation bodies may be beginning to take the subject more seriously, especially in Europe where something of a momentum appears to be building. However, the future direction of business ethics remains in some doubt. Not only will its integration into the curriculum remain pro blematic for some time yet, but as the subject expands and develops, the approach to teaching business ethics will probably shift quite considerably into new conceptual territory.Whatever the outcome, business ethics will have to go a long way before it presents a completely convincing antidote to corporate wrongdoing, and misconduct in the workplace. Questions 1. What are the main factors encouraging business ethics education and what are the main barriers to its further development and expansion? 2. To what extent can business education cause or prevent ethical infractions in business? Give arguments for and against. 3. Given the importance of situational factors in shaping ethical decision-making, what are the limitations posed by business ethics courses that focus on individual students?How would you design a course to focus primarily on situational issues? 4. Consider the aims and approach of the business ethics course that you are currently studying. What are these, and how ef fective is the approach for achieving these aims? What would you like to see done differently? Sources Alsop, R. 2005. At MBA programs, teaching ethics poses its own dilemmas. Wall Street Journal, 12 April. wsj. com. Boston Globe. 2003. Harvard raises its hand on ethics. Boston Globe, 30 December. Ghoshal, S. 2003.Business schools share the blame for Enron. Financial Times, 18 July. Ghoshal, S. 2005. Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4 (1): 75–91. Jones, C. , Parker, M. , and ten Bos, R. 2005. For business ethics. London: Routledge. Lacy, P. 2005. From the margins to the mainstream: corporate responsibility and the challenge facing business and business schools. Business Leadership Review, 1 (2) (April): 3. Matten, D. and Moon, J. 2004.Corporate social responsibility in Europe. Journal of Business Ethics, 54: 323–37. McDonald, G. M. and Donleavy, G. D. 1995. Objections to the teaching of busi ness ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 14: 839–53. Mintzberg, H. 2004. Managers not MBAs: a hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall. Swanson, D. and Frederick, W. 2005. Campaign AACSB: status report, January. www. pitt. edu/~rorst6/sim/aacsb. The Economist. 2005. Business schools, bad for business. The Economist, 17 February.