High School Student And Adulthood Essay

â€Å"The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.† Understanding Defines Change Psychologists Scott Scheer, Stephen Gavazzi, and David Blumenkrantz undertook a comprehensive review and analysis of the psychoanalytic literature that discussed the rites of passage in adolescence; from the reading, they derived two truths concerning an adolescent’s rite of passages. Primarily, as Scheer, Gavazzi, and Blumenkrantz state, â€Å"Not all transitional events necessarily indicate the occurrence of life transitions† (1); however, â€Å"It is believed that both cognitive interpretation and integration are required before the event genuinely becomes a significant transition or rite of passage† (1). Essentially, to label a singular event as one that ignited a life transition, one must understand the resulting effects of the event. Additionally, according to Scheer, Gavazzi, and Blumenkrantz, the event that marks the end of the transitional period between adolescence and adulthood defines the rite. Principally, a singular event cannot accelerate one’s progression into adulthood without one realizing the effects or changes that the event caused. In â€Å"Self-Reliance† by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson described the idealistic depiction of the Romantic hero’s rite of passage. Emerson states that â€Å"The power which resides in him is new in nature† (1), and he believes that a person should seek the meaning of that power for himself. Emerson’s statement that one doesn’t know the power that they have until one finds it (1) falls directly in line with Scheer, Gavazzi, and Blumenkrantz’s interpretation of one’s rite of passage. Scheer, Gavazzi, and Blumenkrantz postulate that one cannot arrive at adulthood without first understanding a transitional event. Similarly, Emerson reveals, in the quote at the top of the page, that one does not know his unique power until he has tried to find it himself. Likewise, if one didn’t find their unique power, based on the definition given by Emerson, one hasn’t successfully arrived at that â€Å"Time in a man’s education† (1), and, thus, has not successfully completed a rite of passage. Therefore, Emerson views rites of passage as events that are intrinsically bound to understanding, and without cognitive interpretation, an event cannot allow one to find one’s unique power, disqualifying it as a rite of passage. The idea that rites of passages are dependent upon cognitive understanding holds true throughout a number of literary texts. For instance, in Walden by Henry David Thoreau, Thoreau details the rite of passage of a king’s son. As Thoreau states, â€Å"One of his father’s ministers having discovered him, revealed to him that he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince† (72). Like Scheer, Gavazzi, and Blumenkrantz’s postulated, the son’s discovery alone did not result in the personality transition from that of a forester’s child to a prince. Instead, the son had to realize that he was, in fact, a prince before the transition could completely take effect. Thus, for one to totally embark and complete a rite of passage or a life transition, one must understand the effects of a singular event. (487) Works Cited Emerson, Ralph Waldo. â€Å"Self Reliance.† Adventures in American Literature: Pegasus Edition. Ed. Bernard Brodsky. Orlando: Harcourt, 2004. 221. Print. Scheer, Scott, et al. â€Å"Rites of passage during adolescence.† Forum. n. page. Web. 17 Feb. 2013. . Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. New York: Penguin Classics Publishing, 2005

Current And Future Use of Technology Essay

Spotify has provided a way for people to access and share music with services such as exchange of selections and even mobile access. In the process of providing these services, the users’ data is acquired through initial registration and this helps categorize the market. The main target for Spotify is not registration of premium accounts without adverts but the free use by the public where adverts can be played in between songs. There are many issues handled by Spotify in the business including competition from existing online music selling companies like Sony and Apple, and challenges on fair artists’ royalties with restrictions by copyrights in some regions. The e business strategy is well established for Spotify as the company deals with music producing companies and companies who look for a way to advertise brands. The peer to peer technology used and the feature of listening to music even when offline together with a simple user interface are all technological advantages of Spotify that make it popular in the market. The future of Spotify is based on integration of the software into hand held processing devices like modern phones, and having a good relation with the sources of music. E-Business background Spotify’s business idea was to create a medium through which to provide advertisers with a way of reaching a traceable and response predictable market. By creating a digital library of a wide variety of music and an interface through which listeners can register and listen to music free, Spotify was able do just that. There are adverts pushed in between songs and last for between 15 and 30 seconds. The users that don’t want to get interference from the audio adverts can pay a monthly fee to stop them. The portion of listeners who pay this fee is so small compared to the free users, who form the main market idea for Spotify. The company has arrangement with the world’s major labels to provide their music and in return claim an 18% stake in the company. The integration of the music producing companies, the listeners and the advertisers forms the e-business model for Spotify. There is competition from similar companies like Last. fm, Amazon (which sells music online), my space and facebook; with the direct rival being Last. fm. Spotify and Last. fm have integrated their systems though and this form a way to create an entry hardship in an effort to protect high profit business and raise competition advantage for both companies to realize. Porters Five Forces model Spotify’s business faces the five forces from threats of substitute, barriers to entry, supply power, buyers power and rivalry (Porter 1985). There are various ways that it has put up strategies to deal with this. First, there is the presence of substitute firms like Last. com; Spotify has planned to sing a deal in merged operations with the company in order to increase the business opportunities for both sides. It was proposed that the advertisers/brands could then be able to buy advertising services across the platforms of the two companies (McCormick 2009). According to the nature of the platform on which the adverts are run, Spotify has created a medium where the message is streamline with the music being listened to. Apart from the major rival with whom Spotify agrees to merge business with, the brands will face a hard time looking for an alternative service of the kind. Thus the buyer’s power is low, considering that there are also many scattered brands to advertise through the electronic platform. Furthermore, the platform provides a way of major record labels availing their music to the users, making sure that brands can get the largest number of music fans at Spotify, which they cannot get from online music shops. On the suppliers’ power towards Spotify’s business, there are many music producing labels that offer a variety of music. Also, the fact that the buyers of the service are somewhat weak, the suppliers are also put in the same line; because advertisers has no much power over Spotify, they cannot demand of specific record labels. Since the entry of Spotify into the e-business, the key issue is to keep the prices offered virtually low in order to provide a barrier of entry of new competition. One strategy applied by firms to this effect is merging their markets and operations so that they can enjoy economies of scale and protect the high profit market from other entrants while keeping the quality of services high. This was a case possible from the Spotify’s deal with Last. fm. There is rivalry in the industry of e-business and marketing through electronic means has been applied by many companies. The industry is disciplined though, from previous competition, the methods of enticing the music fans and through ease of use of platforms by the market forming population. The application streams music with no buffering times and provides a very wide variety of ready to listen categories of songs; from major record labels. The fact that the market for Spotify seems to be exponentially growing means that soon the buyers will be so many and so their power will go down, providing a business advantage for the company ( ). E-Marketing The internet is a unique marketing medium in that it provides a global market with instant response dynamism. The fact that when a product is advertised through the internet can reach millions of users within a short while is enough to make it a rich market. Spotify has its marketing strategy based on online access of adverts by the users in their endeavor to listen to music. Data and Market Analysis The strongest part of Spotify registration of users is that it takes the demographic data so that the company is in a position to provide marketing strategies to advertisers based on age, location and music taste. The ability to analyze and classify a market is important to advertisers, especially when it involves technical goods and services. Promotion and mobile services The introduction of the mobile version of Spotify software has helped in a far reaching marketing strategy. The whole issue has been in news for sometime and major discussion blogs and websites like BBC NEWS, leading to less costly promotion effect in Europe. The market in Spotify is really the online internet resource as well as the users PC’s and portable mobile Activities Spotify engages in various activities that are geared towards having a wide base of users so that it can reach more people when targeting an audience for an advert. These activities include; invite scheme, tell a friend and viral advertising. The â€Å"invite scheme† is where the newly registered and the existing members are given an opportunity to invite friends and family to experience Spotify while still promoting the premium membership. The â€Å"tell a friend† activity involves a Spotify inbuilt tool to spread word of mouth. This is a strategy to use the existing users to get the message to their friends using the already existing internet framework. The other one is viral advertising where the medium mainly used is social networking frameworks like facebook. The most visited WebPages are targeted and a multimedia message displayed. Web-design Spotify has created a peer to peer application that streams music between the listeners computer, whether online or offline. Spotify has a service to which clients connect and have the contents of the cache summarized in an index which is then sent to Spotify’s stream hub. The data in the index is usually used to alert other users of the additional peers they can connect to, to fetch streamed data for specific songs being played. This arrangement is enabled and tolerated by each upon start up. Each client listen to incoming connections from other Spotify clients like a server and connects to other users to exchange cached data. The users are actually not in apposition to configure the connections or alter the bandwidth of transmission of data. These settings are hard coded in the system. The design of the entire architecture may be complicated but the interface used by the listeners is so simple and effective. There are just few controls of play, rewind and forward. The Spotify application offers the following features to the users; Catalogue: Spotify offers users access to millions of music tracks including songs from major music labels. Some specific music from some artists may not be available due to boundary regulations in the copyright. Playlists: it allows users to create collections of favorite music and lets them share them. The users can also edit the playlists with other users together through collaborating software. For this purpose, the playlists can be shared through an email or instant messaging window. On accessing the link, the data gets downloaded into Spotify. Integration with Last. fm: the specific feature from last. fm is the ability to collect the users’ preference in music and store it into Last. fm’s database. This has been integrated into Spotify without requiring external plug-ins (Spotify Archives 2010). Radio feature: this creates random playlists of songs related to the music of the currently selected artist. Spotify has a simple to use interface that allows the user to search for music by artist, album or title. It displays the user chosen playlist and some advert image, which on clicking, one can explore the promotion (Spotify Forums 2010). Business-to-Business (B2B) Spotify has introduced the music service to the listeners and charge a certain rate for ad free music. However, it does not rely on this for its source of revenue. It largely relies on the free service where the listeners will have to bear with the adverts. At this point, it does business with other firms that want to advertise their brands to the listeners. The main target for business is therefore dealing with other companies that want to reach the audience. On the same platform, there is collaboration with major record labels where they claim a certain percentage stake in the company and in turn provide their music libraries to Spotify (Nylander 2009). Spotify focuses on doing business with other businesses in its plans. It has tailored it product for mobile phones and approached the mobile phone making companies like apple in an effort to do business with them (Emerald). This is a direct challenge to Apple’s iTunes though and touches on the competition end. Mobile Commerce Spotify has produced a mobile version of the application that can allow users with premium accounts to access and listen to music wherever they go. It also allows the users to download a certain number of songs on to the phone for listening while out of network range. Mobile business seems to be the future of IT marketing, especially with the progress and expectations of pervasive mobile programming. By considering the mobile version of the application to target the users on the move and virtually at all instances of life, Spotify has provided a wider more reaching market for its business. Given that all the mobile users will have to be premium users, the focus of mobile versions will be to create a customer base where the services will be like a contract between Spotify and the user (Ionescu 2009). This eliminates the advertisers from the picture and allows Spotify to compete with earlier established businesses on the same line like Apple, while still spreading the risk. Instead of relying on the advertising source alone, the company can now create a one to one relation with the music fans through their premium accounts. Conclusions It is a good business plan for Spotify to create such a huge market base by having so many users registered, both free and premium categories. The plan of pushing adverts into streamed music provides an excellent way of gaining the revenue from brands. On the mobile world, it provides a good way of reaching a wider market and a premium account for the mobile is a plus on the revenue. This was a wise decision considering the processing power of phones cannot be compared to that of PC’s. The strategy of extending into the mobile world was a good way of preparing for the future of IT with the trends in pervasive mobile programming. Mobile marketing will form an even wider market considering the more frequent use and an extension of the PC use after work hours. Recommendations The competition in the market is high and Spotify will have to deal with some issues, especially with the application interface and specifically the technology on the size of bandwidth among other resource utilized on users machines. Criticism is usually on the fact that the interface does not give a user the access to control the amount of resources like bandwidth that Spotify uses against other systems on the same machine. The issue of coming up with a way of establishing the classification of music sources with their effect on the market using the users data to determine the ratings would be an important thing to indulge in, in order to establishing a fair royalties to the artists in order to keep everyone happy and the future of Spotify bright (BBC News 2010). More concentration on helping the production teams with useful demographic and ratings information will give the company a strong relationship with the source of music, the medium they use to make money. References BBC News, (2010) ‘Spotify boss Daniel Ek sets out future plans’, [Online], Available: http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/8478599. stm Porter M. (1998) ‘Competitive strategy: techniques for analyzing industries and competitors’, Free Press, ISBN 0684005778, 9780684005775. McCormick, A. (2009) ‘Spotify and Last. fm moot partnership’, Britannica article; Revolution (14605953) [Online], Available: http://www. britannica. com/bps/additionalcontent/18/38216709/Spotify-and-Lastfm-moot-partnership Ionescu D. , Nov 23, 2009, Spotify Lands App for Symbian Phones, today@PCworld, [Online], Available: http://www. pcworld. com/article/182833/spotify_lands_app_for_symbian_phones. html Robert Andrews, 2009, Apple Approves Spotify’s iPhone App, web article on Paid Content: UK, [Online], Available: http://paidcontent. co. uk/article/419-spotify-says-apple-still-testing-iphone-app-spotify-vanishes-from-app-s/ Emerald, Current CITE-ings from the popular and trade computing press, Library Hi Tech News, Volume 26, Issue 9, [Online], Available: http://www. emeraldinsight. com. ezproxy. cqu. edu. au/Insight/ViewContentServlet? contentType=NonArticle&Filename=Published/NonArticle/Articles/23926iae. 001. html Spotify Archives (2010) ‘Spotify for iPhone v0. 4 now available’, [Online], Available: http://www. spotify. com/int/blog/archives/2010/03/31/iphone-v4/ Johan Nylander, Record labels part owner of Spotify, from The Swedish Wire, Published Friday, 07 August 2009, [Online], Available: http://www. swedishwire. com/business/680-record-labels-part-owner-of-spotify Spotify Forums, What is Spotify? Why choose Spotify? How much advertising? [Online], Available: http://www. spotify-forum. com/what_is_spotify. php

Oppression Theory That Supports Horizontal Violence Process Essay

Nurses are known to be the devoted caregiver of sick patients. How can the patients get rid of their burden if their own caregivers are in conflict among each other in hospital settings? When there is conflict in such kind of environment, it is called horizontal violence, interpersonal conflict or bullying which is aggressive and destructive behavior of nurses against each other (Woelfle & McCaffrey, 2007). It is an expression of oppressed group behavior evolving from feelings of low self-esteem and lack of respect from others which is supported by the theory of oppression. According to the theory stated by Woelfle & McCaffrey (2007), in order for the horizontal violence to take place in the nursing setting, oppression exists when a powerful and dominant group controls and exploits a less influential or easy target group. As a consequence the oppressed group displays low self esteem and self hatred as evidenced by anger and frustration (Woelfle & McCaffrey, 2007). The theory of oppression helps to explain that the behaviors of horizontal violence aren’t directed at the individual but rather is a response to the specific situation where one feels fear of punishment that prevents the nurse from responding to the oppression. When people feel oppressed they feel inferior and powerless. These kinds of nurses who feel powerless behave aggressively towards peers to relieve tension because they can’t fight against their oppressor. That results to the display of emotion which victimize the colleague where the colleague or the coworker gets the feeling of vulnerability or prone to be hurt. The emotion or body language often includes rolling of the eyes, folding the arms or storming out of the room, using sarcasm, raised voice and shouting. These people manipulate the work environment while denying doing anything wrong and get satisfied from experiential difficulty and discomfort of others. These negative behaviors have obvious results in human mind leading to anxiety and stress at work. This cycle of denial maintains its own pattern of repeated action against the vulnerable group and allows the power relations to be unchallenged. Rather than fighting back and risking from the superiors/violence creators, the oppressed groups’ frustration is manifested as conflict in their own ranks with horizontal violence from coworker to coworker. Hence, people  begin to think this kind of behavior as a norm which they displace their feeling of aggression to another highly prone groups such as new grad nurse or student and even less confident coworkers. This cycle of behavior is typically described as horizontal violence (Woelfle & McCaffrey, 2007). As an example, a coworker in a unit behaves aggressively in a reaction to their own part of stress by acting aggressively and displacing their anger to another same or lower hierarchical level group or coworker. Another coworker as a victim gets devastated with this behavior especially if the superior authority or managers don’t acknowledge the behavior. Hence the victim feels angry, frustrated and vulnerable continuing the cycle of horizontal violence. Rather than fighting back against the aggressor, this group accepts this as a behavioral norm which they unconsciously displace to other lower or same hierarchical level coworker such as grad nurse or the nursing students. These nursing students or grad nurses later learn to displace their stress to other with the verbal or nonverbal expression giving the feeling of vulnerability to the prone groups. Hence this cycle of oppression continues as a horizontal violence in the work place area as part of the work stress. Consequently the oppressed group often lack autonomy, accountability and control over their profession (Woelfle & McCaffrey, 2007). Horizontal violence is a purposeful ongoing collection of often negative behaviors and actions that accumulate over time. Moreover, it includes repeated acts involving an imbalance of strength or power, in which one or more individuals engage in over time with the intention to harm other and create a hostile work environment. They displace their part of frustration to others in the form of negative verbal or nonverbal expression. The cycle of oppression continues which is supported by the theory of oppression. The result of horizontal violence affects nurses, nursing managers, other medical and administrative staff, patient and their family. It is clear that horizontal violence is everywhere in nursing today and can drastically affect the nursing area. When the tension is elevated in the patient care, nurses cannot perform their best which often lead to poor quality patient care (Woelfle & McCaffrey, 2007). Reference: Woelfle, C. Y. & McCaffrey, R. ( July-September, 2007). Nurse on nurse. Nursing Forum, Vol 42(3), p123-131

Why is a historically significant of US Slavery Essay

Why is a historically significant of US Slavery - Essay Example This is historically significant because it had a long term effect upon the place of black Americans in society right into the mid- 20th century, affecting for instance their rights to vote as full American citizens. Whether or not treatment of Afro-Americans can have ever have been considered humane depends upon your definition of the words ’humane’ and ‘human’. Justifiable Slavery Slavery has been described on more than one occasion as a crime against humanity, 1 but this idea has not always been the prevailing one. When the first Europeans shipped slaves from Africa the practice was already a long established as a norm in society on that continent. The Europeans were merely taking advantage of what was made available to them. Then gradually the trade increased, with traders offering good prices for more and more slaves to work in the newly discovered lands of the New World. It is estimated that some 10 million black Africans were eventually landed and sold on as slaves - this estimate of course does not any account of the massive numbers who died before arrival. It is relatively easy in the early 21st century to believe that slavery is wrong and find it hard to comprehend why people ever thought it was justifiable, especially if one reads the many accounts of the cruelty and horrors which were often involved. It is such stories which tend to stand out, rather than the ones were a slave was an established part of a household and community. There was obvious inequality, unfairness and modern man may feel this was not justified, being unable to fully put themselves into their shoes, but the people of earlier times just did not have the same mind set. Many of those who were slave holders were sincere Christians and could quote the scriptures which apparently backed up their position. This was backed up by their clergy. The Old Testament had laws as to how slaves should be treated e.g. Exodus 21 v 5 which refers to servants who did not want to leave their masters. Deuteronomy 15 v 11 onwards were taken as instructions as how to treat them i.e. pr ovide for them. Verses such as Exodus 21 v 20 were used to justify the beating of slaves. In the New Testament there are verses such as Ephesians 6 v 5 ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear.’ and Titus 2 v 9 ‘Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything.’3 These ideas were not just based upon the Bible, but were generally accepted . Great thinkers such as Aristotle claimed that :- We see what is the nature and office of a slave; he who is by nature not his own but another's man, is by nature a slave; and he may be said to be another's man who, being a human being, is also a possession.4 He does however also say ‘Is not all slavery a violation of nature’, but decides that it is not, on the grounds that some are natural leaders and others naturally subservient. It should be pointed out that this was not racial prejudice, but simply refers to weaker people, perhaps captured in times of war. . Thomas Aquinas, operati ng within a rather different society – one of medieval feudalism, took a similar position – leaders and led.5 Philosopher John Locke in the 17th century was concerned with the way that the British monarchs were treating their people - the British i.e. white people, could not become slaves of the Stuarts he maintained, but on the other hand

Analysis of The Godfather Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Analysis of The Godfather - Assignment Example It is worth noting that movie shows all violence graphically. There are brutal beatings, machine gun killings, betrayals, and bodies soaked in blood. The murders are not so long but their expressions of horror on the victim's faces make it truly gruesome. Nudity and sex is a part of whole melodrama where the focus in on power, money and crime. Michael is back from the World War II to attend his sister Connie Corleone's wedding. Michael is not interested in his fathers business and wants to pass a normal life. A drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) who is backed by Tattaglia family in his ventures wants to collaborate with Vito so as to get protection from his political connections and furthering his drug business. Vito is against the drug business that any godfather will be in any civilized society. With the godfather status enjoyed by Vito, he refuses to strike any deal with Sollozzo realizing that it may devastate his reputation in the society. This drives Sollozzo crazy and tempts him to lead an assassination attempt on Vito. While Vito in the hospital, his eldest son Sonny (James Caan) takes to rein in his hand and gets Bruno of Tattaglias family killed. Michael hatches a conspiracy and invites Sollozzo and his associate to a restaurant and finishes them successfully. The movie The Godfather reflects about the gang wars, gruesome assassinations, killings and gun throbbing that happen in the real world. After all, it is a power game that causes one gang to fight against another to establish their supremacy and control over the business. It is so spontaneous that business rivalry turns into a personal revenge in no time among two criminally active gangs. Usually, a business stake is so much that one is out to finish other in the open gang wars circumventing state laws and regulations. Marlon Brando has played a memorable character called The Godfather. Equally effective have been the roles played by Al Pacino of the youngest son Michael and James Caan playing for Vitos eldest son Sonny.  

Research paper about lululemon Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

About lululemon - Research Paper Example Lululemon has three main suppliers; Delta Galil, Eclat Textile company, and Workday Inc. All of the suppliers are established organization, a factor that suggest their stability and ability to meet Lululemon’s demand for resources. The fact that Lululemon’ competitors, such as Nike, also deal with the suppliers also suggests the suppliers’ reliability. Lululemon however only commands a small proportion of the suppliers’ revenues and this identifies it as a minor buyer who may lack strong bargaining power. It only commands 1.2 percent of Delta Galil’s revenues and less than one percent of revenues for Ecalt Textile and Workday Iinc (Forgeon, et al. 25, 26). The company operates direct links with customers, with women as the main customers. Adults, however, forms the major target market that women dominate, and types of offered commodities shows this because for every class of commodities, there are more types for women that for men (Lululemon 1). Studios and gyms are another target market and sells to customer (Forgeon, et al. 26). The company’s products have trademarks that protect them from unfair competition, especially through illegal trade in counterfeit commodities. Offered yoga trainings to the community is another strength that bonds the company with the community and establishes competitive advantage through the relationship and through aspects of corporate social responsibility. Research and development that leads to innovation and established product identities are other strengths that the company has. It also trains its employees to ensure quality products for customer utility. Such an initiative is also likely to ensure low employee turnover rate, as it identifies value in the organization’s employees (Bayley, Beale, Dubinsky, & Peedin 20). Lululemon however deals in a narrow range of products and this limits its revenues.

Old Testament Book Summaries Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Old Testament Book Summaries - Assignment Example During this time the Israelites depended on manna from heaven to feed them. Only a daily amount could be collected. Faith in Yaweh was reinforced through the law. When Moses brought down the Ten Commandments and found the Israelites making an idol, he broke the stone tablets. The law was based around the Ten Commandments. Moses’ death before entering the Promise Land was due to his disobedience. Joshua actually led the Israelites into the Promise Land. The genre of this book is the imparting of wisdom. Key themes are Solomon’s belief that the only way for happiness is searching for God. The mistakes of his life are outlined and his path to happiness was a relationship with God. Key events are vague. The author speaks of obtaining wealth, women, and everything else seemingly desired by man. He then talks of not being happy with these material objects. The key figure in this book can only be accurately describes as a Son of David. Many speculate that this means Solomon. Since Solomon became king after David and was granted the gift of wisdom, this is logical. This book also contains the famous passages about their being a time for everything. The time to sow and everything else is written in this book. The author ends the book with the conclusion that everything under the sun is futile. Seeking God is the only way to find happiness. The genre of this book is narrative. The key theme is familial duty and loyalty. Key events are the marriage of Elimelech and Naomi’s sons Mahlon and Chilion to Ruth and Orpah, the father and sons’ death, Naomi’s return to Bethlehem with Ruth, Ruth’s gleaning of Boaz’s fields, and her eventual marriage to Boaz. Key people are Ruth, the main character, Naomi, and Boaz. This book deals with Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi. Ruth could have gone home after the death of her husband, but chose to go with Naomi to Bethlehem. As a result of her loyalty, Boaz gave her the job of gleaning his field after workers would reap the

The Athletic Trainer Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Athletic Trainer - Research Paper Example An Athletic trainer is a medical expert concerned with various areas of an athletes care. The athletic trainer teaches and instructs the athletes on ways to avoid injury during competitions by use of exercise practices and warm-up schedules. In case an injury occurs to an athlete, it is the duty of the athletic trainer to examine the injured athlete and establish whether the athlete requires medical attention from a doctor. Athletic trainers are also involved in the management and administration of rehabilitation of athletes for instance through exercise and training. In addition, the athletic trainers engage in monitoring the progress and performance of athletes to avoid further injuries. They are also involved in applying and fixing supportive gadgets for instance support braces or tensor bandages. Generally, the work of athletic trainers involve ensuring that the athlete is fit and in god health. In this case, these trainers also work closely with other professionals involved in t he affairs of the athletes for instance the athletes’ doctors and coaches (Hand, 2011). It is evident that athletic trainers hired by sports teams concern themselves w primarily with preventing injury, examination of injuries as well as rehabilitation of the athletes. It is also evident that as the name suggests, the major function of the athletic trainer is not to train the athlete on the specifics of the competition but rather to ensure that the athlete is fit for the competition. Even though the athletic trainers mainly occur in professional sports, others occur in the public domain (Beach, 2011). Heron (2011) affirms that athletic trainers concern themselves with institution, amateur and professional athletes in addition to normal people injured while participating in various sports. Athletic trainers should undergo a system of education and training before they

Developing People Module Assessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Developing People Module Assessment - Essay Example This has been similar with the whole process of critical reflection as has been described by different experts (Gardner & Fook, 2007, pp. 19-33). It is a personal belief that intentions and motives play a crucial role in success or failure of a teaching-learning process. Besides theoretical frameworks and formal objectives of education, it is very imperative for a teacher to believe in things that later become a part of any learning process. However, at the same time, it is essential for an effective teacher to avoid inclusion of biasness resulting in making teaching a very difficult process that often is considered a simple process that is not the case at all. From module readings, it is an observation that experts (Rodgers, 2002, pg. 845) have set the criteria for reflection as a meaning-making process, disciplined way of thinking, and a notion that requires attitudes and interaction with the community. From understanding of these researches and personal experiences, it is a belief that teaching is nothing but a reflection of reflection, in which a teacher has to endeavor to reflect on his/her own reflections while at the same time, equipping learners with capacity to reflect on their own. This is one of the reasons that in initial sections of this reflection, I inclined to consider teaching as a learning process itself. In addition, from further observations, I can reflect considerably that for an effective and efficient learning and reflective process, it is very imperative for teachers to consider needs, experiences, context, and attitudes of learners (Gardner & Fook, 2007, pp. 41-53). In other words, personally, the learning process cannot reach to its plinth when teachers focus more on subject matters rather than learners’ intelligences. One can associate this personal new insight with Gardner’s argument in which â€Å"he questioned the validity of determining an individual’s intelligence through the process of taking a person out o f his natural learning environment and asking him to do isolated tasks he had never done before and probably would never choose to do again† (Armstrong, 1994, pg. 1). Particularly, a teacher has to play the role of a network hub in which he/she can allow the learners to bring and connect their own perceptions, experiences, and context in the learning process while at the same time, acting as an encoder, as well as decoder to understand and reflect on personal experiences of each learner. This may seem very unrealistic in theory; however, in classroom settings where teachers spend an extended period with the learners, this is possible and if implemented, may result in enriched learning experience. On the other hand, absence of such considerations may although enable a climber to reach to the mountain base with the help of a guide; however, may not equip him/her with skills to reach to peak and conquer the mountain without help of any guide and even without any oxygen support. A mountain guide can be a teacher or a facilitator, whereas, absence of oxygen support can be critical

Performance Management Essay Example for Free

Performance Management Essay 1.Executive summary In order to have a sustainable competitive advantage, organisations realized that to do well economically, it is important to have the appropriate human capital within the company. That is how the term talent management was brought up. Human resource management is one of the pillars leading to organizational success and TM has become an important issue that HR professionals are dealing with. As companies go global, the need to focus on TM is increasing. This report is a critique of the journal article ‘Strategic talent management: A review and research agenda’ written by David G. Collings and Kamel Mellahi (2009). The report includes a broad view of how IHRM can address TM issues stated in the article. In the report, the strengths and weaknesses of the article have been stated and some recommendations concerning TM have been formulated and all the main points were highlighted in the conclusion. 2.Introduction This report is a critique of the journal article, ‘Strategic talent management: A review and research agenda’ written by David G.Collings and Kamel Mellahi (2009) for Elsevier publishing company. The report aims at critically analysing the mentioned article to find Talent Management issues relevant to International Human Resource management. Firstly the credibility of the authors and the validity of the article will be briefly analysed. The main key term this report deals with, that is Talent management (TM) will be explained as well as International human resource management (IHRM), ensuring clear understanding of the discussion which will follow. Further to the definition of the key terms, the theoretical model of strategic talent management proposed by the authors will be analysed and compared to the talent management wheel proposed by MIT Sloan Management Review (2012). The main body of the report will focus on the TM issues reported in the article and their relevance to IHRM, in this regard, other studies’ assumptions will be taken into account and thus allow us to critically analyse the article. Limitations and merits of the journal article will also be stated and followed by some recommendations as to how the discussed TM issues could be dealt with where international human resource management is concerned. Eventually, a conclusion will be included to highlight the main points which this report will cover. 3.Credibility of research Elsevier is one of the world’s leading providers of science information by providing authors and researchers as well as readers with innovative tools and world-class information helping in making critical decisions and to increase productivity. Elsevier has been delivering its services worldwide over the past 130 years and hence, is a credible source of information. Kamel Mellahi is the actual Co-Editor-in Chief of the International Journal of Management reviews. He has been carrying out many researches in the management field amongst which are in international business strategy and non-market strategy. He has also published more than seventy scholarly articles. His research were very much sought by several journals and publishers. David G.Collings is a Human Resource Management Professor at DCU and King’s College London. He is the joint editor of a couple of HRM journals. He has been doing research in the field of talent management and global mobility issues and has been able to influence numerous debates on global mobility. He has been ranked 6th on the list of the most productive scholar of Ireland. Both authors can be said to be well qualified to publish an article on talent management as they both have carried out numerous researches in HRM field, thus, this article can be said to be credible. 4.Definition of IHRM and Talent management With the advent of globalization, organisations have ceased to exist on local level only, businesses have gone global and this, for the betterment of its purpose. As well as it can have many advantages, the biggest challenge however remains the competition which has gain in vigour as organisations strive to stay sustainably competitive. IHRM can be said to be the procurement, allocation, utilization and the motivating pulse of international businesses’ human resources. The definition of TM, even though being the basis of the article, is however the very first matter of contention and one of the aims of the article. It was noted that no clear definition of TM has so far been made. Collings and Mellahi (2009), Boussebaa and Morgan (2008) and Piansoongnern and Anurit (2010, 290) have come up with a moreover similar definition of TM. According to them TM can be defined by processes and activities involving the identification of fundamental positions which help an organization to stay competitive, developing a talent pool of high performers to fill in those positions and adjusting HR practices to ensure commitment of such employees to the firm. For MNCs TM is more related to talented managers who get international assignments.

Gender Stereotypes In Advertising Campaigns

Gender Stereotypes In Advertising Campaigns The role of women is more stereotypical than that of the men in the promotional campaigns, and the power of women are inferior to the man especially in the TV advertisements. According to the research on adverts researchers have been done before, the results usually fall into the following categories including: (1) Women being linked with sexual meanings. (2) Women being viewed less powerful than men. (3) Women being thought to be obliged to dominate the housework. (4) Women being believed to comply with their male partners. Over 30 years ago it was argued that advertising placed women into subordinate roles and that the male voice was authoritative (Lewin-Jones, J, Mitra, B. 2009), which is supported by a number of researches. Ferguson, Kreshel and Tinkham (1990) suggested that woman have long been viewed as sexual objects in the advertisements. Dilevko and Harris (1997) stated that in the journals advertisements they researched, females activities are more restrained than males, and men are more likely to gain fame and to be connected with a promising future. Meanwhile, Sexton and Haberman (1974) illustrated that the images of women reflected in advertisements is narrow. All they have to do is to dress up, stand still and being watched. In addition, advertisements also help to cultivate social roles and responsibilities of men and women respectively, in particularly the later ones. The image of women constructed by some established magazines are mostly in conventional occupations and working women profiled in these magazines tend to express themselves by lacking power in their jobs (Ruggiero and Weston, 1985). Simultaneously, Bartsch, Burnett, Diller and Rankin-Williams (2000) argued that Gender bias still exist as females are underrepresented as product representatives for domestic products and males are overrepresented as representatives for non-domestic products. Briefly speaking, these studies show that in the advertisements, women are more inclined to the jobs and titles of housewives while men are more likely to domain in the working field. Moreover, an interesting point has been found out in several of the researches, i.e., in the advertisements, the voice of the spokesmen/spokeswomen can affect the acceptance of the products, which also reflects gender stereotypes. Peirce and McBride (1999) stated that in the commercial advertisements they have studied, more males are used as spokes-characters, and more male spokes-characters are remembered than the female spokes-characters. Media, especially the commercial advertisements of promotional campaigns, do have some strong influence on the construction and cultivation of gender stereotypes, because it helps to reinforce the different roles of man and women in the society and it repeats and retells every day through various channels such as newspapers, radio, bulletin board and TV. In those ads, men are strong and powerful, and they are supposed to save the world, while women are weak and sentimental, and they are set to worship their male heroes. Men should be working outside whilst women should clean the house. Although it is hard to tell whether ads have been affected by the culture or vice versa, it is true that advertisement, as a part of culture itself, do make a difference in constructing gender stereotypes. In fact, gender stereotypes that outstand in the advertisements are not rare. For example, the Mercedes-Benz S Class 8 airbags advertisements. In that advertisement, a woman showing only her breast was being copied four times so that it made eight breasts in one dimension, which compared the breasts as the airbags to symbolise safety and reliability. It is true, to some extent, that this ad is creative enough to stimulate the male audience and to call on their emotional appeals which can turn into actions of buying in the end, but it also used female image, or sexual image specifically, to persuade their targets. As said by Diane Barthel (1988), the beauty rolethe importance of appearing attractive in public, of maintaining standards, of encouraging male attentionbecomes a central preoccupation for girls and mains a concern for women for much of their lives, if not all their lives. Another typical status quo that represents gender stereotypes in the advertising campaigns can be found in one of the channels from Chinese Central Television, namely CCTV5, which is focused on sports news. And it has been years since this channel only broadcast advertisements on mens sports wear, suits, wines, luxury watches and cars. In that channel, ads are made for the males to notice and watch, as are sports programs. If a female audience is watching this channel, she might get a confusing impression that she is not supposed to watch it. Men are born to be sport-oriented, and women are too weak to do intensive exercises. This is blatantly shown in the advertisements that the companies do not even bother to take their female customers into account when it comes to the field of sports and sports competitions. As a matter of fact, this phenomenon has already been studied and by some researchers, and they come up with the conclusion that advertisers made no attempt to appeal female sports market as a separate segments. (Shani, Sandler, and Long, 1992 ) Based on the researches and the examples listed above, it is likely to draw a conclusion that gender role portrayals in ads has been and is still going to be stereotypical for a long period of time(Ivy Backlund, 1994 , as cited by Brasted, M 2010). There might be some new ads showing that females are gaining their own power and are stronger than they used to be, but the mainstream of the promotional campaigns in the market nowadays are still emphasising on the different roles that man and women plays respectively, or on the point that women should stay home and maintaining attractive to men. However, one thing people can not deny is that, the ads producers get their ideas and thoughts from the cultures they have long been lived in, which in return affect the culture itself by influencing the audience who grow up there as well. People can not avoid from the gender stereotype thoroughly because it roots in their lives, but people do can avoid imposing on it by realising the potential effect it will have on them.

Martians Go Home! :: essays research papers

Martians Go Home ! ... but take me with you ! (dissahc) undefined More... [Close] [Close] undefined SHORT LIST OF MARTIAN CHARACTERS IN THE STAGE WORLD (Venusians, Pans, Lizards and others also included) by Josh Nevada Below you see a list of Martian characters in the "Stage World". Martians : Martians in politics and power U.S. Government - Executive Branch Dick Cheney (U.S. Vice-President, former Secretary of Defense) Al Gore (U.S. Vice-President, 1992-2000) Warren Christopher (U.S. Secretary of State, 1993-1996) William Cohen (U.S. Secretary of Defense, Clinton Administration) Henry Kissinger (U.S. Secretary of State, Nixon Administration) Anthony Lake (U.S. national security advisor, 1993-1996) Richard Holbrooke (U.S. Representative to the U.N.) Frank Keating (Governor of Oklahoma) Andy Marshall (Pentagon's military advisor - Office of Net Assessment) A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard (Executive Director of CIA - CIA's No. 3) Robert Zoellick (U.S. Trade Representative) U.S. Senate Craig Thomas (U.S. Senator; R-Wyoming) Jim Inhofe (U.S. Senator; R-Oklahoma) Richard Shelby (U.S. Senator; R-Alabama) John Glenn (former U.S. Senator; astronaut) Learn more about their Committees assignments U.S. House of Representatives Edward R. Royce (U.S. Representative, R-California) Howard "Buck" McKeon (U.S. Representative, R-California) Lois Capps (U.S. Representative; D-California) Tom Lantos (U.S. Representative; D-California) Jim Leach (U.S. Representative; R-Iowa) Jerry Moran (U.S. Representative; R-Kansas) Anne Northup (U.S. Representative; R-Kentucky) Jo Ann Emerson (U.S. Representative; R-Missouri) Kenny Hulshof (U.S. Representative; R-Missouri) Michael R. McNulty (U.S. Representative; D-New York) Curt Weldon (U.S. Representative; R-Pennsylvania) John Thune (U.S. Representative; R-South Dakota) John J. Duncan, Jr. (U.S. Representative; R-Tennessee) William Jenkins (U.S. Representative; R-Tennessee) Tom Petri (U.S. Representative; R-Wisconsin) Learn more about their Committees assignments U.S. - Businessmen Michael Bloomberg (businessman, owner of the Bloomberg conglomerate) Steve Ballmer (CEO, Microsoft) British politicians Tony Blair (UK Prime Minister) Robin Cook (UK Foreign Secretary) Martin McGuinness (Northern Ireland's Education Minister, ex-IRA) Other countries Vladimir Putin (Russian Prime Minister) Gerhard Schroder (German Prime Minister) The Pope John Paul II Yukio Hatoyama (head of Japan's Democratic Party) Hugo Chavez (the President of Venezuela) Leonid Kuchma (the President of Ukraine) Martians in Hollywood (Who said Martians don't combine with entertainment ?) Mel Gibson Tom Hanks Meg Ryan Antonio Banderas Jean Claude Van Damme Ed Harris Michael Keaton Bill Paxton Gary Sinise Brendan Fraser (from "The Mummy", "Blast from the past") Goldie Hawn Eric Stoltz (from "Memphis Belle") Tom Hulce (protagonist of "Amadeus") Milla Jovovich (protagonist of "The Fifth Element") Natassja Kinski Catherine-Zeta Jones Uma Thurman Annete Benning Christopher Walken Denzel Washington Donald Sutherland Pat Morita (Miyagi, the Japanese master in "Karate Kid") Roger Moore Hutger Hauer (from "Blade Runner, "Crossworlds") Eric Idle (from British comedy group "Monty Phyton", now on Sony's TV show "Suddenly Susan") Malcom McDowell (from "Clockwork Orange", "Cat People") Ray Walston (Uncle Martin in the classic TV show "My Favorite Martian") James Stewart (protagonist of several Hitchcock movies)

Does The Void Exist Essay -- essays research papers

Does the void exist? One of the main controversies in Pre-socratic philosophy is the dispute of the existence or non-existence of the void. Two groups of philosophers argue this idea. The first group, namely Parmenides, argues that the void does not exist. This is the opinion of the Monist philosophers. The other group is the atomists who argue this thesis and believe there is a void. This group is primarily represented by the philosophers, Democritus and Leucippus. Parmenides argues against the existence of the void. The plenum fragment states his opinion quite clearly: "Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike; nor is there more here and less there, which would prevent it from holding together, but it is full of what is. So it is all continuous, for what is clings close to what is." This shows the idea, that if there would be a void or an empty space then "what is" would move into it. Hence, there is no void. Because "what is" fills up this space completely. "Since it is all alike" volume or density is continuous everywhere. Since it is not divisible there is no void between "what is". Also "what is" itself has no void in it. If there were void or space in one object, compared to a more denser object these particles would not "...

Particle Kinetics of Biological Aerosols During Impaction Essay

At the beginning of the 20th century, the study of aerosols, suspensions of solid or liquid particles in a gas, were the forefront of physical science because they represented the smallest observable division of matter. In fact, aerosols contributed to the early understanding of Brownian motion and diffusion, Millikan's measurement of electron charge, and Wilson's cloud chamber experiment for the study of ionizing radiation. During the first half of the century, aerosol research continued, and grew important after World War II and especially during the 1970s and 1980s, during which environmental awareness and a concern for health effects arising from air pollution in community and occupational environments, promoting the development of aerosol technology. The field expanded rapidly in the 1980s, including the involvement of aerosols in high technology production processes and a concern for aerosol contamination. The decade of the 1990s has seen increased research on the properties of ultra fine particles and on the effect of aerosols on global climate. Now, aerosol technology has become an important toll in understanding the effect we have on our environment and the impact of the environment on us. After all, there are multiple aerosols in our own surroundings, such as re-suspended soil particles, smoke from power generation, photochemically formed particles, salt particles created from ocean spray, and the water droplets or ice particles that form clouds, and include a wide range of phenomena such as fume, dust, smoke. Every aerosol varies in their ability to affect visibility as well as our health and quality of life, and understanding the properties of aerosols would enable us to comprehend so many natural processes, such as cl... ...DRUMs like the one displayed below, coating the surface with the sticky covering of your choice, and using a motor to rotate the DRUM, as the particles are drawn in by the vacuum, they are deposited onto the plate, and the plate rotates continuously, preventing the build-up of particles in one area. The dynamics of particle deposition on the circular DRUM are essentially the same as that of the impactor plate, because the width of the nozzle is so tiny compared to the surface area of the curved DRUM, that, despite the curve, in relation to the nozzle, the DRUM is essentially a flat surface. References * Reist, Parker C. Aerosol Science & Technology: Second Edition. New York: Macmillan, Inc, 1984. * Hinds, William C. Aerosol Technology: Properties, Behavior, & Measurement of Airborne Particles, Second Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1999.

The Discovery of DNA

It is amazing how important things are being discovered by persons who spend most of their lives dedicated to research. It is perhaps more amazing how a scientist discovers one thing while trying to discover other things. Imagine if no one was patient enough to conduct experiments to prove their assumptions. If that was the case, we would not know today that DNA is the genetic material. This paper will discuss how DNA was discovered, its structure and the scientists who contributed to the discovery.Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is considered as the molecular blueprint of life that can be passed to the next generation. It was discovered in 1953 (University of Georgia, 2007) from experiments seeking to understand bacterial pneumonia which claimed many lives during the twentieth century. During these experiments, researchers stumbled into discoveries which later on became the reagents for further experiments leading to the discovery of DNA as the genetic material (O’Connor, 2008).D NA looks like a twisted ladder wherein rungs are secured by two out of four molecules that are interlocking. These molecules are nucleic acid bases. The four molecules include thymine, adenine, cytosine, and guanine (University of Georgia, 2007). Certain scientists have been notable for conducting experiments leading to the discovery of DNA. One of these was Oswald Avery whose team was trying to find out how to treat lobular pneumonia. From his experiments, he proved that DNA indeed carries genetic information.During that time, many people believed that the gene would be made up of protein and not nucleic acid (WGBH, 1998). Another scientist which contributed to DNA discovery was Frederick Griffith who, in 1928, conducted an experiment utilizing pneumonia bacteria and mice. Recent studies pointed that Griffith’s experiment was one of many others hinting that DNA was the hereditary material. Griffith assumed from his experiment, wherein he used a smooth (S) and rough (R) strai ns of Streptococcus pneumoniae on a mice, that polysaccharide coating was the cause of the illness to the mice.Further into his experiment, he found out that something in the living cell, and not the polysaccharides, caused the disease. Later on he speculated that the R strain bacteria he injected into the mice has absorbed the dead S strain bacteria’s genetic material. Furthermore, he speculated that the protein contained in the chromosomes was not the genetic bacteria due to the finding that heat denatures protein (Biology at Clermont College, n. d. ). At first, Avery was skeptical of the results of Griffith’s experiment. However, other researchers further studied Griffith’s findings.In 1931, Sia and Dawson found out that transformation, a process wherein one strain absorbs the genetic material of another strain and becomes that bacterium, could also take place in liquid cultures of pneumococci and mice. In 1948, Linus Pauling found out that proteins are shape d in alpha helix, which looks like a spring coil. Another significant discovery took place two years later, when Erwin Chargaff discovered an important foundation of the description of DNA: nitrogen bases in DNA varied, but some bases occur in one-to-one ratio.Pauling’s findings have further aroused interest into two researchers, namely: Francis Crick and James Watson. They were not the only ones interested in studying DNA. Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin from London were also studying DNA. Franklin discovered the possibility that DNA can occur in two forms. It depends on the humidity of the air. Franklin figured out that the molecule’s phosphate was located on the outside. Watson and Crick, determined to redeem their studies after a failed model, conceptualized that there are two chains of nucleotides in the molecule.These two chains were in a helix, as what Franklin has discovered, but one chain was moving to the opposite direction of another. Furthermore, they believed that the strands of DNA molecule served as the template for the other. The strands separate during cell division. In addition, a new half is built on each strand. The team found out that this was the way DNA reproduces without change in its structure (WGBH, 1998). The discovery of DNA was considered as the most important biological work and it has paved the way for further experiments and studies. Crick and Watson won the Nobel Prize for their findings. References Biology at Clermont College. (n.d). DNA structure and function. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio104/dna.htm O’Connor, C. (2008). Discovery of DNA as the hereditary material using Streptococcus pneumoniae. Nature Education, 1(1). University of Georgia. (2007). Study suggests how DNA building block might have formed. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://www.world-science.net/othernews/071102_adenine.htm WGBH. (1998). Watson and Crick describe structure of DNA. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53dn.html

Toilet Facilities in All Schools

Toilet Facilities in All Schools ——————————————————————————– Toilet Facilities in All Schools Encourage and contribute to developing the necessary partnership between the state of Maharashtra and the Government of India’s programmes to establish toilet facilities in all schools. The Indian government has launched a focused campaign to increase the households in the country that have toilets by 2010. Additionally, we will target the urgent need for separate toilets for boys and girls, together with a hand-washing facility in every school in Maharashtra. Name: Toilet Facilities in all Schools Status: Theme: Region and Country: Maharashtra, India Partners: Beneficiaries: Funding Need: Budget: Duration: Contact: Programme Activities: Each year two million children die from diarrhoeal diseases, making it the second most serious killer of children under the age of five. The main source of diarrhoeal infection is human excreta. It seems clear therefore, that human excreta should be managed as a potentially dangerous material. The construction of latrines is a relatively simple technology that may be used to control the spread of infectious diseases. Studies have shown that latrine coverage has to reach 90% of a population to have an impact on community health. In Maharashtra, 85% of rural households and 54% of all households have no access at all to a toilet facility. While the Indian government is making great strides in the availability of toilets, this programme looks to increase advocacy and education necessary to convince people to use the toilets, and to create separate male and female toilets in schools together with hand-washing facilities. It is important to gain political support and government commitment to the programme. A mix of mass media and interpersonal communication is the best way to deliver the key programme messages. Demonstration sites for the selected technologies are important, as is the training of local people in operation and maintenance methods. It is also necessary to provide reasonable funding options and incentives to make the technology affordable. Intended Results: Latrine facilities, separate for boys and girls, with a hand-washing facility will be established in all schools. A latrine promotion programme will teach students and the local people about why and how to use the latrines through community involvement, radio messages, and other social marketing strategies. The construction of this latrine system in schools will be used to control the spread of infectious diseases, and promote toilet usage at a young age to school children to convey proper usage and knowledge at home. Programme Management and Implementation: This programme has numerous phases of implementation. Background Data: The first step is to become familiar with the local area and school systems. The acceptance of latrines varies from culture to culture and it is important to understand where the areas of potential resistance lie so as to direct promotion efforts efficiently. Conducting interviews can help to determine users likes and dislikes as well as identify current hygiene practices. This information is essential to the planning of a sanitation promotion program that will match the customs and attitudes of the users. Planning Phase: The information gathered during the background study of the local people can be used to plan a custom tailored sanitation promotion program. The initial lanning phase should consist of selection of the key messages to be promoted and a matching appropriate technology. The key messages need to be based on existing ideas, because it is much harder to introduce radical or rapid changes in a population. The core ideas should be kept simple and to the point. It is easiest for people to grasp a few straightforward ideas, rather than a long list of suggested improvements. The type of latrine selected should be low-cost, appropriate for the geographic area, and match with existing customs of anal cleaning and defecation habits as much as possible. Once the key messages and technology have been selected a marketing approach must be developed. Recent efforts in promotion programs related to socio-cultural issues have focused on social marketing techniques. Social marketing uses the approaches of economics to advance social change. Social marketing advocates a demand driven approach to sanitation. Therefore, a successful sanitation program needs to create a demand for latrines. This is accomplished by offering affordable technology, but also by increasing the social desirability of latrines. Studies have shown that the reasons people want latrines are less for health concerns than for social status, privacy, comfort and convenience (WHO, 2000). It should therefore, be the goal of any sanitation program to foster these feelings to increase the social demand for latrines. Since social status is one of the driving factors in latrine demand, it is important to recruit prominent people and community leaders to the cause of sanitation. Sanitation promotion by these leaders will increase the acceptability of latrines (Ikin, 1994). While the role of community leaders may be important, so is the participation of the average community member. Community based efforts have been shown to be more effective than external intervention (WHO, 2000). The marketing approach must select key populations within the community to act as agents of change and use appropriate channels of communication to reach the target audience. Implementation: Implementing a latrine promotion program requires outreach and education of the masses, as well as, cost reduction strategies. It is also important to consider the interactions of any institutions involved in the project schools, government, and construction company) and the issue of sustainability. The most effective method of outreach is person-to-person visits (UNICEF, 2002). These visits are used to share hygiene and technical information, as well as encourage sanitary behaviour changes. Other methods, such as radio and television programming, discussion groups, and school curriculum' s, may be incorporated depending on the community reception of these types of media. Radio or television programming has worked well in areas with high coverage by these media. Broadcast programming is most effective when done in the native language. Discussion groups are a good way to encourage community participation in the project. They may also be a way to disperse technical information to a large population through demonstration sites. Introducing hygiene curriculum in the local schools works well in areas of high school attendance and reliable school systems. Children can act as powerful agents of change when they practice proper hygienic behaviours in the classroom and then bring these behaviours home with them (UNICEF, 2002). It is also hoped that children will retain these positive traits into adulthood. A significant factor to consider in any sanitation program is the cost to the new technology. High cost is the number one deterrent for the spread of latrine construction (Cotton, 1998). It is important to select low-cost technologies for sanitation projects in the developing world. Many sanitation promotion programs rely on the support of both the local government and NGO. Whenever there are multiple institutions working together on a project it is important to have a clear structure of goals and methods of implementation. Care must be taken not to duplicate efforts or damage the working relationship between the partner institutions. Where large institutions are involved it is helpful to establish community contacts to ensure effective communication from the field to the institute headquarters. Although the introduction of improved sanitation services may be difficult, ensuring the sustainability of these services may be even more so. The most important step towards sustainability is the involvement of the community from the start of the project. People, students, and the school must learn to take ownership and pride in their latrines. Social marketing strategies can aid in the increased acceptance and demand for latrines. School programming is also an important step towards educating the future of sanitary behaviour. Another tactic is to train local artisans to construct and maintain latrines. These artisans may build small businesses to market their skills, thus increasing the economy drive behind latrine use. Above all the program must be adaptable and flexible enough to change with the needs and demands of the people being served. Programme Monitoring and Evaluation: Programme monitoring and evaluation will occur to oversee the instalment of toilets in schools, how many children are using the toilets, and possible reasons for not using the toilets. Community attitudes will also be monitored and surveys will be conducted to see if toilet usage increases in surrounding school communities. Learning and Dissemination: Related Resources: Sanitation and hygiene promotion programs started in India in the 1980s with the support of UNICEF. The initial emphasis was on technical solutions, specifically the promotion of twin-pit pour-flush latrines. The government and UNICEF advocated the construction of these latrines as the national standard for cost-effective sanitation. However, the idea was never widely accepted and latrine coverage in rural areas remained less than 10 percent. The cost of latrine construction was considered too high and people saw little motivation for use. Between 1986-1987, UNICEF performed several micro-field studies to determine alternative methods to sanitation promotion. The results indicated that the lack of community involvement was detrimentally to the program. The studies also revealed several reasons behind people’s reluctance to use the new latrines. People avoided latrine use for fear of breaking it, or because they believed it more sanitary to defecate in the fields away from the house, or because they preferred to use the latrine as a storage facility. The high cost of the twin-pit pour-flush toilets was also often beyond the means of many poor communities. The results of these studies lead to a new approach in sanitation promotion in India in the 1990s. The new emphasis was on lower-cost latrines and sanitary behaviour changes. A community-based approach was used to promote behaviour change. Efforts were made to increase household visits, school programming and considerations for gender issues. Sanitation issues were linked with other health concerns in an attempt to increase motivation for latrine usage. A program evaluation in the mid 1990s indicated that person-to-person visited could be highly effective, but that 3-4 visits were required for every latrine installed. The labour costs associated with this method of promotion are therefore quite high. School programs were developed to teach children hygienic behaviours, including the use of a latrine. The hope is that the children will than bring these behaviours home with them, thereby acting as agents of change in their communities. The new promotion plan also stressed the role of women in sanitation and household hygiene management. Lack of proper sanitation facilities has traditionally been more detrimental to women than to men. Due to the lack of privacy, many women may wait until nightfall to relieve themselves, leading to serious health problems and kidney failure. The lack of sanitation facilities has also been a barrier to girls attending school. The restructuring of the sanitation promotion program has attempted to address these issues by including women in health discussions and the operation and maintenance of the new latrines. The key to sanitation promotion in India has been balancing the technical and social aspects of sanitation services. Since the introduction of community based promotion methods, rural India has seen sanitation coverage increase from nearly zero to 14% while total sanitation coverage increased to 31%. Community involvement and self-financing methods lead to the construction of more than 350,000 latrines in one county alone. An impact evaluation in 1999 showed consistently better excreta disposal practices in communities participating in the promotion programs. The study indicated that future sanitation promotion efforts should focus on social marketing techniques and community management of latrines.

Review of Universal History of Infamy Essay

The word ‘Magical realism’ first introduced by Franz Roh, a German art critic, conjures up images of the fantastic and the profane in the minds of the reader transporting him into a world whose edges are as blurred as the characters or the situations the stories portray. The works of Jorge Luis Borges are characterised by this style of literature. Though ‘Magical realism’ is not considered a genre by itself, it has all the makings of one and is profoundly illustrated in all the works of Borges. David Mullan in his article Magic Realism: A Problem says ‘†¦. Angel Flores applied the term (with some modification – he referred to it as â€Å"magical realism†) to Spanish-American writing. Flores put forward Borges as the master of this form†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. ’ ‘In his first series of fiction Historia Universal de la Infamia (‘A Universal History of Infamy’) he took real and mythical characters and created new stories around them. Sometimes creating new events for fictional characters, at other times creating fantastic incidents involving real life characters. In these stories, again published in newspapers, it can be said he laid the foundations for Latin American Magical Realism’ (BBC, 2003). 2. 0 Overview This article attempts to show how Borges rewrites/reconstructs history/historical figures that are seen as infamous legendary figures in the book ‘The Universal History of Infamy. ’ An attempt has been made to identify history, lie and legend lacing the characters and events presented in the stories. The link between Oscar Wilde`s essay, `The Decay of Lying` and Borges book has been brought out. Other works by Borges such as ‘The Ficciones’ ,`The secret miracle`, and `The South` have also been used for the purpose of this discussion. 3. 0 Literature Review: ‘A Universal History of Infamy’ is a collection of stories that first appeared in Critica, a Buenos Aires newspaper, August 1933 to January 1934. The remarkable element which flows through this collection is violence and death and as with many other stories of Borges, contains the occasional twist as the story unfolds. For the purpose of this article the stories ‘The South’ and the Secret Miracle’ of Borges have also been taken into consideration. Before we venture further given below a summary of the above said stories so that we will be able to appreciate Borges better as well as render justice to the topic for discussion. In ‘The South’, Juan Dahlmann, the protagonist, while taking a copy of the Arabian Nights home, gets injured on his forehead on a window and is forced to be in bed for a number of days before his doctors move him to the hospital. In the words of Borges, ‘Fever wasted him and the pictures in The Thousand and One Nights served to illustrate nightmares. ’ Learning that he is dying of septicemia, he travels to his ranch to convalesce. Reaching his destination, he enters a restaurant to have his food before proceeding. The locals at the restaurant taunt him by throwing bread crumbs at him and challenge him to a duel, one even providing him with a knife. Though Dahlmann is aware that he would lose if he were to accept the challenge, he feels that that would be the death he would prefer. In the words of Gorges, ‘As he crossed the threshold, he felt that to die in a knife fight, under the open sky, and going forward to the attack, would have been a liberation, a joy, and a festive occasion, on the first night in the sanitarium, when they stuck him with the needle. He felt that if he had been able to choose, then, or to dream his death, this would have been the death he would have chosen or dreamt. ’ In the â€Å"The Secret Miracle† the protagonist is Jaromir Hladik, who is arrested for the two reasons: i) being a Jew and ii) for opposing the Anschluss, and consequently sentenced to die by firing squad. Borges says,’ The execution was set for the 29th of March, at nine in the morning. This delay was due to a desire on the part of the authorities to act slowly and impersonally, in the manner of planets or vegetables. ’ Though appalled at first by the fact of his inevitable and impending death Hladik turns his attention to his unfinished play, ‘The Enemies’ which he resolves to complete before his execution. The night before his death, Hladik prays to God to grant him one year to finish his play. At night he dreams of a voice that says: ‘The time for your labor has been granted. ’ The next day at the moment the sergeant gives order to the firing squad, time stops and Hladik, though motionless like all others, completes the play mentally and after he completes, the bullets from the firing squad end his life. Borges works seem to defy the proposition of Wilde that, ‘One of the chief causes that can be assigned for the curiously commonplace character of most of the literature of our age is undoubtedly the decay of Lying as an art, a science, and a social pleasure. The ancient historians gave us delightful fiction in the form of fact; the modern novelist presents us with dull facts under the guise of fiction. ’ (David Scott-Okamura, 1998) It is not hard to see that Borges created fantastic worlds out of legends , humanizing them and making them more real as if made of flesh and blood as the examples quoted in this write-up would show which is in line with Wilde’s observation : ‘The only real people are the people who never existed, and if a novelist is base enough to go to life for his personages he should at least pretend that they are creations and not boast of them as copies. The justification of a character in a novel is not that other persons are what they are, but that the author is what he is’. (David Scott-Okamura, 1998). Wilde is right when to emphasize his theory that fiction is more interesting than fact, he says, ‘In fact what is interesting about people in good society†¦ is the mask each one of them wears, not the reality that lies behind the mask. ’ Borges’ portrayal of the character in his stories adds credence to this observation.

Marketing Environmental Analysis

PEST, SWOT and Porter’s five forces analysis are three very useful tools for both identifying the threats and opportunities in general and competitive environment and setting up company’s marketing strategy. What are PEST, SWOT and Porter’s five forces and their usefulness. PEST is an acronym for political, economic, social and technologic. 1. The political area has huge impact on the operation of the firms(e. g. tax, business law, political stability) 2. The economic condition can also directly influence the general performance of the company(e. g. conomy depression, interest rate, exchange rate, inflation rate) 3. As for social factors, by fundamentally determining the target market, it can also be essential for the success or failure of strategies. (e. g. religion, culture, demographic issue) 4. Finally, the technological factors are becoming the majority for mostly organization, which can increasing the benefit as well as decreasing the time and cost. (e. g. the pace of technologies change, incentive of technology) Usually prior to competing SWOT, PEST helps to spot the four elements for better understanding the macroenvironment faced by firms. After analyzing the four factors, it is important for company to identify the key drivers for change, thus focus on that to shape its strategies. Meanwhile, by scanning the general environment, co. can therefore also detect weak signals that make the discontinuity of the environment, which may fundamentally change the competitive environment (Johnson et al, 2011). Ginter and Duncan (1990) argue that macro-environment analysis can act as an early-warning system by giving org. time to anticipate opportunities and threats and develop appropriate response. SWOT is structured planned method used to evaluated strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. By using matching and converting, company can either find or develop their competitive advantages. Matching is used to find competitive advantages by matching the strengths to opportunities. Converting is to apply conversion strategies to convert weaknesses or threats into strengths or opportunities. Porter's five forces analysis is a framework for industry analysis and business strategy development formed by Michael E. Porter at 1979. More precise than PEST, it helps the industrial organization to illustrate the competition intensity in competitive environment (microenvironment) thus decide the attractiveness of specific market. Combining three analysis In corporate strategies level, all three of them can be used to audit the marketing environment in order to get a systematic, critical and unbiased appraisal of its operation. (where is the co. now, where does the co. want to go and how should the co. rganize its resources to get there) In business strategy level, it also important that because of the increasingly rate of change in market environment, three of the analysis need to achieve contingent approach to shape the strategies to avoid overcome by competitors. Example: PEST e. g. construction firm: operating on narrow profit margin, react to change I interest rate. Johnson &Johnson: baby-care product, react to change in birth rate, thus change the target market to adult female(being kind and gentle to woman’s skin as well as that of babies) SWOT A consultancy firm S: Reputation, expertise W: Unable to deal with multi-disciplinary assignments because of size or lack of ability O: Well established position with a well defined market niche T: Other small consultancies looking to invade the marketplace Five forces Coca-cola: Present a detailed analysis of the various positioning strategies that may be pursued by a firm (20 marks). What are the keys to successful positioning (30 marks)? 1. Positioning is to shape the org. o suits the preferences of customers and lead to high consumer loyalty thus building a powerful brand. 2. Market mix, perceptual map 3. There are two levels of positioning strategies: a. Business level strategies (Brand positioning) Business level strategies are positioning the org. among other org. It is market oriented and can be either market-wide or directed at a particular market (niche approach). b. Generic business strategies (Porter)— (competitive advantages) 4. Key to successful market positioning a. A well-positioned brand should appeal to the particular needs of a customer segment because a differential advantage proposition is created. b. There are four key dimensions for a successful positioning: Clarity, Consistency (Favorability), Competitiveness (differentiation), Credibility (Explain†¦.. ) c. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of brand-positioning strategies, there are three components we need to consider: intended position, actually position and perceived position. Perceived position is the most important, which will lead to the above-normal performance of the corporate. According to research, benefit positioning and user position is more effective than feature positioning and direct benefit positioning is more effective than indirect benefit positioning (Fuchs et al, 2009). d. To keep the brand equity, repositioning is very important. We need to realize that positioning is a ongoing process. Competitive advantage is positioning of a single offering in relation to a unique set of potential customers and competitors. For an organization to achieve consistently above-normal market performance, it must create a sustainable competitive advantage (Aaker, 1989). The logic of SCA is that a buyer to purchase offering X, the buyer must perceive the expected utility to him of that offering exceeds the value to him of any alternative solution, that is it must create superior value for its customers. The basis of competitive advantage is increasing the benefit receive by the customers or decreasing the cost. Which lead to different strategic focus on either low cost or differentiation (additional product benefits). So competitive advantages can be porter’s generic strategies or market orientation. (explain†¦. )

Financial Management at Marks and Spencer Case Study

Financial Management at Marks and Spencer - Case Study Example Marks and Spencer have achieved great success in the last three years and now it is in the progress focusing on core business and aiming at becoming more customer oriented and flexible business offering a wide selection of quality goods. The financial performance of Marks and Spencer during 2008 was extremely pleasing for the stakeholders. The total revenue has been increased by 5.1 % with highly strong performance in its domestic trade. But the total revenue was increased by 10.1 % in 2007 with high performance in both its home and international business. It is reported that during 2008, 4.8% of space on the weighted average method has been added to the general merchandise. Both Gross Margin of 38.9% and Net Margin of 12.2% show better performance than its last year's financial state. During 2007 profitability has been increased to 11.2% from 9.6% and 7.4% of 2006 and 2005 profitability records respectively. It shows the success achieved by Marks and Spencer in its business operation both in domestic and international trade. Marks and Spencer's UK retail has been accounted to be '8,309.1m during 2008, but it was '7,975.5 m and '7,275 in 2007 and 2006 respectively. The international retail trade of M&S was '522.7 min 2006 and '610.6 in 2007, and the international trade in 2008 has been increased further and accounted to be '712.9m. Group operating profit has also been constantly increasing for the last few years. Group operating profit of its UK retail business has been accounted to be '972.9m in 2008 with a slight increase from the figure of '956.5 min 2007. Group operating profit of its international trade has been accounted to be '116.4m in 2008 with an increase of '28.9 m from 2007's figure of '87.5m. In short, both domestic and international trades of Marks and Spencer have been constantly increasing for the last few years and getting a rather outstanding loyalty brand name among the customers. Operating profit on property disposals was '27 million but it was 1.9 million during 2007. The report also shows that the general merchandise gross margin was up by 120 basis points to 52.6% which was caused by improved buying. Net finance costs before exceptional items were increased by 4.3% after pension finance income of '58.9 million, but it was 20.8 million in 2007. Net finance cost during 2007 has been reported to be decreased to18.3% reflecting a reduction in the average net debt. Earnings per share have been increased by 28.7% to 40.4p per share that reflected as a great advantage to attract more investors than before. Cash outflow has been reported to be '917.5 million in 2008 but cash inflow during 2007 was very strong as it generated a net cash flow of ' 231.1 million in 2007. In 2007, Cash inflow from continuing operating activities had been increased by '259 million. Cash inflow from continuing operation in 2008 has been decreased by '206.6 million that has reflected a higher working capital outflow. In 2007, there was a reduction in cash outflow on leasehold repayments as compared to 2006 and hence it resulted in an increase in the working capital which was accounted to be '114.1 million.  

PHIL 102 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

PHIL 102 - Essay Example Ethics is taught by use of scenarios with less or no practical value. When learning, an example is given where people are stuck in a boat and they have to eat one person to survive. This is not a practical situation, but is still used to teach ethics and the formulated principles rarely apply in different contexts. This theme helps in showing ways of evaluating actions in a particular circumstance. The theme of life is also highlighted in ethics where it is viewed as a standard of value found in objectivist ethics. It involves use of different views to explain concepts of life and the correct ways of living. It is necessary to have better and integrated views about life to help us live ethically with other people. When contrasting and comparing the views in life, standards of comparison should be set clearly. Normally, life entails more than what meets the eye. Transition is also an important theme in ethics, which tries to show how various behaviors are automated. It also highlights what is involved in changing to a new set of ethics, and the process of identifying if the new ethics are practical. It is not easy to practice an ethical theory and values along with moral premises need to be examined to march rational judgment of the right thing. With time, people change the way in which they view some mannerisms, and whether they are wrong or right. Transition leads to change in perception, which is necessary for every person or community to embrace. Value is a key theme in ethics and it defines what an individual aims at getting after applying ethics. It can be physical; maybe money or belongings, and it can be intangible, maybe physical fitness, pleasure, romance, or friendship. Ethics involves making choices on possible outcomes of choosing values and goals. Value judgment used in determining if an action or occurrence is right or wrong, which

Poor money management amongst americans Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Poor money management amongst americans - Essay Example Money management is also significant in assessing the possible impacts of engaging in risk taking, especially where there are uncertainties. An individual draws a plan indicating the amount of money that he/she can risk to satisfy the needs and also remain on the safer side (Belk et al 2003). For the people trading in stocks and gambling amongst other businesses with high risk, money management is usually a significant tool to form the basis of decision making. It helps a person to be in control of his/her income and expenditures, whereby the expenditures are maintained at minimum levels compared to the income. Budgeting is one of the major tools for money management. It is important in giving guidelines for purchasing decisions. This paper is a critical evaluation of poor money management amongst the Americans. The reasons why Americans are so affected by the economy and what they can do to manage their finances better have been discussed. One of the aspects of poor money management is usually exhibited in the problems with personal debts. It happens that house holds have access to debts on their credit cards which they are free to use at any time when need arises. This can be a very helpful possession especially in case of eventualities that require money since an individual can settle family needs without much struggling to acquire finances. However, it becomes a problem when not effectively used. It has been established through studies that many Americans use credit cards without consideration of the fact that they accumulate debts which will have to be repaid at the end of the month (Evans et al 2006). Simple loans and overdrafts to satisfy personal needs are also a major contributor to the amount of debt that needs to be settled at the end of the month. When this time comes, the salary received is used to reinstate the debts owing, which leaves a person with little money to

Sex Tourism on the Kenyan Coast Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Sex Tourism on the Kenyan Coast - Essay Example The researches carried out on Sex Tourism makes us familiar with the roles of both sexes as sex workers and the tourists. Homosexuality which still has not been widely accepted in majority of the countries also is a part of it. We are also briefed about the rise of various products which is mainly due to sex tourism and also the various parts of the world where this practice is very active namely the events performed by the gays’ in places like San Francisco in the USA and in Sydney which is in Australia. The various aspects of human nature are also dealt with. The dark sides of our society like Child Prostitution, homo sexuality, and sexual exploitation of slaves as well as concepts like mail order brides are the most common subjects which are brought to the fore through the surveys carried out. The concept of sex tourism has been a matter of great interest and as a result more improved kind of surveys has been thought of to make us more familiar with this curse that is sprea ding at a rapid pace in the whole World. The modern authors have promoted new models to exploit the spread of sex tourism. Researches carried out on sex tourism and their results serve as a very good guideline for those who are in a way related with this issue such as the people who work in the tourism sector, students who are engaged in studies related to gender as well as the society. It also serves as a great medium for those who are involved in studies related to Woman. (Ryan, and Michael, 2001)

Porter's Five forces model goes some way towards guiding managers how Essay

Porter's Five forces model goes some way towards guiding managers how to make capacity decisions under uncertain demand. Howev - Essay Example Porter’s Five Forces model, a strategic analysis tool, allows organisational leadership to examine consumer and supplier characteristics, market trends, and competitive activity to determine what market-related factors maintain the most probable characteristics to disrupt or otherwise impede strategic advancement. The PESTEL/SWOT template of evaluation allows a firm to examine its internal strengths and weaknesses, based on the tangible characteristics of the external market, including political, economic, and social forces relevant to the strategic plan and new business direction. An organisation cannot determine capacity without first understanding what dynamics of the internal and external market environment will demand either flexibility in operations or create some degree of resistance toward meeting a specific strategic goal. This report utilises data uncovered using Porter’s Five Forces model and PESTEL/SWOT to determine how a solar panel manufacturing company ca n assess new strategic commitments and ensure the organisation is aligned with market conditions to achieve profit success with key target markets. 2. Porter’s Five Forces Analysis There are five forces that influence or shape competition that include competitive rivalry, threat of new market entrants, the degree of substitute products on the market, as well as both supplier and consumer buying power on the market (Porter 2011). A solar panel manufacturing plant, in order to achieve a new strategic goal or market positioning strategy, must be concerned with establishment of a partnered and adaptive supply chain network (as one example) in order to achieve maximum business outputs. In this scenario, the plant management must examine whether the existing supply network is sufficient for adaptability to meet just-in-time demands (in a lean environment) or whether the supply partners are able to reduce their switching costs to defect to other high-profit-building buyers in the sa me industry. The framework of the Five Forces Analysis is to give the business a strategic snapshot of current, external market conditions so as to translate such findings into internal operational restructuring or human capital development (as two examples) necessary to achieve strategic results. Bennet and Rundle-Thiele (2004) remind the business world that the nature of today’s markets make it easy for competition to replicate existing products and services. The only feature of a business that cannot be replicated is the firm’s brand image (Nandan 2005; Bennet and Rundle-Thiele 2004). In the solar panel industry, products are largely homogenized, meaning that they have similar features, benefits, pricing and function that are easily replicated by competitors maintaining strong capital resources and manufacturing know-how. This is why, to this industry, the degree of competitive rivalry as well as consumer characteristics are so vital to establishing a strong competi tive edge. Porter (2011) iterates the importance of understanding the potential risks of buyer brand defection. In the solar panel industry, consumers have a great deal of buying power. This market is characterised by concentrated markets, where there are actually few buyers that maintain the majority of market share (Porter 2011). Further, solar