Catawba County, NC Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Catawba County, NC - Essay Example With regards to law and governance, Catawba County is a member of the Western Piedmont Council of Governments. The 2010 census noted that there were 154,356 people living within the county. Similarly, the 2000 census noted that 146,515 people inhabited the county; representing around a 5.1% increase in total population over a ten year period (Basso 29). As opposed to the earlier representations of the economy which have been noted, the current economy of Catawba county relies heavily upon industrial manufacturing. This has partly been born out of the fact that the transportation hub of rail and highway as it developed helped the region to become highly competitive with skilled labor and ease of access to markets along the eastern seaboard as well as the rest of the United States. As a function of a high number of skilled labor jobs, the economy of the region has fared relatively well in comparison to other less industrialized regions within the United States during the economic downtown which has been experienced (Employment and Earnings 216). One of the main bragging points that the county has is with regards to the high number of famous individuals that hail from Catawba. These include a grand total of 12 NASCAR drivers (on of these of course being Dale Jarett, a pair of actors (James Best and Matthew Settle), a litany of singers/songwriters (inclusive of a member of the Grateful Dead and Tori Amos), a beauty queen, and a host of well renowned sportsmen in almost every discipline. This wide variety of talent that the county itself has produced over the past few years helps to flavor its culture and underscore the fact that even though it could be understood as a solid core of manufacturing, mass transit, and industry, it nonetheless has a solid base of culture that it has developed and continues to export

Environmental Pressures Essay Example for Free

Environmental Pressures Essay All companies have moments of growth and decline. As companies age, change in the form of growth is brought about (Palmer, 2009, p.65). Companies look for the increases in revenue and ways to create more revenue. When money is being made growth happens, new jobs are created, expansions begin and technology is heightened. Last week Time Warner Cable announced that there will be a new CEO, as the current CEO, Glenn Britt will be retiring. The new CEO, Rob Marcus talked about the growth pressures concerning Time Warner Cable. Mr. Marcus emphasized the growth potential of selling data services to businesses, which is the fastest-growing sector of the cable industry. He also said Time Warner Cable is working to improve pricing and packaging and is hoping to retain customers by improving products like outdoor Wi-Fi. Identity Pressures Identity Pressures basically deals with the way a company brands themselves. Time Warner Cable brands themselves as a reputable and customer based oriented company. Time Warner Cable is dedicated to making their brand number one in the fields of cable, high speed data and telephony services. A commitment is given to customers to provide them with the best products and services they have to offer. Dish, satellite and ATT U-Verse attempt to compete, but when it comes to quality service, products and the commitment given to the consumers there is no better way to for the company’s identity to be missed. New Broom Pressures Time Warner Cable’s adds new members to the team that attempt to make changes bit it is not necessarily for the better. In the HR Department this past year a new VP was hired and due Environmental PressuresPage 3 to some of her background being shared before she arrived, people began looking for other jobs, all the supervisors that were in place when I was promoted a year and a half ago, have left the company in order not to work under her. There are many people that are not ready for change. Under the new VP, a lot of changes have taken place when the department all for the better of the department. Everything is a work in progress however, the  necessary changes that were needed have been implemented and work has become a great deal easier. Market Decline Pressures Time Warner and AOL were once partnered to together, it appeared that AOL was in a trend of continuous growth, however AOL began to suffer a decline in 2002 due to the pricing of broadband services being charged at $50.00 per month and consumers not wanting to pay that much for broadband services. A need for strategic changes by AOL, including partnering with cable companies and other options that move it away from overreliance on dial-up services, (Palmer, 2009). AOL eventually began providing free services there are still some customers that pay for AOL services plus the benefits they receive for using the technical department of AOL if needed. Hyper-competition Pressures Within my company, hyper-competition forced them to move quickly and audaciously to test their policies and theories. Time Warner Cable decided to change the way they did business when they branched out on their own from Time Warner Cable, Inc. Hyper-competitive can have dynamic and unpredictable environments which requires flexibility, innovation and a creative organization, which can easily adapt quickly to the changing rules of competition. Therefore, Time Warner Cable needed to change and management was pertinent to that change. What was Environmental PressuresPage 4 Challenging to management was how they would combine the need for long-term sustainability with continuous flexibility in terms of how the organization technology would change if at all. Time Warner Cable needed to develop a high degree of dynamic capabilities, which was the center of meeting the tensions of the capability and structural challenge. The organizational aspects and capabilities goes hand in hand as enabler and at the same time facilitate a successful emergent change process in hypercompetitive industries. Flexibility Flexibility can be a reason for changes in the competitive environment in an appropriate and timely way. Flexibility comes from managerial capabilities  (management challenge) and the responsiveness of the organization (organization design challenge).Flexibility requires a constructive discord between change and preservation. Strategic flexibility is an increasingly sought-after competitive element in today’s fast-paced and changing world. (Englehardt, 2002) Reputation and Credibility Pressures Time Warner Cable has pride in their reputation. A company’s reputation can be damaged at the drop of a dime. All it takes is an unsatisfied customer to speak negatively about a company or bring up a potential law suit against a company. Time Warner Cable has a team legal team staffed in house at Corporate however, all attempts are made on the lower levels to diffuse the situation before it gets that far. It a company’s reputation is ruined, there is serious backlash from it, the company loses customers, hence revenue, potential job loss can occur and worst of all the company doors can close. Reputation can be in formation of customer loyalty (Nguyen, 2001). Credibility is major, if consumer cannot count on a company to do what it is Environmental PressuresPage 5 they say they are going to do, consumers will go else and not mind paying a higher rate to get what they want. Customers want to know that the companies / organizations are trustworthy and they can count on them to be there and provide them with the services and products they want. Environmental and Organizational Pressures that exist Time Warner Cable has and does face environmental pressures on a daily basis. There is constant pressure to change strategies. Time Warner Cable is continuing to engage in new markets, corrections of internal issues are made. Basically everything is controllable it may take a little while but things are normally resolved in a 24-48 time period at the latest a 5 day period. One thing that Time Warner Cable has learned as a company is that with organizational change, there may or may not be an innovational change. Financial Perspective From a financial perspective concerning environmental and organizational pressures, things could go either way, we try to predict the way things will work out from a financial view point but the economy plays a major role. Consumers are becoming very careful with their spending. If thing begin to look bleak the finances go down. When the market is going well and profits are in the upswing then finance is great. Environmental and Organizational Pressures Impact The environmental and organizational pressures have impacted me personally as it affected my bonus this past year. I have received bonuses a great deal higher than what I received this year. I was slightly disappointed but still happy to receive a bonus all the same. Part of the bonus is based upon 80% what the company does and 20% is based upon performance. My performance was great, the company did well be not as well as in previous years. Environmental Pressures Page 6 Assessing how the organization has reacted to the organizational and environmental pressures Time Warner Cable’s reaction to organizational and environmental pressures are to regroup, see what we can change and do it better and how can we as an organization best serve our customers. By going back to the drawing board, great emphasis is placed on training, management strategizes on how to best retain current customer and how to gain new customers and customers and providing customers with the latest and greatest products, services and technology available. Time Warner is focusing on customer satisfaction. Reducing Environmental and Organizational Pressures One way Time Warner Cable can reduce their risk is by nurturing their responses when it becomes a little chaotic the pressure may appear to be small but it is all in the way the company decides to handle things. Reduction can be made concerning with organizational pressures by paying close attention to growth pressures. The potential growth of a company can helpful but it is necessary to hire smart. Strategies One strategy I would propose is for Time Warner Cable would be to listen to their customers and their employees. By listening to their customers better  offers and campaigns can be built in order to give them customers what they are asking for. Listening to the employees will help to bring about better services for their employees health and welfare. Environmental PressuresPage 7 Reference Charles S. Englehardt, Peter R. Simmons, (2002) Organizational flexibility for a changing world, Leadership Organization Development Journal, Vol. 23 Iss: 3, pp.113 121 Nha Nguyen, Gaston LeBlanc, (2001) Image and reputation of higher education institutions in students’ retention decisions, International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 15 Iss: 6, pp.303 – 311 Palmer, I., Dunford, R., Akin, G. (2009). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Social Media Approach As A Marketing Tool Media Essay

Social Media Approach As A Marketing Tool Media Essay Social media isnt a new Internet Hip that just popped up, but it has been around for years in the shape of forums and newsgroups. So what has changed? The introduction of various new tools and the tremendous increase of the internet user base in the last decade along with easier internet access gave the big push. To best define social media, we need to break it down. Social is relating to human society; the interaction of the individual and the group. Media is a medium of cultivation, conveyance, or expression (Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary). So, social media is a media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one-to-many aka traditional media) into social media dialogues (many-to-many). Primarily, social media depends on interactions between people -as discussions and integration of words -using tech nology as a conduit. Social media has been touted as presenting a fresh direction for marketing by allowing companies to talk with consumers, as opposed to talking at them (Wikipedia). It lives on the contributions and feedback of everyone. It eliminates the gap between the writers and the readers and forms a conversation-like content. As mentioned earlier, social media comes in the forms of various online tools or services. These can be categorized into numerous groups each with its own characteristics and usages. To elaborate, blogs, for example, aka web logs are an online journal for the writers to share their experiences, opinions, and thoughts while providing the readers the option add their feedback and comments to the topic. Social networks are online service websites consists of personal or commercial profiles of their users, their social relationships, and offer a variety of other activities (Wikipedia). Micro-blogging is a networking service that allows mobile users of cell phones and other Internet connected devices to stay attentive of activities within a group by receiving frequently published updates, typically of 140 characters or less. Text messages are uploaded to a micro-blogging server, and then distributed to group members (R. Kayne). Social bookmarking is a service that provides its users with the ability to store, organize, share, search, and rate bookmarks for web pages. There is also a specialized form of social bookmarking sites known as social news where users vote on articles and news. These are some of the social media variations available and are the most influential ones for businesses, There are others but are not mentioned as they are either hold no significant use toward the purpose of this document or reside outside its scope. 2. The gain of adopting Social Media Marketing Social media provides companies with the capability to closely reach a large number of consumers providing similar experience to direct marketing with much lower costs. It gives you the opportunity to take advantage of the power of word of mouth (WOM) or in this case electronic one. According to a study done by Steffes and Burgee from Towson University, the information the students gained from eWOM is more in ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å¡uential in their decision than speaking with friends in person (2008). Also, according to Alexa, A web traffic monitoring company, out of the top 10 most visited websites in the world, four are social ones and the rest are general search engines. Looking at Malaysias top 10, the number increases to five with the first spot occupied by Facebook -a social networking website (Alexa.com). Social networks like Facebook has over 350 million active users of which 70% are international ones with an average time spend of 55 minutes per day (facebook.com); MySpace -another socia l network -has over 100 million active users (myspace.com); Technorati has more than 133 million indexed blogs (January 2009) and 77% of active internet users are reading blogs (Adam Singer, 2009). Being able to influence even a small portion of a consumer base of this magnitude will produce noticeable results despite the difficulty of relating social activities to a percentage of revenue. Bear in mind that Social Media Marketing (SMM) is not to be used to sell, at least not directly. However, SMM is used to generate awareness and exposure to the business, reduce overall marketing expenses, increase traffic or subscribers to own website, create new business partnership, rise up in search ranking, improved PR, and an ending with more loyal customers (Michael Stelzner, 2009). If approached with intent to sell, internet users are now are savvy, they will be able to smell you coming and will shun you immediately. 3. The Way to Successful Social Media Utilization The use of social media as a marketing tool -if done right can yield into huge benefits. To fully utilize the social media, the organization should include it in their marketing planning as it needs a careful preparation to know the medium best suited for the companys activities. Unfortunately, lots of people look at social media as a free marketing tool, leading into little planning which in return yields no benefits and in some cases even negative ones. While it might not take much -if any- financial wise, social media marketing do consume a lot of time. On the other hand, the financial requirement makes it the best choice for start up companies and individuals. The first step in the plan is to see if social media is suitable for you as it is not for everybody. Businesses with products targeted at elderly or retired people, wont generate much benefits from using it. Also, companies with tight government regulation supervision shouldnt pick social media as a marketing tool. After e nsuring that you belong with the majority, whose social media engagement suits their activities, you have to decide on your objectives; the desired results from engaging into social media. This in return will help in choosing the best suited tools (Anita Campbell, 2009). This paper will cover in some details a part of these tools and their uses later. Within the social sphere, organizations cant push their messages or products to the consumer; rather they have to lure the consumer toward them. To be able to achieve that, the message should attain certain attributes to be considered attractive enough to lure them. First of all, the message should sound familiar to the target audience. People like to communicate with each other. Try reaching them, listening to their ideas and thoughts, and then formulate your message. Adding a budget to the mix in the form of incentives can encourage much better feedback as well as help spread the word associated with the incentives. The third element that can be thrown to the mix is fame. Providing the audience with a chance of fame, be it as small as it gets, it can really stimulate the audiences interest. The forth element is the fun, entertaining one, which is shared with most of the online activities. Adding the fun entertaining factor can excite the audience to spread the word. Lastly, the mes sage should contain the mobility factor; the ability to move from one person to the next (Richard Clark, 2009). Having at least one the first four elements along with the last one will encourage a beneficial response from the community. An organization should continue to listen to the community as long as it is in business. Since anyone can say anything, a company should always keep an eye on the sphere. Listen to what the communities say about it. This help in controlling bad press and empowering good ones. Of course, monitoring the blogosphere may seem impossible, fortunately, there are some tools that keeps the company notified whenever a new entry with its name appear in the wild. 4. The Way to a Catastrophic Social Media Utilization As beneficial as SMM can be, a misuse or unplanned approach can result in a total waste of resources. Lacking a staff member who can handle a frequent delivery of quality content can degrade the social effort. Also, the absence of a strong message that can create a community around it will result in a partial loss for the impact on people. Social media is global, so, cautious should be practiced at all times to avoid any offending messages. Not only that, a corporation should realize that social media is an open platform and there is no such thing as off-the-record and for that not only should they monitor their own channels but also their employees. There have been many incidents where companies had to fire their employees for inappropriate messages posted in their own personal spaces. One famous incident when Delta Airlines had to fire Ellen Simonetti a flight attendant over inappropriate pictures posted in her blog in the companys uniform (Ellen Simonetti, 2005). To avoid such inc idents, the organization should provide clear guidelines to what is appropriate and what is not when it comes to their social messages. 5. Blogs We have mentioned earlier different social media tools that can be utilized to the benefit of the organization. Now, we will discuss these in further details while providing real examples for the usages of these tools by other organizations or individuals. Starting with blogs, which as mentioned earlier is a website with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material usually maintained by one person with few exceptions where they are maintained by a group of people depending on the function or goal of the blog. Blogs also give the readers the ability to leave their comments in an interactive format. This feedback mechanism of the blogs is one of the main reasons why blogs are one of the most important social mediums. From an SMM point of view, the feedback is the opinion of their consumers, their needs, or their dissatisfactions which make them a gold mine of information for the company. A lot of companies had already adopted blogs and integrated them to the ir daily operations starting with CEOs like Jonathan Schwartz (President CEO, Sun Microsystems) and George F. Colony (Chairman CEO, Forrester Research) and a long list others. So what does these CEO talk about? Most would think that talking about their companys milestones, new products or services, or future plan would be the obvious choice. But going back to the reason should most companies based their activities on social media is to raise awareness. Not many people will want to read about the companys achievements or its products, thats the purpose of the main website of the company. These CEOs blogs actually contains interesting and useful materials. If we take a quick look at George Colonys blog, we will find his personal thoughts, expectations, review, etc. but all with a unified theme, the CEO perspective. One of his entries were regarding the imminent dominance of Apples iPhone among CEOs over the Blackberry ones and listing iPhone features that the blackberry lacks. Norma lly, you wouldnt expect to see a mobile review in a research company CEO blog though he still managed to keep it relevant to the overall blog theme, but that what makes it interesting. Thats what makes people coming back to you. Because each blog will compete with millions of other blogs and to stand tall among the crowd, you have to distinguish yours. If you are a small business owner, your blog could be relevant to your industry. But regardless of the blogs theme, without valuable content, the blog will be a definite waste of time. Passing the CEO blogs and going further into the companies hierarchy, we can also find many of the management team, adding their own touch to the blogosphere like Tom Berquist (CFO, Ingres) and Michael Tiemann (CTO, Red Hat). Going further all the way to developers, analysts, etc., you will find plenty of other blog writers. Some companies have also what can be called an official blog. These official blogs are similar to an announcement board, where org anizations announce new products, technologies, or ideas of future plans, though in most of these cases, these companies already have interested loyal audience who are eager to listen to them. A good example is Nokia Conversations. This blog might seem to be a portal to announce new mobile phones, software, or services. But it is more than that, as the name suggests, Nokia tries to engage their readers as much as possible. They hold social activities sometimes, for example, a photo context for one of their camera phones. This blogs provides lot of valuable knowledge to Nokia. Based on the feedback from this website, Nokia fix problems, annoyances, or add missing features to their products from the comments and suggestions of their audience. This creates loyalty to their brand. It is a win-win situation for both; the customers get the product and the company gets the sales. Of course, when it comes to small businesses and entrepreneurs, the case is usually different as their first an d main objective is to raise awareness as oppose, for example, to Nokia Conversations where the main goal is the good publicity, the customers feedback and the loyalty. For those individuals, creating a blog, or creating a page in a social network -as discussed later -is not enough. For people to come to you, you have to get to them first; participation on other blogs -in the same industry -will inform the audience of your existence, your personality, and you interests. You cant tell people to come to you, but you can go to them, raise their interest and let them follow you back. One of the best utilizations for the power of blogs is demonstrated by Adobe Inc. They have create a comprehensive network that allows for personal interaction between people with common interests-those interests, of course, are related to Adobe and their broad range of software products. The result is an officially sponsored message board and blog site dedicated to informing the public about Adobe, answering questions about products and product applications, and whats more is allowing public input on the developmental process of future Adobe software titles. They have compiled all of these features together in a feed aggregator called MXNA (Adobe XML News Aggregator). According to Adobe, this tool is designed to monitor over 2400 Adobe related blogs and news sources all in one place. As a result, users can search through all of these sources for articles, tutorials, code samples, downloads, sample applications, information or help they need and if they have a question that doesnt ha ve an answer, they can post it to get their answers from Adobes staff. Thus creating communities that are completely and wholly devoted to being the definitive destination of any and all who seek answers about all things Adobe (Greg Brian Martin, 2007). From Adobes perspective, they have given customers the satisfaction that the company is committed to helping them get the most out of their purchase and making sure that the customer is satisfied with the product. Second, the originated communities also exist so that those users who have discovered solutions to problems they feel are common or troublesome (or both) may share these ideas with fellow participants of the communities (Greg Brian Martin, 2007). By giving the public the opportunity to not only ask when they need help but also, to answer and help other members of the community, Adobe has exponentially cut down on their customer support costs. Usually the return on investment in social media cannot be quantified, but in Adob es case we can somewhat relate to the result of their investments. Their costs of service and support went down by $6 million in the same period between 2006 and 2002 when the communities where introduced. 6. Social Networks The second tool of interest in this paper and one of the fastest growing is the online social networks. These networks function like an online community for internet users. It is different from site to another, but usually members share a similar interest e.g. Flixster -for Movies enthusiasts -or similar hobbies like Spoccer -for Soccer players. Yet, there is the general type where most of the crowd resides. Ahead of the crowd is Facebook follow by MySpace in terms of the number of active members. It differs from one site to another, but once you sign up to one of the services, all of them will suggest that you create your profile. Though the available fields to fill differs depending on the interest, they all ask for the same basic information whether you are an individual or an organization. Honesty is an important factor when filling the profile, as getting caught lying in a social network is more devastating than off one. After preparing your profile, you should try to look for p eople with the same interest to start connecting. Depending on the type of industry, you might want to look into different sites. The most common website among professional is LinkedIn, though, when you are targeting the general public Facebook is the best choice as it has the largest base of members. But if you are working in music industry, for example, MySpace is usually a better choice. Though, Willa Plank would argue that for small businesses, it is better to start in smaller more related communities as it is easy to disappear among huge crowds (2009). Social Media Marketing has been adopted by many of the large corporations like Dell, Hershey, and Kraft but one of the most outstanding is a community for moms called Vocalpoint by Proctor Gamble. The program recruited thousands of women who were picked because of their large social network. They were recruited to talk about PG products to their friends (Robert Berkman, 2008). But SMM is not exclusive to businesses, but it can also help hobbyists and individuals. For example, if you are in a garage band, as mention earlier, MySpace is known for its music services and it would be the best place for the band to start promoting itself. One of the best examples is OmniSoul (aka. The Crash Motive), a Newark, Delaware band. The five member of the group met at University of Delaware and they first hit when they won Battle of the Band competition there. Then the band began touring around their local area growing their fan base and the local radio started playing their songs. Eventually, the y developed their own website and their MySpace pages. Their individual pages were like any normal page with basic information. The band page, on the other hand, includes a profile picture of the entire band, an audio player with four of the bands original full-length songs in rotation, a list of upcoming tour dates, a list of friends, and a comment area where friends can leave messages to the band (Greg Martin, 2007). Derek Fuhrmann, the lead singer of the group had the following to say about MySpace, MySpace is an amazing tool for bands today to not only promote their music, but more importantly to keep in touch with their fan base. Making fans an intricate part of a bands world through daily interaction is really a brilliant concept. (Greg Martin, 2007). The band is hoping to get the nationwide exposure they need from the MySpace page. They hope that the social networking feature of MySpace will help their exposure, by adding as many friends as possible. The more friends the band has, the more people will come into contact with them. The exposure is not for the band name only, but also for their music. We mentioned earlier they had four full-length tracks in their space, any of their friends, can take these songs and post them on their personal Space, where it will be played whenever someone visited their website. On top of gaining the exposure, they also hope to strengthen its relationship with preexisting fans. They kept feeding them information of the bands day to day activities, news postings, the occasional MySpace promotional contest, and by posting on friends comment spaces, the band seems to be committed to reinforcing the ties it has already created. Their efforts paid off and on December 27th, 2009 they performed their last show on their first nationwide tour at Deer Park in Newark, DE. The success stories resulted from social networks are beyond numbering, however, for the sake of diversification, two more quick examples will be mentioned. Social networks were there to help corporation and small businesses, but they also exist to help individuals, too. Kristen Luke is a principal at Wealth Management Marketing, a small financial marketing advisory firm in San Diego. Her story with social networks started out with LinkedIn. There, she was found by Dow Jones News Wire reporter. The reporter formed some interest in Kristen, so she called her and quoted her in a couple of stories in Wall Street Journal. This turned into increased traffic on her website (Stephen Arnold, 2009). The second story is a bit different than the norm as Bradi Nathan and Terry Starr started by conducting a survey on Facebook before launching their business. The survey was targeted at working moms and moms who wanted to go back to the workforce. The idea behind the survey was to find out what mom s would want from a mom social network. The results of the survey are the bases of their blossomed business (David Spark, 2009). 7. Micro-Blogging Micro-blogging is one of the most recent tools to appear; yet, it is growing at an alarming rate. As mentioned earlier, it is a service that allowed its users to publish short messages of around 140 characters or less. Its limitation of 140 characters is overwhelmed by its tight integration with mobile phones. Most micro-blogging services provide the ability to add a new entries using SMS and also receiving others entries by SMS in addition to the regular browser from any pc or even cell phones. This ease of access is what helped burst its success. Though, the 140 doesnt seems like much to say, yet, the last couple of years have shown, as will be shown later, its devastating power. Throughout this paper, Twitter -the most successful micro-blogging service -will be used interchangeably with micro-blogging. Micro-blogging shares the some common grounds with the other social media; if you want to be followed, you have to be interesting to people. Whole Foods Market realized that fact and since their first day on twitter, they abide by that rule. Within a week of highlighting some fun things that were going on at specific stores, people started noticing them on twitter. From there the market kept getting more publicity and within a year, they had over a million followers (Cody Nolden, 2009). While Whole Foods twitters were related to their stores, the CEO of Zappos.com took a slightly different approach. He personally drives the corporate account and always has something interesting to say most of which are not related to work. But most of them had one thing in common, humor. Now, Zappos has over 1.6 million followers (Cody Nolden, 2009). Dell has a more direct approach toward its twitter. It uses the medium to send exclusive offers to their followers. By June 2009, they made over $3,000, 000 in twitter related sales (Antone Gonsalves, 2009) Interest will get you followers, but to keep them, the personal element should be added to the mix. JetBlue Airlines and Southwest Airlines have two things in common; operating in the same industry and they both twitter. Both companies offer similar messages in their twitters; however, JetBlue has 600,000 followers more than Southwest. By taking a closer look at both channels, you will notice that over half of JetBlues messages are in fact replies to other people where in Southwests the percentage goes way down. People tend to feel wormer toward a personal response (Cody Nolden, 2009). The best methodology to approach the micro-blogging differs by the industry, the goals, and the targeted audiences and limited by creativity. A group of tourist information enthusiasts at Coos Bay, Oregon, led by Katherine Hoppe, looked at twitter differently. Instead of taking a direct approach, they looked at twitter as an opportunity platform. The group kept looking around twitter hunting their towns name; looking for an opportunity to promote it. One day, Lee Hopkins along with his friend were planning a road trip from Seattle to San Francisco. They twittered their friends to suggest a place to stay, and one of them suggested Coos Bay. Katherine caught the message and contacted Lee and she was successful in persuading them to stop by the city. They stayed for a couple of days, enjoyed it, blogged their trip, and added what became a popular series of videos for the trip. Unfortunately, not all companies apprehend the concept of social media and micro-blogging. JCPenney has taken a strange twisted approach to reach people on twitter. They stalk anyone who mentions the word shopping in an entry. They ambush the writer with a message similar to check out JCPenney online at www.jcp.com à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ No wonder they dont have too many followers. Micro-blogging has been useful to many, useless to some, and it has been disaster to others. Twitter has a hidden ugly face too and it showed it to Horizon Realty Group a Chicago real estate company. The story began with one of the company tenants Amanda Bonnen. Amanda twittered to her 20 followers that the company didnt care about the mold in her apartment. Because of the comment, the company filed a law suit against her, asking for $50,000 in damages to their reputations. They argued that there was no mold in her apartment. The next day, the law suit became one of the hottest topics in the whole twitter network which mean, the comment of irritation to 20 twitterers became a hot topic to thousands and thousands of people. Social media users do not read all the facts carefully before flaming. Whether Horizon Realty was right or wrong, no one in the social network would see the $50,000 as reasonable, either. The ugly face of micro-blogging doesnt just scare, it usefulness goes beyond that sometimes for a whole city like the city of Phoenix, AZ. One night at the city, a group of friends found out that their car had been towed as a part of a towing scam thats been going on for over a year and a half. The group behind the scam didnt know that this group was one of the most active twitterers in Phoenix. As a result, within 24 hours, there has been an investigation, and the word has reached the mayor and city council. Within 48 hours, the local media got involved covering the story. Within 72 hours, the scam has been shutdown (Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon, et al. 2009). So, what does the mean to businesses? Even though it makes twitter looks scary, it should only makes companies to jump in with both feet and eyes. Jumping in with both feet can help the company building a close relationship with the consumers. But thats not all; they should also keep an eye on what people say about them. Being there in the first place before disasters can help form a better response and ease spreading it around. 8. Social Bookmarking Social bookmarking started as a service to keep your bookmarks with you wherever you go. Then it was morphed into a full fledged social community to share sites of interest, articles, images, or videos. Other people can rate, tag, and comment on these bookmarks which might seem like a social filtration for these bookmarks. The usage for these services is a straight forward one and the easier it is you make it for visitors of your website to bookmark it, the faster it will spread giving the interest factor existence. NBC11 in California realized the benefit of social bookmarking so they started by adding the option to share their news on Digg with a click of a button. Soon after, they realized also that the news with pictures are the most submitted ones. Since the inclusion of Digg into NBC 11 website, the site traffic has spiked (Figure 1) (Adam Singer, 2008). Fig. 1 Traffic History for NBC11 before and after integrating Digg 9. Video Sharing As the name implies, the websites helps their member to upload and share videos with the community. So many people became famous overnight because of these websites. The top most viewed video on YouTube -the most popular video sharing website -for 2009 was for a 48 years old Scottish lady signing in British Got Talent TV show. Now that lady signed a contract with Sony Music and released her first album which is on number 1 spot in the top 200 Billboard list (Stan Schroeder, 2009). The business sector wasnt left behind; some companies were able to utilize the power of these websites too. One company to make a successful use of the video sharing is Blendtec. They introduced a serious of interesting, funny, and low cost advertisements which immediately gone viral over the network. Because of the series, the ads resulted in increasing the sales of the company five times (Samir Balwani, 2009). 10. Conclusion When traditional media giants like CNN or MSNBC jumps into the social media wagon, you realize that it is not something to be taken lightly. Social media is here to stay; it is not a passing event. For businesses, it is only a matter of what is the best way to take advantage of it and there is no special formula to answer that. It is not a one size fits all thing. But it is safe to say that the different tools of the social media can work well together and making use of more than one tool can produce better results. For example, simple things like linking your twitter or blog to your social network account, so that you can share your feed immediately in your social network. Another usage would be to twitter your blog entries. In the Coos Bay incident, mentioned earlier, the group created a Flickr -a social site for sharing images -album to hold images from around their town and encouraged the people in town to post their pictures. Social media marketing should be planned carefully, e ven though the financial costs might be nominal to none, but the time consumption factor isnt to be overlooked.

The Americanization of Canada Essay -- American Culture Canadian Cultu

â€Å"Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once compared liking next to the United States to sleeping with an elephant. He said, ‘You cannot help but be aware of its every movement.’†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www.pbs.org/pioneerliving/segments/Americanization.htm The issue of American culture and its globalization has raised a lot of controversy. â€Å"The era of globalization† is becoming the preferred term to describe the current times. The term Americanization has been around for years. It was first used when the United States was being heavily immigrated into. The new Americans began to enjoy the freedoms associate with our country and gradually began to act less like a foreigner and more like a real American. Today we are able to witness an essence of American culture almost everywhere around the world by what we call cultural icons of our times. Sneakers, blue jeans, burgers, Hollywood blockbusters are only a few. To many, globalization is synonymous with Nike, Levi's and MTV. In fact, the most visible sign of globalization seems to be the spread of American burgers and cola to nearly every country on earth. It crowns the United States the king of pop culture. Globalization does more than allow businesses to operate in countries all around the globe. In addition to global commerce, globalization allows for social activism, journalists, academics, and many others to work on a global stage. According to Keith Porter, a co-host and executive producer of a nationally syndicated radio program on world affairs globalization can be both a good and bad thing. He quotes, Thomas Friedman in saying â€Å"Globalization can be incredibly empowering and incredibly coercive. It can democratize opportunity and democratize panic. It makes the whales bigger and the minnows stronger. It leaves you behind faster and faster, and it catches up to you faster and faster. While it is homogenizing cultures, it is also enabling people to share their unique individuality farther and wider." Without the role of globalization it is not possible to speak of a term called American dominant culture. The dramatic effect of globalization has and will be strengthening this term. People around the world have become less like themselves and more like each other. The most common name that puts this in front of our eyes is McDonald’s. When a McDonald’s restaurant opens in a f... ...ogies that have made transcontinental communications possible has ensured that the world slightly conform and make very different cultures mesh into various ones that more resemble each other. As communication techonolgy continues to become better and more powerful it will be interesting to see the changes that it will lead to. Perhaps in ten years college students will no longer be writing about the topics of globalization and Americanization. Instead they will write about the time when cultures were so very different from each other. Works Cited Cantor, Paul A. Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization, Rowman and Littlefield Thussu, Daya Kishan. "International Communication: Continuity and Change" Hodder Arnold Publishing Sources Cited http://www.pbs.org/pioneerliving/segments/Americanization.htm http://www.encyclopedia.com/searchpool.asp?target=@DOCTITLE%20Americanization http://globalization.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm? http://www.usemb.nl/051800.htm http://www.infocan.gc.ca/facts/index_e.html http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/border/filmfact.html http://www.rice.edu/projects/topics/globalization/movies-germany.htm

Course Outline of Production Operation Management

ARID AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY, RAWALPINDI MGT- 696 â€Å"Operations Management† BBA–6 (A & B Sections) Spring 2013 Visiting Faculty Member:M. Javed Akhtar Ex- General Manager Training, OPF Ex-Director Gneral, NAVTEC Head Office Prime Minister's Secretariat [email  protected] com Office Contact/Timings: 051-2541041 (direct), 0300-5338951(Cell) (0800 Hrs. to 1500 Hrs. ) Course Coordinator Mr. Irfanullah Munir The Prologue This three credit Hrs. course is designed for services and manufacturing sectors, basically, meant for defining the real meaning of the Operations Management in any given organization.The primary objective of the course is to provide the students with an understanding of the theories, models, problems, issues, and techniques related to the management of operations both in manufacturing and service sectors. This includes analyses of various tasks performed and decisions made by operation managers, both tactically and strategically. The operations function plays a vital role in achieving a company’s strategic plans. Since the operations function produces the goods and provides the services, it typically involves the greatest portion of the company mployees and is responsible for a large portion of the firm’s capital assets. It has a major impact on quality and is often the visible face of company with which the customer must deal. Customer service, product/service, quality issues, and the effectiveness of many customer interactions are all operations activities. In the face of increased international competition, Pakistani firms have lost market share and have not responded by working to improve both their operating efficiencies and the quality of their goods and services.With this renewed emphasis on operations, it has become increasingly important that students have an understanding of operations management and its significance to the success of the companies where they will work. To gain a competitive edge, Pakistani organizations need sound production/operations strategies. This is particularly true today, given the pressures of global competition and the need to satisfy ever more demanding customers. Operations functions appear as a powerful tool for achieving organizational objectives and strategies. Learning ObjectivesThe aim of this course is to provide a clear, well-structured and interesting treatment of Production/Operations Management as it applies to a variety of businesses and organizations. The course is intended to provide both a logical path through the activities of operations management and an understanding of the strategic context in which operations managers’ work. †¢ Strategic in its perspective of operations management’s contribution to the organization’s long-term success. We are unambiguous in treating the operation function as being at the center to most organization’s drive to improve their competitiveness. Conceptual in the way it explai ns the reasons why operations managers need to take decisions in each activity. Although some quantitative techniques are included, their primary aim is to illustrate the underlying principles of operation decisions. †¢ Comprehensive in its coverage of the significant ideas and issues which are relevant to most types of operations. †¢ Practical in the sense that the issues and difficulties in making operations management decisions in practice are discussed, and generally the treatment of topics reflects actual operations practice.This course is practical also that Case Exercise illustrating the approaches taken by actual companies are used to illustrate operations issues. Attendance Policy As you may all know very well by this time that the University (FUU) adheres to very strict attendance policy (i. e. minimum 75% mandatory attendance). As usual roll will be taken at the beginning of each class meeting. No one will be allowed to enter the classroom five minutes after the class starting time since it cause interruptions in the class activities. Professional conduct is expected throughout the course.Besides this, It is assumed that you have read all the policies and guidelines of the University regarding attendance, academic dishonesty, deadlines and so on and so forth Team Work There will be substantial Team work in this class. This is the need of today’s corporate world, and we have to learn how to pull our right slack while working in teams. Instructor as well as fellow team members, at end of the course, will evaluate each team member. Part of the grade of the team project(s) will be dependent on peer evaluations which is only for the developmental purposes and will be kept strictly confidential.Unannounced Quizzes There will be minimum four unannounced quizzes taken randomly throughout this course. Three best will be considered for grading. These quizzes will be handed out in the beginning of the class meetings and if you are late in clas s, you will miss that quiz. There are absolutely no make ups for these quizzes. Case Studies There may be cases assigned to groups and these cases will be resolved in team efforts. A short written report will be required along with the presentation of that case.Presenters will play the role of Management Consultants and the class will act as Board of Directors and will interact with the consultants at the end of the presentation to express their concerns and opinions. Term Project or Book Review You will be given case study or in lieu thereof book reviews relevant to the field of OM, Subject to availability of time. When awarded, details will be discussed in the class. Industrial Visit/Seminar An industrial visit and/or a seminar relating to the subject matter would be arranged. Grade Allocation and Breakdown |Weightage suggested by DBA |Weightage suggested by Teacher| |Unannounced quizzes/Book Review |10% |10% | |Assignment(s) / presentation / participation/discipline |15% |15% | | Midterm Examination |25% |25% | |Terminal / Final Examination |50% |50% | Course Contours and Schedule ? Current Academic Session 4th March 2013 onward ? Class Work32 Lectures (16 weeks) Teaching Time 48Hrs. 1st Week: ? Production and Operations Management: An Overview 2nd Week: ? Production System : Issues and Environment 3rd Week: ? Total Quality Management 4th Week: ? Need and Importance of Forecasting 5th Week: ? Qualitative Methods of Forecasting 6th Week: ? Quantitative Methods of Forecasting 7th week: ? Capacity Planning 8th Week: ? Facilities Planning ? Mid-term Examination 9th Week: ? Work System Design 10th Week: ? Managing Information for Operations System 11th Week: ? Aggregate Production Planning 12th Week: ? Just-in-Time (JIT) 13th Week: ? Scheduling & Sequencing 14th Week: ? Issues in Materials Management 15th Week: Independent & Dependent Demand Inventory System 16th Week: ? Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)/Computers in OM ** ? Final Examination (date to be announc ed later on) Recommended Readings Supplementary Readings | | IMPORTANT NOTE: ? The course outline is subject to change to a tune of about 10% if need arise. ? ** Subject to availability of time, the topics of â€Å"Advanced Manufacturing Systems† and â€Å"Computers in Operations Management† will also be covered. ———————– Issues in Production/ Operations Management Forecasting Operations System Design Planning & Scheduling Materials Planning Emerging Issues in OM**

The San Francisco 1989 Earthquake Essays - Loma Prieta Earthquake

The San Francisco 1989 Earthquake Essays - Loma Prieta Earthquake The San Francisco 1989 Earthquake The Loma Prieta Earthquake On Tuesday October 17, 1989 at 5:04 PM the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco, Monterey Bay, and Silicon Valley areas. Those were no the only areas affected. Many areas up to 70 and 100 miles away could feel the tremble of the quake. The epicenter of the quake was in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The quake measured a magnitude of 7.1. The initial quake lasted 15 seconds. The USGS first thought the magnitude of the quake would be about 6.9 but it increased to 7.1. The quake destroyed many buildings and freeways. A section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed. The power was out in many places and the telephone lines were out also. This was the first time the power had been out since the 1906 earthquake. The earthquake killed 68 people and injured 3,757 people. The cost of the quake was estimated at $6 to $7 billion dollars. The quake happened during the 1989 World Series. The San Francisco Giants were playing the Oakland Athletics. The match up was called the ?Bay Bridge? World Series. The game was postponed for a month. They were playing at Candlestick Park. Airports were closed for inspection or repairs. Ceiling Tiles and broken glass were the main reason for the airports being closed. After a while the airports reopened and some local pilots helped fly emergency supplies to airports near the seriously damaged and in need areas. Roads were jammed with cars trying to get home or trying to get out of the earthquake area. The news media were desperate to get time on a satellite to broadcast their story to the rest of the world. People say that the media made the damaged areas look worse than they really were because they only focused on the bad areas and they got cities mixed up. Most people away from the center of the quake were only inconvenienced by the quake. They only had broken windows or broken pools. The insides of these people?s houses were a wreck. These people quickly recovered from the quake. The people closer to the center of the quake were not so fortunate. Some of these people lost all their belongings including their house. These people wouldn?t get things back together for months or maybe even years. Damage and loss of life were reduced because of California?s strict building codes which required buildings to be strong enough to survive even larger quakes. Having the public educated in earthquake readiness helped a lot. The people knew how to react in a quake and how to save their own life and the lives of others. The fires that broke out after the initial quake were of even worse threat. There were at least 27 fires that broke out across the city. The citizens formed a bucket brigade to help the firefighters who were without water because of water main brakes. The fires were disastrous they burned down apartment buildings, shops and even the fire chief?s house in one city. Some people went looting in the downtown areas. The District Attorney said, ?If there is anyone arrested tonight for burglary or looting, tomorrow morning we are going to go into court and demand that there is no bail. Anyone engaged in that kind of conduct can expect maximum sentences.? Some people were arrested for looting and they were severely penalized. The earthquake didn?t only cause trouble for the San Francisco Bay area. It caused a four-foot tsunami wave in Monterey Bay as well as a huge undersea landslide. The sea level in Santa Cruz dropped three feet. The wave took 20 minuets to reach Monterey. Vice President Dan Quayle and his wife flew to San Diego to see the damage. The spent four hours there and didn?t even make contact with the may who had been awake since the quake started. The mayor called the visit a ?cheap publicity stunt? Our Vice President Al Gore did the same thing when he came to Cincinnati during our flood. Mr. Gore took his shoes and socks off and put his foot in the Ohio River. What was the point of that. Mr. Quayle said this after touring the area,

First Woman to Vote under the 19th Amendment

First Woman to Vote under the 19th Amendment An often-asked question: who was the first woman in the United States to vote the first woman to cast a ballot the first female voter? Because women in New Jersey had the right to vote from 1776-1807, and there were no records kept of what time each voted in the first election there, the name of the first woman in the United States to vote after its founding  is lost in the mists of history. Later, other jurisdictions granted women the vote, sometimes for a limited purpose (such as Kentucky allowing women to vote in school board elections beginning in 1838).   Some territories and states in the western United States gave women the vote: Wyoming Territory, for instance, in 1870. First Woman to Vote under the 19th Amendment We have several claimants to being the first woman to vote under the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As with many forgotten firsts of womens history, its possible that documentation will later be found about others who voted early. South St. Paul, August 27 One claim to first woman to vote under the 19th Amendment comes from South St. Paul, Minnesota. Women had been able to cast votes in a 1905 special election in the city of South St. Paul; their votes were not counted, but they were recorded. In that election, 46 women and 758 men voted. When word came on August 26, 1920, that the 19th Amendment had been signed into law, South St. Paul quickly scheduled a special election the next morning on a water bond bill, and at 5:30 a.m., eighty women voted. (Source::Minnesota Senate S.R. No. 5, June 16, 2006) Miss Margaret Newburgh of South St. Paul voted at 6 a.m. in her precinct and is sometimes given the title of  first  woman to vote under the 19th Amendment. Hannibal, Missouri, August 31 On August 31, 1920, five days after the 19th amendment was signed into law, Hannibal, Missouri  held a special election to fill the seat of an alderman who had resigned. At 7 a.m., despite pouring rain, Mrs. Marie Ruoff Byrum, wife of Morris Byrum and daughter-in-law of Democratic committeeman Lacy Byrum, cast her ballot in the first ward. She thus became the first woman to vote in the state of Missouri and the first woman to vote in the United States under the 19th, or Suffrage, Amendment. At 7:01 a.m. in the second ward of Hannibal, Mrs. Walker Harrison cast the second known vote by a woman under the 19th amendment. (Source: Ron Brown, WGEM News, based on a news story in the Hannibal Courier-Post, 8/31/20, and a reference in the Missouri Historical Review Volume 29, 1934-35, page 299.) Celebrating the Right to Vote American women had organized, marched, and gone to prison to gain the vote for women.   They celebrated winning the vote in August 1920, most notably with Alice Paul unfurling a banner showing another star on a banner signifying ratification by Tennessee. Women also celebrated by beginning to organize for women to use their vote widely and wisely.  Crystal Eastman wrote an essay, Now We Can Begin, pointing out that womans battle was not over  but had just begun.   The argument of most of the woman suffrage movement had been that women needed the vote to participate fully as citizens, and many argued for the vote as a way to contribute as women to reforming society. So they organized, including transforming the wing of the suffrage movement led by Carrie Chapman Catt into the League of Women Voters, which Catt helped create.

Ge Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers, Book Reports

Ge Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers, Book Reports Ge Gesundheit ist ein Zustand eines lebenden Krpers, die nicht von einer Krankheit behaftet. Wenn wir gesund sind, keiner von uns oder nach einem feinen Kopf, Augen, Nase, Mund oder Rachen. Erst wenn der Hals uns weh tut und wir Angina haben, werden wir erkennen, dass wir viele andere Stellen haben ohne die wir nicht existieren. Die Tatsache, dass wir eine Hand, Arm, Herz und Lunge zu fhlen, wenn wir verletzt sind. Gesundheit ist fr jeden von uns ist die wichtigste Sache der Welt. Jeder von uns sollte Sie geschtzt und gepflegt werden. Der Frhling beginnt und unser Krper ist anfllig fr Krankheiten. Bei Temperaturen unter Null Klte kann Vitamin-Verlust, Neigung zu Krankheiten wie Grippe, Mandelentzndung und Erkltungen verursachen. Hufige Erkrankungen durch Stress verursacht. Ich lebe oft krank. Ich habe eine schwache Immunitt, auch wenn ich gesund leben. Gegen diese Krankheiten hilft es mir Obst und Gemse zu essen, warm zu kleiden und zu schlucken Vitamine. Also ich glaube, ich bin genug fr Ihre Gesundheit zu tun. Auch wenn ich regelmig bewegen, oft muss ich rztliche Hilfe suchen. Im Wartezimmer dauert es ewig. Doktor im Bro sagen, was mich strt, was weh tut, und ich habe Symptome. Der Arzt wird die Krankheit und Medikamente verschreiben zu bestimmen, die ich brauche in der Apotheke abholen. Wenn, ich muss wirklich eine Operation haben. Wenn, ich krank bin ich nach Hause und gehen nicht zur Schule. Ich habe im Bett zu bleiben und trinken viel Tee. Wenn, ich nicht lese ich die Temperatur oder Arbeit am Computer. Ich wei, dass jede Krankheit klettern muss. Ich hasse lange im Bett liegen krank. Jeder Brger der Slowakischen Republik zahlt fr die Krankenversicherung. Kinder, Studenten und Rentner vom Staat bezahlt werden. Als Ergebnis sind das Gesundheitswesen billiger. Jeder kann auch einen privaten Arzt oder einer Klinik whlen. Aber es gibt mehr gltig. Private Kliniken bieten in der Regel eine bessere Betreuung durch eine bessere Ausrstung. Das Warten ist nicht so lang. Dringende medizinische Behandlung kann Leben retten. Gegen bestimmte Probleme schnell genug sparen, muss es langfristig sein. Sie sind psychische Erkrankungen wie Depressionen oder Essstrungen. Sie sind oft nicht sichtbar. Deshalb ist die schlechteste. Diese Krankheiten knnen tdlich sein, wenn sie nicht rechtzeitig eingreifen. Psychische Gesundheit ist fr die krperliche Gesundheit von wesentlicher Bedeutung. Daher Pflege ausgelst getroffen werden mssen.

Team building Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Team building - Essay Example The critical inaccuracies lied in the factors of overall motivation and job satisfaction, and positive firm and lawyer acknowledgment of good performance. Apart from self-determination and autonomy, teamwork also exerts a significant influence on work performance and motivation. The affiliation or membership in a firm goes with multiple group memberships, including that of the department, team or section. Identification to a team influences behavior and may be a source of motivation for employees. In fact, researches have demonstrated that the psychological oneness that one feels for a firm compels employees to identify with the firm’s way of seeing things, attaining its goals, and striving for its benefit. Eventually, the employee will exhibit ownership of the company’s goals. Thus, it is critical that the organization be able to effectively foster teamwork among the members of its workforce for sustained productivity (van Knippenberg, 2000). The paper by Neff (2002) has failed to consider the effect of task complexity on perceptions of teamwork. In general, it has only focused on teamwork as a general construct, and has not integrated the more important correlates of this concept. Jassawalla & Sashittal (2003) assert that the building of collaborative teams is not enough, specifically for highly complex projects such as the institutionalization of novel product processes. He conducted a study of new product development (NPD) processes in 10 mid size to large high-technology firms; among these, 8 utilized teams. The results of the study were culled from in-depth interviews with those involved in NPD processes. The authors have put forth contradictory outcomes from two distinct high-innovation organizations that upheld collaborative teamwork. The most apparent findings from Jassawalla & Sashittal (2003) assert that the simple

Motivation in a Multigenerational Radiologic Science Workplace Research Paper

Motivation in a Multigenerational Radiologic Science Workplace - Research Paper Example Since the inception of management-related studies, the area of employee motivation has been emphasized in various ways. This discourse presents a brief review of motivation factors for radiological sciences workforce based on a specific study conducted by Kalar (2008). Earlier, classical management theories proposed employee motivation practices such as incentives and bonuses. The pioneer of scientific management, Fredrick Taylor asserted that the main aim of management should be to secure maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for the employee (qtd. in Schermerhorn, 2010). Taylor believed that extra income will motivate employees to work extra and with greater efficiency, and hence incentives would be an effective way to motivate the employees. Later, the human relations movement led by Hawthorne experiments of Elton Mayo proved that employee motivation can be enhanced through employee participation and involvement with the leadership teams (Bratton , 2001). From a motivation perspective, numerous theories can be found, in literature that describe various motivating factors and ways to motivate. A few of these theories include the Maslow’s needs theory, Alderfer’s ERG Theory, Herzberg’s two-factor theory or the motivation-hygiene theory, McClelland’s 3-needs Theory, Vroom’s expectancy theory, satisfaction-performance theory, goal-setting theory, Reinforcement theory etc. Whatever be the theory, the main point derived from them is that employees will be motivated if they get what they desire and value. A similar pattern was observed in Kalar’s (2008) study conducted in a radiologic science workplace. Kalar’s (2008) study presents a very interesting and different perspective on employee motivation in comparison with other researches on employee motivation. Radiological sciences workplaces comprise of healthcare professionals, technical personnel, caregivers etc., that deal with pro viding radiological services to patients. Hence, these workplaces employ highly diverse work professionals. Kalar’s (2008) study is one of its kinds that was conducted in a radiological science workplace consisting of four generational cohorts or age groups with distinct attitudes, values, work habits and expectations. This study provides current managers with a framework that enables them to accommodate most of the motivational needs of such diverse workforce. According to Chew and Relya-Chew (2007), radiology specialists are self-motivated individuals with high levels of intrinsic motivation. Although radiological sciences professionals experience other motivational factors such as high pay package, hygienic work conditions, job satisfaction, growth etc., it is important that their intrinsic motivation is nurtured constantly. Kalar’s (2008) study explains how intrinsic motivation of these RS specialists can be nurtured. In fact, Kalar’s (2008) findings related to motivating factors to each of these groups can be related to Vroom’s Expectancy theory. This theory proposes that an individual’s motivation depends upon the belief that his/her efforts could lead to high or better outcome and

Final paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Final paper - Essay Example Adhering to a tradition that is historicary and theologically interconnected to two other religions means to stick to something common among all religions, as all of them believe in the existence of only one God The Jews use the Hebrew bible as their canon, the canon contains the story and the portrayals of Abraham Jews refer to Abraham as Abram, which later changed to Abraham after the making of the covenant, in the canon Abraham is the son of Terah, husband to Sarah and father to Isaac. In Judaism, sticking to the Abraham tradition is because of his obedience in God and the faith he had in God, Abraham was righteous. The covenant he made with God, which is to make him the father of all nations with circumcision as the physical evidence to show all his descendants, is also very important in Judaism. Abraham was a man full of faith and obedience, when God called Abraham and instructed him to leave his home Haran to go to an identified destination Abraham obeyed and left, God however made a covenant with Abraham used up to date by the Jews . The covenant between God and Abraham was that of giving him many descendants, as the stars in heaven, that is from Abraham a great nation would emerge that would greatly benefit human kind. Despite the fact that Abraham and Sarah and no children, Abraham had faith in God that he would fulfil his promise by giving him a son Jews view circumcision very important up to date, they believe that for all the descendants of Abraham circumcision should be necessary just as the Hebrew bible states that the covenant is everlasting to all the descendants of Abraham. Judaism religion is guided by the covenant in which the followers believe to have emerged; this brings to the religion the meaning of Abraham in their teachings. Jews also have the believe in the faith and the obedience that Abraham had in the almighty God. Even with all the doubt that Sarah

Archetypes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Archetypes - Essay Example I love how the numbers spell logic, and the fact that I could spread this passion as well as knowledge to more people. Now for this introductory part about me, I am going to attach these archetypes: People of the Prince archetype has a life of what could be full of expectations since like real princes or princesses, their kings and queens expect them to follow in their footsteps. They are surrounded by all this power so to speak, yet they are not yet mature enough to be in those kinds of position. My parents are in the medical field, that brought to them prestige and power. They are known to help save lives or make them better. I am their only son whom they have expectations to follow in their footsteps. But I am not mature enough to actually want it, or even fully capable of it yet. I have years to convince myself that that is what I want to do for the rest of my life and years of training to become fully capable of it. My passion for Math as it bred logic and patterns, yet in not so simple way, through figures and numbers, make me think I could be associated as the Philosopher. As one, I seek to pursue the meaning of life for the sake of attaining a level of reason afar from human boundary. Not that Math is beyond human boundary, but the fact that these figures and numbers can be manipulated to give one a result that is more that apt in analyzing things around him or her is quite astounding and just a bid tad miraculous. Philosophers peruse questions that have no definitive solutions and answers. After all, having the right answers are not his goal, only the fact that having these questions around you can heighten the awareness about the nature of life. Maybe this sort of clash with mathematicians, who sought logical and definitive answers, but my personality of wanting to seek out knowledge in order to be fully immersed in the nature of life is certainly a characteristic of a philosopher, althoug h I find it comfortable to use numbers as a tool. I look at myself as the Scribe as well, someone who has a reputation for accuracy and impartiality in inscribing details of a particular situation. I remember one time, I was called off to the office to explain a fight between two of my friends. My best friend hit my other friend not as close to me as him but I was still trusted to speak about the circumstances even though my best friend would be put into dire consequences. I did and caused a rift with my best friend for a while. But, in this I can say the aspect of being accurate and impartial lies within me. These two characteristics are important ones once you pursue a career in Mathematics as well. This is also the Judge in me, capable to mix compassion with wisdom. Though I could hurt my best friend, not coming out as I did would not let him see the mistake of his actions nor be a wise thing to do. After all being wise means knowing what is right from wrong. Condoning his actions would make us both criminals so to speak. It is a well-known fact that teachers impart knowledge and skills to those fortunate enough to be able to study and be under his or her influence. The Teacher does this impartially and only with the intention of adding to the progress of their hearts and minds. A true teacher though does this passionately and willingly. As I am considering myself to become a professor, this is more than a fitting description of that aspect of my personality. For now even I

Western liberal democracy. The evolution of liberal democracy Thesis

Western liberal democracy. The evolution of liberal democracy - Thesis Example Liberal democracy,otherwise called constitutional democracy,is the most dominant form of democracies in the contemporary world and the phrase 'Liberal Democracy' is a frequently used to describe Western democratic political systems including the United States,Britain,New Zealand,Canada,Australia,and other nations. To define a liberal democracy, it is "a form of representative democracy where elected representatives that hold the decision power are moderated by a constitution that emphasizes protecting individual liberties and the rights of minorities in society, such as freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of religion, the right to private property and privacy, as well as equality before the law and due process under the rule of law, and many more." 1As against the distinction with the Communist People's Republics or the 'Popular Democracies' of the Cold War period, constitutional democracies in the modern period are differentiated from the direct democracies and participatory dem ocracies. The various constitutional forms of liberal democracies include republics, as in the case of the US, India, and France, and constitutional monarchy, such as the UK and Spain. This paper deals with Western liberal democracy in two sections: the evolution of liberal democracy and the nature of liberal democracy.Liberal democracy has its origins in the Age of Enlightenment in Europe in the 18th century at a time when monarchy was the practice of the time. The Western liberal democracy has emerged from the unique history of European civilisation and it has grown to become one of the most important forms of democratic government in the contemporary world. Today, one prevalent question concerning the Western liberal democracy is whether it can be served from its Western historical context and universalised for all nations of the world. The evolution of Western liberal democracy needs to be realised as the result of influential movements in the Europe, including the French Revolu tion and the English Revolution, based on the theoretical and philosophical thoughts such as liberty, equality etc. The American story of the evolution of liberal democracy is not different. "In part enlightened by European theoretical works, in part influenced by the European history, and in part responding to new life in American colonies, Madison, Hamilton and Jefferson, among others, conceived a federal republic, creating a new version of democracy which is elegant in theory but miserly in fact. It is elegant in the way it structures a durable government. It is miserly in the way it embraces the realities of the eighteenth century America, excluding a vast majority of people from the democratic process. Initially confined to one race and one gender, the base of American democracy has gradually expanded." 2 Thus, the American liberal democracy mixes reality with vision and today it has become the epitome of Western liberal democracy. Today, the eighteenth century liberalism which was based on property has been transformed o a new liberalism which is established on formal equality and liberty. . The Western liberal democracy in the contemporary world demonstrates that civil and political rights of the people can go hand in hand with higher standards of living. "In light of these achievements, liberal democracy is touted as the ideal form of government for all the peoples of the world. Any other system, including any other notion of democracy, is seen as a lesser construct, an inferior design, a recipe for social and economic backwardness." 3 Analysing the chief components in the origin and development of the Western liberal democracy, it is essential to relate to some essential sources of it. Any political ideology has a historical life, growth and development and the ideology of the Western liberal democracy is not different. Thus, it is important to have the background knowledge about the Greek heritage of democracy and the contributions of Christian theology and Roman

Microeconomic Issue of Social Importance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Microeconomic Issue of Social Importance - Essay Example On the other hand, the suggestion too from the literature is that cigarettes are addictive, and so the demand may in fact be somewhat inelastic. This means that it may be that driving up prices through taxation may not curb consumption as the authorities hope. Some studies suggest this somewhat, even as those studies also suggest that demand is elastic for young smokers, new smokers, and those who have low income. In the long run, therefore, as the population turns over, demand should go down due to taxation leading to higher cigarette prices. The issue at hand is the determination of exactly how cigarette taxation impacts demand, such as in terms of the demographic characteristics of the market response to the taxation and other related aspects of demand. In general, in terms of supply and demand, we see from recent data and from insights from the literature that taxation has a large dampening effect on overall demand for cigarettes (Chaloupka;; Meier and Licari; Wasserman et al.). The overall take from the academic literature is that taxation does curb consumption. Moreover, the higher the price increases resulting from higher taxes, the greater the reductions in demand and consumption. Other insights include that demand is more sensitive to price reductions rather than price increases. This means that reducing taxes can increase demand by a greater amount. This is in comparison to the reduction in demand from the same level of tax reductions. To illustrate, say taxes go down by 10 percent, and demand goes up by say 20 percent. Going the other way, if taxes go up by 10 percent, the demand does not go down by 20 percent, but just by half, at 10 percent for cigarettes. These and other insights are useful in understanding the microeconomic aspects of the impacts of taxation on cigarette consumption and economics. The rest of the paper explores these impacts more closely (Sylvain; Bader et al.). Data from 2012 strongly supports the

Archetypes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Archetypes - Essay Example I love how the numbers spell logic, and the fact that I could spread this passion as well as knowledge to more people. Now for this introductory part about me, I am going to attach these archetypes: People of the Prince archetype has a life of what could be full of expectations since like real princes or princesses, their kings and queens expect them to follow in their footsteps. They are surrounded by all this power so to speak, yet they are not yet mature enough to be in those kinds of position. My parents are in the medical field, that brought to them prestige and power. They are known to help save lives or make them better. I am their only son whom they have expectations to follow in their footsteps. But I am not mature enough to actually want it, or even fully capable of it yet. I have years to convince myself that that is what I want to do for the rest of my life and years of training to become fully capable of it. My passion for Math as it bred logic and patterns, yet in not so simple way, through figures and numbers, make me think I could be associated as the Philosopher. As one, I seek to pursue the meaning of life for the sake of attaining a level of reason afar from human boundary. Not that Math is beyond human boundary, but the fact that these figures and numbers can be manipulated to give one a result that is more that apt in analyzing things around him or her is quite astounding and just a bid tad miraculous. Philosophers peruse questions that have no definitive solutions and answers. After all, having the right answers are not his goal, only the fact that having these questions around you can heighten the awareness about the nature of life. Maybe this sort of clash with mathematicians, who sought logical and definitive answers, but my personality of wanting to seek out knowledge in order to be fully immersed in the nature of life is certainly a characteristic of a philosopher, althoug h I find it comfortable to use numbers as a tool. I look at myself as the Scribe as well, someone who has a reputation for accuracy and impartiality in inscribing details of a particular situation. I remember one time, I was called off to the office to explain a fight between two of my friends. My best friend hit my other friend not as close to me as him but I was still trusted to speak about the circumstances even though my best friend would be put into dire consequences. I did and caused a rift with my best friend for a while. But, in this I can say the aspect of being accurate and impartial lies within me. These two characteristics are important ones once you pursue a career in Mathematics as well. This is also the Judge in me, capable to mix compassion with wisdom. Though I could hurt my best friend, not coming out as I did would not let him see the mistake of his actions nor be a wise thing to do. After all being wise means knowing what is right from wrong. Condoning his actions would make us both criminals so to speak. It is a well-known fact that teachers impart knowledge and skills to those fortunate enough to be able to study and be under his or her influence. The Teacher does this impartially and only with the intention of adding to the progress of their hearts and minds. A true teacher though does this passionately and willingly. As I am considering myself to become a professor, this is more than a fitting description of that aspect of my personality. For now even I

Microeconomic Issue of Social Importance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Microeconomic Issue of Social Importance - Essay Example On the other hand, the suggestion too from the literature is that cigarettes are addictive, and so the demand may in fact be somewhat inelastic. This means that it may be that driving up prices through taxation may not curb consumption as the authorities hope. Some studies suggest this somewhat, even as those studies also suggest that demand is elastic for young smokers, new smokers, and those who have low income. In the long run, therefore, as the population turns over, demand should go down due to taxation leading to higher cigarette prices. The issue at hand is the determination of exactly how cigarette taxation impacts demand, such as in terms of the demographic characteristics of the market response to the taxation and other related aspects of demand. In general, in terms of supply and demand, we see from recent data and from insights from the literature that taxation has a large dampening effect on overall demand for cigarettes (Chaloupka;; Meier and Licari; Wasserman et al.). The overall take from the academic literature is that taxation does curb consumption. Moreover, the higher the price increases resulting from higher taxes, the greater the reductions in demand and consumption. Other insights include that demand is more sensitive to price reductions rather than price increases. This means that reducing taxes can increase demand by a greater amount. This is in comparison to the reduction in demand from the same level of tax reductions. To illustrate, say taxes go down by 10 percent, and demand goes up by say 20 percent. Going the other way, if taxes go up by 10 percent, the demand does not go down by 20 percent, but just by half, at 10 percent for cigarettes. These and other insights are useful in understanding the microeconomic aspects of the impacts of taxation on cigarette consumption and economics. The rest of the paper explores these impacts more closely (Sylvain; Bader et al.). Data from 2012 strongly supports the

The Three major Categories of Motives Essay Example for Free

The Three major Categories of Motives Essay MOTIVES Motives can be define as a distressful feeling experienced by a person or animal that is ended by performing a behaviour that the organism believes will or might end the feeling.   According to encyclopaedia britannica it is defined as those forces acting either on or within a person to initiate behaviour. (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Motives are often categorize into Primary (basic), Secondary (learned) and Stimulus Primary Motives include hunger, thirst, sex, avoidance of pain. It’s unlearned motives and common to both animals and human. It is related to homeostasis which is basically entails maintenance of normal (steady) physiologic body state.   Primary motive acts to maintain homeostasis. Example of primary motives is the feeling of hunger which is also known as need for food. Secondary motive; are learned motives. They varied from one animal to the other and person to person. Example of secondary motives includes curiosity, ambition, competition, aggression, interest, Attitudes, Achievement and Power motivation. It’s usually acquired as part of socialization process. Study also indicates that individuals have the ability to learn new motives. The motives can be acquired by the following technique; classical, instrumental, and observational learning. Stimulus motives are innate but they involve motives to increase rather than decrease stimulation. People and lower animals need stimulation and activity. They also require exploration and manipulation. Example of stimulus motives can occur when someone is walking under a mango tree and a ripe mango fell on his head. The distressful feeling he might experience would be pain on the head as a result of the impact from the mango. This can subsequently motivate him to take analgesic when he gets home.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Reference John, Philip, Smith. (2006).   Motives. Immediate cause of Behavior. Alternative Psycological Textbook. Retrieved July 12, 2008. From http://members.aol.com/psychquery.

South korea was very underdeveloped

South korea was very underdeveloped Introduction In the beginning of the twentieth century, South Korea was very underdeveloped. It was a country consisting of minimal economic activity to compete in the Global markets. South Korea was still integrated with North Korea as one state under the Rulership of Japan. Agriculture played a big role in the economic progress of Korea under the communist system. It was only a matter of time before Korea would be divided into the north and south After WW2 and the Korean War. But the South would prove to be much more prosperous than the North, through opening up its markets, its affiliations with The United States of America and turning into a Democratic state. Its economic transformation pushed South Korea become a competitive country in the Global market within three decades towards the end of the twentieth century. The following essay will take a brief look at Koreas economic progress in the first half of the twentieth century, and then focus on how South Korea started to progress economical ly after WW2. It will also look at what political and economical reforms took place in order to ensure economic Liberty of South Korea. 1st Half Of 20th Century Korea Loses Independence In 1910, Korea lost its independence to Japan, Korea became a province of the Japanese state. Initially Korea had been ruled by the Yi state, Korea was known to consist of Raw materials which could be beneficial to other countries economic wealth. Other western countries such as France, US and the USSR had attempted to overthrow the Yi state even before the twentieth century, but Korea fought and resisted western domination. Japan on the other hand had surrendered to the USA and had become an Industrialized economy, it needed raw materials in order to expand its economy. This was going to happen at the expense of Korea. The Japanese had backing of the USA, and could easily occupy Korea by 1905 after signing a treaty with the USA called the Taft-Katsura Agreement, stating that the USA will acknowledge the Japanese occupation of Korea. The Japanese finally got Korea to sign the treaty of annexation with it in 1910. The Yi state had proven to be weak in terms of resistance to external forces, as it had now lost independence, it had also lost its power to influence its Korean people to fight of colonialism. Japan could now have access to raw materials and foodstuffs, Korea would now have to become a highly productive Agricultural state for the benefit of Japans economic growth. This would hinder with the growth of the Korean economy, limiting it to a more rural, underdeveloped economy until the mid twentieth century, after the Korean war and WW2. The Japanese took over most of the fertile land through their own landlords, and would increase their exports of foods to Japan, this signaled the beginning of exploitation of the Korean people through cheap agricultural and rural labour. South Korea experienced a high industrial growth, but the Capital and profits were all focused towards Japans growth. Japan invested high capital towards industries in Korea. Even though there was high exploitation of Korea, there had been attempts by the Korean people to protest against Japanese rule, in 1919 people protested against Japanese rule but were unsuccessful as 6000 people lost their lives to Japanese Forces. There was always a Government- General appointed by the Japanese government to keep control of Korea. He could lead in a dictatorial way and all Koreans who did not abide by his law could be arrested by the police, he had total control of the Korean affairs. From 1910 onwards, the Government- General implemented a survey where useful agricultural land could be determined, if land was found to be useful to the economy of Japan, the general took control of it. Many of the Korean citizens lost their land as a result. By 1930, the Government-general owned 40 percent of the total agricultural and forest lands of Korea, most of the land would be sold by the Japanese government to Japanese development companies, land could also be sold for a cheap price to Japanese individuals looking to start farming in Korea. The land policies implemented by the Director general increased poverty in Korea for the farm population which formed the majority of the Korean population. This explains why Korea experienced so much poverty and why many of its citizens turned out to be peasants, the Generals land policies took many of the Korean citizens and farmers land in the wealthy areas of Korea. The Japanese did not determine their land policies with the interest s of Korean people at heart, at the same time a lot of Korean peasants suffered as most of the money they made from harvesting on the rented land paid for the rent. Korea was known to be a major exporter of rice when it came to agriculture, most of its rice was exported to Japan at the expense of Korean cheap labour, the land allocation system seemed to be prospering. From 1912 to 1936, over half of the total rice production was being exported to Japan, this was possible because the Koreans were forced to lessen their rice consumptions. In the Mining sector, the Government-General also implemented a Mineral assessment with some major Japanese Corporations in an attempt to extract mineral resources from Korea. Korea had great resources such as gold, silver, led, iron and coal. These resources worked highly to the advantage of Japan as they could exploit them during WW1 for military armaments production, the Military armaments could be sold by the Japanese to the Allies. This proves that the Korean Mineral and Land occupation was of high importance for a country like Japan, and they were going to exploited it for as long as they could, as long as Japan kept growing and developed a strong competitive economy for itself. But this was just one of two major economic factors Japan were interested in, the manufacturing sector also became an interest in which the Japanese were focused on. They would achieve through intense industrial development and cheap labour, since many of the farmers had lost their agricultural land. Korea started to experience mass industrialization through Japan, this could be seen as the beginning of Manufacturing on a large scale for Korea. The government-General encouraged many Japanese businesses looking for cheap production to invest their Capital in Korea. He achieved this through the new policies of manufacturing, which opened doors to Japanese investors to bring in their Capital at very low costs. The Japanese had control of almost 90 percent of all manufacturing Capital in Korea, this also applied to the mining industry, The Japanese companies had almost 95 percent of the coal mining industry of Japan. These percentages were achieved by 1945. The Industrialization of Korea pushed many peasants into becoming wage workers, by 1944 600 000 Koreans were working in factories and another 350 000 working in mines. The situation for Korean workers in the factories was so bad that the wages they got paid by 1935 were 50 percent less than in 1927. Peace and comfort did not happen and the Korean people suffered a lot from discrimination and exploitation during the period 1910 to 1945. The Japanese used a military dictator ruling style and got rid of any opposition from the local people. The people of Korea had no backup and could not express their feelings or voice their opinions as to how they wanted Korea to be run, or how their lives could be transformed from impoverished to better standards of living. This probably happened because Political and social groups were banned. The Japanese, in 1930, formed a basic structure, in the decade that followed national industrial planning was implemented through the political economy. This meant that planning could be extended to Japan in order to give major industries in Japan a chance to bring in their corporations into Japan through direct investment. State policies were formed by the Japanese, in order to regulate and control the market from the use of foreign technology. This was achieved through a licensing system which would control market entry. The new state policies also introduced big banks and large companies owned by the Japanese, towards the end of the 1930s there were four major industries responsible for the occupation of the majority of the Korean population. These companies were Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Yasuda, they dominated the Japanese economy more than any other industries. These industries belonged and originated in Japan, but because Korea and Japan were so close to each other Geographically, and Japan had direct control of Korea, it meant Japan could easily expand their economic activities into Korea and integrate them into the Japanese markets. This the Japanese managed to achieve through investments in railroad, ports, communications and massive industrialization in Korea. Because the growth of the Korean economy was pushed by the colonial state and the economic activities were undertaken by a few major Japanese corporations, the Japaneses industrialization of Korea did very little to give the Korean businessmen some sort of power or leaderships in some of the industries or politics. In terms of politics, Koreas economy might have been occupied by the Japanese, but from the time Korea was declared a colonized state, there were underground movements which planned to help Korea regain its dignity and independence. These groups consisted of former Korean politicians who were in exile and had affiliations with the Soviet Union, USA and China. The group affiliated with the USA was run by a man called Syngman Rhee, he fled to the USA with the hopes of making friends with politicians from the state and gaining their support for Koreas independence. Another group which was in China, was one led by Pak Hon-Yong which was a communist movement. Finally there was the group ruled by Kim II Sung, this group was a anti-Japanese Guerilla communist group Kim would later become the long standing ruler of North Korea. There was little influence or success in their attempts to gain the independence of Korea by these groups. But one group which proved to have greater influence later, would be the group run by Kim Koo, right after the split with Rhee due to disputes and disagreements. This group was the anti- Japanese Guerilla, it formed close links with the Japanese Nationalists. Koo became president of the organization in 1931, with the support of the of one of its branches which were in Hawai and USA. Rhee who was in the US at the time had tried several times to influence the US group but failed. By 1940, the Provisional Korean exile government, based in China which was set on fighting for Korean independence, it managed to influence the Chinese government and was given the chance to form a general staff for strategic planning against Japanese colonialism. This would lead to the famous Pacific Korean war, where the Chinese and Koreans would fight side to side against Japan in Manchuria and China. Korea would invade Manchuria and declare war on Japan, which would take two and a half years before the Koreans could finally win with the support of the US and USSR During the duration of the war, Rhee became president of the provisional Government, in which nine Korean organizations supported by 10 000 Koreans backed the government. They set up a meeting in Washington and formed allies with the USA in order to determine how they would help the US defence on strategies of attack on Japan. What Rhee was mainly concerned about was the future of Korea after the war, how would it be run and under what economic policies would it be run? In 1942, during the talks of the future of Korea with the Allies, Rhees conditions were not met and the meeting was unsuccessful. In 1943 at the Cairo conference, Churchill, Roosevelt and Chiang Kai-shek resolved the issue stating that Korea would be declared an independent and free state. The war continued and as it progressed a trust agreement was signed by the USA and the USSR, stating that they would help Korea get back on its feet economically and politically. The USSR declared war on Japan in 1945, while the USA who had declared war on Japan earlier had now occupied the South of Korea by sending their troops to the South of Korea. The USSR would now send its troops to the North of Korea as the treaty of Cairo stated. This signaled the birth of what would become two separate worlds in Korea, the Division between North and South. The South would prosper tremendously due to its Global economic policies and affiliations and friendships with the allied powers that supported capitalism. The north on the other hand, would suffer due to their strict policies of Nationalization, independence and the support of a communist system as a way towards economic transformation. New Era, Korea Gains Back Independence By December 1945, a provisional government was set up by a joint group of allies; USA, United Kingdom and Chine. But the provisional government have to always consult with the allied powers who would have the task of being in charge of Korea for a period of five years. But right-wing parties of Korea were against the five year deal, as they did not want Russia making any decisions, as they believed it had ulterior motives towards Korea. Therefore they organized the anti-trusteeship organization. In the meantime, a more democratic committee was set up in the Southern part of Korea, it had Rhee as its permanent chairman. The USA established an assembly where elections would take place, but half of the assembly could be appointed and the other half could be voted for. Right wing groups of Korea saw it as the development of a Southern independent Korea and started to set up a separate state. Soon several elections took place, with those favouring democracy being in opposition with those who believed in Communism. The Battle between USA/ South and USSR/north would ensue within Korea. By 1948, the Dispute was resolved, where the United Nations Temporary Commission in Seoul gave the Koreans a chance to vote in the South, as the Soviets refused them occupation in the North of Korea. South Korea became declared as an independent state by 1948, but it was called the republic of Korea instead. The USA then withdrew its troops from the South in order to avoid further conflict and to prove that it was not intending on occupying South Korea. The new government under the rulership of Rhee had become an ally of America, and the best years of South Korea were to come. But in the beginning of the Souths rulership, it had lost its supply of hydro-power, and coal from the North. At the same time its population was increasing at a high rate, south Korea experienced a major shortage of food and housing, unemployment became rife in the state. After the USA and USSR withdrew their troops, the North declared war on the South through its communist leader Kim II Sung, but the USA sent troops in defence of South Korea. The war continued for several with Chinese, UN, Japan, Soviet Union and the USA involved. By 1953 the war ended and South Korea like North Korea were to reconstruct its state economically. In 1961, Park Chung Hee became the new leader of the South Korea and he intended to strengthen South Koreas relations with the USA and mainly other states which were capitalist states. A lot of attention would be put on the economic growth of South Korea. First Five-Year Plan By 1962, South Korea Introduced its first five-year plan in order to recover economically. South Korea approached Japan as a second major capital investor after the US in 1963 and Japan finally signed the agreement in 1965. Through these economic moves, South Korea would begin to prosper in terms of economic growth. The Korean economy was destroyed by the war. After the Korean War reconstruction was given support by huge amounts of foreign Capital from, in the North from Communist countries such as Russia, China and East Germany and in the South mainly from the United States and serious government economic development programs. The greatest industrial improvements were made during the 1960s. North Korea made progress in industrial growth while South Korea concentrated on feeding its people. When Park came into power there were certain obstacles he was faced with in reconstructing South Korea, his initial five-year plan started off at a very slow place for developing the economy, as he was to focused on social policy first before moving towards economic policies. From Parks economic policy changes in 1964, South Korea would now start to go through three different Democratic rulerships, each with their own plans of action towards economic transformation. Parks government, of 1963-1973 focused on a sort of limited democracy that wanted to restrict democracy to a certain extent. Park wanted to follow Japans idea of a military leadership, which had initially created a lot economic progress in Japan. Second Five-Year Plan In 1964 with the attempt at the five-year plan for the second time, Park now shifted his economic plans more to industrial growth instead of a focus on food self-sufficiency. The goals of the plan was to increase energy production, grain production and create a demand for exports. Korea had started to have a growth rate of 8.5 percent in GDP and the growth of the industry sector had been the major contributing factor to the sudden growth of the South Korea economy. Even though South Korea started to develop, it was mostly due to Americas contribution towards its economy. From the 1960s, Korea benefited from great relations with the United States. The relationship between the USA and South Korea was created because American policy-makers, saw South Korea as an important platform to confront the Soviet Union during the Cold war. American interests in South Korea allowed it to enjoy economic benefits in terms of aid, trade, capital, and technology from the U.S. It is said that South Kor ea could not have survived its economic prosperity if it wasnt for Americas assistance in the 1950s and Korean access to its export markets since the mid-1960s. America though, was not happy with Parks economic reforms in the first half of the 1960s because he had focused on agriculture in his early rulership. The United States had threatened to withdraw its financial aid to South Korea, because it was not gaining well enough due to Parks economic transformations in the early 1960s. America also had its own economic problems and couldnt handle having to back up a slow growing economy which did not follow a clear system of liberalized market and limited democracy. But the USA wasnt going to withdraw its aid that easily because, it feared that with South Koreas deficit spending due to its economic strategies, South Korea would experience a foreign debt crisis and its economy would collapse. Not prepared to let this happen, the US government started to put pressure on South Korea to start focusing on industrialization instead of agriculture and social policy. This the American government believed had to be implemented as South Korea could increase its exports and therefore lessen its foreign debt. America then put pressure on South Korea to strengthen its ties with Japan, because Japan could now become an investor in the South Korean labor raw material market. Therefore Japan would be able to provide aid and a market for exports in South Korea which could be very beneficial to the growth of its economy. The United States then began to issue more funds into the South Korean economy, US finance in South Korea paid for over 70 percent of imports, this gave the USA power to control the South Korean Government as the US expenditure on South Koreans obviously came with major conditions. As the result by 1964, the South Korean Government went into serious deals with the USA, an d the conditions meant that South Korea would follow USA orders. Over the next years after 1964 the Koreans would follow the US orders by stabilizing prices, creating more trade relations with other western countries, raising interest rates, devaluing the currency, taking down import barriers and increasing export incentives. This direction followed by South Korea would later be very beneficial to the countrys economic wealth, as it would influence rapid economic growth in space of just 30 years. Third Five-Year Plan The third five-year plan was to be introduced by Park from 1972-1976, this was and important era as South Korea aimed at job creation, and mainly the need to focus on rural development and creation of rural labour and revitalization. A very important factor by which Park did not adhere to during this time was the American conditions, which stated to him that he had to loosen the economy for open trade and rather focus on gaining economic wealth for the country. Instead, Park took his own measures would prove very successful before the fourth five-year plan. The government partly took control of over banks and controlled investment. During this period, the government imposed price controls, this they wanted to implement for a short period aimed controlling certain inequalities in industries where high profits were being made by foreign investors. These price controls were aimed at reducing inflation, but they were not imposed on all industries but a select major ones, which contributed highly to the economic wealth and the ones which were monopolistic in their markets. There were other areas in the economy were restructuring and mergers took place, where the government intervened during the rapid industrialization period which was to follow. The reason Park introduced this policy of government intervention was because by 1972, South Koreas economy had produced a high amount of industrial wealth, of which most of it lay in the hands of a select few owners and political leaders. This created an imbalance in the economic equilibrium of South Korea. At the same time, South Korea needed to solve its debts. Fourth Five-Year Plan The next step to be followed by Park would be very economic orientated, the Fourth Five-year plan. This plan was implemented from 1977-1981 more or less, it was regarded as the big push era of South Korea. Park now focused on heavy industrial policy by shifting towards electronics, machinery and shipbuilding to name a few. With this policy, Park wanted very minimal foreign borrowing of capital as his aim was to decrease the amount of debt South Korea was faced with. This five year plan would turn out to be a sort of disaster, caused by the oil crisis. Therefore the targets of this plan wouldnt be achieved to their full potential. At this point the South Korean Chemical industry boosted economic growth and was the major industry which contained the most foreign investment. South Korea had collaborated with Dow Chemicals from the USA, which was South Koreas largest business partner in industry sector, the problem now, was that Dow Chemicals was charged by the South Korean government for fixing its prices through its South Korean partner, this was aimed at creating profits which Dow chemicals used to transfer to its other plants out of South Korea. This led to the South Korean partner objecting to this plan, and the Government being in support of the South Korean partner intervened. Dow then decided to pull out of the joint business venture. This became a major knock to the states economic stability. South Korea during this period had also built a major Shipyard, probably one of the worlds largest, the problem although was that, in building the shipyard, South Korea had to export most of its expertise, machinery, engines and tools from Japan. This created an imbalance of payments for South Korea and increased her debts highly. Another major threat to the countrys growth was the oil boom of the Middle East, South Korea striked a deal with the Middle East to start a huge construction programme in the Middle East region. South Korea then sent an estimated 293 000 male workers to the Middle East region between 1977-1979 for construction. This number was equal to over half of the South Korean manufacturing labour force. It became a problem because wages went higher in the manufacturing sector of South Korea but production became slower because of the shortage of workers in the industries. While this happened, a lot of smaller companies were not making real profits, at the same time the state was spending highly on Industries for growth. Only the major foreign companies were profiting highly, causing the economy of South Korea to become unstable and unbalanced. This meant that industries could not meet the targets of the South Korean export sector, at the same time the lighter smaller manufacturing companies competition internationally. South Korea had become a country which imported a lot, which disadvantaged the economy during the rapid industrialization era. Technology and Capital goods had to be imported, causing South Korea to put itself in a position of overspending and having to borrow foreign Capital in order to increase growth. By 1979 it was clear that government growth could no longer benefit the economy, Park had devised a plan to solve the debt problem by lessening imports and increasing exports in the smaller manufacturing industries which proved to be the major hub of the economy when they were combined. This caused further inflation, pushing the country into a recession GNP fell by 6.5 percent in 1980. This was the first year of very poor growth since the Korean War, by the end of 1980 South Koreas debt increased at a very rapid rate from around $20 million to about $40 million in1983. Park died in 1979, while he was a dictatorial leader, but to many South Koreans it was seen as new era that would open doors to a more Democratic state, being able to improve the economic conditions of South Korea. Unfortunately it was not the case, another military dictatorship occurred, this time by Chu Doo Hwan, this led to major strikes in the labour force which wanted better working conditions and better wages. The workers had been promised by their labour unions that after Parks fall, things would turn out for the better and the workers would be able to get better working conditions and wages. And an end to military dictatorships would occur, which was seen as having a negative effect on the economy and lives of the working class. Strikes continued for the whole of 1980. Years Of Prosperity Through Exploitation By August 1980 Chun retired from military and announced that he would become a candidate for national presidency position. Chun came into power after the internal election and formed the Democratic Justice Party. But this was just a front, he immediately after coming into power exercised his military dictatorships in order to stop protests. Brutal force and arrests were made on protestors and a new law which destroyed worker unions was implemented. This was done by Chun, so worker exploitation could occur, but this would be to the much benefit of the South Korean economy. In doing this, wages would be at minimal but production would increase. By creating forced labour conditions were wages fell and productivity increased, became part of Chuns plan to improve the economy. The results were tremendously high, putting South Korea in the competitive Global arena as one of the leading export markets through its short term strategy of exploitative labour in the industries. By 1983 the econo my was ready for expansion. The US supported this direction and became a major technological contributor towards South Korea, with Japan also being a major financial contributor. Conclusion In less than twenty years after the Korean war tore apart the South Korean economy, economic stability became the major all South Korean leaders focused on. South Korea turned out from one of the worlds poorest nations to one of the richest in a short space of time. This it achieved through trial and error, and a open market, liberalized economy towards the rest of the world for investment and exploitation of its labour force. It became an Industrial hub of the world towards the end of the twentieth century. The rapid industrialization, as many would argue wouldnt have happened if the USA and Japan had not given financial support and guidance towards its economy. And most importantly, the rapid economic growth took place at the expense of the South Korean Peoples labour and hard work. Bibliography: M.S. Alam, Governments and Market Economic Development Strategies: Lessons from Korea, Taiwan and Japan (New York,1989) A . Amsden, Asias Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization (New York, 1989). B. Cumings, The Origins and Development of the North Eastern Political Economy, International Organisation 38, 1 (1984), pp.1-40. H. Landsberg, The Rush to Development: Economic Change and Political Struggle in South Korea (New York, 1993) D.S. Lewis, Korea: Enduring Division? (United Kingdom, 1988) W.D. Reeve, The Republic of Korea: A political and Economic Study (London, 1963) J.B. Rosser, M.V. Rosser, Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy(USA, 2004) M. Tcha, C.S Suh, The Korean Economy at the Crossroads (London, 2003) M.H Landsberg, The Rush To Development: economic Change and Political Struggle in South Korea p98-103 J.B Rosser M.V Rosser, Comparative Economics In a Transforming World Economy p 546-547 M.H Landsberg, The Rush To Development: economic Change and Political Struggle in South Korea p104-105 W.D Reeve, The Republic of Korea: A Political and Economic Study p 19-20 M.H Landsberg, The Rush To Development: economic Change and Political Struggle in South Korea p 106-107 M.H Landsberg, The Rush To Development: economic Change and Political Struggle in South Korea p.109 D. Lewis, Korea:enduring division? P. 7 W.D Reeve, The Republic of Korea: A Political and Economic Study p22-23 W.D Reeve, The Republic of Korea: A Political and Economic Study p.23 W.D Reeve, The Republic of Korea: A Political and Economic Study p. 24 D. Lewis, Korea:enduring division? P. 31-33 M.S Alam, Governments and Markets in economic Development Strategies: lessons from Korea, Taiwan and Japan p.24-25 B.Cummings, The Origins and Development of the North east Asian Political Economy. International Organization p.34-36 M.S Alam, Governments and Markets in economic Development Strategies: lessons from Korea, Taiwan and Japan p. 29-30 J.B Rosser M.V Rosser, Comparative Economics In a Transforming World Economyp.558-561 M. Tcha C.S Suh, The Korean Economy at the Crossroads p.3-4 A. Amsden, Asias next Giant: South Korea and late Industrialization p. M.H Landsberg, The Rush To Development: economic Change and Political Struggle in South Korea p.214-222