Nigeria Essay

The Nigerian economy is most definitely a structured political economy similar to that of the United States. The term political economy examines the relationship between politics and economics in modern societies. Specifically, this relationship consists of a key alliance between the government and the economy which are manipulated by the capitalist class in order to serve all of their own interests. The capitalist class however can be further broken down into a ruling class that holds the greatest power ot only among its military governmental branches, but also the business and finance sectors. This is seen in the American society, specifically in the neoliberal policies implemented by the capitalist class system which wishes to privatize and deregulate different markets in order to continue to prosper. Yet, this is not the same as the Nigerian State has ownership over everything. The Nigerian military government and its elite ruling class have come together to create a powerful force hat has exploited people, land, labor, resources and markets. The class structure created by the Nigerian governmental system is the fundamental cause of their peoples’ poverty, and the global political economy produces an increase in unjust social relations in class, race, and even ecological systems. As Nigeria consists of a wealthy class which seeks wealth by any means, it is hard to see how a country like this can evolve much more until corruption is taken out of everyday elationships of the upper class. However, there is great hope at the same time, because Nigeria is a country that has learned to make positive changes and learned from many of these changes, such as the democratization of the Nigerian state. Nigeria has learned to adapt and deal with many of their national issues, therefore if necessary changes are made in order to diversify the wealth produced by the exploited economy. The â€Å"national cake† can be shared to benefit the social order of the society as a whole.

A Kindly Child

Oliver, my step son, is a young, good-hearted and kind boy. I first met him in a book shop years ago where he was forced to steal a handkerchief silk from my pocket; however, he was not the one who committed the pickpocket. At first glance you can see he is small and quite slim young man. He has got an oval face with bright blue eyes and a little mouth; furthermore, he has short brown straight hair. He is quite handsome, especially when he shows her bright smile. On the other hand, when I saw him firstly he was pale and thin with an expression of sorrow in her face which has no more. The most characteristic thing about Oliver is his unprecedented kindness. Despite the fact that he has raised in corrupt surroundings, his purity and virtue are absolute. What is more, even when he is abused and manipulated, Oliver does not become angry or indignant. Oliver’s moral scruples about the holiness of property seem inborn in him. Furthermore, other pauper children use rough idioms, but Oliver, oddly enough, speaks in proper words. His grammatical meticulousness is also inexplicable, as he presumably is not well-educated. I admire Oliver because he shows people how to be a better person. Moreover, his generosity of spirit is total, and even when faced with serious maltreatment; he has never lost his sense of morality or humanity. Her hair is brown, her eyes are honey colour. Moreover, she has a small nose and a big small. Today she is wearing a brown and white sweater, blue trouser and black shoes. The first thing you notice about him, are his blue eyes, small upturned nose and large sensuous mouth, which make his face very photogenic. At first glance you can also see her short, brown hair, as well as slender body which make her look really amazing. . It is rare to cheer everybody up in different situations, yet she always manages to do it. Moreover, she is the life and soul of a party, which makes her extremely sociable. Pointing out her tendency to be incredibly precise and insistance an perfection. Some people claim she may seem quick-tempered but in reality deep down, she is really an amiable person. Public places their real â€Å"work† when Dawkins picks the pocket of a gentleman. When the gentleman, Mr. Brownlow, realizes he is being robbed, Oliver is mistaken for the pickpocket. And he is then chased, captured and taken to the police Oliver is noted for having an especially innocent looking face, Brownlow. Oliver collects his inheritance and is adopted by Brownlow Oliver’s incorruptible undermines although he is raised in corrupt surroundings, his purity and virtue are absolute. Lily really deserves admiration due to her ambition and optimism. She shows people how to be a better person. I hope our friendship will never end. Mary is as beautiful as a Hollywood star. Her thick, wavy, long black hair gracefully falls down to her shoulders and encircles her diamond-shaped face. A golden suntan usually brings out her smooth, clear complexion and high cheek bones. Her slightly arched chestnut brown eyebrows highlight her emotions by moving up and down as she reacts to her world around her. Her large deep blue eyes, remind me of a lake on a stormy day. Her curved nose gives her little girl look that makes me want to smile when she talks. And her mouth is a small mouth outlined by puffy lips that she often accentuates with glossy pink lipstick. When she smiles, which is often, her well formed and even, white teeth brighten up her whole face. I guess you can tell that I am head over heals in love with Mary. His generosity of spirit is total, and even when he faced with serious maltreatment, he never loses his sense of morality or kindness.

Disruption of High School Education by Arrest and Court Involvement

Gary Sweeten utilized the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to research an understudied element of high school drop out rates, using the factors of criminal involvement, specifically first-time arrests and involvement in the court system. He then examined the outcome of their completion of high school after these events. In the article â€Å"Who will graduate? Disruption of high school education by arrest and court involvement†, theoretical approaches are tied into more statistical data to encompass a more comprehensive view of the issues surrounding juvenile arrests and court involvement on future school success.This study is extremely useful, in that the populations studied were more broad, as studies before have honed in on specific subsets of school populations. 8,984 youths were qualified for this study and assessments were conducted in the selected group. Several follow-up study waves were then conducted after initial selection, the first being obtaining backgro und information, then over a period of three years, self-reports by the cohorts and their court involvement was assessed followed by drop-out statistics on this group.4,432, who reported dropping out of high school were then analyzed. Theories that came into play to assist in the process of assembling data were labeling theory, deterrence theory, and propensity theory. Propensity theory was dismissed in that it gauged no correlative and valid results. Labeling theory and deterrence theory pose results that range on the opposite ends of the spectrum with deterrence theory proposing success in stopping future criminal activity, but gives no regard to educational and vocational achievement in the long-run.Therefore, labeling theory emerged as the most crucial with the idea presented that students, who feel stigmatized, will struggle with that stigma and with interruptions of schooling due to the criminal process and will face overwhelming odds to complete high school. Sampson and Laubà ¢â‚¬â„¢s life-course theory of cumulative disadvantage is also introduced, as is 39 other references and 5 tables to show the extent of analysis and the found effects in this article.Sampson and Laub’s theory furthers the labeling theory that is used throughout the paper and suggests that labeling is especially detrimental to already disadvantaged youth. In other words, if one already carries a label of poor or any minority status, the label of â€Å"criminal† will accelerate negative internal attributions of self-worth. Sweeten uses both traditional labeling theory and Sampson and Laub’s assessments not only to compliment his findings in the paper, but to also suggest irregularities with particular points that do not correlate.This leads Sweeten to realize that with both the limited amount of studies already completed on this particular subject without a broad base of research subjects, as he uses, and the lack of consensus among different theorists, that more research need be done on this topic. He realizes that looking at mediating factors and certain types of intervention may lead to studies that have a conclusive and usable strategy in its findings that will ameliorate the issues that he concludes in this study.

Briefly explain the economies of Singapore and Hong Kong Essay

Briefly explain the economies of Singapore and Hong Kong - Essay Example The political structure of Singapore changed in 1963 when it made collaboration with Malaya and Sabah Sarawak to form Malaysia. The association tore up when Malaysia expelled her for various ethnic and political reasons. One of the main ethno-politico reasons behind the eviction of Singapore was its Chinese majority under the Peoples Action Party (PAP). The PAP was led by Lee Kuan Yew which was opposite to the Malaysian’s. The end of first opium war brought Hong Kong under the rule of the British government during 1840/41. Later in 1898 – 99, the British government acquired Honk Kong on a 99-year lease in order to extend the territory of Hong Kong. A big change came in the administration of Hong Kong in 1997 when it got independence from the British rule and reverted back to China’s authority as Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). The 1967 pro-Communist riots threatened the administration of Hong Kong seriously after which the colonial government started modernizing the bureaucracy. This was done to strengthen the relation between government and society. The entrepot trade grew. Hong Kong became an entrepà ´t trading center that deals in the importation of manufactured goods from the west to Chinese market and in the exportation of Chinese products in the markets of the West. As the result of the unceasing political and economic instability during the colonial period, the majority of Chinese started migrating to Hong Kong. This change in the population composition of Hong Kong brought economic and political stability in the newly independent territory of Hong Kong.

Which Form of Governance is the best, Compare views of John Locke and Term Paper

Which Form of Governance is the best, Compare views of John Locke and Montesquieu - Term Paper Example Particularly, Montesquieu and Locke agreed on the doctrine of separation of powers and the legitimacy of the government as being founded upon the will of the people, as shall be seen in the ensuing discourse. John Locke’s ideas that characterize his persuasion on his opinion concerning the best form of government are mostly found in his Second Treatise on Civil Government. In this light, Locke believed that the best form of government is direct democracy. Locke believed that the best form of government had to have limited power. By the term limited power Locke meant that there had to be an existence of checks and balance. John Locke postulated that such a government had to begin by the majority entering into a commonwealth as they choose their government. This majority may therefore choose to have a democracy wherein they retain their legislative powers. Conversely, the majority can also opt for an oligarchy wherein they subject legislative power to a small group of selected individuals. A monarchy may also be preferred upon by the majority, so that power is concentrated on an individual. So far, Locke’s perspective appears neutral (Locke, 54). Locke’s neutrality is eradicated the moment he says that the majority should have the power to change the government and types of government. He also states that governments should be formed, based on the choices that subjects make. This seems to heavily resonate with the Vox populi, vox Dei notion which places the mandate and functions of the government as being ancillary to the will and voice of the masses. The notion that power to change the government and types of government should belong to the people also underscores the democratic principle that people can remove one regime and replace it with another which they deem more efficient and representational of their will. This lays ground for direct participation of the public in

Marketing Strategy Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Marketing Strategy - Research Paper Example Small and medium scale enterprises have shown strong needs to purchase business (specifical accounting ) software in order hasten and make more accurate current manual accounting business transactions. Such companies have back offices where accounting and bookkeeping (Larson, 1995) services are being processed. The medium and larger companies do need software that can make their tasks easier. When the accounting system is accurate and is updated constantly by the computer, then the customers and suppliers will know, as soon as possible (ASAP), what the daily business problems are so that remedies that will lessen the damage done will be put in place earlier. This is where Sage comes to the rescue. Sage will help, in a big way, the small and medium rate industries with their bookkeeping needs and accounting functions. The software, however, is being purchased by some the small companies. Based on the above, the company has been very successful with the present marketing strategy (Thompson, 1999). The income statement clearly shows that there is its present income has been on the rise. Because the present strategy is on the right track, then we will now be implementing a new strategy will be discussed below. This strategy is called Resource based marketing (Kinnear, 1996) strategy. According to Sage Chairman Michael Jackson, Individuals in Sage are being treated very highly and respected as a person. Sage company is constantly invented new products and new processes for its large customers’ activities.

Solar energy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Solar energy - Essay Example There is huge potential of creation of jobs and establishment of allied manufacturing industries in the Arab countries. With the growth in the export demand of the solar thermal systems, prices are expected to decline. â€Å"A World Bank/African Development Bank CSP Investment Plan for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has secured $750 million from the $6.4 billion Climate Investment Funds to support the expensive start-up phase when costs of solar power are high and export markets undeveloped† (â€Å"Concentrated Solar Power†). TiSUN, the Austrian solar thermal system manufacturer manufactured the subsidiary TiSUN GCC FZC to serve the Middle Eastern markets. It has been more than twenty years since TiSUN has been creating and selling systems to utilize the solar energy. These solar systems offer fully independent and free solar energy that can be used for a variety of purposes including water heating, backup heating, and cooling. TiSUN is the solar heating specia list from Europe and its quote of export is almost 83 per cent (â€Å"Press Releases†). TiSUN founded the solar thermal system in the start of December 2011 in Dubai. ... Robin M. Welling, the CEO of TiSUN who is involved in the renewable energies’ economics in the Arabian markets explained this in these words, â€Å"The countries of the Arabian Gulf are among the sunniest regions in the world. With nine hours per day, the amount of sunshine is much higher than in any European country. This is one reason why the Middle Eastern countries provide the ideal conditions for the installation of solar thermal systems† (Welling cited in â€Å"Press Releases†). TiSUN G.C.C. FZC has been distributing the solar thermal systems in numerous Emirates since December 2011 that include Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Abu Dhabi currently has a large project on which TiSUN solar thermal systems are being installed. This project contains a total of 750 houses constructed on the area of six square kilometers, gardens containing pools, various commercial buildings and two private schools. In this area, 28 luxury houses for single families have been supplied with the TiSUN solar thermal system. This system provides the houses with environment friendly hot water. The TiSUN solar thermal system allows each house to produce energy for at least four individuals with the total area of collector surface being eight square meters and a provision of fresh water tanks with the capacity of 500 liters. Percentage of the TiSUN system’s solar fraction is 70. TiSUN G.C.C. FZC’s Managing Director, Bashar Muhtadi expresses his contentment with the positive developments with respect to energy in the markets based in the Middle East in these words, â€Å"The integration of solar heating systems in the modern building environment has become a standard in the MENA (Middle East + North Africa) region in the last three years –

Global Warming Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Global Warming - Essay Example According to the researchers, quick changes in RuBisCO could potentially lead to a faster plant growth, quicker sequestration of the CO2 from the air and more efficient plant removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (Using Biotechnology against Global Warming, 2006). Therefore, it is evident that this technology enables to solve a problem of global warming by means of nature and the environment. On the other hand, it is hard to know whether global warming is a reality or a myth. Supposedly the Earth cannot deal with an increasing number of gas emissions and many consequential factors underline inability of global warming and its potential of further occurrence. In 90s only 13% of scientists believed in a potential occurrence of a global warming. The majority of countries signed the Kyoto protocol, but it did not help much. Still, there is a need to focus on facts, which may be hazardous for ecosystems and agricultural sectors of different countries and discuss the issue of glo bal warming with respect to these points.   Ã‚  It is also relevant to note that theory of global warming is considered to be full of errors and is often positioned as a fake science. The industrial activity of humankind does not lead to climate change, but a growing number of bureaucrats propose new taxes development in order to gain profits around the issue of global warming (McFarland, 2009). A global society is intimidated by the bureaucrats to raise additional money. Rodenhouse, Christenson, Parry, Green (2009) in their research project â€Å"Climate Change Effects on Native Fauna of Northeastern Forests† are focused on the issue of global warming and its effect on different forest inhabitants in the Northeastern forests of America. The scientists claim...This paper talks about greenhouse gases which are increased in case the world's greatest environmental challenge occurs. But, it is hard to know whether global warming is a reality or a myth. Supposedly the Earth cann ot deal with an increasing number of gas emissions and many consequential factors underline inability of global warming and its potential of further occurrence. According to the paper it is possible to predict basic directions for further dealing with global warming: reduction of GHG emissions (ensured by plants, governments and other parties involved); wild nature assistance for global warming eradication. Furthermore human beings living in the modern world should take many necessary measures with global warming: â€Å"To date, most analysis has focused on the role of nation-states in the design, promotion, and implementation of various "post-2012" policy architectures and instruments†. This paper focuses on the cooperation of different scientists can contribute much to dealing with global warming, even if their ideas are based on the simplest principles of nature. An option of biotechnologies as a saving decision for dealing with global warming is of crucial importance nowadays. That is why recent researches and studies are focused on the problem of global warming. Climate change, which can occur because of global warming, can be prevented in case the contemporaries would use natural resources more effectively and take into account possible negative outcomes of abundant use of natural resources.

Marketing Literature review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Marketing - Literature review Example literature review will look at the effects of the product placement on the consumer behavior and how likely are the product placement to change consumers mode of buying a certain commodity. It is crucial for people to know how to use product placement positively (Johnson, 2009). Product placement is the use of diverse types of media to make people conscious of different products and services when they are entertained through watching. Its development dates back upto 1896, when it was used by Lumiere brothers in their short film â€Å"washing day in Switzerland† and they advertised soap. It was introduced by Henri Lavancy who was the film director and publicist for the soap company but, it became popular in the 1930’s when the sound movie was introduced. For example, in 1934 in the movie, â€Å"It happened One Night,† the star Clarke Gable featured bare chest and sale of men’s shirts reduced; therefore, use of the movie is a strong tool of product placement (Johnson, 2009). It gained popularity with the years, but in 1980’s, it became more successful when the movie â€Å"Extra Terrestrial† by Steven Spielberg advertised Reese Pieces and increased its sales by 65%. The 80’s was the turning point of product placement where there was a working partnership between the movies and the commercial sector. According to Mary-Lou, product placement is necessary because moviemakers need money for their movie production; therefore, they will turn to the commercial sector to provide the money and them to provide the services of product placement (Johnson, 2009). Product placement in Sweden developed in the 1990’s when the real first commercial commenced, this was due to strict government regulations on media operations. It has been embraced in the recent past, for example, where TV shows get sponsorship from the commercial sector in SVT. In Kanal 5, the home improvement show â€Å"Room Service† was sponsored Marlamastana which is the trading association of painters. To

Solar Powered Cars Essay Example for Free

Solar Powered Cars Essay Cars that run on fossil fuels are still standard, but many would like to replace those diesel or gas engines with alternative fuels. One promising possibility is to develop solar powered cars. Although this is not yet a reality, prototypes have been built and proven to be functional and now many researchers are trying to find ways of using solar energy to power cars. Solar powered cars would have many advantages over those that run on fossil fuels. These advantages are directly the result of the alternative source of energy. Cars that are solar powered basically run on energy collected from the sun’s rays and that means that there is an unlimited supply of the source energy. This gives solar powered vehicles an edge over those that use up the limited supplies of oil reserves. Another advantage of solar energy is that it is also free of future costs for the supply and requires very little maintenance and upkeep. This would make solar powered cars cheap to drive. Since solar power doesn’t have any emissions, the cars would also be considered clean or â€Å"green† and not have a negative impact on the environment. However, as of now there are no standard solar powered car models on the market. This may change in the near future, though, since many of the major manufacturers are also looking into this alternative source of energy and have ideas, such as adding solar panels to the car roof or to use solar energy as a power source to charge electric cars. Media Plan The medium we selected is Print media Commercial (TV) Print Medium: The Ad should be high resolute and innovated that if the customer is in market buy the product can actually picture the Ad .People we are targeting the middle class people. Ad will be advertized in Sunday Magazine The NEWS cover page as first impression is the last THE DAWN cover page as first impression is the last As many people we are targeting read news papers on weekends only and will impact them more efficiently It will help customer to Thorley read the ad and make a thought about the product, The cover page will cost on the NEW (cover page) 4’’ will cost 180000 per week And Dawn will charge on 230000 for a week Commercial (TV) Time should be exact before 9:00 headline (news) Geo News is the channel we have selected and time selected slot we are have finalized is 8:59 Time span will be 30 seconds   Geo is currently costing us 350000 per commercial, and off the peak time it will cost us 250000

Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on Economic Growth

Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on Economic Growth CHAPTER-1 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Fiscal decentralization and its impact on economic growth have turned into an interesting subject until today since studies regarding fiscal decentralization are not only considered from the economic viewpoint, but also another perspective such as politics, graphic, and other subjects. The reason conduct of this study about fiscal decentralization and its impact on economic growth is that because sometimes the findings do not give the same conclusions among the researchers about the effect above topic. It is believed that Fiscal decentralization has positive impact on economic stability and growth because it supports in better and appropriate execution of public policies. In decentralized system the government is in great position to know about the essential requirements and problems of societies. It has no any issue in collecting the useful data for mapping out any results oriented policies for backward areas and societies. The â€Å"Decentralization Theorem† maintains that i f there are different preferences for public goods between jurisdictions of uniform provision of these goods by central government will generally achieve lower level of efficiency than one that can be attained by a decentralized provision that allows for differences across jurisdictions (Oates, 1972). Fiscal decentralization cab be handy in shaping out suitable policies, strategies and can get rid of needless activities of federal governments. In the words of Bird and Smart (2002), â€Å" for services to be effectively provided, those receiving transfers need a clear mandate, adequate resources and sufficient flexibility to make decisions†. Fiscal decentralization is a process through which the responsibilities as well as resources from national to provincial governments are devolved (Rondinelli, 1981). Thus decentralization, federal government empowers the provincial governments in such a manner that can help in better use of resources, improve public living standards and at the same time to share the work load (Gordin, 2004). Nevertheless from financial point of view, decentralization may pose danger if it is weakly design so that provinces are able to externalize their costs to others (Rodden et al, 2002; Von Hagen et al, 2000). Our country is federal country with centralized taxation procedure. The central authority collects the bulk of income and then redistributes it between the federal and provinces to correct both the vertical and horizontal differences. The financial resources allocation scheme in Pakistan is fortified with rule and an independent organization, National Finance Commission (NFC), subsequent to every five years, to make sure the fair and careful resource division. However, at times different issues perturb the method and existing economic resources sharing and that could not prove productive. Deadlocks were practiced time to time and therefore National Finance and horizontal resource sharing breaches. Further this study intention to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the present financial resource allocation structure in Pakistan, in the course of the compilation of its past trends. The accurate and suitable information about the existing resource sharing is supposed to result in improved strategy formulation and therefore would eventually assist the nation to grab the growth path faster. In this regard, it is very essential to check out the impact of present resources distribution on economic expansion of nation. So the present study assists in identifying the scale of financial sovereignty of the provincial governments and increase its long run returns. History of Resource allocation in Pakistan Pakistan is a country that has powerful central control system. Two levels of government are working in Pakistan .i.e. the national and sub national (provincial). The resources distribution system all the time remained under discussion due to the competence and sharing issues. -In the observation of Jaffery and Sadaqat (2006), the resource sharing system goes through the four levels. The first level the National Finance Commission (NFC) awards decides the revenue division among the central government and provincial governments. At the second level, Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) delegates funds from provincial to local levels. At the third stage transfers are made from central to local levels and lastly the vertical resources distribution takes place at local levels .i.e. from district government to Tehsil Municipal Administration. On the converse, the random transfers take the shape of particular grants, discretionary resources for administrative, the parliamentarian developmen t funds and the same. This fraction summarizes all the awards offered during the course of time after getting the independence. The overtime development is then discussed on the foundation of chronological investigation. 1.3 Niemeyer Award In the light of the 1935 Act of United India, the Niemeyer Award was followed for resource allocation between the federal and provinces. According to this award, a major tax i.e. sales tax was levied and collected by the provincial government. While the fifty percent of income tax of the total collection was redistributed to the provinces. When Pakistan came into being, the similar provisions were carried out up to March 1952, though a few adjustments were chart out in railway budget and distribution of earnings and sales tax (Government of Pakistan, 1991). 1.4 Raisman Award In December, 1947 the Raisman award was presented (Government of Pakistan, 1991). The particular provisions were made to cover up the fragile financial situation of the central government. The federal government was authorized of fifty percent of sales tax revenue as an ad hoc measure. The remaining fifty percent was given to provinces, out of which five percent was allocated to provinces, Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, Bhawalpur, Khairpur Mir’s, Balochistan states union and residual as 27,12,8,4,0.6,0.6 and 2.8 percent respectively and 45 was given to East Pakistan (Government of Pakistan, 1991). 1.5 Revenue Sharing Under One Unit In 1955, all the four provinces of West Pakistan were combined and stated as a one unit during the implementation phase of the Raisman Award. Consequently, later than 1955 the entire country was acknowledged two identities merely .i.e. West Pakistan and East Pakistan. In the period of One Unit, two awards were presented .i.e. of year 1961 and 1965. 1.5 (I).The First Award 1961 In the light of this first award the 70 percent of sales tax and other taxes from divisible pool were assigned to East Pakistan and West Pakistan. The share of East Pakistan and West Pakistan was 54% and 46% respectively. While the remaining 30 percent of sales tax was assigned to the provinces on the basis of collection in their respective areas. The remaining duties on agricultural land and capital value tax on immovable property were given to the units as per their collection (Pakistan 1991). 1.5 (II). The Second Award 1965 The 1965 National Finance Commission was designed under the article 144 of the 1962 constitution of Pakistan. The divisible pool comprised of collection from income tax, sales tax, excise duty and export duty. However 30% of sales tax was distributed in accordance with its collection in each province. The respective share out of divisible pool between Centre and Provinces were decided 35:65 percent respectively. The share of East Pakistan and West Pakistan remained untouched at 54% and 46%. However, on 1st July 1970 the West Pakistan was disband into four provinces Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan and NWFP, thus its share 46 percent was distributed as 23.5, 56.5, 23.5, 4.5 and 15.5 percent respectively among the new provinces of West Pakistan. (Pakistan 1991). 1.6 National Finance Committee 1970 In April 1970, this was first time a committee was made to chart out acceptable resource allocation among the federating units under the supervision of federal finance minister. The committee gave a new resource division mechanism. The resources pool was vertically divided between federal and provincial government 20:80 percent respectively. The thirty percent of the allotted sales tax was redistributed among the provinces according to the collection from the respective areas. Table No: 01, Provincial Share under National Finance Committee 1970 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 23.50%56.50% 4.50% 15.50% Source: Pakistan 1991 1.7 Financial Arrangements in 1973 Constitution The 1973 new constitution was accepted in the majority by National Assembly either government member or opposition members. The particular provisions were charted out for the revenue allocation mechanism smooth and suitable in the new constitution of 1973. The federal government was made obligatory to constitute the NFC following every five years in the 1973 constitution. The commission was authorized to propose and asses the resource allocation process in country. So with the new and strong position, efforts were made to make sure an undisputed revenue allocation 1.8 The FirstNational Finance Commission (NFC) Award 1974 In the light of new constitution the first National Finance Commission was constituted in 1974. The DP consisted of merely sales tax, income tax and export duty on cotton under this new commission. This commission made the population only decisive factor for horizontal income sharing among the federating units. The vertical division of resources remained unchanged. Because of population as the only standard for the resource division, the provincial share of Punjab increased to 60.25 percent of the total provincial share. As a result with the non-diversification of principle, the smaller provinces were badly affected. Table No: 02, Provincial Share under National Finance Commission 1974 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 22.50%60.25% 3.86% 13.39% Source: Pakistan 1991 1.9 The Second National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 1979 In 1979 the government of President General Zia-ul-Haq set up the second national finance commission award. This commission gave the resource distribution formula between provinces as the following i.e. Punjab 57.97, Sindh 23.34, NWFP 13.39 and Baluchistan 5.30 respectively. Table No: 03, Provincial Share under National Finance Commission 1979 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 23.34%57.97% 5.30% 13.39% Source: Pakistan 2000 1.10 The third National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 1985 The third National Finance Commission could not give any recommendation for resource distribution mechanism. The revenue was distributed in the light of the first NFC award with the amended provisional population. Table No: 04, Provincial Share under National Finance Committee 1970 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 23.50%56.50% 4.50% 15.50% Source: Pakistan 1991 1.11 The Fourth National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 1991 Under the shelter of democratic government of Mr. Muhammad Nawaz Sharif the Fourth National Finance Commission was shaped in 1990. This Fourth NFC achieved the success after the break of sixteen years so this award was considered a significant attainment. The numbers of constructive suggestions were the elements of this award. In the light of this fourth NFC award the horizontal resource share of the provinces registered the significant expansion of 17 percentage points which increases form 28% to 45% of federal tax revenue, (Ghaus and Phasha, 1994). The population was the only base for resource distribution among the provinces which is given below. Table No: 05, Provincial Share under National Finance Committee 1991 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 23.28%57.88% 5.30% 13.54% Source: Pakistan 1991 1.12 The Fifth National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 1997 In this award the DP was extended with the addition of all duties and taxes. Capital value tax, wealth tax, income tax, sales tax, excise duties, export duties, custom duties (other than duty on gas that is charged at wellhead), and each and every other taxes that were collected or levied by central government. The net development surcharges on natural gas and the royalties on crude oil were extended to the provinces in the form of straight transfers. The each province was given the share from divisible pool as under. Table No: 06, Provincial Share under National Finance Committee 1997 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 23.28%57.88% 5.30% 13.54% Source: Pakistan 1996 1.13 The sixth National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 2000 General Pervaiz Musharraf came into power and gave the Sixth NFC in which the federal government was insisting 45% out of DP but the provinces were demanding 50% of the share and this NFC completed its term without any achievement. 1.14 The Seventh National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 2010 The long standing problem of allocation of resources between provinces and federal has been set on by the momentous announcement of the 7th National Finance Commission Award on 18th March 2010. In this National Finance Commission Award the share of the provinces in vertical allocation has been enlarged from 49 percent to 56 percent for the period of the 2010-11 and 57.5 percent for the duration of the remaining years of the award. The multiple criteria formula for the horizontal resource distribution among the provinces has been applied instead of traditional population criteria which was the only base for resource distribution in Pakistan. In the light of this new multiple criterion for resource distribution among the provinces, 82 percent allocation was made on population, 10.3 percent on poverty and backwardness, 5 percent on revenue collection or generation and 2.7 percent on inverse population density (IPD). According to the 7th NFC award Federal Government had reduced its colle ction charges from 5 percent to 1 percent, which would mainly benefit to the provinces. Realizing the position of Province Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in the war on terror 1 percent of the net divisible pool was assigned to this province. According to this new formula of resource allocation Baluchistan would get 9.09 percent from divisible pool, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 14.62 percent, Sindh 24.55 percent and Punjab 51.74 percent. Table No: 07, Provincial Share under National Finance Committee 2010 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 24.55%5174% 9.09% 14.62% Source: Pakistan 2006 Briefly, the record of National Finance Commission indicates the resource allocation in Pakistan generally has been ineffective. It has the both the shades of failure as well as certain achievements. On the positive side the NFC all the stake holders are kept on board and decides the resource allocation among them. Further, with the passage of time more financial resources autonomy has been delegated to the provinces and there is more realization of fiscal decentralization especially in past three NFC awards of 1997, 2006 and 2010. The resource share of provinces has been improved either due to inclusion of taxes in the DP or due to the higher provincial share in the comparison that of central since 1991 NFC award. Further the increased grants and straight transfers are channelized to the provinces. Similarly, the incentive of matching the grants motive the provinces, inviting them to enhance efficiency, have their own resource generation and obtain financial autonomy ( Ahmed et al, 2007). On the other hand, on its negative side, various deadlocks and long breaks were exercised very often due to non-harmony among the provinces and between the provinces and center. Every one of the provinces has contrary characteristics and offers different monetary opportunities to its citizens. Different importance of the provinces destabilized their bargaining authority. For instance, Punjab insisted for the agriculture yield and population as only criterion to share out the funds, while Sindh has emphasized on the revenue generation criterion, Baluchistan demanded for area and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa advocated for backwardness. Consequently, owing to the absence of consensus and failure in agreement, provinces retreat to the adoption of a single criterion, which is sub-most favorable. In last the institutional system of NFC has remained unsuccessful in amicably moving towards the progress, development and tackling the very crucial hitch of fiscal allocation and transference. The second part of this empirical work is the comparison between the local governments’ and non-local governments’ economic performance. The GDP growth rate has been compared. The first phase of local governments starts from the government of General Ayoub Khan and Yahya Khan from 1960 to 1971, second phase of the local government starts in the government of General Zia-ul-Haq from 1978 to 1987 and third phase of local government starts in the government of General Musharraff from 2001 to 2008. The total time period of local government remained 30 years so other remaining years of non-local government performance have been compared which starts form 1957 to 1959, 1972 to 1977, 1988 to 2000 and 2009 to 2012. GDP growth rate during the local and non-local government in Pakistan year wise is given bellow. Table No: 08, GDP growth rate during non-local governments in Pakistan for thirty years. Year GDP Growth Rate Year GDP Growth Rate 1954 10.2 1991 5.6 1955 2.0 1992 7.7 1956 3.5 1993 2.3 1957 3.0 1994 4.5 1958 2.5 1995 4.1 1959 5.5 1996 6.6 1972 2.3 1997 1.7 1973 6.8 1998 3.5 1974 7.5 1999 4.2 1975 3.9 2000 3.9 1976 3.3 2009 1.6 1977 2.8 2010 3.8 1988 6.4 2011 4.4 1989 4.8 2012 4.5 1990 4.6 2013 5.0 Source Economic Survey of Pakistan and Handbook of Statistics on Pakistan Economy Graph No: 01 GDP growth rate during non-local governments in Pakistan Table No: 09, GDP growth rate during local governments in Pakistan for thirty years. Year GDP Growth Rate Year GDP Growth Rate 1960 10.2 1981 5.6 1961 2.0 1982 7.7 1962 3.5 1983 2.3 1963 3.0 1984 4.5 1964 2.5 1985 4.1 1965 5.5 1986 6.6 1966 2.3 1987 1.7 1967 6.8 2001 3.5 1968 7.5 2002 4.2 1969 3.9 2003 3.9 1970 3.3 2004 1.6 1971 2.8 2005 3.8 1978 6.4 2006 4.4 1979 4.8 2007 4.5 1980 4.6 2008 5.0 Source Economic Survey of Pakistan and Handbook of Statistics on Pakistan Economy Graph No: 02, GDP growth rate during local governments in Pakistan. Graph No: 03, GDP growth rate during the local and non-local governments for the selected thirty years in Pakistan. In this graph of GDP growth rate during Local and Non-local Governments, the green colour bars show the GDP growth rate during Local Governments and while the purple colour bars show the GDP growth rate during the Non-local Governments in Pakistan for the selected years. The green colour bars which depict the growth rate during local governments are generally higher than others that represent the growth rate during Non-local Governments for nominated years in Pakistan. Further we have compared the Average GDP growth rate of both types of governments. First GDP growth rates of Non-local Governments of Pakistan for given time periods 30 years have been summed and divided by 30 thirty years and same for Local Governments. So the average GDP growth rate during Non-local Governments has remained 4.41% and while the GDP growth in the period of Local Governments has remained 6.11%, which is much higher than Non-local governments.

Literature Review On Leadership Styles

Literature Review On Leadership Styles The leadership style is a contextual function which has direct relationship with the leadership approach of the leader. Based on the functionality assumption the leadership style can be identified as two dimensional ways independent of each other, where one of it is task oriented associated with supervision of the performance to ensure task completion in the form of keeping control within the organisation by providing direction and setting goal. The other form emphasizes motivating rather than controlling the subordinates comprises communication ,active listening, support and interaction. A major number of studies reveal that the primary function of the organisational leadership is the ability to influence person in the line of task performance using motivational methods rather than power of authority over a time(Kotler,1996,Yammarino et al).This definition clearly distinguishes relationship between leadership and coercive rules. It relates to some extent a formal authority with the presence of political environment in the organisation(Wang et al 2005) The recent theorists of transformational leadership has come out from the leader in internal context to extend its focus to a more broader one.(Higgs and Rouland,2003)However there is always presence of diverse behavioural pattern. It is useful to group them into three broad catagories- (1)Goal Oriented A set of behaviour which is conducive to play a significant role which eventually directs towards a goal and achieve the performance required for it. (2)Involving Involving is connected with more forces on achievement of goal setting and the direction for how to achieve the goal. (3)Engaging It acts as an facilitating nature of direction and means where the goal can be achieved. The leaders are similarly referred to as production oriented, production emphasizing, goal achieving, work facilitative or goal emphasizing(Black and Mouton,1964,Bass).There is high psychological difference between a leader and a follower with a concentration on task which is highly necessary for its achievement.(eg.Woffard,1970).Leaders have a great concern for the relationship with the followers tries to create a friendly and supportive environment which is a part of people oriented policy(eg . Beatty 1988, Katz et al 1950).Leaders are commonly interactive, facilitative and supportive and maintain the group concern with a central orientation towards people.(Anderson,1974,Bass1967,Black and Mouton,1964) Transformational Leadership Transformational leadership is responsible for bringing institutional change by making a compulsory stricture of vision and where the employees commitment can be mobilized by identifying and involving in person .In the cumulative business environment ,transformational leadership are useful in making provision of a compelling a clear vision by mobilisizing employee commitment through personal identification and involvement and institutionalisation of organizational change.The full range leadership model by Bass and Avolio defines the transformational leadership in terms of four Is such as Individualised consideration,Intellectual stimulation,Inspiritional motivation and Idealized influence. Burns (1978, p. 20) defined transformational leadership as a process in which leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of morality and motivation. The transformation is not diverse from the follower it is centered upon to a capability to develop/encourage the wants/desires of a follower. Accountability as per the needs of the follower is the concern of the leader as per Burns. Burns at first made an assertion in the high moral grounds with a desire to win a cause by creating a strong drive. People wanted to be driven by a motivation with a organizational spiritual mission(Tichy and Devanna1986).The inconsistency present in the organisation should be made understandable by a transformational leader to its followers. In the case of transformational leaders they are had the advantage of a influencing position so that conflict can be manged and performance can be improved with a direction towards set a decision making team to manage conflict and therefore, to improve the performance to make a decision in team(Amason,Thompson,Hochwarter Harrison,1995).For example,a team leader can create an environment of disagreement to generate constructive and cognitive conflict(Schwent Kotlya,Karakowsky/Leader Behaviors and Team Conflict 39 Cosier 1993).The team members are informed about the structured conflict methodology and at the same time motivating them to engage in dialectical interaction.The motivation of making a good decision will lead the team members to likely clarify the objectives and find out and evaluate new alternatives.(e.g..Abelson Levi,1985)In this process it is more important to give more focus on person than the problem and help the team members to minimize the cognitive conflict so tha t it cannot further worsen into dysfunctional,affective conflict(Janssen ,Van De Vliert, Veenstra,1999) There is only a small number of researchers who has confined their studies to establish a relationship between leadership and information technology and less focus on knowledge management and transformational leadership.However , Klenke(1994),it is the combined actions of leadership and information technology that helps in formation of new organization. Emperical study aimed at examining the influence of transformational leadership (TL) on organizational innovation(OI) and performance(OP) depending on level of organisational learning. First- A close relationship between TL ,OP and OI has been detected Second-The relationships as shown in the first finding are prominent in a high learning organisation than a low learning organisation In practice Organisational learning is practiced in a group of people with an interaction on technology where the knowledge is evolved and widen up for a cognitive and behavioural change in a constant interaction between tacit and explicit form.Organisations with a high learning structure enable with a network making it easier to learn, innovate and propel to a competitive position as centre of technology. It can be understand that organisational learning improve relationship to a great extent between TL,OI and OP.However innovation is considered to be vital for a company to survive and grow(Hurley and Hult,1998).There has been different definition of innovation- According to product development and management association(PDMA,2004)-Innovation is synonymous with a new idea,it may be a new idea or device.Innovation is an act tries to create a product which is new or wants to bring new product which includes invention and ensures the work necessary to bring finally a new idea or concept. Although firm innovation is emphasized to improve performance of organization(OP) ,a number of firms donot and fails to develop in proper way.Researchers wants to concentrate on what has enable a firm to enable,it is the beyond semiautomatic response processes.(Zollo and Winter,2002,p-341) leadership style has the highest level of influence on the firm to innovate by bringing a new idea into the technological area ,setting up of goals which is definite and encouraging an initiative for subordinates with innovation (Kanter,1983,Senge et al,1994) In the transformational leadership (TL) it encourages OI and OP gets advantages from it and defines a leadership which increases the consciousness to achieve the collective interests among the members to achieve it. Transformational leaders have charisma,inspiration and intellectual stimulation (Bass1999,Conger1999 and Avolio 2000) Charisma-is the quality which encourages its workers,the leaders and technological organisations to bring a situation of pride,faith and respect. Inspiration- motivates the followers to a large extent through communications of high technological expectations. Intellectual stimulation- is a behaviour that is associated with the promotion of employees,intelligence,knowledge and learning for a innovative problem solving and solutions. The fundamental role of CEOs is to indulge in playing an important role in informing and moulding these variables(TL,OI and OP) by determining the types of behaviour that is upto the expectation and supported(Baer and Frese,2003) Four factors of transformational leadership (Four Is) can be discussed as below- Individualized consideration The first I in the transformational leadership is concerned with providing an umbrella of guidance in the part of leaders with an indivisualised consideration.The leader treats his followers with an individual approach,making explicit about his concerns,listening to his ideas and tries to know him well.The manager in this context sets standard as exemplary decision maker in the organization and gains respect as role model with idealized influence. The indication of his style can be realised by- As a good listener Self development is the key importance Exchange of views from both the sides is expected Individual needs and ability are reflected in the organizational decision The quality of possible amalgamation is adhered However the leader engaged in giving each individual access to teaching and coaching ,encourage them to participate in the project by delegating it and by constantly giving feedback. Intellectual stimulation Intellectual stimulation(IS) is a kind of motivation where the leaders motivate the followers to build up their own skills by signifying the problems and issues. This is a kind of situation like a parents pursue their child but in managers in most of the organisations prefer an approach where they are directed to do a job rather than made them accountable to it. The key indicators of this style can be drawn as- To rethink an assumption which is already preoccupied Ability to recognise the pattern which is hard to imagine This is an kind of entertaining and bring forward some trivial one Visualise an existing pattern by revisiting it However leaders engages himself with the subordinates by providing a series of new ideas and encouraging a new thought of followers by imputing some logic beforehand and problem solving are emphasized. Inspiritional motivation Inspirational motivation is associated with the encouragement of a high degree of performance stimulating motivation among the followers.Setting a future vision in the mind the leader sets a flow of communication through which a binding has been imposed in an exciting manner and provides a zeal to struggle for it.That is why leaders are sometimes successful to lift the expectation of the followers where key indicators of the style can be identified as- Foresee a future and confident of attaining it Making intelligible about the term of the meaning and shaping the expectations Reducing the complexities by simplifying the meaning Prioritise and grow the sense of purpose The leader imparts a sense of mission and vision; articulate a roadmap of pride .respect and faith,inculcates giving utmost importance towards pride,respect and faith,aspire and ignite the excitement of the subordinates. Idealized influence This is a leadership style in terms of influencing with the element of idealized form(ii) or become a role-model of people around him.There are specific and personal characteristics or charisma inherited and making it explicit through moral behaviour which can be followed on the grounds of trust,morality,honesty and integrity.The key indicators can be attributed as- The positive gain is achieved by utilising power Addresses crisis head on The followers achievement is a matter of celebration for him Proves extraordinary competency Leader imparts the vision and mission in a way to inspire and motivate the followers by put forward the challenge and establish what it actually mean. Transformational leader and vision Leadership authors have given more attention to emotional intelligence towards a competency which is interpersonal.in recent times leaders emotional competency can be effected by- Awareness about himself Emotional expressiviity Monitor ones function by himself Empathy Empirical evidence shows that leader with more emotional competencies shows to be visionary leadership behaviour. Akshkanesy and Tse(Theoritical article) defined the emotional leadership as- Management of emotion Assert that emotional language and communication Transformational leaders have intuition about the followers needs values leads to greater interpersonal sensitivity and higher quality relationship with followers. George(2000) describes how aspects of emotional intelligence, including the appraisal and expression of emotions facilitate a leaders ability to develop collective goals, communicate the importance of work activities with followers and motivate by generating enthusiasm, confidence and trust. The following hypothesis is presented which is dependent on emotional expressivity and visionary leadership. H1: A wide range of positive results including organisational performance has a positive link with the leaders emotional expressivity(Waldman etal,2001) H2:There is a positive relationship between visionary leadership and follower ratings of leadership effectiveness. Empirically it has direct effects on the attitude of the follower and ratings of leadership effectiveness of a leaders visionary behaviour may be viewed in terms of scale of organisational changes that are felicitated in the organisation. Furthermore visionary leaders who also acquires this skill where expressivity in terms of emotion is practiced will likely to articulate their vision in a strong way with more compulsion and persuasion that result in high magnitude of organisational changes than leaders who does not have such skill H3: A close bond between visionary leadership and organisational change will vary in degree depending on the level of leaders emotional expressivity. The regression analysis done through empirical analysis found that there is a strong relationship between visionary leadership and organisational change in magnitude under conditions of leaders high emotional expressivity. VISIONARY LEADERSHIP Frances Westley and henry Mintzberg formulated the theory of visionary leadershipn on the basis of Miss Follets work.There are three main assumptions of the visionary leadership. First assumption is associated with the dynamic nature of visionary leadership where the drama,action and communication occur at the same time.As the actor does his rehersal when he goes up to the step for the moment ,at that moment of time visionary leader practices the vision. The visionary leader connects the idea and action and at the same time establishes a relationship with his followers.This kind of leader is capable of moulding strategy into vision. The second assumption is about the content as well as context strategic vision.The core of the vision is a strategic content and has a focus on organisations,markets,products or even services.The external influence on vision comes out with the context one.This aspect has been effected by the organisational variation in terms of structure,ownership and size etc. The third and the final assumption stresses on the variety of visions and it can visualise many shape and sizes.Mary Parker Follett emphasises that the leader should have the capability to identify the potential of its followers and with a cohesive bond they should be able to integrate them. There sould be reciprosity in the gtoup and the leader and the group members should influence each other.It is not only the leader who should have influence on group members but the group member should also influemce leaders(Follett,1930a,P213).The another point is repetation which drawn by Westley and Mintzberg(1989)it enables the visionary leaders to identify the issues.According to Folletts study the leader should harmonise the external and internal situation i case of group.Follett,1930a,p214 describes it as an functional unity.The leader should overcome the factionalism by uniting them. It is not only the leader who should have influence on group members but the group member should also influemce leaders(Follett,1930a,P213).The another point is repetation which is drawn by Westley and Mintzberg(1989)it enables the visionary leaders to identify the issues.According to Folletts study the leader should harmonise the external and internal situation i case of group.Follett,1930a,p214 describes it as an functional unity.The leader should overcome the factionalism by uniting them.The third important part is representation where the leader(ACTOR) should be able to communicate its follower(AUDIENCE) Leader should energise its followers.According to Miss Follett, the three main function of the CEO includes to define a organisations purpose,to maintain co-ordiantion of its activities.to foresee a future.The leader provides a long range vision by combining into a team effort and gives the purpose of the group. The final element is assistance where the audience or the followers should follow up the vision of the leader and take part to shape the vision. All of the analysis has come into a result of group power where the group is not like a team of uniformity but its a convergence of all opposites and Vision become live when it is shared and all the group member pull together to avhieve it and the leader should bring together all the group members to achieve the goal. Vision may be an outstanding achievement with a binding to a people in a society together,It may be an inspiring goal where involvement of people is spontaneous .Vision is deep rooted in cherished core ideology and at the sametime stimulates the progress and change in anything that is not part of the core ideology.There is some core values which is independent of time and enduring core purpose (which should never change) from the operating practices and business strategies(which should be changing constantly in response to a changing world). ARTICULATING A VISION A comprehensive vision consists of two major part Core ideology An envisioned future A good vision build on the interplay between two complementary Yin-and-Yang forces:it defines change(the core ideology) and sets forth What we aspire to become ,to achieve,to create that will require significant change and progress to attain(the envisioned future) THE VISION FRAMEWORK CORE IDEOLOGY Core ideology is authentic and been derived by looking inside not by external environment.The core ideology guides and inspire but doesnot differentiate with others . Core ideology bears and inspires the meaning of the people inside the organisation and people inside the organisations neednot compel by core values and tries to generate long term commitment.It is an intrinsic matter to the organisation. The basic difference between the core ideology and core competency can be derived as -core competence is a strategic concept that captures the organisational capability where you are particularly good at and core ideology is what you stand for and why you exist. ENVISIONED FUTURE It is the second primary component of the vision framework which consists of two parts- A ten to thirty year Big Hairy Audacious Goal A vivid descriptions of what it will be like when the organizations receives BHAG BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL(BHAG) It is a term which was first proposed in a 1996 article with a title Building Your Companys Vision by James Collins and Jerry .A BHAG is a particular mechanism to stimulate progress.A true BHAG is distinct and creates immense team spirit by unfying the focal point and reaches out to the people and enhances their courage.It is tangible,energizing and highly focused and it is astimulation above the traditional corporate statement. 1.VISION LEVEL BHAG A vision level BHAG applies to entire organisation and requires 10 to 30 years to complete the cycle.BHAG stands for beyond the capabilities of organisation and current environmental trends,forces and conditions. 2.VIVID DESCRIPTION Vivid description is the second component of envisioned future necessary to achieve BHAG is a vibrant and specific component of the organisation. However there is a certain difference between core ideology and envisioned future. The first one is like a star in the horizon which cannot be reached wheres it guides and inspires and its the fundamental reason of existence. The second one is the specific goal to achieve to achieve a specific time frame.

Peter Pistol Maravich Essay -- Essays Papers

Peter Pistol Maravich Peter Press Maravich is arguably one of the best basketball players ever to play the game. Born June 22, 1947 in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania where he learned to love basketball from his father, Press Maravich, who spent many hours teaching him the game’s most important fundamentals. Maravich broke numerous records throughout his career. While in high school he scored 47 points, more than any other player, in the North Carolina High School All-Star Game. He holds nearly every National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) scoring record at Louisiana State University (LSU) and was named a three-time All American in only three years in the NCAA. After a legendary college career at LSU, he played ten great seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), earning five trips to the NBA All-Star Game and one league scoring title. After his death, he was named to the NBA’s Top 50 Greatest Players of All Time and was inducted to the Hall of Fame. I feel, as a player, for anyone to accomplish so much in such a short period of time is remarkable. During Maravich’s career the three-point line was not yet a part of professional basketball, so he accomplished all this without the three point line. Maravich is without question one of the greatest offensive basketball players ever to play the game. Maravich got his nickname â€Å"Pistol Pete† from his father. Once referring to his style of shooting during his childhood and as a high school player, Pistol quickly developed into an offensive machine with great shooting, passing, and dribbling skills. He was said to be an offensive genius. According to Mike Flynn former rival of Pistols’ who played for the University of Kentucky and the Indiana Pacers, Pistol was one of the greatest offensive players I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t say he was a pure shooter, as much as I would say he was a great scorer. I loved playing against him because he didn’t like playing defense so I knew I was going to get my points, even though he would always score more than me†¦. Pistol was an individual player, he was out there to put on a show and that’s what he did.(Personal Interview) I agree with Mike Flynn, because this quote comes from a player that has played against him, so he knows what type of player Pistol was. Pistol was a great player, even though he was an individual player, because no one ... ...ever lived, and probably one of the most unique. He died on January 5, 1988 at the age of forty while playing in a three-on-three pick-up game in California. The news of his sudden death shocked everyone and brought back memories to his admirers. Few have inspired me as he did. Maravich had a commitment to excellence, even though he did not play much defense. Him being able to average, as many points as he did is unbelievable. Although the one thing that inspired me the most was that he was a born again Christian. Before his death, he told his former coach, Richie Guerin, that his desire was to be remembered as a good Christian, a good husband, and a good father. He spoke before 35,000 people at the Billy Graham Crusade in Columbia, South Carolina just a few months before his death. Maravich stated â€Å"Next week I’ll be inducted into the Hall of Fame†¦. I wouldn’t trade my position in Christ for a thousand NBA championships, for a thousand Hall of Fame rings, or for a hundred billion dollars.† I really admired Peter Press Maravich, I feel his place in the history of the sport of basketball is secure. He will always be remembered as the greatest offensive scorer of all time.

Work and Revolution in France Essay -- History, French Labor Movement

William H. Sewell, Jr.’s Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848 (1980) is a qualitative analysis of the French labor movement, sweeping three radical revolutionary eras: 1790’s, 1830’s, and 1850’s. Sewell’s strategy encompasses â€Å"aggregating and analyzing† (1980: 5) events that would generally be considered the banal factional struggles and encounters of individual French workers. He amasses these facts into a macro-history of the workers’ plight to class-consciousness from the ancien regime to the repressive post-revolutionary era of 1850’s. Sewell frames his historical analysis within the context of the way the workers’ movement utilized the evolving rhetoric to advocate their pro-rights agenda. He performs a stringent investigation on the progression and determination of the use of specific terminology, focusing his lens on how concepts of culture (i.e., ideas, beliefs, and behaviors) aid in shifts of existing structures. Sewell’s theoretical perspective is admittedly self-constructed. He â€Å"borrowed shamelessly from such sources as ‘the new history,’ intellectual history, cultural anthropology, and certain new strains of Marxism† (1980: 5). I find borrowing from cultural anthropology to be the most influential of these theoretical viewpoints, and Sewell highlights the importance of ethnographic field methods in his work. However, he is quick to acknowledge that, from a historical perspective, conventional ethnography, as we understand it, is not suffice in this context. While traditional ethnography tends to focus on non-Western, â€Å"relatively small-scale and homogeneous societies† (Sewell 1980: 12), Sewell’s initiative is to â€Å"analyze the complex society that was rent by all sorts of co... ...mes widening his scope could strengthen his argument further. He does this in the conclusion of chapter 11 to display how and why the movement was at times, and ultimately, unsuccessful. Additionally, as he suggests the reasons why the bourgeois never really accepted and the peasantry never felt validated by the movement, he could strengthen his argument by further displaying other elements of cultural value outside of language, i.e. symbolic gestures used by the movement. In addition to symbols, I also feel that Sewell could have provided more definition surrounding the artisan â€Å"culture† (Hanagan 1981). Given the magnitude of the numerous trades, and the variety of societies, clubs, associations within each: where and what are the cultural margins between the different trade corporations? Is there one united culture, or a multitude within the varying factions?

Play Critique Essay

The main idea of this play, ‘The Voice of Turtles’ was finding truth and comfort in love despite the difficulties. That sounds similar to the main idea of my 1st critique’s play, ‘Romeo & Juliet’ but compare to that, this play was lighter and softer. This play took its setting in the main character Sally Middleton’s (Kate Woodruff) apartment in New York City, in 1943, and it was displayed well through their comforts and passionate times in the apartment. There were three characters in the play: Sally Middleton, Olive Lashbrooke, Bill Page. Sally Middleton was played by an actress named Kate Woodruff, and she was the only character who was in the beginning and the end. First, she started as a girl who had a little knowledge about things in this world, but as she met Bill and spent more and more time with him, she began to realize certain things and eventually acknowledges her true love, Bill. Kate Woodruff’s acting style expressing obtuseness and vulnerability perfectly fitted with Sally. However, Bill Page, who was performed by Jim Felton, was not developed well enough to capture the audience. I understood that Bill was the character who was optimistic and learned a lot through his experiences during the WWII, but he was not sharp enough to express that â€Å"well-experienced soldier† type of a guy. I could feel that he became more lovable and passionate towards the end, but it seemed like he didn’t fully understand his character. But Olive Lashbrooke, who was played by Lisa Perez, was another well developed character. She was the only character who had a major switch in her attitude in the middle of the play because she had a suspicion about the relationship between her friend Sally and â€Å"ex-lover† Bill. However, Lisa Perez does it really well with the consistent in the character by clearly displaying arrogant and flirtatious behaviors, and that consistent also gave reliability to the audience. The plot of play expanded with the timeline of late afternoon Friday to Sunday night, and although it was a short period of time, the story was comprehensibly displayed. It started with a basic idea that Bill and Olive were seeing each other, but Olive broke up with him at Sally’s house when he comes over, so Olive left her house. Bill had no one to spend time with and Sally was available so two of them spent time together. Olive became  suspicious about the relationship between Sally and Bill, so she visits Sally tries to win Bill back but Bill denies. Bill fell in love with Sally, who was unsure about the relationship. But Bill convinced her to work together in their relationship and Sally agrees at the end. Considering that happy end, there were few situations where it displayed opposite signs that their relationship might not work. There was a scene where Olive tried to interrupt the relationship between Sally and Bill, which caused Sally to think their relationship might be bad for her friendship with Olive. Also Sally was tired of promiscuous life and did not want to involve deeply with Bill. These situations made the play more appealing, which all worked out well at the end. The setting of the play, which was Sally’s apartment, helped her character to be more understandable. As I mentioned above, in the beginning part of the play, Sally started as a girl who had a little knowledge about this world, and this apartment setting made it looked like she spends most of her time in her apartment. Also it was her apartment that created an environment to be comforter and more honest for Sally. There was an emotional change of Olive when she became suspicious about the relationship between Sally and Bill, and in the scene where she came back to win Bill back, Olive wore an awful fur clothes. In many plays and films, fur clothes are usually wore by greedy and deceptive women and that costume added more to Olive’s characteristic. It was an interesting thing to see because they were explaining her characteristic through costume rather than words. Just like Olive’s costume, all other features of the play worked together very well to support the play. For example, the light, which shined on Bill’s face when he looked out the window, was supposed to be the moonlight, and it was amazing. He could just act like he was looking out the window, but when that light shined on his face, it just made me to think that I was in the apartment. Also the warm light on the set tied the apartment together and created a cozy feeling. I felt performances of Sally and Olive were great but not Bill’s performance. Most of the time, Sally—performed by Kate Woodruff—looked comfortable and I  think she intended to do that because the setting was her apartment. Her actions, such as the way she sit on her couch, cooking in the kitchen, and even her walks all seemed like what a woman in 20’s would be at home. Also when she was listening to Sally and Bill saying what happened outside of the apartment,—which is this world—she expressed her curiosity and interests with her facial expressions such as her eyes getting bigger and blinking her eyes quickly. Those performances told us that she had a lot to experience and learn from this world. On the other hand, Olive—performed by Lisa Perez—experienced a lot outside of the apartment, and used the high-pitched voice that helped her cocky and funny character. However the performance of Bill—played by Jim Felton—was not enough to express the character and generate interests. He was trying hard but I just could not sympathize with his lines. But overall, it was a good play. The audiences’ seats were so close to the stage and I really enjoyed being close to the characters.

From Regional Star to Global Leader Essay

Yang Jianguo was recently promoted from country manager for China to global head of product development at a French perfume maker named Deronde. He had been country manager for the China operations, having been promoted from his job running a lab that had produced two hit scents in the Asian market. The company’s CEO, Alain Deronde had chosen Jianguo over three other rising stars. Yves Saurac, one of the three rising stars, was the vice president of the company who everyone had assumed to get job instead of Jianguo. Yves was also close friend with the CEO’s family but Jianguo succeeded in the competition. Jianguo was eager to succeed in his new role in Paris. There were several issues to deal with in the first place. The company’s best prospects were in emerging markets, yet consumers in China and many other Asian markets found the Western scents unpleasantly strong. Sales were weak in Latin America as well. Given that after decades of double digit growth, Deronde’s market share was also sliding. Jianguo had no doubt that he had some winning ideas, but they seem to be falling on deaf ears. During the Jaingguo’s pitch at the board meeting, everyone at the meeting felt unease about Jiangguo’s idea pitch. Members of the executive team, for their part, find Jianguo to be largely indifferent to their input. Those other board members, including the three rising stars kept opposing to Jianguo’s ida pitch. He was getting nowhere. Jianguo’s first pitch to board members turned out to be very disappointing. Those three are competitor, but they had known each other for years and as a result, they also shared degree of trust. When, three of them had a moment to connect privately, Yves expressed his earnest concern about company’s future and how Jianguo avoid talking to him about the issue of connecting Eastern and Wes tern culture. Problems at hand indentified – what needs to be changed As the world embraces the global economy, modern corporations might need to promote diversified management staffs in order to keep pace in the emerging market economy. Thrusting onto the world stage, Jianguo Yang became a new  generation regional managers in French perfume company. Even he equipped with intimate knowledge of local market and local Chinese management skill but differences in national and corporate cultures within the same organization can pose significant hurdles in a new environment. Different attitudes and behaviors of new colleagues might make him a hard time to work and get familiar with. The persuasive argument and strong communication might help someway but the most importance is to understand the diversified peers’ culture and adapt to it. Making the transition to the global arena can be challenging so can Jianguo make the transition? And what should Jianguo do? Analysis of causes From regional star to global leader, from a Chinese local manager to a multi-national executive, a lot of things have changed for Jianguo. It seems, on the surface, it is a good thing. But this transition period is actually very tough to handle. It is very easily to change into a bad thing. Jianguo is facing a turning point. The teammates wouldn’t like to cooperate with him. His superior has some misunderstanding towards him. He was uninvolved in strategic thinking, feeling frustrated and confused. In fact, his problem is resulted from three aspects. First aspect is the cultural difference. Jianguo came from China. In Chinese companies, the main organization structure is hierarchy. What does it mean? It means that employees report to his direct head. Department employee reports to department manager. Department manager reports to general manager. Leapfrog report is definitely taboo. The logic is supposed to be like this. However, in French companies, they mainly worship flat organizational structure. It is totally a different picture. The term â€Å"Leapfrog report† never exists under this circumstance. The General Manager welcomes every single employee to report direct to him. For Jianguo, as a Chinese, he doesn’t know that. So when he found his French employees leapfrog reported to his head instead of him. The conflict turns up. He didn’t feel well. He held bias and misunderstanding towards his employees. Besides, in Chinese culture, the employees get used to move under the team  head’s order, which is identified as top-down organization style. Jianguo gets used of this mode. He never listened to his subordinates suggestions. Instead, he intended to give orders. In French, the organizational style is bottom-up. You listen and you make decisions. Secondly, it goes to role difference. Jianguo was once a Chinese local manager. Now he is a global company’s executive. The role has changed, with a lot of things following. In the past, his decision making was mainly on intuition, experience and anecdotes. Now, his decision should be based on strategic thinking and data, which means more scientific and logic. In the past, his leadership type was transactional, which means he was a task driven manager. Now he should become transformational, which means he has to inspire his team members, to listen to them and to communicate to them. Also the focus and the political wisdom are different now. I got a table to illustrate as follows. Thirdly, it has to go to the ineffective communication. Jianguo might be a smart guy based on his outstanding achievement in the former position, and obviously he has a lot of good ideas for marketing in the new position. But  he did really a bad job to promote himself and his ideas. His colleagues didn’t buy it. He never initiates a deep talk with his subordinates. He doesn’t know what kind of people he is working with. He never listens to them patiently, given that he seems too eager to prove his capabilities. He shows no respect to his teammates. What was worse, he never penetrates his ideas to his superior. He didn’t know what kind of character his superior was and what kind of marketing direction he was in favor of. During their meeting, Jianguo failed to notice the fact that the superior felt unease to his idea. Jianguo just focused on his own idea and himself. This ineffective communication may ruin his career. Evaluation of the actions in the case Jianguo was not dynamics enough to acclimate himself to new working role and multicultural environment. Working culture and environment in French company would be definitely different and beyond what he had anticipated. Being only one promoted he probably could not rely to the colleagues who feel betrayed as much as he would do in the previous role. Jianguo had many options to deliver some quick wins and demonstrate his value so the colleagues could make themselves look bad by becoming his enemies. So now the leadership and communication skill would play important role if he would like to keep pace in his career development further. To succeed, Jianguo had to make some changes in his beliefs and behavior. Approaches to solve the problem The problems encountered in this case can be viewed from two aspects: the aspect of Jianguo Yang and the aspect of the organization. Jiangguo Yang should make some changes to fit the organization; meanwhile the organization should also make some change for further development. In this case, three experts give their commentary advices, which mainly on the aspect of Jianguo Yang. However, in our approaches to solve the problem, the aspect of the organization will be the main part. There are two reasons for this. First, fairly speaking, for Jianguo Yang, the experts have already given some very good advices, which we don’t want to challenge on. Besides the truth that the advices are really practical and effective, at least we think so, these experts are very experienced and insightful. They are Katherine Tsang, the  executive vice chairman and CEO of Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai, Mansour Javidan, the dean of research and the Garvin Distinguished Professor at Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona, and James Champy, the chairman of consulting for Perot Systems and a coauthor of Reengineering the Corporation (Harper, 1993). Mansour Javidan is also the president and chairman of the board of the GLOBE research project. He has lived or worked in 22 countries. Second, we think characteristics of an organization, such as organization structure, organizational culture and organizational change, are no less important than the humane issues in a company. This is also an very important topic in Organizational Behavior. Before we moved on, we should notice that they did notice the side of the organization. Although the three experts are all focusing on the side of Jianguo, one expert, James Champy, mentioned some about the organization. He said that â€Å"Deronde International needs to adjust as well. If the company is serious about making a global move, Alain should take his whole team through some sort of cultural appreciation and immersion process. Culture begins at the top, and in this company the executives seem comfortable stereotyping anybody who doesn’t look and speak the way they do. It’s no surprise that Alain’s direct reports aren’t comfortable with Jianguo. I’m not entirely optimistic about Deronde’s chances for transformation, however. Company cultures and behaviors don’t budge easily – especially if the CEO has more of an appetite for foie gras than for change.† However, this comment is not very practical and detailed. Now, let’s talk about why the organization needs to change and how. The value of Jianguo is not fully used in the company. Reasons are already talked in the former part. However, we need to see his values and that is the reason for the company to make some change to fully use the potential of its employees. Jianguo’s value can also be proved in James Champy’s comment. ‘In my experience, in a family-run business, loyalty and comfort trump other considerations. Look at Ford Motor: Young Bill Ford was not ready to run that business. The company has continued to lose market share, but the family seems to be comfortable with a trusted person at the helm. So I was surprised that Alain had chosen Jianguo. It would have been so much easier to choose Yves, whom he knows and trusts. Yet Alain seems to have made a clever strategic choice. Presumably, he sees that in a recession, Deronde’s prospects for growth lie primarily in emerging  markets. Jianguo appears to be connected to the young Chinese consumer, and Alain evidently has the smarts to connect the dots.’ Having known all the facts above, what changes should the company make? The bureaucracy form both sides, Chinese and French, should be reduced. Although the bureaucracy has some strength, such as functional economies of scale, minimum duplication of personnel and equipment, enhanced communication and centralized decision making, in this case the inefficiency of communication is large due to the bureaucracy in the minds of people from both sides. The weaknesses of bureaucracy are subunit conflicts with organizational goals, obsessive concern with rules and regulations and lack of employee discretion to deal with problems. Here is an example for this. â€Å"Jianguo began with a quick review of the ideas he had pitched at lunch the day before and then launched into his proposal for a line of skin care products aimed at young men. He thought he had the perfect spokesman: Olympic hurdler Liu Xiang. â€Å"Will people know who he is?† Yves asked. â€Å"Outside China, I mean?† He looked around the room. â€Å"Yes, China matters, but let’s not forget that most of our customers aren’t in third world countries.† Jianguo moved on without comment. â€Å"Before we can even start talking about new products for these markets,† How can we change the organization? We want to use the Lewin’s Three-Step Change Model. The three steps are unfreezing, movement and refreezing. There are two forces, driving forces and restraining forces. Driving forces are forces that direct behavior away from the status quo. Restraining forces are forces that hinder movement from the exiting equilibrium. Unfreezing is to change efforts to overcome the pressures of both individual resistance and group conformity. Refreezing is stabilizing a change intervention by balancing driving and restraining forces. What we learned from this case From what we discussed above about this incident in the case, we learn quite a lot about how to face an issue like that, how to analyze it in terms of organizational behavior theories. On one hand, we can see that the organizational behavior issues commonly exist in the organizations and this kind of issues are not only important for healthy development of the organizations but also complicated and very sensitive. On the other hand, to avoid this kind of thing happen, to solve this kind of things, both the  organization and the person mainly concerned should make efforts. For avoiding, the organization or the superior should take more responsibilities. The whole organization should cultivate a more flexible mechanism of decision making under the situation of such a big but necessary high-level personnel change for company’s strategic movement. As a superior, it must consider carefully and completely about the problems probably confronted with before making such a decision. First, Pay attention to cultural difference. In this case, due to the existing cultural difference, he should create some chance for Jianguo, to let him own the working experience in different cultural, like working in the overseas branch or in the department with different cultural atmosphere. Second, do enough preparation for promotion. Appointing the person to assist the superior whose position he will be promoted to or make his job rotated in different departments or branches should be a good preparation for promoting him. Third, cultivating a teamwork spirit is important to become a good leader. For solving the problems, the person mainly concerned, like Jianguo in the case, should take more responsibilities. First, he should analyze the cultural difference, the role difference and make an effective and efficient interaction with his colleagues. In other words, he should change himself according to this new environment, and make achievements which can help him get higher trusted by his opposites. In mutual trusted circumstance, he can promote his idea more easily. Second, he must started to learn more about the market, and convince others with scientific research, like doing field survey, get learned more accurate figures, which can improve his ideas and make his arguments more supportive and persuasive. Last but not least, he should find a breach to reverse negative trend, and this breach is Alain, who promoted him to such a position. Alain can consider this whole issue on a higher position and in an all-round manner. The consensus between such two main persons involved definitely would help the whole issue move towards the better direction. In conclusion, this kind of issue is caused by three problems, including cultural difference, role difference, and ineffective communication. So, to deal with this issue need to minimize cultural difference, minimize role difference, and improve communication. The solutions we mentioned above along with the suggestions given by three experiences persons in the case, should make good sense, and solve the  problem the company faced in the case. In current situation, the most key person for dealing with this problem is still Jianguo. Only if he deals with this issue in the ways we suggested above, be patient, and get co-operated by Alain, it is believable that he can change the current situation and realize the original strategic intension they expected successfully.

Mit Case Study

BCG – Join BCG – Interview Prep – Practice Cases – Distribution†¦ http://www. bcg. com/join_bcg/interview_prep/practice_cases/dis†¦ The Boston Consulting Group Home > Join BCG > Interview Prep > Practice Cases > Distribution Strategy Distribution Strategy Crafting a Distribution Strategy for a Sugar Cereal Manufacturer Your client is the sugar cereal division of Foods Inc. , a U. S. -based distributor and manufacturer of packaged foods. According to the division president, Foods Inc. ‘s traditional strength has been with grocery stores, which still account for the majority of its $1. billion in sugar cereal sales. But Big M Mart, a discount chain, has been growing at a healthy rate of almost 15 percent per year and has now become Food Inc. ‘s largest customer. Your client is not sure how to react, and has asked BCG for assistance with its distribution strategy. Establish Understanding of the Case First, let me make sure I understand t he problem. Our client specializes in sugar cereals traditionally distributed through grocery stores. Sales to Big M Mart, a discount chain, have been growing at 15 percent per year, and the chain has recently become the largest distributor of the client's product nationwide.We are here to help evaluate the distribution strategy in light of Big M Mart's growth. That is correct. Could you explain to me how grocery stores differ from discount stores? Sure. Grocery stores generally specialize in food, as well as selling some household goods and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Discount stores, on the other hand, offer food alongside a wide variety of merchandise, including clothing, home electronics, and housewares. Does Big M Mart market its food products differently than do grocery stores? Discount stores advertise lower prices for a wide variety of foods, particularly staple, nonperishable foods.Could I take a moment to write a few notes to myself? Please feel free. Set Up the Fram ework Before making recommendations, I think we would need to evaluate whether sales growth at Big M Mart is good or bad for Foods, Inc. To do that, I would first look at how its sugar cereal performance at Big M Mart compares with that in other distribution channels. Second, I would look at its performance at Big M Mart in relation to competitors' performance. Next, I would determine what drives customer purchases. Finally, I would want to understand the supply chain.That certainly sounds like a reasonable approach. Let's proceed. Evaluate the Case Using the Framework 1 of 6 10/2/09 6:57 PM BCG – Join BCG – Interview Prep – Practice Cases – Distribution†¦ http://www. bcg. com/join_bcg/interview_prep/practice_cases/dis†¦ First, I would like to get a better sense of where Big M Mart stands in relation to our client's other distribution channels by examining the client's sales data and margins, by distributor. The marketing department does not hav e margins by channel, but tracks sales and volume for its top five distributors.What does this imply about Big M Mart as a distribution outlet? It looks as if the top distributors have been growing more important, but particularly Big M Mart, which is growing faster than all the others. This is particularly true when we look at volume, where Big M Mart's growth is much higher than that of the other four channels. And how could you interpret what these data says about margins? While the client's sales through other distribution channels are growing faster than volume, Big M Mart volume and sales growth are the same, so the average price paid by Big M Mart has remained constant.That implies that sales growth at Big M Mart could have negative implications for our client's margins. Next, I would like to look at how our client is doing in relation to the competition within Big M Mart. Have they been gaining or losing market share? How might you find that out? I would try to interview Big M Mart's purchasing personnel, since they would probably track those data for their own purposes. Why would they want to talk to you? How might you approach such an interview? I would approach the purchasing personnel and suggest that our client and Big M Mart work ogether to identify best practices to reduce costs and increase sales of sugar cereals at Big M Mart. Let's say in a perfect world you could get a breakdown of Big M Mart sales for the four largest competitors (see market shares below). 2 of 6 10/2/09 6:57 PM BCG – Join BCG – Interview Prep – Practice Cases – Distribution†¦ http://www. bcg. com/join_bcg/interview_prep/practice_cases/dis†¦ What can we infer about our client's competitors within this channel? Who should they be worried about? It looks like our client is losing market share, as is Tasty Breakfast, while Cereal Co. nd Private Label are gaining share. Private Label, however, looks to be growing from a very small base. I w ould like to explore why our client is losing market share to Cereal Co. at Big M Marts. Are their prices better than those of our client? After a period of price wars six to seven years ago that lowered industry margins, the cereal companies have refrained from price competition within the same channel. If prices are not driving the difference, I would look at other factors such as brand selection, percentage of shelf space, product placement, and in-store promotions.Visits to Big M Marts indicate that each name-brand company holds 30 percent of the shelf space, while private label has 10 percent. Cereal Co. brands, however, tend to be placed lower on the shelf than your client's products. Well, I suspect that children are a large target market for the sugar cereal manufacturers. The lower shelf placement could be especially important to children who are looking at the different types of cereals. Are there any other promotions? Some Cereal Co. brands have sales promotion tags, and the team notes that store flyers advertise specials on Cereal Co. rands for Big M Mart customer cardholders. So, even if all the companies are maintaining product prices, maybe Cereal Co. is strategically discounting prices to gain market share. It seems as if there is evidence of cooperation between Cereal Co. and Big M Mart. Do we know anything about their relationship? During earlier discussions with Big M Mart, you discovered that your client's competitors have 50 sales representatives dedicated to the Big M Mart account. Your client has seven. Cereal Co. appears to be dedicating more resources to its relationship with Big M Mart than our client is.This may explain its better product placement and promotion programs. 3 of 6 10/2/09 6:57 PM BCG – Join BCG – Interview Prep – Practice Cases – Distribution†¦ http://www. bcg. com/join_bcg/interview_prep/practice_cases/dis†¦ I think I have a good sense of distribution and competition. I would now like to look at the customers and understand why they select the products they do. One hypothesis I have is that shifting brand loyalties are hurting our client's market share at Big M Mart. That's interesting. What do you think might motivate purchases of sugar cereals?There are lots of factors, such as the games in the boxes, the price of the cereal itself, how it tastes. To better understand consumer behavior, we might conduct market research, possibly through focus groups, customer observation, and price sensitivity studies. BCG teams often do such research. Let's assume your team conducts some analysis. Your research concludes that most buyers tend to fall into two categories. Approximately 60 percent of buyers go straight to one cereal and grab it. We can call this group the â€Å"brand-loyal† shoppers.Another 40 percent of shoppers look at all the cereals and then select one that interests them. Let's call this group the â€Å"impulse† buyers. For the brand-loya l shopper, the priority would be product availability, while product placement would be important for consumers who like to shop around. Within these groups, are consumers price sensitive such that one brand can lure shoppers loyal to another brand? In general, your research indicates that consumers are not price sensitive and are extremely loyal to their preferred brand.But when the preferred cereal is unavailable, the brand-loyal customers will purchase discounted cereals approximately 35 percent of the time. Well, from that information, it appears that price is not a major driver of purchases unless the preferred cereal is out of stock. In these stock-out situations, you said, brand-loyal customers will purchase discounted cereals 35 percent of the time. What happens when the customer does not purchase a discounted cereal? In approximately 25 percent of cases, the customer walks away without purchasing any cereal at all.In the remaining 40 percent of cases, the brand-loyal custom er will act like an impulse shopper and select another brand. Interesting. It seems as if product availability could be a major driver of total cereal volume for Big M Mart. Of course, we would need to know how often stock-outs occur that cause consumers to walk away without purchasing cereal occur. Since I have a pretty good understanding of customer motivation, I'd now like to ask a few questions about the client's supply chain. I would want to talk to our client's distribution personnel to understand the distribution process and to determine how often stock-outs occur.Can you describe how our client's cereal is distributed at Big M Mart? Cereals are distributed from the factory to the distributor's warehouse twice monthly. The retailer then stocks the shelves itself. Do we have any knowledge about when the individual stores are out of stock? No, we do not, since our client only delivers to the warehouses and has no direct access to in-store inventory information. Since we identif ied product availability as a key success factor earlier on, I would want to make sure that the stores were stocking the product correctly.Let's say that in your earlier in-store investigations, you found out that Big M Mart stores averaged 15 percent of sugar cereal brands out-of-stock, across all brands. 4 of 6 10/2/09 6:57 PM BCG – Join BCG – Interview Prep – Practice Cases – Distribution†¦ http://www. bcg. com/join_bcg/interview_prep/practice_cases/dis†¦ Stock-outs would be a major problem for our client, since 60 percent of customers look for a specific brand of cereal and 35 percent of them would buy a discounted brand in a stock-out situation.Big M Mart would also have an incentive to reduce out-of-stock incidents, since 25 percent of the time, a brand-loyal customer will walk away without buying anything. Summarize and make recommendations Big M Mart is our client's leading customer, accounting for more than 20 percent of our client's su gar cereal revenue. Although sales to Big M Mart are increasing on an absolute basis, our client's margins there are lower than in its other channels and its competitive position is eroding in that channel. At Big M Mart, our client faces competition from both private label and Cereal Co. although the latter appears to be the greater threat. There appears to be a relationship between Big M Mart and Cereal Co. as evidenced by their joint promotions, the superior placement of the Cereal Co. product, and the substantial resources that Cereal Co. has dedicated to the Big M Mart account. We learned that 60 percent of customers are brand-loyal, implying product availability is most important. However, 40 percent like to try different kinds of cereal, indicating product placement is also important.Purchasers do not appear to be price conscious, unless the type of cereal they are looking for is out of stock, in which case there is a stronger tendency to base purchases on price promotions. I n terms of distribution, our client is making deliveries twice a month to Big M Mart's warehouses. Big M Mart, in turn, is responsible for stocking the shelves. We currently have no direct knowledge of when our client's items are out of stock at the individual stores, but there is evidence that stock-outs do occur with some frequency. Well, it sounds as if you understand the situation. What would you recommend the client do?The sales through Big M Mart appear to have a negative impact on the bottom line, as they have lower margins than sales through grocery stores. The client could work with grocery stores to ensure that they are able to compete effectively with Big M Mart in the sugar cereal market. This strategy could be risky, however, since Big M Mart is a large and important customer. Therefore, I would recommend that our client work more collaboratively with Big M Mart. To defend its current position at Big M Mart stores, the client should move toward a partnership with Big M Mart and dedicate more resources to the relationship.The customer and competitor data indicate that our client's first priority should be to improve distribution to ensure better product availability. In addition, it should push for product placement equal to, if not better than, that of its competitors. Why would Big M Mart be willing to enter into a partnership with Foods Inc? Foods Inc could offer to share its information about customer behavior to help increase revenues for both itself and Big M Mart. Stock-outs hurt Big M Mart in two ways. First, some brand-loyal customers simply walk away without purchasing cereal whenever their preferred brand is unavailable.Second, we know that other brand-loyal customers purchase lower-priced cereal whenever they encounter a stock-out of their preferred brand. Both of these instances lower Big M Mart's revenue. By eliminating stock-outs, Big M Mart could increase its sales by simply ensuring that customers don't walk away without making a p urchase. Converting these purchase occasions to sales would increase Big M Mart's sales of sugar cereals by more than 2 percent(1). Better availability also helps Big M Mart and our client increase their revenue by deterring the brand-loyal shoppers from trading down to lower-priced cereals.Recall that 35 percent of the brand-loyal shoppers purchase a discounted cereal if their preferred brand is not available. If improved distribution now makes the preferred brands more consistently available, the customers will pay a higher price for these products. Finally, we could use the information about consumer purchase behavior to help persuade Big M Mart to 5 of 6 10/2/09 6:57 PM BCG – Join BCG – Interview Prep – Practice Cases – Distribution†¦ http://www. bcg. com/join_bcg/interview_prep/practice_cases/dis†¦ share information about product availability in its individual stores.We could work with our client and Big M Mart to improve the current distri bution system to allow for more economical deliveries, while at the same time ensuring that our client's product is consistently available in the store. Thank you. Those sound like solid recommendations, but I would suggest that you fully understand the root cause of the stock-out situations and the cost to eliminate them before moving ahead. (1) 15 percent out of stock x 60 percent brand-loyal customers x 25 percent willing to forgo purchase = 2. 25 percent 6 of 6 10/2/09 6:57 PM