Childhood Obesity Essay

Obesity can be defined as the condition in which the body is characterized with excess fat by a body mass index of 30+ (Snell, et al, 2007). It is often characterized to have a genetic link i. e. it is a hereditary disease (Carol Torgan, 2002). However, families have common dietary, physical exercise, attitude and other lifestyle habits, which normally are the contributing factors to obesity. These factors sometimes are not easily from the purely genetic factors through statistical or diagnostic task. Albeit obesity is the case of children was once considered as a rare occurrence, it ahs rapidly become an epidemic with medial implications in the United States, as well as other developed states. The number of these obese children is projected to rise even further if stringent measures are not taken to curb this problem. Thus, child obesity is an issue that poses one of the greatest health challenges in the contemporary American society. The effects it has on a child’s life are generally profound, coupled with the fact that other than having to contend with overweight issues, there are numerous health issues that a child is exposed to. This is in addition to both the social and emotional problems that it creates. Once the children become adults the overweight problem does not seize, it continues and even poses other greater risk to the child in form of such conditions like stroke and heart disease. One of the possible root causes of obesity still remains as over consumption of food. When children consume too many calories for their energy needs in most cases has resulted in many modern obesity cases. When the children get to eat too much high fat food or the refined sugary foods, research suggests that they always stand a high percentage of becoming obese. According to researchers there are many metabolic as well as digestive disorders that are brought about by over consumption of refined white carbohydrates together with little or no fiber intake (Vincent Iannelli, 2007). These eating patterns in children are known to interfere with the body metabolic rates thereby causing too much fat storage within their bodies. Some of the related disorders linked to obesity include; insulin resistance, diabetes of type 2 and obesity itself. The effects of all these diseases are still a major concern the world over. Although under these circumstances the diagnosis would reveal that a child has metabolic or even digestive disorder that might be easy to treat parents do have a role to play to ensure that their children are not obese. The level on number of kids suffering from obesity has reached one that is characterized as an epidemic. Fr instance experts estimate that about fifteen percent (15%) of children are suffering from overweight problems, while another 15% one said to be at high risk of becoming overweight (Vincent 2007). Eventually, about two thirds of these current overweight children would end up as obese adults. Fast food is another risk factor that is characterized as a major contributor to overweight in children. Due to its high calorie as well as its high fat ultra sized meals. The contribution that the fast foods make toward the excess fat content within the body of the child is enormous (Gary & Juliet, 2005). The excess fat accumulates within the body tissues as well as the high sugar content that would in effect affect the body’s metabolic and digestives rates. Nevertheless, the role played by parents cannot be down played. As much as the manufactures of the fast foods are to partially be blame for this growing problem, the parents too have their tasks cut out for them. For instance, if they have learned and at least are sensitive enough to know what the effects of the fast foods have on the health of their kids. Parents have the ability to monitor the kind of food that their kids eat. In addition, the kids do not have the money to purchase these fast foods, as well as sensitizing their children’s health (Summerfield, Liane M 2007). Equally, since the dietary habits are common in almost all families it must be that either a child who is getting hooked into the various fast foods could just be picking a habit from his/her parents or from the family. It is also very hard for young children to pick up eating habits or any dietary habits that his or her parents do not approve of least of all are not practiced with the family. Many children who suffer from obesity and other related health problems often are less active. This may be due to such issue like addiction to television as well as such other activities as video games. When kids stay up all day or all night and on a frequent basis, the chances of them become obese increases. This risk factor is another contributor to obesity. Due to the inactivity that characterizes sitting down watching TV and the video games. A lot of people including parents have tended to blame the media as a whole laying a blanket condemnation and particularly directed their anger at the people who design the TV and video games programs for the kids. Much as it is admissible that the designers of these programs have a crucial role to play both in ways to help bring down the addiction aspect of the children to their games, and also to help limit the number of children suffering from obesity but with links to video or TV games. The role played by the media would only be supplementary. The program editors should also at least try to put such warming messages that would forewarn children against the dangers of excessive indulgence and addiction to their games. Once the program editors and the designers of these games have done their part then parents too have the bigger role to play. Another cause of obesity is genetically factors. Obesity as a disease is hereditary and as such runs with the family. A child who has an obese parent or someone in his or her lineage stands high-risk chance of becoming over weight. The genes from the parents or the grand parents are carried down to the child. However, genetics alone does not cause obesity, this is a condition that is only made possible to affect a child if the child eats excess food. The genetic link only makes it highly likely for the child to become obese. Nevertheless, when the child engages in eating or dietary habits that would make his or her consume large amounts of calories that he or she is not able to expend of in her body system then she will definitely develop obesity. Dietary habits mostly children’s eating lifestyles have away from the traditional healthy foods that includes fruits, vegetables as well as whole grains to new an to a larger extent, much reliance on fast food, sugary drinks together with processed snack goods as well as many other foods that are high in fat content and sugar. Due to their high gat content and/or high calories while remaining low on fiber content. Eating patterns such as having a meal while listening to radio watching TV, watching video games as well as eating while doing homework have also been identified as risk factors for the causes of obesity. Another factor which is socio-economic status ahs also been cited as risk factors for the cause of obesity. Families with lower income and with parents who are non-working have been linked to greater calorie intake for activity level. This is because the poor families cannot be able to afford health and low on fat content foods. Laziness Often defined as physical inactivity. The growing popularity among children with computer, television, video games among other activities that are found in electronic media has transformed to a growing sedentary lifestyle for many of the children within the United States of America. It has been established through research that within the United States alone, children spend a minimum of 3 hours watching TV in a single day. This habit encourages laziness and ensures that the child expends very little of energy that he or she has consumer. Further this habit encourages others acts like snacking. Due its nature, it is high in calories and since the child would spend most of the time sited, fact is she or he will not find time to release the calories consumed Brian Wansink, 2006). It is estimated that less than half of the children within the united states have parents who do routine physical exercise, and that just one third of children within the united states can access physical education facilities at school on or daily basis. The () busy schedule by parents and constant fears about the safety of their children has made it almost impossibility for kids to engage in any sports or other programs of activity after school, as they have to rush home in time. If the parents can cut down on the number of hours that children watch TV, video games and play computer games then the risks associated with media would come down as the level of laziness would be eroded if not eradicated. When parents get involved in regular exercises most likely their children too may develop interest and thus burn off excess calories and keep physically fit. The parents should also ensure that their kids are enrolled in schools where they can access physical education facilities regularly as is designed in the curriculum. If the parents took their time and organized their schedules as well as ensuring safety for their kids so as to allow them ample time to have to engage themselves in after school sports activities. During infancy, parents too can help the cause of preventing obesity through the continued breast feeding of the baby and delaying of the introduction process. Older children can be helped by their parents to develop good dietary habits, by eating healthy, nutritious food while at the same time engaging in regular exercise. In view of all these factors, from the genetics, environment to the physical activity of the child there is no particular point when the parent does not have role to play to prevent the child from being obese. As such I do believe that all the parents are to be blamed for the problems that obese children have. Reference: 1. ^http://www. obesity. org/subs/childhood/prevalence. shtml 2.   http://www. ausport. gov. au/aasc/about_aasc/facts. asp 3.   Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (2006), Brian Wansink New York: Bantam-Dell.

Human Resources Information System Essay

The new Human Resources Information System (HRIS) architecture will be congruent with the existing Information Technology (IT) infrastructure. Technical support will be directed and implemented from the San Jose office. Our proposal recommends a three phase approach to implementation. In the First Phase (1P), HRIS baseline requirements and increased Human Resource utility will be launched at the Riordan Corporate office in singular virtual network. Phase Two (P2) implements the HRIS baseline requirements throughout the United States. Phase Three (P3) implements the HRIS throughout the enterprise worldwide. It is essential that P1 also incorporate a central database to for analytics and reporting. With the new HRIS all personnel information will be standardized and organized for easy retrieval. Enhanced Human Resource functions such as climate surveys, payroll, complaints and employee evaluations will be centrally stored at a central server location. Access may be granted to employees at varied levels with management able to view only employees assigned to them, department heads able to access their departments HR information and senior executives and policy makers able to access all relevant HR information as identified by Riordan Human Resource and Executive management. Additionally, all Riordan employees, regardless of the OS system utilized (Microsoft or iOS) will be able to utilize the Microsoft Office software, the basis for our HRIS. Information Systems are only as good as the software they utilize. We have chosen software that is compatible with Microsoft Office software, most notably Microsoft’s HR iNTouch software and Apple’s HRWeb and iHR. These programs are user friendly, easily taught to new users, and easily deployed with Riordan’s current HR systems and have all of the HR functionality and  tools necessary for a growing company like Riordan. (CipherPoint, 2012) Riordan Director of Human Resources, Yvonne McMillan has requested that a beta-test be done at each level of the HRIS implementation to ensure that HR workflow does not stop at any level within the HR system. The personnel identified in Figure 1 will be acting as the virtual functional manager of each section. These personnel will be acting independently of the actual managers, testing the system throughout the process, identifying any problem areas, noting functionality and documenting areas of improvement. Figure HRIS architecture will include Database Management Systems (DBMS), web-based services, an HR intranet for faster and more secure HR internal management, Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and a fully automated back up of data to ensure zero data loss. The HR intranet will require no additional installation of hardware but will utilize a secure â€Å"tunnel† accessed through a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which will secure the data and will minimize access to those within Riordan’s HR network. At this time the Riordan HR Department uses their Information System to track very basic employee information. The bulky and outdated software currently used by Riordan is memory heavy and bulky. The move to updated software can be done after regular work hours. Training on the new software should be done prior the to release of the new HR software. All employees in HR will need training to include, Managers, Recruiters, Employee Relation Specialist, Human Resource Personnel, and Payroll Specialists. All future upgrades and changes should be based on the employee feedback with greater weight being given to employees who use the new system more (something that is easily tracked with the new HR reporting software. The proposed graphical user interface (GUI) was a standard setup, which can be easily manipulated and customized by the individual user. Department managers have the option of identifying applications in the software the all employees must have, ensuring that the HR baseline functionality is not hindered by customization. â€Å"The reputational damage done to a company that has been victimized by a breach can be significant, as we’ve seen that customers who  have been victimized by a breach are more likely to blame the organization that was breached than the thieves that perform the crime,† said Mike Morelli, Director of BreachShield (Data Security, 2012). With a new Information System comes new Information Security issues, and this IS upgrade is no different. The cost of keeping pace with complex IT issues and the ever-expanding need for data security can drive even simple costs of upgrade to uncomfortable levels. It is recommended that Riordan outsource part of thei r Information Security (IS) needs to a qualified company. Most companies in the United States manage their IS needs in-house, which requires specialists and a constant monitoring of emerging threats. We recommend several resident Information Security specialists to facilitate collaboration to an outsourced company specializing in Information Security. This will reduce cost and will not remove IS expertise from Riordan. Data Base Integrity must be included in the Information Security planning process. Security controls must include the DBMS (Data Base Management System), Identify security controls (Critical Assets) for Riordan HR system: Data Encryption, Transition Control, Backup and Recovery Protection. In summary, the Three Phase or 3P approach to implementation will make the process simple, testable, and easy for Riordan’s Human Resources department. The expanding needs of the growing Riordan employee pool and the complex HR tangle common to a multi-national structure can be easily handled by the 3P approach. Security of informati on, employee training, employee feedback and management oversight all play significant roles in our plan for the new and improved Riordan Information System. References CipherPoint software, inc.; CipherPoint announces data security solutions suite for healthcare organizations. (2013). Information Technology Business, , 73. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1428354374?accountid=458 Data security; affinion security center augments data breach solution. (2012). Information Technology Newsweekly, , 91. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/926634711?accountid=458 Kuyumcu, N. (2005). Hamilton hospital upgrades HR system. Canadian Healthcare Manager, 12(8), 37. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/205830894?accountid=458

What are the pros and cons of company's IPO Should company be floated Essay

What are the pros and cons of company's IPO Should company be floated at all - Essay Example Although the aim of growth is to bring benefits to the company, there exist both pros and cons that can arise from this process of going public (Helwege 2004, p.541). Pros and cons of Initial Public Offer (IPO) There are several advantages that accrue to a company by going public. As mentioned above, the principal advantage is the financial benefit through raising capital. An IPO adds a value on the company's stock. In addition, those insiders retaining stock are able to sell their shares or even use them as collateral (Datta 2000, p.715). Going public also creates a currency type in the form of its stock, which can be used in making acquisitions. In addition, there is a possibility that the company can access the capital markets for its future financing needs. Overall, a company's debt-to-equity ratio improves considerably after an initial public offering, which indicates that the business is likely to earn more favorable loan terms from its lenders (Datta 2000, p. 716). Another adv antage is the increase of public awareness of the company. IPOs normally produce more publicity by increasing the awareness of their products to a new group of potential customers. Subsequently this is expected to increase the company’s market share. The founders can also use the IPO as an exit strategy. Many venture capitalists have tried this in an attempt to open up successful companies (Hao 2007, p.112). For others, the prestige associated with the public companies or a post of a director or officer of any public company has a certain allure. Furthermore, going public puts the company ahead for promotion. The publicly traded companies are mostly better known than non-publicly traded ones. The company can gain publicity and a stable image by trading publicly. This makes the public companies offer a wide variety of stock, which has a considerable potential of significant appreciation in value. Those companies will trade publicly and portray a positive image hence attracting highly qualified personnel at all levels of management. It is possible to view such companies as growth-oriented hence their duty is to answer to a board of directors and shareholders who in turn demand increased profitability as frequent as possible, and also act quickly to solve managerial problems and also replace those senior executives who are performing poorly (Benninga 2005, p.117). Although the benefits of an IPO are many, there are certain challenges. One outstanding challenge is the disclosure of information to investors. There is a high cost of complying with the regulatory requirements. Other costs that will also arise include the generation of financial reporting documents and audit fees (Hao 2007, p.112). This will subject the public companies to added pressure of the market. This may force them to focus mainly on short-term results rather than their long-term growth. Since the investor is keen on profits, management will be under scrutiny. This may trigger the manage ment to engage in questionable practices in order to increase earnings. Another setback of going public is that these public companies operate under precise scrutiny. There is disclosure of confidential information touching on the company including those transactions with management; the prospectus divulges prior violation of security law and executive compensation. This may be confidential information belonging to the company that it may be reluctant to reveal. Furthermore, formalisation of the decision-making process follows and with less flexibility when the shareholders are also there. This may bring complexities to these companies. Previously, decision making was quite flexible due to the presence of few people. The company is also subject to

Microeconomics Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Microeconomics - Case Study Example The firm has various assortments of brands which emanate from its strategies aimed at being among the leading marketers of automobiles alongside the core competitors such as Toyota, BMW, Ford motors among others. This paper will address the microeconomic issues relating to the firm’s operation globally. These include the manner in which the firm determines what to produce, how to produce, and the quantity to produce and for which market segment to produce for. Determination of the Quantity to Produce and Methods of Production The department of logistics and marketing are wholly responsible for determining the quantity that is to be produced and the methods to be used in the production of Mercedes-Benz. The departments in question applies Evidence Based Supply Chain Practice (EBSCP) in determining the in plant flow of materials which seem to increase the speed of production. As part of the attempts the teams makes decisions to invent new procedures in the warehouses given the c urrent procedures restricts it to carry out such duties such as selection, sorting, staging and hauling to the line of assembly. The departments ensure that raw material components are available on time at the line of assembly to enhance production process. The team starts by carrying out a brainstorming exercise of numerous ideas which seek for ways to enhance availability and complete efficiency in the firm. The teams seek to determine the type of ideas that would work and the best ways of implementing the ideas to enhance effective and timely production. The members in the teams carry out consultation from the websites in regard to the customer’s preferences, tastes, trends in demand and buying behavior to determine exactly the quantity to produce. The teams under these departments understand that the consumer always seek to maximize utility. Therefore in an effort to understand the consumer behavior, the teams make various assumptions about the consumers after a thorough research by the marketing department. Some of the assumptions made include; consumers’ preferences are complete in the sense that they are fully aware of their tastes and preferences. This occurs in such a manner that Mercedes-Benz is meant for luxury where consumers seeking luxurious automobile will have Mercedes-Benz as one of their choices. Consumers show a habit of not being satisfied which helps the teams to invent ways of changing the model of the Mercedes-Benz and varying the models to suit their tastes and preferences. The theory of the firm in relation to the team production is also very critical within the firm. Mercedes-Benz firm management fully understands that production of Automobiles requires team work and thus the employees and staff are to be mobilized to pool their ideas in an effort to meet the production targets in the market according to the demand (Pride & Ferrell, 2012, p. 211). Owing to this dimension of thinking Mercedes-Benz assembles about 20,000 c omponents and raw materials which are kept in the warehouse to ensure continuous flow of production. However, among these items only 0.5% was delivered just-in-time to the line of assembly upon being picked from the storage zone that was dedicated. The team then opted for pull system where the employees in the assembly plants give out internal orders in the materials resource planning system for production of the automobiles in batches. The team has ensured that cases of stock-outs do not occur in the near future.

Research and Evaluation in Social Work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Research and Evaluation in Social Work - Essay Example Further, being able to inform policy by way of their study would increase the researcher's credibility, and make it more likely for the universities and health centres in which they work to have access to funding, as graduate students would be able to work on research projects, and government and private institutions could contract the researchers for more studies. The researchers appear to have designed an objective study in that; a thorough and up-to-date literature review was presented that identified current gaps in knowledge; a cross-sectional survey allowed for sampling of the diversity of organizations providing services to older people; snowball sampling allowed for access to organisations that may have been otherwise neglected, because of their size or their lack of exposure; a selection criteria provides a set of parameters that characterize the sample for future study comparisons; conclusions were drawn based on the data collected from the survey; and the final thesis was submitted for peer-review to be able to be published in a reputable journal. Overall, it was an empirical study, designed and carried out in a systematic manner, with evidence-based conclusion drawn. The Abstract succinctly and parsimoniously reported the main points of the research, summarizing the goal of the project, identifying the population, noting the research methods used, and mentioning the conclusions and implications. However, the abstract did not state the hypothesis of the study and whether it was supported or not. The rationale of the study was clear in its statement: A wide range of community based services and activities have evolved to combat the 'negative' experiences of social isolation and loneliness in later life. The appropriateness and accessibility of most interventions intended to alleviate social isolation and loneliness among older people, however, have remained unclear (p. 150). Also, the research questions were presented in dot point format, which made most of them clear and to the point. However, one goal, 'Explore the involvement of older people in the planning process,' was ambiguous in that it did not state clearly that the exploration would not make use of older person opinions, only those of the organisations servicing older people. All of the research questions were worthy of being answered, as availability of, and access to, social orientated activities is essential to the mental and physical health of older people. However, given that older people were not included in the sample, as a comparison group, it is questionable whether all of the research questions were comprehensively answered.The literature review was adequate in that it included up-to-date research for the UK, and identified gaps in knowledge. The theories drawn on also raised some interesting points, such as many older people do not perceive themselves to be lonely (c.f., Townsend, 1 957; Tornstam, 1995; Victor et al. 2005), despite continuous evidence that experiences of loneliness increase with age (authors,). The relationship between aging and loneliness has been suggested to be the result of changes in living circumstances, such as the loss of a partner, or moving to a nursing home, and changes to subjective health (c.f., Tijhuis et al. 1999). It appears that more research into social support could be the

Utopian community Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Utopian community - Essay Example Utopian Communities came into existence mainly in the early 19th Century. Most of the utopian communities were the outcome of the disruption caused in the society because of the development in commercialism and capitalism. The main idea behind forming these communities was to form an ideal and perfect society, which would act as a role model for the world.These utopians were condemned as heretics and were looked down upon by the other members of society. Yet these people were not discouraged and strove hard to run it.Utopian communities disintegrated after few years as their lifestyle was strongly opposed by the other members of society. One such example is of Brook Farm, a utopian community, which was formed by a group of transcendentalists who were great scholars and personalities of high demeanor. They too wanted to set an example of a perfect society by experimenting to form a community.Although, the Brook farmers did not leave their traces behind, we learn about their lives at B rook Farm, from the memoirs written by the members of Brook Farm. The members like Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody, Mr. Dwight, Mr. Emerson and Mr. John Van had written biographies or articles in journals that became the primary sources of knowledge about Brook Farm. It is because of these great literary people or scholars that we readers have got the benefit of knowing about the Utopian Community. The articles written by these members gives detailed accounts of how the community was formed, what were the reasons that prompted the head of the community to take such an extreme step of separating from the society and forming a different world. According to these sources, Brook Farm was founded by George Ripley, a transcendentalist from Boston. The community was formed as a joint stock company. In the book written by Rose, Anne titled 'Transcendentalism as a Social Movement,' we find a detailed account of the social reform movement initiated by the transcendentalists and also about how the Brook Farm Community was formed. Before the community was formed George Ripley was a Minister of 'The Purchase Street' in Boston. He was against the views of Andrew Norton, a biblical scholar, of separating the pastor of the church from the sympathies of the people and confining him to a sphere of thought far off from his interests and reducing his services to being a mere educationist (Gordon). Norton too was against the idea of Ripley forming a new Church of his own. He considered this act of Ripley as injurious to the religious belief of the people. But Emerson supported Ripley's decision of forming a new church because he thought that Ripley's church would be "something more than mere Sunday gathering place" (Gordon). He decided to resign from the ministry. In his letter to the Congregational Church in Purchase Street, George Ripley clarifies his aim of breaking free from the hypocritical American Society, which has lot of vices like discriminations and inequalities, false pride, lack of concern for common man, unhealthy competition, lack of desire for the redemption of the masses and tendency of fulfilling selfish motives in the name of God. Thus Brook Farm was established by a group of seventeen members including George Ripley and his wife Sophia Ripley. In his letter to Emerson, he has stated his goal of establishing Brook Farm. In this letter he has very clearly stated that the transcendentalists in this community had dreamt of living a life, which would be devoid of prejudices, and there would be no discrimination as such. All the members, no matter to which fraternity they belonged to, be it writer or poet had to labor in the field. They will get the much-desired mental freedom and will be given an opportunity to

Healthcare Administration 8 questions Assignment

Healthcare Administration 8 questions - Assignment Example The prevalence as well as the sustainability of communicable diseases which is another macro-trend in the United States has been a major concern for the healthcare practitioners and they are currently devising a long-term plan on how to handle the situation. Tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases have been ranked as the leading communicable diseases in the United States. Future research is expected to focus on relaying actual statistics on the rate of new infections and other underlying statistics on communicable diseases (Kronenfeld, 2002). Child health which focuses on infant mortality rate is regarded as a very vital macro-trend in the United States that requires a lot of attention so as to enable the realization of strategies in the healthcare system. Chronic diseases remain the greatest cause of infant mortality in the country. Diseases such as asthma are recorded to the leading cause of absenteeism in schools because its management is very costly and cannot be afforded by most families (Ryff, 2001). A recent article by Molly Worthen of the Daily beast indicated that nothing much has been achieved in the United States even with the presence of the Obamacare. Healthcare system has become considerably costly due to the presence of indirect costs incurred by those seeking health services. Hence, there is need for a complete overhaul in the entire health system and the present macro-trends. Dan Mangan of cnbc in an article titled, â€Å"US: Well pay for health insurance. World: Not us† indicated that economic factor was key towards the achievement of sustainable policies in the health sector. The ever increasing insurance on health matters was not necessary and is viewed as a means by which the government exploited the

Social Networking Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Social Networking Marketing - Essay Example Marketing on social networking or social media platforms has its own advantages because of the uniqueness offered by the internet (Keller and Berry, 2003). It is much easier to judge the effectiveness of a marketing campaign as well as ensure its reach to a very high population. Hence, marketing through the social media and social networks has become very important. However, as this method of marketing is becoming increasingly popular, various scholars and researchers have had concerns around ethical implications. Many marketers also feel very sceptical about the way in which it is difficult to preserve ethics followed in conventional form of marketing, when it comes to social networking marketing (Li, 2008). In this research, the attempt is to find out what are the ethical implications of social networking marketing and how it impacts the ‘4Ps’ – product price, promotion and place of marketing. The study would explore how this new age marketing has ethical implications on the traditional methods of marketing. Marketing and its Changing Dimensions Many scholars have tried to understand and define marketing as well as its changing connotations in the light of technology driven approach. American Marketing Association has defined marketing as a key set of process that is necessary for creating, delivering and communicating value to customers as well as maintaining and growing relationships with the aim of growing the organization, its user base as well as its stockholders. (American Marketing Association, n.d). Here, the tenets of marketing centre on the concept of ‘value’. This definition provides a good overview because it also talks about customer and organizational growth. With social networking marketing, there are high chances that the meaning of ‘value’ may undergo a change because of the high scope of strategies like bulk marketing and privacy violation. According to Kotler, marketing can be defined as a social process through which individuals and groups can get what they want and need by creat ing as well as exchanging the products and value with the others (Kotler, 1997). The important aspect to note here is how marketing is considered to be a ‘social’ process. However, in recent times, marketing has a more business related approach, rather than exchanging. In fact, the activities of a marketer are centred on how to improve brand image as well as profitability with the help of value creation. This definition becomes very narrow in today’s sense because marketing is no longer about exchanging products or services, but in fact it has a higher focus on customers as well as profitability. However, this high focus on brand image and profitability has often resulted in compromises in terms of ethics in social media. According to the definition provided by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, marketing is the management process that is crucial in identifying, anticipating as well as satisfying the requirements of the customers in a manner that is profitable for the organization (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, n.d). In this definition, this focus is given on customers and the agenda of marketing revolves around the needs and the satisfaction of the customers. In addition, while this is a good approach to adopt, presently, focus is much higher on the profitability of the company, which can be illustrated by the increasing violation of ethics in social networking marketing. Hence, it is clear that the definition of marketing, its operations and the way in which it is perceived has undergone a considerable amount of change over the years. The

Personal Statement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Personal Statement - Essay Example Since I began high school, I have developed a significant interest in economic issues. For instance, I closely followed developments in regards to the â€Å"Financial Tsunami† and the Chinese economic bubble. As a member of the Economics Club, I discussed many pertinent issues related to global economics. In my spare time, I watch financial news programming and am enthusiastic about discussing world economic issues. Recently, I have conducted significant research into the European Sovereign Debt Crisis. This situation greatly interests me as it affects us all through the increasingly interconnected globalized world. As an economics student, I appreciate the Keynesian perspective to a market crisis. The past decade’s spread of neo-liberalism resulted in both politicians and everyday citizens trusting the miraculous power of the self-regulating market. The 2008 economic tsunami demonstrated that no society can stop economic deterioration without government intervention. I n addition, Mr. Bernanke has succeeded in applying Monetarist principles in rescuing the United States economy. Hence, I believe that the combined effects of Keynesian economics and Monetarism are stronger than any single macroeconomic theory and will ultimately lead the way for future economic growth and recovery. Nevertheless, microeconomic analysis is essential for business. I had a valuable experience with business as I was born into a business family. While I was a senior in high school, I worked at my father’s office and became intimately familiar with the experience of selling products and purchasing supplies. This working experience enforced my comprehension of the conceptual applications of economics, such as marginal and utility concepts. Besides the work experience outside school, in 2007 and 2009 I participated in the â€Å"

Human Resource Management Assignment 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Human Resource Management Assignment 1 - Essay Example The emphasis is on doing right things at the right time instead of the earlier concept of sweating it out at the workplace without considering whether an effort is channelized in the right direction so that overall corporate goal is achieved at minimum effort. This approach is also known as Hard HRM where human resource is considered as another resource that has to be acquired at lowest expense, used sparingly and trained in such a manner that they become maximum productive (Daily News (Colombo, Sri Lanka), 2011). Answer 3 The first problem with soft approach to human resource management is that it is rather difficult to quantify the tenets of such an approach as all the aspects are more descriptive rather than quantitative. The second problem is it does not specify the exact actions that need to be taken to achieve the stated objectives thus managers tend to get confused about the desired course of action. The third problem is that this model by excessively adopting a ‘collect ivist approach’ dilutes the basic decision making activity of management which might result in loss of direction and chaos in an organization. The first problem with hard approach to human resource management is that it is not concerned with the societal and psychological issues of human resource. This results in a strictly regimented workplace where employees do as they are told which thwarts innovativeness and imagination among employees. The second problem is that if such an approach is adopted in a knowledge based organization it would surely face increased labor turnover. The third problem is organizations adopting hard approach are seldom able to adapt to a rapidly changing marketplace which has become the trend in modern days (Bratton & Gold, 2001). Answer 4 In modern day cutthroat competition in marketplace it is imperative for every organization to have an effective human resource management policy in place to continually stave off competitors while retaining cost se nsitive and efficient operations. HRM plays a significant role in this effort of an organization by extracting the best out of employees. It must be admitted that human resource happens to be costliest asset of every organization as human resource is capable of not only self improvement and development but is also gifted with innovative capabilities, and, who can deny that in present day market scenario where every other competitor has nearly similar access to resources, innovation is the only way to stay ahead. This also raises another very important issue. An effectively administered human resource management policy reduces conflicts in workplace and builds up an ambience of harmony that is again conducive to fostering commitment by workers to their workplace. Such a committed team of workers can be motivated without much effort on the part of the human resource managers. And, a motivated workforce goes out of their way to ensure that the organization they love, adore and are prou d to be a part of becomes a market leader (Chung, Jung, Baek, & Lee, 2008). Answer 5 The biggest impact of

YouTube increases company Essay Example for Free

YouTube increases company Essay Introduction Nowadays, numerous people spend a lot of time using the Internet. Therefore, many companies invest substantial capital onInternet advertising to increase their revenue. YouTube is a useful method to advertise company produce, because 3 billion people watch YouTube every day (Henry. 2011). There are different typesof customer, so many companies focus on YouTube for this market. However, some people think YouTube is not a useful method for advertising; because many people may ignore the 15 seconds mandatory video advertisements or may not concentrate on the video advertisements (Fisher. 2011). This research considered whether YouTube is a good advertising method to encourage people to buy new products, to help company to increases revenue. Aims Find out how YouTube increases company revenue Find out whether YouTube changes people’s shopping habits Find out if YouTube is a useful advertising tool for a company 1.2 Objectives Give advice to companies as to how YouTube may be used to increase company revenue Offer advice as to ways in which YouTube may influence changes in shopping habits Method of Research The project is based on secondary research and primary research. Secondary research information was used to gain information about YouTube and Internet advertising from academic books, journals, newspapers and websites. A survey was conducted in order to discover the attitude and opinions of the general public. A questionnaire was used as, according to McFedries (2008) questionnaires are considered to be the most effective and efficient way of conducting this type of primary research because it allows primary data and information from the interviewees directly. The respondents consisted of 20 international students attending LSI school in Portsmouth. It was conducted on the 20th May 2013. Findings from secondary research YouTube is one of the most successful websites in the world. Many people may watch and listen to this website. As a result, YouTube can be an effective advertising medium in marketing. Therefore, many companies spend a lot of  money on YouTube to increase their revenue. It is possible that this form of advertising can change people’s shopping habit as, while they are looking at YouTube information, they are exposed to the advertising clips, which accompany the information. However, it may be the case that people have the choice to ignore the advertising and just focus on the information they want to watch. In this case, there is debate about whether the advertising is wasted. Nevertheless, there appears to sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the money spent on such advertising is profitable. Firstly, YouTube net revenue was $2.6 billion in 2012 an increase of 35% compared to the second quarter of 2011 (Larry. 2012). From this result it can be seen that many companies spend a lot of money on YouTube advertising, because in this generation, time spent on computers is increasing and many people find some entertainment from YouTube. 3 billion people watch YouTube every day (Henry. 2011). Many companies can see that YouTube has different types of customer. So it is a potentially useful tool to promote their company. For example, VEVO is the only company that has legitimate music channels on YouTube and it has many subscribers. So, when people watch a music video, it will include advertising about that music or other products. When people are interested in that music or products they can get more information and buy them. Secondly, YouTube will make an analysis of every user, such as what they often view. Then YouTube will handle the data and will propose some similar video to users. Also, YouTube will give the data to some companies which are related to that video to do some research inform them about user habits. Then, some companies will add advertising in that video let users know their company has some products that are suitable for them and change customer’s shopping habits (YouTube. 2013). Finally, many people do not believe YouTube advertising feasibility, because many people may just watch the 15 seconds then ignore it. So, many people question YouTube advertising. With the increasing availability of advances in technology, the advertising strategies have improved and may encourage more visitors to watch the adverts rather than to ignore them. According to a recent research carried out by Fisher (2011), only 30% of YouTube advertisements are skipped. Findings from Primary Research This research used a sample of 20 people, those are LSI students and  teacher,20 questionnaires were returned and the interviewees answered all questions. According to the results from the first question which asked people which website they usually use to find out new music videos, it can be seen from appendix (b) that 80%chose YouTube to find out new music videos, also 15% used Google and just 5% used QQ Music, but nobody used Yahoo and Facebook to find out the new music video. The second question researched how much time do people spend on average on YouTube everyday, it is shown by appendix (c), that near 35% of interviewees spend 3 to 4 hours on YouTube everyday.Likewise, there were 25% of interviewees who spend 1 to 2 hours per day and the number of interviewees who spend less than 1 hour and over 4 hours was the same, and it was 20%. The third question asked people about their habits from before the changes in 2012, how often did they watch a full advertisement on YouTube, it is shown in appendix (d), that 60% on average, they justsaw it between 2 to 4 times, the number of people who saw it between 5 to 7 times and once every ten times was the same, it was 20%. The fourth question researched the changes that happened after 2012, and how oftenpeople watched full adverting on YouTube, it is shown in appendix (e), that 35% of interviewees saw the advertisement that appeared between 5 to 7 times. 30% of interviewees saw it between 8 to 9 times, the number of respondents who just saw it between 2 to 4 times and people who watched it every time is the same – 15%. The fifth question, participant agreed that mandatory video advertisements are useful for them, is shown in appendix (f), the number of participants who think are sometimes very useful and rarely very useful is the same – 35%.Likewise, there were 25 % of participant think are usually very useful and it just had 5% of participant think are very useful. The sixth question, people agreed that mandatory video advertisements can increase your interest and as a result buy advertised products, it can be seen from appendix (G), 40% of the interviewees agree YouTube mandatory increase their interest and encourage them to buy the advertised products, whereas only 5% strongly disagree this point. However, nobody strongly agree that mandatory video advertisements can increase them interest and as a result buy advertised products. The seventh question, people agreed that YouTube could change their shopping habits, it can be seen from appendix (H), the agree rating score of 4 is 35% and the disagree rating score of 2 is 20%, representing that more  interviewees YouTube can change their shopping habits. Since the percentage of people strongly agree and strongly disagree are the same of 5%, a conclusion cannot be drawn. The eighth question, have they ever bought a product advertised on YouTube after watching the video, is shown in appendix (I), that 60% of interviewees have bought a product advertised on YouTube after watching the video and the remaining 40% said they did not purchase the product. The last question is what factors will make them interested in the online video advertisements, is shown in appendix (J), that 40% of participants said they are already interested in the product, also 20% of participantssaid because the pop stars advertisethe product. Thenumbers of people who think are sound effects and they need the products is the same – 15%, there are just 10% of participantsare interested in the online video advertisements due to gift vouchers. Discussion of Findings The survey was designed to find out how YouTube increase company revenue, whether YouTube change people’s shopping habits and find out if YouTube is a useful advertising tool for a company. Firstly, the findings demonstrate that 3 billion people watch YouTube every day (Henry. 2011), the VEVO music company channel has the most subscribers and has different types of customers. So it is a potentially useful tool to promote their company. From the questionnaire, it can be seen from appendix (B)that clearly there are 80% interviewees usually use YouTube to find out about new music. Therefore, YouTube is a succeedmethod to advertise company produce. Secondly, appendix (D) and appendix (E)investigate whether YouTube advertising strategy improvements increase the number of viewers. Appendix (D) represents pre advertising strategy improvements, when interviewees just usually (60%) see on average, between 2 to 4 times the advertisement appeared. On the other hand, it can be seen from appendix (E) that after advertising strategies improved,the same group of them will seethe full advertising, on average, between 2 to 4 times the advertisement appeared decline to 15%. Likewise, the same group of interviewees will see on average, between 5 to 7 and 8 to 9 times the advertisement appeared increase to 35% and 30%. Also it can seen from appendix (G) thatonly 5 % of interviewees strongly disagree that mandatory video advertisements can increase interest and as a result buy advertised products. This result of this questionnaire is similar to the  secondary research, which supports that advertising strategies improved in 2012 encouraged more people to watch the full adverting on YouTube and also increased people’s interest to buy advertised products. Thirdly, it can be seen from appendix (F) that nobody thinks the mandatory video advertisements are never useful. As shown from appendix (H), only 5% of interviewees strongly disagree the YouTube advertisement cannot change their shopping habit. Likewise, YouTube can increase company revenue, because it can be seen from appendix (I, where 60% of interviews had bought a product advertised on YouTube after watching the video. So YouTube it can influence people’s shopping habits. Limitations of the Research This is the project allocated and the lack of experience is the biggest problem to be faced. Moreover, there were just 20 respondents of the questionnaireand the survey covers only the students in LSI. In addition, due to the time constraint,findings from secondary research contain limited academic resources. Finding more information on books and asking more respondents may improve further research. Conclusions Recommendations To sum up, it is clear that there is 80% of interviewees used YouTube to find out new music, so YouTube had many different types of customers and so it is good for advertising companies’ products. Moreover, the improved YouTube advertising strategies in 2012 had raised the number of intervieweeswho watch more the mandatory video advertisements and it can change people’s shopping habits. These findings demonstrate that YouTube canincrease people’sinterest and as a result encourage them to buy advertised products. According to the questionnaires, it is suggested that companies can employ Pop Star to advertise the product and put more sound effect to make people interested in the online video advertisements. Also YouTube may conduct more research to find out customer’sshopping habit and to show the most suitable advertising for increase in viewers. References Chaffey, D. (2003). Internet marketing: Strategy, implementation and practice. Harlow [u.a.: Financial Times Prentice Hall. England, E., Tinney, A. (2002). Managing Multimedia Project management for wed and convergent media. Harlow: Addison- Wesley. Fisher, L. (2011). Only 30% of YouTube Users Skip Pre-Roll Ads. The Next Web: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/06/12/only-30-of-youtube-users-skip-pre-roll-ads/Geiger, S. Martin, S. (1999). THE INTERNET AS A RELATIONSHIP MARKETING TOOL -SOME EVIDENCE FROM IRISH COMPANIES. Irish Marketing Review Volume 12(2) Henry, A. (2011 May26). YouTube hits 3 billion views per day, 48 hours of video uploaded per minute. Geek News.Retrieved from: http://www.geek.com/news/youtube-hits-3-billion-views-per-day-48-hours-of-video-uploaded-per-minute-1383495/How were cashing in on YouTube: Thousands are pulling in SIX-FIGURE incomes with home-made videos (2012- August31). Mail Online News. Retrieved from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-219611 0/THOUSANDS-people-making-SIX-FIGURE-income-home-YouTube-videos.htmlInstitute of Practitioners in Advertising: National Readership Surveys. (1965). Lond.: I. P. A. Jarboe, G. (2009). YouTube and video marketing: An hour a day. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Pub. Nakashim, R. (2013-May07). YouTube Said Set to Soon Launch Pay Channels. abc news. Retrieved from: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/youtube-set-launch-pay-channels-weeks-19120837#.UYjV3JXN7dkLarry, P. (2012 June30). Google Inc. Announces Second Quarter 2012 Financial Results. Retrieved from: http://investor.google.com/earnings/2012/Q2_google_earnings.htmlMcFedries, P. (2008). Macs. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley. YouTube. (2013). YouTube Analytics. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/yt/advertise/youtube-analytics.html

The Matrix, or Two Sides of Perversion Essay Example for Free

The Matrix, or Two Sides of Perversion Essay When I saw The Matrix at a local theatre in Slovenia, I had the unique opportunity of sitting close to the ideal spectator of the film namely, to an idiot. A man in the late 20ies at my right was so immersed in the film that he all the time disturbed other spectators with loud exclamations, like My God, wow, so there is no reality! †¦ I definitely prefer such naive immersion to the pseudo-sophisticated intellectualist readings which project into the film the refined philosophical or psychoanalytic conceptual distinctions. (1) It is nonetheless easy to understand this intellectual attraction of The Matrix: is it not that The Matrix is one of the films which function as a kind of Rorschach test [http://rorschach. test. at/] setting in motion the universalized process of recognition, like the proverbial painting of God which seems always to stare directly at you, from wherever you look at it — practically every orientation seems to recognize itself in it? My Lacanian friends are telling me that the authors must have read Lacan; the Frankfurt School partisans see in the Matrix the extrapolated embodiment of Kulturindustrie, the alienated-reified social Substance (of the Capital) directly taking over, colonizing our inner life itself, using us as the source of energy; New Agers see in the source of speculations on how our world is just a mirage generated by a global Mind embodied inthe World Wide Web. This series goes back to Platos Republic: does The Matrix not repeat exactly Platos dispositif of the cave (ordinary humans as prisoners, tied firmly to their seats and compelled to watch the shadowy performance of (what they falsely consider to be) reality? The important difference, of course, is that when some individuals escape their cave predicament and step out to the surface of the Earth, what they find there is no longer the bright surface illuminated by the rays of the Sun, the supreme Good, but the desolate desert of the real. The key opposition is here the one between Frankfurt School and Lacan: should we historicize the Matrix into the metaphor of the Capital that colonized culture and subjectivity, or is it the reification of the symbolic order as such? However, what if this very alternative is false? What if the virtual character of the symbolic order as such is the very condition of historicity? Reaching the End Of the World Of course, the idea of the hero living in a totally manipulated and controlled artificial universe is hardly original: The Matrix just radicalizes it by bringing in virtual reality. The point here is the radical ambiguity of the VR with regard to the problematic of iconoclasm. On the one hand, VR marks the radical reduction of the wealth of our sensory experience to — not even letters, but — the minimal digital series of 0 and 1, of passing and non-passing of the electrical signal. On the other hand, this very digital machine generates the simulated experience of reality which tends to become indiscernable from the real reality, with the consequence of undermining the very notion of real reality — VR is thus at the same time the most radical assertion of the seductive power of images. Is not the ultimate American paranoiac fantasy that of an individual living in a small idyllic Californian city, a consummerist paradise, who suddenly starts to suspect that the world he lives in is a fake, a spectatle staged to convince him that he lives in a real world, while all people around him are effectively actors and extras in a gigantic show? The most recent example of this is Peter Weirs The Truman Show (1998), with Jim Carrey playing the small town clerk who gradually discovers the truth that he is the hero of a 24-hours permanent TV show: his hometown is constructed on a a gigantic studio set, with cameras following him permanently. Sloterdijks sphere is here literally realized, as the gigantic metal sphere that envelopes and isolates the entire city. This final shot of The Truman Show may seem to enact the liberating experience of breaking out from the ideological suture of the enclosed universe into its outside, invisible from the ideological inside. However, what if it is precisely this happy denouement of the film (let us not forget: applauded by the millions around the world watching the last minutes of the show), with the hero breaking out and, as we are led to believe, soon to join his true love (so that we have again the formula of the production of the couple! ), that is ideology at its purest? What if ideology resides in the very belief that, outside the closure of the finite universe, there is some true reality to be entered? (2) Among the predecessors of this notion, it is worth mentioning Phillip Dicks Time Out of Joint (1959), in which a hero living a modest daily life in a small idyllic Californian city of the late 50s, gradually discovers that the whole town is a fake staged to keep him satisfied†¦ The underlying experience of Time Out of Joint and of The Truman Show is that the late capitalist consummerist Californian paradise is, in its very hyper-reality, in a way irreal, substanceless, deprived of the material inertia. So it is not only that Hollywood stages a semblance of real life deprived of the weight and inertia of materiality — in the late capitalist consummerist society, real social life itself somehow acquires the features of a staged fake, with our neighbors behaving in real life as stage actors and extras†¦ The ultimte truth of the capitalist utilitarian de-spiritualized universe is the de-materialization of the real life itself, its reversal into a spectral show. In the realm of science-fiction, one should mention also Brian Aldiss Starship, in which members of a tribe leave in a closed world of a tunnel in a giant starship, isolated from the rest of the ship by thick vegetation, unaware that there is a universe beyond; finally, some children penetrate the bushes and reach the world beyond, populated by other tribes. Among the older, more naive forerunners, one should mention George Seatons 36 Hours, the film from the early 60ies about an American officer (James Garner) who knows all the plans for the D Day invasion of Normandy and is accidentally taken prisoner by Gernans just days before the invasion. Since he is taken prisoner unconscious, in a blast of explosion, the Germans quickly construct for him a replica of small American military hospital resort, trying to convince him that he now lives in 1950, that America won the war and that he has lost memory for the last 6 years — the idea being that he would tell all about the invasion plans for the Germans to prepare themselves; of course, cracks soon appear in this carefully constructed edifice†¦ (Did not Lenin himself, in the last 2 years of his life, lived in an almost similar controlled environment, in which, as we now know, Stalin had printed hor him a specially prepared one copy of Pravda, censored of all news that would tell Lenin about the political struggles going on, with the justification that Comrade Lenin should take a rest and not be excited by unnecessary provocations.) What lurks in the background is, of course, the pre-modern notion of arriving at the end of the universe: in the well-known engravings, the surprised wanderers approach the screen/curtain of heaven, a flat surfaced with painted stars on it, pierce it and reach beyond — it is exactly this that happens at the end of The Truman Show. No wonder that the last scene of the film, when Truman steps up the stairs attached to the wall on which the blue sky horizon is painted and opens up there the door, has a distinct Magrittean touch: is it not that, today, this same sensitivity is returning with a vengeance? Do works like Syberbergs Parsifal, in which the infinite horizon is also blocked by the obviously artificial rear-projections, not signal that the time of the Cartesian infinite perspective is running out, and that we are returning to a kind of renewed medieval pre-perspective universe? Fred Jameson perspicuously drew attention to the same phenomenon in some of the Raymond Chandlers novels and Hitchcocks films: the shore of the Pacific ocean in Farewell, My Lovely functions as a kind of end/limit of the world, beyond which there is an unknown abyss; and it is similar with the vast open valley that stretches out in front of the Mount Rashmore heads when, on the run from their pursuers, Eva-Marie Saint and Cary Grant reach the peak of the monument, and into which Eva-Marie Saint almost falls, before being pulled up by Cary Grant; and one is tempted to add to this series the famous battle scene at a bridge on the Vietnamese/Cambodgian frontier in Apocalypse Now, where the space beyond the bridge is experienced as the beyond of our known universe. And how not to recall that the idea that our Earth is not the planet floating in the infinite space, but a circular opening, hole, within the endless compact mass of eternal ice, with the sun in its center, was one of the favorite Nazi pseudo-scientific fantasies (according to some reports, they even considered putting some telescopes on the Sylt islands in order to observe America)? The Really Existing Big Other What, then, is the Matrix? Simply the Lacanian big Other, the virtual symbolic order, the network that structures reality for us. This dimension of the big Other is that of the constitutive alienation of the subject in the symbolic order: the big Other pulls the strings, the subject doesnt speak, he is spoken by the symbolic structure. In short, this big Other is the name for the social Substance, for all that on account of which the subject never fully dominates the effects of his acts, i. e. on account of which the final outcome of his activity is always something else with regard to what he aimed at or anticipated. However, it is here crucial to note that, in the key chapters of Seminar XI, Lacan struggles to delineate the operation that follows alienation and is in a sense its counterpoint, that of separation: alienation IN the big Other is followed by the separation FROM the big Other. Separation takes place when the subject takes note of how the big Other is in itself inconsistent, purely virtual, barred, deprived of the Thing — and fantasy is an attempt to fill out this lack of the Other, not of the subject, i. e. to (re)constitute the consistency of the big Other. For that reason, fantasy and paranoia are inherently linked: paranoia is at its most elementary a belief into an Other of the Other, into another Other who, hidden behind the Other of the explicit social texture, programs (what appears to us as) the unforeseen effects of social life and thus guarantees its consistency: beneath the chaos of market, the degradation of morals, etc., there is the purposeful strategy of the Jewish plot†¦ This paranoiac stance acquired a further boost with todays digitalization of our daily lives: when our entire (social) existence is progressively externalized-materialized in the big Other of the computer network, it is easy to imagine an evil programmer erasing our digital identity and thus depriving us of our social existence, turning us into non-persons. Following the same paranoiac twist, the thesis of The Matrix is that this big Other is externalized in the really existing Mega-Computer. There is — there HAS to be — a Matrix because things are not right, opportunities are missed, something goes wrong all the time, i. e. the films idea is that it is so because there is the Matrix that obfuscates the true reality that is behind it all. Consequently, the problem with the film is that it is NOT crazy enough, because it supposes another real reality behind our everyday reality sustained by the Matrix. However, to avoid the fatal misunderstanding: the inverse notion that all there is is generated by the Matrix, that there is NO ultimate reality, just the infinite series of virtual realities mirroring themselves in each other, is no less ideological. (In the sequels to The Matrix, we shall probably learn that the very desert of the real is generated by (another) matrix. ) Much more subversive than this multiplication of virtual universes would have been the multiplication of realities themselves — something that would reproduce the paradoxical danger that some physicians see in recent high accelerator experiments. As is well known, scientist are now trying to construct the accelerator capable of smashing together the nuclei of very heavy atoms at nearly the speed of light. The idea is that such a collision will not only shatter the atoms nuclei into their constituent protons and neutrons, but will pulverize the protons and neutrons themselves, leaving a plasma, a kind of energy soup consisting of loose quark and gluon particles, the building blocks of matter that have never before been studied in such a state, since such a state only existed briefly after the Big Bang. However, this prospect has given rise to a nightmarish scenario: what if the success of this experiment will create a doomsday machine, a kind of world-devouring monster that will with inexorable necessity annihilate the ordinary matter around itself and thus abolish the world as we know it? The irony of it is that this end of the world, the disintegration of the universe, would be the ultimate irrefutable proof that the tested theory is true, since it would suck all matter into a black hole and then bring about a new universe, i. e. perfectly recreate the Big Bang scenario. The paradox is thus that both versions — (1) a subject freely floating from one to another VR, a pure ghost aware that every reality is a fake; (2) the paranoiac supposition of the real reality beneath the Matrix — are false: they both miss the Real. The film is not wrong in insisting that there IS a Real beneath the Virtual Reality simulation as Morpheus puts to Neo when he shows him the ruined Chicago landscape: Welcome to the desert of the real. However, the Real is not the true reality behind the virtual simulation, but the void which makes reality incomplete/inconsistent, and the function of every symbolic Matrix is to conceal this inconsistency — one of the ways to effectuate this concealment is precisely to claim that, behind the incomplete/inconsistent reality we know, there is another reality with no deadlock of impossibility structuring it. The big Other doesnt exist Big Other also stands for the field of common sense at which one can arrive after free deliberation; philosophically, its last great version is Habermass communicative community with its regulative ideal of agreement. And it is this big Other that progressively disintegrates today. What we have today is a certain radical split: on the one hand, the objectivized language of experts and scientists which can no longer be translated into the common language accessible to everyone, but is present in it in the mode of fetishized formulas that no one really understands, but which shape our artistic and popular imaginary (Black Hole, Big Bang, Superstrings, Quantum Oscillation†¦). Not only in natural sciences, but also in economy and other social sciences, the expert jargon is presented as an objective insight with which one cannot really argue, and which is simultaneously untranslatable into our common experience. In short, the gap between scientific insight and common sense is unbridgeable, and it is this very gap which elevates scientists into the popular cult-figures of the subjects supposed to know (the Stephen Hawking phenomenon). The strict obverse of this objectivity is the way in which, in the cultural matters, we are confronted with the multitude of life-styles which one cannot translate into each other: all we can do is secure the conditions for their tolerant coexistence in a multicultural society. The icon of todays subject is perhaps the Indian computer programmer who, during the day, excels in his expertise, while in the evening, upon returning home, he lits the candle to the local Hindu divinity and respects the sacredness of the cow. This split is perfectly rendered in the phenomenon of cyberspace. Cyberspace was supposed to bring us all together in a Global Village; however, what effectively happens is that we are bombarded with the multitude of messages belonging to inconsistent and incompatible universes — instead of the Global Village, the big Other, we get the multitude of small others, of tribal particular identifications at our choice. To avoid a misunderstanding: Lacan is here far from relativizing science into just one of the arbitrary narratives, ultimately on equal footing with Politically Correct myths, etc. : science DOES touch the Real, its knowledge IS knowledge in the Real — the deadlock resides simply in the fact that scientific knowledge cannot serve as the SYMBOLIC big Other. The gap between modern science and the Aristotelian common sense philosophical ontology is here insurmountable: it emerges already with Galileo, and is brought to extreme in quantum physics, where we are dealing with the rules/laws which function, although they cannot ever be retranslated into our experience of representable reality. The theory of risk society and its global reflexivization is right in its emphasis one how, today, we are at the opposite end if the classical Enlightenment universalist ideology which presupposed that, in the long run, the fundamental questions can be resolved by way of the reference to the objective knowledge of the experts: when we are confronted with the conflicting opinions about the environmental consequences of a certain new product (say, of genetically modified vegetables), we search in vain for the ultimate expert opinion. And the point is not simply that the real issues are blurred because science is corrupted through financial dependence on large corporations and state agencies — even in themselves, sciences cannot provide the answer. Ecologists predicted 15 years ago the death of our forrests — the problem is now a too large increasee of wood†¦ Where this theory of risk society is too short is in emphasizing the irrational predicament into which this puts us, common subjects: we are again and again compelled to decide, although we are well aware that we are in no position to decide, that our decision will be arbitrary. Ulrich Beck and his followers refer here to the democratic discussion of all options and consensus-building; however, this does not resolve the immobilizing dilemma: why should the democratic discussion in which the majority participates lead to better result, when, cognitively, the ignorance of the majority remains. The political frustration of the majority is thus understandable: they are called to decide, while, at the same time, receiving the message that they are in no position effectively to decide, i. e. to objectively weigh the pros and cons. The recourse to conspiracy theories is a desperate way out of this deadlock, an attempt to regain a minimum of what Fred Jameson calls cognitive mapping. Jodi Dean(3) drew attention to a curious phenomenon clearly observable in the dialogue of the mutes between the official (serious, academically institutionalized) science and the vast domain of so-called pseudo-sciences, from ufology to those who want to decipher the secrets of the pyramids: one cannot but be struck by how it is the oficial scientists who proceed in a dogmatic dismissive way, while the pseudo-scientists refer to facts and argumentation deprived of the common prejudices. Of course, the answer will be here that established scientists speak with the authority of the big Other of the scientific Institution; but the problem is that, precisely, this scientific big Other is again and again revealed as a consensual symbolic fiction. So when we are confronted with conspiracy theories, we should proceed in a strict homology to the proper reading of Henry James The Turn of the Screw: we should neither accept the existence of ghosts as part of the (narrative) reality nor reduce them, in a pseudo-Freudian way, to the projection of the heroines hysterical sexual frustrations. Conspiracy theories, of course, are not to be accepted as fact however, one should also not reduce them to the phenomenon of modern mass hysteria. Such a notion still relies on the big Other, on the model of normal perception of shared social reality, and thus does not take into account how it is precisely this notion of reality that is undermined today. The problem is not that ufologists and conspiracy theorists regress to a paranoiac attitude unable to accept (social) reality; the problem is that this reality itself is becoming paranoiac. Contemporary experience again and again confronts us with situations in which we are compelled to take note of how our sense of reality and normal attitude towards it is grounded in a symbolic fiction, i. e. how the big Other that determines what counts as normal and accepted truth, what is the horizon of meaning in a given society, is in no way directly grounded in facts as rendered by the scientific knowledge in the real. Let us take a traditional society in which modern science is not yet elevated into the Master-discourse: if, in its symbolic space, an individual advocates propositions of modern science, he will be dismissed as madman — and the key point is that it is not enough to say that he is not really mad, that it is merely the narrow ignorant society which puts him in this position — in a certain way, being treated as a madman, being excluded from the social big Other, effectively EQUALS being mad. Madness is not the designation which can be grounded in a direct reference to facts (in the sense that a madman is unable to perceive things the way they really are, since he is caught in his hallucinatory projections), but only with regard to the way an individual relates to the big Other. Lacan usually emphasizes the opposite aspect of this paradox: the madman is not only a beggar who thinks he is a king, but also a king who thinks he is a king, i. e. madness designates the collapse of the distance between the Symbolic and the Real, an immediate identification with the symbolic mandate; or, to take his other exemplary statement, when a husband is pathologically jealous, obsessed by the idea that his wife sleeps with other men, his obsession remains a pathological feature even if it is proven that he is right and that his wife effectively sleeps with other men. The lesson of such paradoxes is clear: pathological jealously is not a matters of getting the facts false, but of the way these facts are integrated into the subjects libidinal economy. However, what one should assert here is that the same paradox should also be performed as it were in the opposite direction: the society (its socio-symbolic field, the big Other) is sane and normal even when it is proven factually wrong. (Maybe, it was in this sense that the late Lacan designated himself as psychotic: he effectively was psychotic insofar as it was not possible to integrate his discourse into the field of the big Other. ) One is tempted to claim, in the Kantian mode, that the mistake of the conspiracy theory is somehow homologous to the paralogism of the pure reason, to the confusion between the two levels: the suspicion (of the received scientific, social, etc. common sense) as the formal methodological stance, and the positivation of this suspicion in another all-explaining global para-theory. Screening the Real From another standpoint, the Matrix also functions as the screen that separates us from the Real, that makes the desert of the real bearable. However, it is here that we should not forget the radical ambiguity of the Lacanian Real: it is not the ultimate referent to be covered/gentrified/domesticated by the screen of fantasy — the Real is also and primarily the screen itself as the obstacle that always-already distorts our perception of the referent, of the reality out there. In philosophical terms, therein resides the difference between Kant and Hegel: for Kant, the Real is the noumenal domain that we perceive schematized through the screen of transcendental categories; for Hegel, on the contrary, as he asserts exemplarily in the Introduction to his Phenomenology, this Kantian gap is false. Hegel introduces here THREE terms: when a screen intervenes between ourselves and the Real, it always generates a notion of what is In-itself, beyond the screen (of the appearance), so that the gap between appearance and the In-itself is always-already for us. Consequently, if we subtract from the Thing the distortion of the Screen, we loose the Thing itself (in religious terms, the death of Christ is the death of the God in himself, not only of his human embodiment) — which is why, for Lacan, who follows here Hegel, the Thing in itself is ultimately the gaze, not the perceived object. So, back to the Matrix: the Matrix itself is the Real that distorts our perception of reality. A reference to Levi-Strausss exemplary analysis, from his Structural Anthropology, of the spatial disposition of buildings in the Winnebago, one of the Great Lake tribes, might be of some help here. The tribe is divided into two sub-groups (moieties), those who are from above and those who are from below; when we ask an individual to draw on a piece of paper, or on sand, the ground-plan of his/her village (the spatial disposition of cottages), we obtain two quite different answers, depending on his/her belonging to one or the other sub-group. Both perceive the village as a circle; but for one sub-group, there is within this circle another circle of central houses, so that we have two concentric circles, while for the other sub-group, the circle is split into two by a clear dividing line. In other words, a member of the first sub-group (let us call it conservative-corporatist) perceives the ground-plan of the village as a ring of houses more or less symmetrically disposed around the central temple, whereas a member of the second (revolutionary-antagonistic) sub-group perceives his/her village as two distinct heaps of houses separated by an invisible frontier†¦(4) The central point of Levi-Strauss is that this example should in no way entice us into cultural relativism, according to which the perception of social space depends on the observers group-belonging: the very splitting into the two relative perceptions implies a hidden reference to a constant — not the objective, actual disposition of buildings but a traumatic kernel, a fundamental antagonism the inhabitants of the village were unable to symbolize, to account for, to internalize, to come to terms with, an imbalance in social relations that prevented the community from stabilizing itself into a harmonious whole. The two perceptions of the ground-plan are simply two mutually exclusive endeavours to cope with this traumatic antagonism, to heal its wound via the imposition of a balanced symbolic structure. Is it necessary to add that things stand exactly the same with respect to sexual difference: masculine and feminine are like the two configurations of houses in the Levi-Straussian village? And in order to dispel the illusion that our developed universe is not dominated by the same logic, suffice it to recall the splitting of our political space into Left and Right: a Leftist and a Rightist behave exactly like members of the opposite sub-groups of the Levi-Straussian village. They not only occupy different places within the political space; each of them perceives differently the very disposition of the political space — a Leftist as the field that is inherently split by some fundamental antagonism, a Rightist as the organic unity of a Community disturbed only by foreign intruders. However, Levi-Strauss make here a further crucial point: since the two sub-groups nonetheless form one and the same tribe, living in the same village, this identity somehow has to be symbolically inscribed — how, if the entire symbolic articulation, all social institutions, of the tribe are not neutral, but are overdetermined by the fundamental and constitutive antagonistic split? By what Levi-Strauss ingeniously calls the zero-institution, a kind of institutional counterpart to the famous mana, the empty signifier with no determinate meaning, since it signifies only the presence of meaning as such, in opposition to its absence: a specific institution which has no positive, determinate function — its only function is the purely negative one of signalling the presence and actuality of social institution as such, in opposition to its absence, to pre-social chaos. It is the reference to such a zero-institution that enables all members of the tribe to experience themselves as such, as members of the same tribe. Is, then, this zero-institution not ideology at its purest, i. e.the direct embodiment of the ideological function of providing a neutral all-encompassing space in which social antagonism is obliterated, in which all members of society can recognize themselves? And is the struggle for hegemony not precisely the struggle for how will this zero-institution be overdetermined, colored by some particular signification? To provide a concrete example: is not the modern notion of nation such a zero-institution that emerged with the dissolution of social links grounded in direct family or traditional symbolic matrixes, i. e. when, with the onslaught of modernization, social institutions were less and less grounded in naturalized tradition and more and more experienced as a matter of contract. (5) Of special importance is here the fact that national identity is experienced as at least minimally natural, as a belonging grounded in blood and soil, and as such opposed to the artificial belonging to social institutions proper (state, profession†¦): pre-modern institutions functioned as naturalized symbolic entities (as institutions grounded in unquestionable traditions), and the moment institutions were conceived as social artefacts, the need arose for a naturalized zero-institution that would serve as their neutral common ground. And, back to sexual difference, I am tempted to risk the hypothesis that, perhaps, the same logic of zero-institution should be applied not only to the unity of a society, but also to its antagonistic split: what if sexual difference is ultimately a kind of zero-institution of the social split of the humankind, the naturalized minimal zero-difference, a split that, prior to signalling any determinate social difference, signals this difference as such? The struggle for hegemony is then, again, the struggle for how this zero-difference will be overdetermined by other particular social differences. It is against this background that one should read an important, although usually overlooked, feature of Lacans schema of the signifier: Lacan replaces the standard Saussurean scheme (above the bar the word arbre, and beneath it the drawing of a tree) with, above the bar, two words one along the other, homme and femme, and, beneath the bar, two identical drawings of a door. In order to emphasize the differential character of the signifier, Lacan first replaces Saussures single scheme with a signifiers couple, with the opposition man/woman, with the sexual difference; but the true surprise resides in the fact that, at the level of the imaginary referent, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE (we do not get some graphic index of the sexual difference, the simplified drawing of a man and a woman, as is usually the case in most of todays restrooms, but THE SAME door reproduced twice). Is it possible to state in clearer terms that sexual difference does not designate any biological opposition grounded in real properties, but a purely symbolic opposition to which nothing corresponds in the designated objects — nothing but the Real of some undefined X which cannot ever be captured by the image of the signified? Back to Levi-Strausss example of the two drawings of the village: it is here that one can see it what precise sense the Real intervenes through anamorphosis. We have first the actual, objective, arrangement of the houses, and then its two different symbolizations which both distort in an amamorphic way the actual arrangement. However, the real is here not the actual arrangement, but the traumatic core of the social antagonism which distorts the tribe members view of the actual antagonism.

The Role of the Entrepreneur in Economics

The Role of the Entrepreneur in Economics Introduction Whilst entrepreneurship has existed for centuries and has contributed greatly to the foundation of Anglo-American business development and growth, its serious academic study is of more recent origin. The major reason behind this aberration possibly lies within the tenets of traditional microeconomic theory, which connects success and failure to essentially material causes and leaves little space for an essentially subjective and unquantifiable phenomenon like entrepreneurship. International differences in living standards are, for example, attributed to â€Å"differences in national endowments of labour, capital and natural resources, which in turn stem from differences over time in rates of population growth, saving and natural resource depletion.† (Welsh, 2003, P3) In fact the field of entrepreneurial activity was likened, as recently as 1983, by a Harvard University professor to an â€Å"intellectual onion.† (Welsh, 2003, P3) â€Å"You peel it back layer by layer and when you get to the centre there is nothing there but you are crying† (Welsh, 2003, P3). Studies backed by empirical and statistical evidence however show the importance of entrepreneurial activity in creation of new jobs and of small and medium businesses. (Harper, 2003) Research also indicates the presence of a residual factor, which is extremely significant to the success of business enterprises, relates to the quality rather than the quantity of resources, as also with the differences in efficiency of resource utilisation. (Harper, 2003) Whilst such differences in quality and utilisation of resources are often associated with the quality of human capital that has been developed through education and training, recently developed entrepreneurial theory also associates human capital with the entrepreneurial abilities of the population. (Harper, 2003) The role of the entrepreneur is best gauged from a historical perspective, which in turn enables academic researchers and historians to realise that some people were right and others wrong at certain points of time. (Birley Macmillan, 1997) Such people saw opportunity where others did not; whilst being in a minority they proved the majority wrong, and by doing so, altered the course of history. Much of the earlier neglect of the role of entrepreneurs has vanished over the last few decades. Entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the founders of Google, and Richard Branson are much admired role models; individuals who have contributed immensely to modern day society. Silicon Valley is a globally admired phenomenon and entrepreneurial activity is happening faster, and with more capital behind it, than ever before. The success achieved by the entrepreneurial community has led to their activity attracting enormous capital, not just in the United States, where stories of garage start-ups that have gone on to become billion dollar businesses have become part of folk lore, but also in many other parts of the globe. The market for venture capital offerings and Initial Public Offers has reached unprecedented heights; successful entrepreneurs have also invested heavily in other new businesses, backing competent people and supporting interesting ideas. (Welsch, 2003) Much of the enthusiasm for supporting entrepreneurship, as well as its practice, has also arisen from the growth of some extremely successful entrepreneurs into larger than life international icons, known worldwide for their enormously successful businesses, their social, economic, and political power, and, sometimes, their exaggerated lifestyles. L N Mittal the British steel tycoon, who hired the Versailles to celebrate his daughters wedding, provides an example of a successful modern day entrepreneur, ideally suited for a critical assessment of entrepreneurial practice, within its organisational, social, and personal contexts. Commentary and Analysis Mittal, the man, his life, and his company Mittal’s life is a fascinating account of the progress of an entrepreneur who grew from very simple beginnings in a conservative, deeply religious, and orthodox business community family in Calcutta (now Kolkata) to the largest steel producer in the world and the richest person to reside in the United Kingdom. Born into a medium level business family, Mittal’s early childhood, whilst austere, was not deprived. His father, a first generation entrepreneur was the owner of a steel mill in the central Indian province of Uttar Pradesh. Mittal grew up in Kolkata; where he first attended a local language school, and then went on to take a bachelor’s degree in commerce, before joining his father’s business. (D’Costa, 1999) Most members of the Rajasthani business community to which he belonged still believe in children getting into business to get practical experience immediately after obtaining a basic education, and Mittal did not even think of studying fo r an MBA like many of his peers. (D’Costa, 1999) Working in the family business for more than a decade, Mittal learnt steelmaking in Indonesia where the company had purchased an old loss making steel plant. (Balakrishnan, 2003) Turning it around successfully, he focussed on buying other loss making steel plants and making them into viable units; he separated from his family in 1994 (Balakrishnan, 2003) and in an astonishing period of fifteen years built the largest steel company in the world. Mittal’s strategy for growth was at once extremely simple and yet tremendously demanding. Concentrating on locating old, decrepit, and loss making steel mills, Mittal would procure them at bargain basement prices, modernise them with great cost effectiveness, increase their productive capacity and quality, and make them into efficient and viable units. (D’Costa, 1999) Mittal or LNM, as he is called, started buying out old and rusty companies in the early 1990s.One of his earliest coups happened in 1992 when he was able to buy the 20 year old Sibalsa mill in Mexico for USD 220 million. (Balakrishnan, 2003) This purchase was followed by mills in Trinidad, Canada, East Europe, and Africa, acquisitions that stretched his business affairs from Mexico and Canada to Romania, Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic, Algeria and Indonesia. (Balakrishnan, 2003) Apart from being known to be immensely effective in driving hard bargains, Mittal also developed a multidisciplinary team trained to make the most of dilapidated nationalised rustbuckets that had been put on the block. Many of his team members came from SAIL, the resource strapped and loss making Indian public sector steel making company whose managers had extensive experience in extracting the most from obsolete and ill maintained machinery at the least possible cost. Available for a fraction of the costs of western managers, these well knit teams of production experts would move in after the completion of an acquisition, put the plant into working order, increase its capacity significantly, train local managers, and move on to the next buy. (D’Costa, 1999) â€Å"At Ispat Sidex in the Czech Republic, production climbed from 3.04 million tonnes to 3.65 million tonnes, a year after it was acquired.† (Balakrishnan, 2003) Again at the giant Karmet Steel Works in Kazakhstan, which Mittal bought in 1995, production rose from 2.2 million tonnes in 1995 to more than 5 million tons in a few years. (Balakrishnan, 2003) Mittal’s biggest acquisition occurred in 2006 when he took over controlling interest of Luxembourg based Arcelor, then the world’s largest steel company, after a long drawn battle with the board of the target company. (Mittal Wins, 2006) Arcelor Mittal is now the largest steel company in the world. Producing 10 % of global steel output, the company operates in 60 countries, has more than 300,000 employees, and is ranked 39th on the Fortune 500 list. In 2007 it had assets of 133.6 billion US dollars, achieved sales of 105.2 billion US dollars, and achieved profits of 10.36 billion US dollars. That’s a long way to come in 15 years. Mittal’s current lifestyle belies his middle class origins. He has an eye for luxury, a fascination for opulence and revels in making extravagant lifestyle statements. His houses in London are among the most expensive in the world, the weddings of his children have been explosions of lavishness, and he is not known for charitable work. â€Å"Mittal outscored billionaires like Donald Trump of US, luxury titan Bernard Arnault of France and Andrei Melnichenko of Russia with a $60 million extravaganza in honour of his daughter Vanisha’s nuptials, Forbes magazine said in a report titled â€Å"Billionaire Weddings.† Mittal family had sent out 20-page invitations in silver boxes, while 1,000 guests were put up in a five-star Paris hotel for the five-day affair for marriage of Vanisha Mittal with Amit Bhatia in June 2004. A party was hosted at Versailles, while another event reportedly took place at a wooden castle temporarily erected in Parc de Saint-Cloud, Forbes said.† (Billionaire weddings, 2006) Proud to be Indian and still the holder of an Indian passport despite many years in London, Mittal’s charitable gestures extend to setting up a sports academy and foundation to prop up India’s pathetic sports effort and gifting successful Indian sportspersons with extravagant money prizes. Mittal’s business efforts have not been successful all the time. â€Å"There have been deals that have stayed out of reach along the way. A few years ago, the LNM Group was on the verge of clinching a deal to buy Sidor, a Venezuelan plant but found the prize snatched from it at the last moment. U.S. Steel which beat the LNM Group in the race for VSZ in Slovakia. It also beat Mittal to the draw for Sartid, a Serbian plant. His efforts to grab a share of the e-business pie also evaporated into cyberspace. He attempted to marry technology and steel by setting up an e-exchange where steel could be traded, but the effort was aborted. His venture capital fund which hoped to strike a gusher in the hi-tech sector also didnt score any big multi-bagger hits.†(Balakrishnan, 2003) Assessment in terms of Entrepreneurial Theory Various economists have attempted to explain the process of entrepreneurship in different ways. Attempting to fill in a vital gap in the market process, economists like Schumpeter, Mises, Hayek, Shackle, Lachmann and others have tried to clarify entrepreneurship as â€Å"the animating force of the market process, initiating each alteration of the existing pattern of values, plans, and expectations in the market, and carrying through the physical actions which bring about new values, plans, and expectations.† (Wood, 2005) Successful entrepreneurship is the core of market development; not only does it bring about changes of existing to future strategies, estimations, and opportunities, but also the sighting and construction of fresh future conditions that are better than choices on hand and the concrete modification of present plans to each other and to the future. In essence the entrepreneur is often regarded as a connector; the person who detects the opening of gain between two separate market members, initiates required actions for purchasing from the vendor and selling to the buyer, and captures entrepreneurial profit. There however also exist other entrepreneurial tasks, which necessarily begin with the route of watchfully perceiving the incidence of opportunity before others, followed by finer details. The definition of entrepreneurship laid down by Stevenson in 1983 as â€Å"the pursuit of opportunity beyond the resources you currently control† is much in favour at Harvard University and takes account of both the individual and the larger society of which s/he is a part. (Welsch, 2003) The individual identifies an opportunity that needs to be followed and then tries to obtain the required resources from the larger society for exploiting the opportunity. (Morris, 1998) Entrepreneurship theory has in recent years been significantly enriched by inputs from numerous researchers who have tried to analyse the phenomenon from the social, organisational and personal contexts. Welsch, (2003), states (from an investigation of histories and culture in forty countries) that (a) entrepreneurship flourishes in communities where resources are mobile (b) entrepreneurship is greater when successful members of a community reinvest excess capital in the projects of other community members, (c) entrepreneurship flourishes in communities in which the success of other community members are celebrated rather than derided and that (d) entrepreneurship is greater in communities that see change as positive rather than negative. Some of these conditions are particular to Mittal. He comes from a desert trader community, the members of which moved out to other regions a couple of hundred years ago in search of opportunities and prosperity. Over time the Marwari community, of which he is now a much celebrated member, developed very strong kinship, hereditary business expertise, internal processes of information exchange, strong informal networks through arranged marriages, and the ability to seek, spot, and exploit opportunities. Trust in such societies is created through intra-community linkages and the growth of diverse collaborative ventures where preferential treatment is usually provided to companies with same community ownership. Mittal himself married a wealthy moneylender’s daughter from the same community and his initial business efforts in Indonesia were supported by the family business and other members of the community.(Richter, 1999) Whilst he separated his business from that of his family n either he nor his family have ever expressed rancour or talked publicly about the reasons for separation except to state that he wished to follow the international route whereas the other family members wished to grow in India. .(Richter, 1999) He was the first to spot the potential available for commercial exploitation of old and loss making steel plants and could successfully put through a process of making them into productive and valuable assets. He has also had the confidence to constantly leverage his businesses taking on debt to fund the needs of acquisition and consolidation. (Harper, 2003) Much of Mittal’s entrepreneurial success in his chosen field is due to the organisation he moulded during the 1990s. Putting his trust in the people of his country rather than in creating an organisation with an international culture, Mittal stacked his team with production and finance people from India, the production people being drawn from India’s old and obsolete public sector steel plants where maintenance and operations on paper thin budgets called for gallons of ingenuity and expertise, (Balakrishnan, 2003) and the finance people invariably being sharp chartered accountants from his community who could be trusted to drive the hardest bargain and maintain total confidentiality. This team, which he personally supervises and motivates, is close knit and expert in working in alien environments and setting up new organisations. Whilst currently existing theories may be inadequate for comprehension of the vibrant interaction amongst entrepreneurship, the state, and external environmental factors, as well as the institution’s capability to assist entrepreneurship and ensuing efficacy, it does differentiate between innovative and entrepreneurial organisations, entrepreneurship involving individuals building new organisations rather than individuals who are involved with established corporations. (Koepp, 2002) Mittal’s empire has not been known for pathbreaking innovation of the type shown by Google or YouTube where entrepreneurship and innovation live closely in cosy comfort. It is known to stay with businesses in which its expertise has been built over years, and where success comes from production ingenuity and a vigilant eye on costs. Mittal’s preponderance to stay with people with whom he is culturally comfortable and whom he feels he can trust and control also denies him access to the much larger talent pool available to organisations who hire only the best regardless of their origin. It also possibly explains the reasons behind the failures of ventures that attempted to go beyond the pale of steel production, for example the lack of success in his attempts to set up an e-business, an e-steel trading exchange, and a venture capital fund. Entrepreneurship theory also essentially focuses on the entrepreneurial psyche, i.e. the fundamental mental and attitudinal differences that distinguish entrepreneurs from others. Peter Drucker and Frank Knight associated entrepreneurship with the willingness to take risks and spend time and capital in pursuit of ideas and convictions, especially in situations of true uncertainty about outcomes. (Welsch, 2003) Shackle, Lachmann, and other economists however theorise that the true entrepreneur does not bear risk. (Wood, 2003) Entrepreneurs are actually so sure of the trueness of their future forecasts that they believe that the future will roll out exactly as they anticipate; whilst knowing that they operate in situations of uncertainty they have the confidence in their ability to make correct forecasts. Although this phenomenon has been interpreted by Mises to mean that entrepreneurs are oblivious to all else but profits, a consensus is building on the theory that whilst entrepreneur s are aware of uncertainties, they shoulder risks aside in their pursuit of their convictions. Entrepreneurs are also associated with creativity, resourcefulness and strong self belief, desire for new ideas, openness to change, inherent competitiveness, motivation, energy, and openness to criticism. (Morris, 1998) Entrepreneurship is also associated with passion, commitment, and perseverance. Whilst it is improbable that all successful entrepreneurs are so gifted, many of them possess some of these qualities in abundance. Research studies however do not pay much attention to issues like factors like luck and fortune in successful entrepreneurship and the need for the entrepreneur to be in the right place at the right time. Nor do they associate it much with greed, ambition, the tendency to cut corners, and to work on the periphery of rules and procedures. Microsoft has been accused time and again of stifling competition and has been involved in anti-trust legislation. Many questions have been raised about Mittal’s donations to the labour party and the poor conditions of workers in his factories. Whilst much is made of the positive qualities of entrepreneurs it is but fair to recognise that ambition and greed contribute significantly to their mental makeup and strong institutions and regulatory procedures are needed for society to benefit from the dynamism and vitality they bring to business. Conclusion Mittal in his personal life is known to be a committed family man and has groomed his son to succeed him in future. Close associates say that he is hard working and driven by his bottom lines. Whilst detractors feel that he has been helped by the phenomenal increase in the demand for steel and that he was in the right place at the right time when large numbers of dilapidated steel plants were being put on the block, the enormous and sustained success of his enterprise proves that there is much to his success beyond simple luck. His organisation building capacity is said to be remarkable and he provides his engineers a stable and financially beneficial working environment. Entrepreneurship theory is also about vision; the capacity to forecast future happenings with great perspicacity. (George Zahra, 2002) This is where Mittal scores. More than anything else people associate him with extraordinary vision, the ability to see the need of the future and build his grand plan accordingly. (Balakrishnan, 2003) Whilst he has been distracted from time to time by plans for other businesses, his focus has been sharp on the need of the steel industry to consolidate and the inability of small and medium sized steel businesses to cope with the demands of the present and the future. Although the man is now regarded more as a business giant, concerned with the consolidation of his industry rather than with starting new business ventures, he stands as a classic case of a successful entrepreneur and of the tenets of entrepreneurship theory. Word Count: 3160 and References References Balakrishnan, P, (2003), L.N. 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Exceptional Entrepreneurial Women: Strategies for Success. New York: Praeger Theil, S. (2008, January/February), Europes Philosophy of Failure: In France and Germany, Students Are Being Forced to Undergo a Dangerous Indoctrination. Taught That Economic Principles Such as Capitalism, Free Markets, and Entrepreneurship Are Savage, Unhealthy, and Immoral, These Children Are Raised on a Diet of Prejudice and Bias. Rooting It out May Determine Whether Europes Economies Prosper or Continue to Be Left Behind. Foreign Policy 54+ Welsch, H. P, (2003). Entrepreneurship: The Way Ahead. New York: Routledge Wood, J.S, (2005), The development and present state of the theory of entrepreneurship in product and asset markets by Knight, Hayek, Schumpeter, Mises, Kirzner, Shackle and Lachmann, Austrian Scholars Conference 2005, Retrieved August 24, 2008 from mises.org/journals/scholar/wood.pdf