Change management (organisation) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Change management (organisation) - Essay Example To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident It is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better. It would be appropriate to distinguish between â€Å"change† and a â€Å"project† right at the out-set. A project is a temporary and one-time endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service, that brings about beneficial change or added value. (1). A change, referred to in this context, includes a broad array of topics. From an individual perspective, the change may be a new behavior. From a business perspective, the change may be a new business process or new technology. From a societal perspective, the change may be a new public policy or the passing of new legislation. Successful change, however, requires more than a new process, technology or public policy. Successful change requires the engagement and participation of the people involved. (1). For organizations to develop, they often must undergo significant change at various points in their development. Change in organizations occurs when the organization changes its overall strategy for success, adds or removes a major section or practice, and/or wants to change the very nature by which it operates. (2). It also occurs when an organization evolves through various life cycles, just like people must successfully evolve through life cycles. (3). Ackerman (1997) has distinguished between three types of changes:- Transformational Change Also known as Organisational Change it is radical in nature comprising basically a paradigm shift in the organisation and its members. Transformation results in significantly different structure, processes, culture and strategy. Although the concepts and principles of change presented in this paper are applicable to all types of change, the essence of this paper is biased towards Transformational Change in higher educational institutions, particularly Northumbria University. (4). Northumbria University

Cloud Database Essay Example for Free

Cloud Database Essay Introduction: The cloud computing is the next generation of the computing, its advantages, advancements and research are a plenty. In recent years, the term â€Å"cloud computing† has been critical in the world of IT. Cloud computing, or the use of internet-based technologies to conduct business, is recognized as an important area for IT innovation and investment (Armbrust et al. , 2010; Goscinski and Brock, 2010; Tuncay, 2010). Cloud computing has spread out through the main areas related to information systems (IS) and technologies, such as operating systems, application software, and technological solutions for firms (Armbrust et al., 2010). The promise of cloud computing is to deliver all the functionality of existing information technology services even as it dramatically reduces the upfront costs of computing that deter many organizations from deploying many cutting-edge IT services (J.Staten, 2009). Cloud computing represents a convergence of two major trends in information technology — (a) IT efficiency, whereby the power of modern computers is utilized more efficiently through highly scalable hardware and software resources and (b) business agility, whereby IT can be used as a competitive tool through rapid deployment, parallel batch processing, use of compute-intensive business analytics and mobile interactive applications that respond in real time to user requirements (W.Kim, 2009). The impetus for change right now is seen predominantly from a costs perspective, as organizations increasingly discover that their substantial capital investments in information technology are often grossly underutilized (Sean Marston et al., 2010). Although there have been many recent publications that discuss various features, opportunities and issues related to Cloud services ([Jane Anderson et al., 2010], [Sam Goundar et al., 2011]), but only few scholars have attempted to explain the factors for adoption of cloud database ([Chinyao Low et al., 2011]). Related studies have looked at Strategic research model for Enterprise Information Planning adoption with Technology, Organization and Environment as moderators (Liu hongjun et al., 2010). The gap in this research is that both TOE and TAM model are not being looked as one model explaining Cloud database adoption. This study investigates the cloud database acceptance by combining the work done by (Chinyao Low et al., 2011) pertaining to Understanding the determinants of cloud computing adoption and (Liu hongjun et al., 2010) pertaining to Strategy Research of Enterprise Information Planning based on TOE-TAM model. Also this study discusses about the key advantages and challenges faced by implementing Cloud database. As the cloud services are increasingly expanding through research and development. This study will be constructive to the cloud service development and growth. Literature Review: Nevertheless, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) provides one of the most parsimonious, yet robust, models in explaining Information and Communication Technology characteristics and their effects on consumer adoption/use of new ICTs (Kenneth C.C. Yang, 2005). Internet is a product of Information Technology; as such Internet Cloud services should be explained as a part of Technology Acceptance Model (Davis 1989; Davis et al. 1989). TAM is a parsimonious and theoretically justified model intended to explain information technology adoption (van der Heijden, 2003). TAM has two main keywords which are user’s adoption intention and actual usage. The user adoption intention is called as â€Å"Perceived usefulness†, which is defined as â€Å"the degree to which a person believes using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance† (van der Heijden, 2003). The actual usage is called as â€Å"perceived-ease-of-use†, which is defined as â€Å"the degree of to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort† (van der Heijden, 2003). TAM theorizes that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness affect the consumer adoption decisions (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). Organization will have influence on new technology acceptance from three aspects: T (tech), O (organization) and E (environment). The tech includes existing technology of an enterprise and technology which has not been introduced on the market. Organization generally refers to the scope and scale of an enterprise, including management structure characteristics, and human resource status. Environment is also called regulation on industry and transactions with partners, competitors and government. TOE model is highly systematic, widely used to analyze influence factors of information technology adoption in different fields in recent years. Several studies (Chau and Tam, 1997; Chong and Ooi, 2008; Kuan and Chau, 2001; Lin and Lin, 2008; Oliveira and Martins, 2010; Pan and Jang, 2008; Shirish and Teo, 2010; Zhu et al., 2004) have been credited with proposing the TOE framework, developed by Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990), to analyse IT adoption by firms. The TOE framework identifies three context groups: technological, organizational, and environmental. The technological context refers to internal and external technologies applicable to the firm. Organisational context refers to several indexes regarding the origination, such as firm size and scope, centralisation, formalization, and complexity of managerial structure and the quality of human resources. Environmental context refers to a firm’s industry, competitors and government policy or intention. The TOE framework is consistent with Rogers’ (1983) theory of innovation diffusion (Pan and Jang, 2008; Shirish and Teo, 2010; Wang et al., 2010), which recognizes the following five technological characteristics as precedents for any adoption decision: relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, observability, and trial ability. Therefore, the TOE framework explains the adoption of innovation and a considerable number of empirical studies have focused on various IS doma ins. Swanson (1995) contended that adoption of complex IT innovations requires an advantageous technology portfolio, organizational structure, and environmental strategy. Chau and Tam(1997) adopted the TOE framework and explained three factors that affect the adoption of open systems. These factors are the characteristics of the innovation, organizational technology, and external environment. Kuan and Chau (2001) confirmed the utility of the TOE framework adopting complex IS innovations. Several studies are grounded in the TOE framework for assessing the value of e-business at the firm level (Lin and Lin, 2008; Oliveira and Martins, 2010; Zhu et al., 2004). They found that technological readiness (the significant factor), financial resources, global scope, and regulatory environment contribute strongly to e-business value. Hong and Zhu (2006) considered the TOE framework in the adoption of e-commerce and the identification of new factors that fit the characteristics of type III innovation. Shirish and Teo (2010) demonstrated the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on the TOE framework and suggested that policy makers should consider measures to enhance development of e-government and e-business collectively. Pan and Jang (2008) examined the factors within the TOE framework that affect the decision to adopt ERP in Taiwan’s communications industry. Chong and Ooi (2008) utilised the TOE model empirically to examine the factors that affect the adoption of the RosettaNet standard. Conceptual Model: The foundation of theoretical model consists of TAM and TOE model. During the last two decades, Technology Acceptance Model (Davis 1989; Davis et al. 1989) has emerged as a powerful explanation to account for the influence of technology acceptance behaviors in a wide variety of IT. This study focuses on positive effect of Technology, Organization and Environment on the Technology Acceptance Model among high-tech Industries. Few previous studies, if any, have focused on the adoption and acceptance of cloud database. Nor did previous studies examine the effect of TOE and TAM for the acceptance of cloud database. Research Model: Based on our theoretical proposition that relates TOE (Technology, Organization and Environment and Technology) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) a research model (Figure 2) has been developed and propose six hypotheses grounded in the cloud database context. Technology Acceptance Model and Cloud Database: A cloud database is a part of Information Technology; as such the intention to use the cloud database should be explained in part of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This model has been used in number of research and numerous empirical results show that TAM is a parsimonious and robust model (Gefen and Straub, 2000). According to TAM, the intention to use a new technology is affected by 1.Perceived usefulness (PU) and 2.Perceived ease of use (PEOU). PU is defined as a belief that using a technology will enhance a person’s job performance, while PEOU is defined as the degree to which a person believes that using an IT will be free of effort. TAM has been discussed in great detail by (Gefen and Straub 2000; Venkatesh and Davis 2000). As shown in previous research (Gefen et al. 2000), this study hypothesize that paths predicted by TAM apply also to internet cloud service usage. As in previous TAM studies, the underlying logic are users react rationally when select an Information Technology to work on. The more useful and easy to use is the internet Cloud service in enabling the users to accomplish their tasks, the more it will be used: H1: PEOU will positively affect PU of an internet Cloud service. H2: PU will positively affect intended use of an internet Cloud service. H3: PEOU will positively affect intended use of an internet Cloud service.

Impact of an Educator on Sustaining and Enhancing a Child’s Learning an

Educators have long been accountable for their student’s ongoing learning and development. The way in which an educator views both their students and their profession, will determine the way they perceive their pedagogical role in sustaining children’s learning and development. Given Australia’s focus on standardised testing in recent years, educators and society have become consumed by these results rather focusing on the process and personal needs of children’s development (Lingard 2010). In exploring the child-centred, constructive approach evident throughout Finnish educational frameworks, Australian educators can adapt these facilitative methods within their own pedagogy to ensure that the child, and society, equally benefit from the child’s overall development throughout their early childhood years. Education as a vocation is ever changing and evolving. There are no cases where a situation surrounding the learning or development of a child can be viewed in black and white or any teaching methods or techniques that can be immediately regarded as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, rather educators need to be prepared â€Å"for different learners within the framework of research-based learning† (Tryggvason 2009). Given the vocation’s fluidity, world-wide value and perceived necessity, many educators in the field come from a variety of backgrounds. Whether they vary by cultural, socioeconomic, or personal philosophies the factors that contribute to an individual’s perspective surrounding the field are endless (Tryggvason 2009; Dockett & Fleer 1998). This idea has been represented in a variety of ways across the academic field, whether they are specific, such as an educator’s attitude towards a particular subject based on the way in which they w ... ... Tryggvason, M. T. (2009). Why is Finnish teacher education successful? Some goals Finnish teacher educators have for their teaching, European Journal of Teacher Education, 32(4), 369-382, DOI: 10.1080/02619760903242491. Van Hoorn, J. L, Nourot, P. M., Scales, B. R. & Alward, K. R. (2011). Play at the Centre of the Curriculum, (5th ed.), Boston: Pearson Education Inc. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, USA: the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Woodrow, C. (1999). Revisiting images of the child in early childhood education: Reflections and considerations, Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 24(4), 7-12. Woodrow, C. & Press, F. (2007). (Re)Positioning the Child in the Policy/Politics of Early Childhood, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 39(3), DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2007.00328.x

Indian Republic Day Speech Essay

India celebrates our 64th Republic Day which is one of three national days in India. Commonly 64th Republic Day is a public holiday in most of the countries to honor the day on which the country first became republics. In such some are Commonwealth countries, the British sovereign was ruling the state until the change of status. Even though India obtained freedom on August 15, 1947, Indian Constitution implemented and came into effect only on January 26, 1950. King George VI, the last and only â€Å"King† of the modern India, was leading our state during the evolution period from 1947 to 1950. Lord Mountbatten and C. Rajagopalachari were serving as the Governors-General of India at that time. Afterwards Rajendra Prasad was elected as the first president of India on January 26, 1950. With this the Parliament officially approved the Constitution of India and declared itself as a â€Å"Republic† on January 26, 1950, a date thereafter celebrated every year as Republic Day in India. Lets know about India Republic Day official celebration in New Delhi. According to the Republic Day celebration on January 26th every year a grand parade is held in New Delhi, the Capital of India, beginning from Raisina Hill near the Presidential Palace Rashtrapati Bhavan, along the Rajpath, past India Gate and on to the historic Red Fort in the heart of the city to honor this occasion. Defence forces of state, Indian Army force, the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force performs the past in parade with their ceremonial dress and official decorations on this auspicious occasion of Republic Day. At the end of parade Air Force jets perform a colorful flypast by in a Tiranga formation which is adventurous and eye-catching at a time. Similar celebrations with such parades are held in the capitals of all the states of India on the Republic day. The Governor of the each state takes the salute in their respective celebrations. More over all official government offices will also celebrate this national day which is also considered as people’s day. Once this salutation gets over, a 21 gun salute is presented, the President unfurls the National Flag and the National Anthem is performed. This regards the beginning of the parade. The Republic day Parade commences with winners of bravery awards passing the President in open jeeps. We all are proud to be Indians and would salute the great glory of our country. By saying this I would like to finish my speech.

A Playground of Life Lessons Essay

A PLAYGROUND OF LIFE LESSONS Where were most of your memories made in elementary school? Ask almost anyone, and their answer will be, â€Å"On the playground during recess!† Unfortunately, the youth of today may not have the opportunity to make those memories. As a result of the No Child Left Behind Act, more than forty percent of schools have reduced recess time, while seven percent have completely eliminated it from the school day (Pappas, 2011). With physical education only being offered to elementary students once a week, typically for forty minutes or less, recess is more important now than ever before. The absence of recess in schools will result in a long-term negative impact on these children’s health, learning, and social development. Recess could possibly be the only opportunity throughout the day for some children to engage in social interactions with their peers. There are many children who have no siblings, or who may live in rural areas that aren’t conducive to gathering with friends after school. The free time that is given during recess allows for the development of social skills that will be beneficial for a lifetime, such as, making choices, developing rules for play, team building, and conflict resolution. These are basic social fundamentals that can’t necessarily be taught in a structured classroom setting, but are imperative in everyday life. Not only is recess crucial for developing social skills, but many lifelong friendships are built while swinging on the play set, or waiting in line for the monkey bars. Being able to nourish those friendships and spend time together gives kids something to look forward to during the school day. It’s a little incentive to get them through when classroom activities become boring and monotonous. Recess is also one of few opportunities for adults and teachers to observe how children behave socially with one another during free play. This can help to determine any tendencies to fight or bully, identify children who possess leadership abilities, or pinpoint any other strengths or weaknesses that can and should be nurtured. In a typical classroom setting, children don’t have the ability to showcase talents that aren’t academic. With childhood obesity on the rise, recess is detrimental to the health of children. Inactivity is associated with childhood obesity tripling since around 1970, along with an increase in other health issues, like elevated blood pressure and high cholesterol (Jarrett, 2002). When children aren’t given the opportunity to be active during the school day, they don’t tend to go home and make up for the exercise that was missed. Research revealed that children were actually less active when they got home from school on the days when they had no recess or physical education classes during the school day (Dale, Corbin, Dale, 2000). Even though not all children participate in physical activity during recess, they won’t even have the opportunity if it’s not offered. Today’s youth is already choosing television and video games over playing outside, so why should we support a sedentary lifestyle by eliminating recess from schools? Physical activity is also impe rative for good mental health. Maintaining physical fitness has shown to increase self-esteem in children, and adults (AHA, 2012). In school aged children, it is especially important to reduce anxiety by burning off excess energy that is built up while sitting in class. The best way for them to do that is by having recess! New experimental research done by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine has also shown that children who are offered recess during the day have less behavioral issues in class. Teachers in a particular school district were asked to rate their students’ behavior, and those students who were given at least a 15 minute recess throughout the day scored higher than those who weren’t (Parker-Pope, 2009). Obviously, recess offers a break from the sedentary routine of the day. The cognitive benefits of that break are astounding! For adults and children alike, breaks are deemed necessary for satisfaction and alertness. Research has also shown that breaks during learning result in a better quality of retention and recall due to the presentation of material being spaced instead of all at once. This research is conducive to what is already known about brain functioning: â€Å"that the brain needs downtime to recycle chemicals crucial for long-term memory formation, and that attention involves 90-to110-minute cyclical patterns throughout the day† (Jarrett, 2002). Other theories state that there is a positive correlation between unstructured interaction with peers, and higher results on intelligence tests (Jirikovic, Vansyckle, McIntyre, & Irish, 2005). Aren’t higher test scores the main focus of educators today? Children aren’t the only ones that need a break from the mundane curriculum. Teachers and aides need an opportunity to regain energy levels, discuss the day’s activities and observations, and get things in order for the next lesson on the agenda. With the heightened expectations of teachers and their accountability for academic progress, the break time that is offered by recess is extremely beneficial for both their job performance and state of mind. It may take them a few minutes to get their classes back on track to learn once they return from free-play, but it has been shown that students are more focused and well behaved after recess (Jarrett, 2002). With so much evidence that supports the benefits of daily recess, it’s surprising that the elimination of it has even come into question. However, there are those who believe that recess is unnecessary and that it takes away from the time and focus on academics. For those people, I would advise to examine the research and the long term benefits that recess has been proven to offer, as well as, the potential negative effects that would result in making it a thing of the past. Some say that school is a place for learning, not playing. I say that the learning that happens during interaction with peers as a child is irreplaceable by any academic lesson plan. Strong social skills are an integral part of moving forward in the world. Any career that you choose is going to require the ability to interact with people, whether it is with co-workers, vendors, patients, or customers. You can have the best academic resume in the world, but if you can’t make your way through an interview, the employer is going to choose someone else for the job. The social skills required to communicate effectively and adapt to certain situations are only learned through personal experience. This personal experience starts on the school playground. There is also the issue of bullying that comes into play when children are offered unstructured play time, such as recess. While that is a valid concern, and should be treated as such, children also need to learn life coping skills and resiliency. Life isn’t fair, and there is usually always a bully, even as an adult. Today’s children are being coddled too much, and given a false sense of security and protection. I feel it would be more beneficial to teach children how to deal with bullying situations, rather than treat them as if they don’t exist. Observation of student’s personalities during recess can help teachers and adults to identify who needs guidance in these areas, as well as, provide them the opportunity to pinpoint the bullies and stop them in their tracks. Although there are arguments against recess, there is no research that supports the benefits of eliminating it from schools. While it may free up a few more minutes for teaching reading comprehension or long division, those minutes are counter-productive if these children have â€Å"zoned-out† and are unable to retain what is being taught. Recess needs to stay in schools, and be recognized for what it is; a playground of life lessons. BIBLIOGRAPHY American Heart Association. (2012, November 26). Physical Activity and Children. Retrieved from website http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/Physical-Activity-and-Children_UCM_304053_Article.jsp Dale, D., Corbin, B., Dale, K. S. (2000). Restricting opportunities to be active during school time: Do children compensate by increasing physical activity levels after school? Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 71(3):240-248. Jarrett, O. (2002, July). Recess in Elementary School: What Does the Research Say? (ERIC Digest). Retrieved from ERIC database. (ED466331) http://www.eric.ed.gov/ Jirikovic, R., Vansyckle, J., McIntyre, C., Irish, B. (2005). RECESS – TIME WELL SPENT! Retrieved from website http://www.timeday.org/pdf/newsletter_february_2006/Recess_Project.pdf

The English Reformation †English Literature Essay (100 Level Course)

The English Reformation – English Literature Essay (100 Level Course) Free Online Research Papers The English Reformation English Literature Essay (100 Level Course) All this led some people to look to Martin Luther as an innovator. Rome’s interference seemed intolerable, among other things, because of the new nationalistic spirit that was developing in Tudor times. Henry VIII, who had at first defended the Pope against Luther, was finally induced to separate the Church of England from Rome for both political and personal reasons. After his brother Arthur’s death, with a special dispensation of the Pope, he had in fact married his brother’s widow, Catherine, who had borne him a daughter, Mary. But he wanted a male heir. He had more over fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting of the queen. And so, on the pretext that his marriage was illegal according to Canon Law, as Catherine was his sister-in-law, he asked the Pope to declare it void. Pope Clement VIT, who was practically subservient to Charles V of Spain, Catherine’s nephew and the real master of Europe, refused. The king did not accept the Pope’s authority and decided to solve the question through the English clergy and the English Parliament. He replaced his chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, by Thomas More, and made Thomas Cranmer, a churchman favorable to the king’s divorce, Archbishop of Canterbury. Parliament declared that the king’s first marriage was void. In 1533 Henry married Anne Boleyn; England was declared an â€Å"Empire†, that is a â€Å"national State†, in which both civil and ecclesiastical causes were to he decided without the interference of any foreign jurisdiction. Another Act of Parliament in 1534 (Act of Supremacy) declared the king â€Å"Only Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England†. Sir Thomas More did not accept the repudiation of the Pope’s authority in religious matters, and died on the scaffold in 1535. In 1536 papal authority in England was declared extinct. Research Papers on The English Reformation - English Literature Essay (100 Level Course)Comparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoQuebec and CanadaBringing Democracy to AfricaAssess the importance of Nationalism 1815-1850 EuropeCanaanite Influence on the Early Israelite ReligionInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesMind TravelStandardized Testing19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraPETSTEL analysis of India

The Top 5 Jobs in the Northeast

The Top 5 Jobs in the Northeast If you’re looking for a career change (or a change of scenery!), here are some of the fastest-growing jobs for 2016 in the northeastern part of the U.S. This includes Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. Sadly, â€Å"professional sports fan† isn’t on this list, despite the spirited fan bases for major league baseball, football, basketball, and hockey teams in this region.1. Tech Job Outlook: Software DeveloperSoftware developers are the unseen force behind every digital program you use. From apps on your phone to the fitness tracker on your wrist, software developers are the ones who devise, test, refine, and update the computer coding that makes our lives easier.Metro areas like New York, New Jersey, and Boston are becoming major tech hubs, and these skilled jobs are springing up accordingly. The median salary for a software developer is $93,350 per year, and the field is expected to grow a faster-tha n-average 22% per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.2. Administrative Job Outlook: Office ManagerIf software developers are the shadowy force behind our digital lives, office managers are often the unsung heroes of our workday. Office managers are typically responsible for ensuring that office logistics run smoothly. This can include keeping inventories of office supplies, managing facilities, keeping records, and taking on administrative tasks like human resources or payroll.The median salary for office managers is $81,080 per year, with growth of 12% expected.3. Logistics Job Outlook: Truck DriverTruck drivers keep the northeast moving. Companies like UPS and FedEx have large facilities in the northeast, and with companies like Amazon expanding into warehouses all over the country to shorten customer delivery times, this is a field that is growing fast.The median salary for truck drivers is $38,200, and the field is expected to grow by at least 11% by 2022. Projections for 2016 suggest that there may also be a shortage of drivers on the horizon, so now might be the best time to get on the road.4. Healthcare Job Outlook: Physician AssistantPhysician assistants (PAs) have become a major part of the healthcare industry of late, as the demand for healthcare grows with a growing and aging population and doctor and nurse populations struggle to keep up. PAs can practice medicine under doctors and surgeons and provide direct patient care (examinations, diagnosis, treatment, and education).The median salary for PAs is $90,930 per year, with astonishing projected growth of 38% by 2022.5. Service Job Outlook: Gaming and Sports Book Writers and RunnersIn recent elections, voters have authorized new casinos in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. This means that in the next year and beyond, there will be a boom of casino openings- and with it, a large call for employees to work on the gaming floors.The median salary for this job is $20,850, with a massive 28% inc rease in job openings expected.Whether you’re already in the northeast and looking for a change of pace or you’re looking to trade your current town for the invigorating chill of a New England winter, opportunities are waiting- even if you’re not willing to swear undying loyalty to the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees.

The Discovery of Fire in the Early Stone Age

The Discovery of Fire in the Early Stone Age The discovery of fire, or, more precisely, the controlled use of fire, was one of mankinds first great innovations. Fire allows us to produce light and heat, to cook plants and animals, to clear forests for planting, to heat-treat stone for making stone tools, to keep predator animals away, and to burn clay for ceramic objects. It has social purposes as well. Fires serve as gathering places, as beacons for those away from camp, and as spaces for special activities. The Progress of Fire Control The human control of fire likely required the cognitive ability to conceptualize the idea of fire, which itself has been recognized in chimpanzees; great apes have been known to prefer their foods cooked. The fact that experimentation with fire occurred during the early days of humanity should come as no surprise. Archaeologist J.A.J. Gowlett offers this general outline for the development of fire use:  opportunistic use of fire from natural occurrences (lightning strikes, meteor impacts, etc);  limited conservation of fires lit by natural occurrences; use of animal dung or other slow-burning substances to maintain fires in wet or cold seasons; and finally,  kindled fire. Early Evidence The controlled use of fire was likely an invention of our ancestor Homo erectus during the Early Stone Age (or Lower Paleolithic). The earliest evidence of fire associated with humans  comes from Oldowan hominid sites in the Lake Turkana region of Kenya. The site of Koobi Fora contained oxidized patches of earth to a depth of several centimeters, which some scholars interpret as evidence of fire control. The Australopithecine site of Chesowanja in central Kenya (about 1.4 million years old) also contained burned clay clasts  in small areas. Other Lower Paleolithic sites in Africa that contain possible evidence of fire include Gadeb in Ethiopia (burned rock), and Swartkrans (burned bones) and Wonderwerk Cave (burned ash and bone fragments), both in South Africa. The earliest evidence for controlled use of fire outside of Africa is at the Lower Paleolithic site of Gesher Benot Yaaqov in Israel, where charred wood and seeds were recovered from a site dated 790,000 years old. Other evidence has been found at Zhoukoudian, a Lower Paleolithic site in China, Beeches Pit in the U.K., and Qesem Cave in Israel. An Ongoing Discussion Archaeologists examined the available data for European sites and concluded that habitual use of fire wasnt part of the suite of human behaviors until about 300,000 to 400,000 years ago. They believe that the earlier sites are representative of the  opportunistic use of natural fires. Terrence Twomey published a comprehensive discussion of the early evidence for the  human control of fire at 400,000 to 800,000 years ago. Twomey believes that there is no direct evidence for domestic fires between 400,000 and 700,000 years ago, but he believes that other, indirect evidence supports the notion of the controlled use of fire. Indirect Evidence Twomeys argument is based on several lines of indirect evidence. First, he cites the metabolic demands of relatively big-brained Middle Pleistocene hunter-gatherers  and suggests that brain evolution required cooked food. Further, he argues that our distinctive sleep patterns (staying up after dark) are deeply rooted and that hominids began staying in seasonally or permanently cool places by 800,000 years ago. All of this, says Twomey, implies effective control of fire. Gowlett and Richard Wrangham argue that another piece of indirect evidence for the early use of fire is that our ancestors Homo  erectus evolved smaller mouths, teeth, and digestive systems, in striking contrast to earlier hominids. The benefits of having a smaller gut could not be realized until high-quality foods were available all year long. The adoption of cooking, which softens food and makes it easier to digest, could have led to these changes. Hearth Fire Construction A hearth is a deliberately constructed fireplace. The earliest examples were made by collecting stones to contain the fires, or simply by reusing the same location again and again and allowing the ash from previous fires to accumulate. Hearths from the Middle Paleolithic period (about 200,000 to 40,000 years ago) have been found at sites such as the Klasies River Caves in South Africa, Tabun Cave in Israel, and Bolomor Cave in Spain. Earth ovens, on the other hand, are hearths with banked and sometimes domed structures built of clay. These types of hearths were first used during the Upper Paleolithic period for cooking and heating and sometimes for burning clay figurines. The Gravettian Dolni Vestonice site in the modern Czech Republic has evidence of kiln construction, although construction details did not survive. The best information on Upper Paleolithic kilns is from the Aurignacian deposits of Klisoura Cave  in Greece. Fuels Relict wood was likely the fuel used for the earliest fires. Purposeful selection of wood came later: hardwood such as oak burns differently than softwood such as pine, since the moisture content and density of a wood all affect how hot or long it will burn. In places where wood was not available, alternative fuels such as peat, cut turf, animal dung, animal bone, seaweed, and straw were used to build fires. Animal dung was likely not consistently used until after animal domestication  led to the keeping of livestock, about 10,000 years ago. Sources Attwell L., Kovarovic K., and Kendal J.R. Fire in the Plio-Pleistocene: The Functions of Hominin Fire Use, and the Mechanistic, Developmental and Evolutionary Consequences. Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 2015.Bentsen S.E. Using Pyrotechnology: Fire-Related Features and Activities With a Focus on the African Middle Stone Age. Journal of Archaeological Research, 2014.Gowlett J.A.J. The Discovery of Fire by Humans: A Long and Convoluted Process. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2016.Gowlett J.A.J., and Wrangham R.W. Earliest Fire in Africa: Towards the Convergence of Archaeological Evidence and the Cooking Hypothesis. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 2013.Stahlschmidt M.C., Miller C.E., Ligouis B., Hambach U., Goldberg P., Berna F., Richter D., Urban B., Serangeli J., and Conard N.J. On the Evidence for Human Use and Control of Fire at Schà ¶ningen. Journal of Human Evolution, 2015.Twomey T. The Cognitive Implications of Controlled Fire Use by Early Humans. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2013.

Inflation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Inflation - Essay Example There have been cases around the globe known as hyperinflation. Though there is no official definition for it, it is generally accepted as a 50% annual inflation rate. Ecuador suffered through a 96% inflation rate in 2000 ("Background Note: Ecuador"). This was caused by a weak economy, massive debt from El Nino in 1998, and a floating currency. The president was ousted in Jan. 2000 and caused a 75% spike in a one-month period. The new government restructured the debt, privatized state owned industries, and tied the currency to the US dollar. The following years saw lower rates and it had dropped to 1.9% in 2004 ("Background Note: Ecuador"). The war and economic hardships in the former Yugoslavia resulted in inflation rates in the period 1971-91 of 69 percent, with hyperinflation of more than 50 percent per month in 1989 (Hanke). According to experts, Slobodan Milosevic triggered the hyperinflation by granting $1.8 billion in unauthorized credits to Serbian-owned enterprises (Hanke). It was only brought under control when the war ended and a new government was installed. Though the UAE and Dubai have not seen these rates of inflation, it has been on the rise in recent years. It was 2.8% in 2002 and is estimated to hit 20% in 2006. That was up from 10.5% in 2005 ("United Arab Emirates"). The rate was 3.2% and 4.6% in 2003-2004.

The definition of a word that means something to you Essay

The definition of a word that means something to you - Essay Example Globalization is a common term used in describing things taking place as a result of current technological advancement especially things that have enhanced integration of different countries. Many intellectual imaginations have been gripped by the concept of globalization and most people commonly pursue a perception that globalization is an analytical prerequisite used in appreciating continuousness and adjustment of contemporary society. Globalization has gained popularity in different fields including political and academic spectrum because of its relevance to the growing trend, which has heightened the current propagation of the global discussion. This further signifies the impact of the contemporary social relation and the fact that there is a common and new character shared within the society because of the relevancy and the context of the term to the society. Many fields have incorporated the word globalization in their studies and event tried to relate numerous phenomenon with it. There are many different concepts and meanings of globalization as per different scholars, laymen and in political spectrum that sound almost similar. Some people define globalization as westernization implying a concept of transformation of the social structure of modernity to all humanity while extinguishing preexistent culture as well as self-rule. It is presumed that globalization is colonization and Americanization thus positioning it as a hegemonic discourse by some critics that it is just a philosophy of hypothetical advancement concealing far reaching. Proponents of globalizations westernization argue that globalization has led to transformations such as rationalist knowledge, capitalist production, as well as technological advancements as modernity while early global consciousness prompted the onset of modernity. Indeed, contemporary globalization has played an integral role in the modern and western social relations in

The last year (1935) in the life of Huey P. Long (Louisiana Senator) Essay

The last year (1935) in the life of Huey P. Long (Louisiana Senator) - Essay Example Parker won the primary, and Long insisted that it was his doing. In that era before the advent of radio and electrical sound-amplifiers, a candidate's effectiveness was usually proportional to the lustiness of his voice at open-air rallies. Long's lungs were strong. Long perfected his oratorical technique in these campaigns. He spoke in terms of "we'": "We are a-goin' ter do this -- we done that." He eschewed polysyllabic words; he exaggerated his "hillbilly" accent; he reveled in the idioms of his native hills. Long's apologies were somewhat disingenuous. His formal education had been spotty, of course, but his ignorance was a pose. He was an able lawyer. Once when he was drunk, he uttered a franker appraisal of his own abilities. 1 Soon after the election, Long broke with the new governor, nominally because Parker was reluctant to levy higher taxes on Standard Oil. On August 30, 1923, his thirtieth birthday, Long announced his own candidacy for the governorship. The campaign began at once. Some opposition candidates might offer money for votes, Long predicted to his audiences. "So take the money and then vote for me." He cited his teachers as Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and Almighty God. He assailed Governor Parker as "a damnable demagogue." He charged the New Orleans Item and the Times-Picayune with being journals of Wall Street. A heavy rain fell on Primary Day, January 15, 1924. Long's rural followers were kept at home. A second cause of his defeat lay in his inability to attract votes in the French parishes. The ambitious railroad commissioner soon found opportunity to appeal to Catholic Creoles and Cajuns of southern Louisiana. In 1926 United States Senator Edwin S. Broussard came up for reelection. Long set out to sell Broussard a French Creole Catholic, an advocate of a protective-tariff on sugar, and "as wet as Lake Pontchartrain" on the prohibition question to his Anglo-Saxon Protestant, low-tariff, "dry" followers in northern Louisiana. He stumped the state, told the Creoles that French blood flowed in his own veins, and referred to Broussard as "Couzain Ed." He assured his own disciples of his complete loyalty to the senator. Broussard squeaked through the primary with a 4,000-vote margin. Opposing Long in the gubernatorial primary of 1928 was Congressman Riley Wilson, candidate of the New Orleans "Old Regular" machine, which controlled much of the state through an alliance with the rural courthouse cliques. Long ridiculed Wilson as a "babe," although Wilson was twenty-two years older than himself and had already served seven terms in Congress. Governor O. H. Simpson also filed in the primary. Long's irrelevant and crudely humorous talk amused his followers. 2 Long provided his campaign with a slogan: "Every Man a King but No Man Wears a Crown." Long said he borrowed the vote catching words from that perennial Democratic-Populist seeker after the presidency, William Jennings Bryan. In a speech on "Imperialism," delivered in the campaign of 1900, the Great Commoner spoke of a "republic in which every citizen is a sovereign, but in which no one cares or dares to wear a crown." Henceforth, "Every Man a King" was to be Long's battle cry. Long's candidacy was considerably strengthened by

Early Music through the Baroque Period Assignment

Early Music through the Baroque Period - Assignment Example This book is accompanied by a CD narrated by Ben Kingsley. I found it enlightening because of its overview of orchestra, which it follows up with an array of instrument groups used in orchestras. The brief explanations of the instrument group’s history and distinctive sound qualities However, it would have been better if the instruments were named where they were shown alone, rather than in small group photos, which I found odd. Nevertheless, the highlighting of individual instrument parts with clear labelling of their parts is very helpful, even though the instruments are only named in the smaller photographs showing them in orchestra groups. I agree with the post that the strings in this piece gave the entire performance a whimsical feel, although it would have been better to refer to the marimba, rather than the percussion. In fact, it puts the marimba, an instrument that is rarely given much space, in the centre stage. This post rightly notes that this piece almost follows the rules of tap-dancing, in that it only repeats long enough for the listener to catch its flow, before changing its step. In my case, I would have added the fact about the central character in the piece, a young girl on Christmas Eve, who awakens to romantic love and the wider world. The post makes an important point about this piece being Dvorak’s ninth and last symphony, but I would also have linked this with the fact that nine seems to be a magical number for most composers, such as Mahler, Bruckner, Schubert, and Beethoven.

The Development of African Dance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Development of African Dance - Essay Example There are important aspects of African dance and music that have evolved into the modern times and greatly influenced contemporary art forms worldwide. For example, rap music and hiphop dance, while they are very much part of contemporary art forms of the youth, are new versions of traditional African culture.African dances are full of symbolism. One persistent aspect of African dance is a common dance-pattern that is depicted by a wide, sweeping circle around a group of musicians situated in the center. Despite historical changes to dance, the circle formation has proved to be very durable, despite attempts to break up the circle formation. James (2000) says that the moving circle that defines the inner space for the dancers is a symbol of the celebration of the culture’s distinctiveness, and this symbol could be traced through Africa’s history of political subjugation and social change. The pattern could also be found in dances in slave plantations in the New World, a s well as the Sudanese and Ethiopian region of the upper Blue Nile.The circle formation could is evident in the Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian art form which ritualizes movements from martial arts and games and combines these with dance. (Please see powerpoint presentation.) Capoeira was popularized as a Brazilian dance, but evidence supports that it is a folk dance form developed by African slaves from traditional African dances and rituals. While African dance has influenced dance in other cultures, some authors such as Loots (2006).

Early Music through the Baroque Period Assignment

Early Music through the Baroque Period - Assignment Example This book is accompanied by a CD narrated by Ben Kingsley. I found it enlightening because of its overview of orchestra, which it follows up with an array of instrument groups used in orchestras. The brief explanations of the instrument group’s history and distinctive sound qualities However, it would have been better if the instruments were named where they were shown alone, rather than in small group photos, which I found odd. Nevertheless, the highlighting of individual instrument parts with clear labelling of their parts is very helpful, even though the instruments are only named in the smaller photographs showing them in orchestra groups. I agree with the post that the strings in this piece gave the entire performance a whimsical feel, although it would have been better to refer to the marimba, rather than the percussion. In fact, it puts the marimba, an instrument that is rarely given much space, in the centre stage. This post rightly notes that this piece almost follows the rules of tap-dancing, in that it only repeats long enough for the listener to catch its flow, before changing its step. In my case, I would have added the fact about the central character in the piece, a young girl on Christmas Eve, who awakens to romantic love and the wider world. The post makes an important point about this piece being Dvorak’s ninth and last symphony, but I would also have linked this with the fact that nine seems to be a magical number for most composers, such as Mahler, Bruckner, Schubert, and Beethoven.

Case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 8

Case Study Example The business model followed by Hanon compelled the managers to follow all the rules laid down by the corporate office down to every word. Therefore, the corporate office had complete control over all the operational activities of the restaurant chain. Looking at the initial results of success, the higher management decided to expand the business of China Delight. After the expansion the problem started surfacing. As a result of the expansion, the management had to hire general managers from outside. This decision making eventually proved to be the root cause of the downfall of China Delight. The previously implemented model of close control by the corporate office started creating friction with the newly appointed managers. Moreover, they did not possess any experience to run chain restaurants, so they had to be trained in order to get them habituated with the business and operational structure of Hanon. The training did not prove to be fruitful for China delight, as the managers mos tly ignored the instructions from the higher management and decided to run the operations based on their own knowledge and expertise. This as a result led to severe deviations from the operations manual provided by the corporate office thereby reducing its control over the restaurant chain. The newly appointed managers who did not had any experience in running restaurant chains failed to maintain consistency and quality standards, which hampered the brand image of the restaurant chain thereby reducing the foot fall level. The decreasing revenue and severe loss making became a severe concern for the company. Moreover, there was a communicational gap between the general managers and the corporate office, as the managers did not file regular reports and mostly ignored the instructions from the higher management; this as a result worsened the problem even further. There was also a great

Why Literature Essay Example for Free

Why Literature Essay It has often happened to me, at book fairs or in bookstores, that a gentleman approaches me and asks me for a signature. It is for my wife, my young daughter, or my mother, he explains. She is a great reader and loves literature. Immediately I ask: And what about you? Dont you like to read? The answer is almost always the same: Of course I like to read, but I am a very busy person. I have heard this explanation dozens of times: this man and many thousands of men like him have so many important things to do, so many obligations, so many responsibilities in life, that they cannot waste their precious time buried in a novel, a book of poetry, or a literary essay for hours and hours. According to this widespread conception, literature is a dispensable activity, no doubt lofty and useful for cultivating sensitivity and good manners, but essentially an entertainment, an adornment that only people with time for recreation can afford. It is something to fit in between sports, the movies, a game of bridge or chess; and it can be sacrificed without scruple when one prioritizes the tasks and the duties that are indispensable in the struggle of life. It seems clear that literature has become more and more a female activity. In bookstores, at conferences or public readings by writers, and even in university departments dedicated to the humanities, the women clearly outnumber the men. The explanation traditionally given is that middle-class women read more because they work fewer hours than men, and so many of them feel that they can justify more easily than men the time that they devote to fantasy and illusion. I am somewhat allergic to explanations that divide men and women into frozen categories and attribute to each sex its characteristic virtues and shortcomings; but there is no doubt that there are fewer and fewer readers of literature, and that among the saving remnant of readers women predominate. This is the case almost everywhere. In Spain, for example, a recent survey organized by the General Society of Spanish Writers revealed that half of that countrys population has never read a book. The survey also revealed that in the minority that does read, the number of women who admitted to reading surpasses the number of men by 6. 2 percent, a difference that appears to be increasing. I am happy for these women, but I feel sorry for these men, and for the millions of human beings who could read but have decided not to read. They earn my pity not only because they are unaware of the pleasure that they are missing, but also because I am convinced that a society without literature, or a society in which literature has been relegatedlike some hidden viceto the margins of social and personal life, and transformed into something like a sectarian cult, is a society condemned to become spiritually barbaric, and even to jeopardize its freedom. I wish to offer a few arguments against the idea of literature as a luxury pastime, and in favor of viewing it as one of the most primary and necessary undertakings of the mind, an irreplaceable activity for the formation of citizens in a modern and democratic society, a society of free individuals. |[pic] | e live in the era of the specialization of knowledge, thanks to the prodigious development of science and technology and to the consequent fragmentation of knowledge into innumerable parcels and compartments. This cultural trend is, if anything, likely to be accentuated in years to come. To be sure, specialization brings many benefits. It allows for deeper exploration and greater experimentation; it is the very engine of progress. Yet it also has negative consequences, for it eliminates those common intellectual and cultural traits that permit men and women to co-exist, to communicate, to feel a sense of solidarity. Specialization leads to a lack of social understanding, to the division of human beings into ghettos of technicians and specialists. The specialization of knowledge requires specialized languages and increasingly arcane codes, as information becomes more and more specific and compartmentalized. This is the particularism and the division against which an old proverb warned us: do not focus too much on the branch or the leaf, lest you forget that they are part of a tree, or too much on the tree, lest you forget that it is part of a forest. Awareness of the existence of the forest creates the feeling of generality, the feeling of belonging, that binds society together and prevents it from disintegrating into a myriad of solipsistic particularities. The solipsism of nations and individuals produces paranoia and delirium, distortions of reality that generate hatred, wars, and even genocide. In our time, science and technology cannot play an integrating role, precisely because of the infinite richness of knowledge and the speed of its evolution, which have led to specialization and its obscurities. But literature has been, and will continue to be, as long as it exists, one of the common denominators of human experience through which human beings may recognize themselves and converse with each other, no matter how different their professions, their life plans, their geographical and cultural locations, their personal circumstances. It has enabled individuals, in all the particularities of their lives, to transcend history: as readers of Cervantes, Shakespeare, Dante, and Tolstoy, we understand each other across space and time, and we feel ourselves to be members of the same species because, in the works that these writers created, we learn what we share as human beings, what remains common in all of us under the broad range of differences that separate us. Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably appears in great literature: that men and women of all nations and places are essentially equal, and that only injustice sows among them discrimination, fear, and exploitation. Nothing teaches us better than literature to see, in ethnic and cultural differences, the richness of the human patrimony, and to prize those differences as a manifestation of humanitys multi-faceted creativity. Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure, of course; but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness. |[pic| |] | his complex sum of contradictory truthsas Isaiah Berlin called themconstitutes the very substance of the human condition. In todays world, this totalizing and living knowledge of a human being may be found only in literature. Not even the other branches of the humanitiesnot philosophy, history, or the arts, and certainly not the social scienceshave been able to preserve this integrating vision, this universalizing discourse. The humanities, too, have succumbed to the cancerous division and subdivision of knowledge, isolating themselves in increasingly segmented and technical sectors whose ideas and vocabularies lie beyond the reach of the common woman and man. Some critics and theorists would even like to change literature into a science. But this will never happen, because fiction does not exist to investigate only a single precinct of experience. It exists to enrich through the imagination the entirety of human life, which cannot be dismembered, disarticulated, or reduced to a series of schemas or formulas without disappearing. This is the meaning of Prousts observation that real life, at last enlightened and revealed, the only life fully lived, is literature. He was not exaggerating, nor was he expressing only his love for his own vocation. He was advancing the particular proposition that as a result of literature life is better understood and better lived; and that living life more fully necessitates living it and sharing it with others. The brotherly link that literature establishes among human beings, compelling them to enter into dialogue and making them conscious of a common origin and a common goal, transcends all temporal barriers. Literature transports us into the past and links us to those who in bygone eras plotted, enjoyed, and dreamed through those texts that have come down to us, texts that now allow us also to enjoy and to dream. This feeling of membership in the collective human experience across time and space is the highest achievement of culture, and nothing contributes more to its renewal in every generation than literature. |[| |p| |i| |c| |]| t always irritated Borges when he was asked, What is the use of literature? It seemed to him a stupid question, to which he would reply: No one would ask what is the use of a canarys song or a beautiful sunset. If such beautiful things exist, and if, thanks to them, life is even for an instant less ugly and less sad, is it not petty to seek practical justifications? But the question is a good one. For novels and poems are not like the sound of birdsong or the spectacle of the sun sinking into the horizon, because they were not created by chance or by nature. They are human creations, and it is therefore legitimate to ask how and why they came into the world, and what is their purpose, and why they have lasted so long. Literary works are born, as shapeless ghosts, in the intimacy of a writers consciousness, projected into it by the combined strength of the unconscious, and the writers sensitivity to the world around him, and the writers emotions; and it is these things to which the poet or the narrator, in a struggle with words, gradually gives form, body, movement, rhythm, harmony, and life. An artificial life, to be sure, a life imagined, a life made of languageyet men and women seek out this artificial life, some frequently, others sporadically, because real life falls short for them, and is incapable of offering them what they want. Literature does not begin to exist through the work of a single individual. It exists only when it is adopted by others and becomes a part of social lifewhen it becomes, thanks to reading, a shared experience. One of its first beneficial effects takes place at the level of language. A community without a written literature expresses itself with less precision, with less richness of nuance, and with less clarity than a community whose principal instrument of communication, the word, has been cultivated and perfected by means of literary texts. A humanity without reading. untouched by literature, would resemble a community of deaf-mutes and aphasics, afflicted by tremendous problems of communication due to its crude and rudimentary language. This is true for individuals, too. A person who does not read, or reads little, or reads only trash, is a person with an impediment: he can speak much but he will say little, because his vocabulary is deficient in the means for self-expression. This is not only a verbal limitation. It represents also a limitation in intellect and in imagination. It is a poverty of thought, for the simple reason that ideas, the concepts through which we grasp the secrets of our condition, do not exist apart from words. We learn how to speak correctlyand deeply, rigorously, and subtlyfrom good literature, and only from good literature. No other discipline or branch of the arts can substitute for literature in crafting the language that people need to communicate. To speak well, to have at ones disposal a rich and diverse language, to be able to find the appropriate expression for every idea and every emotion that we want to communicate, is to be better prepared to think, to teach, to learn, to converse, and also to fantasize, to dream, to feel. In a surreptitious way, words reverberate in all our actions, even in those actions that seem far removed from language. And as language evolved, thanks to literature, and reached high levels of refinement and manners, it increased the possibility of human enjoyment. Literature has even served to confer upon love and desire and the sexual act itself the status of artistic creation. Without literature, eroticism would not exist. Love and pleasure would be poorer, they would lack delicacy and exquisiteness, they would fail to attain to the intensity that literary fantasy offers. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that a couple who have read Garcilaso, Petrarch, Gongora, or Baudelaire value pleasure and experience pleasure more than illiterate people who have been made into idiots by televisions soap operas. In an illiterate world, love and desire would be no different from what satisfies animals, nor would they transcend the crude fulfillment of elementary instincts. Nor are the audiovisual media equipped to replace literature in this task of teaching human beings to use with assurance and with skill the extraordinarily rich possibilities that language encompasses. On the contrary, the audiovisual media tend to relegate words to a secondary level with respect to images, which are the primordial language of these media, and to constrain language to its oral expression, to its indispensable minimum, far from its written dimension. To define a film or a television program as literary is an elegant way of saying that it is boring. For this reason, literary programs on the radio or on television rarely capture the public. So far as I know, the only exception to this rule was Bernard Pivots program, Apostrophes, in France. And this leads me to think that not only is literature indispensable for a full knowledge and a full mastery of language, but its fate is linked also and indissolubly with the fate of the book, that industrial product that many are now declaring obsolete. |[pic| |] | his brings me to Bill Gates. He was in Madrid not long ago and visited the Royal Spanish Academy, which has embarked upon a joint venture with Microsoft. Among other things, Gates assured the members of the Academy that he would personally guarantee that the letter - would never be removed  from computer softwarea promise that allowed four hundred million Spanish speakers on five continents to breathe a sigh of relief, since the banishment of such an essential letter from cyberspace would have created monumental problems. Immediately after making his amiable concession to the Spanish language, however, Gates, before even leaving the premises of the Academy, avowed in a press conference that he expected to accomplish his highest goal before he died. That goal, he explained, is to put an end to paper and then to books. In his judgment, books are anachronistic objects. Gates argued that computer screens are able to replace paper in all the functions that paper has heretofore assumed. He also insisted that, in addition to being less onerous, computers take up less space, and are more easily transportable; and also that the transmission of news and literature by these electronic media, instead of by newspapers and books, will have the ecological advantage of stopping the destruction of forests, a cataclysm that is a consequence of the paper industry. People will continue to read, Gates assured his listeners, but they will read on computer screens, and consequently there will be more chlorophyll in the environment. I was not present at Gatess little discourse; I learned these details from the press. Had I been there I would have booed Gates for proclaiming shamelessly his intention to send me and my colleagues, the writers of books, directly to the unemployment line. And I would have vigorously disputed his analysis. Can the screen really replace the book in all its aspects? I am not so certain. I am fully aware of the enormous revolution that new technologies such as the Internet have caused in the fields of communication and the sharing of information, and I confess that the Internet provides invaluable help to me every day in my work; but my gratitude for these extraordinary conveniences does not imply a belief that the electronic screen can replace paper, or that reading on a computer can stand in for literary reading. That is a chasm that I cannot cross. I cannot accept the idea that a non-functional or non-pragmatic act of reading, one that seeks neither information nor a useful and immediate communication, can integrate on a computer screen the dreams and the pleasures of words with the same sensation of intimacy, the same mental concentration and spiritual isolation, that may be achieved by the act of reading a book. Perhaps this a prejudice resulting from lack of practice, and from a long association of  literature with books and paper. But even though I enjoy surfing the Web in search of world news, I would never go to the screen to read a poem by Gongora or a novel by Onetti or an essay by Paz, because I am certain that the effect of such a reading would not be the same. I am convinced, although I cannot prove it, that with the disappearance of the book, literature would suffer a serious blow, even a mortal one. The term literature would not disappear, of course. Yet it would almost certainly be used to denote a type of text as distant from what we understand as literature today as soap operas are from the tragedies of Sophocles and Shakespeare. |[pic| |] | here is still another reason to grant literature an important place in the life of nations. Without it, the critical mind, which is the real engine of historical change and the best protector of liberty, would suffer an irreparable loss. This is because all good literature is radical, and poses radical questions about the world in which we live. In all great literary texts, often without their authors intending it, a seditious inclination is present. Literature says nothing to those human beings who are satisfied with their lot, who are content with life as they now live it. Literature is the food of the rebellious spirit, the promulgator of non-conformities, the refuge for those who have too much or too little in life. One seeks sanctuary in literature so as not to be unhappy and so as not to be incomplete. To ride alongside the scrawny Rocinante and the confused Knight on the fields of La Mancha, to sail the seas on the back of a whale with Captain Ahab, to drink arsenic with Emma Bovary, to become an insect with Gregor Samsa: these are all ways that we have invented to divest ourselves of the wrongs and the impositions of this unjust life, a life that forces us always to be the same person when we wish to be many different people, so as to satisfy the many desires that possess us. Literature pacifies this vital dissatisfaction only momentarilybut in this miraculous instant, in this provisional suspension of life, literary illusion lifts and transports us outside of history, and we become citizens of a timeless land, and in this way immortal. We become more intense, richer, more complicated, happier, and more lucid than we are in the constrained routine of ordinary life. When we close the book and abandon literary fiction, we return to actual existence and compare it to the splendid land that we have just left. What a disappointment awaits us! Yet a tremendous realization also awaits us, namely, that the fantasized life of the novel is bettermore beautiful and more diverse, more comprehensible and more perfectthan the life that we live while awake, a life conditioned by the limits and the tedium of our condition. In this way, good literature, genuine literature, is always subversive, unsubmissive, rebellious: a challenge to what exists. How could we not feel cheated after reading War and Peace or Remembrance of Things Past and returning to our world of insignificant details, of boundaries and prohibitions that lie in wait everywhere and, with each step, corrupt our illusions? Even more than the need to sustain the continuity of culture and to enrich language, the greatest contribution of literature to human progress is perhaps to remind us (without intending to, in the majority of cases) that the world is badly made; and that those who pretend to the contrary, the powerful and the lucky, are lying; and that the world can be improved, and made more like the worlds that our imagination and our language are able to create. A free and democratic society must have responsible and critical citizens conscious of the need continuously to examine the world that we inhabit and to try, even though it is more and more an impossible task, to make it more closely resemble the world that we would like to inhabit. And there is no better means of fomenting dissatisfaction with existence than the reading of good literature; no better means of forming critical and independent citizens who will not be manipulated by those who govern them, and who are endowed with a permanent spiritual mobility and a vibrant imagination. Still, to call literature seditious because it sensitizes a readers consciousness to the imperfections of the world does not meanas churches and governments seem to think it means when they establish censorshipthat literary texts will provoke immediate social upheavals or accelerate revolutions. The social and political effects of a poem, a play, or a novel cannot be foreseen, because they are not collectively made or collectively experienced. They are created by individuals and they are read by individuals, who vary enormously in the conclusions that they draw from their writing and their reading. For this reason, it is difficult, or even impossible, to establish precise patterns. Moreover, the social consequences of a work of literature may have little to do with its aesthetic quality. A mediocre novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe seems to have played a decisive role in raising social and political consciousness of the horrors of slavery in the United States. The fact that these effects of literature are difficult to identify does not imply that they do not exist. The important point is that they are effects brought about by the actions of citizens whose personalities have been formed in part by books. Good literature, while temporarily relieving human dissatisfaction, actually increases it, by developing a critical and non-conformist attitude toward life. It might even be said that literature makes human beings more likely to be unhappy. To live dissatisfied, and at war with existence, is to seek things that may not be there, to condemn oneself to fight futile battles, like the battles that Colonel Aureliano Buenda fought in One Hundred Years of Solitude, knowing full well that he would lose them all. All this may be true. Yet it is also true that without rebellion against the mediocrity and the squalor of life, we would still live in a primitive state, and history would have stopped. The autonomous individual would not have been created, science and technology would not have progressed, human rights would not have been recognized, freedom would not have existed. All these things are born of unhappiness, of acts of defiance against a life perceived as insufficient or intolerable. For this spirit that scorns life as it isand searches with the madness of Don Quixote, whose insanity derived from the reading of chivalric novelsliterature has served as a great spur. |[pi| |c] | et us attempt a fantastic historical reconstruction. Let us imagine a world without literature, a humanity that has not read poems or novels. In this kind of atrophied civilization, with its puny lexicon in which groans and ape-like gesticulations would prevail over words, certain adjectives would not exist. Those adjectives include: quixotic, Kafkaesque, Rabelaisian, Orwellian, sadistic, and masochistic, all terms of literary origin. To be sure, we would still have insane people, and victims of paranoia and persecution complexes, and people with uncommon appetites and outrageous excesses, and bipeds who enjoy inflicting or receiving pain. But we would not have learned to see, behind these extremes of behavior that are prohibited by the norms of our culture, essential characteristics of the human condition. We would not have discovered our own traits, as only the talents of Cervantes, Kafka, Rabelais, Orwell, de Sade, and Sacher-Masoch have revealed them to us. When the novel Don Quixote de la Mancha appeared, its first readers made fun of this extravagant dreamer, as well as the rest of the characters in the novel. Today we know that the insistence of the caballero de la triste figura on seeing giants where there were windmills, and on acting in his seemingly absurd way, is really the highest form of generosity, and a means of protest against the misery of this world in the hope of changing it. Our very notions of the ideal, and of idealism, so redolent with a positive moral connotation, would not be what they are, would not be clear and respected values, had they not been incarnated in the protagonist of a novel through the persuasive force of Cervantess genius. The same can be said of that small and pragmatic female Quixote, Emma Bovary, who fought with ardor to live the splendid life of passion and luxury that she came to know through novels. Like a butterfly, she came too close to the flame and was burned in the fire. |[pic| |] | he inventions of all great literary creators open our eyes to unknown aspects of our own condition. They enable us to explore and to understand more fully the common human abyss. When we say Borgesian, the word immediately conjures up the separation of our minds from the rational order of reality and the entry into a fantastic universe, a rigorous and elegant mental construction, almost always labyrinthine and arcane, and riddled with literary references and allusions, whose singularities are not foreign to us because in them we recognize hidden desires and intimate truths of our own personality that took shape only thanks to the literary creation of Jorge Luis Borges. The word Kafkaesque comes to mind, like the focus mechanism of those old cameras with their accordion arms, every time we feel threatened, as defenseless individuals, by the oppressive machines of power that have caused so much pain and injustice in the modern worldthe authoritarian regimes, the vertical parties, the intolerant churches, the asphyxiating bureaucrats. Without the short stories and the novels of that tormented Jew from Prague who wrote in German and lived always on the lookout, we would not have been able to understand the impotent feeling of the isolated individual, or the terror of persecuted and discriminated minorities, confronted with the all-embracing powers that can smash them and eliminate them without the henchmen even showing their faces. The adjective Orwellian, first cousin of Kafkaesque, gives a voice to the terrible anguish, the sensation of extreme absurdity, that was generated by totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century, the most sophisticated, cruel, and absolute dictatorships in history, in their control of the actions and the psyches of the members of a society. In 1984, George Orwell described in cold and haunting shades a humanity subjugated to Big Brother, an absolute lord who, through an efficient combination of terror and technology, eliminated liberty, spontaneity, and equality, and transformed society into a beehive of automatons. In this nightmarish world, language also obeys power, and has been transformed into newspeak, purified of all invention and all subjectivity, metamorphosed into a string of platitudes that ensure the individuals slavery to the system. It is true that the sinister prophecy of 1984 did not come to pass, and totalitarian communism in the Soviet Union went the way of totalitarian fascism in Germany and elsewhere; and soon thereafter it began to deteriorate also in China, and in anachronistic Cuba and North Korea. But the danger is never completely dispelled, and the word Orwellian continues to describe the danger, and to help us to understand it. |[pic| |] | o literatures unrealities, literatures lies, are also a precious vehicle for the knowledge of the most hidden of human realities. The truths that it reveals are not always flattering; and sometimes the image of ourselves that emerges in the mirror of novels and poems is the image of a monster. This happens when we read about the horrendous sexual butchery fantasized by de Sade, or the dark lacerations and brutal sacrifices that fill the cursed books of Sacher-Masoch and Bataille. At times the spectacle is so offensive and ferocious that it becomes irresistible. Yet the worst in these pages is not the blood, the humiliation, the abject love of torture; the worst is the discovery that this violence and this excess are not foreign to us, that they are a profound part of humanity. These monsters eager for transgression are hidden in the most intimate recesses of our being; and from the shadow where they live they seek a propitious occasion to manifest themselves, to impose the rule of unbridled desire that destroys rationality, community, and even existence. And it was not science that first ventured into these tenebrous places in the human mind, and discovered the destructive and the self-destructive potential that also shapes it. It was literature that made this discovery. A world without literature would be partly blind to these terrible depths, which we urgently need to see. Uncivilized, barbarian, devoid of sensitivity and crude of speech, ignorant and instinctual, inept at passion and crude at love, this world without literature, this nightmare that I am delineating, would have as its principal traits conformism and the universal submission of humankind to power. In this sense, it would also be a purely animalistic world. Basic instincts would determine the daily practices of a life characterized by the struggle for survival, and the fear of the unknown, and the satisfaction of physical necessities. There would be no place for the spirit. In this world, moreover, the crushing monotony of living would be accompanied by the sinister shadow of pessimism, the feeling that human life is what it had to be and that it will always be thus, and that no one and nothing can change it. When one imagines such a world, one is tempted to picture primitives in loincloths, the small magic-religious communities that live at the margins of modernity in Latin America, Oceania, and Africa. But I have a different failure in mind. The nightmare that I am warning about is the result not of under-development but of over-development. As a consequence of technology and our subservience to it, we may imagine a future society full of computer screens and speakers, and without books, or a society in which booksthat is, works of literaturehave become what alchemy became in the era of physics: an archaic curiosity, practiced in the catacombs of the media civilization by a neurotic minority. I am afraid that this cybernetic world, in spite of its prosperity and its power, its high standard of living and its scientific achievement would be profoundly uncivilized and utterly soullessa resigned humanity of post-literary automatons who have abdicated freedom. It is highly improbable, of course, that this macabre utopia will ever come about. The end of our story, the end of history, has not yet been written, and it is not pre-determined. What we will become depends entirely on our vision and our will. But if we wish to avoid the impoverishment of our imagination, and the disappearance of the precious dissatisfaction that refines our sensibility and teaches us to speak with eloquence and rigor, and the weakening of our freedom, then we must act. More precisely, we must read. MARIO VARGAS LLOSAs new book, The Feast of the Goat, will be published by Farrar, Straus Giroux in November. He is professor of Ibero-American Literature and Culture at Georgetown University.

Indian Consumer Buying Behaviour in the UK

Indian Consumer Buying Behaviour in the UK 1. Introduction This dissertation provide an overview of research topic on Indian consumer buying behavior in UK, first part outline aims and objective of the dissertation and followed by the motivation and study carried. Outline of structure of the dissertation and limitation are presented. 1.1 Aims and Objectives The aim of the dissertation is to understand and identify the social, cultural, buying behaviour characteristics of Indian community in UK. The research carried out primary and secondary research associated with Indian community and shows the linked between the ethnic consumer behaviour connections with market. What are the consumer buying behaviour characteristics of Indian Community in the UK†? Objective The objective of the dissertation is to focus and study on buying behavior of the Indian Community living in UK. To determine identify categories associated with Indian and their age characteristics. The article, literature, journal covers cultural, ethnical issues, historical issues of Indian identify integrating it with the personally studies. The method used on the basis of quantifiable observation for statistical analysis and philosophical interpretive research method to support Questionnaires are used to analyses the primary data. The findings reveal personal, ethnical, buying pattern and cultural characteristics relevant for identifying Indians consumer behavior. The conclusions are made for the implications of this identity need to be taken into account by the UK marketers or business market for new segment to target. 1.2 Motivations behind the Dissertation The Indians are part of a multicultural UK society, they make a significant cultural and consumer force Ref 35 (Fletcher, 2003). They are increasing in size, purchasing power and geographic concentration, giving â€Å"marketers a unique opportunity to modify their marketing strategies in the pursuit of increased market share and profitability† Ref 27 (Lindridge and Dibb, 2003). Due to increase in ethnic population and cultural diversity which represent many opportunity and threats to the markets hence marketer has to acknowledge the change in market by understanding the ethnic diversity Ref 35. Total in UK around 29% organization dont target ethnic market while 47% do target but were not effective in strategies due to lack of understanding and information about the Indian community in UK. Ref 27 (Lindridge and Dibb, 2003 cited: Fulford, 2001). Since UK represent multiethnic society, consisting of a diverse mix of culture and languages, there generates to understand the buying behaviors of all the elements which effects the business to fulfill marketing knowledge as the for the satisfaction of customer needs and wants Ref 28 (Chudry and Pallister, 2002)(Ref 25). This report will be focusing on the consumer buying behaviors characteristics of the Indians community in UK. 1.4 Limitations of the study The limitation of the study are that there has not been enough research done on the cultural characteristics of Indian Consumer Behaviour therefore there is no previous more studies carried out to judge the topic further. The Empirical Side of the Research has been hindered due to the fact that there is only one researcher, which made difficult to gather substantial studies and sample of Indian Community for quantitative research which have been omitted due to lack of manpower and time. 2. Literature Review Consumer Behaviour According to Philip Kotler consumer behavior as â€Å"the buying behavior of final consumer- individual and households who buys goods and services for personal consumption†, all to this it is directly related to market created by Consumer which varies in income, age, education level and taste across the world tremendously. They buy incredible variety of services and products which diverse consumer connection with each other with other element of the world (Ref 1). Today consumers have many choices to select a product as compared to ten or fifteen year before. Business growth depends on loyal customer or repeat purchase because they are satisfied with product variety/ services which they have received which bring consumer into the stores. Lot of marketing efforts is played to bring consumer to the stores, normally consumer assumes marketing as advertising and selling which is flow of goods from producers to customer. Marketing has great influence on fast moving consumer goods t hrough range of activities includes promotion, market research, advertising etc. Evaluation and monitoring of customer is also an important and one method of evaluation is by completing marketing research. Ref 7 (Woodruffe 1995 149, 163-4) According to Adrian Palmer Business Philosophy, marketing puts customers at the centre point of all the organizations which reflects the basic values to understand and response to customer necessity and needs to search constantly for new market opportunities. (Ref 22) There are three major components of marketing by Narver and Slater (1990) Customer Orientation, Competitor Orientation and Interfunctional Co-ordination. Customer Orientation understands its target buyers, Competitor Orientation focus on customer and its competitors police and strategy, while Interfunctional Co-ordination which futile marketing manager to develop the marketing plans to creating value, delivering promise made to customer and integrates its human and physical resources effectively and adapts them to meet customer needs. Marketing key concepts depends on customers, needs, value, exchange and market. Marketing Environment According Kotler â€Å"The actors and forces outside marketing that affect marketing ability to develop and maintain successful transaction with its target customer.† As per Environment markets depends to two major environment micro and macro environment but basically here we will be dealing with Macro Environment with explores border concepts of consumer behavior. Macro Environment consists of larges societal forces like demographic, cultural, economical, natural, political and technological. UK which is huge market with varied customers which are widely scattered hence we have to focus on specific Indian Consumer segment. According to Kotler Segment marketing is an â€Å"isolating broad segments that make up a market and adapting the marketing to match the needs of one or more segments†.(Ref 1,2). For marketer to target the entire consumer with same marketing style and approach doesnt satisfy to all customer where are many customer are dissatisfi ed or there need are fulfilled, hence here opportunity arise fro the company for specific segment. As per data and statistics Marketer has to go for niche marketing to target specific segment. According to Kotler Niche Marketing is Focusing or sub segment or niches with distinctive traits that may seek a special combination of benefits.(Ref 1,2). Hence in this project we will be focusing on Indian consumer with total UK consumer hence below gives the Geographical, Cultural, Political, Technological and Economical consumer patterns as compared to total UK Consumer. Geographically Indian Consumer In UK According to Kotler Demography or Geographical shows the study of human population in terms of size, density, location, age, gender, race occupation.(Ref1) Its very important because its gives marketers major interest it involve people, and people make up markets, as Indian Consumer geographical location is given below. Geographical Distribution of Minority Religions Mainly In London Percentage of each religion living in London, April 2001, GB Percentage of each religion living in London, April 2001, GB http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=956 (Ref 39) Families with dependent children: by ethnic group and family type, April 2001, UK Families with dependent http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=956 Total International Migration (TIM) to/from the UK 1991-2004 Total International Migration (TIM) to/from the UK 1991-2004 According to recent survey by Government in 2004, around 223,000 more people migrated to UK than migrated abroad, as its higher migration than estimat e before in 1991. Migration from New Commonwealth has increased by 45 percent between 2003 and 2004 within this group, net in migration from Asian was risen from 38,000 to 54000 in 2003, 2004 respectively. Ref 39 Net migration by country of last or next residence (1995-2004) Net migration by country of last or next residence (1995-2004) The demographic characterized of ethnic population in Britain is complex, As 97 percent of Britains non white population live in England, where most of the Indian lives in England and major cities of Scotland, approximately 53 percent of Indian lives in the south east and a further 30 percent in the midlands. Recently due to new Government laws implementation in Scotland the increase of Asian community are raising in great major cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow .Ref 39 Social, Cultural and Economic characteristics of the Ethnic population Culture can be defined as a â€Å"unique pattern of shared meanings that characterized a society and distinguish it from other societies. It is passed down from generation to generation and has been described as a societys ‘personality † Ref 21 (Wells and Prensky, 1996). Culture should be viewed as a â€Å"complex bundle of independent variables that can be attributed to behaviour† Ref 27. Culture plays an important part in the identification of an ethnic group, as ethnic groups are â€Å"those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because similarities of physical type or of custom or both, or because of memories of colonization and immigration† Ref 27 i.e. culture. According to Kotler the cultural environment is made up of institution and other forces that affect the societys basic values, perceptions, preference and behavior. Every consumer grows in specific environment which gives some beliefs, values, inheritance, family structure, reference characteristics which reflects in him.(Ref 1) Culture is forever evolving â€Å"synthesizing old ideas with new ones† Ref 20 (Solomon, 2004). All cultures are different, but there are four dimensions that are in all cultures: 1. Power distance: how relationships form when difference in power is perceived. 2. Uncertainty: â€Å"the degree to which people feel threatened by ambiguous situations and have beliefs and institutions that help them to avoid this uncertainty† Ref20 3. Masculinity/femininity: how clear are the sex roles? 4. Individualism: cultures differ on how individualist (importance attached to personal goals) or collectivist (people lower their personal goals for the group) they may be Ref 20. 2.3.2.1 Components of Culture The components of culture are a useful tool for marketers as they can use appropriate marketing communications to associate the product with the consumers values. Values â€Å"Values are the underlying beliefs about the appropriate ways the members of a culture should act, think, and feel† Ref21, these values are: i. Somewhat stable; ii. Somewhat general iii. â€Å"Fairly widely accepted as a guide to culturally appropriate behaviour and therefore as a ‘standard of desirable and undesirable beliefs, attitudes and behaviour† (CIM, 1993).Ref 23 Norms and Customs Norms are the rules of values on how to behave or not behave; individuals may or may not accept these norms Ref 9 (Antonides and van Raaij, 1998). â€Å"Crescive† norms are norms that are rooted in a culture (Ref 20). â€Å"Crescive† norms can also be perceived as a custom, which are the â€Å"established patterns of behaviour adopted within the society or community. They regulate and regularize social practices and define which behaviours are acceptable† (Rice, 1997) Ref 16. Williams (1981) identified four forms of customs or what Le Vine (1997) calls ‘ostensible markers from the least to the most serious enforced:Ref 19,26 Myths Myths are tales that exemplify one or more of the shared values of a culture by describing a person, event, or idea that symbolizes values (Wells and Prensky, 1996) Ref 21. Myths serve four interconnected functions in a culture: Ref 19 1. Metaphysical: explains the origin of life 2. Cosmological: all the components of the universe is part of one picture 3. Sociological: the maintaining of social order through a social code 4. Psychological: the providing of models for personal behaviour Ref 20(Solomon, 2004) Rituals a. â€Å"A ritual is a set of interrelated patterns of behaviour that have a symbolic meaning† (Ref 21), ritualized behavior is formal and ceremonial such as marriage ceremonies and religious services (CIM, 1993). Ritualistic behaviour is an individual behavior that is made into a ritual such as shaving and getting up at a certain time in the morning Ref 19 (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2003). Sacred and Profane Consumption * Sacred consumption involves items and events that are not part of ordinary activities and are treated as such, example, religious ceremonies (Ref 20). * Profane Consumption involves ordinary, everyday items and events (Ref 20) * Sacred Events when consumers activities take on special status, it can be anything from public events, sports events or holidays, as they occupy sacred time and space for the consumer Ref 20 (Solomon, 2004). Material Artefacts Material artefacts are possessions that have a special significance to members of a culture. Artefacts obtain their special significance due to the role they play in myths, customs, and rituals. Artefacts can be everyday products that have symbolic meanings, which give them special status in culture, such as red roses for Valentines Day Ref 21. Indian have different rituals, customer,myths which relates each other, due to help of British Government Indian enjoy major big Indian Festival like Diwali, Dusshera etc in UK, as festival times seems to major shopping and expenditure time of Indian , majority of Indian community still does major investment, buying or moving on special festive period or religious occasion then usual day due to long traditional belief from ancient time. Gold purchasing and wearing is one of the passion in Indian customer , Women during festive period used to buy gold and diamonds which is one of the major segment for marketer to target the ethnic community during festive period. Language and Symbols Language makes the learning and sharing of culture possible (CIM, 1993), without a common language, a shared understanding would cease to exist, which will lead to the extinction of a culture Ref 19. Symbols are an important aspect of language; they can be verbal or non-verbal (CIM, 1993). Verbal symbols include television and magazine advertisement, whilst non-verbal symbols are s, shapes and colours Ref 19. Symbols can carry a number of different meanings and have different interpretations to many people; these interpretations can be unique to one culture. India have a diverse culture with more 24 different language, having Hindi has national language, majority of Indian in UK use Hindi or English as communication language in community. According to Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Britain ethnic minority population was around 5.5 percent with spending power of L 10 Bn in 1998 which has increased drastically, whereas the population of Indian are increasing faster than Caucasian which leads increase in buying power. Many companies has started targeting ethnic group eg. Jaguar started sponsorship events of Indian Bollywood Mega Mela in London of 3 days. Indian culture are great lovers of music and art from ancient times, ancient history have shown deep interest in this field which has contributed in formation of Bollywood industry, world largest film industry in the world, which influence billion of people in India through cultural aspects and Behaviour. Before Bollywood industry was popular only in east but now every year its increase 18 % market globally with 3.6 billion global audience which higher than Hollywood which has only 2.5 billion global audience, Indian community which migrated and living in UK cannot distract from viewing Bollywood movies and channels Which has created a huge market for Indian viewer of Asian channels and Bollywood movies in UK market. As per recent survey by BBC more than 70% of British Asian homes twice the national average the Telewest, sky or cable tv at home where viewing two third of Asian viewer are made of Asian interest channels featuring dramas, Bollywood music of back home and movies. Also s urveyed revealed that majority of ethnic population have their own mobile, DVD and internet at home. Majority Indian women back in India has highly soap addicts drama , survey carried out shown that 71% percent ethnic community made a point of watching soap as compared to 56% of white woman. Leader in broadcaster were Zee TV and Star which was just a new comer in UK around 4 year before but in his second year of launch he had 90,000 strong customer of ethnic community because Star TV is one of Indian Top Channel with 42 million subscribers which show cultural inheritance in UK which has high growth rate. Some of provider like Telewest understood the consumer Behaviour of ethnic community and launch Asian Channel Package which was cheaper than individual channel and wholesome package which attracted number of customer toward him. Ref 31, 32, 33 2.3.2.2 Subcultures For a marketer culture may come across as too broad a subject, as it embraces whole societies (CIM, 1993), therefore, to make life much easier a marketer could subdivide a culture into distinct subcultures. A subculture can then be defined as groups of people within a society that share common experiences and beliefs, which distinguishes them from other groups (Ref 20). An individual can belong to a number of subcultures and these subcultures can play a crucial role in defining the extended self (Ref 20) . Rice (1997) suggests that there are five prime subcultures: Geography; Religion; Age; Gender and Ethnicity.(Ref 16) Indian with has diverse culture with varied religion, India has many sub religion which makes sub culture or sub group like Sikh religion which has same characteristics and belief like Hindu, . While Indian Muslims used to differ in culture, tradition and belief which can be a new sub culture. As under studies and my knowledge India used to be male dominant society from long time, still majority of Indian women in India used to housewife and male used to earn but in recent 20 years women in India used to work and way ahead but still male dominant the heavy purchase like home, car, investment, buying while female dominant male in purchase of household, home maintenance, buying food etc which reflect same in UK. 2.3.2.3 Acculturation Acculturation is the â€Å"process of movement and adaptation to one countrys environment by a person from another country† (Ref 20); this process is the learning of the host countries language, myths, values, customs and rituals (Wells and Prensky, 1996) Ref 21. There is also the opposite affect of acculturation which is enculturation that is the â€Å"process of learning ones native cultural values† Ref 21. (Ref 9) Antonides and van Raaij (1998) call this the process of socialization with the culture being transferred from the older to the younger generation through family, religious groups, schools and other agents. Ref 9 Acculturation agents can align with the culture of origin or the culture of immigration in Fig. 1.3 shows how well an individual responds to the agents depends on their individual differences, these responses thus affect the acculturation process such as; movement which is the physical movement from one location to another; there is then the need for the translation of social rules in the host country; and this leads to the adaptation process by the consumer, on how much do they align with the host nation. The acculturation outcomes are either to assimilate with the host nation, by adopting their values; maintain practices from culture of origin; or just segregate completely from the host nation, by only buying goods from people from their culture. Many Indian migrated from India have cultural Behaviour of back country as well they kindly start adopting the British culture , hence year after year they have 20-30 percent of British culture which has replaced some of the Indian culture, Majority Indian in back country used to religious more but after migrating they become less religious , dont concern more than usual, also majority of Indian in back country use to Vegetarian and keep to avoid Liquor but after several years in UK they used to eat majority on Non Vegetarian food except religion prohibition of eating beef (Hindu and Sikh) and pork(Muslims) and start drinking more than usual, the back country they used to leave in joint family and have strong family structure , which has little bit change in coming year, the new generation British Indian or Indian leaving from long time use to leave separately than joint family , get separate from parents and leave independently but still have strong bondage with family which shows m ixed culture of Indian and British. According Sinha (1969) and Mandelbaum (1970) study indicated that the Indian families are of dominant concern for most Indians. Individuals within the family are instilled with collectivist cultural values of duty, interdependence, obedience, reliability and sacrifice for the group (Triandis, 1989; Triandis et al., 1993). In contrast, individualistic cultures encourage detachment from the family unit and greater individuality (Halman, 1996). It is British Indians relationship with their family that may be a major cultural determinant upon their buyer behavior. The family units influence, within the collectivist-individualistic context noted earlier, therefore, will be assessed through three buyer behavior areas: use of possessions to enhance social status, materialism and reference group use. Family structure and Reference Group According to Journal of Consumer Behaviour , Ethnic Indian Community have family dominant concern for most Indian, individuals within the family has distinct collectivist value of culture, duty, obedience, interdependence, sacrifice and reliability where in contrast Britishs Causcaucian are detached and great individuality. This relationship bondage within the family structure has major cultural determinant upon their buying Behaviour. As per Journal Indian Immigrant are more concerned with possessions than people, inferring and have a materialistic Behaviour which is other way on British Community. Ref 30 A reference group is â€Å"any person or group that serves as a point of comparison for an individual in forming either general or specific values, attitudes, or a specific guide for behavior† (Ref 19), these groups can be real or imagined (Ref 20). Reference groups can be influential as they can be â€Å"informative, utilitarian, and value-expressive† (Ref 20). Normative reference groups influence general values or behavior, whereas comparative reference groups are benchmarks for specific attitudes or behavior (Ref 19). Factors that affect reference groups influence on consumers may include: * Information and experience: an individual who has knowledge of a product/service is less likely to be influence by a group * Credibility, attractiveness, and power of the reference group: these groups can induce consumer attitude and behavior change, as they are seen as trustworthy and knowledgeable * Conspicuousness of the product: reference groups influence varies according to whether the product visually conspicuous (one that stands out) or verbally conspicuous (a product can be easily described) (Ref 19) There are several types of reference groups that can be defined as either ‘aspirational (successful business people sportsmen or celebrities) or ‘membership (groups that an individual can identify with) groups (Solomon, 2004)Ref 20. Some of these reference groups are: * Friendship groups: they are informal groups and are the most influential group when it comes to the purchase decision * Shopping groups: they are made-up of family or friends, this function can be referred to as purchase pals * Work groups: because of the amount of time people spend at work, the work group can be a major influence (Ref 19) According to Green the family structure favored by Indian community which have traditional family structure and contrary to it, as the new generation has different attitudes towards family structure across the generation in Indian families. The family structure favored by Indian groups varies enormously It is clearly important for marketers to be aware of these divergent trends since they will have important implications for advertising and promotional activities directed towards the various ethnic groups (Green, 1999). According to Journal of Consumer Behaviour, due to collectivist culture of Indian which are affected by external perceptions, then reference group selection may be determined by the need of gain recognition of the familys reputation, majority British Indian seek recognition from these reference group, secondly work colleagues and friends have greater collectivist power of culture. Ref 30 Age profile of minority groups According to Journal Dawn Burton (Ref 24) Age profile plays an important role in minority group, one of the most significant features of the Indian population is its younger age as compared to white indigenous population. According to data 1990, 48 percent of the ethnic minority population was under 24 years of age in 1999 compared with 31 percent of the white population. Indian group had 41 percent of individual in this age group, As a study in US marketer have recognized that younger age profile of minority group is having an important impact on consumer behaviors . T he studied show that Indian Minorities community have higher percentage of card ownership, ATM usages, use cards for withdraw cash and more likely purchase goods and service with cards than the white population Ref 26(Texas Banking, 1999) hence Indian community has similar culture expectation like in Britain . Ref 24,26. Economic and Social Characteristics Economic Environment consists of factors which affects the consumer purchasing power and spending patterns, According to Adrian Palmer for â€Å"marketer its hard to appreciate fully the cultural values of a society, attitudes to specific product changes through time and at any one time between different groups†. â€Å"Like in Home market specially UK, company should understand the processes of gradual changes and be prepared to satisfy the changing needs of consumer† (Ref 22). As a new challenges for marketing are posed by the diverse cultural tradition of ethnic minorities. According to Journal Dawn Burton issues can be addressed our social and economic factor, the issues holds religion, household income and family structure. Before targeting a specific segment its important level of income and expenditure, the superiority of Indian groups over the white category is party accounted for the higher proportion of pensioner households in the white indigenous population.(R ef 24) The PSI survey is useful in this respect since it categorizes the proportion of members of different ethnic groups in various income brackets. The ethnic Indian and White Population were on a par but there are significant proportions of high earners in the Indian, Indian population in UK are at high earning capacity with high saving as compared to White or any other community Ref 32. They have strong purchasing power. According recent publication in newspaper, out of 10 richest people of UK five are from Indian origin, hence from this statistics one can imagine how far Indian are economical strong in UK, world 3 richest and UK Top richest person Mr. Laksmi Mittal belong to India, majority of Indian living in UK are economical sound and having high saving then the normal British consumer, due to which they have strong buying power Ref 35, Ref 40 According to International Journal of Entrepreneurship, majority of Indian community in UK runs small scale business, in transition which are lining into owing large scale, profitable, enterprise has not the attracted investment but attention of media and research , nearly of half of independent shops in Britain in 1990 were own by Ethnic Asian entrepreneur which have high scale of Indian, in which have around 300 millionaire 1990 which have increased to 500 or more today, whereas they are 2 percent of working age population in Britain , contributing towards wealth creating by employment which is greater in size. According to Modood in 1997 the average weekly earning of Indian exceeds those of White population In Britain. Ref 30,33 As Success of the Asian Business in Britain likes in their cultural characteristics which have high encourage thrift, hard and reliance on family lab our. There are major cultural facts like mechanisms of self help, family controlled business, informal source, local ethnic community market which builds the business to new ladder. A enterprenuser who makes productive use of the community like cheap family labor, finance within community, cultural values, niche marketing to satisfy the demands of their own community for ethnic product which have huge population to fulfill. Ref 30 Ethnic business has asserted the success due to sense of developing from small to large scale business, due to ability of branch out from ethnic enclave economy. According social aspect, Indian community have strong social education belief, around 60 percent have done bachelors degree or higher qualification which impact on growth in business and employment.Ref 30,33 Technological According Kotler Technological environment is a Force that create new technologies, creating new product and market opportunities. Today every second or day a new technology hits the market which Technological point of Indian Consumer In UK have hardly any in-depth studies, but Study by PSI (see Table IV).showed the individual about their ownership of a range of consumer durables, as compared to white population. In comparison Indian community has higher ownerships of some items like micro-ovens, video recorder, computer, washing machine etc than other community hence the market looks immense for specific Indian Segment. Indian community have higher eagerness toward technology aspects specially for household purchase , also one of the studies said that Car market has began specific target towards Indian consumer due to there high tech power consumer attitude and affording capacity. In UK, most of Indian community gives first preference to buy Mercedes rather than any other car due to its royal status, which similar concept previous back in India. As India is becoming a global hub for IT, greater increase in Internet User and IT becoming a way to cheaper communication to India most of the Indian prefer to buy computer or high tech things to get connected. According to The Guardian majority of Indian were more likely to have own mobiles phone, dvd, household durables, internet at home than white population in UK. Ref 32,33 Lifestyle Lifestyle segments are measured through the use of A.I.O. (Activities, Interests, and Opinions) rating statements. It measures peoples activities in terms of how they live their lives; their interests on what is important to the consumer; their opinions on themselves and social/cultural issues; as well as demographic descriptors such as age, education, income, etc. Ref 36 (Plummer, 1974) Ref 11 (Brassington and Pettitt, 2003). Table 1.1 lists elements,