A Deadly Mistake Uncovered on Critical Thinking Paper Writing Services and How to Avoid It

A Deadly Mistake Uncovered on Critical Thinking Paper Writing Services and How to Avoid It The Death of Critical Thinking Paper Writing Services Thinking critically is important for students on account of the ability to place their own agenda. For days at one time, Beecher isn't at home and skips classes. You might also wish to appear at a number of the videos on YouTube where homeless folks describe their lives. Do not neglect to use critical thinking. Critical thinking writing is among the most intriguing varieties of academic writing. In that case, there's great news for you! If you're looking for top essay writing companies, try out the mentioned above. There are a number of essay writing services that think they're the very best, and therefore don't be cheated and check the legitimate collection of the very best. If you don't have analytical abilities, expert writers will do the task for you. 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The Impact of Human Resource and Operational Management...

Article 1: The Impact of Human Resource and Operational Management Practices on Company Productivity: A Longitudinal Study Dana Cuffee BSA 523 Operations Management and Analysis August 31, 2009 Dr. Woo This article talks about human resource and the operational management practices on a company productivity. This paper reports on the study that evaluates the individual and collective impact on manufacturing performance of the seven managerial practices most associated with these theoretical perspectives: empowerment, training, teamwork, total quality management, just in time, advanced manufacturing, technology, and supply chain partnering. There was little or no evidence related to a company performance in†¦show more content†¦This is based on the theory that empowerment required extensive skills in order for it to work, thus both of these practices underscore the effectiveness of teams. Also, learning from extensive training requires teamwork and problem solving skills, which provides the competencies on which team performance depends. The second hypothesis was that having total quality management, just in time, advanced manufacturing technology, and supply cha in partnering will independently enhances company performance. The combined practices worked as a synergy, affecting each other. Lean production adds supply chain partnering in the mix, which in turns, bolster the other practices by helping to ensure all the other components. The third hypothesis was that empowerment, extensive training, and teamwork will positively interact with total quality management, just in time, advanced manufacturing technology, and supply chain partnering to predict company performance. Stevenson (2007) also uses the seven practices in his book. Total quality management (p. 427) involves everyone in the organization in a continual effort to improve quality and achieve customer satisfaction. The just in time (p. 694) concept believes in a processing system in which goods move through the system and services are performed just as they are needed. Empowerment (p. 428) believes in givingShow MoreRelatedHuman Resource Management and Performance: Still Sea rching for Some Answers David E. Guest,6992 Words   |  28 Pagesdoi: 10.1111/j.1748-8583.2010.00164.x Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers David E. Guest, King’s College, London Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 21, no 1, 2011, pages 3–13 Over the past 20 years, there has been a considerable expansion in theory and research about human resource management and performance. This paper reviews progress by identifying a series of phases in the development of relevant theory and research. It then sets out a numberRead MoreIssues in Human Resource Strategies That Improve Organizational Performance2263 Words   |  10 Pagesreducing costs; innovating products and processes; improving quality, productivity, and speed to market; and more importantly by improving their individual performance within the organization. In order to do this, a set of distinctive human resource strategies, defined as internally consistent bundles of human resource practices (Dyer Reeves, 1995), is clearly essential. 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The question is linked to one of the fundamental issues currently discussed in the ï ¬ eld of organizational learning; how do organizations get â€Å"from here to there†, in other words, what is the dynamics of the processes of learning and how progressive learning is achieved. A case study of a few Finnish companies is made and a procedural implementationRead MoreSelection And Development Of Talent Management2 585 Words   |  11 Pages Selection and Development in Talent Management C4.12 Bellevue University â€Æ' Selection and Development in Talent Management The shortage of skilled employees combined with tightening budgets has left many organizations reassessing their talent management investments. Limited resources and changes in the type of labor needed have left manufacturing firms with the difficult choice of whether to invest in the development of internal talent or looking outside the firm. 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Joseph Thomas ILR Human Resource Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853 IEMS Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208 Johnson School of Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853 Johnson School of Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853 jwb6@cornell.edu †¢ hopp@northwestern.edu †¢ jom1@cornell.edu †¢ ljt3@cornell.edu O perations management (OM)

ERP Implementation at Leadtek Corporation †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the ERP Implementation at Leadtek Corporation. Answer: Introduction Leadtek Corporation is a technical company that deals in computer components. It is located in Taiwan. The number of employees present in this company is over 2000 and it has got more than 100 customers that are industries. Their suppliers are spread across the entire country. In the year of 1980, they had used accounting software. Later on in the 1990s, they adopted the Oracle ERP software version 11i. This software met the functional requirement of the company and therefore it was chosen. This report gives a detailed outline of the problems and the possible causes of such problems that Leadtek Corporation faced while implementing the ERP project. It also discusses about the way possible ways by which problem could have been mitigated or avoided. Later on the company decided to implement the Oracle software of ERP and version 12c. This report also provides recommendations regarding the procedure that can be followed this time by the Leadtek Corporation to make sure that the present implementation of ERP is successful and also the maintenance is done in a proper way. The choices that are available in the present world are discussed here. Discussion: Causes of the Problem experienced by ERP project This case study clearly tells us that the main reason behind the problem faced by the ERP project is the mindset of the employees working in Leadtek Corporation. There were issues from the initial stage of the implementation process of the ERP project (Chiu et al. 2014). There was no strong support from the top management of the company. They had lost their interest from the initial stage of the project implementation. There were steering meetings held that was for around 2 months. From the third month onwards the members attending the meetings were reducing. The members were losing interest at a fast pace. The meeting had stopped completely after the fourth month. The team members who were under the category of user were part time and they did not have much time to spend behind the new ERP system. They were busy with their own daily activities and targets. The members did not understand the worth of the ERP system properly. They were constantly comparing the existing system with the new system (Hartmann 2012). They felt that the existing system was better than the proposed system. They were resistant towards the change. According to the Maverick behavior, the practices that were carried out by the employees would not be allowed by the deployment of ERP systems and this was one of the main reasons why the employees did not want the change to take place. They used to carry out informal processes like the supplier used to send the materials without any purchase orders. The managers of the department were benefitted but the top management did not like such practices in the company. Another cause behind the problem was there was change in power. The power that existed in one department would flow to another department by deploying the ERP system in the organization. Initially the bill passing work was under the responsibility of the account s department. The ERP system would provide a three way matching report. According to the ERP system the responsibility of the bill passing procedure would go the procurement department. There was conflict in the entire company due to the power acquisition fight. These problems led to severe issues and even after the end of nine whole months the project could not be completed. The company had to face major loss and extra costs for the upgrade of hardware. They even had to purchase extra number of licenses. The employees did not understand that deploying an ERP system is not any cost it is an investment that will give a better future. There were problem regarding the change in the management. The overall project could not be managed properly that led to this chaotic situation (Hoch and Dulebohn 2013). There were lack of effective and efficient training that might have led to this chaotic situation and failure of the implementation of the ERP system. Mitigation or Avoidance Strategies The case study tells that the main cause behind the failure of the ERP implementation plan is the resistance of the people towards this plan. The employees of the Leadtek Corporation were not able to understand the importance behind the implementation of the ERP system. This problem could have been resolved by implementing a proper and well planned change management process (Zeng and Skibniewski 2013). They should have hired an external team of specialists for carrying out this work (Sustainment 2014). Before implementation of the system the top management should have understood the objectives of the ERP implementation. If they would have understood the objectives clearly then they would not have lost any interest with time. The user members also were losing interest (Shao, Feng and Liu 2012). Everyone felt that it was a waste of money and time. The implementation process was not carried out proper because there was lack in the training of the users (Aslan, Stevenson and Hendry 2012) . The company should have taken much time before starting their process of implementation and proper training should have been imparted to the employees before carrying out the process (Kwak et al. 2012). When the user members were losing their interest then they should have been explained that it is not any extra expense, it is an investment that will generate revenue and profit in the future (Leon 2014). They should have given change management training. Testing of the components should have been done (Tsai et al. 2012). The top management should have explained the way in which they would have tackled any change in the future due to this ERP implementation. Proper communication needs to be done in order to make the employees understand about the problem (Monk and Wagner 2012). A good management team would not have led to this issue (Hasibuan and Dantes 2012). When the departmental managers were thinking that they will not be able to carry on with the informal practices then they s hould have been shown the positive sides and the benefits which they would achieve by installing the ERP systems. Then another problem that the company has faced was the conflict of roles and powers. In this type of situation a strong top management team was required. They would have explained to the accounting department that why was the bill passing activity under the responsibility of the procurement department. The presence of all the critical success factors would not have led to the failure of the ERP system (Hanafizadeh 2012). The presence of all the critical success factors would not have led to the failure of the ERP system. A proper on-going support plan should have been made (Shaul and Tauber 2013). The presence of all the critical success factors would not have led to the failure of the ERP system. Proper understanding of the ERP system and well trained employees would not have led to this type of issue. Conclusion This report concludes that the change management is the most important process that needs to be carried out in the Leadtek Corporation in order to successfully implement the ERP system. This report pointed out the likely causes behind the failure of the ERP system that was selected previously. It also gives recommendations regarding the steps that need to be carried out in order to successfully implement and maintain the Oracle ERP 12c. Recommendations The Leadtek Corporation has decided to implement the ERP software called Oracle version 12c. The initial step that can be taken by the company is to understand the goals and benefits of the software followed by planning and training. In order to plan the architect in an orderly way the top management should identify the goals of the software. Change management: The implementation of ERP is beyond the hardware changes that take place. A proper planning needs to be done in order to tackle and manage any type of change that takes place. The employees will be resistant towards the change and this might lead to severe problem. This management will help to balance any types of conflicts between the technology and the staffs of the company. Project management: Proper leadership needs to be present in order to carry out the implementation process in a successful manner. The need of the project has to be understood by the management team in order to implement the task in an effective way. Business Processes Reengineering: The deployment of ERP system will bring about severe changes in the processes of the organization. Leadtek Corporation should customize the functions of ERP if they want to keep the old system as well as the new ERP system. Training: This is the most essential step that is recommended. The users of this ERP system must be well trained. The employees of Leadtek should understand the working mechanism of the system along with its advantages. This will help to implement the Oracle version 12c successfully. Communication: This plays a vital role in the success and failure of any ERP system. The benefits of the ERP system need to be communicated across the entire organization. The aim of this plan is to make the attitude of the employees positive. This will help the user expectation to match with ERP systems functionality. The success of the ERP implementation is possible only when there is success in the interaction, process, expectation as well as the correspondence success. Network Planning: The requirement of the network needs to be determined by the management team in order to implement and install the Oracle version 12c in a successful manner. Testing: Proper testing needs to be done in order to run the system properly. ERP system should be tested on a continuous basis. The project management team should follow the continuous improvement method in order to take full advantage of the functionalities of the ERP system. Regular Updates: There must be regular updates in order to successfully maintain and run the ERP system. Specialist Team: The existing employees of the company should be given proper training. Along with this Leadtek Corporation should hire a new team of specialists in order to balance any kind of lack that is there in the present internal environment of the company. This will help Leadtek to focus in their work and not waste much time behind the new process. The other employees can concentrate on their own work and participate less in the implementation plan. This will help the company to generate profit and revenue along with a successful ERP system. Ongoing Support: Maintenance is an important part of any system. Proper maintenance is required in order to run the system successfully and effectively. The services need to be monitored properly. A partner for software implementation needs to be hired in order to maintain the system in a regular and proper way. Any type of change after implementing the ERP system needs to be customized and integrated in the existing system. The tools of ERP system also need maintenance. The manager of the project team must be responsible for keeping constant touch with the vendor to update the system and also to upgrade the system. Any patches needs to be installed properly. On addition of any function, the employees must be trained and given proper information about it. It is important to update the training document in order to refer it in future and sync it with the processes. References Aslan, B., Stevenson, M. and Hendry, L.C., 2012. Enterprise resource planning systems: An assessment of applicability to make-to-order companies.Computers in Industry,63(7), pp.692-705. Chiu, Y.H., Claybaugh, C.C., Lea, B.R. and Yu, W.B., 2014. Enterprise resource planning. Hanafizadeh, P., Gholami, R., Dadbin, S. and Standage, N., 2012. The core critical success factors in implementation of enterprise resource planning systems.Enterprise Information Systems and Advancing Business Solutions: Emerging Models: Emerging Models, p.86. Hartmann, C., 2012. Enterprise Resource Planning. Hasibuan, Z.A. and Dantes, G.R., 2012. Priority of key success factors (KSFS) on enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation life cycle.Journal of Enterprise Resource Planning Studies,2012, p.1. Hoch, J.E. and Dulebohn, J.H., 2013. Shared leadership in enterprise resource planning and human resource management system implementation.Human Resource Management Review,23(1), pp.114-125. Kwak, Y.H., Park, J., Chung, B.Y. and Ghosh, S., 2012. Understanding end-users acceptance of enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in project-based sectors.IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management,59(2), pp.266-277. Leon, A., 2014.Enterprise resource planning. McGraw-Hill Education. Monk, E. and Wagner, B., 2012.Concepts in enterprise resource planning. Cengage Learning. Shao, Z., Feng, Y. and Liu, L., 2012. The mediating effect of organizational culture and knowledge sharing on transformational leadership and Enterprise Resource Planning systems success: An empirical study in China.Computers in Human Behavior,28(6), pp.2400-2413. Shaul, L. and Tauber, D., 2013. Critical success factors in enterprise resource planning systems: Review of the last decade.ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR),45(4), p.55. Sustainment, A., 2014. Enterprise Resource Planning. Tsai, W.H., Lee, P.L., Shen, Y.S. and Lin, H.L., 2012. A comprehensive study of the relationship between enterprise resource planning selection criteria and enterprise resource planning system success.Information Management,49(1), pp.36-46. Zeng, Y. and Skibniewski, M.J., 2013. Risk assessment for enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementations: a fault tree analysis approach.Enterprise Information Systems,7(3), pp.332-353.

Sentence and Following Generalizations free essay sample

1. â€Å"Suzanne Britt believes that neat people are lazy, mean, petty, callous, wasteful, and insensitive.† How would you respond to this statement? 2. Is the author’s main purpose to make fun of neat people, to assess the habits of neat and sloppy people, to help neat and sloppy people get along better, to defend sloppy people, to amuse and entertain, or to prove that neat people are morally inferior to sloppy people? Discuss. 3. What is meant by â€Å"as always† in the sentence â€Å"The distinction is, as always, moral† (para. 1)? Does the author seem to be suggesting that any and all distinctions between people are moral? 1. What is the general tone of this essay? What words and phrases help you determine that tone? 2. Britt mentions no similarities between neat and sloppy people. Does that mean this is not a good comparison and contrast essay? Why might a writer deliberately focus on differences and give very little or no time to similarities? 3. We will write a custom essay sample on Sentence and Following Generalizations or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Consider the following generalizations: â€Å"For all these noble reasons and more, sloppy people never get neat† (para. 4) and â€Å"The only thing messy in a neat person’s house is the trash can† (para. 8). How can you tell that these statements are generalizations? Look for other generalizations in the essay. What is the effect of using so many? 4. Other methods. Although filled with generalizations, Britt’s essay does not lack for examples (Chap. 3). Study the examples in paragraph 11 and explain how they do and don’t work the way examples are supposed to, to bring the generalizations about people down to earth.

Pespi Business Case Hbs Essays

Coca-Cola / Pespi Business Case Hbs Essays Coca-Cola / Pespi Business Case Hbs Essay Coca-Cola / Pespi Business Case Hbs Essay Question 1 : Why has the soft drink business been so profitable ? An industry analysis through Porter’s Five Forces reveals that market forces are favourable for profitability. Both concentrate producers and bottlers are profitable. The industry is already vertically integrated to some extent ( § â€Å"Bottler consolidation and spin-off p8). That’s why we sometimes will not distinguish concentrate producers and bottlers. However, we have to keep in mind that relations between concentrate producer and bottlers were often strained. Moreover, in terms of operating profit/sales (exhibit 4 p18), during the period 1980-2004, we can notice that concentrate producer – Coca-Cola company – earned between 21% and 37,1% whereas its largest bottler – Coca Cola Enterprise – only earned between 4,3% and 8,6%. Rivalry : We could characterize the soft drink market as an oligopoly, or even a duopoly between Coke and Pepsi, resulting in positive economic profits. There was tough competition between Coke and Pepsi for market share, and this occasionally hampered profitability – especially for the bottlers. But on the whole, the carbonated soft drink industry remained very profitable. Moreover, nothing contributes as much to the present-day success of the Coca-Cola Company (respectively Pepsi) than Pepsi (respectively Coca-Cola Company). It’s a stimulating competition. But then, came the private label brands ! See question 2 below. Susbstitutes : Other beverages, from bottled water to teas, became more popular. Coke and Pepsi responded by expanding their offerings, through alliances (e. g. Coke and Nestea), acquisitions (e. . Coke and Minute Maid), and internal product innovation capturing the value of increasingly popular substitutes internally. ( § The Cola wars begin p7). Power of suppliers : If sugar became too expensive, the firms could easily switch to corn syrup, as they did in the early 1980s. There are generally a lot of cans companies who are competing for one contract with one bottler. Cans suppliers have very little power. ( § Suppliers to concentrate producer an d bottlers – p5). Power of buyer : Supermarkets, the principal customer for soft drink makers, were a highly fragmented industry. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, had much more bargaining Power. They want to bargain directly with the concentrate producers. This contributes to de degradation of the relation between the concentrate producers and the bottler. ( § Evolving structures and strategies p13)? Only buyers with dominant power were fast food outlets but fortunately, they accounted for less than 20% of total soft drink sales. Barriers to entry : New Concentrate producers would need to overcome the tremendous marketing muscle and market presence of Coke, Pepsi, and a few others although the concentrate producer industry is not very capital intensive, other barriers would prevent entry. Coke and Pepsi are Global Brand †¦ even if the products themselves are not all the time as global as we can think (e. g. Coca Cola’s local products in Japan, Dasani bottled water in USA). Question 2 : What has been the effect of the rivalry on profits ? During the 1960’s and 70’s Coke and Pepsi concentrated on a differentiation and advertising strategy. The â€Å"Pepsi Challenge† in 1974 was a prime example of this strategy. However during the early 1990’s bottler’s of Coke and Pepsi employed low priced strategies in the supermarket channel in order to compete with private label (store brands). In the late 90’s decided to abandon the price war, which was not doing industry any good by raising the prices. Indeed, price wars, even combined with low-cost strategies had driven soda price down to the point where bottlers couldn’t get a decent return on supermarket sales (also because the concentrate prices rose). Bottlers then shifted course (both CCE and PBG) and increased their retail price †¦ consumers balked, sales volume dipped and finally, concentrate makers saw their profits drop as a result ! ( § Evolving structures and strategies – p12). Question 3 : How can Pepsi and Coke sustain profits in the future ? Coke can Pepsi can sustain their profits in the industry because of the following reasons: No new threats from new competition : when there is a threat, as when the beverages from bottled water to teas became more popular, Coke and Pepsi diversified into non–carbonated drinks to counter the flattening demand in the carbonated drinks. This can moreover provide diversification options and an opportunity to grow. Coke and Pepsi have been in the business long enough to accumulate great amount of brand equity which can sustain them for a long time and allow them to use the brand equity when they diversify their business. Per capita consumption in the emerging economies is very small compared to the US market so there is huge potential for growth. However, internationalization strategies can be risky. During the 1960s, Coke focused primarily on overseas markets, apparently basing its strategy on the assumption that domestic CSD consumption was approaching a saturation point. Pepsi, meanwhile, battled Coke aggressively in the United States, and double its US share between 1950 and 1970. Diversification and vertical integration often make internationalisation possible. According to Levitt, we should however not focus on local needs but more on homogenous market needs above all. See discussion section below †¦ Discus sion about the globalization of markets The article of professor Levitt is â€Å"provocative†. He argues that modern communication technologies are creating homogeneous market needs, while manufacturing are increasing the benefits of scale. Accordingly, truly global strategies will be able to use low prices to sweep all competitors still focused on local needs †¦ for all that the quality remains. Coca-Cola seems to be really exemplar of the trend. We can read this in the case : â€Å"the bottling process involve high-speed production lines that are interchangeable only for products pf similar type and packages of similar size†. American academics (Gerry Wind and Susan Douglas) warn of the â€Å"Myth of Globalisation†. If we take Coco-Cola we shouldn’t forget to mention that they sometimes adapt to country needs : Coca-Cola is selling local product in Japan alongside its classic Coke. As far as the Dasani bottled water is concerned, if it’s a success in the USA, it’s a failure in Europe. Nevertheless, Prof. Levitt admits it can happen : Global corporation will accept and adjust to differences only reluctantly, only after testing their immutability, after trying in various ways to circumvent and reshape them. Some countries, not all, are becoming richer. Consumers of these countries become less price-sensitive and more ready to spend on indulging their local tastes. Finally, we should also mention that between the two poles of global and local, there is a third position : regional. What we often call global †¦ is just intra-regional. The holy grail is perhaps not to know one everything about only one great thing, but rather to isolate a few standardized markets, some region. We can see that prof. Levitt is sometimes more reserved : â€Å"I do not advocate the systemic disregard or national differences†. However, this way of thinking implies two great things : a breakthrough innovation and a matchless ambition : indeed, supposing that we can never suppose that the customer is a king who knows his own wishes implies to create and keep a customer †¦ what a project ! Based on â€Å"Key debate : Global, Local or Regional – Exploring Corporate strategy – G. Johnson, K. Scholes, R. Whittington – 8th Edition

Content Marketing for Local SEO How to Easily Leverage It the Right Way

Content Marketing for Local SEO How to Easily Leverage It the Right Way People search for local businesses every day. They use relevant keywords with specific location names to find businesses close to them. In fact, Google has found that 76% of smartphone local searches end up with a store visit. If you want to bring people to your business, you need to try to attract local searchers. You need to get ahead of your competitors  and make sure people find your business when they conduct a related local search. Which means you need to increase the visibility of your website in local search results. That’s where local SEO enters the picture. How to Easily Leverage Your Content Marketing for Local SEOApply What You Learn: Download Six Free Content + SEO Templates Creating great content that ranks for local searches is a lot easier when you have the right tools. Put the advice in this post into practice with this Local SEO Content Template Bundle, which includes: Local SEO Bonus Guide to walk you through the basics of local search engine optimization. An on-page SEO checklist to make sure every piece of content you publish is properly optimized. An SEO Content Strategy Template to build a complete end-to-end content strategy with SEO at its core. A Latent Semantic Indexing Infographic explaining how secondary keywords impact SEO. A Guest Blogging Target Spreadsheet Template to store important details for local sites and publications in your area who might publish your content. An Email Pitch Template to help you write great guest blog post pitches that editors will want to read (so your local-optimized content will get published). What is Local SEO? Local SEO is similar to organic search engine optimization, except that it focuses on improving a website’s ranking in local search results. Compared to traditional SEO, local search engine optimization can be much more challenging. But if you want to promote your business to local customers, at the exact moment they're looking for your products or services, you need to improve your local search ranking. Recommended Reading: How to Boost Traffic With 34 Important SEO Tips You Need to Know (+ Free Kit) How to Improve Your Local Search Ranking with Content Marketing The good news is that you can improve your local search ranking by making a few changes to your existing content marketing strategy. This post will show you five ways to optimize your content marketing for local SEO. 1. Submit Guest Posts Publish Content on Local Websites Your current content marketing strategy probably already includes creating blog content for your website. Blogging is an excellent way to enrich your site, and engage visitors. For both standard and local SEO, you need to branch out a bit and start publishing content on other websites. Guest posts can help you showcase your expertise, and earn valuable backlinks. Extensive research conducted by Local SEO Guide found that link signals play a major role in local search ranking. Guest blogging is one of the best ways to build local links, and market your content. It can also help you drive traffic to your site, and attract potential customers. The challenging part is finding local websites that accept guest posts. To do so, you need to use a few keyword combinations – location name + website + write for us/guest post/submit a guest post. Replace â€Å"location name† with your city or state. For example, let’s try to find Sacramento-based sites that accept guest posts. First, we will search for, â€Å"Sacramento website write for us.† As you can see in the screenshot below, there are several local websites that offer guest posting opportunities in Sacramento. Next, search for your location + website + guest post. Then your location + website + submit a guest post. Also try different search terms for your location, if appropriate. Such as your region, county, or nearby cities. For example, if you are in San Jose, you could also try, "Palo Alto," "Silicon Valley," "Santa Clara," or "Cupertino." Make a list of potential websites to write for in your target location. Then visit each site to check out their guest post guidelines, as well as the type of content they publish. Determine which sites cater to the kind of audience you’re targeting. For example, let’s check out the first website from the earlier search results, Sacramento Press, to find out what type of content they publish. As you can see in the screenshot above Sacramento Press publishes content related to â€Å"Things to Do,† â€Å"Food Drink,† and â€Å"Spotlights† in the Sacramento area. This site may be a good place to submit a guest post about a local restaurant, attraction, or event. Recommended Reading: How to Write a Pitch Email That Will Get Your Guest Post Accepted In addition to guest posting, there are other ways you can earn valuable links from high authority local sites. Some websites provide backlinking opportunities to local businesses by creating a local resource list, or by highlighting local deals. For example, let’s search for prominent Sacramento news websites by searching for, â€Å"Sacramento news.† As you can see in the screenshot above, publications like The Sacramento Bee and KCRA Sacramento are among the top results. If you check out some of these publications, you might be able to find an opportunity to earn links to your site. Let’s check out The Sacramento Bee for example. If you go through the website’s menu, you’ll find â€Å"Local Deals† towards the bottom. This suggests that the website gives local businesses the opportunity to list their deals, and earn links to their sites. 2. Find Relevant, Local Keywords You already know the importance of keywords for search engine optimization. Keywords are crucial for local SEO as well, and should be used to enrich and optimize your content. Keywords are crucial for local SEO and should be used to enrich and optimize your content.Whether you’re publishing a blog post on your site, rewriting your site content, or submitting a guest post; using the right keywords can help you attract local searchers. The best keywords are those that are relevant to your business, and have high search volumes in your target location. Add your location keyword to those business-specific keywords, and use that combination to optimize your content. In order to find the best keywords, you can use tools like the Google Keyword Planner. Before you use this tool, you will need to set up your AdWords account. Once your account is setup, go to the homepage, and click on â€Å"Tools† at the top of the page. Then select the â€Å"Keyword Planner,† as shown in the screenshot below. When you get to the Keyword Planner page, select â€Å"Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category.† Then begin your keyword research using phrases related to your business. As shown in the screenshot below, you will see fields to enter a relevant phrase, your landing page, and your product category. You can also select your target location. Let’s search for keywords related to, â€Å"car dealership,† and keep the target location as San Francisco. This will bring up a long list of potential keywords. The goal is to make a list of keywords with high average monthly searches, and low competition. You can then combine them with your city/location, and use them to optimize your content for local search. For example, â€Å"car dealer in San Francisco,† or â€Å"San Francisco car dealer.† 3. Write Local Content Now that you have a list of the best keywords to use, it’s time to infuse them into your website content for better local search ranking. It’s not enough to simply use these keywords in your page content. Make the most of them by writing local content posts for your blog. You can compile local â€Å"Top 10,† and â€Å"Best Of† lists that are related to your industry or niche. Or you can write useful how-to articles or guides relevant to your industry, and target location. This will help you attract a relevant local audience. For example, if you own a car dealership in San Francisco, you can write a list of the best cars to drive in San Francisco, or the best car washes in San Francisco. You could also write an article with tips for San Francisco car owners, with location-specific advice, such as traffic-related or maintenance-related tips. Cowden Automotive, for example, writes useful car care and maintenance tips for local customers. Their service area includes San Francisco, Oakland, and San Mateo, as well as the surrounding areas. As you can see in the screenshot below, they provide readers with tire care tips, and mentioned their service areas in the blog post. 4. Cross-Promote on Social Media Platforms According to Statista, the number of worldwide social media users will increase from 2.34 billion in 2016 to 2.51 billion in 2017. With those kinds of numbers, it’s highly likely that many of your target consumers are already using social media. If you’re not already doing so, it’s time to start promoting your blog posts and guest posts on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Social media can be a great way to engage your followers, and drive traffic to your website. To further engage local audiences, and grow your follower base, join relevant local groups on social media platforms. Then share your location-specific content in those groups. You can also reach out to relevant, local Facebook pages for help promoting your content. Recommended Reading: 30 Social Media Engagement Tactics That Will Boost Shares and Conversions Let’s say you’re a restaurateur, or your business is related to the food industry, and you’re based in San Francisco. You can write a blog post that lists the best places to get fresh organic ingredients locally. To find relevant groups and pages on Facebook, search for, â€Å"San Francisco food.† You can then sort the search results for â€Å"Pages† or â€Å"Groups.† For public Facebook groups, all you have to do is join. For closed groups, you will have to ask to join, or be added by a member. For Facebook pages, you will need to contact the page owners, and request that they share your content. To contact page owners, and admins for Facebook pages, go to their page. As shown in the screenshot below, you will see an option to â€Å"Message† the page. Send them a short, friendly message with a description of your content, and why you think it would be useful or interesting to their fans. Then politely ask them to share it on their page. Similarly, you can also join relevant LinkedIn groups to promote your content. Just select â€Å"Groups† from the drop-down menu in the search bar, as shown in the screenshot below. In the search bar, enter a relevant search term with the location name to specifically target local audiences. Let’s say you’re a lawyer in San Francisco, and your firm represents businesses and corporations. You can write blog posts with useful tips and advice related to business law. To find a LinkedIn group where local business owners network, use search terms like, â€Å"San Francisco business,† or â€Å"San Francisco entrepreneur.† 5. Participate In, and Write About, Local Activities In the first point, we covered the important role backlinks from local websites play in your local search ranking. And you learned how to build your local link profile through guest posting. Another way to earn local backlinks is to get involved in the community. Participate in local events, charity drives, or awards. You may be able to get a backlink from the official website of the organization or event. If being a participant isn’t your cup of tea, you can also earn links by sponsoring local events, clubs, sports teams, and organizations. For example, the Sacramento Speakers Series has an entire page dedicated to their official sponsors, as shown in the screenshot below: Your participation or sponsorship may be considered newsworthy by local publications, which means you could earn more links from local news sites. Not only will getting involved in the community help you improve your local link profile, it can also help you build your brand’s reputation. According to Search Engine Journal, your real-world prominence can affect your local search rank as well. Real-world prominence can affect your local search rank.Participating in a local event isn’t just great for earning backlinks or boosting your reputation. It also gives you an opportunity to enrich your blog with local content. You can write a post about the event, and your experience or involvement, and publish it on your blog. If possible, include photos and/or videos from the event in your post to optimize engagement. Recommended Reading: How to Increase Visibility With Social Media Optimization Now, Optimize Your Content for Local Search You’ve now learned some of the most effective ways to leverage your content marketing for local SEO. The most important goal is to build backlinks from high-authority local websites and publications. Local links not only help drive traffic to your site  and improve your page authority, they can also help you build a good brand reputation. Another important goal is to enrich your website with high-quality local content to attract and engage a local audience. Make sure that you optimize all of your website content, blog posts, and guest posts with location-specific keywords. With the local SEO tips and strategies above, all that’s left to do is for you to get to work on boosting your local search ranking. Which of these tips will you try out first? Do you have any additional advice for using content marketing for local SEO? Share your thoughts in the comments below. And if you have any questions related to local search ranking, or the local SEO tips above, feel free to ask them in the comments section, or to reach out to me personally.

Religious figures Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Religious figures - Term Paper Example According to the History, Lord Mahavir was the last Tirthankara of the Jain religion. As per the Jain methodology all Tirthankaras were human beings. They acquired the status of perfection / enlightenment after passing through meditation and self realization. Hence, Jains consider themselves as the perfect human beings. They do not either accept God as their creator, protector and the destroyer of the Universe nor they believe in the destruction of demons (Nagaraja 43). Mahavira was born in 599 B.C. in the Bihar State of India in the King’s house. His followers celebrate his birthday each year as Mahavir Jayanti. The name given to him by his parents was Vardhaman. Being a loving son of his parents, he used to enjoy pleasures and comforts of life in a princely manner. When he attained the age of 30, he gave up all the pleasures of material world and left his family and the Royal abode for good in search of finding solution to the problems of common people and became Monk (Jain & Upadhye 36). After leaving the family and the Royal home, he spent his next 12 years in deep silence and meditation to get rid of the pleasures of life. He did not indulge in any activities that could be harmful for the animals and the birds. In some part of the mentioned period, he lived without food. He found himself quite calm and composed in the face of unbearable sufferings. Due to cited qualities, he earned the fame of Mahavir, which means brave and courageous. During said period, his spiritual power completely developed and comes to the stage of self realization. Such realization in the religion of Jain is known as keval jnana (perfect/enlighten) (Jain & Upadhye 39).   Soon after completion of self realization exercise, Mahavir spent another 30 years of his life to travel in the length and width of India barefooted. During this period, he used to teach people about the truth that he realized. He appraised the people how an individual can enjoy freedom from the cycle of bi rth, pain, misery, life and death and to achieve the state of bliss for good. This state of bliss is known as nirvana or moksha (Nagaraja 54). According to the beliefs of Mahavir, under the influence of karma, the soul becomes greedy of worldly pleasures (personal belongings and possessions). In his view, worldly pleasures make an individual self centered resulting in more and more amassing of karmas.  He used to preach the right faith, right path and good conduct, which played decisive role in freeing the soul from the clutches of karma (Winternitz 107). We cite here three major events of the life of Mahavir a) Conception (Chyavana), an event when his mother conceived him in her womb b) after conceiving him in womb, the mother had fourteen dreams, but as per the belief of Digambar, they were sixteen dreams and c) his birth was the memorable event for his mother and the family alike. According to the belief of Mahavir’s followers, soon after his birth, the King of Heaven to ok him to the Mount of Meru and celebrated his birthday. The most important event in his life was when he gave up all worldly materials in his possession and took refuge in the ascetic order (Jain & Upadhye 47). The ages of darkness in the life of mankind, gave birth to three great religions namely Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The mentioned religions are deep rooted religions. The said religions made its inroads in the Old Testament patriarch. Abraham used to teach their followers about one God and no more (known as Ibrahim in Islam), was said

Cognitive approach over Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Cognitive approach over Psychology - Essay Example Man's continuous urge to understand humanity had led the development of various fundamentals in psychology. With their apparently significant contributions, these recent approaches, particularly neuroscience had somehow managed to make its impact. However their imperfections and bit immaturity have made each emerging, as well as the established approach somehow insufficient. With this, it would be best to for these approaches to collaborate to come up with a complete understanding of the human psychology. In fact, upon an extensive and meticulous observation, one would find a clear point on each of these proven approaches that would link them to each other. This could serve as an explanation, if in the future disciplines such as neuropsychology would standout having been able to convince us with its view by means of intertwining two or more of these fundamentals. 3. ... ntiers, it would be substantial to say that behaviorism, psychoanalysis and cognitive psychology clearly depicts great consideration to individual differences while evolutionary psychology derives its explanations from general facts. It could ease the subject if universal explanation would serve as a constant and the individual difference as the variable. For example, humans in general have inherited mental capacities for acquiring speech, however, the individual upbringing and education dictates his/her way of speaking. In this example, with smooth and careful transition between evolutionary and cognitive approach, a considerably convincing thought had be derived. In the end, it would be best to take both universal explanations and individual difference into consideration; nevertheless, neither of the two would suffice. 5. From the point of view of your own intellectual development, what are the three most important things you have learned in this course Explain why they are important for you. With such enlightening course, one can derive tons of thoughts to ponder. First, we, humans are so gifted with the ability to think and rationalized that we are able to come up with explanations about almost everything. Unluckily this ability had somehow created addiction to wisdom and had lead to the materialization of several conflicting disciplines. Second is that each of these approach have manage to convince a multitude as well as give rise to their critics. Despite of their great significance, due to their inevitable flaws, no single approach can stand to serve as a perfect and adequate explanation like any other fundamentals inevitable flaws have their share of critics. Lastly, the noble gift of intellect must be utilized, at that; things should be viewed in a liberal

Country Factbook Between Seden and Denmark on Organic Food Industry Essay Example for Free

Country Factbook Between Seden and Denmark on Organic Food Industry Essay 1. Executive summary The organic food industry is suitable for business investments in both Sweden and Denmark due to several factors. First of all, efficient local intermediary firms and certain broader macro-level institutions facilitate business and provide location advantages. Moreover, studying the business/industry culture can be used to gain insights in the business environment of Sweden/Denmark in the field of organic food. However, the complex natures of harvesting organic goods make it impossible to indicate the best location for production, as this depends on the particular product being produced. As a result, demand and supply across Sweden and Denmark are met by means of a widespread retail sector, intra-industry trade and export. Only by making an estimation of sectorial breakdown and its counterparts an (somewhat) informed investment decision can be made. Either way, it is evident that organic food industry as a whole has gained popularity due to several reasons. One example is that CSR profiles of firms have become an customary element in the product purchasing decision in recent times. It can be said that recent developments in technological- (information technology revolution) and political nature (subsidies) have contributed to this trend, documents playing an important role in particular. Since culture consists of documents and culture is more available to document analysis today it has been our choice in our data collection method. In turn, for data analysis we have made use of coding, series of events and semiotics. It is these that have allowed us to assess macroeconomic performance of Sweden and Denmark as well as its historical developments, socio-cultural conditions and the nature of competitiveness in the organic industry field. Despite the fact that Sweden and Denmark share many similarities in each one of these areas there are some differences. However, these are considered to be subtle and highly context-dependent. Therefore, we would also not like to answer our research question, ‘’How and why do the organic industry conditions differ between Sweden and Denmark? ’’ in this section, but hope that you will find an answer what is best for you in the pages of the remainder of this report. Ultimately, we will provide major findings of comparisons and recommendations, based on our views and experience gained during our research. It might be possible to ‘’tweak’’ this information in such a way in making it applicable for your particular business scenario or business plan. 2. Introduction This section is meant to state the goal, relevance and purpose of our Factbook. Furthermore, it will give rise to our lead question, being ‘’How and why do the organic industry conditions differ between Sweden and Denmark? ’’ To boot, we hope to achieve appraisal and recognition for our deliverables from whom ultimately might use and/or buy our Factbook. Like the CIA Factbook, our focus is on the industry. However, it is important to note that we have tried to achieve more than the already existing Factbooks, as they are often too comprehensive or lacking in value. We have tried to overcome the first problem by linking theory to application and writing about it. In this, our main challenge has been to take into account all aspects that somehow matter for the bottom line, the profitability of an investment project. Yet, since profitability is a relative term it might be better to speak of opportunity costs. This terminology is crucial to understand for correct business decision making to take place and also forms the backbone for our final recommendations in our Factbook. Moreover, Pugel (2009) has showed that many industries incur rising, rather than constant, marginal opportunity costs. For instance, efforts to expand Denmark/Sweden organic wheat production would fairly quickly run into rising costs caused by limits on (1) how much more land could be drawn into wheat production and how suitable this additional land would be for wheat production, (2) the availability of additional workers willing and suitable to work on the farms, and/or (3) the availability of seeds, fertilizers, and other material inputs. As for the second problem, we focus mostly on institutionalism and culture as they are lacking in other country Factbooks. Examples of institutions that can facilitate business in Sweden and Denmark are efficient local intermediary firms and certain broader macro-level institutions, both being considered to be generally available location advantages (Verbeke 2010). Concerning culture, we are particularly interested in business/industry culture. This is based on logic that our analysis is mainly on the industry level. Furthermore, Hollensen (2008) has showed that business/industry culture of business behavior and ethics is similar across borders, i. e. expected to be the same for Sweden and Denmark. By learning about the industry culture the decision maker will be aware of important ‘rules of the game’ (Hollensen 2008). Concerning the purpose, this Factbook is meant to facilitate a document that will be considered important for decision makers, i. e. policy makers but especially business investors. From an investment perspective, several hierarchical modes (domestic-based sales representatives, mergers and acquisition, alliances, greenfield) are possible. However, retailer alliances and mergers and acquisition are most popular. To illustrate, in the case of Sweden retailer alliances control 90% of the food retail stores (http://www. snee. org/filer/papers/193. pdf). Furthermore, because the organic food market in Denmark and Sweden and Europe in general is rather fragmented, mergers provide benefits and interest to investors through economies of scale (http://www. nytimes. com/2011/05/24/business/global/24organic. html). Lastly, market growth, political support and complimentary resources in both Denmark and Sweden stimulate and attract business investors. These and other issues will be elaborated in the remainder of this report. All in all, we will provide the examiner with information of which we believe to be relevant for decision makers and can be used for deciding which company, or which industries of this company, to invest in. Hereby, we have tried to identify the major dimensions relevant to comparative country studies. These have been chosen carefully and matter for the organic food industry and a wide spectrum of business within this industry. In turn, these dimensions can be used to compare the countries Sweden and Denmark. Ultimately, the contents of this Factbook are meant to stay closely connected to the country set Sweden/Denmark and it’s organic food industry, yet still is general to the extent that it allows applying the information to a concrete business case. With the final product of our Factbook we hope to have provided the reader with a clear understanding of the conditional differences between Sweden and Denmark and as such an answer to our research question. Concerning the structure of the remainder of this paper, we will subsequently discuss: methods and frameworks, introduction to organic food sector, methods and frameworks, country comparison, major findings of comparison and recommendations and the bibliography. 3. Methods and frameworks 3. 1 Method for Factbook compilation As method for our Factbook compilation we have opted to first focus on the country and then on the region. It can be described as a region-based compilation (RBC) technique. For example, if you look at technology, technology is taking place in Eindhoven in The Netherlands and not in Delfzijl. If you are going to do something with energy then you end up in Delfzijl rather than in Eindhoven. However, making such a comparison for Sweden or Denmark in terms of organic food proves difficult. To explain, people that argue that organic food is simply being harvested on the most fertile agricultural land are likely to mix up terms. That is, fertility should be clearly set aside from productivity or even best land. Indeed, you can have a highly fertile area but deficient in its use do its limited crop sizes. Moreover, a certain area of agricultural land might be appropriate to harvest a particular organic product, but is less appropriate or least suitable for other organic products. Lastly, in general organic material levels go up as you go north. But productivity does not necessarily follow the same trend because the same shorter season and lower temperatures that helped build and maintain that organic material, limits growing seasons and crops growth. In order to prevent complexity we have decided to focus more on the retail sector of Sweden and Denmark than the production sector. The retail sector will include exports as over 70 percent of the exports of industrialized countries are shipped to other industrialized countries, and nearly half of total world trade is industrialized countries trading with each other (Pugel 2009). Sweden and Denmark are no exception, as they are known to have an established intra-industry trade relationship. Besides physical locations we also like to discuss official statistics as another compilation issue. The main issue is that official statistics often rely on incomplete information and therefore involve estimation. In our report we have made use of two types of estimation, sectorial breakdown and its counterparts. We have chosen to select these two types in order to facilitate the decision maker with a reflection opportunity of a wide variety of activities he/she might be interested in. Furthermore, in an attempt to ‘standardize’ statistics we will use figures of the Central Statistics Office (or a comparable source) as much as possible for both Denmark and Sweden. We believe it is advisable to use comparable or equal sources between the two countries as it strengthens the reliability of our research. Based on previous experience and narratives we believe the Central Statistics Office (also known as Central Statistics Bureau) is one of the most easily accessible and reliable sources to be found on the Internet. Furthermore, in order to prevent possible ambiguity we will use equal terminology for both countries as much as possible, including definitions of sectors and instrument categories. Moreover, we would like to briefly discuss the overall structure of the Factbook. First of all, the executive summary is meant to provide background information on the topic of organic food as an industry and can act as a quick-review guide of what the examiner is likely to expect in the report. In this, the executive summary contains several main ideas reflected in the report itself. Furthermore, the introduction discusses more distinct the Factbook and the underlying principles. Then, data collection and data analysis show arguments for the choices we have made in conducting our empirical research. As to the chapters that follow, these are simply a representation and a more in-depth analysis of what has been announced in the previous chapters and act as to share our findings in terms of describing legal, political, environmental, institutional and cultural dimensions. Lastly, we finalise our report by concluding with major findings of comparisons and recommendations. 3. 2 Prime theories and approaches There are different theories to be utilized for compiling this Factbook. One of the main drivers for organic farming is environmental reason, which are often associated with care for the environment. Moreover, it can be argued that the choice for buying ‘’organic’’ is also driven by social cultural reasoning, having this care for the environment being embedded as part of the culture. Indeed, this is mainly the case in the Western market where awareness towards environmental issues has risen in recent times. It is terms like corporate responsibility and sustainability that have become a part of the decision making process of Western consumers as to what to buy and to whom to buy it from. In this, environmental and socio-cultural values have become an important facet in the decision making process of the consumer in general, the organic food industry being no exemption. In an attempt to verify and examine these trends we will make use of theory of Schwartz (1999) combined with the theory of planned behaviour to determine if organic food consumption offers potential for business investment to take place. As we shall see later on, Schwartz his cultural values can be used to assess the main characteristics of the average Swedish and Danish inhabitant and how these assist in making inferences about core values, behaviour and its relation to the organic food industry. In order to find more specific similarities and differences we have made use of the framework as proposed by S. Ruiz de Maya et al. (2011), who offer us a theoretical approach to the organic food industry from the consumer side. It is this that provides us with socio-cultural factors and helping the investor to decide whether Sweden or Denmark is more ‘suitable’ to invest in, depending on a particular context. In addition, the PESTLE analysis will also be utilized in this report. It is important to note that we will not be focusing on the whole framework but on the political, social and legal factors provided. By examining the political factors we can determine how these influence the organic food industry. For instance, some administrations can be beneficial for the organic food industry. For instance, by stimulating farmers to dedicate more land for organic farming and usage of organic food in government institutions. However, in another term a different administration might not be so favourable to organic farming and food, which could lead to a different situation. For example, abolishing organic farming grants. As mentioned before, the social side of organic food consumption is important. Health and environmental issues have become more important for the general public. Furthermore, the investor should keep in mind that views concerning organic food can change. These factors can have an influence on the demand. Last aspect is the legal aspects. For example, determine the definition of organic food and who or how they uphold this standard. This factor is related to the political part of the PESTLE analysis. Legislation concerning organic food is important for the Factbook. There can be differences between Denmark and Sweden concerning organic food industry. 3. 3 Method for data collection and analysis. This section will discuss our chosen method for data collection and analysis. We will start by addressing the data collection technique, after which the data collection analysis approach will follow. First of all, it can be said that our study involves both qualitative research (a focus on text) and quantitative research (a focus on numbers). However, since institutionalism and culture are clearly more qualitative we have opted to focus on qualitative data collection techniques. In the end, we have made use of solely documents as a qualitative data collection technique. Although we would have liked to include interviews and fieldwork in our research, we experienced that it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to carry out these activities successfully. First, we could not find any suitable individuals or focus groups being knowledgeable about our subject. Second, we do not believe ourselves to be proficient enough in fieldwork as to ensure reliable and valid results. Moreover, the duration of the necessary fieldwork was also expected not to fit within the given timeframe set to create the Factbook. In either case, there are some advantages of using documents as opposed to interviews and fieldwork. For example, documents are relatively cheap and quick to access (Payne Payne, 2004). It is usually much easier to obtain data from documents than from interviews or fieldwork. Also, if there are many documents on a subject, which we believe to hold true for our case, triangulation is possible to study developments over time. In terms of sources of data, our research is limited to secondary data only. Indeed, we did not make use of any unpublished data being gathered directly from people or organizations. Instead, we have made use of published books, webpages, newspaper articles and journal articles. Somewhat surprisingly, we found that these sources were able to provide us with sufficient empirical data for our research, especially with regard to culture related aspects. Concerning the latter, we would also like to refer to Altheide (1996), who said that documents are studied to understand culture. He has pointed out that a large part of culture consists of documents. Furthermore, he has showed that culture is more available to document analysis today because of the information technology revolution. (Altheide, 1996). Finally, in order to assess the quality of the documents used, we have made use of four criteria as proposed by Scott (1990): (1) authenticity, (2) credibility, (3) representativeness (4) meaning. Concerning the method for data analysis, we have chosen to make use of several approaches for analyzing qualitative data. Probably the one being used the most is coding. We have chosen this approach primarily because it is one of the easiest ways to analyse qualitative data. In addition, it offers many advantages. For instance, it allows reducing the size of the data and is useful for retrieving, organizing, and speeding up the analysis (Miles Humberman, 1994). Although this method has been used throughout the entire report, it has been particular helpful in our literature review on the organic food industry, as making use of buzzwords has helped in defining the scope of our research. Moreover, it was found helpful for the executive summary and the introduction, as these are more restricted in terms of length. Here coding has acted as an instrument to make distinctions between either ‘too detailed’ or ‘too general’ more easily. Another data analysis approach we have made use of is series of events. We have made use of this approach as we considered it to be helpful to compare relevant historical developments for our industry. Listing a series of events by chronological time periods and subsequently assigning events to categories has helped to identify similarities and differences over time. As such, it allows us to pinpoint more precisely when historical developments have been most evident and how it has changed the view of the industry. Due to its very nature this approach was utilized in the historical developments section of our report. Lastly, we have made use of semiotics, which is concerned with the meaning of signs and symbols. For business and management research, semiotics is most useful in marketing, management, consumer research and information systems. This is because in these segments, signs are very important. For example, form of brand names and logos are considered to be highly important. In our view semiotics also play an influential role in the organic food industry. Currently, there is some debate about the future growth of the organic food industry; it either being with brands or retailer private labels. It has been argued that large food retailers are taking advantage of the ‘organic’ brand without making any of the associated investment. While the industry has been built by certification agencies and pioneering brands, their presence in terms of logos and brands is diminishing in supermarkets and mainstream retailers (http://www. organicmonitor. com/r0811. htm). As such, investment scenario’s in the organic food industry are less clear-cut than in the past and require careful examination of conventions governing the use of signs and sign systems. In our report, semiotics has been found crucial to explain the socio-cultural and market/industry conditions more fully. 4. Introduction sector/industry In order to provide the examiner with an introduction of the organic food industry, general trends, definitions and boundaries will be discussed. To boot, the European organic food market has a total revenue of $24. 7 billion in 2010, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8. 9% between 2006 and 2010 based on research of DATAMONITOR (2010). The European organic food market grew by 6% in 2010 to reach a value of 24. 7 billion and it is predicted that in 2015 the European organic food market will be worth $36. 8 billion, an increase of 48. 8% since 2010. According to UNCTAD, organic agriculture is defined as a holistic production management whose primarily goal is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil, life, plants, animals and people. Moreover, According to Chen (2009) organic products are goods that respect the environment and that are manufactured without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, growth hormones, antibiotics or gene manipulation. By viewing the production side, organic producers should combines best environmental practices, a high level of biodiversity, the preservation of natural resources and application of high-animal welfare standards, providing higher quality products to respond to a certain consumers’ demand. Nowadays, the concern of Western society on how products may be profoundly harmful to the environment has led to a higher demand for organic products, sustainable business activities and stricter regulations from national governments (Gurau and Ranchod, 2005). Due to this increasing concern and higher demand in European countries, it can be argued that the organic food industry is becoming a more interesting and challenging sector for investors to invest in. Furthermore, organic food industry generates revenue as the second largest market within Europe and is continuously growing. However, some boundaries as to this sector do exist. Three main boundaries we found to be of importance are price premiums, quality and availability and time factor. Of these three, price premium is expected to be the most important. This is due to the fact that organic food more often than not requires another form of processing and is more difficult to conserve. Moreover, the costs of quality control are also expected to be higher as no pesticides are used as to protect large crops. As such, it is rational that the price is more expensive than conventional food products. In effect, consumers with lack of knowledge will reconsider buying organic products because of this simple fact. Considering quality of the organic products, consumers believe that by charging a higher price this is equivalent to a higher quality. This view is based on the rationale of human beings, sometimes depicted in phrases such as ‘pay more, get more’. Whilst this ‘rule’ not always holds true, our (inner) convictions and background study has verified that this is in fact the case in the organic food industry. An example of the organic food retail sector is that high priced restaurants tend to favour organic (natural) ingredients. Based on the above, the organic products will meet consumers’ expectation by providing the products above the conventional product’s standards, with a price tag to match its difference in quality. The last constraint we would like to discuss is availability and time factor. The availability of organic products do not vary as much as that of conventional products. As organic products are often less well exposed, they are more difficult to find in stores. This is an important consideration and largely influences issues such as sales expectations, storage costs and risk of decay. Furthermore, in the following part we will discuss and analyse how the conditions of organic food provide the investor with a broader view of the organic food industry. In this, we will consider four conditions as factors being relevant for organic food: political-, cultural-, legal- and labor systems. 5. Country comparison 5. 1 Macro-economic indicators A country comparison on macro-economic indicators can be considered to be beneficial for decision makers as it gives them food for thought on the expected macroeconomic performance of that country, i. e. the behavior of a country’s output, jobs, and prices in the organic food industry in the face of changing world conditions. This judgment call about performance is basically what drives most macro-economic analysis. It can be used to assess issues such as how well a country’s economy is performing and how close it is to achieving broad desirable objectives, such as stability in average product prices (no inflation) and low unemployment (Pugel 2009). The most relevant macro-economic indicators for the organic food industry are considered to be economic indicators and financial indicators. Demographic indicators do not seem important to us as research has shown that gender or age does not have any significant effect on whether people decide to buy organic food or not (http://newhope360. com/organic-consumers-share-values-not-demographics). In order to ensure reliability we have chosen to attain all figures of these indicators from one source, namely De Grote Bosatlas (2002). Fig. 1 STATISTIEK EUROPA (part 1) Fig 2. STASTIEK EUROPA (PART 2) From figure 1 we can infer that Denmark had a higher agricultural contribution in terms of percentage towards the GDP. Moreover, Denmark has a substantial higher percentage of agricultural grounds (62. 4% versus 7. 9%) Furthermore, Denmark has a higher contribution to GDP per capita. Besides, inhabitants from Denmark are slightly wealthier than those in Sweden, when looking at GDP. Lastly, Denmarks development of the GDP in 1990-1999 has risen more than was the case for Sweden. Then, from figure 2, we can infer that Denmark has a stronger economy than Sweden, but only by a small margin. Furthermore, inflation rate for Denmark is lower, yet also again only by a small margin. Moreover, Denmark has more government spending in terms of percentage of GDP. Concerning education, Denmark spends more in terms of percentage of GDP. Besides, Denmark inhabitants generally enjoy a higher purchasing power than is the case for Swedish inhabitants. It also shows that more Danish people are working in both the agricultural and industrial sector than Sweden, these tend to work more in the service sector. Lastly, Denmark has a lower percentage of the work force being unemployed. From this preliminary analysis we can infer that in terms of economic indicators investments in Denmark are likely to require a higher yield on an investment than were the case of Sweden. This assumption is made based on the simple fact that as for many elements Denmark performs better than Sweden on compared elements. The same holds true in terms of financial indicators. Although the data may be easily said to be ‘outdated’, we believe this is not quite the case. That is, our analysis on historical development has not provide any conclusive evidence as to not believe that the relationship of these economical and financial figures to be that much different as they are today. Yet, since we do not know when the actual investment is to take place it is always advisable to check the results of a more recent research. Although we would have loved to use a more recent version of De Grote Bosatlas ourselves, we could not find ourselves in the position to get access to one during the course of this research. Luckily, we were able to find a recent figure for gross domestic expenditure on RD as a percentage of GDP that verified our assumption. [pic] From the figure above it can be concluded that Denmark spends between 1. 01% and 2. 00% of its GDP on RD activities. Sweden on the other hand spends a little more with 2. 01% and above. This corresponds with our financial records of the Grote Bosatlas, where government spending in Sweden was higher than that of Denmark in general. Furthermore, since the RD expenditures on RD as a percentage of GDP are larger than that of most other parts of the world, we expect no real problems for investors in this area. Background information as to why Sweden and Denmark support expenditures on the organic food industry is discussed extensively in both the chapters about socio-cultural conditions and market/industry conditions. 5. 2 Historical developments relevant for the industry. The issues with the environment have many different facets. These range; from deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution and many others (EBS 295, 2008). The attitude concerning these issues by the general public can change over time. Values change over time and this applies for the public perception of organic food as well. Likewise, one could say that the organic food industry is driven in a sense of improving and protecting the environment. In addition, consumers also attitude towards the environment also contribute in how they value organic food. Furthermore, not only concern for the environment but also growing awareness by the general public concerning their food and the production involved. These issues related to food production range from; health, food safety and animal welfare. (Sippo manual, 2011) The origins for organic farming in both countries are similar. In the same manner consumers started become more aware of the environment. Farmers also become more aware and began with organic farming. Both countries have had organic farming since early eighties in the general concept of the term organic farming. If we take into account the establishment of organizations concerning organic food then Denmark was a few years earlier with the founding of Danish Association of Organic Farmers in 1981. The Swedish counter part is called the Ecological Farmers Association, which was founded in 1985. Both organizations are private initiatives of organic farmers organizing themselves. (http://www. fao. org) Since the 1990s the governments of both Denmark and Sweden have introduced various regulations concerning the organic food industry. These regulations include assigning certificates that label products as organic. In addition, the European Union also implemented regulations concerning the organic food industry. Likewise, the organizations that control and label organic foods also found their origins in late eighties early nineties. In Denmark the first organic food legislation was implemented in 1987. The government assigns the O logo to organic food. (www. fvm. dk). This state approved logo is only given to products that are conforming to the standards of â€Å"organic† as stated by Danish regulations. In addition, in Denmark only state approved farms may carry the â€Å"organic† label. In Sweden the organization that is tasked with the certification of organic food is called KRAV. Founded in 1985, this organization was formed from the Ecological Farmers Organization in order to standardize the various interpretations of the term â€Å"organic farming† and bring both farmers and food producers together. (Gunnar Rundgren, 2002) However, it should be noted that the KRAV organization is a non-governmental organization. While, it’s Danish counterpart is part of the Ministry of Agriculture. 5. 3 Socio-cultural conditions Cultural systems From the point of view of the investor, it is important to know the differences and similarities between the two countries Denmark and Sweden. In this section, we will focus on this in terms of cultural assessment. In order to describe the cultural systems of both Denmark and Sweden we have made use of five cultural dimensions as proposed by Schwartz (1999): harmony, egalitarianism, effective autonomy, mastery, and conservatism. It is these cultural dimensions that will help to describe each countries culture and detect any important similarities and differences. The cultural values focus in the article of Schwartz is on the national culture. The national culture being introduced for heterogeneous nations refers primarily to the value culture of the dominant, majority group. In this case, Schwartz tries to interpret the value priorities that characterize a society by aggregating the value priorities of individuals (e. g. Hofstede’s framework). It is depicted that individual value priorities are a product of both shared culture and unique personal experience. Moreover, Schwartz has placed his list of researched countries into different segments (clusters). Denmark and Sweden put in the first group (cluster), Finland and Italy in another, Spain as a third group and Germany, Greece and the United Kingdom in a fourth group.

Culture as a Process in Levines Highbrow, Lowbrow Essay -- Highbrow L

Culture as a Process in Levine's Highbrow, Lowbrow In Highbrow, Lowbrow, Levine argues that a distinction between high and low culture that did not exist in the first half of the 19th century emerged by the turn of the century and solidified during the 20th century, and that despite a move in the last few decades toward a more ecumenical interpretation of â€Å"culture,† the distinction between high art and popular entertainment and the revering of a canon of sacred, inalterable cultural works persists. In the prologue Levine states that one of his central arguments is that concepts of cultural boundaries have changed over the period he treats. Throughout Highbrow, Lowbrow, Levine defines culture as a process rather than a fixed entity, and as a product of interactions between the past and the present. Levine’s first chapter presents evidence that 19th century Americans of all social classes enjoyed Shakespeare as an integral part of their culture and entertainment. Shakespeare’s works were familiar enough to the populace that a variety of parodies were written and performed for large crowds that displayed their engagement with the works by applause, vegetable-throwing, interruptions, and commands to the actors. Shakespeare’s plays were performed in frontier communities and in cities, in churches and theatres and make-shift stages, attended by people of all classes. He describes the integration of Shakespeare into the Americans’ language and imagination, and explains Shakespeare’s popularity on the basis of its compatibility with 19th century Americans’ oral rhetorical style and their ability to see their own culture’s emphasis on individualism and morality reflected in Shakespeare’s characters and stories. Levine ex... ... and others whom Levine treats are a different breed of reformers because they are concerned only indirectly with morality. But when Brown laments that today’s youth are intellectually wanting and have no connection with their cultural heritage, he uses bold phrases such as â€Å"junk food for the soul,† indicating that the erosion of appreciation for high culture is changing not only the common forms of entertainment but the character of today’s youth. Another parallel exists in Brown’s conception of culture and the Springhall’s reformers’ concept of morality as something that youth can access if they choose to break away from the evil influences of â€Å"mass† or â€Å"popular† culture – with the help, of course, of their moral or intellectual superiors, who long to inculcate their own (perhaps technologically or culturally outdated) ways of thinking into the next generation.

Cultural Influences Essay

How does an individual’s cultural experience influence his or her personality? Explain why or why not. Provide examples. Every person that is born in any family, in any part of the world is subjected to an upbringing that is surrounded by different sets of values, ethics and morals. These values in turn form the basis of a culture. The important point to note is that these values are never the same; they differ from culture to culture. A culture defines a society, the society in turn defines its norms and those norms and principles influence a personality(Reynolds , 2006). A personality is something that one cannot inherit. But it has a lot of power to be influenced by the atmosphere it is placed in. The question that rises in minds is how? Well let’s just say its human nature to adopt something that a person faces again and again repeatedly. To prove this we can see the example that the oldest of norms and values survive the most in any culture and thus are found to be a vital part of every person’s personality especially if they are from the same culture. This is why we note that people who migrate to different societies have problems in adjusting to the new culture. This is because their own native culture is so much ingrained in their personalities that it is difficult to eliminate it and replace it with new morals of the new society. The best example can be that of students who migrate to foreign countries for education. If a student who has been brought up in an eastern culture of the sub-continent will definitely have problems in adjusting to the new western culture that he has switched to. This is because that person has been brought up in a society that teaches him values completely opposite to the values of the western society that he has migrated to. And the old values are deep-rooted in his personality. He is greatly influenced by them therefore it results in problems regarding an adjustment in the culture. References Book Reynolds. J. (2006). Celebrate Connections among Cultures. Lee and Low Books.

How well does the opening section of London Tonight cater for your needs? Essay

For this piece of work I have decided to work on the news program ‘London Tonight’. It is broadcasted on ITV at 18:30 on a daily basis. It is shown at this time as it is after the BBC News which starts at 18:00. Once the commercials from the previous programme has finished the start of London Tonight is shown. This opening section is very important as it must grab the attention of the viewer to make them keep watching the show. They do this in numerous ways. They need to let their viewers no what their watching so the opening scenes are always the same, they have the same music and graphics and starts the show by saying the headlines. They begin with the main headlines followed by the sports headline. This is to let the viewer know what is about to be shown. It also needs to show who the news is aim towards. For example if it were aimed to children then the opening scene would be like that of ‘Newsround’ and the language used would not be of a high vocabulary and would be informal. London Tonight is aimed at adults and therefore it is more formal and serious than on Newsround. London Tonight show the opening scene very well as it kept me concentrating on the news and nothing else. The presenters on London Tonight are dressed formally as it is tailored towards adults and they must look smart. The news is presented quite seriously when it comes to serious matters but not so serious when the sports is shown. This may be as they want the audience to take the Main headlines seriously. They want the audience to relax more when showing the sport as it’s not as serious as the issues brought up in the main headlines. Everyone has different expectations from the news and therefore the news must be directed at a certain audience. This is done by what headlines is shown on the news programme. The main headline in London Tonight was on the Taliban and how they wanted American and British soldiers out of the country and were burning down schools and libraries.. This was a certain report I was interested in as it relates to me. This was not the only reason I carried on watching, the crew who had been filming had no protection at all and had even come across the Taliban who were armed. The Taliban were threatening to attack and soon enough the police had come. We can see from this report that it managed to grab the viewer’s attention in many ways. The film crew managed to capture a school which had been burnt down, at first you think this is the interesting part of the report, but then we see the Taliban rushing in firing their guns and then the police rushing in. This particular scene had some ‘action’ in which would have kept viewers fixed on the channel. To see this would have been a shock to the public and it is very rare to come across the Taliban especially while trying to film on a show. As this is a real life situation the audience is fixed to what is happening especially as there is mentioning of an attack on video footage. Once the video had been shown the presenters started to discuss the report and went into much depth of why the Taliban were doing what they did. They also showed a little bit about Saddam Hussains trial as there is a connection with the headline of the Taliban. Other news articles that were shown were those of the follow ups on a bank robbery which had occurred. This was the main headline a few days back and therefore were keeping the audience updated with the subject, this is another reason people would carry on watching. As they would have heard about this in the news recently they would like to be kept updated so showing this again would grab the attention of news watchers again. More headlines are shown and is then followed by the sport, this is part of the news I enjoy as I am a big sports fan. The sport for me was not as good as I thought it would have been. It showed about the rugby and football and also about the 2012 olympics campaign. Although it showed about the Champions League matches in the football it did not go into great depth about it and therefore didn’t get my attention as much and the 2012 campaign I felt was a little boring. This is because the 2012 olympics is going to be held in London and therefore they thought this would be good to show on the London Tonight. As the news doesn’t concentrate that much about sport this could be why I didn’t find it as interesting. Overall I think the news programme was quite a success. It had managed to get my attention from the start and keep me interested. The setting was quite good as it showed Big Ben in the background giving it the London feel. The presenters weren’t too serious but yet manage to get the news across to the audience in the right way. There were many camera angles as to which the news presenters were shown which didn’t make it boring always looking in one direction. The headlines reported were of good interest to a wide variety of audiences but I think it is aimed more at young adults as it seems quite active. It tailored the needs of the audience very well as it not only showed London news but world wide affairs too. The only problem with the news programme would be that serious sport fans would not get a very in depth report on the news but they will get the main sport headlines. So in conclusion a very well put together news programme.