Children’s Language Development

Children’s language development and second language acquisition Sandra Morales Texas Woman’s University Children’s language development and second language acquisition The paper investigates how children develop their cognitive and language skills in a context that is influenced by social and biological factors. The literature review discusses the Cognitive and Social Constructivism theories and their influence on the education field. In addition the author presents how children develop their language at different stages and how those stages influence the growth and development of a second language.Language acquisition is one of the most important topics in cognitive development. In the study of language development it is necessary to consider all the factors that affect cognitive development and their influence on child development. Many theorists investigate how children acquire language skills and how heredity, environment, culture, and biological factors infl uence language development (Meadows, 2006). Rationale It has been said that language is a characteristic that establishes a difference between animals and humans.It is the ability to communicate with others, transmit and receive information gathered through symbols, gestures, facial expressions or other ways to express thoughts that others can understand what has been said (Jones, 1972). What is language? According to Bochner (1997) language is a form of communication. It involves a system of signs and symbols that are used by a group of people to communicate. The symbols include but are not limited to written symbols and sounds.The language may be diverse in different cultures in terms of how the symbols system is used, the formal properties of the language, and the way people use that language to communicate with others in the same culture. Every culture has its own language system. As a matter of fact all languages have four main components (Bochner, 1997): Pragmatics (use) †“ learn to use the sounds, gestures, words, and body language. Meaning (semantics) –understand the messages, represented in words, or written.Rules (syntax and morphology) – use the grammatical system of the language, combine words to convey a meaning. Sounds – Are the words intelligible enough that others can understand them. Throughout this paper the author will discuss various theoretical perspectives associated with the language development of children at different stages of their development. Some scholars such as Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner and Chomsky have revealed common ideas between the language acquisition and the cognitive development that are being discussed in this paper.The purpose of this paper is to present the process of how children develop their language through the lenses of those four theorists and their contributions in the early childhood field. In addition the reader will find information regarding how children learn and develop a second language and the implication during the development. The primary consideration about language development is immersed in a controversy concerning the roots of language acquisition, and how people communicate their thinking processes, feelings and ideas.According to Meadows (2006) language development involves different processes that include but are not limited to physical, emotional and cognitive development. Having an understanding of the differences between individuals, their experiences and their contact with other adults and significant ones, will help to understand how the language is developed. All this provides the opportunities for growth and development in different areas that complement the life of the person. In relation to the development the contact and relation with others start influencing the baby in his mother's womb.During the gestational time the fetus can hear the voice of their mother, and other sounds (music, etc), and after their birth they can recognize the voice of others. In other words the learning process starts at early stages in child development. Literature Review Piaget Cognitive Constructivism Piaget’s main focus of constructivism has to do with the person and how they construct their knowledge. Piaget believed individuals must adapt to their environment, and develops as parts of the adaptation process to the environment.According to Piaget, the individual needs to understand the information that they are receiving in order to be able to use it; they must construct their own knowledge (Powell, 2009). For Piaget, language development is internal mental processes controlled by developmental processes and is done individually, without the interventions of others (Agbenyega, 2009). As a result of mastering one stage, children will be ready to move, learn, and develop according to the expectations of the next stage. In regards to language development Piaget sees language as part of the cognitive development.How children thin k determines when and what the child can speak. In addition Piaget, states that children’s talking abilities emerge naturally without any formal teaching by adults, however more sophisticated vocabulary require formal education and experiences with the language. During early stages of the development according to Piaget, words are related to schemas of actions related to the child and those schemas will later be incorporated into exiting schemas that will support future learning experiences. Through the process of assimilation and accommodation, children go searching for what Piaget called balance or equilibration.Assimilation according to Piaget, is when the individual adds new information into their schemas. Accommodation is when individuals change their schemas to understand new information into their knowledge. Piaget states that children learn to construct meaning about the new information and through assimilating and accommodating that information into their schemas. Du ring the equilibration the individual looks for information received that makes sense with previous information. When the children find that balance, they move again to a more comfortable stage where the information received makes sense.According to Piaget, children pass through different stages in their development; going through these stages provides children with a constant acquisition of information that will increase and help to build new knowledge and understanding of previous information learned. The basic principle of assimilation refers to the ability of children to use what they already know to understand the world around them. In contrast accommodation refers to the process of changing mental structures to provide consistency with external reality. It occurs when existing schemas are modified for a ew experience. Both principles help children to develop and construct their thinking patterns and use it according with their needs (Agbenyega, 2009). He believed that the mind does not respond to stimulus and consequences, but grows and change over different periods of time. In other words the intelligence appears progressively through the repetitions of activities that vary in each stage of the development. Piaget’s four stages of development: Sensorimotor from 0 to two during this stage children discover the environment around them, using their senses and then acquiring the language.Preoperational from two to seven years old: At this stage children develop language skills, however, they understand what they are saying but do not grasp totally what others have said. Here they distinguish pictures and other objects. Concrete operations from seven to eleven years old: At this stage children use their logical reasoning about things. Formal operations from eleven to adulthood: During this stage individuals use higher order thinking skills and abstractions to solve problems. Piaget’s stages of development are all about how children learn at dif ferent ages through their development.Based on the individual, all go through the same stages during their development. Social Constructivism Vygostsky and Bruner Social constructivism is based on the social interaction between the children with significant others, such as parents, caregivers, peers, and teachers. Vygotsky framework involves the social interactions and culture as part of the language development. He discussed the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The ZPD controls what the children learn, also what he can learn and do when he is helped by others. According to Vygotsky the learning process is easier when others are involved.Children may be asked to perform a task, students have some meaning of the task they need to complete, however, they may have difficult to do it. But with the adequate support to complete the task they will do it. Bruner's theory of constructivism discussed the idea of learning as an active process where the learners are able to form new ideas ba sed on their current and past knowledge. Jerome Bruner emphasized the importance of social interactions and explained that children develop language based on their contact with others as a result of educational processes (Bruner, 1960).He discussed scaffolding and how the construction of knowledge is based on their existing knowledge acquired during previous development. Scaffolding refers to the knowledge of previous skills that provide support for the acquisition of new learning experiences. Bruner and Vygostky believed that learning processes are tied to this concept, and facilitate a student’s ability to build on prior knowledge. For these theorists, the influence of experiences is a basic ingredient in the language development. Chomsky naturalistic approachChomsky argues that language is a unique human ability. He discussed the innate abilities of children to learn the language. As a result, all children go through the same process to learn a language (Stark, 2008). He d iscussed the language acquisition device (LAD) that allows children to produce in consistent ways the use of their first language. In this framework, all languages use nouns, pronouns, verbs, and other grammar rules. In addition, Chomsky established that children learn language through means other than imitation; they do not always imitate mistakes made by others.Chomsky maintains that it is necessary to have formal instruction in the proper use of language and grammar (Stark, 2008). Child language development When we speak about the communication process, we speak about the ability to receive and transfer information that other people can understand and mean something to others. Verbal and nonverbal forms are expressions that enhance the communication with others. The process of language development would be described as a continuous process that gradually changes during the individual development. As soon as after birth a process of communication begins.Infants try to communicate with adults using sounds, cooing. Those sounds are an important step on the road of language development, leading to a future stage where children are able to use the language to communicate in complex ways such as using words and sentences to express their thoughts. Language development includes understanding and communication skills based on words, spoken and written forms. According to Meadows (2006) different theoretical models such as Chomsky stated that language is innate and just with minimal exposure the child could develop their home language.The exposition to language pattern gives them the basic knowledge to learn the maternal tongue. The nature versus nurture perspective supports the point that when the child is exposed to a language, they will learn the patterns for that language naturally. In other words exposing a child to a language pattern will allow them to learn that language. However, the exposure to another language other than maternal tongue on a regular basis will provide with the pattern in that second language that the children will eventually learn, due to his exposition to the patterns and sound of that other language.Studies conducted by Macilla (2011) reveals that the frequency of the exposure to a second language and the consistency will influence how well the children will learn and perform using the second language. From birth the children are preparing for speech as a way to communicate with others. They are developing their physiological and cognitive structures to learn how to talk. Children pass through different stages to prepare the pharynx and larynx to produce those sounds, related to a pattern of their language.The native language of the child does not matter. They all move through the same stages using vowels and consonants to produce sounds that seem like words for the adults. The adults assign the meaning to the first sound that the babies produce. However, at the beginning there are just random patterns, babbling th at later during the development will continue into repeating the letter combination until the children learn a way to communicate using those patterns previously learned. All children are born with an innate ability to communicate (Chomsky 2006).As children grow language becomes an important tool to establish and maintain relationships with others. The nature of language includes the use of words, sentences and other grammar rules. It is important to understand the relationship between cognition and language development, in the context of prior knowledge and how experiences influence development (Wegerif, 2011). According to Bochner (1997) children move through these stages in learning to talk: Stage 1: Preliminary skills – Looking together, imitation, playing.Stage 2: Pre-verbal skills – Performatives (broom, quack) Stage 3: First words – â€Å"dog† â€Å"car† â€Å"mum† Stage 4: Early sentences – â€Å"daddy's car† â€Å"dog gone† Stage 5: Extending meaning – adding English morphemes, such as plurals Jones (1972) describes the stages in the development of speech as follows: Crying period – At birth, a newborns crying is the first vocal response to the environment around them. Vocal play period – Around the second month, infants begin to make different sounds. This production of sounds is an important step in the child’s language development.A variety of sounds may be heard in any language, but from the phonetic elements of babbling, the language that the child hears is the language that he or she eventually will use as their first language. Eventually, they will learn and master the grammar rules of that language. Sound imitation period – This period has two phases. The first phase begins around the six months and is initiated by the child’s awareness of sounds he produces. Because he likes what is being heard, he continues the repetition of those sounds. In the second phase, the child imitates sounds that he heard from others, â€Å"echolalia. This stage begins about the ninth month. The first sounds that the child imitates are those which are familiar, mostly coming from parents or caregivers. At this stage is when language development makes its formal appearance. The child comprehends simple words, specific vocalizations that have meaning for parents and caregivers. Language acquisition period – Begins about the last month of the first year. At this stage begins the conventional sound pattern or close to one. The child says the first words in their native language. The child understands and responds appropriately to others verbally.Between thirteen to eighteen months there is a slow growth of vocabulary. A language is based on grammatical structure, and that structure rests on rules that determine how to express thoughts. The three major components of language are: phonology (study of the smallest unit of speech called ph onemes), syntax (refers to the rules to form sentences), and semantic (the meaning of words and sentences). Every language has its own particularities; however, every language has the same components, in which people learn how to communicate based on the structure of their own language.To summarize how oral language is acquired, it is important to mention that the child moves through different stages during their development, in order to acquire the language and skills to be successful. Infants listen and very early begin to communicate their needs through the use of sounds and gestures. Toddlers use the language using simple sentences and asking questions. Young preschoolers used complete sentences to communicate. Theorists in language development discussed that a child produces sounds as a form to communicate with others.Those sounds come from his or her adaptation to the environment around them and as a consequence of the reinforcement by others during the learning and developmen tal processes. According to Beller (2008) the reinforcement occurs primarily when the child hears the sounds and considers those pleasant sounds. When those sounds are imitated by the child and he or she is rewarded in any way that produce satisfaction, the act of repetition begins, and eventually those sound combinations and repetitions open the door for a more sophisticated way of communication until the proper use of language appears.Learning a second language How children develop a second language has been a topic of interest since 1940 (Beller, 2008). Theorists discussed that learning a new language requires the use of existing structures that are supported by the first language. Language is a symbol for a social group. In many countries, people learn more than one language is associated with political issues. In many countries it is related to the level of education. To be considered educated in Europe, people have to know at least two languages. In the United States the secon d language is more related to immigrant issues.Many children who come from immigrant families learn their parent’s language and English as a second language. In future generations English will become their first language. During the early stages of the development of the mother tongue is necessary. It is considered part of the intellectual ability, is the individual’s first contact with language from birth, and supports emotional and cognitive development. Through the development the child learns the structure of his or her first language and that helps them to come up with his or her interpretations of the events around them.To master a second language according to Noormohamadi (2008) a child has to master his or her mother tongue. If the child does not master the first language, that will make the process of learning another language more difficult. When the first language is learned and the child has a total command of the language, the process of learning another l anguage will be supported by the first language, and all the concepts and learning can be transferred to the second language. The environment around the child has great influence on the child's vocabulary, skills, and general understanding of the language.According to Vygotsky, social interactions between children and adults influence the acquisition of any language. Another aspect to consider during the child's language development is the concept of nurturing. This concept is totally related to the social interactions. Nurturing bring up the issue of the relationship between the child and other adults. Children who are attached to their families are more likely to communicate for longer periods, and this helps their communication and language development.The amount of time children spend talking to others will improve their language skills. It is important to mention that each culture has standards of conversations between children and adults. Many cultures such as western cultures see children as conversational partners, promoting the verbal development of the child. Other cultures such as Hispanic culture do not discuss events or problems with their children. In these cultures children are not allowed to be active participants in adult conversations.Variations in social-cultural beliefs are aspects to consider in the development of a second language Oades-Sese (2011). The influence and relationship with others, within the same cultural values and language is significant and will add positive reinforcement to how the child learns and develops through his life. Based on Piaget's theory children learn and develop by organizing their experiences into schemas that helps them to understand the world around them. Those schemes are related to two important concepts in Piaget’s theory, adaptation and assimilation.During development children assimilate new information into the schemas that they already have, accommodating the new information into their mental structures. This process continues until the children learn the new information and come into a stage of equilibrium. For those children who are learning a second language the knowledge of their first language helps them in the acquisition of the second. All languages have their structure integrated by sounds, letters, grammar rules, and other factors that help the learner to acquire the language.The structure of each language contains variations such as alphabet, pronunciation, specific rules based on that language, but in general the similarities in structure facilitate the acquisition of the second language because using the knowledge in the first language helps make connections with the second language. Therefore the learning process is easier for the child. Conclusion The combination of the theories presented in this paper provides the author a new perspective regarding language acquisition and development in early childhood.Each theory supports Piaget, Vygotsky, and Chomsky fr ameworks based on observations and their studies on how children develop the language. However, each theory can blend to show how a child develops language and which methods can be used in order to reinforce the acquisition and retention of the first and second language. Each theory discussed helps to explain the process of language development, from Piaget’s cognitive constructivism which emphasizes a child’s ability to reason and construct his or her own knowledge, based on the individual experience, to Vygostky’s social influences and interactions to Chomsky’s nativism approach.All of these theories interpret language development differently. However, of all theories discussed throughout this paper it is the author’s belief that social interactions are the most helpful approach to understand how children develop language. Biological and environmental factors are necessary in order for a child to learn the language and develop the language. Moreo ver, the child’s interaction with others influences the acquisition of the language. It is important for the child to interact with others in order to learn the pattern of the language.Language development is a long process influenced by biological, family, and environmental factors that contribute the growth of the child in all aspects of their development including of course, the language acquisition. In order to learn another language, researchers such as Bruner, Vygotsky, Piaget, and Chomsky discussed the importance of learning and mastering the mother tongue. It is necessary to learn the grammar rules of the first language to use that knowledge to transfer the concepts learned into the second language. However, is a long learning process that starts after birth and continues through the child development.According to Mancilla-Martinez (2011) who stated that children need to continue having formal instruction in order to develops proficiency in the first language and have formal instruction in the second language. For some immigrants’ children born in a foreign country or even those who were born in the United States to immigrant parents, school is the first formal exposure to English language. This group will eventually come a large portion of the society needs the support of formal instruction to learn and develops the proficiency on the second language.To become proficient in the English language does not require parents use of English at home; however, to develop proficiency in the first language the instructional support and use of the language at home is necessary. It is necessary to be aware of the increments of this population and the particularities of each culture in order to support the language development (Mancilla Martinez, 2011). Many factors are associated with language development; most of them are associated when children begin attending primary grade levels, this is when the use of more sophisticated vocabulary is introduce d.The students need to learn the higher level of language in order to become proficient in the second language. Even learning the mother tongue, children need to learn more scholarly vocabulary and grammar rules appropriate for their age and to understand these when they encounter them in textbooks. When children come from homes in which a language other than English is used lead the proficiency in that language. Understanding the patterns of the first language is essential to developing effective programs to facilitate the study and acquisition of a second language.This fact is applicable for all levels of study of second languages. Therefore the educational systems should support the study and application of this in the teaching of second language. Mastery of the first language is a vital factor in the progress to study and acquire fluency in other languages. Its acquisition is a basis and support for all other languages studied throughout one's lifetime. References Agbenyega, J. (2009). The australian early development Index, who does it measure: Piaget or Vygotsky’s child? Australasian Journal of Early Childhood 34(2), 31-38.Beller, S. (2008). Fostering language acquisition in daycare settings. Early Childhood Development. 49, 1-52. Bloom, L. , Lahey, M. (1978). Language development and language disorders. US. Bochner, S. , Price, P ; Jones, J. (1997). Child language development. Lerning to talk. London: England. Chomsky, N. (2006). In Chomsky. Info. Retrieved February 9, 2011, Chomsky. Info Online: http://www. chomsky. info/ Chosmky, N. (2005). Three factors in language design. Linguistic Inquiry, 36(1), 1-22. Feldman, R. S. (2010). Essentials of Understanding Psychology. 9th edition Greene, M. 1960). Learning to talk. A parents’ guide to the first five years. US. NY. Jones, M. and Guidon, A. (1972). Language development. They key to learning. US. Mancilla-Martinez, J. and Lesaux, N. (2011). Early home language use and later vocabulary devel opment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(3), 535-546. Meadows, S. (2006). The Child as Thinker. The development and acquisition of cognition in childhood ( 2nd ed. ). NY: Routledge. Noormohamadi, R. (2008). Mother tongue, a necessary step to intellectual development. Journal Pan-Pacific Applied Linguistics, 12(2), 25-36.Oades-Sese, G. ; Li, Y. (2011). Attachment relationship as predictors of language skill for at-risk bilingual preschool children. Psychology in the Schools, 48(7), 707-722. doi: 10. 1002/pits. 20583. Piaget, J. (1928). The child’s conception of the world. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Powell, K. ,, and Kalina, C. (2009). Cognitive and social constructivism: Developing tools for an effective classroom. Education, 130(2), 241-250. Wegerif R. (2011). Towards a Dialogic Theory of How Children Learn to Think. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 6(3), 179–190.

Management Training Program in America

I want to use this opportunity to discuss two things, both near and dear to my heart; The United States Marine Corps and Management. Throughout this paper I want to focus on how I think civilians can learn to be better managers by using what that corps has established over it†s illustrious 223 years as the â€Å"Best Management-Training Program in America† Inc. (Freedman). The United States Marine Corps manages using a principle I learned in this course: Decentralization! Let me break this down. I learned it quite simply as the rule of three. But before I define this, I will briefly explain to you a small portion of the Marine rank structure. A Corporal is the first rank that an enlisted Marine is considered a leader due to his/her rank (though all Marines are trained to lead). The Corporal is the first of the Marine Non-commissioned Officers (NCO†S), then in ascending order is the Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Gunnery Sergeant, and so on. Now back to the rule of three. Each Marine has three responsibilities. In our organizational structure, a Corporal has a three-person fire team; a Sergeant has a squad of three fire teams; and a Staff Sergeant has a platoon of three squads; and so on, up to the Colonels and Generals. For the typical business, decentralizing and flattening organizational structure involves â€Å"gutting several layers of management, often leaving managers overwhelmed with as many as a dozen direct subordinates† (Freedman). In contrast, the Marine Corps has been able to push out authority but still maintain a â€Å"simple hierarchical structure designed to keep everyone†s job manageable† (Freedman). What at first glance may seem rigid or narrow, the many layers between the Private and Colonel lend opportunity for innovation. At the same time, even the lowest ranking Marine, the Private knows that he or she is expected to do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission. An organization (civilian) may want to look at this a little further. We must have established managers, but the notion of delegation of authority should be expanded in the civilian world. Well considered delegation of authority not only lifts some pressure off the titled manager, but also gives some well-deserved leadership satisfaction to an employee who may never have had the chance to be a â€Å"manager†. The success of the Marine Corps Management strategy is apparent in the vast numbers of ex-Marines who hold the Chief Executive Officer, President, Vice President, Chairman, and Manager positions at all levels in top. Although exact statistics were not available at this writing, the extraordinary number of ex-Marine managers has been documented. Dillon and Macht, in their article, â€Å"The few, the Proud, the CEOs: Former grunts on the Marine Corps way of doing business,† elucidate the transition from dress blues to business suit. Phillip Rooney, vice chairman of ServiceMaster Co. and countless other ex-Marines, there is no better preparation for running a business than the intense training of the U. S. Marine Corps. â€Å"Nothing can quite compare with Marine Corps training and combat service to stretch your leadership skills in bringing people together to accomplish a mission† (Dillon and Macht) Another ex-Marine cited in Dillon and Macht, Quaker Oats CEO Robert Morrison, strengthens the case for the Marine Corps brand of decentralized management. â€Å"There were clear parameters that were instilled in everybody†s mind, but in an actual battle situation, within those parameters, people had incredible freedom to act. † Morrison has found the Marines† principle of decentralization â€Å"tremendously important in business. Management can instill principles and guidelines, but you can†t do people†s jobs for them† (Morrison). The organizational structure, which allows for freedom to act, while demanding personal responsibility to meet organizational goals, seems to be a ready formula for success. â€Å"What ever you environment is, it will change. In business it will change fast. You can learn to make quick decisions without all the information; you†re tolerant of those who make mistakes but intolerant of those who can†t act fast† (Caulfield). One Chicago job placement company, Hire Quality Inc. , specializes in placing honorably discharged military personnel and embraces the Marines â€Å"rule of three. â€Å"I have a chief operating officer reporting to me, he has three people reporting to him, and so on down the line† (Caulfield). A closer inspection of Marine management structure reveals flexibility in a defined structure. Innovation that is spawned at one level may travel both up through higher ups and down through the ranks. The Marine Corps also takes advantage of innovation from the civilian sector, by training officers on Wall Street to get a lesson in how to make fast decisions based on information flowing in through banks on monitors. The combination of strong management and training with attention towards evolving methods and technologies buttresses organizational structure, both military and civilian. No one argues that the Marine Corps way is the only successful strategy for business. However, in many time tested examples Managing from the Corps has proven successful. Further exploration can only benefit those of us that will be managing the next millennium.

Case Nestle

In 1905, the company merged with the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk, thereby broadening the company’s product line to include both condensed milk and infant formulas. Forced by Switzerland’s small size to look outside’ its borders for growth opportunities, Nestle established condensed milk and infant food processing plants in the United States and Britain in the late 19th century and in Australia, South America, Africa, and Asia in the first three decades of the 20th century. In 1929, Nestle moved into the chocolate business when it acquired a Swiss chocolate maker. This was followed in 1938 by the development of Nestle’s most revolutionary product, Nescafe, the world’s first soluble coffee drink. After World War 11, Nestle continued to expand into other areas of the food business, primarily through a series of acquisitions that included Maggi (1947), Cross Blackwell (1960), Findus (1962), Libby’s (1970), Stouffer’s (1973), Carnation (1985), Rowntree (1988), and Perrier (1992). By the late 1990s, Nestle had 500 factories in 76 countries and sold its products in a staggering 193 nations-almost every country in the world. In 1998, the company generated sales of close to SWF 72 billion ($51 billion), only 1 percent of which occurred in its home country. Similarly, only 3 percent of its- 210,000 employees were located in Switzerland. Nestle was the world’s biggest maker of infant formula, powdered milk, chocolates, instant coffee, soups, and mineral waters. It was number two in ice cream, breakfast cereals, and pet food. Roughly 38 percent of its food sales were made in Europe, 32 percent in the Americas, and 20 percent in Africa and Asia. Management Structure Nestle is a decentralized organization. Responsibility for operating decisions is pushed down to local units, which typically enjoy a high degree f autonomy with regard to decisions involving pricing, distribution, marketing, human resources, and so on. At the same time, the company is organized into seven worldwide strategic business units (SBUs) that have responsibility for high-level strategic decisions and business development. For example, a strategic business unit focuses on coffee and beverages. Another one focuses on confectionery and ice cream. These SBUs engage in overall strategy development, including acquisitions and market entry strategy. In recent years, two-thirds of Nestle’s growth has come from acquisitions, so this is a critical function. Running in parallel to this structure is a regional organization that divides the world into five major geographical zones, such as Europe, North America and Asia. The regional organizations assist in the overall strategy development process and are responsible for developing regional strategies (an example would be Nestle’s strategy in the Middle East, which was discussed earlier). Neither the SBU nor regional managers, however, get involved in local operating or strategic decisions on anything other than an exceptional basis. Although Nestle makes intensive use of local managers to knit its diverse worldwide operations together, the company relies on its â€Å"expatriate army. †Ã‚   This consists of about 700 managers who spend the bulk of their careers on foreign assignments, moving from one country to the next. Selected primarily on the basis of their ability, drive and willingness to live a quasi-nomadic lifestyle, these individuals often work in half-a-dozen natiosn during their careers. Nestle also uses management development programs as a strategic tool for creating an  esprit de corps  among managers. At Rive-Reine, the company’s international training center in Switzerland, the company brings together, managers from around the world, at different stages in their careers, for specially targetted development programs of two to three weeks’ duration. The objective of these programs is to give the managers a better understanding of Nestle’s culture and strategy, and to give them access to the company’s top management. The research and development operation has a special place within Nestle, which is not surprising for a company that was established to commercialize innovative foodstuffs. The RD function comprises 18 different groups that operate in 11 countries throughout the world. Nestle spends approximately 1 percent of its annual sales revenue on RD and has 3,100 employees dedicated to the function. Around 70 percent of the RD budget is spent on development initiatives. These initiatives focus on developing products and processes that fulfill market needs, as identified by the SBUs, in concert with regional and local managers. For example, Nestle instant noodle products were originally developed by the RD group in response to the perceived needs of local operating companies through the Asian region. The company also has longer-term development projects that focus on developing new technological platforms, such as non-animal protein sources or agricultural biotechnology products. A Growth Strategy for the 21st  Century Despite its undisputed success, Nestle realized by the early 1990s, that it faced significant challenges in maintaining its growth rate. The large Western European and North American markets were mature. In several countries, population growth had stagnated and in some, there had been a small decline in food consumption. The retail environment in many Western nations had become increasingly challenging and the balance of power was shifting away from the large-scale manufacturers of branded foods and beverages, and toward nationwide supermarket and discount chains. Increasingly, retailers found themselves in the unfamiliar position of playing off against each other – manufacturers of branded foods, thus bargaining down prices. Particularly in Europe, this trend was enhanced by the successful introduction of private-label brands by several of Europe’s leading supermarket chains. The results included increased price competition in several key segments of the food and beverage market, such as cereals, coffee and soft drinks. At Nestle, one response has been to look toward emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America for growth possibilities. The logic is simple and obvious – a combination of economic and population growth, when coupled with the widespread adoption of market-oriented economic policies by the governments of many developing nations, makes for attractive business opportunities. Many of these countries are still relatively poor, but their economies are growing rapidly. For example, if current economic growth forecasts occur, by 2010, there will be 700 million people in China and India that have income levels approaching those of Spain in the mid-1990s. As income levels rise, it is increasingly likely that consumers in these nations will start to substitute branded food products for basic foodstuffs, creating a large market opportunity for companies such as Nestle. In general, the company’s strategy had been to enter emerging markets early – before competitors – and build a substantial position by selling basic food items that appeal to the local population base, such as infant formula, condensed milk, noodles and tofu. By narrowing its initial market focus to just a handful of strategic brands, Nestle claims it can simplify life, reduce risk, and concentrate its marketing resources and managerial effort on a limited number of key niches. The goal is to build a commanding market position in each of these niches. By pursuing such a strategy, Nestle has taken as much as 85 percent of the market for instant coffee in Mexico, 66 percent of the market for powdered milk in the Philippines, and 70 percent of the markets for soups in Chile. As income levels rise, the company progressively moves out from these niches, introducing more upscale items, such as mineral water, chocolate, cookies, and prepared foodstuffs. Although the company is known worldwide for several key brands, such as Nescafe, it uses local brands in many markets. The company owns 8,500 brands, but only 750 of them are registered in more than one country, and only 80 are registered in more than 10 countries. While the company will use the same â€Å"global brands† in multiple developed markets, in the developing world it focuses on trying to optimize ingredients and processing technology to local conditions and then using a brand name that resonates locally. Customization rather than globalization is the key to the company’s strategy in emerging markets. Executing the Strategy Successful execution of the strategy for developing markets requires a degree of flexibility, an ability to adapt in often unforeseen ways to local conditions, and a long-term perspective that puts building a sustainable business before short-term profitability. In Nigeria, for example, a crumbling road system, aging trucks, and the danger of violence forced the company to re-think its traditional distribution methods. Instead of operating a central warehouse, as is its preference in most nations, the country. For safety reasons, trucks carrying Nestle goods are allowed to travel only during the day and frequently under-armed guard. Marketing also poses challenges in Nigeria. With little opportunity for typical Western-style advertising on television of billboards, the company hired local singers to go to towns and villages offering a mix of entertainment and product demonstrations. China provides another interesting example of local adaptation and long-term focus. After 13 years of talks, Nestle was formally invited into China in 1987, by the Government of Heilongjiang province. Nestle opened a plant to produce powdered milk and infant formula there in 1990, but quickly realized that the local rail and road infrastructure was inadequate and inhibited the collection of milk and delivery of finished products. Rather than make do with the local infrastructure, Nestle embarked on an ambitious plan to establish its own distribution network, known as milk roads, between 27 villages in the region and factory collection points, called chilling centres. Farmers brought their milk – often on bicycles or carts – to the centres where it was weighed and analysed. Unlike the government, Nestle paid the farmers promptly. Suddenly the farmers had an incentive to produce milk and many bought a second cow, increasing the cow population in the district by 3,000 to 9,000 in 18 months. Area managers then organized a delivery system that used dedicated vans to deliver the milk to Nestle’s factory. Although at first glance this might seem to be a very costly solution, Nestle calculated that the long-term benefits would be substantial. Nestle’s strategy is similar to that undertaken by many European and American companies during the first waves of industrialization in those countries. Companies often had to invest in infrastructure that we now take for granted to get production off the ground. Once the infrastructure was in place, in China, Nestle’s production took off. In 1990, 316 tons of powdered milk and infant formula were produced. By 1994, output exceeded 10,000 tons and the company decided to triple capacity. Based on this experience, Nestle decided to build another two powdered milk factories in China and was aiming to generate sales of $700 million by 2000. Nestle is pursuing a similar long-term bet in the Middle East, an area in which most multinational food companies have little presence. Collectively, the Middle East accounts for only about 2 percent of Nestle’s worldwide sales and the individual markets are very small. However, Nestle’s long-term strategy is based on the assumption that regional conflicts will subside and intra-regional trade ill expand as trade barriers between countries in the region come down. Once that happens, Nestle’s factories in the Middle East should be able to sell throughout the region, thereby realizing scale economies. In anticipation of this development, Nestle has established a network of factories in five countries, in the hope that each will, someday, supply the entire region with different products. The company, currently makes ice-cream in Dubai, soups and cereals in Saudi Arabia, yogurt and bouillon in Egypt, chocolate in Turkey, and ketchup and instant noodles in Syria. For the present, Nestle can survive in these markets by using local materials and focusing on local demand. The Syrian factory, for example, relies on products that use tomatoes, a major local agricultural product. Syria also produces wheat, which is the main ingredient in instant noodles. Even if trade barriers don’t come down soon, Nestle has indicated it will remain committed to the region. By using local inputs and focussing on local consumer needs, it has earned a good rate of return in the region, even though the individual markets are small. Despite its successes in places such as China and parts of the Middle East, not all of Nestle’s moves have worked out so well. Like several other Western companies, Nestle has had its problems in Japan, where a failure to adapt its coffee brand to local conditions meant the loss of a significant market opportunity to another Western company, Coca Cola. For years, Nestle’s instant coffee brand was the dominant coffee product in Japan. In the 1960s, cold canned coffee (which can be purchased from soda vending machines) started to gain a following in Japan. Nestle dismissed the product as just a coffee-flavoured drink rather than the real thing and declined to enter the market. Nestle’s local partner at the time, Kirin Beer, was so incensed at Nestle’s refusal to enter the canned coffee market that it broke off its relationship with the company. In contrast, Coca Cola entered the market with Georgia, a product developed specifically for this segment of the Japanese market. By leveraging its existing distribution channel, Coca Cola captured a 40 percent share of the $4 billion a year, market for canned coffee in Japan. Nestle, which failed to enter the market until the 1980s, has only a 4 percent share. While Nestle has built businesses from the ground up, in many emerging markets, such as Nigeria and China, in others it will purchase local companies if suitable candidates can be found. The company pursued such a strategy in Poland, which it entered in 1994, by purchasing Goplana, the country’s second largest chocolate manufacturer. With the collapse of communism and the opening of the Polish market, income levels in Poland have started to rise and so has chocolate consumption. Once a scarce item, the market grew by 8 percent a year, throughout the 1990s. To take advantage of this opportunity, Nestle has pursued a strategy of evolution, rather than revolution. It has kept the top management of the company staffed with locals – as it does in most of its operations around the world – and carefully adjusted Goplana’s product line to better match local opportunities. At the same time, it has pumped money into Goplana’s marketing, which has enabled the unit to gain share from several other chocolate makers in the country. Still, competition in the market is intense. Eight companies, including several foreign-owned enterprises, such as the market leader, Wedel, which is owned by PepsiCo, are vying for market share, and this has depressed prices and profit margins, despite the healthy volume growth. Discussions: 1. Does it make sense for Nestle to focus its growth efforts on emerging markets? Why? 2. What is the company’s strategy with regard to business development in emerging markets? Does this strategy make sense? From an organizational perspective, what is required for this strategy to work effectively? 3. Through your own research on NESTLE, identify appropriate performance indicators. Once you have gathered relevant data on these, undertake a performance analysis of the company over the last five years. What does the analysis tell you about the success or otherwise of the strategy adopted by the company? 4. How would you describe Nestle’s strategic posture at the corporate level; is it pursuing a global strategy, a multidomestic strategy an international strategy or a transnational strategy? 5. Does this overall strategic posture make sense given the markets and countries that Nestle participates in? Why? 6. Is Nestle’s management structure and philosophy aligned with its overall strategic posture? Case Nestle In 1905, the company merged with the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk, thereby broadening the company’s product line to include both condensed milk and infant formulas. Forced by Switzerland’s small size to look outside’ its borders for growth opportunities, Nestle established condensed milk and infant food processing plants in the United States and Britain in the late 19th century and in Australia, South America, Africa, and Asia in the first three decades of the 20th century. In 1929, Nestle moved into the chocolate business when it acquired a Swiss chocolate maker. This was followed in 1938 by the development of Nestle’s most revolutionary product, Nescafe, the world’s first soluble coffee drink. After World War 11, Nestle continued to expand into other areas of the food business, primarily through a series of acquisitions that included Maggi (1947), Cross Blackwell (1960), Findus (1962), Libby’s (1970), Stouffer’s (1973), Carnation (1985), Rowntree (1988), and Perrier (1992). By the late 1990s, Nestle had 500 factories in 76 countries and sold its products in a staggering 193 nations-almost every country in the world. In 1998, the company generated sales of close to SWF 72 billion ($51 billion), only 1 percent of which occurred in its home country. Similarly, only 3 percent of its- 210,000 employees were located in Switzerland. Nestle was the world’s biggest maker of infant formula, powdered milk, chocolates, instant coffee, soups, and mineral waters. It was number two in ice cream, breakfast cereals, and pet food. Roughly 38 percent of its food sales were made in Europe, 32 percent in the Americas, and 20 percent in Africa and Asia. Management Structure Nestle is a decentralized organization. Responsibility for operating decisions is pushed down to local units, which typically enjoy a high degree f autonomy with regard to decisions involving pricing, distribution, marketing, human resources, and so on. At the same time, the company is organized into seven worldwide strategic business units (SBUs) that have responsibility for high-level strategic decisions and business development. For example, a strategic business unit focuses on coffee and beverages. Another one focuses on confectionery and ice cream. These SBUs engage in overall strategy development, including acquisitions and market entry strategy. In recent years, two-thirds of Nestle’s growth has come from acquisitions, so this is a critical function. Running in parallel to this structure is a regional organization that divides the world into five major geographical zones, such as Europe, North America and Asia. The regional organizations assist in the overall strategy development process and are responsible for developing regional strategies (an example would be Nestle’s strategy in the Middle East, which was discussed earlier). Neither the SBU nor regional managers, however, get involved in local operating or strategic decisions on anything other than an exceptional basis. Although Nestle makes intensive use of local managers to knit its diverse worldwide operations together, the company relies on its â€Å"expatriate army. †Ã‚   This consists of about 700 managers who spend the bulk of their careers on foreign assignments, moving from one country to the next. Selected primarily on the basis of their ability, drive and willingness to live a quasi-nomadic lifestyle, these individuals often work in half-a-dozen natiosn during their careers. Nestle also uses management development programs as a strategic tool for creating an  esprit de corps  among managers. At Rive-Reine, the company’s international training center in Switzerland, the company brings together, managers from around the world, at different stages in their careers, for specially targetted development programs of two to three weeks’ duration. The objective of these programs is to give the managers a better understanding of Nestle’s culture and strategy, and to give them access to the company’s top management. The research and development operation has a special place within Nestle, which is not surprising for a company that was established to commercialize innovative foodstuffs. The RD function comprises 18 different groups that operate in 11 countries throughout the world. Nestle spends approximately 1 percent of its annual sales revenue on RD and has 3,100 employees dedicated to the function. Around 70 percent of the RD budget is spent on development initiatives. These initiatives focus on developing products and processes that fulfill market needs, as identified by the SBUs, in concert with regional and local managers. For example, Nestle instant noodle products were originally developed by the RD group in response to the perceived needs of local operating companies through the Asian region. The company also has longer-term development projects that focus on developing new technological platforms, such as non-animal protein sources or agricultural biotechnology products. A Growth Strategy for the 21st  Century Despite its undisputed success, Nestle realized by the early 1990s, that it faced significant challenges in maintaining its growth rate. The large Western European and North American markets were mature. In several countries, population growth had stagnated and in some, there had been a small decline in food consumption. The retail environment in many Western nations had become increasingly challenging and the balance of power was shifting away from the large-scale manufacturers of branded foods and beverages, and toward nationwide supermarket and discount chains. Increasingly, retailers found themselves in the unfamiliar position of playing off against each other – manufacturers of branded foods, thus bargaining down prices. Particularly in Europe, this trend was enhanced by the successful introduction of private-label brands by several of Europe’s leading supermarket chains. The results included increased price competition in several key segments of the food and beverage market, such as cereals, coffee and soft drinks. At Nestle, one response has been to look toward emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America for growth possibilities. The logic is simple and obvious – a combination of economic and population growth, when coupled with the widespread adoption of market-oriented economic policies by the governments of many developing nations, makes for attractive business opportunities. Many of these countries are still relatively poor, but their economies are growing rapidly. For example, if current economic growth forecasts occur, by 2010, there will be 700 million people in China and India that have income levels approaching those of Spain in the mid-1990s. As income levels rise, it is increasingly likely that consumers in these nations will start to substitute branded food products for basic foodstuffs, creating a large market opportunity for companies such as Nestle. In general, the company’s strategy had been to enter emerging markets early – before competitors – and build a substantial position by selling basic food items that appeal to the local population base, such as infant formula, condensed milk, noodles and tofu. By narrowing its initial market focus to just a handful of strategic brands, Nestle claims it can simplify life, reduce risk, and concentrate its marketing resources and managerial effort on a limited number of key niches. The goal is to build a commanding market position in each of these niches. By pursuing such a strategy, Nestle has taken as much as 85 percent of the market for instant coffee in Mexico, 66 percent of the market for powdered milk in the Philippines, and 70 percent of the markets for soups in Chile. As income levels rise, the company progressively moves out from these niches, introducing more upscale items, such as mineral water, chocolate, cookies, and prepared foodstuffs. Although the company is known worldwide for several key brands, such as Nescafe, it uses local brands in many markets. The company owns 8,500 brands, but only 750 of them are registered in more than one country, and only 80 are registered in more than 10 countries. While the company will use the same â€Å"global brands† in multiple developed markets, in the developing world it focuses on trying to optimize ingredients and processing technology to local conditions and then using a brand name that resonates locally. Customization rather than globalization is the key to the company’s strategy in emerging markets. Executing the Strategy Successful execution of the strategy for developing markets requires a degree of flexibility, an ability to adapt in often unforeseen ways to local conditions, and a long-term perspective that puts building a sustainable business before short-term profitability. In Nigeria, for example, a crumbling road system, aging trucks, and the danger of violence forced the company to re-think its traditional distribution methods. Instead of operating a central warehouse, as is its preference in most nations, the country. For safety reasons, trucks carrying Nestle goods are allowed to travel only during the day and frequently under-armed guard. Marketing also poses challenges in Nigeria. With little opportunity for typical Western-style advertising on television of billboards, the company hired local singers to go to towns and villages offering a mix of entertainment and product demonstrations. China provides another interesting example of local adaptation and long-term focus. After 13 years of talks, Nestle was formally invited into China in 1987, by the Government of Heilongjiang province. Nestle opened a plant to produce powdered milk and infant formula there in 1990, but quickly realized that the local rail and road infrastructure was inadequate and inhibited the collection of milk and delivery of finished products. Rather than make do with the local infrastructure, Nestle embarked on an ambitious plan to establish its own distribution network, known as milk roads, between 27 villages in the region and factory collection points, called chilling centres. Farmers brought their milk – often on bicycles or carts – to the centres where it was weighed and analysed. Unlike the government, Nestle paid the farmers promptly. Suddenly the farmers had an incentive to produce milk and many bought a second cow, increasing the cow population in the district by 3,000 to 9,000 in 18 months. Area managers then organized a delivery system that used dedicated vans to deliver the milk to Nestle’s factory. Although at first glance this might seem to be a very costly solution, Nestle calculated that the long-term benefits would be substantial. Nestle’s strategy is similar to that undertaken by many European and American companies during the first waves of industrialization in those countries. Companies often had to invest in infrastructure that we now take for granted to get production off the ground. Once the infrastructure was in place, in China, Nestle’s production took off. In 1990, 316 tons of powdered milk and infant formula were produced. By 1994, output exceeded 10,000 tons and the company decided to triple capacity. Based on this experience, Nestle decided to build another two powdered milk factories in China and was aiming to generate sales of $700 million by 2000. Nestle is pursuing a similar long-term bet in the Middle East, an area in which most multinational food companies have little presence. Collectively, the Middle East accounts for only about 2 percent of Nestle’s worldwide sales and the individual markets are very small. However, Nestle’s long-term strategy is based on the assumption that regional conflicts will subside and intra-regional trade ill expand as trade barriers between countries in the region come down. Once that happens, Nestle’s factories in the Middle East should be able to sell throughout the region, thereby realizing scale economies. In anticipation of this development, Nestle has established a network of factories in five countries, in the hope that each will, someday, supply the entire region with different products. The company, currently makes ice-cream in Dubai, soups and cereals in Saudi Arabia, yogurt and bouillon in Egypt, chocolate in Turkey, and ketchup and instant noodles in Syria. For the present, Nestle can survive in these markets by using local materials and focusing on local demand. The Syrian factory, for example, relies on products that use tomatoes, a major local agricultural product. Syria also produces wheat, which is the main ingredient in instant noodles. Even if trade barriers don’t come down soon, Nestle has indicated it will remain committed to the region. By using local inputs and focussing on local consumer needs, it has earned a good rate of return in the region, even though the individual markets are small. Despite its successes in places such as China and parts of the Middle East, not all of Nestle’s moves have worked out so well. Like several other Western companies, Nestle has had its problems in Japan, where a failure to adapt its coffee brand to local conditions meant the loss of a significant market opportunity to another Western company, Coca Cola. For years, Nestle’s instant coffee brand was the dominant coffee product in Japan. In the 1960s, cold canned coffee (which can be purchased from soda vending machines) started to gain a following in Japan. Nestle dismissed the product as just a coffee-flavoured drink rather than the real thing and declined to enter the market. Nestle’s local partner at the time, Kirin Beer, was so incensed at Nestle’s refusal to enter the canned coffee market that it broke off its relationship with the company. In contrast, Coca Cola entered the market with Georgia, a product developed specifically for this segment of the Japanese market. By leveraging its existing distribution channel, Coca Cola captured a 40 percent share of the $4 billion a year, market for canned coffee in Japan. Nestle, which failed to enter the market until the 1980s, has only a 4 percent share. While Nestle has built businesses from the ground up, in many emerging markets, such as Nigeria and China, in others it will purchase local companies if suitable candidates can be found. The company pursued such a strategy in Poland, which it entered in 1994, by purchasing Goplana, the country’s second largest chocolate manufacturer. With the collapse of communism and the opening of the Polish market, income levels in Poland have started to rise and so has chocolate consumption. Once a scarce item, the market grew by 8 percent a year, throughout the 1990s. To take advantage of this opportunity, Nestle has pursued a strategy of evolution, rather than revolution. It has kept the top management of the company staffed with locals – as it does in most of its operations around the world – and carefully adjusted Goplana’s product line to better match local opportunities. At the same time, it has pumped money into Goplana’s marketing, which has enabled the unit to gain share from several other chocolate makers in the country. Still, competition in the market is intense. Eight companies, including several foreign-owned enterprises, such as the market leader, Wedel, which is owned by PepsiCo, are vying for market share, and this has depressed prices and profit margins, despite the healthy volume growth. Discussions: 1. Does it make sense for Nestle to focus its growth efforts on emerging markets? Why? 2. What is the company’s strategy with regard to business development in emerging markets? Does this strategy make sense? From an organizational perspective, what is required for this strategy to work effectively? 3. Through your own research on NESTLE, identify appropriate performance indicators. Once you have gathered relevant data on these, undertake a performance analysis of the company over the last five years. What does the analysis tell you about the success or otherwise of the strategy adopted by the company? 4. How would you describe Nestle’s strategic posture at the corporate level; is it pursuing a global strategy, a multidomestic strategy an international strategy or a transnational strategy? 5. Does this overall strategic posture make sense given the markets and countries that Nestle participates in? Why? 6. Is Nestle’s management structure and philosophy aligned with its overall strategic posture?

The Devolution of Greek Economy Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

The Devolution of Greek Economy - Dissertation Example The humans have managed to evolve by thinking of new and different things. The ability to innovate had always helped the sons and daughters of Adam to get out of the caves that remained their home for centuries. The human race with the passage of time learned the art and science of building homes and sowing seeds. These activities have assisted the mankind in moving in the direction of industrialization. The industrialization is a trend and is also a force that caused the needs of the masses to be fulfilled over a period of long tenure. The scientific development and growth is done in order to facilitate the achievement of industrialists’ objectives and goals (Oakey, 60). The economy is always known to be controlled by the local corporate sector of the country. There are two significant powers in the world. The first one is called the power of entropy that forces any system to disintegrate over the years and the other one is the strength of evolution that with the help of huma n effort makes things better and better (Peck, 115). The scientific development and the growth in every other field are repeatedly attributed to the people who dared to think differently (Baron and Tang, 55). The different and unique people have always been defined by the ability to see the world in a different way and method. The evolution has its roots in the ability and power of the people who are blessed with the tendency to see, observe and think. The quality of life on the other hand, is directly related with the local entrepreneur’s ability to translate new product and business ideas into commercialized corporate offerings. The offerings are also not the end in themselves but they have to be made better in order to overcome the traditional power of entropy and disintegration. The disintegration is created by the nature itself in order to keep the humans attempting to evolve and inspire. The economic growth is always caused by the force of inspiration that makes people to think and try to become more than what they are in their current state (Fuglsang, Sundbo and Sorensen, 663). The leaders are famous for playing their due hand in the process of evolution as they are primarily responsible for giving direction and purpose to people. The governments are supposed to provide the services of leadership by fueling the process of development and evolution. The Chios Island is the fifth biggest one in the country of Greece and it has a population of 55,000 but the area remained much neglected in the past as the shipping served the country as a major industry in the past years. However, the tide is turning and Chios Island is finally getting all the attention it needed because it is becoming an agricultural hub of the region. The immigrants are building their homes in the Island so that they can take care of the fields while, keeping their families in the newly developing residential areas. Research Question Following is the research questions of the study : - Q.1 Would economic crisis in Greece, be the motive in rehabilitation of abandoned rural areas and its settlements? Significance of the Study The importance, value and significance of the study exist because it is going to discuss the effects of growing population in the rural areas of

Motivation in the NHS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6000 words

Motivation in the NHS - Essay Example The new concepts which are incorporated into the NHS are now including resources, funding allocated to assist with services and the building of communities which can assist with the needs in health care and the concepts associated with this. Connections to corporations as well as physicians are furthering the success of this organization while allowing new funding and high performance to be associated with the main corporation (NHS, 2011). While there are several opportunities available for NHS, there are also curtain standings that are altering the way in which the corporation functions and what is available for those in need of health assistance. The main concept that is now being initiated is linked directly to the government, which is moving into a reform with the service. This is designed to offer equitable solutions for those who are in need of health care. The initial structure of the NHS is linked to the governmental sector, making all restrictions and obligations with polici es and reforms directly responsible for those who are involved in this movement. Legitimacy that is associated with health costs, regulating healthcare providers and liberating the restrictions that are associated with the NHS are the three main objectives of the government and the link to NHS. The main ideal is to keep the standards of equity while ensuring that each individual that links to the NHS is able to receive the comprehensive health care needed (DH, 1: 2011). The liberation which is being structured with government policies and concepts is furthered by the structure which is continuing to grow with the NHS. The first is based on the main structure. This is divided first by the... This paper stresses that the various concepts which are associated with motivation among the National Health Service employees is based on various dimensions which continue to affect the interactions of those which are involved with the professional concepts of the industry. When looking at the interactions, it can be seen that there is a direct relationship to the economic and political shifts. These are each involved with motivations that come from policies, expectations in the industry and the involvement which individuals have in the profession to receiving benefits in terms of political and economic opportunities. This reprot makes a conclusion that there are considerations within the NHS, specifically because of the structure and relationship which is associated with the health care industry. The current structure is one which provides human resource management tools to customers, other health care assistants and from the governments. The constraints of this are related to the policies and political agendas that come from each of these branches of the NHS. There are also constraints with the economic expectations and how this relates to the overall industry. For the NHS to begin to change, there is the need to look at the motivational factors within health care, specifically in relation to the policies and how this affects the human resources, available opportunities for those involved with the NHS and the abilities which are a part of growth in the industry. By understanding these different levels, changes can be made in terms of motivation and how individuals and customers now relate to the health care industry.

Market Orientation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Market Orientation - Essay Example In such cases, marketing and advertising should be based on strategy different from the traditional approach (Mullins & Walker, 2010). Considering the case of funeral services, a business proposition that has gained widespread acceptance worldwide, still seems to be a taboo when it comes to marketing and advertising. Although human beings acknowledge the fact that death is inevitable, no one would eagerly wait or plan for it in advance, or even think about death. The Federal Trade Commission (2004) defines funeral services as services used to care for and prepare bodies for burial, cremation, or other final disposition; and, services used to arrange, supervise, or conduct the funeral ceremony or final disposition of human remains (Complying with the funeral rule, 2004; p.2). Without marketing the services, organizations providing these services will not be able to survive. However, marketing and advertising these services is very difficult as it might seem offensive to the general pu blic. Moreover, in this business, services are sought only when the need arises. The need is accompanied by many other deeper emotions, which could potentially suppress the buyers’ choice of company. This would again mean loss for the firms that are unable to spread awareness of their existence in the appropriate manner. In marketing sphere, advertising such products/services are commonly referred to as controversial advertising as they deal with socially sensitive issues. Such services have legal restrictions on advertising and portrayal. Waller (1999) points out that these products are faced with reasons related to delicacy, decency, morality, or even fear of distaste, disgust, offence, or outrage when mentioned or openly presented (p.289). In spite of these challenges, such services can be sold by adopting distant approaches. Advertising about provision of funeral services can be done through brochures, banners, posters, audio etc. Although it is good idea to make these ad vertisements impersonal or rather only information providing medium, it would be a better idea to make points that touch human emotions in the right manner. These advertisements must be more empathetic than sympathetic. In this sense, cognitive positioning that addresses the problems or solutions of the situation in which these services may be needed would give an empathetic perspective. To market about funeral services, the business owners cannot expect potential customers to walk up to them or start looking out for one. Hence, it becomes the onus of the business personnel to reach out to people where they can find potential for usage of their services. These could be hospice care centers, rehabilitation centers, florists, home for the elderly etc. When marketing or selling funeral services, it is important to establish a position as trusted partner who can assist the clients in the right manner in time of great need. By providing free information, funeral services can at least spr ead the awareness of their presence and their services which can be used when the need arises. The way this information is spread makes a lot of difference to the business. For example, when spreading information through brochures, video, audio etc, it is important to emphasize the name, logo, brad of the company and keep the information related to service more subtle in order to avoid sending out messages that might offend the public.

The Yellow Wallpaper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Yellow Wallpaper - Essay Example (Gilman, 28) Drowning, however, transpires not only death or thrashing of self, but also a pursuit for discovering the self. Discussion The narrator's flaking away the wallpaper for finding the ensnared woman within is symbolic of her plunge into her own psyche, from which revisiting, rebirth, "surfacing," is doable. This rebirth connotes again the recurrent image of dying and death that is prevalent in The Yellow Wallpaper. The narrator moves down into madness before she can appear as justly and divinely sane. In her jump deep into the wallpaper, bearing the ‘repellent’ color that was almost ‘revolting’ (Gilman, 32), she discovers not only repugnant images of suffocation and imprisonment but also a mirror figure of her own ripped psyche. This equates death to some extent. The woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper" has a very slow demise. The story covers the summer months. She reveals several glimpses of her perceptions of her husband and his treatment of her. Alt hough she never mentions physical abuse, the reader is lead to believe John is very indifferent to his wife's feelings and needs. He seems to have very little time for her and does not really even believe she is sick. This gives some insight into why she might feel a need to escape. The writings about her slight hysteria give way to very disturbing images of her creeping along the walls of her room as though desperately seeking an escape. Because "The Yellow Wallpaper" is told in first-person format and from the central character's point of view, the reader is confronted with a vast amount of information about her emotions. In "The Yellow Wallpaper" the central character is a woman who feels trapped and is searching for an escape. That escape comes for both of them in the end, although it is not an expected form of escape. After all, nobody would expect to escape an unhappy life by plunging into insanity or by dying. Insanity may be called in some ways the intellectual death. But th at is the escape found by these two women. It is based on the repression of women in the 19th century and also exposes the pitiable state of equality of women in societies. Women have been considered the creature that can be suppressed and oppressed in the desired manner by the male dominating societies. Male chauvinism has always been exercised on women which is parallel to death of a real feministic survival in society. A woman has been considered a tool or instrument of satisfaction and no more than that. This is what may be called the death of a whole gender. Undeniably, this touches the topic of feminism and liberation of women from social stratification. The woman who was confined in the room fundamentally represents all women in society who strive for equal rights. However, the wallpaper replicates what the major character and women was passing through. By shredding the wallpaper down, the protagonist held that she could win her self-determination, which indeed happened at th e conclusion. The very title bears a great significant image of death or dying. Yellow is an emblem of lifelessness or in other words death. The fissures and markings on the wallpaper demonstrate the moans of women and the color yellow represent death or dying. The bed represents their marriage and the woman she saw behind the bars in the wallpaper

Making sure that your answers are concise yet complete Essay

Making sure that your answers are concise yet complete - Essay Example According to Daniel Bell, the postindustrial period heavily relies on the intellectual class that has the inclination in scientific, managerial, and administrative faculties to sustain the stable operation of the economy. He argued that knowledge was drastically included as a commodity (Bell as cited in Kivisto, 1999: p. 40-41). To augment Bell’s premise, C. Wright Mills formulated the class structure of advanced industrial societies which hosted the new middle-class or the white-collar professional; this latest social class does not execute manual labor unlike the blue-collar workers, instead they employ mental labor to a large extent (Mills as cited in Kivisto, 1999: p. 37-38). The outcome of this reallocation of consumer demands is the exclusion of the importance of high-paid manufacturing jobs such as Ford Company’s auto workers and others that rely on mechanized services. This recent economic trend elevated the significance of the service sector vis-Ã  -vis indust rial economies (Smart 28-29). Another concept, which is closely related to post-industrialization, is also discerned by some economists as the underlying factor behind the reductions of employment in manufacturing. Some analysts assume that deindustrialization is the end product of globalized capitalism and the increasing trade between the global North and South (Rowthorn para 5). The invention of the microchip increased the deep-seated automation of the global economy. As chips were produced on a dramatic scale which therefore boosts output, the importance of human labor decreased (Chomsky, 2008: para 13). Furthermore, free trade between the North (advanced societies) and the South (developing nations) displaced the workers of the North due to the rapid growth of painstaking labor in the manufacturing industries of the South (Rowthorn para 1). Playing between the boundaries of post-industrialism and

America Between Dream and Reality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

America Between Dream and Reality - Essay Example The dream held that citizens had rights, including the right to life, the pursuit of happiness, and liberty. Such rights were believed to have come from God and were neither derived nor conferred by the state. The dream provided that every man was an air of dignity, legacy, and worth (Dyson, 2000). In reality, citizens have professed for great democratic principles, but have failed in the practice of such principles. America is still challenged in achieving its dream more than ever because the nation is not permitted for an anemic democracy. The price that America is obliged to pay for the perpetual oppression of minority groups, may lead to its own destruction. The existence of a dream is necessary to challenge America on the need to ensure justice, brotherhood, and love among the citizens. Martin Luther had declared his mission of saving America’s soul. He used protests and demonstrations in order to bring out redemptive measures that would heal America. His concerns were pa rticularly revolving around issues of race. The picture chosen describes Martin Luther King Jr. during his famous speech â€Å"I have a dream†. The way he was acting during his speech reinforced what he was saying as he had a very strong posture. You can see from Martin Luther King's body language that he was quiet and grounded as he conveyed his discourse. Despite the fact that you cant see his feet as he's talking, Id envisions him to be intensely planted to the ground, with a strong carriage that says, "Here I am. I'm not moving. Right away, you come to me." No one from the 200 000 people that were at the Washington rally could have stopped his speech or made put him off track if they tried because of how strongly determined he was during it.  

Importance of Professionalising HRM in Hotel Industry Essay - 20

Importance of Professionalising HRM in Hotel Industry - Essay Example From this paper it is clear that each department requires personnel to operate and mange the different types of customers. Thus, there is a need for HRM in a hotel because every aspect in a hotel is concerned with handling people. A HRM professional can understand the needs and preferences of employees and can handle the employee related problems quite efficiently than others. From the provided case, it can be observed that it is a challenge for Happy Hotels to recruit, develop and maintain workforce which is significant for the hotel because a good motivated workforce is the key for providing high quality services to the sensitive customers. The approaches undertaken by Happy Hotels are quite different than the other high cost hotel services. It provides customers with excellent services, comfortable rooms, and good meals with minimal budget than other high cost hotel such as Premium Inn or Holiday Inn. Thus, the job description in Happy Hotels needs range of skills and qualities. The employees must have knowledge to interact with various customers who can impact the HRM strategies such as recruitment and training of employees. HRM can broadly manage the employees in Happy Hotels and can aid the hotels to pursue their path towards achieving success. There are many reasons for professionalising HRM in the expansion of hotel group. Every hotel seeks to dev elop their services which can differentiate them from other competitors. Thus, a hotel will always endeavour to focus on providing customers any product or service which is new and innovative. The employees of the hotels will play one of the major roles in fulfilling this endeavour of the hotels. Thus, the employees need to learn behaviour such as readiness to tolerate uncertainty and changeability. They need to take risks. A highly skilled HR individual can help to achieve high level of autonomy in a hotel.

Great Train Robbery Essay Example for Free

Great Train Robbery Essay Henry Hill, the character of Martin Scorsese’s film Goodfellas (1990), used to say: â€Å"As far back as I can remember, Ive always wanted to be a gangster† . The reason of the crime films and gagnster icons being of success with a public partly lies in this sublimated desire of an ordinary man to be as powerful, energetic, and famous as the criminals commemorated in mass-media. Rafter (2000, p. 3) explained the popularity of the genre by its fictional possibilities: [†¦] crime films offer us contradictory sorts of satisfaction: the reality of what we fear to be true and the fantasy of overcoming that reality; the pleasure of entering the realm of the forbidden and illicit and the security of rejecting or escaping that realm in the end. The crime film is traditionally associated with the American tradition of the early twentieth century, when romantic tales about heroes conquering promising spaces of the New World prairies were superseded by the not a less romantic sagas about daring individuals conquering updated urban localities. Shadoian (2003, p. 3) referred to the crime film as a prominent context for â€Å"both forming and reflecting the American imagination†. Audience has been enjoying crime movies since 1903, when Edwin S. Porter shot his Great Train Robbery. More than a hundred years of our experience with the crime film taught the public, critics, directors and producers many lessons. Shadoian (2003, p. 3) identified three reasons for the genre’s longevity: (1) â€Å"the issues it addresses have always been central to the American experience†; (2) â€Å"its formal properties have given them a clarity of outline and lucidity of exposition†; and (3) â€Å"it has been infinitely flexible in adapting itself to shifting social and cultural conditions†. But hardly is it absolutely right to emphasise the importance of the crime film for the American culture exclusively. The present dissertation analyses thirteen films made within the ‘crime movie’ context. Only six of them were produced by the USA-born directors: (1) William A. Wellman (1896 [Brookline, Massachusetts, USA] – 1975 [Los Angeles, California, USA]) – The Public Enemy (1931); (2) Raoul Walsh (1887 [New York, New York, USA] – 1980 [Simi Valley, California, USA]) – The Roaring Twenties (1939); White Heat (1949); (3) Martin Scorsese (b. 1942 [Queens, New York, USA]) – Goodfellas (1990); Gangs of New York (2002); (4) Quentin Tarantino (b. 1963 [Knoxville, Tennessee, USA]) – Pulp Fiction (1994). Though the film Brother (2000) is partially made in the United States settings, its creator is a famous Japanese director Takeshi Kitano (b. 1947 [Tokyo, Japan]). He is also responsible for another example of the crime movie, Hana-bi (aka Fireworks 1997). The other five films under analysis belong to the British directors: (1) John Boulting (1913 [Bray, Berkshire, England, UK] – 1985 [Sunningdale, Berkshire, England, UK]) – Brighton Rock (1947); (2) Mike Hodges (b. 1932 [Bristol, England, UK]) – Get Carter (1971); (3) John Mackenzie (b. 1932 [UK]) – The Long Good Friday (1980); (4) Jonathan Glazer (b. 1965 [London, England, UK]) – Sexy Beast (2000); (5) Paul McGuigan (b. 1963 [Bellshill, Scotland, UK]) – Gangster No. 1 (2000). It would be more correct to identify the reasons for the crime film being a success outside the boundaries of national mentalities. Leitch (2002) based his definition of the crime film within the conceptual context of culture rather than the national background. He (Leitch 2002, p. 14) argued that, [†¦] a crime culture [ ] depends on normalizing the unspeakable, a place where crime is both shockingly disruptive and completely normal. Crime may have different metaphorical valences in different criminal subgenres – it can demonstrate the fragility of the social contract in thrillers about innocent men on the run, attack the economic principles of the establishment in gangster films, express philosophical despair in films noirs, test masculine professionalism in private-eye films – but it is always metaphorical. Every crime in every crime film represents a larger critique of the social or institutional order – either the films critique or some characters. Finally, crime films dramatize not only the distinctive roles of criminal, victim, and avenger but also their interdependence and their interpenetration. Evidently, critics and spectators are lured to the genre by its flexibility and visualization of the concepts otherwise unseen or too repulsive to deal with in ordinary life. It is hypothesised that national mentalities affect the themes of crime movies but generic methods of the crime film depend rather on directors’ individual backgraounds rather than on their nationality.

Edible Cutlery Essay Example for Free

Edible Cutlery Essay In the eco-friendly world, it will no longer be enough to eat your meal before getting dessert; you will have to eat your plate before you get dessert. In fact, your plate may even be dessert. In a brilliant moment of inspiration, Universite de Montreal industrial design professor Diane Bisson saw a vision of a world in which food product waste was drastically reduced and even recycling, as we know it, would carry a lesser burden. Edible plates and containers. The perfect and thorough recycling method. Ms. Bisson stewed her ideas for 10 years until she finally applied and won a research grant allowing her to work with dieticians and chefs to create recipes for plates made without without preservatives, artificial colours or sugar. Their creations are beautiful, spanning all the colours of the spectrum with carved designs of varying thicknesses. Recipes are primarily vegetable-based, so the plates and containers are nutritious. Two hundred of her 400 edible prototypes were prepared for Ms. Bissons new book launch at commissaries design gallery in Montreal. They were very tasty, according to gallery owner Pierre Laramee. The book, Edible: The Food as Material will be available in late January. Ill let you know in the comment section below where its being sold. It will have many recipes for edible containers that you can prepare at home. Many of the edible plates made for the book launch were made to blend with the foods they hold, both visually and taste-wise, like a carob plate made to serve sweets. Others included beets or poppy seeds as a base. Her ambition is really to try out as many shapes and as many gastronomic food combinations as possible so that we can get into many different markets. She could see a lot of different venues. Just a few of those venues would be shopping mall food stands, hospitals, and catered food services. Next project for Ms. Bisson is to work with a caterer to come up with a five course meal with accompanying edible plates and cutlery. Also, she will have to figure out how to preserve her edible plates without common preservatives, as her current container prototypes are drying up after awhile. Edible plates, containers, cutlery. Think of how they could tastefully change our world. However, the problem with edible plates, and indeed any edible containers, is that in order to be hygienic, they need to be protected by some other packaging that is NOT meant to be eated. Hence, what we need is re-usable packaging. A sealed container protecting the sterile contents inside, from the contaminating world outside, which can be reused many times. An Indian entrepreneur manufactures delicious edible cutlery forks, knives and spoons that can all be eaten up post-meal Even as global warming turns up the heat on the world stage, entrepreneur Narayana Peesapaty, 44, may have found the perfect answer to the mountains of disposable plastic cutlery choking the world: he makes them edible. In other words, after people have eaten their curry and rice, they can now chew and swallow the spoon. The Hyderabad-based entrepreneurs company B. K.  Environmental Innovations Private Limited manufactures eco-friendly forks, knives, spoons and chopsticks in delicious flavours of vanilla, strawberry and pineapple. And all can be gobbled up after the meal. The outfit is part of the New Ventures Global initiative to encourage environment-friendly business ideas in developing countries. Peesapaty, a former scientist at the Institute for International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), is already supplying his product to a raft of hotels, sweet shops and organised retailers in the city. Samples have also been sent to corporate caterers, schools and housewives. It took the scientist another two years to give commercial shape to his idea. I began by checking out the suitability of various cereal flours wheat, rice and sorghum (jowar) as base for edible cutlery, he says. Finally, he zeroed in on sorghum. Jowar has traditionally been an important source of nutrients such as folic acid and fiber, yet the domestic consumption of this crop has recently decreased and been replaced by starch-laden rice. B. K. Innovations is thus helping to revitalize the popularity of jowar with consumers, especially since those with diabetes have shown an interest in consuming edible cutlery as a nutritious snack. Vegetable pulp spinach, beetroot and carrot were used to add colour and nutritive value to the cutlery. Spinach gave it a green shade, beetroot red and carrots brought out a yellow hue. In 2006, the entrepreneur applied for a process patent for producing edible cutlery. The entrepreneurs entire production line comprising blenders, slicers, dyes and an oven had to be designed and calibrated to ensure that the spoons retained their hardness while not losing out on their taste and nutritive value. BK offers spoons in three flavours and has also expanded its production to edible sandwich wrappers and edible chopsticks. Large-scale domestic buyers have already shown initial interest, and BK Environmental Innovations hopes to eventually enter the international market. Requests from international sellers have come from various countries including Singapore, New Zealand, and Canada. With Japan and China’s growing demand for chopsticks and the decreasing availability of resources, an environmental movement has grown to search for better options. Narayana expects edible chopstick to be a popular alternative to disposable chopsticks. Peesapaty feels there’s a great future ahead for his edible chopsticks which will give stiff competition to the disposable ones. In fact, he aims to corner a portion of the global disposable chopsticks market, which sees sales of around 24 billion units per annum in Japan and 35 billion units in China. However, the innovators path has not been without challenges. When he wasn’t getting investors for his dream project, Peesapaty says he had to sell his flat for Rs 35 lakh (about US$ 100,000) three years ago. He then moved to a rented house with his wife and young daughter. In other words, of the Rs 50 lakh Peesapaty has invested in the venture so far, 70% of the funds have come from his own pocket.

Difference Between Historians and Scientists

Difference Between Historians and Scientists Yong Jia Bu Theory of Knowledge History and the Human Sciences: Stepping Stones through Time Title #5: â€Å"The historian’s task is to understand the past, the human scientist, by contrast, is looking to change the future.† To what extent is this true in these areas of knowledge? History and the human sciences are considered two different areas of knowledge, but are common in that both are concerned with human existence and interactions. To say that â€Å"[t]he historian’s task is to understand the past, the human scientist, by contrast, is looking to change the future† suggests a method of distinguishing between these two areas of knowledge based on the time frame relevant to each, and the purposes for which each area obtains knowledge: history focuses on analysis of past events, their causes and implications, while human sciences, such as geography and psychology, seek more to find patterns in human activity in order to predict and change the future. Subjects such as geopolitics and evolutionary anthropology can, however, bridge the time gap between history and the human sciences, and cause the purposes of knowledge in these two areas to overlap as well. In these particular subjects, understanding the past and changing the future are not neces sarily divergent purposes, but purposes which can work hand in hand to allow a knower to acquire and make use of knowledge. The quotation in the topic of this paper suggests that history is an area of knowledge which places a greater emphasis on understanding the past than on using the acquired knowledge to achieve goals or to alter the trajectory of future events. One reason why this attitude toward history might exist is that out of the vast collection of past events studied in this discipline, the majority of subjects are believed to be too distant in the past or too far removed from the concerns of today’s society to be of significant influence to the future. While this claim is likely not true, as knowledge is almost always pursued because it has value and applications, this belief indirectly reveals the expectations of a credible historian to record and interpret historical knowledge in the most accurate form possible, and that he or she is not motivated to influence the present or future by putting forth historical information that supports personal agendas. A credible historian is therefore someone who uncovers and makes sense of the past for the sake of understanding what has come before. A credible historian recognizes that the knowledge gained his or her studies can be relevant to or have value in the present and future, but does not attempt to control how the knowledge may become influential to society. When I researched the topic of whether Louis Riel, a Canadian politician and rebel during the late 1800’s, should have been sentenced to death for treason, my goal was to gain a better understanding of who Riel was and the circumstances surrounding his death, and then to evaluate the events based on the information I had gathered. In presenting my findings, I needed to show that the conclusions I came to had been achieved through consistent and impartial treatment of historical evidence, and that although my findings may eventually challenge or disprove other positions, the focus on my research was to better understand historical events rather than to promot e what I believed to be true. While I cannot consider myself a credible historian, I believe that those who can would go through a similar process in their studies, in which the historian investigates, makes sense of, and communicates his or her findings without actively aiming to change the future. In this way, a historian’s main concern is to understand the past, despite awareness of the potential implications that their pursuit and refinement of historical knowledge can have on the future. In some cases, although events may have occurred centuries ago, their consequences can continue to affect the lives of people for a long time, and the way that historians interpret evidence surrounding such events can significantly influence the decisions made by individuals or even entire nations. Society may actively pursue historical knowledge in order to solve problems concerning the future. The establishment of political boundaries, though it may fall within field of geopolitics and therefore the human sciences, is closely tied to and influenced by historical land claims and records of settlement. In the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands dispute, Japan, China, and Taiwan all claim to have sovereignty over a set of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea based on historical records and proceedings (Drifte 11). The Chinese claim is based on documents from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries that describe ownership of the islands by Taiwan, which China also claims to be part of its o wn country. Disputes also revolve around the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895, which ceded islands under Chinese control to Japan but did not specifically mention the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands (Drifte 12). The understanding of historical events and interpretation of historical documents thus play an important role in shaping the political future, as they are used by governments and international organizations to negotiate territorial boundaries. This field exemplifies how the historian’s role is to look equally toward understanding the past and changing the future. In comparison to history, the human sciences are associated with a more present-to-future time frame. Human scientists recognize the importance of understanding the past observations and studies that their knowledge is based upon, but it is the application of existing knowledge to new situations and problems that is the purpose at the centre of the human sciences. One goal of a human geographer may be to predict the volume and direction of human migration to and from a nation, so that this information can be used to help shape a nation’s future migration policies and perhaps prevent demographic changes not desired by the nation. To do this, the geographer would need to have background knowledge such as the theory of push and pull factors of migration, which consists of â€Å"laws of migration† developed by Ernest George Ravenstein in 1885, and modified by later geographers. Ravenstein’s theory outlines general patterns in the movement of people from one place to another, such as that â€Å"[m]igrants proceeding long distances generally go by preference to one of the great centres of commerce or industry† (Corbett), and while Ravenstein and later contributors must have based their conclusions on studies of specific migratory cases, the statements within the theory do not include details regarding the specific past occurrences that the theory is derived from. The principles of migration listed in this theory act as a condensed body of knowledge that can be learned and applied to current conditions to make predictions about migration trends in the future, which can subsequently prompt actions to avert undesired outcomes. As extensive understanding of the origins of current theories does not necessarily improve the effectiveness of their use, it is not considered essential that human scientists focus their time on understanding past developments which led to the formation of current theories. Rather, human scientists are encouraged to lo ok toward changing the future by readily using the latest complication of knowledge in their field. There are also disciplines which, although considered human sciences, are very concerned with understanding the past. Evolutionary anthropologists seek both to investigate the origins of human beings, as well as to change future scientific paradigms based on new discoveries. In 2013, anthropologists working in southern Georgia excavated 1.8 million-year-old skulls of human ancestors which â€Å"ha[ve] forced scientists to rethink the story of early human evolution† (Sample), because the existence of these early humans in Europe at the same time as the existence of early humans in Africa undermines the widely accepted theory that humans evolved from species that originated in Africa. Regardless of whether this discovery leads to a new evolutionary theory, it illustrates how in one way, the purpose of knowledge in evolutionary anthropology is to seek understanding of the past as historians would—by investigating the collective origins and past of the human species— while in another way, the evolutionary anthropologist also seeks to change the future of the discipline by challenging the accepted theories and paradigms of today. Understanding the past and changing the future can thus be equally important objectives in the advancement of the human sciences. When a knower strives to change the future, he or she often realizes the need to understand the past in order to better predict the outcomes and consequences of his or her actions. Conversely, in attempting to understand the past, a knower may be motivated to modify existing approaches toward knowledge to change the future. Subjects within history and the human sciences may lean closer to either the purpose of understanding the past or the purpose of changing the future, but are likely some combination of the two. As history and the human sciences are thus difficult to distinguish on the basis of time frame and purpose of knowledge, additional consideration of their differences in methodologies or sources of evidence may aid in clarifying the differences between the natures of these two areas of knowledge. Word count: 1479 Works Cited Corbett, John. â€Å"Ernest George Raventstein: The Laws of Migration, 1885.† Centre for Spatially Integrated Social Science. University of California, Santa Barbara, 2011. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. Drifte, Reinhard. The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Territorial Dispute between Japan and China: between the Materialization of the â€Å"China Threat† and Japan â€Å"Reversing the Outcome of World War II†? The Research Unit on International Security and Cooperation (UNISCI), May 2013. PDF file. Sample, Ian. â€Å"Skull of Homo Erectus Throws Story of Human Evolution into Disarray.† The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 17 Oct. 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.