Friday, November 15, 2019

Employee Resistance to Change: Dissertation

Employee Resistance to Change: Dissertation Chapter 1- Introduction Change comes from anywhere, and is the only constant. Propelled by the driving force of technology and globalization, the economic landscape continuously transform in a way that has come to undermine the relevance of received wisdom on how a firm should be managed and what underlies its success (Gregory Prastacos, et al., 2002). In this new millennium, it is more challenging for an organization to sustain its competency or even survive in the diversity market. When an organization is threatened by environmental changes such as crisis or competition, it results in the increasing needs for communication as technology develops rapidly and higher customer demands will be foreseen. Organizational change is not an option; it constitutes a fundamental necessity for success within the new competitive landscape (Hamel and Prahalad, 1996). An organization need to evaluate its performance and review its business strategies, corporate structure, operational process and HR policies to identify th e areas that need transformation. To maintain its competitive advantages,ÂÂ  an organization must make effort to implement changes accordingly. Usually changes to be made in an organization is for the seeking of extending the ability of the organization to achieve the strategic goals but sometime changes do not necessarily contribute to the improvement of the organization (Stroh, 2001). The expected result of the change might vary due to other unexpected factors, such as resistance to change. Resistance is a phenomenon that affects the change process, delaying or slowing down its beginning, obstructing or hindering its implementation, and increasing its costs (Ansoff, 1990). Effect of resistance of changes in organization will cause distorted perception, interpretation barriers and vague strategic priorities, low motivation among the people and lack of creative response (Val, 2003). It is crucial for change initiators to deal with resistance for a successful change. Forasmuch as employees are the one who get the job done, and they the one who possess the knowledge, skills, tools and experiences, it is clear that organizational changes cannot be achieved without employees support and involvement. Employee acceptance and commitment are the key factors for successful changes. Effective change management should recognize the importance of its employees and the way to minimize the resistant from employees. Therefore, understand why it is caused, the forms of resistance and the factors determine employees reactions to change is significant. 1.1 Research Objective This research will study on the factors of resistance to change from employees prospective. The aim of this research is to review the factor and find out the correlates among the factors. By better understanding these which a shift in perception could occur, the paper hope to develop a framework to change initiators of how certain group of employees is the likely to react and behave to change that being unleashed by the value and perception, this knowledge will enable change initiators to design change plan and training programs which recognize the values of employees, and to interact with diverse others in order to optimize the expected change affect. The research attempt to explore the followings areas as a systematic way to rationalize the value of this project study: To identify the natural of employee resistance to change. To identify the symptoms of employee resistance to change. To identify the reasons of employee resistance to change To determine the various factors to effect employees resistance to changes. To evaluate the effect of these factors on organizations future development. 1.2 Chapter Summary Chapter 1 of Introduction has provided a background of the circumstances that force organization to change, and examined the inevitable resistance can undermined organizational change. By identifying the importance of employee in the organizational change, research objectives were generated to study on the resistance of change from employees perspectives and listed done the areas of the study to be explored on. The research was planned in a systematic way to rationalize the value of this project. Next chapter of this project will touch on a review of current literatures on the natural, symptoms and the reasons of employee resistance to change and factors affect employee resistance, followed by the research methodology, samples and limitation of the research. The subsequent chapter will be the questionnaire data analysis presentation and lastly the paper will conclude the findings and its implications for change initiators. The aim of this research is to review the factors that affect employee resistance and evaluate it thought the target samples. Chapter 2- Literature Review 2.1 Employee Resistance to Change 2.1.1 The nature Organizations can be confronted with incremental changes that focus on doing things better through a process of continuous tinkering, adaptation and modification or transformational changes that are regarded as revolutionary and break with the past.(John Hayes, 2010) Although the incremental changes rarely presented any abrupt challenges to the assumptions people make about how they related to the world (John Hayes, 2010), this is not always that case. People are not duplicate, the values, beliefs, assumption and knowledge of that person will be developed over the time, formed as a set of personal opinion, perceptions, views of the world to guide their behaviors (Hallie Preskill and Rosalie Torres, 1999). It is concerned with whether employees regards view change can bring present or future personal benefit and opportunities or change is a threat to their job, skills or any other interests. The implementation of changes inevitably involves the vital interests of various shareholders, and especially employees.Resistance occurs since most employees desire to be successful in their work environments due to they have basic needs which must be satisfied. To begin with, employees want to know their role and their responsibilities within the organization. In additional, employees want to be able to predict what they will face in the future (Appelbaum, S.H. et al, 1998). Even though old procedures that were initially regarded as cumbersome, costly or ineffective, after a prolonged recursive execution, employees become comfortable and are used to the ways things were done. Employee might fear in a changing organization, therefore change are frequently be seen as a threat to ones existence within an organization if upgrading or acquiring new skills are a problem because of time constraints , or the inability of the person to learn these new techniques. Change within an organizational setting usually poses several problems and challenged by the pressure in aspect of money , ego, and power for those who resist it. Employees resist change because they have learned to associate it negative feelings since their basic needs may now be threatened (Mealiea, 1978). Thus it is human nature that employees look at Change negatively, resistance thereby coming into play. 2.1.2 The symptoms Resistance, described by Kilian M. Bennebroek Gravenhorst (2003) is commonly considered to be standard or even natural in reaction to organizational change. It is described as an most inevitable psychological and organizational response that seems to apply to any kind of change, ranging from rather modest improvement to far-reaching change and organizational transformation. Symptoms are the specific behaviors exhibited when employee resistance to change (Albert F. Bolognese, 2002) According to Bhutan (1995), it is important to distinguish between the symptoms of resistance to change and the causes behind them. Symptoms can be reflected in varies of forms, which Marc Maltz (2008) categorized it into the two varieties: overt and covert. Overt resistance is concern with obvious opposition, disagreement, arguing, debating, etc., to any change effort. While, covert resistance comes in two forms: one is conscious covert which employees are concerned about the consequences of their actions that they apparently agreed but actually not following though or withhold information and avoid implementation. Secondly is the unconscious covert resistance, which is the most difficult to see symptoms among employees as employees are unaware their resistance. 2.1.3 The Reasons There are many causes attribute to employees resistance to change, such as Coch French (1948), studied the workers of a clothing manufacturer and find that lower employee participitation causing the mistrust of management and increase their resistance to change. Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) identify four common reasons why people resist organizational change: people focus on their own interest and fear of losing something of value, it can be power and status, autonomy and control, or specific skills; Misunderstanding the change will cost them more than they will gain and lack of trust to the person who initiating change; Different assessment of the necessity and benefit of change situations; Low tolerance for change, sometimes people just resist to change emotionally even they understand the need for change. Several studies have acknowledged what Kotter and Schlesingers publication and enhance these categories with further researches, according to Prosci- A business process reengin eering directory and resource companys study (2003) in past six years in 288 organizations from 51 countries, result shows the top reasons employee resist to change is because of corporate history and culture, which the organizations past performance of change project failed or did not make much sense, employees are less interested to take initiatives to support the current change, they are not in the flavor the month , thus employee expected it go away like what happened in the past. Lorenzo (2000) also acknowledge that one attribute to employees resistance is that past failures leaves negative image for future changes. Another reason added on in Prosci (2003)s research is that employee often opposes to change because of the added job responsibilities, new processes or technologies. Changes with lower motivation to get employees involved and less consideration of employees interest and their emotional and perceptual perspectives thereby eliminate their initiatives and level of comm itment. Pardo Del Val, Manuela and Martinez Fuentes, Clara (2005) conclude above sources to employees resistance are most likely happen in change formulation stage, they further identify some reason rise resistance that consist of: (a) organizational values in relation to change values that cause a strong implementation climate to determine whether employee to accept or oppose to change; (b) departmental politics that form employees resistance. 2.2 Factors affect employees resistance to change Literatures have identified variety of factors affect employee resistance to change, the most cited views of the factors fall on the organizational level, for instance the communication process, employee participation, change facilitation procedures in change process (Ricky Griffin ,2008) to improve organizational effectiveness. Moreover, employee motivation (David Clarence and McClelland, 1987) and quality of leadership (Ken W. Parry, 1999) have been widely acknowledged to have influence on employees work initiatives, involvement and commitment, so that it can argues to be a significant factor to affect employees willingness to change. Above factors virtually are the ways to deal with the subtext of organizational humanity on the stage of change process. However, one must understand the root factors played to affect employees perception towards organizational change. Fail to understand the intrinsic factors govern employees values and beliefs guided behavior in the context of the way they were doing and expected in the future, and all the necessities organization attempt or should to do to implement and facilitate change is crucial. Therefore, the research will mainly explore on the personal factors played to affect employee resistance to change including age, gender, personality traits (Locus of control) and employee educational level as follows: 2.2.1Age Baby Boomers refer to people who are born between 1945-1964. This generation grew up in an era of unprecedented economic growth and stability, so as to be regarded as a generation that finds comfort with long term employment with one organization. This has provided them with a false sense of stability (Loomis, 2000).Their perceived working values emphasize on chain of command, teamwork, technically challenged, team work and loyal to employer As they born after War II, which they entered the economic boom era, Money and job security such as life time employment are definitely extremely important for them to sustain their living. In this regard, it is argued that Baby Boomers are easier to accept organizational change as their working value of chain of command which they tend to commit to the hierarchical order. Moreover, the inception of organization loyalty also attributes them to be more committed rather than resistant or any other negative reactions. (Hui-Chun, Yu and Peter Miller, 2003) Another neuropsychological research held by (Stanford University professor Laura L. Carstensen et al. 2000) on the relationship between age and emotional experiences found that the periods of highly positive emotional experience were more likely to endure among older people and periods of highly negative emotional experience were less stable. With age, older adults report relatively low levels of worrying (Sandra Hunt, Patricia Wisocki and Julianne Yanko, 2003), experience less anger (Schieman,1999), and have lower levels of emotional distress after natural disasters (Bolin Klenow, 1982-1983). The implication of these findings are older employees have better capability to regulate their negative emotions with organizational change and adjust themselves to adapt the environment.Employees adaptability has been seen a key attribute to a successful organizational change (Heslin , 2005). Compared with Baby Boomers, Generation X refers to those people who were born between 1965 to 1980. This generation of employee tend to more independent, self-motivated and self-sufficient (Loomis, 2000). This is because most X generations did not have enough of their family attention as children because their parent may have been single or working parents. X generations therefore became adaptive at handling things on their own and in their own ways. Their work value is perceived more on personal satisfaction, and their attitudes towards work are focus on flexibility empowerment, loyal to skills. (Hui-Chun, Yu and Peter Miller, 2003). Hence, when the change conflict with their own interest such as against what they used to do , their skills, or leave less empowerment to them, they will feel unmotivated towards to commit to the change. However, David J. OConnell, Eileen McNeely and Douglas (2004) argue that since Xers entered the workforce under the employment of deal, in which career planning and development are largely individual responsibilities and where the average worker can expect to make several changes during their working lives. In this regards, it seems like Xers are more adaptive to change. However, there are also many scholars debate the relationship between the age and the personal adaptability to change, such as Mirvis and Hall, 1996. Recent research held by OConell, McNeely and Hall, 2008 also support this assertion, reporting that age is limited measured as a categorical variable namely the characteristics about an individual . 2.2.2 Gender Although many literatures have acknowledged the impact of gender difference on the management practice, there had been little systematic attention focus on identifying the gender roles on effective change management relatively. Feminist perspectives have tended to highlight not only the impact of organizational change on womens relatively marginalized position but also the role of women in the change management (Melissa Tyler, 2005). Jamie L, Michael G and Homer Tolson (2005) research findings suggest that there is a difference between male and female executive of their emotional expressiveness, and women are regarded to process better skill at encoding and decoding emotions (Laura K. Guerrero and Kory Floyd, 2008). Emotions are intensive feelings that are directed at someone or something (Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge, 2010). Goleman-the founder of emotional intelligence theory also mentioned that women are good at reading others feelings than men averagely in his book pub lished in 1995. The skills to encode and decode emotions generally have advantage to develop and maintain relationships (Laura K. Guerrero and Kory Floyd, 2008), because skilled encoders have ability to express their internal emotional state so that other people can decode their emotions more easily and accurately (Burgoon and Bacue, 2003). In this regard, the chances such as misunderstanding and conflict due to implicit or unclear message delivered or received prone to be decreased, the communication becomes more easily and effective. In many literatures, communication has been widely acknowledged as a useful approach to eliminate resistance to change. Therefore, women are deems to be more successfully engaged in change circumstances. Maddock (1999) added that Women focus on relational aspect of how to do things, while men tend to be expected to think what to do. It appears that women are emotionally discreet on how they are going to process the information, express and interpret their view points to react to change before making any decision. Combined with womens secondary position in labor market due to gender discrimination, especially in Confucian countries, in addition to their greater responsibilities in family and child care than men, which cause women are relatively powerless to challenge the situation (Melissa Tyler, 2005). Hence Melissa argues that women in change management appear to be positioned as performing an interpersonal function associated with safety; providing security in times of unexpected turbulence and anticipating. On the basis of these arguments, it seems that women tend to avoid conflict in working in this regard and to accept the change accordingly. 2.2.3 Personality Traits Some people are quiet and reserved, while others are aggressive and outgoing. Some people are trustworthy, some are not. People differ with each other in various dimensions as a result of different behavior and attitude towards things in personal life and working. The individuals differences are shaped by personalities (Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge, 2010) Personality refers to the traits and characteristics that make individuals unique (Greenberg and Baron, 2002). The most frequent used definition of personality was produced by Gordon Allport nearly 70 years ago which he commented that personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment. Personality thus becomes an important reason mangers need to know to generate a view of employees likely behaviors and examine their coping reaction. Meselaar and Cozijnsen (1997) further highlighted the personality is a determinate of individ ual reaction to organizational change. Locus of control refers to the degree people believe their own behaviours determine what happens to them. People believes they have more control over their destiny are referred as internal, and people who believe they have less control over their life and the results are attributing to the will of God, or to the fortune of being born in the right social class or family are referred as external. At this point, it is suggested that people behave differently towards change. Wilson (1992) developed an approach referred as determinism to study change management portrays the manager and other organizational members as pawns affected by change rather than as agents who can initiate and secure change. Their ability to influence is limited because of the main determinates lie outside the organization. John Hayes (2010) argues that those who are overcommitted deterministic view of change may be inclined to believe that the locus of control is external to themselves and the organization and may therefore develop view that there is little they can do to influence events. Hence, people who think this way is less likely to attempt to adopt a proactive approach to the management of change than those who have more internal view about locus of control. 2.2.4 Educational Level Although there were not many literatures specifically emphasize the employees educational level to their resistance to organizational change, it is widely acknowledged (e.g.: George H. McCall, Karl E. Ristow and Daniel J. Cimini, 2004) that higher education improves employees personal management, time management, communication skills and problem solving skills. Higher education defined by Roberg (1987) refers to the instruction that was obtained at university or colleague. According to Thomas Kent Gaylor (2001)s research on 286 police officer from two North Texas Police department in 2001, result shows no significance relationship between the educational level and employees openness to change. However the limitation of his research was lack of variation in respondents education level. Nevertheless, the author believe that higher education of employees will be more likely to support and commit organization change with more positive thinking of why the change is needed, hence the resea rch intend to do further evaluation with different samples on the relationship of educational level to employee resistance to change since it is a logic factor that higher education equipped with employees more knowledge and broader thinking and believe, which reduce the tendency to be dogmatic and to be more creative. 2.3 Chapter Summary Chapter 2 of Literature Review has explored on the current literatures on employee resistance to change in terms of the natural, symptoms and reasons. The inevitable resistances from employee impulse the research to further find out the factors that affect employee resistance to change. The research noted many factors including communication process, employee participations, change facilitation process, employee motivation and quality of leadership, and lastly mainly reviewed the personal factors played consist of age, gender, personality traits (locus of control) and employee educational level influence various aspects from values and beliefs and emotions as a result of different behavior and levels of adaptability reacted to change After exposit the literature review of factors affect employees resistance to change, the paper will tackle the main objectives of this research. Starting with the description of research methodology, samples and limitation of the research, then paper will touch on the analysis part of the questionnaire, to examine the reflected results against with the literatures reviewed earlier on, so as to evaluate its universality of the factors in the sampling organization. Chapter 3- Research Methodology 3.1 Secondary Research The research was carried out at the beginning though a secondary research to review the current literatures on the areas of the study, which contains of the nature, symptoms and the reasons of employee resistance to change and the factors affect employee resistance to change from a more intrinsic view by looking at employee personal factors. The factors focus on the employees adaptability to change determined by age and gender, one dimension of personality traits -locus of control, and employee educational level. The information is collected from textbooks, journals and articles from reliable and creditable online Journal Publications, National Library and Campus Library. 3.2 Primary Research In order to evaluate the factors been presented in literature review, the research will primarily employ questionnaires as the main methodologies for information gathering. The questionnaire will be carried out with various employees working in a large organization. The methods allow directly and original information to be gathered from participants. Questionnaire results are to be consolidated, and will be analyzed using various questionnaire analyze techniques, to interpret the data. The main reason of using questionnaire and interview is because data is collected directly from specific target respondents. Interviewers have the ability to ask extra intensive questions of the respondent concerning survey responses. 3.2.1 Research Samples The research was conducted using data collected from a large size agribusiness organization located in Singapore, mainly doing palm oil plantation and trading. The reason of choosing this organization is because it is currently undergoing turbulence and change on merger with one small size palm oil trading company and one ship chartering company. And it also has experienced many merger and change in the past. Therefore the target samples of the questionnaire participants in the organization must have many varies views on organizational change to enable the research generate more practical reflections from employees perspective on organizational change and change effect on them, aims to evaluate the universality application of all those factors on employee resistance to change presented in literature on the target sampling. The questionnaire attempt to invite 150 employees in this organization from four departments who are affected by the merger plan, respectively 25 employee from IT department, 35 employees from logistic department, 25 employee from finance department and 65 employees from operation department. 3.2.2 Limitation of This Research During the research, data collected could be deviated due to limitation in the research methodology as follows: Data may not represent the entire population due to the limitation of sampling size As the four department employees may experience different kinds of minor changes in their department respectively, whether the change offend their interest or not might bring subjective bias towards their response to the questionnaire, hence the accuracy of data collected will be deviated. Respondent who experience the past organizational change may bring different perceptions towards new change. The choice of the question may limited respondents response. 3.3 Chapter Summary Chapter 3 presented the methodology of this research which employed on secondary research to review the current literatures on the area of the study, and also the primary research using questionnaires to collect data. Research Samples chosen was a large agribusiness organization who is experiencing turbulence and undergoing merger and work structural change. The limitations of the research were also discussed including the sample size, respondents bias, past organizational change experience as well as the choice of questions may also affect the accuracy of the survey result. Next chapter will touch on the research result analysis and discussion. Chapter 4- Result Analysis and Discussion The questionnaires were distributed to 150 employees in IT, Logistic, Finance and Operation department respectively as planned in Chapter 3, the responding rate is about 76%, namely 114 employees attend the questionnaire. Following are the result of each factors being tested. 4.1 Age The research finding on age factors shows that respondents in different age group perceived change differently and appears with different level of resistance. In contrary with literatures presented earlier on demonstrating age have negative relationship with organizational change where people are more emotional stable and adaptable to organizational change as they age. Instead, the result shows that in the age group of 20 to 65+, employees are more resistant to change as they age; an interesting finding is that for employees aged below 20, whom were surprisingly scored higher marks on resistance. Figure 4.1.2 shows details of scores on resistance in each age group. Figure 4.1.2- Age group vs Resist to change score The possible causes lead to this result might because when younger people firstly enter the workforce with no experience and lower educational background, they are uncertain about their skills and abilities. They may behave self-concerned and less flexible dealing with working matters, and not mature enough to regulate their emotions as they are undergoing a transition from childhood to adult, school life to working life with increased responsibilities, time is needed to help them accept such big changes and adapt themselves in the new environment. As they age and become more mature, they seek for competence, career movement and relationship, they are more flexible and motivated to change themselves in the organization to achieve their objectives. As time goes on, they feel tired and queried about what supposed to be. They are loyalty to their skills and fear losing it in the future. Stability, job security and sense of seniority may become the main values after they age 46. Hence th ey might act more resisting to change as demonstrated in below figure. Super (1980)s Life Stage Theory displayed some common characteristics against to the above analysis and assumptions, which the author would like to research further. 4.2 Gender Out of total 114 respondents, 78 are women, and 36 are men, most of men respond strongly agree that organizational change is necessary and beneficial, and express their willingness to take challenges. Although there is no strong evidence to show that women are more resistance to change, most of women strongly agreed with the statement that when things are not going as plan, they tend to feel stress and if there is significant change regarding the way things are done, they would probably feel stressed. At this point, the research result suggested that women tend to be trapped in stress situation more easily than men. Hellriegel, D. Slocom, J. W., and Woodman, R.W.(2001) has pointed out that organizational change can be viewed as greatest source of stress on job and perhaps employees life. Stress cause low morale, high desertion rate and consequently reduce in job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The women research samples in this study reflect lower ability to regulate stre ss in working and life that affect their job performance. When organizational changes go against their interest, plan or principles, family life, it easily get women feel stress emotionally and potentially raise their resistance level which can be described as unconscious covert resistance (Marc Maltz, 2008) whereby employees are unaware of their resistance to change. Such symptom as mentioned in Chapter 2 is difficult to recognize and manage. The result urges the management to recognize gender-related problems in the organizational process. The implication of the result underlines the importance of evaluating and managing performance between women and men employees in implementing change. 4.3 Locus of Control Figure 4.3.1 shows the relationship between Locus of Control versus Resist to Change scale. The extent of Locus of Control are divided into 5 category based on the score respondents received on answering 10 specially designed question (Q7-Q16) catered to identify the individual level of locus of Control. For each correct answer that suggested Internal Locus of Control, the participant are give 1 point, the end results are totaled up with a formula (N/10)x100. The result are categ

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

A New Era for Advertisers

In his article, â€Å"The Post Advertising Age,† Bob Garfield describes the end of advertising as we know it.   According to the author, a substantial number of television and print advertisers may soon find themselves out of work because online advertising is increasing.As a matter of fact, numberless viewers of television and readers of print media have already been seduced by the world wide web, which now caters to their viewing and reading needs better than television and print media ever could.The world of the Internet is interactive, allowing users to fulfill their viewing or reading needs depending on their demands at any given time.   The television and print media, on the other hand, do not carry the advantages that the Internet has.   In short, the kinds of choices available to users of the Internet cannot be matched by the advantages of television or print media.The only choice for a television viewer is to change the channels until he or she finds something o f interest.   The reader of a print magazine, on the other hand, has to purchase a new magazine if the one that he has already bought does not suit his interests.The Internet, on the contrary, is not only cheap, but also has the advantage of presenting all kinds of information to the user.   Hence, the advantages of online advertising surpass the advantages of television and print media advertising based on the basic benefits of Internet use as compared to television and print media.The number of people viewing MTV has been drastically reduced, thanks to the virtues of the Internet which allows the MTV generation to now enjoy online videos.[1]   Also according to Garfield:In December 2005, Viacom spun off CBS, the so-called Tiffany Network, lest the broadcast business impede growth and depress shareholder value.Just before Christmas 2005, Time Inc. laid off 100 employees.   Just after Christmas, inJanuary 2006, Time Inc. laid off 100 more employees.   In April 2006, Time I nc. laid off 250 more employees-the last round of job cuts, the company said.   In January, Time Inc. laid off300 more employees.   No wonder.   Since 2001, Time Warner's market capitalization has shrunk to $82 billion from $193 billion.Last fall, ostensibly to promote their new seasons, five broadcast networks bypassed their local affiliates and gave away new programs online.In October 2006, NBC announced a $750 million cost cutback, including 700 jobs and amoratorium on scripted programs in the first hour of prime time.In November 2006, Clear Channel-the boogeyman of media consolidation-sold to private- equity owners and declared that it wants to unload its TV and small-market radio stations.The sale fetched $38 a share.   In 2000, the stock sold at $100 a share.The Minneapolis Star Tribune, acquired by McClatchy in 1998 for $1.2 billion, was sold to private investors in December 2006 for $530 million.In 2000, Chicago-based Tribune Co. was valued at $12 billion.   It the n bought Times-Mirror Co. for more than $8 billion.   At this writing, with Tribune Co. for sale as a whole or in part, the value of the merged company is $7.34 billion.[2][1] Bob Garfield, The Post Advertising Age, Advertising Age, 78(13): 26 March 2007.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Consuming Kids

Consuming Kids The video documentary â€Å"Consuming Kids† highlights the impact of media and advertising on the health and well-being of children. Advertising has critically changed comparing from the past to today, as it penetrates children more than adults. Companies have decided to deliver their advertisements to children due to their vulnerable minds. The techniques companies use to attach a child with their advertisement is by using famous role models equipped with their product. This influences a child to grasp that product and evidently the same child becomes a consistent consumer in the marketing world.Not only is advertisement publicized on TV but, also on the internet and cellular mobile devices, making it harder for a parent to neglect its unwanted presence. Science is involved in this documentary as scientists use the â€Å"blinking experiment† to analyze the child’s attention rate. Scientist have mentioned that advertisers use round figures througho ut their commercial, as it has been found that children are attracted to this shape; making it harder for them to neglect the purpose of the advertisement. This is only a small contribution of how advertising has used symbolism to support its function.Using symbolism within an advertisement is very clever because it not only portrays the significance of the product but, portrays the â€Å"positive† lifestyle given when the product is purchased. Age compression plays a huge role in the marketing scheme, as it provokes young kids to feel older, making the product more suitable for the younger consumers. Advertisements affect a children’s mind negatively, as it can impact their vocabulary, cause them to lose their concentration span and eventually diagnose them with ADHD.In this documentary I was able to recognize and understand each and every perspective of how advertisements are abusing children. The media claims that parents are ultimately responsible for what their ch ildren watch, wear, and eat. I believe this is not true, because realistically a parent is unable to guard their child from advertisements every minute of the day. There is a likely chance that advertisement can be viewed at public locations like schools or daycares, making it harder to repel your child from advertisements. From this point, only the government has the ability to control such advertisements.As a society we should embrace the conflict raised from the media and publicize the negative effects of a child watching advertisements. We should ban the usage of advertisements used in schools and daycares so, children are not affected by them. A letter concerning the vital information about the documentary should be sent out to every family, so parents are aware of this cause. What shocked me the most, was the disturbing picture of the little girl who claims she’s trying to be sexy. This picture portrayed a young female child with her back pointing to the camera without a shirt.As soon as I recognized that, my point of view on advertisements harming children has changed enormously. There should be no reason for children to dress inappropriately in modern society. Yes, I feel like I have been affected by advertisements throughout my childhood. From a very young age of 6, I was behaving like the young boys shown in the documentary. Similar to them, I would also commit to violence and aggressive materials, such as movies and video games. At the time, it felt normal but now recognizing the effect of advertisement I am able to comprehend that I was under the influence of media.

Friday, November 8, 2019

Early Latin America CCOT Essay Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers

Early Latin America CCOT Essay Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers Early Latin America CCOT Essay Thesis: Throughout the settlement of the Spanish in Latin America, ____ changed through _____, while ______ persisted through _____. PRIMES of Latin America Conquest (14921570s) Political: Unplanned: King and Council of Indies will take charge To rule, Spain created administrative institutions: the governorship, the treasury office, and the royal court of appeals staffed by professional magistrates Spanish legalism was part of the institutional transfer Religion: missionary sent to convert (catholicism) voluntary + coerced conversion The Mission, Valladolid debate (treatment of natives in the new world spanish city valladolid) De Las Casa (one cannot go to heaven if they keep killing natives, supported natives and wanted them to be protected. Harsh treatment of natives. Nonviolent solutions are available.) The church, represented at first by individual priests and then by missionaries such as the Dominicans, participated in the enterprise By 1530, a cathedral was being built on Hispaniola, and a university soon followed Intellectual: Everything is renamed in Spanish > Latin America Wealthy Creoles went back to Spain to complete education Cities: recreate Spain along grid lines churches maintained records of births deaths etc. (creoles vs peninsularesmake sure creoles cant gain any political/religious power) Military: conquest areas of resistance Disease and conquest virtually annihilated the native peoples of the Caribbean Depopulation of the laboring population led to slaving on other islands, and in 30 years or so, most of the indigenous population had died or been killed natives had no weapons, therefore Spaniards saw them as weak and easily conquered Economy: Route to Asia Spanish and Italian merchants began to import African slaves to work on the few sugar plantations that operated on the islands Looking for trade with Asia Trading ports: possession of gold silver, spices. Spanish take over land, Portugese not as much. Encomienda land to noble > collect taxes from them, as well as the must buy goods from producer Mita > forced labor > Potosi Mines Encomienda + Mita > led to loss of natives (early on) communal manufacturing + farming, provided food + clothing, for domestic market. Disease and conquest virtually annihilated Social: 85% white men small population = tropical dependency Goal: 2 separate republics > miscegenation > depopulation > blacks + miscegenation. As early as 1510, the mistreatment and destruction of the American Indians led to attempts by cleric and royal administrators to end the worst abuses Bartolome de Las Casas (14841566) Dominican friar who initiated the struggle for justice Conquest was not a unified movement but rather a series of individual initiatives that usually operated with government approval Topics of the Exam 1. Renaissance Italy: Greco Roman Humanism/ Individual worth Cultural, Arts/ Literature Intellectuals (John Locke) 2. Reformation: M.L. (95 Theses) R.C.C. abuses, corruption Translated the Bible German vernacular John Calvin French theologian during the protestant reformation. Believed in predestination, monergism, and damnation (punishment for actions committed on earth) 3. Enlightenment Locke Vs. Hobbes (absolutism) Limited Monarchy (Result) 4. Columbus + historical time period 5. Bourbon Reforms Charles III (enlightened despot) reign mid 1700s higher profitability of spanish colonies reforms taxation system grants monopolies to spanish corporations: Cuban Sugar, Buenos Aires: Coffee, Salted Beef, Seeds Spanish flooded local economy w/ cheap goods (local handicrafts/industries cant compete w/ cheap spanish goods Method: New Vice Royalties : New Grenada (1739) Rio de la Plata (1778) Reformation of Mining techniques means more silver for the crown Local Magistrates replaced by provincial governor who report directly to the crown Local Creole Autonomy diminished Increase resentment Creoles wanted independence. Effective? Short term yes for the spanish economy and increase in Spanish control over colonies, but long term resentment of crown by most social classes Settlement Primes (second period) Political: Treaty of Tordesillas (The pope split the world into two where the west would be left for the Spanish to conquer and the east was left for the Portuguese to conquer) Professional bureaucracy based on Spanish system of Legalism Royal Nomination of church officials (govt side by side with church) Encomienda system: Grants of lands Spanish (Indigenous People=labor) Religion: Clergy Missionaries Forced Conversions Church hierarchy develops Churches were set up 1) Pope 2) Cardinotes 3) Archbishops 4) Bishops 5) Priests Loyal to mother country Spain Church not available to natives forces them to follow catholicism and be obedient and pay their funds. Intellectual: Church establishes universities to 1. Convert People 2. Record Birth and Death Record traditional Culture Economic: Silver Mines (Forced Labor) Mercantilistic Policy Social: Arrival of Spanish Women Transatlantic slave trade Castas system develops 1. Racial hierarchy developed Multiracial society is developed Middle Upper class women's patriarchal society Black man + Spanish Women = Mulatto Machismo = male dominated Lower class women enjoyed more social mobility because they owned small business in villages and towns Encomienda system: Grants of

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

America and Child Labor essays

America and Child Labor essays The industrial revolution was one of the hardest times in American history. With these hard times brought pollution, poverty, and prejudice. Along with these corruptions brought one of the darkest sides of the industrial revolution and Americas past, child labor. The industrial revolution brought many social evils. One of possibly the most worse of the social issues happens to be the unfair treatment of children in labor. Child Labor was a scandal of the nineteenth century. Child Labor is the employment of children working under the age of physical maturity (Hine, index). Children would start work in mills, coal mines, and factories as young as 5 years old, to 18 years of age. An average child would work 18 hour days. Work days typically ran from dawn to sunset, and winter usually brought longer hours, from 68 to 72 hours per week. The average pay for a child in labor was around $ 3.25 a week (Green, p 13). After the Civil War, the industrial revolution took off. Businesses soared. Along with new businesses, labor was needed. As the number of factories started to grow in the United States, so did the number of people required to tend them. Immigrants came to the U.S. to make a better living for themselves and their families. Immigrants came to America with little to no money to survive. In order to avoid starvation, the families children were often forced into child labor. Because of laissez faire, which means that government would not get involved with business and the economy, businesses were aloud to pay extremely low wages and to allow children to work in horrible, hazardous working conditions. This is why children were often forced into labor, to help their families bring in more money. Surprisingly, with the amount of immigrants coming to America, there were labor shortages. Children were often taken from workhouses by employers. These children were transported in crowds from hu ndreds of miles away, to work all ...

Sunday, November 3, 2019

The Implications of the Great Recession of 2008 on U.S. Unionization Essay

The Implications of the Great Recession of 2008 on U.S. Unionization - Essay Example In other words, banks issued too much loans directed in real estate and as a consequence, prices were pushed up. In addition, Hetzel (2012) notes that debts grew faster than income and in the long run more people were unable to service their loans. This followed a financial crisis as the situation pushed banks to near bankruptcy and closure. One of the areas in the economy greatly affected by the recession of 2008 was employment sector. In light of the fact that a huge percentage of workers is presented by unions, this discussion elucidates the implications of the great recession of 2008 on U.S. unionization. To understand the implications of the 2008 great recession on U.S. unionization, it would be of significance to first describe unionization prior to the recession. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of workers represented by unions was at the highest level in the 1950s at 35 percent of the entire workforce (Hetzel, 2010). In 1983, figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 17.7 million workers were unionized (Hetzel, 2010). This figure represented 20.1 percent of the total workforce in the U.S. In 2009, Hetzel (2010) notes that the figure had dropped to 12.3 percent of the total workforce. Though the number of union members was reducing from the 1950s, the rate was stringent in 2009 and 2010 after the great recession of 2008. In 2010 for instance, approximately 612,000 union memberships were lost (Tilly, 2010). Before explicating the implications of the 2008 recession on U.S. unionization, it would also be important to demonstrate its impact on the rate of unemployment. Tilly (2010), in a documented material directed to the Global Labor University Conference in Berlin in 2010, asserted that the rate of unemployment peaked in the period following the great recession of 2008. In fact, Tilly (2010) notes that unemployment rate rose to

Friday, November 1, 2019

Lafarge-Aget Heracles Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Lafarge-Aget Heracles - Case Study Example Lafarge- Aget Heracles is one of the leading producers of cement. The company has not been able to witness rapid growth within the industry. Some of the problems which are acting as major setbacks to the growth of the company are inability to offer a differentiated product line, huge freight costs added with under utilization of capacity. Out of these problems, the most vital being the inability of the company to offer diverse products which might become one of the principal causes leading to a huge loss of market shares. The company needs to address this problem and the consequences it may suffer as a result of this persistent problem. To strengthen its competitive edge in the market, the company needs to innovate its product line with the help of sophisticated technologies. Though other problems also needs proper resolution, but in this report we limit our scope of study to the analysis of one of the most crucial problem faced by the company which is inability of offering a differe ntiated product line. One of the biggest problems challenging Lafarge - Aget Heracles is their inability to differentiate their product line. The need of a differentiated product line was constantly felt within the cement industry and Aget, being one of the major players of the industry, was very much aware of the fact. To build a niche in the market, it was becoming necessary for Aget to innovate its product line. The need of environment friendly cement mixtures and specialty cement was becoming ardent. To ensure rapid growth in an industry, businesses need to adopt strategies to render higher customer satisfaction and offer value-added products and services. Aget was falling back on this aspect. Looming under its huge cost structure, it was felt that Aget was not keen on implementing innovation strategies. This was becoming an absolute necessity for Aget in order to strengthen its competitive edge in the industry as a whole. Aget was not able to develop its existing product line or offer new products and was becoming unable to meet the changing needs of the customers. For example, government institutions were demanding certain kinds of cement mixtures and specialty cements which would be environment friendly and would not contribute to the depletion of natural resources. With the development of the infrastructure industry in various regions across the world, for example in the middle-east, the demand for a special type of cement was becoming more and more apparent which would ensure greater durability to the infrastructure. But like other cement manufacturers across the world, Aget seemed to underestimate the need of an innovative product line as it