Tesla Company And Its Business Ethics - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 5 Words: 1369 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2019/08/06 Category Business Essay Level High school Tags: Business Ethics Essay Did you like this example? Tesla was founded in 2003 by a group of engineers that all had the same idea of trying to make the world a more eco-friendly and safer place. Since being founded Tesla has broken records and broken-down boundaries in the auto mobile world. They have created a car that is worlds bestselling pure electric vehicle and also making it one of the safest automobiles. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Tesla Company And Its Business Ethics" essay for you Create order Their goal of they wanted to accomplish was to let people know that they do not have to compromise anything in order to drive electric. The people who were the founders of Tesla also wanted to let people know that electric cars are better than the environment, faster, and more fun to drive than any other gasoline car. Not only does Tesla build electric cars, but they also provide a clean energy product that is safer and healthier for the environment. Tesla is indeed impacting the world through its business model, social impact, and ethical value.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Tesla makes their vehicles in Fremont, California in its factory. This is where the vast majority of the vehicles components and body parts are also made. Teslas goal is employee safety and having factories that a ran safely and smoothly. To achieve this goal Tesla is taking and acting on an extremely proactive approach to safety. They are requiring that the production employees must participate and be a part in a multi-day training program before they ever set a foot on the ground in the factory. After they have completed this, they continue providing on-the-job training and conduct track performances daily so that improvements can be made in a timely manner. The result is that Teslas safety rate continues to improve while Model 3 production ramps.     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Tesla Model 3 is quickly becoming one of the best sellers. This model is affordable, reliable, and have extremely high-performance ratings. However, Tesla is in the works right now of making a car even better than the Model 3, called the Model X. This model with have full air pilot capacity and fully electric. With Tesla in the works of building its most affordable, safe, eco-friendly car yet, Tesla continues to make products that are accessible and affordable to more and more people. This ultimately will accelerate the advent of clean transport and clean energy production.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The business model for Tesla is selling, servicing, and charging its electric vehicles. Tesla goal is to have a positive impact on the environment because Tesla believes that the faster the world can stop depending on fossil fuels and can move toward a zero-emission future, the better. Tesla believes that every one of there customers deserves the best which is why they do not have outrageous prices so that everyone has the opportunity to be safer and eco-friendlier with their vehicle choice.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One thing about Tesla is that they are not apart of auto union. The purpose of an auto union is basically to give the employees the opportunity to earn a fair wage, be treated fairly, and protect them if they were to get fired. Jaimie Willis, who used to work at the Tulsa International Bus Plant said that he is against the auto union. He is against it because if a company is already treating its employees fairly and giving them the fair wage, as they should be doing, then there is no need for a union. This is a controversial topic thought as there are some people who think that a auto union is important and necessary.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The social impact that Tesla is that it will kill business like Cab companies or any other driving jobs because Tesla is staring a self-driving vehicle , Model X, which will eliminate the need for these services. It also will have an large impact on other car companies and factories. However, Tesla could open a lot of jobs as well. They need several people for just one car like a technical person to figure out all the wiring, an electrician to get the electric legists taken care of, a person to build the frames, and so on and so forth.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The foundation and almost immediate success of Tesla has led to many different social and business destruction or complications. For example, the impact that Tesla has had on society mainly is due to the energy efficiency and popularity by the public of alternative solutions for fuels. As Tesla gains more attention and gets new and press, the growth and popularity of energy efficient cars and alternative fuels grows. This, one would say, can only have a positive effect on global climate concerns. The energy efficiency that a Tesla electric car is car is way above the average of a gas operated vehicle. This implies that energy efficient cars, particularly electric cars, are becoming more mainstream or modern and relevant to the average costumer. The impact that Tesla has on businesses and corporations is also becoming more noticeable as time goes on and Tesla gains popularity throughout the whole world.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   When Tesla first introduces a luxury model of electric car means loss of sales for luxury brands like Lexus, and BMW. Other car companies like Toyota and Nissan are having difficulty keeping up with Tesla. Toyota is trying to attempt and improve the Prius. Nissan also has their newest model, the Leaf. None of these however, are getting them close to Tesla. Tesla has created a more competitive market for energy-efficient cars around the world  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The ethical analysis on Tesla is that it is impacting the world for the better because it is helping save the environment by reducing the amount of chemicals and toxins we as humans put in the air. However, with any company there are downfalls. On late Tuesday December 4, 2018 Tesla was offering millions of dollars in an all-stock deal to acquire SolarCity Corporation. Shares of Tesla sank by a little over ten percent on just by Wednesday. This cased a negative reaction on the sell side. A man named David Bechtel, who is one of the three principals of Barrow Funds, mentioned that the prospect of a tie-up between Tesla and SolarCity was extremely frightening because with two companies like Tesla and SolarCity, they are both hungry for money and merging them with cause sever questions to come up. Bechtel had also brought up that his firm had lowered Teslas share during 2015, because it was wildly over-valued relative to its peer group. Bechtel said that is a little obdured that a compa ny like Toyota for example has been in business and going strong for over seventy years now and they know what it takes to meet the needs of markets and the fact that Tesla will just trade several levels of revenue is concerning to Teslas investors who take this company and value seriously.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In summary, Tesla is having a major impact on the world due to the social impact, ethical value, and business model of this corporation. All the founders of Tesla agreed that they want to make the world, safer, and eco-friendlier. They also wanted to let people know that they do not have to compromise to drive electric. Since the founding of Tesla, the company has torn down barriers and made huge stride in modernizing and making the world an eco-friendlier place. Tesla is changing the way that cars are made by making it eco-friendly and much safer. As with any corporation there are negative things about the company, but in the end the company is making a positive impact in the world today by moving us forward. Bibliography Investors Overview. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ir.teslamotors.com/?_ga=2.253007433.1352725380.1544121434-511811076.1543515982 OBrien, S. (2018, August 15). Tesla shareholders face possible capital gains tax bill if company goes private. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/15/tesla-shareholders-face-possible-tax-bill-if-company-goes-private.html Wu, A. (2016, September 06). Teslas Got the Keys: A History of Its Success. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/061915/story-behind-teslas-success.asp Boudette, N. E. (2018, June 30). Inside Teslas Audacious Push to Reinvent the Way Cars Are Made. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/business/tesla-factory-musk.html About Tesla | Tesla. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.tesla.com/about Doorn, P. V. (2016, June 24). Tesla shareholders should be very worried about dilution right now. Retrieved from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-shareholders-worried-about-dilution-should-be-very-wary-right-now-2016-06-22

Differences Between Du Bois And Marcus Garvey - 1688 Words

. Ideological and personal differences led to acrimonious debate between Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, a Black Nationalist leader who strove to construct through economic enterprise and mass education a unified empire of people of African descent. Du Bois also opposed Marcus Garvey whom he considered a demagogue, although they shared a commitment to Pan-Africanism and the liberation of Africa. Du Bois rejected many of Garvey’s policies and mounted a campaign to expose corruption and mismanagement of Garvey’s famous Black Star Shipping Line: a black cross-continental trade venture. Pan-Africanism is â€Å"a movement of people of African descent from sub-Saharan Africa in the early twentieth century that emphasized their identity, shared†¦show more content†¦Africans who had been radicalized by World War II dominated the conference and encouraged it to denounce Western imperialism. Du Bois considered the United States a protector of the colonial system and opposed its stance in the Cold War (Hine et al., 2014, p. 463 - 464). Du Bois was a lifelong anti-war activist, but his efforts became more pronounced after World War II. In 1949, Du Bois spoke at the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace in New York: I tell you, people of America, the dark world is on the move! It wants and will have Freedom, Autonomy and Equality. It will not be diverted in these fundamental rights by dialectical splitting of political hairs, Whites may, if they will, arm themselves for suicide. But the vast majority of the world s peoples will march on over them to freedom! In the spring of 1949, he spoke at World Congress of the Partisans of Peace in Paris, saying to the large crowd: Leading this new colonial imperialism comes my own native land built by my father s toil and blood, the United States. The United States is a great nation; rich by grace of God and prosperous by the hard work of its humblest citizens. Drunk with power we are leading the world to hell in a new colonialism with the same old human slavery whi ch once ruined us; and to a third World War whichShow MoreRelatedThe Haitian Revolution And African Americans1562 Words   |  7 PagesProvidence, and etc. Washington, Du Bois, and Garvey all had different responses to the dilemma African Americans faced in constructing an identity and asserting themselves in he post-reconstruction era. Washington had the most passive approach as to how he wanted things to be done. Washington wanted to work on having good relationships with the white Americans since he was afraid that if blacks were to straight up demand their rights, it would create a bad atmosphere between the two groups. WashingtonRead MorePolitical Philosophers : Reconstruction1595 Words   |  7 Pagesequality was far from over. With racial integration out of the question, prominent black leaders were forced to pull their resources and rethink their political strategies. Some of these leaders were Booker T. Washington, W.E.B Du Bois, Alexander Crummell, and Marcus Garvey. These four men’s political philosophies played a vital role in revitalizing black nationalism, cultural pride, and civil liberties at a time when all of these things seemed out of reach. Alexander Crummell was born in New YorkRead MoreRacial Leadership And The African American Political Thought From B Du Bois1260 Words   |  6 PagesStates we have had different views of racial leadership in Afro American political thought from W.E.B Du Bois to Booker T. Washington to Marcus Garvey who sought to lead African-Americans from the oppression they face. All three of these historical figures had different views on racial leadership and politics as well as the vision and direction that racial emancipation should take. 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Du Bois, Alexander Crummell, and Marcus Garvey on post-emancipation America are evident through the social and political progress of the United States. Booker T. Washington was a nationalist who supported gradualism and separatism. He was very conservative compared to othersRead MoreThemes Of The African Americans Essay1792 Words   |  8 Pagesalso explicitly portray how and why they supported or adhered to these ideologies. Nevertheless, even though, there are countless example of people and organizations that adhered to these ideologies, people like Booker T. Washington, W.E.B Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and organizations like the NAACP, UNIA, and NACW are the profoundly significant ones. 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In reality, African American and Afro-Caribbean Pan-Africanists often adopted contradictory positions that belied their universalist Pan-AfricanistRead MoreAfrican American Identity2208 Words   |  9 Pagesguarantee of equal protection of the laws extended only to federal civil rights, thus removing southern states from the duty to protect the civil rights of African Americans, but it was just not their rights that w ere taken; but their lives as well. Between 1882 and the end of 1900, 1751 African Americans and 1105 white Americans were lynched for trying to further the African American cause (National). Given all of this discrimination and violence, it is hard to imagine that anyone would be willing toRead MoreAnalysis Of Alain Lockes The New Negro1646 Words   |  7 Pagesidentified by Locke (Locke 49). On the other hand, advocating for artistic production and cultural recognition as a method to change the lived experiences of black people has a long philosophical history, dating back to earlier works like W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Philadelphia Negro and Booker T. Washington’s A New Negro for a New Century. Locke’s work to integrate these two perspectives reveals an inflection point in how individuals attempted to situate a changing black culture within both a nationalRead MoreHe Resigned From The Naacp In June 1934 In A Dispute Over1525 Words   |  7 Pagesthe 1950s Du Boi s was drawn into leftist causes, including chairing the Peace Information Center. The center’s refusal to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act led to his indictment with four others by a federal grand jury in 1951. All five were acquitted after a highly publicized trial, but the taint of alleged communist association caused him to be shunned by colleagues and harassed by federal agencies (including eventual revocation of his passport) throughout the 1950s. Du Bois own approach

Dynamic Models of Oligopoly

Question: Discuss about the Dynamic Models of Oligopoly. Answer: Introduction The article chosen provides about the oligopoly behavior in the Trans-Tasman Air Travel Market of New Zealand. This air-route carries more than one million return travelers between Australia and New Zealand each year (Duval, 2013). Discussion Few firms mostly dominate an oligopoly market and the airline industry is considered as a part of the oligopoly market. The airline is industry is characterized as oligopoly as although there are few barriers to entry, it comparatively less than a monopoly market. As a there are less barriers to entry, it is not probable for predatory pricing to take place as the prospect to recuperate losses through earning monopoly rents is fictional. The purchase of airline industry is considered as an expansive transaction as it costs thousands of dollars. The willingness to pay for a ticket on a specified route differs from customer to customer. The Trans-Tasman Air Travel Market is an oligopoly market is characterized by the second-degree price discrimination. The competitive action in airline pricing emerges to be focused on exploiting the possibilities of the second form of price discrimination. In this case, surplus is extorted by attaching clauses to tickets. A model related to airline pric ing for a flight indicates a plane flying a particular route at a particular date. MV = 1 Q where MV is considered as the maximum enthusiasm to pay of the Qth keenest customer (Fudenberg Tirole, 2013). It can be concluded that the purchase of airline industry is considered as an expansive transaction as it costs thousands of dollars. References Duval, D. T. (2013). Critical issues in air transport and tourism.Tourism Geographies,15(3), 494-510. Fudenberg, D., Tirole, J. (2013).Dynamic models of oligopoly. Taylor Francis.

Environmental Accounting

Question: Part A: A Brief Background to the Organisation Give a brief background to the organisation and its activities, particularly in relation to CSR. The Management Accounting Systems and Techniques Employed Using your selected case study report, identify and explain the internal management accounting systems and techniques employed by the organisation in relation to social and environmental issues. Critical Analysis of the Internal Systems and Techniques Using the case study report and any other relevant information, critically evaluate the extent to which the companys internal systems and procedures demonstrate embedding of sustainable business practices within the organisation. Determine whether the organisation is operating more eco-efficiently as a result. Conclusions and Recommendations Based on your analysis, draw conclusions and make recommendations as to how the company could better embed sustainability within its DNA. Part B: A Brief Background to the Organisation Give a brief background to the organisation and its activities, particularly in relation to CSR. The Theory / Regulatory Framework Explain the key concepts / principles / criteria of your selected theory (stakeholder, legitimacy or accountability) or regulatory framework (GRI, CRF, AA1000 series). The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report Introduce the report. State the year. Give a brief description of the report e.g. length, content, main target audience (in your opinion), whether or not it has been externally verified (and if so, by who). Give any other information e.g. sustainability reporting award achieved? Critical Analysis of the CSR Report Using your theory / framework as a base, critically evaluate how well the company, through its CSR report, demonstrates a commitment to accounting for sustainability. Conclusions and Recommendations Based on your analysis and your knowledge of current developments in sustainability reporting, draw conclusions and make recommendations as to how the companys external reporting practices could be improved. Answer: Part: I Overview of the Association in the Context of CSR BT Group plc is one of the largest British multinational information transfers administrations organization with head workplaces in London, England, United Kingdom. It has business operations in more than 170 nation of the world. In addition to this, it should also be noted down that, due to increases pollutions and changes in the environment of the nations, BT plc is looking for changes in its operations and reduce the use of consumptions of electricity and power to reduce cost and protect the environment. Moreover, pressure from shareholders, employees, customers, communities and society played major role to encourage organization to go green and focused on environment sustainability (Cornelissen, 2011). BT plc is also looking for go green and reduces waste and pollutions to sustain environment. BT plc uses the green building and energy efficiency organization centre. BT plc is also looking for reduce risk through promoting improvements in innovation. Moreover, organizations engage in CSR activities and maintain connections between financial execution and social or environmental execution. BT plc has run the CSR activities as through improving energy efficiency, use green data centre, company nursery school, children welfare plan and proper renewable plan. The company is also encouraged young women to jobs in IT, engineering and natural science through run Girls Day program (Dhillon, 2002). Management Accounting Systems and Techniques Used by BT Group plc in Relation To Social and Environmental Issues In the current time, BT Group plc is using a variety of tools and techniques with a specific end goal to incorporate natural effects into administration choices. This rule concentrates on three such administration choice making methodologies: costing investigation, speculation examination and execution assessment (Shah, 2008). Costing Analysis: This is one of the major management accounting strategy used by BT Group plc to identify and measure environmental costs effectively. Allocation of Environmental Costs: BT Group plc is examining and executing frameworks that better amass and measure their past, present and future natural expenses identified with item costing. BT Group plc for the most part recognizes among three classifications of ecological expenses. These are expenses caused to react to: past contamination not identified with continuous operations; current contamination identified with progressing operations; and l future natural expenses identified with progressing operations (Solomon, 2007). Life-Cycle Assessment: By coordinating ecological considerations into their products and procedures now, BT Group plc is deliberately positioning them for the subsequently century, when aggressive environmental management will be an imperative for business survival. BT Group plc concentrates on conforming to government regulations as well as on diminishing their corporate natural effects. BT Group plc is additionally applying different techniques and methods that energize a far reaching assessment of all "upstream" and "downstream" impacts of their exercises or items. For instance, Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) to help BT Group plc to assess the support to-grave ecological weights and opportunities connected with their items, techniques or exercises (Visser, 2011). For case, BT Group plc use LCA to help conquer any hindrance between enhanced representing existing inner ecological expenses and distinguish- of outside natural effects. Notwithstanding this, with the assistance of this procedure, BT Group plc distinguishes and evaluates ecological effects. This procedure assesses the natural impact of an item or movement comprehensively, by examining its whole life cycle. This incorporates distinguishing and evaluating vitality and materials utilized and squanders discharged to nature, surveying the ecological effect, and assessing open doors for development. In the same way, with the assistance of LCA, BT Group plc addresses natural effects in biological wellbeing, human wellbeing and asset exhaustion (Baumgartner, 2002). Hierarchical Cost Analysis: On the other hand, according to this, strategy, BT Group plc develops a hierarchical costing method in order to identify, track and monitor environmental costs for the organization. Activity-Based Costing: BT Group plc also used this costing as a part of request to allocate ecological expenses to items legitimately. With a specific end goal to get more exact and helpful data about their expenses, and given the weaknesses of customary expense bookkeeping frameworks, BT Group plc execute action based costing (ABC) for particular methodologies or frameworks that contain an expansive bit of the natural dangers and liabilities. It is on account of ABC is particularly important to ecological expenses due to the diffuse, long haul and less substantial nature of such a variety of natural expenses. Henceforth, utilizing ABC, BT Group plc distinguishes expense bearing exercises viably and to dispense expenses to individual items can help defend administrative choices (Lber, 2011). Quantification and Monetization of Externalities and full environmental cost accounting: BT Group plc has made a corporate duty to utilizing full ecological expense bookkeeping as a part of its choice making. For the utility, full natural expense bookkeeping is an instrument that can help incorporate ecological contemplations into business choices. Aviva plc's way to deal with full natural expense bookkeeping joins ecological and other inward expenses with information on the outer effects and expenses/advantages of the utility's exercises on nature and on human wellbeing (Paetzold, 2010). Investment Analysis and Appraisal: This is another management accounting technique and system that used by BT Group plc in relation to the social and environmental issues. For example, under this, different approaches are used by BT Group plc that offers significant improvements for environmental management. They include: Total Cost Assessment: According to this methodology, BT Group plc characterizes and evaluations venture expenses and profits. It is on the grounds that, Total expense appraisal (TCA) enhances the choice making procedure for venture investigation and examination by guaranteeing that the information assembled incorporate ecological expenses both immediate and roundabout and natural dangers. Moreover, it likewise helps BT Group plc to examine the long haul expenses and investment funds of contamination aversion ventures. It considers a more extensive scope of expenses than does conventional speculation examination, including certain probabilistic expenses and investment funds. TCA uses full ecological expense bookkeeping systems to appropriately allocate natural expenses and funds to all contending tasks, items or methodologies (Sauerbrey, 2010). Multi-Criteria Assessment: This technique is designed by BT Group plc to systematically assess choices as per numerous criteria that are in some cases measured on distinctive and/or non-commensurable scales. MCA is additionally utilized as a part of BT Group plc to analyze and assess "dissimilar to" natural and social effect data when the organization does not have a full scope of adapted effect information. For example, BT Group plc has utilized MCA to make exchange offs among ecological measures to recognize key pointers of natural effect/harm for consideration and assessment inside its corporate arranging procedure. BT Group plc additionally utilize MCA to think about and make exchange offs of ecological and different qualities. Risk and Uncertainty Analysis: BT Group plc is focused on completely incorporating ecological contemplations into corporate life and perceives the significance of coordinating natural estimations into their execution assessment frameworks. This guarantees that announcements of ecological obligation enunciated by the CEO and in corporate statements of purpose are appropriately actualized (Tsamenyi Uddin, 2009). Critical Analysis of the Internal Systems and Techniques The company improves the ecological and social aspects of sustainability through waste separation in potential recyclables, glass, etc. The company also focused on sensible use of printer, copying machines, air conditions and reduces consumptions of technical equipment to save power consumption and protect environment. In the same manner, BT Group plc is likewise utilizing diverse methods and in addition routines so as to finish CSR capacity. Case in point, there are different projects and exercises directed by the organization for the social viewpoints. Notwithstanding this, utilitarian support is likewise utilized by the organization as a part of request to backing the legitimate and controlled procurement of merchandise and administrations. Aside from this, managed and legitimate procurements are likewise trailed by the organization in a viable and fitting way (Brennan, 2011). Conclusions and Recommendations On the basis of above discussion, it can be conclude that the company follow different process and use innovative techniques in order to fulfill objectives related with the CSR. In addition to this, it can also be summarized and suggested that, the company could better embed sustainability within its DNA by using such techniques: Engaging, Signaling, Communicating, Managing talent, Reinforcing, Creating smart, integrated public policy, Build a national dialogue on responsible consumption, Communicate sustainability goals throughout the organization (Carroll, Lipartito, Post Werhane, 2012). Part: II A Brief Background to the Organization For this paper, Aviva plc is selected that is a British multinational corporation engaged in insurance business and its headquartered is in London, United Kingdom. At the same time, it should also be noted down that, it has more than 31 million customers in approximate 16 nations of the globe. Moreover, it is also found that, it is also known as the largest company in the UK market. In the same way, the company is providing insurance product and services at the international level by satisfying the needs, wants and desire of customers effectively (Pohl and Tolhurst, 2011). On the other hand, it is also analyzed that, the company is also fulfilling its functions associated with the CSR in an innovative and more proper manner. For example, Moreover, Aviva plc also focuses on improving the ecological and social aspects of sustainability without jeopardizing economic success. Application from women is always welcome in the company and the company announces that gender anti discrimination law followed during the hiring new staff. The company also raising awareness in between the employees related to ecological and social aspect of sustainability (Forster, 2005). The Theory / Regulatory Framework In the context of this research paper, GRI regulatory framework is selected. Along with this, it should also be noted down that, GRI is one of the main and worldwide not-revenue driven associations that create viable and important system in the zone of maintainability reporting. Then again, it is likewise observed that, this association additionally assumes a basic part in reassuring and propelling the utilization of manageability reporting. For example, this free association conducts particular tenets on improvement and making of supportability so the association can consider it in their business exercises. In the same way, this association proposes the organizations that they ought to consider four territories of execution, for example, ecological, monetary, administration and social (GRI. 2014). In the same way, GRI leads and make standard regulations and practices in the setting of manageability reporting which serves to support and direct change towards a supportable overall economy. A possible overall economy should combine long term advantage with good lead, social value, and common planning. A manageability report is a report circulated by an association or relationship about the monetary, environmental and social impacts brought on by its standard activities. A manageability quality report similarly displays the affiliation's qualities and enactment illustrates, and demonstrates the association between its system and its commitment to a viable overall economy (GRI. 2014). The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report In the context of CSR, the company introduces the CSR report in more than one eighty six pages that describe major CSR functions, initiatives and other elements for the protection of green environment. It also focuses on sustainability accounting. In addition to this, the main target audiences of the company are customers, stakeholders and employees that play a major role in the total success of the company. On the other hand, it is also found that, the company also receives Tech4Good Awards 2015, European Sustainability Reporting Award, and Building Public Trust Award for sustainability reporting award (Idowu Filho, 2008). Critical Analysis of the CSR Report The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards are used by AVIVAplc to assess the monetary execution and corporate social obligation execution. Also, it is additionally observed that, AVIVAplc deals and income is consistently expanded that demonstrates its great budgetary execution in the business. Additionally, in late time the AVIVAplc likewise concentrates on corporate social obligation and spotlights on representatives, individuals and society before taking the choice. It additionally considers the enthusiasm of all partners before making the strategy and method of the business that demonstrates to it attempt to satisfy its CSR. It appropriately takes after the Law, code of practices and morals identifies with business while run business and actualize any strategy that shows that AVIVAplc execution is likewise great regarding CSR (Global Reporting Initiative, 2013). In addition, it is also focusing on employees and providing those sufficient wages and good working environment (K einert, 2008). Moreover, AVIVAplc adopts several practices to express its social and environmental accountability. These practices are discussed as below: Society Relation: AVIVAplc implements community relation practices to display its social environmental accountability in an effective way. In addition, AVIVAplc struggles to achieve social sustainability via maintaining a strong relationship with the society of the country. AVIVAplc also encourages its workers to work cheerfully for the welfare of the society. It also adopts an unambiguous policy to uphold its society relationships. Furthermore, AVIVAplc hubs on three community issues such as: Indigenous, Disaster assistance, Microfinance and also implements various strategies to solve this issues in an appropriate way (Mallin, 2009). Environmental Sustainability: It is also the other practice that expresses social and environmental accountability of AVIVAplc. In addition, AVIVAplc focuses to realize sustainability in relation of the climate amends, stream and biodiversity effectually. The company has a policy that is helpful to renovate its system to a low carbon economy in futures. It also has several specific policies, governance facsimile partnerships to diminish carbon secretion in an appropriate way. Moreover, AVIVAplc also has numerous specific strategies to deal with risks other issues that are associated to climate change, rivulet and biodiversity. Building approach of climate risk management, diminishing straight footprint on the environment, environment congenial product service, etc. are the other areas in which these adopted strategies play a vital role to exhibit social environmental accountability of AVIVAplc (Mullerat and Brennan, 2005). Sustainability in the Work: AVIVAplc considers sustainability objectives and its activities in all stages of the business for the effective operation of the business activities. For example, banking and investment product and services are the major areas of the business. In addition, AVIVAplc implements precise principles to certify liability in lending from the banking as well as investment areas of the business. It also considers the credible collapse of the investment on the atmosphere. Apart from this, the company also presents products as well as incentives to the customer to be alert of environmental issues in an appropriate way (Perez Leonard, 2013). Sustainability Strategy: AVIVAplc also implements sustainability strategy in all phases of its business to express its social environmental accountability in an appropriate proper manner. Apart from this, the companys sustainability strategy also nucleus on the emerging issues and also includes sustainable wealth construction, cultural demographic amendment and environmental disputes, etc. to remove the environmental issue and to improve the social and environment accountability of the business organization effectively. Hence, AVIVAplc has been espouses several steps to accomplish sustainability and to expose its social and environmental accountability in a proper way (Samson Daft, 2012). Conclusions and Recommendations On the basis of above analysis, it is recommended that, in order to improve a companys external reporting practices, it should develop and use innovative strategies in relation to the CSR and sustainability. In addition to this, the companies should also focus on sustainability of the organization to prevent the risks of the business and also increase the revenues of the companies. Moreover, the company should also focus on the concept of corporate social responsibilities and sustainability to recover social environmental recital of the business organizations in a proper way (Baumgartner, 2002). References Baumgartner, M. (2002) Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship - Business Brennan, S. (2011). Corporate Social Responsibility: The Corporate Governance of the 21st Century. USA: Kluwer Law International. Carroll, A.B., Lipartito, K.J., Post, J.E. Werhane, P.H. (2012). Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience. UK: Cambridge University Press.concepts for the future!?. USA: Diplomarbeiten Agentur. Cornelissen, J. (2011). Corporate Communication: A Guide to Theory and Practice. USA: SAGE. Dhillon, G. (2002). Social Responsibility in the Information Age: Issues and Controversies. UK: Idea Group Inc (IGI). Forster, N. (2005) Maximum Performance: A Practical Guide to Leading and Managing People at Work. USA: Edward Elgar. Idowu, S. Filho, W.L. (2008). Global Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility. USA: Springer. Investigation of Different CSR-Activities and their Effects on Customers. USA: Agentur. Keinert, C. (2008). Corporate Social Responsibility as an International Strategy. USA: Springer. Lber, H. (2011) Corporate Social Responsibility and Customer Integration -: An Empirical Mallin, C.A. (2009). Corporate Social Responsibility: A Case Study Approach. UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Mullerat, R. Brennan, D. (2005). Corporate Social Responsibility: The Corporate Governance of the 21st Century. USA: Kluwer Law International. Paetzold, K. (2010) Corporate Social Responsibility: An International Marketing Approach. USA: Diplomica Verlag. Perez, M.A.G. Leonard, L. (2013). International Business, Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. UK: Emerald Group Publishing. Pohl, M. and Tolhurst, P. (2011) Responsible Business: How to Manage a CSR Strategy Successfully. USA: John Wiley Sons. Samson, D. Daft, R.L. (2012). Management. USA: Cengage Learning. Sauerbrey, M. (2010). Attitudes Toward Business Ethics. Germany: GRIN Verlag. Shah, S. (2008). Sustainable Practice for the Facilities Manager. USA: John Wiley Sons. Solomon, J. (2007) Corporate Governance and Accountability. USA: John Wiley Sons. Tsamenyi, M. Uddin, S. (2009) Accounting in Emerging Economies. USA: Emerald Group. Visser, W. (2011) The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business. USA: John Wiley Sons.

The Two Faces of Globalization Essay Example

The Two Faces of Globalization Essay The goal of this paper is to emphasize the importance of the role of contemporary literature in understanding the neocolonialist and imperialist aspects of globalization by exploring the depiction of globalization in Arundhati Roy’s novel â€Å"The God of Small Things† and Steve Tesich’s play â€Å"On the Open Road. Although both of these works criticize corporate globalization as a profit-driven enterprise controlled by and catering to the interests of economic, political and intellectual elites, they also express hope in the possibility of a different kind of globalization, which would be based on a genuine struggle for equality and justice for everyone. Introduction: The Two Faces of GlobalizationIs globalization a process which enables greater freedoms in the movement of money, knowledge and people across state borders and is thus beneficial for people across the globe, or is it a process which enables Western powers to exploit other parts of the world in a relatively new way and is thus merely the latest stage of Western imperialism? This question lies at the core of the ongoing disputes between proponents and opponents of globalization. Proponents of globalization insist that the former is the case, while the opponents argue it is actually the latter.In the article titled â€Å"Globalization: Threat or Opportunity? † published in 2000 by the International Monetary Fund staff, economic globalization is defined as â€Å"a historical process, the result of human innovation and technological progress. It refers to the increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through trade and financial flows. † The article further explains, â€Å"The term [globalization] sometimes also refers to the movement of people (labor) and knowledge (technology) across international borders.There are also broader cultural, political and environmental dimensions of globalization that are not covered here. † (Internatio nal Monetary Fund, 2000) For the sake of briefly defining those broader dimension as well, it is useful to borrow words from Manfred B. Steger’s â€Å"Globalization: A Very Short Introduction,† in which he defines cultural globalization as â€Å"the intensification and expansion of cultural flows across the globe,† (Steger, 2003 , pp. 69) political globalization as â€Å"the intensification and expansion of political interrelations across the globe,† (Steger, 2003, pp. 6) and, finally, environmental globalization as the aspect of globalization which deals with the issue of global environmental degradation through phenomena such as the loss of biodiversity, hazardous waste, industrial accidents, global warming and climate change. (Steger, 2003, pp. 87) On the other hand, Vandana Shiva’s definition of globalization can be read as a negation of the above-cited definitions. In her essay â€Å"Ecological Balance in an Era of Globalization,† Shiva states that â€Å"Globalization is not a natural, evolutionary, or inevitable phenomenon, as is often argued.Globalization is a political process that has been forced on the weak by the powerful. Globalization in not the cross-cultural interaction of diverse societies. It is the imposition of a particular culture on all others. Nor is globalization the search for ecological balance on a planetary scale. It is the predation of one class, one race, and often one gender of a single specie on all others. ‘Global’ in the dominant discourse is the political space in which the dominant local seeks control, freeing itself from local, regional, and global sources of accountability arising from the imperatives of ecological sustainability and social justice. Global’ in this sense does not represent the universal human interest; it represents a particular local and parochial interest and culture that has been globalized through its reach and control, irresponsibility, and lack of reciprocity. † She further explains, â€Å"Globalization has come in three waves. The first wave was the colonization of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia by European powers over the course of 1, 500 years. The second wave was the imposition of the West’s idea of ‘development’ on non-Western cultures in the postcolonial era of the past five decades.The third wave of globalization was unleashed approximately five years ago as the era of ‘free trade,’ which for some commentators implies an end to history, but for us in the Third World is a repeat of history through recolonization. Each wave of globalization is cumulative in its impact, even while it creates discontinuity in the dominant metaphors and actors. Each wave of globalization has served Western interests, and each wave has created deeper colonization of other cultures and of the planet’s life. † (Shiva, 2000 , pp. 22-423) Arundhati Roy’s novel â€Å" The God of Small Things† and Steve Tesich’s play â€Å"On the Open Road† show that the reality of globalization for people outside of the local and global economic, political and intellectual elites coincides with the view of globalization given by Shiva and not with the one given by the IMF. Roy’s and Tesich’s works also offer a vision of a different kind of globalization, which would not be based on corporate interests and profits, but on the universal human quest for love, equality and justice.Destruction of Local Economies, Corporate Takeover of People’s Land and Resources, Ecological Degradation and Limited Wars A good example of the impossibility of small local businesses to survive under the conditions imposed by big corporations with the help of local governments and organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization is shown in the demise of the factory owned by the Ipe family from â€Å"T he God of Small Things. The factory was started by Mammachi, after she had been asked to make some banana jam and mango pickles for a local fair and her products turned out to be in high demand during the fair. Initially, her factory was a small, but successful enterprise. However, as soon as her son Chacko became involved in the running of the business, he tried to expand it and make it more competitive on the global market. Even though he managed to get loans from a bank to put his plans into action, his actions proved to be detrimental to the success of the factory, whose financial slide began almost immediately.In addition, the family had to mortgage the rice fields around their house in order to get the bank loans in the first place. Furthermore, under the new production laws, the factory was technically prohibited from producing its famous banana jam, merely because it did not fit into Food Products Organization’s arbitrary classification of products, as it did not rese mble their definition of either jam or jelly enough. Nevertheless, the factory managed to continue producing it illegally, which speaks volumes about the inefficiency of the local government and the organizations in charge of globalization to enforce their own laws.Their inefficiency in law enforcement is even more evident in the area of labor wages, given we learn that the workers from the factory began receiving a wage bellow the legal minimum specified by the Trade Union as soon as the factory’s financial slide began, without anyone of the authorities bothering to do something about that. Or at least no one other than Comrade Pillai, a local politician who merely wanted to use the situation to advance his own political career, with little to no real concern for the protection of the rights of the workers.Roy’s novel also gives us an insight into how governments of developing countries take control over the local resources in order to use them primarily with the inte rests of global corporations in mind and not the interests of the local community. As a result, local resources are exhausted, people often displaced from their land in large numbers and traditional trades based on making use of local resources are no longer possible. The governments of developing countries also allow them to be turned into dumping grounds for the waste from developed countries.Now that he’d been re-Returned, Estha walked all over Ayemenem. Some days he walked along the banks of the river that smelled of shit and pesticides bought with World Bank loans. Most of the fish had died. The ones that survived suffered from fin-rot and had broken out in boils. (Roy, 1997, pp. 7) Years later, when Rahel returned to the river, it greeted her with a ghastly skull’s smile, with holes where teeth had been, and a limp hand raised from a hospital bed. Both things had happened. It had shrunk. And she had grown.Downriver, a saltwater barrage had been built, in exchange for votes from the influential paddy-farmer lobby. The barrage regulated the inflow of salt water from the backwaters that opened into the Arabian Sea. So now they had two harvests a year instead of one. More rice—for the price of a river. [†¦] Once [the river] had had the power to evoke fear. To change lives. But now its teeth were drawn, its spirit spent. It was just a slow, sludging green ribbon lawn that ferried fetid garbage to the sea. Bright plastic bags blew across its viscous, weedy surface like subtropical flying-flowers.The stone steps that had once led bathers right down to the water, and Fisher People to the fish, were entirely exposed and led from nowhere to nowhere, like an absurd corbelled monument that commemorated nothing. Ferns pushed through the cracks. (Roy, 1997, pp. 59) Steve Tesich’s play â€Å"On the Open Road† offers an even more straightforwardly grim image of the effects of globalization on countries outside of the First World ( or the so-called Free World, the name to which Tesich alludes in the play by calling the place to which the main two characters want to go the â€Å"Land of the Free†).Unlike in Roy’s novel, where wars occasionally appear in the background of main events, in Tesich’s play all events, save for the ones from the last scene, take place during a civil war. The temporal and geographical location of the play’s events is deliberately unspecified (we are told that the setting is â€Å"TIME: A time of Civil War [,] PLACE: A place of Civil War†) and the misfortunes of Tesich’s fictional country vaguely resemble the misfortunes of any war-inflicted country since the end of the Second World War, albeit in an allegorical sense.The fictional country from the play has a chance to successfully end the civil war for good and become â€Å"free† itself, but it must first kill its Jesus Christ, who appears as a character in the play and symbolically repr esents the undying faith in the possibility of a different kind of human society, a society based on love, equality and justice, all of which are values unwelcome in the Free World, where the only value that matters is the commercial one. The new government, which is a coalition â€Å"of all the former implacable foes,† (Tesich, 1992, pp. 6) entrusts the task of killing Jesus to Al and Angel, whom the government forces captured while they were trying to escape to the Land of the Free. If they kill Jesus for the government, they will be released and given exit visas to go to the Land of the Free. Al: Nervous? Angel: It’s nothing. Just nerves. Why does Jesus have to die? Al: You know why? So we can save our ass. Angel: I know that part. But why do they want him to die. Al: So they can get on with their reforms. They want to overhaul their whole system and he’s in the way.Angel: What system? Al: THE system. Life. Everything. They want to make moral integrity access ible to everybody. If you have a fixed standard it’s tough. But if you let the standards float, like currency, then everyone’s got a shot. Angel: It’ll be a lot more democratic that way, right? Al: Right. (Tesich, 1992, pp. 64-65) Divide and Rule and the Role of the Left One of the aspects for which â€Å"The God of Small Things† has been criticized is its portrayal of the Indian left. E. K.Nayanar, the late leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and three times Chief Minister of Kerala, accused Roy of taking an anti-communist stance in her novel and insinuated that it is thanks to such a stance that the novel became popular in the West. However, Roy’s novel more accurately reads as a thoughtful examination of various reasons why communism in Kerala and, by extension, India in general failed to resolve the society’s deep-seated caste issues, rather than an attack on communism per se.Roy’s criticism in the book is primarily a imed at people who embrace communist rhetoric for the sake of pursuing self-serving agendas, rather than out of any desire to truly reform the society. One such figure is the aforementioned Comrade Pillai, whose interest in the treatment of Ipe family’s factory workers primarily stems from his desire to advance his own political position. He tries to start a rebellion among the Ipe family’s factory workers, even though he is not only a personal friend with Chacko and the rest of the family, but also prints labels for their factory.Yet he sees nothing wrong with simultaneously working against them and for them, because both actions serve his personal interests. Earlier in the year, Comrade Pillai’s political ambitions had been given an unexpected boost. Two local Party members, Comrade J. Kattukaran and Comrade Guhan Menon had been expelled from the Party as suspected Naxalites. One of them—Comrade Guhan Menon—was tipped to be the Party’s can didate for the Kottayam by-elections to the Legislative Assembly due next March. His expulsion from the Parry created a vacuum that a number of hopefuls were jockeying to fill.Among them Comrade K. N. M. Pillai. Comrade Pillai had begun to watch the goings-on at Paradise Pickles with the keenness of a substitute at a soccer match. To bring in a new labor union, however small, in what he hoped would be his future constituency; would be an excellent beginning for a journey to the Legislative Assembly. [†¦] Comrade K. N. M. Pillai never came out openly against Chacko. Whenever he referred to him in his speeches he was careful to strip him of any human attributes and present him as an abstract functionary in some larger scheme. A theoretical construct.A pawn in the monstrous bourgeois plot to subvert the revolution. He never referred to him by name, but always as â€Å"the Management† As though Chacko was many people. Apart from it being tactically the right thing to do, thi s disjunction between the man and his job helped Comrade Pillai to keep his conscience clear about his own private business dealings with Chacko. His contract for printing the Paradise Pickles labels gave him an income that he badly needed. He told himself that Chacko-the-client and Chacko-the-Management were two different people. Quite separate of course from Chacko-the-Comrade. Roy, 1997, pp. 57-58) Comrade Pillai’s opportunism and hypocrisy are even more transparent in his relationship with Velutha. Though Comrade Pillai includes â€Å"Caste is Class, comrades† (Roy, 1997, pp. 132) in his speeches, his efforts in helping the lowest castes are dubious at best. During one of his conversations with Chacko, he reveals that his own wife does not allow Paravans one of the lowest castes, also referred to as â€Å"Untouchables,† which is a joint name for several lowest castes into their house and that he has not managed to change her mind about that, though he has allegedly been trying.He adds that the same is true for the workers from Chacko’s factory, who continue to look down on Velutha because of his Paravan status, despite Comrade Pillai’s supposed attempts to make them overcome their prejudices. Furthermore, he advises Chacko to fire Velutha, so that his presence in the factory would not disturb other workers. When Velutha himself comes to Comrade Pillai to ask for help after the Ipe family learns about his affair with Ammu, Comrade Pillai turns him down, only to later use Velutha’s murder by the police for his own purposes.Namely, since it was well-known that Velutha was a communist, Comrade Pillai tells the workers that â€Å"the Management had implicated the Paravan in a false police case because he was an active member of the Communist Party. † (Roy, 1997, pp. 141) This results in the workers laying siege of the factory and Comrade Pillai getting the publicity he wanted. Another character through whom Roy voices her criticism of certain abuses of communism is Chacko.A member of the middle class intelligentsia, he is â€Å"a self-proclaimed Marxist† (Roy, 1997, pp. 31) whose devotion to Marxism amounts to his diligent reading of Marxist theory (especially that written by the local Marxists), arguing with his father about Marxism and using Marxism as an excuse to approach female workers of his factory and make advances at them. In practice, his interests as the factory owner are directly opposed to the interests of his workers and his concern for them exists only on the level of words.The only time when he contemplates actually doing something for them, the thought crosses his mind primarily because he fears that unless he acts first, Comrade Pillai might steal his fame as a working class hero and savior. His hypocrisy is further highlighted by the fact he avoids delivering any unpleasant news to the workers himself, preferring to leave that to his mother, so that she is the on ly one who gets the reputation of a harsh boss, though the two of them make the decisions about factory management together.However, Roy paints a much more sympathetic picture of communism through Ammu and Velutha. While Ammu does not identify as a communist, she understands and sympathizes with the struggles of the factory workers more than either Comrade Pillai or Chacko. It is she who points out Chacko’s hypocrisy and abuse of power to him by telling him that what he does is merely â€Å"a case of a spoiled princeling playing Comrade. Comrade! An Oxford avatar of the old zamindar entality—a landlord forcing his attentions on women who depended on him for their livelihood. † (Roy, 1997, pp. 31) Moreover, along with her two children, she is the only character in the novel who treats members of the lower castes as her equals and not inferiors. In fact, she first becomes romantically interested in Velutha when she senses that the two of them might share a profoun d anger about the unjust, hierarchically-ordered world they live in. Suddenly Ammu hoped that it had been him that Rahel saw in the march.She hoped it had been him that had raised his flag and knotted arm in anger. She hoped that under his careful cloak of cheerfulness he housed a living, breathing anger against the smug, ordered world that she so raged against. (Roy, 1997, pp. 84) As for Velutha himself, he is arguably the most sympathetic character in the novel. Though hard-working and highly competent, he is paid less than other workers for his work in the factory because he is a Paravan.Moreover, the prevalent attitude in his community is that, due to the fact he is a Paravan, he deserves neither the job nor the training he previously received in order to be able to develop his talents. Even his own father, who has entirely internalized the values of the caste society, thinks Velutha should be grateful for what Mammachi has done for him, though in fact Mammachi’s alleged generosity towards him is entirely self-serving, given Velutha does an extraordinary amount of work both in the factory and the Ipe family house without being paid properly for his services.Moreover, though Mammachi is not overtly rude to Velutha before she learns about his relationship with Ammu, she still treats him as an inferior. Roy also uses Velutha’s character to criticize the treatment of the Naxalites, the most militant fraction of the communist party in India, whom Velutha eventually joins. The Naxalites are dismissed even by other communists for their ties with Maoism and feared by the entire community for their alleged use of excessive violence.Yet from Roy’s description of Velutha’s position and the position of other Untouchables, we understand that the violence the Naxalites use is primarily their defense from the violence against them that is legalized within the caste system. Not only are they condemned to poverty and hard labor for minimum wage, they are also subjected to brutal beatings, rapes and murders by the authorities for even the smallest violations of the discriminatory laws against them. Non-violent resistance is simply not an option for them under such conditions.In addition to criticizing some fractions of the Indian left for their inefficiency in putting an end to the caste system and in protecting those most endangered by it, Roy uses the example of disagreements between the Indian and Chinese communists and the fracturing of the original Communist Party of India into the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to illustrate the dangerous tendency of the radical left to divide itself and thus make it easier for capitalism and imperialism to triumph over it. The God of Small Things† also draws attention to how inner divisions and conflicts within and among the countries of the developing world generally make them more susceptible to the influence of Western neocolonialism and imperialism, which encourages these divisions and conflicts for its own purposes, occasionally creating limited wars. Though â€Å"The God of Small Things† focuses primarily on the divisions and conflicts within the Indian society, it also informs us of the wars that broke out between India and its neighbors.The perniciousness of inner divisions of a society and the way local political elites and Western imperialism benefit from them is one of the themes Tesich’s â€Å"On the Open Road† deals with as well. In Al’s and Angel’s country there are so many opposing parties using the civil war as an opportunity to come into power that the majority of people have lost track of how many of them there are and what the differences between them are, given that they, unlike the politicians, have to worry about their bare life.Al: Whose side are you on? Angel: You mean the Civil War? Al: What else is there? Angel: I’ve lost track of sides. Al: Let us say you ran into Christian Democrats or Social Democrats, or Corporate Christians or the Blues or the Reds or the Whites or some splinter group of any of the above? Which of them would you be most likely to join? Angel: If the King of Hell had a fraction, I’d sign up if he’d set me free. (Tesich, 1992, pp. 9) Like Roy, Tesich here criticizes the behavior of the political and intellectual elites.That the political parties who are fighting for power are hypocritical and opportunistic is evident enough even from their names (for example, â€Å"Corporate Christians†) and becomes even more transparent when they eventually end up forming a coalition government, despite their allegedly irreconcilable ideological differences. As for the intellectual elite, Al’s character serves as critical comment on their compliance with oppressive systems. Unlike Roy’s Chacko, the self-proclaimed Marxist, Al is a skeptical intellectual whose intellect is completely divorced from empathy and who has rejected the values of love, equality and justice.Thus instead of encouraging people to fight for them, he tries to teach them that they are false and unreachable. Commodification of Art, Culture and Education A great example of how the alleged â€Å"intensification and expansion of cultural flows across the globe,† (Steger, 2003, pp. 69) in practice often consists of the expansion of Western (primarily American) pop culture and consumerist culture across the globe can be seen in Roy’s portrayal of the Ipe family household after the introduction of satellite television into their lives.Television quickly makes Baby Kochamma abandon her previous interests and passions, such as her ornamental garden, and spend a large portion of her days eating snacks in front of the TV and ordering various products advertized in the TV commercials in the company of her servant Kochu Maria. Though at first sight the image of them watching television together mig ht seem to be indicative of television having helped them to overcome class barriers and become closer, this is not really the case.This â€Å"television-enforced democracy† (Roy, 1997, pp. 42) actually only further alienates them from each other and their local community and distracts them from their own lives and problems. Furthermore, there is also something unsettling about the very nature of the content offered by television. While in theory television could serve as a great means for bringing information and education to a large number of people, in reality news programs, political shows and even educational programs often serve to spread deologically-motivated misinformation, while trivial, superficial programs, such as soap operas and reality shows, are pushed to the foreground at the expense of any more substantial programs that might exist. In addition, the increased exposure of people to images of graphic, real-life violence via TV seems to desensitize them moreso than make them aware of how horrible the atrocities taking place around them are. Baby Kochamma had installed a dish antenna on the roof of the Ayemenem house.She presided over the world in her drawing room on satellite TV. The impossible excitement that this engendered in Baby Kochamma wasn’t hard to understand. It wasn’t something that happened gradually. It happened overnight. Blondes, wars, famines, football, sex, music, coups d’etat—they all arrived on the same train. They unpacked together. They stayed at the same hotel. And in Ayemenem, where once the loudest sound had been a musical bus horn, now whole wars, famines, picturesque massacres and Bill Clinton could be summoned up like servants.And so, while her ornamental garden wilted and died, Baby Kochamma followed American NBA league games, one-day cricket and all the Grand Slam tennis tournaments, On weekdays she watched The Bold and the Beautiful and Santa Barbara, where brittle blondes with lip stick and hairstyles rigid with spray seduced androids and defended their sexual empires. Baby Kochamma loved their shiny clothes and the smart, bitchy repartee. During the day, disconnected snatches of it came back to her and made her chuckle (Roy, 1997, pp. 14)As for local cultures, in Roy’s novel we see how they are reduced to mere commodities to be sold on the market in a way that deprives them of their substance. Under the conditions imposed by globalization traditional stories and dances, for instance, are often deliberately decontextualized and deprived of any meaning. In â€Å"The God of Small Things† this can be seen on the example of the kathakali being performed for rich, foreign tourists in an altered, mutilated form that is appealing enough to people whose attention span is short and interest in the local culture nothing but superficial.In the novel, performers themselves are described as deeply uncomfortable with taking part in such trivialization and com modification of stories to which they deeply relate. To the Kathakali Man these stories are his children and his childhood. He has grown up within them. They are the house he was raised in, the meadows he played in. They are his windows and his way of seeing. So when he tells a story, he handles it as he would a child, of his own. [†¦] He tells stories of the gods, but his yarn is spun from the ungodly, human heart. The Kathakali Man is the most beautiful of men. Because his body is his soul. His only instrument.From the age of three it has been planed and polished, pared down, harnessed wholly to the task of storytelling. He has magic in him, this man within the painted mask and swirling skins. But these days he has become unviable. Unfeasible. Condemned goods. His children deride him. They long to be everything that he is not. He has watched them grow up to become clerks and bus conductors. Class IV nongazetted officers. With unions of their own. [†¦] In despair, he turn s to tourism. He enters the market. He hawks the only thing he owns. The stories that his body can tell. He becomes a Regional Flavor. (Roy, 1997, pp. 109-110)Furthermore, images invoking some aspects of the traditional culture are even arbitrarily put on the advertisements for locally-produced goods to give them a â€Å"Regional Flavor,† even if there is no logical connection whatsoever between the product itself and the image on its advertisement. For example, an image of a kathakali dancer is on the advertisements painted on the Ipe family’s car, though their factory produces food and therefore has nothing to do with kathakali. â€Å"The God of Small Things† also draws attention to the phenomenon of imperialism and corporate capitalism trying to commodify even most explicit forms of resistance to them.The Hotel People liked to tell their guests that the oldest of the wooden houses, with its airtight, paneled storeroom which could hold enough rice to feed an a rmy for a year, had been the ancestral home of Comrade E. M. S. Namboodiripad, â€Å"Kerala’s Mao Tsetung,† they explained to the uninitiated. The furniture and knickknacks that came with the house were on display. A reed umbrella, a wicker couch. A wooden dowry box. They were labeled with edifying placards that said Traditional Kerala Umbrella and Traditional Bridal Dowry –box.So there it was then, History and Literature enlisted by commerce. Kurtz and Karl Marx joining palms to greet rich guests as they stepped off the boat. Comrade Namboodiripad’s house functioned as the hotel’s dining room, where semi-suntanned tourists in bathing suits sipped tender coconut water (served in the shell), and old Communists, who now worked as fawning bearers in colorful ethnic clothes, stooped slightly behind their trays of drinks. (Roy, 1997, pp. 60) These paragraphs were specifically criticized by the aforementioned E. K.Nayanar, who interpreted Roy’s mo dification of historical facts for the sake of making her point about communism as ideology being commercialized as another proof of her book being an attack on communism. However, bearing in mind we live in the age in which Che Guevara’s image, for instance, has become habitually used for selling merchandise and, furthermore, in which â€Å"theory is taught so as to make the student believe that he or she can become a Marxist, a feminist, an Afrocentrist, or a deconstructionist with about the same effort and commitment required in choosing items from a menu† (Said, 1993, pp. 21), Roy’s warning about the abuses of revolutionary leaders and theories does not seem either malicious or misguided. In Tesich’s â€Å"On the Open Road† we also see how art, culture and education have been reduced to products to be sold on the market. Al and Angel spend the entire first act collecting artifacts from bombed-out museums and houses of the rich, so that they cou ld trade them for the entrance into the Land of the Free. Moreover, Al is trying to educate Angle about art and culture, because â€Å"they don’t let refugees into the Land of the Free by the metric ton anymore.You have to be culturally qualified to get in. † (Tesich, 1992, pp. 19) The developed world is interested in helping the people from the developing world only if they can somehow profit from it themselves. The primary purpose of education in the age of globalization is the advancement of one’s personal socioeconomic position. Furthermore, a detached and desensitized approach to art is completely normalized and is the one that is most demanded on the market.Even though Angel informs us that one of the incidents which marked the beginning of the civil war in his and Al’s country occurred in a museum when the poor museum visitors became infuriated with seeing the rich museum visitors moved by the suffering depicted on paintings, although they were com pletely oblivious to the suffering in real life, it is precisely that kind of a detached approach to art that Al is trying to teach Angel because he knows that this kind of approach to art is valued in the Land of the Free.Conclusion: Art as a Form of Resistance and Creative Maladjustment Though both â€Å"The God of Small Things† and â€Å"On the Open Road† draw attention to the increased trivialization and commodification of art in the time of globalization, neither work suggests that these practices are entirely successful at stripping art of its revolutionary potential. In Roy’s novel we see how, for example, listening to her favorite songs on the radio has an empowering effect on Ammu.In those moments, she casts away the socially-imposed roles and behaviors and enters a state in which she can explore what her authentic desires might be more freely. Music even helps her finally de

Elizabeth I and Religion essays

Elizabeth I and Religion essays The development of nation states was essential to the Early Modern Period. The ability of countries to unify their populations around a central capital proved critical to their long-term strength. The Protestant Reformation brought this state building into question, for it raised the issue of permanent religious division. No state was more significant during this period than England, and no reign in England was more important for the building of the English nation state than that of Elizabeth I. Elizabeth negotiated a confusing obstacle course between Catholicism and radical Protestantism. In the process, Anglicanism, the English protestant creed, proved not a means to divide the country, but on the contrary, to unify the country. The following essay will explain how and why. Elizabeth ascended the throne at age twenty-five, immediately identifying herself as a Protestant sympathizer. She made slight religious adjustments under her Protestant brother, Edward VI, and then under her Catholic sister, Mary I, but Elizabeth was always more receptive to the Protestants. Elizabeth solidified this position by walking out on the bishop of Carlisle when he refused her request not to elevate the Host on Christmas Day and again at her coronation three weeks later. Although the Catholics initially hoped, albeit somewhat optimistically, that Elizabeth would be sympathetic to their cause, they now knew decisively that she would not support them. Many Catholic bishops also refused to crown Elizabeth queen, further fostering her support for the Protestants who stood firmly behind her. Elizabeth was also keenly aware that she could not cede too much ground to the Protestants. Based on the foreign alliances in Europe at the time, she knew a fervent rejection of Catholicism would encourage Spain to make an alliance with France against England. She had not forgotten the bloody executions carried out under Mary and the strong mobilizing effec...

Statistic homework Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Statistic homework - Case Study Example We summarize data on the variables and investigate possible relationship between amount spent and the other variables. This section analyzes the collected data from the sample. The section is organized into two parts, the first part offers descriptive statistics through graphical and numerical summaries while the second part analyses relationships through graphical representation and correlation analysis. Analysis of distribution of the three variables suggests a correlation between amounts spent time spent in the website. A similar trend can also be identified between amount spent and number of pages that a customer vies. A relationship can therefore be suggested between amounts spent and both time and number of pages viewed. The summary statistics shows that Friday had the highest number of people visiting the website and Monday followed this. Despite the frequency however, Monday had the highest mean amount spent ($ 90.65). Monday, Friday, and Tuesday recorded the highest mean amount spent and they should be the company’s target days for improving sales. The results shows that a majority of the online customers use internet explorer but these have low mean amount spent compared to users of firefox and other browsers. The results further suggest association between less popular browsers with higher expenditure rate among the online shopers. The scatter plot suggest a positive linear relationship between time spent on a website and amount spent (r= 0.5936). Attracting and retaining customers on the website is therefore a possible strategy for improving sales. The following is the scatter plot. The results suggest significance of time spent on the website, number of pages viewed, day of the week, and browser type as factors to amount spent on online shopping. In order to improve its sales further, the company should focus factors that can increase number of viewed