Chinese Women in the 21st Century Essay

â€Å"There would be no new China without the Communist Party†, I’ve heard of this saying since I was a little child. From then on, the Communist Party has left a deep and giant impression on me. China makes great progress under the leadership of the Communist Party which has always been the belief of China. I’ve been told that it would be a great honor to be a party member. So now I am a party member and the Chinese belief becomes my genuine belief. However, as growing up, I begin to wonder whether all the party members can regard the Communist party as their belief all the time and whether they are doing the things the party member should do. The answer is so disappointed. The power of Chinese belief and the awareness of Chinese people of supporting the belief are becoming weaker and weaker. China needs a firm and strong advocate of the belief. Many people can establish the belief of becoming a party member, but they can’t follow their original belief all the lifetime. Gradually they lose themselves in the debauchery lives and they forget what they have said under the flag. Other people without party affiliation are harder to see their own belief clearly. A nation without definite belief is lamentable and horrible because it can be easily destroyed by the outside rumor. Chinese dream of need a power to hold the belief is the same as my dream. We are facing the similar situation. It is easy for me to set up a goal, but I can’t carry out the goal from beginning to end. Sometimes the obstacles or the outside environment make me give up the goal. I lack the perseverance. I lack the power to hold the goal. I’ m a member of the Communist Party, but I’m not true of the name for the reason I’ve mentioned above. After many years, I’ m afraid of becoming the kind of person I disliked before. I’ m afraid of losing myself in the busy world. I’ m afraid of forget all the dream and belief made when I was young. I really need the power to help me hold the belief. China is developing and I’ m growing. We all share the same dream. China needs the citizens to awaken themselves and I need the self-awakening. The glamour of the surface must be very vulnerable. We should be tested by the time. Only holding the belief all the time can we go further towards the success. Chinese dream is my dream. Hoping the dream comes true.

Carthaginian Empire

Abstract The Cartage Empire was formed in 814 B. C. According to legend, this was when Princess Dido, of Tore fled from her home, current day Lebanon. This was to escape from the clutches of her brother Pygmalion who had killed her husband, heir to the throne of Tore after her father died. She fled across the Mediterranean with some citizens of Tore and landed at the tip of Northern Africa, Cartage or current day Tunisia. There, she saw that Cartage was almost like an island Jutting out into the Mediterranean, with 2 inlets on either side. It had natural defenses, Just like Tore,Dido's homeland. This was the reason why Princess Dido chose this as the place for her new city, Cartage. Thus, Cartage was founded. By 500 BC, It had become a major Mediterranean power establishing colonies in Corsica, Pizza, North Africa, The Ballerina Islands and Sardinia. It had a population of over 300 000. Its reign started to decline when Hannibal lost the 2nd Punic War. Therefore, we will be focusing on the time period starting from 500 BC till the end of the 2nd Punic War (202 SC). Under Commerce, we are focusing on international trade (trade between The CartageEmpire, North Africa and other cities of the Iberian Peninsula) and how it became an international metropolis due to its strategic location near the Mediterranean trade routes. Under Conflict, we are focusing on military (advanced navy) and territorial expansion (Punic Wars). We will be focusing on Cartage's advanced shipbuilding techniques and how they managed to hold their own against a bigger and stronger enemy (Rome) during the 2nd Punic War. Under Culture, we are focusing on religion and practices. The Carthaginian worshipped most of the gods that were worshipped y the Phoenicians.Also, they had practices like killing their own children. Under Community, we are focusing on government. The government of Cartage was an oligarchic republic, which relied on a system of checks and balances and ensured a form of public ac countability. Our hypothesis is that the extent of the Carthaginian Navy and weaponry managed to hold up a superior empire, namely the Romans, for such a long time. We intend to prove that our hypothesis is true. Community Introduction In this portion we will be talking about Carthaginian government and governing styles.Aristotle himself ranks this republic as one of the best and as an example for all to follow. He says this due to the fact that from Cartage's formation to his time, no considerable sedition had disturbed the peace, nor had any big tyrant arisen. Therefore, let us take a closer look at Cartage's government and governing style. Government The government of Cartage was made of 3 main authorities. They were the 2 supreme magistrates called suffers, 600 people in the senate and the common public. The suffers played the role of king, dictator and consul. They were elected annually from the most wealthy and influential families.These suffers were empowered to elect the sen ate and presided over them. One example of a successful this dynasty and brought much success to the Carthaginian through their countless victories against Rome which allowed Cartage to sustain itself as their offensive nature delayed Romeos invasion into Cartage. The senate formed the very soul of the government and were honored on basis of their age, experience, birth, riches, and most importantly their merit. Public Involvement in Politics When there was no clear majority in the number of votes, the matter was brought to the people of the public.This can be seen as an effective way to crush factions, produce harmony and to enforce and corroborate good counsel. As a result of this, the Carthaginian forces could be funneled into the war efforts instead of busying themselves with major internal conflicts. Their people had confidence in the government, therefore there were no major rebellions during the Cartage golden era. Disadvantages Although Cartage's government had many advantag es, no government is perfect. The Cartage government had two big flaws. Firstly, the government invested the same person with different employments.However, this is highly prejudicial to the community. Bestowing too many responsibilities on one person makes him proud and dazzles him, while making other people Jealous. This might have been so in the case of the Ammonias as Hannibal controlled the army and his family were part of the suffers and the senate. Secondly, the senate was chosen on base of birth while the suffers were chosen on base of wealth. Therefore, poverty may exclude people with enormous merit. This is considered as a great evil in a government as virtue is wholly disregarded while money is all prevalent. ConclusionThe well- organized oligarch republic of Cartage helped to maintain peace and stability within the empire so that more attention could be given to further ventures to expand the empire instead of focusing too much on internal problems. Culture The culture o f the Carthaginian was very much like their ancestors the Phoenicians. Like every ancient city, Cartage had a large number of gods and goddesses. Also, they were notoriously known for child- sacrifice. Gods and Goddesses The chief god of the Carthaginian was Baa' al Hammond while their deity of protection was Maltreat. Baa' al Hammond and Tania were considered as the supreme divine people.Most gods of Cartage came from their predecessors, the Phoenicians. Therefore, culture was not a defining feature of Cartage, though it helped to unify the people. Surviving Punic texts give a detailed description of the temples present in Cartage. They say that there was a well-organized caste of temple priests and acolytes performing various duties for a variety of prices. Child Sacrifice debate about whether child- sacrifice is mere propaganda or true. Urns taken from these sites have shown to contain ashes of footsies, newborn children and bones of young sheep and goats.These children were sacr ificed to their chief god Baa' al Hammond to help them win the various wars that they participated in. Conclusion In conclusion, the religion of Cartage was not an important factor to its success. The gods and goddesses of Cartage brought hope and security to the people. Each god had a specific role to play be it war, agriculture or rain. The people regarded their gods highly and this can be seen in their coins as they depict their most common god, Tania. The gods and goddesses of Cartage brought hope and security to the people. Each god had a specific role to play be it war, agriculture or rain.The people regarded their gods highly and this can be seen in their coins as they depict their most common god, Tania. Commerce Commerce, for Cartage was its occupation and the very reason why its army and Ana were so powerful. It formed Cartage's greatest strength and was the chief support of the commonwealth. Cartage's commerce flourished as it was situated in the centre of the Mediterrane an, stretching out wide. Cartage trade took place all over the world, and they traded in a huge variety of goods. Strategic Location Cartage was located in the centre of the Mediterranean and its colonies spread both east and west.Therefore, it made trade with both Africa and Europe easier. Also, due to Cartage's formidable harbor containing more than 70 commercial ships, it was the best way for Cartage to sail to other parts of the Mediterranean and also Europe to trade. Goods Bought and Sold The Carthaginian sailed to all countries to buy the superfluities of every nation and sold these goods to fulfill the wants of other nation. From Egypt the Carthaginian bought fine flax, paper, corn, sails, and cables for ships. From the coast of the Red Sea they bought spices, frankincense, perfumes, gold, pearls and other precious stones.From Tore and Phoenicia, they bought purple and scarlet, rich stuffs, tapestry, costly furniture and exquisite works of art. They brought back from the west ern world in exchange for all these luxurious items, iron, tin lead and copper. In thus doing so, Cartage became the lord of the seas and sort of the agents of all nations and held east, west and south together. Limitations However, there was a problem with this arrangement. Once Cartage lost control of islands such as Sicily and Sardinia to Rome, they were not able to conduct maritime trade, which was their primary source of income.Thus they were not able to support the vast expenses incurred by the Carthaginian army. Conclusion In conclusion, we can see that Cartage's commercial activities were their primary source of income and enabled them to wage such prolonged wars against an equally if not stronger opponent, the Romans. However, due to their lack of diversity and flexibility and adapting to changing times, they were not able to conduct trade for an extended period of time. This eventually led to their downfall. The mighty forces of the Carthaginian army were constantly lockin g horns with other forces in and around the Mediterranean.The lure of the control of trade in the Mediterranean would ultimately lead to Cartage's untimely demise at the hands of the Romans in the third and final Punic War. Harbor The most magnificent aspect of Cartage was its harbor named Cotton. It was what Cartage was all about; its heart. The harbor had a common entrance from the sea which was 70 Ft wide and could be closed with iron chains. Inside these chains, there were 2 harbors, one commercial and the other military. Firstly, its large harbor was able to store the huge warships whose design the Carthaginian took from Greece during the 1st Punic War.These warships helped the Carthaginian to gain an upper hand over the Romans until the Romans stole the design of these warships and improved them to ultimately defeat the Carthaginian. Secondly, Cotton helped house warships and could dock a maximum of 220 warships. This ensured that Cartage will be ready for battle and its army was always prepared. Having a large naval base would cause other countries to be intimidated and prevent them from attacking Cartage. The Battle of Canaan In the spring of BBC, Hannibal moved from his camp at Geranium and occupied the detailed of a town called Canaan.He planned to attack Canaan so as to be one step closer to his dream of crushing the Roman Empire. Hannibal used a superior strategy against the Roman's strategy of weakening the centre and in a fast and furious bloodbath, The Carthaginian defeated the Romans in a few hours. He faced off against the Romans with an army of 50000 and he was met by a roman army on the fields of battle numbering roughly 76000. The death toll slowly rose as the day wore on . Thus, Hannibal won the Battle of Canaan. Significance of Canaan Canaan was storehouse for grains such as corn.These grains were then delivered to the frontline of the army as and when needed. Although the town itself had been destroyed in the past few years, its capture caused huge commotion in Rome. This was because they not only lost the stores but also the fact that Canaan commanded the surrounding districts. Thus by conquering Canaan, Hannibal disadvantaged Rome in two ways. Firstly, the army that Rome sent to face Hannibal was the biggest they ever did and when they lost 80% of their army, it made a huge dent in their forces. This bought time for Cartage to rethink their strategy and reorganize their roofs.Secondly, by cutting off food supply to the frontline, the Roman army would be short of food and thus not at full strength. This presented another window of opportunity for Hannibal to strike. Another important factor was that Hannibal was able to capture Roman troops and get intelligence about the Roman strategy. In conclusion, we feel that conflict was extremely important in sustaining as going offensive on Rome prevented Rome from invading and destroying Cartage much earlier. Conflict was also major as it brought wealth to Cartage and ena bled them to strengthen their military even more.Community, culture, commerce and conflict. All four define a nation in one way or another across the continents. Conflict, in this case, has been the defining factor in Cartage's history. It changed the way Cartage was looked upon by the world by proving itself to be a force to be reckoned with. Besides a certain amount of aesthetic value for Cartage, conflict also served to extend Cartage's reach down in to Africa as well as territories encompassing the Mediterranean Sea. This can be seen by their rate of territorial expansion.In a matter of a few hundred years, they had grown into n empire that could only be outmatched by Rome, and had a military harbor to be like no other. Their generals and weaponry was of high quality, seen by their bronze battering ram- like warship during the 1st Punic War. They also had clever and strategic generals like Hazardous, Whimsical, Hanna and of course Hannibal. Therefore, it can be seen that Cartage 's reason for success was its military strength and prowess. Although they were extinguished in the end, they will always be remembered as the Lord of the Seas and as the only empire to outmatch Rome.

Abducted by a UFO: prevalence information affects young children’s false memories for an implausible event Essay

SUMMARY This study examined whether prevalence information promotes children’s false memories for an implausible event. Forty-four 7–8 and forty-seven 11–12 year old children heard a true narrative about their ï ¬ rst school day and a false narrative about either an implausible event (abducted by a UFO) or a plausible event (almost choking on a candy). Moreover, half of the children in each condition received prevalence information in the form of a false newspaper article while listening to the narratives. Across two interviews, children were asked to report everything they remembered about the events. In both age groups, plausible and implausible events were equally likely to give rise to false memories. Prevalence information increased the number of false memories in 7–8 year olds, but not in 11–12 year olds at Interview 1. Our ï ¬ ndings demonstrate that young children can easily develop false memories of a highly implausible event. Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Both recent studies (e.g. Pezdek & Hodge, 1999; Strange, Sutherland, & Garry, 2006) and legal cases have demonstrated that children can develop memories of events that never happened, so-called false memories (Loftus, 2004). A well-known legal case is the ‘McMartin Preschool’ trial in which several teachers were accused of ritually abusing hundreds of children across a 10-year period (Garven, Wood, & Malpass, 2000; Garven, Wood, Malpass, & Shaw, 1998; Schreiber et al., 2006). Some of the children recalled extremely bizarre, implausible events such as ï ¬â€šying in helicopters to an isolated farm and watching horses being beaten with baseball bats. The charges against the teachers, however, were eventually dropped; videotapes of the investigative interviews indicated that the children were suggestively interrogated and many experts concluded that the children’s memories were almost certainly false. Controversial cases like the McMartin trial have inspired researchers to investigate how children develop false memories of implausible experiences (Pezdek & Hodge, 1999; Strange et al., 2006), yet the precise antecedents of implausible false memories are still ill-understood. The question we ask here is whether prevalence information—that is, details about the frequency of a false event—is a potential determinant of children’s implausible false memories. *Correspondence to: Henry Otgaar, Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands. E-mail: henry.otgaar@psychology.unimaas.nl Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. H. Otgaar et al. What do we know about the role of prevalence information in the development of false memories? Mazzoni, Loftus, and Kirsch (2001) describe a three-step process that explains how false memories are formed. According to this model, three conditions must be satisï ¬ ed to create false memories. First, an event has to be considered plausible. Second, the event has to be evaluated as something that genuinely happened. Finally, images and thoughts about the event have to be mistaken as memory details. Consider, now, just the ï ¬ rst stage of Mazzoni et al.’s model (event plausibility) and how prevalence information might affect perceived plausibility. Recent experiments have shown that prevalence information enhances the perceived plausibility of implausible events (Hart & Schooler, 2006; Mazzoni et al., 2001; Pezdek, Blandon-Gitlin, Hart, & Schooler, 2006; Scoboria, Mazzoni, Kirsch, & Jimenez, 2006). Mazzoni et al. (2001) asked undergraduates to read false newspaper articles describing demonic possession. The articles implied, among other things (i.e. a description of what happens in a typical possession experience), that possessions were more common than people previously thought and after reading the articles participants were more likely to believe they had witnessed a demonic possession in the past. Other studies investigating the role of prevalence information in eliciting false beliefs have produced similar striking effects (Hart & Schooler, 2006; Mazzoni et al., 2001; Pezdek et al., 2006; Scoboria et al., 2006). What we do not know, however, is whether prevalence information inï ¬â€šuences the development of false memories (stage 3 of Mazzoni et al.’s model) and not just false beliefs per se. This is an important issue in the false memory literature because several authors have argued that memories and beliefs, although related, are deï ¬ nitely not the same (Scoboria, Mazzoni, Kirsch, & Relyea, 2004; Smeets, Merckelbach, Horselenberg, & Jelicic, 2005). Moreover, the effect of prevalence information has only ever been tested on adults’ beliefs. To date, no study has examined whether prevalence information affects the generation of children’s false memories. What do we know about event plausibility in the development of children’s false memories? In short, research has produced interesting but varied results. Early studies showed that children were more likely to create false memories of plausible than implausible events (Pezdek & Hodge, 1999; Pezdek, Finger, & Hodge, 1997), and researchers suggested that it may be difï ¬ cult to implant false memories of an implausible event (i.e. receiving a rectal enema). In contrast, one recent study shows that children will falsely recall both plausible and implausible events to a similar extent (Strange et al., 2006). Three different explanations might account for these mixed ï ¬ ndings. First, Strange et al. presented children with a doctored photograph of the false event whereas Pezdek and colleagues used false descriptions. Doctored photographs might be considered an extreme form of evidence -one that is very difï ¬ cult for children to refute. It is probable, then, that the doctored photographs skewed the children’s plausibility judgments which in   turn caused them to develop false memories for the plausible and implausible event at a similar rate. Second, Strange et al. compared false events that were either plausible or implausible whereas Pezdek and colleagues (1997, 1999) contrasted false events that differed in terms of script knowledge (i.e. description of what typically occurs in an event). Speciï ¬ cally, they compared a high script knowledge event (i.e. lost in a shopping mall) with a low script knowledge event (i.e. receiving a rectal enema). However, the exact relation between script knowledge and plausibility is not clear (Scoboria et al., 2004). Third, the two false events used in Strange et al.’s and Pezdek et al.’s studies differed with respect to valence. Strange et al.’s events were positive (i.e. taking a hot air balloon ride and drinking a cup of tea with Prince Charles), whereas Pezdek and colleagues implanted false negative events in Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. children’s memory (i.e. lost in a shopping mall and receiving a rectal enema). Studies have shown that valence affects the development of children’s false memories (Ceci, Loftus, Leichtman, & Bruck, 1994; Howe, 2007). Since plausibility, valence and script knowledge seem to play a role in the development of false memories, the false events used in the current study were matched on these factors. To examine whether prevalence information can lead children to develop full-blown false memories of plausible and implausible events, and to examine developmental differences in the development of false memories, we adapted the false narrative procedure (e.g. Garry & Wade, 2005; Loftus & Pickrell, 1995; Pezdek & Hodge, 1999; Pezdek et al., 1997), and exposed some 7–8 year old children and some 11–12 year old children to one true description and one false description of past experiences. Previous studies have shown that these age groups differ developmentally with respect to suggestibility and false memory formation (e.g. Ceci, Ross, & Toglia, 1987). The true description described the child’s ï ¬ rst day at school. The false description was either plausible and described almost choking on a candy, or implausible and described being abducted by a UFO. Half of the children in each group also received prevalence information in the form of a newspaper article. The article suggested that the target false event was much more common than the children probably thought. Our predictions were straightforward: based on the prevalence literature with adults, we predicted that children who heard false prevalence information would be more likely to report false memories than children without false prevalence information. With respect to the role of event plausibility, two predictions can be formulated. Based on studies by Pezdek and colleagues (1997, 1999), we would predict that regardless of prevalence information, plausible events would elicit more false memories than implausible events. However, based on a recent study by Strange et al. (2006), we would expect that plausible and implausible events are equally likely to elicit false memories. Finally, because younger children are more suggestible than older children (for an overview see Bruck & Ceci, 1999), we expected that younger children would be more likely to develop false memories than older children. METHOD Participants The study involved 91 primary school children (48 girls) from two different age groups (n  ¼ 44, 7–8 year olds, M  ¼ 7.68 years, SD  ¼ 0.52; n  ¼ 47, 11–12 year olds, M  ¼ 11.64 years, SD  ¼ 0.53). Children participated after parents and teachers had given informed consent. All children received a small gift in return for their participation. The study was approved by the standing ethical committee of the Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht University. Materials True narratives True narratives described children’s ï ¬ rst day at school. This event was chosen because it was a unique event that had happened to all children at age 4. Children’s parents were contacted by telephone to obtain the following personal details about each child’s ï ¬ rst school day: the family members or friends who escorted the child to school, and the teacher’s and school’s name. These details were incorporated in the true narratives. Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. An example of a true narrative was: Your mother told me that when you were 4 years old, you went for the ï ¬ rst time to the elementary school. The name of the elementary school was Springer and it was located in Maastricht. The name of your teacher was Tom. Your mother took you to school. False narratives False events were selected from a pilot study. In that study, 49 children (M  ¼ 8.02 years, SD  ¼ 1.20, range 6–101) rated the plausibility and valence of 29 events on child-friendly 7-point Smiley scales (anchors:  ¼ implausible/negative,  ¼ plausible/positive) with bigger smiley faces referring to more plausible/more positive events. Speciï ¬ cally, children had to indicate how likely the events were to happen to them (e.g. ‘How likely is it that you almost choke on a candy’?; i.e. personal plausibility; Scoboria et al., 2004) and how pleasant the events were for them (e.g., ‘How pleasant is it that you almost choke on a candy’?). To ensure that they understood the events, all children rated two practice items. Furthermore, 19 children (M  ¼ 8.74 years, SD  ¼ 1.05, range 7–10) were instructed to report everything they knew about each event and the total number of idea units served as our measure of children’s script-knowledge about the events (Scoboria et al., 2004). Based on their ratings, we selected two events, almost choked on a candy and abducted by a UFO. These events were equal in terms of valence (Mchoking  ¼ 1.65, SDchoking  ¼ 1.48, MUFO  ¼ 1.94, SDUFO  ¼ 1.98, t(47) < 1, n.s.) and script knowledge (Mchoking  ¼ 1.11, SDchoking  ¼ 0.99, MUFO  ¼ 0.74, SDUFO  ¼ 1.05, t(18)  ¼ 1.20, n.s.), but differed in terms of plausibility with mean plausibility ratings being higher for the choking event (M  ¼ 5.86, SD  ¼ 2.02) than for the UFO event (M  ¼ 1.63, SD  ¼ 1.75, t(47)  ¼ 10.07, p < .001). Age did not correlate with plausibility, valence and script knowledge for the two events ( ps > .05). Children’s parents conï ¬ rmed that their child had never experienced the false events. The false narratives were: Almost choked on a candy: Your mother told me that you were at a birthday party when you were 4 years old. At this party you received a bag of candies. When you were at home again, you were allowed to have one candy. Your mother saw that you turned blue and she panicked. Then she hit you on the back and the candy came out. Abducted by a UFO: Your mother told me that when you were 4 years old, you were abducted by a UFO. This happened when you were alone outside. You mother was inside the house. Then she suddenly saw through the window that a UFO took you. False newspaper articles For the true and false events a newspaper article was fabricated describing that the event took place quite frequently when participants were age 4. These false newspaper articles were similar in appearance to a local newspaper. Moreover, to personalize the newspaper articles, we included the children’s hometown in the articles. The newspaper articles were 1 Because the age range of our pilot sample did not completely overlap with the age groups of our study, we conducted a 2 (pilot group: younger vs. older children)  2 (event: UFO vs. choking) ANOVA with the latter factor being a within subject factor to examine the effect of age on plausibility judgments. No signiï ¬ cant interaction emerged ( p > .05) indicating that age did not have an impact on the plausibility ratings of our two events. Therefore, the plausibility ratings of our pilot sample can be extended to the older group of our study were randomly assigned to the plausible or implausible event and to the prevalence or no prevalence information condition. Each child was interviewed individually twice over seven days. All interviews were audio taped and transcribed. During the interviews, one true narrative and one false narrative were read aloud, with the latter always being presented in the second position. The procedure of the interviews was similar to that used by Wade, Garry, Read, and Lindsay (2002). At the start of Interview 1, children were told that we were interested in their memories for events that had happened when they were 4 years old. Children were instructed to report everything they remembered about the events. In the prevalence information condition, they were told that to help them remember the events they would be provided with a newspaper article. Subsequently, the interviewer read out the article to the child. Children who did not describe details of the target event were told that ‘many people can’t recall certain events because they haven’t thought about them for such a long time. Please concentrate and try again’. If they still did not recall any details, the interviewer made use of context reinstatement and guided imagery. The purpose of these retrieval techniques was to take the children mentally back to the scene of the event. Speciï ¬ cally, children were told to close their eyes and they were asked to think about their feelings, who was with them, and about the time of the year. After this, children were asked again to recall any details about the event. If they still did not come up with details, the next narrative was presented or the interview was stopped. At the end of Interview 1, children were asked to think about the events every day until the next interview and they were instructed not to talk with others about the events. Parents were asked not to discuss these events with their children. Interview 2 was similar to Interview 1. At the end of Interview 2, they were debriefed using ethical guidelines for false memory research with children (Goodman, Quas, & Redlich, 1998). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION An extensive number of children were extremely surprised during the debrieï ¬ ng when they were told that the false event did not happen to them. For example, one 8-year old child responded ‘It really did happen’ where another one said ‘I really can remember seeing the UFO’. After the debrieï ¬ ng, 39% (n  ¼ 13) of the children remained absolutely conï ¬ dent that they experienced the false events. We debriefed these children until they understood the events were false. Together, these ï ¬ ndings suggest that the false memories in this study were not the result of children falsely assenting or trying to please the interviewer. True events True memories were categorized as either remembered or not remembered. To be categorized as remembered, children had to report at least two of the three personal details correctly. Children’s true recall was near ceiling. They remembered 88 (97%) events at Interview 1 and 89 (98%) events during Interview 2, x2(1)  ¼ .07, n.s. False events For the false events, two independent judges classiï ¬ ed each memory report as no false memory, images but not memories or false memory according to criteria used by Lindsay, Hagen, Read, Wade, and Garry (2004). If a child attempted to recall the false event, but did Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 23: 115–125 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/acp Prevalence information, plausibility, and children’s false memories not have any memory of the event or did not report any details that were beyond the false description, the report was categorized as no false memory. A report was judged as an image when children speculated about details and described images related to the false events. For example, one child reported: ‘I think I almost choked on a candy on the birthday of Mauk. I am not sure. It was not a pleasant feeling’. To be classiï ¬ ed as a false memory, children had to indicate that they remembered the event and provide details beyond those mentioned in the narrative, but related to the narrative. To give an example of a detail, one child stated that he remembered being taken to the UFO through a blue beam of light. If children stated that they thought the event and/or certain details could have happened, then this was not scored as a false memory. Furthermore, to minimize the effect of demand characteristics, direct responses to interviewer prompts were not classiï ¬ ed as a false memory. The following dialogue from Interview 2 illustrates a child’s false memory of the UFO abduction. Child: ‘I saw cameras and ï ¬â€šashes and some people in the UFO’. Interviewer: ‘How many people did you see’? Child: ‘Approximately nine or ten’. Interviewer: ‘What kind of people’? Child: ‘People like me, children’. Interviewer: ‘What else did you see’? Child: ‘I saw some people and also some blue/green puppets were passing’. Inter-rater agreement for classiï ¬ cation of the memory reports was high; k  ¼ 0.92 for Interview 1 and k  ¼ 0.94 for Interview 2. Collapsing across the conditions, at Interview 1, 33% (n  ¼ 30) of the children developed a false memory. Thirty per cent (n  ¼ 9) of these children assented to the false events immediately, that is prior to guided imagery and context reinstatement. Thirty-six per cent of the children (n  ¼ 33), with 67% (n  ¼ 20) immediately assenting, ‘remembered’ the false events at Interview 2, x2(1)  ¼ 26.61, p < .001, Cramer’s V  ¼ 0.54. Some of the children who rejected the false events at Interview 2 indicated, despite the explicit instruction at Interview 1, that they had discussed the false events with their parents. The increase in false memories over time is in line with previous studies with adults and children (e.g. Lindsay et al., 2004; Strange et al., 2006; Wade et al., 2002). Furthermore, 10% (n  ¼ 9) of the children were classiï ¬ ed as having an image of the false events at Interview 1. At Interview 2, this percentage decreased to 7% (n  ¼ 6), x2(1)  ¼ 58.53, p < .001, Cramer’s V  ¼ 0.80. Recall that the primary question in this study was whether prevalence information boosts the likelihood of plausible and implausible false memories. Table 1 shows the percentage and number of children who reported false memories as a function of interview and condition. To examine the role of age, event type, and prevalence information in the development of false memories, we conducted a logistic regression analysis with the dependent variable being false memory (0  ¼ no false memory/images, 1  ¼ false memory). In this analysis, we only focused on ‘genuine’ false memories and did not collapse across false memories and images. Although non-parametric methods, such as logistic regression, often lack the statistical power to detect interactions (Sawilowsky, 1990), there are four important points to note about these data. First, the only signiï ¬ cant interaction found was an Age  Prevalence information interaction at Interview 1. Prevalence information enhanced the development of 7–8 year old children’s false memories but not 11–12 year old children’s false memories, and this effect occurred at Interview 1 (B  ¼ 2.16, SE  ¼ 0.96, Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How did France come to look like a consolidated democracy and why the Essay

How did France come to look like a consolidated democracy and why the fifth republic has been a relatively stable period in French history - Essay Example This partly explains why democracies, unless the freedom on which they are founded is violated, are assumed to be poorly equipped to deal with threats to their security. This antinomy currently appears to be more pronounced as both terms of the alternative have been assuming new configurations. In terms of security, two opposing trends are at work. There is on the one hand an overall sense of irenization of modern polities' internal and external order that is encapsulated in the image of the neo-Saint-Simonean "consensual/warless society," and the parent neo-Hegelian view of "'the end of history." At the domestic level, their sociopolitical foundations are no longer questioned, and conflicts over the management of the state are settled through electoral alternatives. At the external level, appeasement induced by nuclear deterrence and continued with the progress of disarmament policies was enhanced by the collapse of the communist system, which represented enmity for the West. On the other hand, a new and more ambivalent threat pattern emerged that increases the ubiquity of order and security issues. Within societies, deepening center-periphery tensions and sociological cleavages lead to the displacement of traditional civility by more frictional relationships. From withou t, menaces become more insidious, discontinuous, and multifocal, and less predictable and identifiable than before the end of bipolarity, extending on the low-intensity side of the violence spectrum and assuming unconventional aspects. Concomitantly, old-fashioned institutions and instruments of violence management, doctrines, and protocols ruling their employment, and their articulations with the state appearing less suitable and effective, call for other less orthodox means based on preemption, swiftness, and secrecy, which are generally at variance with the democratic process. The concept of democracy has been evolving also. Karl Mannheim, T. H. Marshall, and more recently Edward Shils have described its logic in advanced polities. First, rights have been extended and their nature modified to encompass almost every aspect of the individual's life. Formerly limited to civic and political contents, they became economic and social, and finally sociological and cultural so as to include security. Second, the beneficiaries of these rights, once very few, have been extended to include the farthest peripheries of the social system (even beyond, in that advocates of the so-called "natural contract" or "deep ecology" also include animals and the environment). Thus, those who until recently would not have been judged as legitimate recipients of such rights, either because they were unable to enjoy them--e.g., the child, those mentally impaired, or immigrants, or those legally deprived such as delinquents--are now considered full members of the polity. Democratic rig hts, in other words, are seen as belonging to everyone, partisans as well as adversaries of democracy. Saint-Just's famous utterance, "no freedom for the enemy of freedom," would not be applicable today. Democracy has become a holistic concept, no longer defined in a discrete manner, be it in terms of the rights composing it or in terms of its titulars. The dilemma, then, is obvious. The rightful exigency for order and

The American Revolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The American Revolution - Essay Example British Had an overwhelming advantage in that particular war as it had a strong navy; well trained army, experience and was the wealth empire in the world (Frank 35). It also had the largest population in the world, which comprised of eight million people compared to approximately three million people from the enemy country, America. On the other hand, America suffered numerous disadvantages. They had no regular and a strong army. The American soldier had no experience in this field. The other resources like ammunitions and the general weapons were in a short supply (Frank 39). Its military comprised much of local militia forces who fought for limited period before returning home for other chores. The colonists had no professional armed forces, no established central government, no industry to supply them with proper equipments and no financial reserves. Moreover, not all the American supported this type of war because they saw British as an undefeatable empire, which ruled wide regi ons and they faced less resistance from the natives (Joseph 25). Some other people were neutral and supported neither side in the independence conflict (Joseph 27). For instance, the Quakers could not participate in any war because they disliked all armed conflict. Other Americans remained honest and loyal to the British Empire and therefore discouraged any move to quit the rulers. These loyalists had different reasons to support the British Empire ... Tactical strategies In any war, it is always recommended to analyze the situation in terms of the strength of the enemy, in relation to their weapons, tactics, financials, and the skills of the military personnel (Joseph 53). This will help one to develop the best strategies and much applicable tactics to manage the enemy. In addition, learning the weaknesses of the opponents is the most important thing, since it can determine the end of any war if the weaknesses are well targeted (Joseph 79). In this context, exposing military’s weaknesses or showing any kind of disunity costs the military much in winning the war. Any kind of war involves such issues like secrecy, a well plan on how to carry out the attack, the military financing i.e. supplying the necessary equipments, sufficient supply of food, and the soldiers motivation. Military success is greatly determined by order and the level of discipline. As a general in the American Revolution, I could ensure a concrete unity in the military, by meeting all the personnel and appoint group leaders to properly manage and solve minor issues of their groups. Since the supply of arms for the military was the main challenge, raiding to acquire the weapons from the loyalists and the British residents could be the first assignments to soldiers (Frank 97). Ensuring a constant supply of weapons and ammunition as well as motivating the patriots to facilitate bravery could be the first action. I could ensure adequate and camouflaged uniforms to reduce visibility of the patriots. Food and medical care remains the key components of the fight since they should be strong enough to handle their enemy sufficiently. The New York City was

Effective Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Effective Leadership - Essay Example 74-78, 2001). This paper is attempt to look at different types of leadership and the recent developments in the field of leadership by briefly looking at the literature available on Fred Fielder’s Situational Leadership Model, Level 5 Leadership, 360-degree leadership and Charismatic leadership. Discussion Fred Fielder’s Situational Leadership Model Fred Fielder is considered as one of the most notable gurus of leadership. During the mid of the 20th century, when most of the leadership experts were occupied by the discussion that whether leaders are born with certain characteristics which distinguish them from others or whether people can acquire these skills to become leaders. Fielder took the liberty of providing an entirely different perspective to the management and organizational behavior experts by giving his situational leadership theory (Kellerman, pp. 234-238, 2010). He divided the leadership styles into two groups namely relationship motivated and task motivat ed. Relationship motivated leaders are the ones who would place their emotional bonds with their people over the tasks and jobs. These leaders are more concerned about their image, respect, and perception amongst their followers. However, task motivated leaders are the ones who are more interested in numbers, targets, figures and objectives, and in the pursuit of the same, they are ready to sacrifice their image and bonding with their employees (Robbins & Judge, pp. 223-228, 2010). Furthermore, fielder proposed three elements, which have the ability to determine the situational control of the person. These are leader member relations, task structure and position power. Leader member relations refer to the degree to which the leader enjoys the backing, support, and loyalty of his sub ordinates. Second, task structure is high when the job descriptions are clear, structured, and well defined. Third, position power refers to the degree to which the leader enjoys the formal power to hire , recruit, select, reward, punish, or obtain compliance from the employees (Fulmer & Goldsmith, pp. 74-78, 2001). Furthermore, Fielder suggests that when the above-mentioned factors are high, the situational control is high and vice versa. A task-motivated style remains the most favourable option when the situational control is either extremely high or extremely low. Nevertheless, when the situational control is moderate, the leader should opt for a relationship motivated leadership style (Kellerman, pp. 41-49, 1999). 360 Degree Leadership Maxwell (2006) gave one of the most modern and influential concepts in leadership known as the â€Å"360 degree leadership† (pp. 15). Maxwell focuses on the most basic and simplest definitions of leadership, which says, â€Å"Leadership is nothing but the art of influencing people towards the achievement of shared goals† (Maxwell, pp. 84-86, 2008). Quite understandably, one cannot only influence the people who are underneath the indi vidual in the organizational hierarchy but also who lie at the same line or even who are over him in the organizational hierarchy. This means that one cannot only lead his subordinates but also his peers, colleagues, friends, bosses, bosses’ peers, and others. Many leaders fail to view the concept of leadership in a board way of leading down, leading across and leading up but they fall into the trap of leading down

Relationship Marketing in Lenovo Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Relationship Marketing in Lenovo - Essay Example This facilitated the organisation to build greater portion of loyal customers in domestic along with international business markets. Relationship marketing is the association prevailing between the sellers and the buyers in the context of marketing any product and/or service. It is also regarded as the trust and belief persisting amid the customers and the employees of an organisation, which eventually grows a long-term relationship between them (Sà ¼phan, 2015). It has been argued that relationship marketing is not only limited between the customers and the employees of an organisation, but also amid every stakeholder of an organisation. Relationship marketing is of extreme value from the perspective of an organisation, as it is long lasting and difficult to be imitated as well as destroyed by the competitors (Angeles & Nath, 2003). Relationship marketing is reckoned to be a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Strategy, which tends to encourage long lasting and strong connection between a brand and a customer.  This results into generating repetitive sales by collecting relevant information from the potential customers and encouraging word-of-mouth promotion (Brink & Berndt, 2008). On a further note, the other purposes of relationship marketing  are to create repeated sales and most importantly endorsing word-of-mouth promotion among others. In relationship marketing,  buying patterns, customer profile  and history of  contacts  are  maintained  in a  sales  database (Rai, 2012). Moreover, account executives are also recruited in order to fulfil the  needs  and demands of the High Net worth Individual (HNI) clients and maintain effective relationship with them in order to derive maximum profits. Such clients or the executives also have the opportunity to cross sell different products of the organisations (Bidgoli, 2010). Moreover, maintaining

Identify the following 7 word in a 1-2 sentence(all more) definition Essay

Identify the following 7 word in a 1-2 sentence(all more) definition - Essay Example Under the terms of the Berlin conference that subdivided the African continent among the European powers seeking colonies in Africa, the Belgians under the rule of King Leopold colonized Congo. 3. The McCartney mission- The McCartney mission was meant to ease the restrictions of trade by the Chinese. The restrictions inhibited the ability of the British to trade with inland China. However, the mission failed because the Chinese emperors demanded certain ceremonies that were deemed humiliating by the British 4. Capitalism- capitalism an economic and political system in which private investors control the productive capital and the government generates revenue through taxation. It is by far the most popular economic system in the world because it empowers people to have ambition. However, it is capable of creating inequality in the society. For example, it creates huge gaps between the rich and the poor in the societies where it is present. 5. Utopian socialism- Utopian socialism developed due to the inequalities presented by capitalism. The Utopian socialism was ideal and ideological societies that were supposed to be characterized by justice and equality for all members. In the ideologies, the societies were characterized with positive policies to change the society. Later, socialists attacked the Utopian socialism because they merely projected the image of a futuristic society without stipulating a way to get there. 6. Revolutionary socialism- revolutionary socialism replaced Utopian socialism and proposed the ideas that were used in the formulation of present day capitalism. The ideologies were based on the need for creation of societies where all people were equal and the state controlled the productive capital. The revolutionary socialism was first proposed by Carl Marx and was later used by Lenin to introduce communism in Russia. 7. Industrial revolution- the industrial revolution was a period between 1760 and 1840. It

Marketing Principle Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Marketing Principle - Essay Example The company has established bottling partners in more than 200 countries. To ensure that all its target customers are satisfied with its brands, the company has more than 500 brands in the international market. One of the major aspects that have made the company to attain a large market segment is the increased investment in the marketing activities of its products. Coca-Cola Company market share is approximately 75%. Despite stiff competition from its competitors such as Pepsi , McDonald and Cadburys among others, the company has emerged as a leader based on the extensive use of modern as well as traditional methods of promotion and advertising. One of the major objectives of the company is to raise market share by effectively penetrating Asia Pacific and Asia markets. Secondly, the company is focused at expanding its corporate social responsibilities in order to address social problems faced by children in Africa and Latin America markets. This paper covers major strategies that Co ca-Cola adopts in its market segmentation, product positioning, and process of marketing as well marketing mix. Task 1 Marketing entails the process of communication the benefits of a product to the potential or existing customers. Being a vital way of attracting new customers, marketing takes a significant portion of company resources especially for the firms that are focused at going global. Marketing can also be defined as a management strategy of ensuring that products are moved from the concept to the final consumer. This entails the coordination of the 4Ps of marketing that included product, price, promotion and place. Marketing process entails identification of marketing opportunities and providing quality products that meet the needs of the target markets. Four major steps that are covered by marketing process are analyses of marketing opportunities, selection of target markets, development of marketing mix and management of the marketing efforts. In order to identify opport unities in the market, Coca-Cola undertakes extensive market research through the use of its marketing team. Coca-Cola Company has a number of opportunities. First, it can acquire more companies as a way of reducing competition in the soft drink industry. Secondly, the increased Hispanic population and their improved economic power will lead to high demand for its product in the local and international markets. Thirdly, due to the increasing demand for Dasani water in the world market, the company can expand its marketing activities especially in Asia, Africa and Asia pacific regions. In this way, it will capture the unexploited market thus increasing the total revenue. Coca-Cola targets all individuals regardless of their ages. Through effective market segmentation and targeting, the company is in a position to evaluate each of its segment thus providing quality brands that meet the needs of its customers. The company emulates Geographic segmentation, Demographic segmentation, Beha vioral segmentation and Psychographic segmentation. Being a third step in the marketing process, developing an appropriate marketing mix is an aspect that Coca-Cola Company has not overlooked. For instance, the company has established wide range of quality brands such as Coke, Fanta, Sprite and Minute Maid among others. The company prices are affordable thus ensuring that its customers are in a position to purchase their favorite brands. In terms of place, the company has

History of Halloween Essay Example for Free

History of Halloween Essay Close to $7 billion dollars is what consumers spent on Halloween costumes, candy, and decorations in 2011. When the temperature starts to drop, the leaves turn different colors and the sun sets earlier little by little each day, fall is the perfect season to celebrate Halloween. Millions of children dress up and go to strangers doors begging for candy. Have you ever wondered where this strange and unique tradition originated from? The three most important points of Halloween can be summed up by looking at its origins, how it came to include jack-o-lanterns and bobbing for apples, and how it is celebrated today with trick-or-treating and haunted houses. Halloween, also known as All Hallows Eve, has originated from the ancient Celtic festival known as Samahin (sow-in) derived from the Old Irish Samuin meaning summers end. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated the end of the harvest season with the festival of Samhain and celebrated the upcoming new Year on November 1. Used by the ancient pagans, Samhain was a time to take stock of supplies and prepare for winter. October 31 was the day the ancient Gaels believed the boundaries overlapped between the worlds of the living and the dead, and the departed souls would come back to life and cause mayhem such as damaged crops and sickness. The Gaels built massive bonfires and summoned the help from gods through animal and possibly human sacrifices to ward of the spirits. It is believed that the fires attracted insects to the area which in turn attracted bats. These are additional features of the history of Halloween. Halloween is also thought to be influenced by the Christian holy days of All Saints Day, also known as Hallowmas, and All Souls Day falling on November 1 and 2. It was a time for honoring the saints and praying for the deceased who had yet to reach heaven. Traditionally it was believed that the departed souls roamed the earth until All Saints Day, and Hallows Eve delivered one last chance before moving on to the next world, to gain revenge on their enemies. Christians would  disguise themselves in costumes and masks to avoid being recognized by the wandering souls. Trick or treating is the practice of dressing up in costumes and going door to door begging for candy and resembles the late medieval practice of souling when the poor would proceed door to door on Hallowmas receiving food, or soul cakes which were pastries, and in return would pray for their dead relatives souls. It was believed at the time the souls of the departed would wait for passage into heaven until enough people prayed for their souls. Soul cakes would be given in exchange for a song, performance, or another sort of trick in some cultures. Eventually, children embraced this practice and were given money, food, and ale. Jack o lanterns are a Halloween staple today, with at least two historical roots. The first is the pagan Celtic people carved turnips and rutabagas to hold hot coal from the bonfire to light their homes and ward off the evil spirits. Another folklore tale gives jack o lanterns their name. An Irish myth portrays a trickster and a drunk known as Stingy Jack, who asked the devil to have a drink with him. Jack persuaded the devil to change himself into a coin so he could pay for his drink, but instead he put the coin in his wallet next to a silver cross, trapping the devil and preventing him to change himself back. Jack said he would free the devil if he did not bother him for another year. The following year Jack tricks the devil into climbing an apple tree for a piece of fruit. He then carved a cross in the bark of the tree preventing the devil from climbing down. In order to get down from the tree, the devil promised Jack he would not seek his soul anymore. Because of his swindling and drunken ways, when Jack died he was not allowed into heaven. He also was not allowed into Hell because the devil kept his word. Taking pity on Jack, the devil gave him an ember to light his way in the dark, putting it into a hollowed out turnip for Jack to carry on his lonely, everlasting roamings around the Earth. People from Ireland and Scotland  would make Jack o lanterns during this season to scare away Stingy Jack and other evil spirits wandering about. Over the next several centuries, superstitions about witches and black cats were added to the folklore and legends of Halloween. Cats were thought of as evil, especially black cats, and were killed by the thousands in Medieval times, possibly contributing to the Black Plague, due to the shortage of the rats natural enemy, the cat. During this time, the church created the belief that evil witches existed. Apples, which are a seasonal fruit, and the symbol of the Roman goddess Pomona, were thought at the time to retain qualities of knowledge, resurrection, and immorality. Bobbing for apples was thought to predict the future on the night of Samhain. (sow-in) Halloween eventually made its way over the Atlantic in the second half of the nineteenth century when America became flooded with new immigrants. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that ultimately became todays trick-or-treat tradition. The 20th century saw an emergence of Halloween as a genuinely North American holiday and one that was becoming an advantage for shopkeepers and manufactures. Costuming became popular for Halloween parties for children and adults as well. The first mass-produced Halloween costumes appeared in stores in the 1930s when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in the United States. Halloween costumes are traditionally modeled after supernatural figures such as monsters, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic prototypes such as ninjas and princesses. Haunted attractions are entertainment venues designed to thrill and scare patrons. Most attractions are seasonal Halloween businesses. Origins of these paid scare venues are difficult to pinpoint, but it is generally  accepted that they were first commonly used by the Junior Chamber International (Jaycees), who are a non-political youth service organization between the ages of 18 to 40, for fundraising. They include haunted houses, corn mazes, and hayrides, and the level of sophistication of the effects has risen as the industry has grown. Haunted attractions in the United States bring in an estimate $300-500 million each year, and draw some 400,000 customers. This maturing and growth within the industry has led to more technically-advanced special effects and costuming, comparable with that of Hollywood films. Halloween is currently the second most important party night in North America, and in terms of its retail potential, it is second to Christmas. Personally, Halloween is one of my favorite days of the year. Even as an adult, to dress up and be someone or something else for the night can be fun and exciting. To escape reality into a fantasy-like world where goblins mingle with princesses is definitely a strange site to see, but is well worth the money and time devoted to one of the spookiest nights of the year. So whether you celebrate Halloween or not, you now have an idea of how Halloween originated, how it came to include bobbing for apples and jack-o-lanterns, and how we celebrate it today with haunted houses and trick-or treating. The sources I cited for this information are from: www.cnbc.com www.halloweenhistory.org www.wikipedia.org www.history.com

Has Globalisation Affected Employment Education And Culture Commerce Essay

Has Globalisation Affected Employment Education And Culture Commerce Essay Globalization is the procedure of rapid incorporation of different countries that is occurring in the process of better foreign trade and foreign investment. Globalization has certainly minimized the distance between different countries and has turned the entire world into one single market place. Due to globalization the government of several nations have eased up the trade and sanctioned additional flexibility in their trade procedure to offer equal opportunities to MNCs in their domestic market. The Indian government also had to do the same due to the pressure from the WTO (World Trade Organisation). As a result of this, the Indian market got numerous opportunities and was also introduced to many new technologies and new foreign products. Also the Indian resources were made available to other countries. India being a developing country it was inexpensive for the MNCs to set up in the Indian market. The Indian economy did benefit enormously due to the introduction of these multinat ionals in the Indian market which in turn led to increase in the literacy rate and better educational opportunities for the Indian youth. This was because the new companies were demanding for the high-quality skilled workers. The introduction of the MNCs also affected the Indian corporate as well as the social culture. Globalization affected Indian system start from the basic facilities in both positive and negative manner. Government has initiated quite a few developmental programs for encouraging the living standard of people. Further we will discuss the effects of globalisation on the education system, employment and culture of India. Introduction Globalization is the most popular word nowadays. It has different meaning depending on the context and the situation. Globalization has been defined differently by different people. Guy Brain bant: says that the process of globalisation not only includes opening up of world trade, development of advanced means of communication, internationalisation of financial markets, growing importance of MNCs, population migrations and more generally increased mobility of persons, goods, capital, data and ideas but also infections, diseases and pollution. Globalization can be defined as the process which involves exchange of political, economical and social system through technological advancement. It has undoubtedly converted the whole world into one solitary marketplace which in turn has resulted in global interconnectedness. Globalisation has increased the business across different countries. Geographical distance is no longer a barrier for the international trading with the existence of World Wide Web (WWW in simple words Internet). People have benefited a lot from these agreements. The international business agreements not only makes the various resources available internationally but also have improved the social relationships between the countries. This has also given an exposure of across culture to the whole world, which is today a very important aspect in international business. Globalization is the key factor of any developing country which will help increasing the growth in economy and income per capita resulting in bette r standard of living. As mentioned above globalisation has affected the whole world in nearly every aspect of life. India is no exception; it has been incredibly affected by Globalization in different ways. Globalisation introduced the whole world to the new era of computers and advancement in technologies. It has affected the cultural phase of people diversely. Many of the countries have welcomed the new broadminded thoughts of culture influenced by globalisation. It has led to an increase in exchange of ideas such as music, religion, food and traditions of every culture. Even the younger generation have been affected by the new educational system. It has amplified the spread of the trendy culture from the developed nations throughout the world. Many of the developing countries have been overflowing with the goods from Northern developed countries. For example, we can find huge banners of cold drink advertisements in the areas where there is hard to find drinking water. As a result people had to manipula te their life style according to the new era. This essay further will explore the concept of globalization and its effects on education, employment and culture with specific reference to India. History of Globalization During the Pre-World War I period of 1870 to 1914, the chronological process of globalization with outgoing tide and surge has rapid incorporation of import and export flow, movement of capital and relocation of people. The two forces of hi-tech: transportation and communication are the main reasons for the growth of globalization as there is less restriction to flow of trade and across the geological borders. No passports and visa were required and also there were very few taxes on import and export and limits to fund flows. The speed of globalization has also lost its pace between the first and second world war. The formation of different wall to limit the free movement of trade was observed during the inter-war period and most of the countries considered that they could boom with this protective wall. All the countries determine after the World War II, that not to do again the mistakes by going for remoteness. The drive to increase the incorporation was increased after 1945, however it took long t reach the same level as Pre-World War I. US was able to reach the same level of Pre-World War only Even though after 1945, there was a force to increased incorporation, and it took a long time to reach the Pre-World War I level. Only around 1970, percentage of import and export to the total output of US reached the level of Pre-World War I. Import surrogate Industrialization system was practises by most of the Independent developing countries in the Post World War II and also the Soviet countries were protected from practice of international economic incorporation. Conversely times have changed, with the dynamic progress in the globalization practices; the soviet bloc countries are also getting built-in with the international market. To a greater extent nations are heading towards becoming conversant with policy of growth. However, according to studies, trade and capital markets were more globalize in 19th century than today, yet, compare to 19th century there are more apprehensions because of the nature and pace of revolution. In this current scenario its not only the rapid pace that is remarkable but also the various effects of IT on market assimilation, efficacy and industrialisation. Effects of globalization Globalisation has affected a variety of aspects of the world economy both in encouraging and discouraging manner. As rightly said, Every coins has two sides, Globalization also has Positive and negative effects. Globalization has offered higher standards of living to the people all around the world as compared to the pre-globalization period. It has affected almost every aspect of human life. This evolution was not only bringing people together but also it brought vast range of cultures and foreign ideas worldwide. This whole world is now become a huge market with freedom of exchange of goods and capital. This also resulted in increasing level of competition which is one of the most widespread positive effects. International trading and business have given huge amount of opportunities to the people to move around the world getting an exposure of the corporate and traditional cultures worldwide. A lot of multinational companies established their business in developing countries like India which turned out to a boon for these developing countries giving a prospect to the emerging talent of these countries which would have been wasted due to lack of exposure to these opportunities. This has ini tiated implementation of foreign ideas and new technologies from all around the world. Without globalization, it would not have been possible for the whole world to get acquainted with the innovative creations taking place in every part of this huge world. These new inventions would have stayed unknown giving no benefits to any other country except where it was invented. A good illustration is the benefits of Ayurveda and Yoga from India which is today enormously benefiting the people across the world. International travel and tourism has also been improved to a greater extend as compared in the last few decades. Individuals migrating from one country to other as students or skilled workers is also increased to a higher extend, which has in turn increased the demand of international import and export of products and services for the use of local consumers. Due to increasing international trade free trade zones were formed with less or no tariffs. A lot of other associations have bee n introduced to look after the issues like international trade, crime and justice, access to international finance and banking facilities, etc. Many of the non- government organisations have also been introduced to resolve the cross-boundary global environmental concerns like pollution and other climatic changes. Sports is not an exception, there has been an increase in demand for international sports events such as the Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, etc. Thus, Globalization has resulted in a very compact world wherein its just a matter of few clicks to exchange the information or make any kind of transactions irrespective of the geographical distance between the countries and remote locations. Globalisation does have a lot of positives but at the same time it also has negative effects, some of them are listed below. Today many companies from the developed nations have started outsourcing both industrialized and executive jobs to the developing nations like China and India because of cheap set up expenses and low-priced labour. As a result people in these developed countries are losing their jobs and are facing problems to earn their bread and butter due to the diminishing number job opportunities. Sometime back people had job security with a stable and permanent job, but today people are living with a continuous fear of losing their job anytime or reduction in the wages due to such cut throat competition. Even a permanent employee cannot bank on its own company for job security. These kinds of issues result in lower living standard and higher crime rate in the affected areas. Another issue is exploitation of people in prisons and youngsters, who are made to work in ruthless conditions for the production of inexpensive goods without any safety standards and absolutely no botheration about the pol lution regulation. Technical advancements like mobiles, internet etc brought a massive revolution, but at the same time it has increased the threats due to terrorism. Terrorists use these services as their mode of communication and get connected in the remotest of the areas. Also any opponent country can spread any kind of misinformation through the internet services. People are also facing health inconvenience in the remotest area of the globe due to spread of fatal diseases like HIV/AIDS that are being spread by travellers and tourists. Some other negative effects also include the introduction of foreign culture which in turn has affected the local culture of the new generations via internet and televisions. Many of the local companies are getting conquered by the overseas multinationals and losing on their business. Since these multinationals cover the major market, they have also started manipulating the local political decisions. Food industry is not any different, the international fast food chai ns like McDonalds and KFC are taking away the business from the local fast food providers resulting in increasing number of outlets in the developing nations. Due to wide range of fast food availability people consume more and more junk food resulting in adverse health issues. Globalisation benefits are not worldwide because, the rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming poorer. Effect of globalization on education, employment and culture of India. Effects of globalization on Education in India Globalisation brought a rapid growth in the education system of the whole economy worldwide. This process of globalization has affected the education and human potential. Indian education system has also made huge progress in terms of the increasing primary education and expanding the literacy to more than a half of the population. Also there has been a massive progress in the number of education institutions in India after the globalisation period. Globalisation has changed the learning system in the whole world resulting in the development of exchange of ideas, values and knowledge. One of the most influential positive effects of globalization on the young generations of India is the increasing level of higher education system. However, another major development is the increasing level of literacy rate of Indian girls especially. During the pre-globalization period the girls in the Indian culture were not allowed to study or take their career seriously but post-globalisation period is a boon to the Indian women as the literacy rate of the female population has increased tremendously. Globalisation combines economic and cultural change in todays time. On one hand globalisation created the huge market places worldwide that trade internationally, deal with foreign exchange, foreign investments and cross border mobility of production. Whereas on the other hand it still relies on the old communication system, information, knowledge and culture. All these changes implicate the higher education. Research and education are the two essentials to form the global surroundings, being able to discover new facts, learning to maintain international relationships and complex societies. Many of the research universities today are thoroughly linked within and with the metro cities, as these cities have huge number of students enrolled for the higher education. There is sturdy positive connection between the higher education enrolment ratio and the global cut-throat performance. With the increasing economic demand for trained and highly experienced workers the demand of higher education is also on a hike in the many of the developing countries. The re are three factors which are usually suggested as possible candidates. The first is openness to trade and the second is scientific progress and the related organisational change. The third is based on institutional factors such as the existence of unions. Increased openness to trade raises the requirement for expert workers leading to the rise in their wages as compared to the wages of the unskilled works. Globalization has resulted in easy access to any educational facility for the students all over India as well as internationally. The internationalisation of higher education can be correlated to many internal and external changes in the International market, which has in turn increase the demand for more knowledgeable and accomplished workers. The demand is also increased for people who know more than one language and are aware of the transnational ethnicity and business methods. This gives a chance to the people to gain knowledge from one country and spread it to their home country for its betterment. Education is becoming more precious to individuals as it offers enhanced employment opportunities, which in turn leads to an improved lifestyle, power and status. With the launch of MNCs came along the era of BPOs and KPOs. In the last few years the there has been an incredible development of call centres in India leading to considerable development in the socio-economic and culture o f the Indian society. Outsourcing industry have impacted the Indian youth in every aspect ranging from their lifestyle, personality, career, attitude, gender, and language to their whole identity. The younger generation becomes financially independent due to the excellent incentives and perks offered by the call centre industry. This has helped in mounting the confidence level of the youth and also helps them to take up the responsibility of their families. Some of the call centres like Wipro Spectramind have their tie- up with BITS Pilani and the Symbiosis Institute of Management to provide the distance learning programs for the employees, which is an excellent learning opportunity for the employees. Also some of the companies like ICICI OneSource promises scholarships to the call centre agents who get enrolled in this distance learning programs. With so many advantages this industry also has a few disadvantages. Since the fresh graduates get an opportunity to start working at a ve ry early age they tend to avoid higher studies after a bachelors degree which is the minimum criterion for the call centres positions. This is because they get paid anywhere between Rs 10,000-15,000 exclusive of the extra incentives and the perks, which is a good amount of money to start up the career. This leads to stagnant educational growth of the Indian youth. These were some of the effects of globalization on the Indian education system. Effects of globalization on employment in India Now we will see how globalization affects the employment opportunities in India. Globalization was experienced in India in early 1990s when the open market policy was initiated. Globalisation led to growth in various segments of the market such as Information technology, health care and so on. This led to favourable growth of the Indian economy leading to increasing demand for the good quality workforce. There was increase in the international trade between Indian and other developed nations. This resulted in improved employment opportunities in the country. Due to the effective impact on the Indian economy there has been an improvement in the living standard of the people. Globalization has developed various sectors in India leading to an increase in the employment opportunities for the people. The service industries are doing well with a share of around 54% of the yearly Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which shows that the service industries are doing very well in the market. There h as been a range of advantageous effects of globalization in Indian Industry. The increase in the international trade brought in enormous amount of foreign investments which boosted the Indian economy to a very great extends. Many multinational companies set up their businesses in the Indian market especially in the industries like BPO, pharmaceutical, petroleum, and manufacturing industries resulting in the increased number of employment opportunities for many people in the country. This decreased the level of unemployment and poverty in the country. The establishment of these foreign companies introduced highly advanced technology which resulted in technically advanced Indian industry. On the other hand this highly advanced Indian market result in an aggressive competition between the domestic and the foreign companies. The domestic companies in the industries like pharmaceutical, chemical, manufacturing, and cement suffered huge losses as the consumers preferred to opt for the for eign products. Many labour class people in these industries lost their jobs due to the losses suffered by their employers. The Indian industry has faced both positive and negative effects as a result of globalization. So the Indian government should now compose such economics polices that are beneficial to the Indian economy. Effect of Globalization on Indian culture Before addressing the effects of globalization on culture, it is important to mention that culture is such a wide theory that it challenges portrayal in a compressed form. Various Characteristics of a society is covered in detail to list comprehensively by culture. Even though we have reasonable knowledge about what culture is. Culture is something that forms our individuality and has a lasting impression on our perception. Different individual have defined culture in different ways. And this is because of the differences in the point of references of the people of culture. Ekhe (1998) defines culture, as construct applied in an endeavour to study and put together procedures and thoughts in broad variety of vicinity of the world. Culture is something that forms our individuality and has a lasting impression on our perception. Every culture is different from each other and so is every human. Culture is like rainbow filled with many colours of cultural mixture. Culture is not something that one can have with birth; it is learned and not hereditary. According to Jekayinfa (2002), Culture consists of the total range of human action which is in a social context passed on from one generation to other. In other words; it is a process of inclusion through conscious teaching or from the social surroundings. Cultural Globalization is the rapid pass through of facts, stance and morals crosswise countrywide precincts, leading interrelation and communication among peoples of different cultures and life style. Each and every kind of dimensions of the culture is taken in to account in the present aspect of imperialist/ industrialist globalization. Globalization of material exchanges implicated in trade and industry relations has been prove by the impact of rising observable fact of labour movement, financial, and product trading, the importance of buying and selling authoritarian contracts, the worldwide splitting up of labour, and bodies such as WTO, IMF and world Bank. Globalization has made possible for the developing countries to connect into T.V Programme, videos, music, news and so forth of the highly developed nations. India being one of them has not only gained economic opportunities from globalization but also acquires new products and technologies. Despite system of government, lack of infrastructure and an uncertain policy outline that has a negatively impact the operations of MNCs in India, MNCs are looking at India with great expectations and are investing huge amount to put up their RD hub in the country. India has gone ahead of other developing countries for Information technology, research development investments and outsourcing. Today, with the rapid advance of globalization throughout the world, more or less impact on social and cultural values can also be observed, India begin one of them is also been effected. The new information and communication technologies that has vastly expanded has also made possible for the poorest people to know different cultural richness. The easy access to cable television and foreign movies has helped to demolish the cultural boundaries. All these technologies have not only changed the perception of the people but also helped people to think beyond their imagination. This has opened employment prospects for women, who are becoming a larger part of the workforce that in turn has put a damper on inequality among the sexes, something that Indian women have been struggling with their entire lives. Globalization has influenced the traditional views towards women so they can take an equal position in Indian society. As compared to earlier old-fashioned idea people have become more due to introduction to other cultures through cable network. Now a days bachelor boy and girl sharing same accommodation and stay away from home have become more common in India. This has had its own social and cultural impact. More availability of cheap and dirty stuff (CDs or DVDs of Hollywood movies, Adult movies, foreign channels) in the name of liberalization has negatively affected the young crowd of India. There has been increase in the violence and also the number of rape cases has increased than before. Globalization has made possible for people to achieve better awareness and understanding of diverse fashion trial, life style, things in a foreign country and at home. Not only Multiplex theatres have become known but also restaurant like McDonalds, KFC, and other fast food has well like by the people. However it has not replaced the Indian traditional food like Parathas and other road side fast food. With Scie ntific advancement and hi-tech improvement life in urban and rural area have become reasonably relaxing, speedy and pleasant. Some years back in India even land-line was a status icon whereas, now each every person has a mobile in hand, listening to music or talking. As per the certain previous incidents it is become evident that if a particular countries culture is outlined over a long historical time period, it can suppress over a period of time. But the Indian culture has proved to be strong enough to hold back its vital Indian personality with exceptional stability, despite of the several overseas attacks and a huge growth in population.

The Macro Environment Of The Tui

The Macro Environment Of The Tui TUI illustrates one of the most amazing and successful strategic changes of a firm among the largest European companies .From 1997 to 2003, its management turned one of the oldest steel and mining conglomerates known as pressaug into TUI, the undisputed European leader in the tourism industry -a fast growing but very volatile and competitive industry. Putting a smile on peoples faces was TUIs mission. And this is they have worked for employing 65,000 people around the world work day after day to create unforgettable holiday experiences for our over 30 million customers. As an integrated travel group, brands offered by TUI are the complete range of services associated with holiday and travel. Headquartered in Crawley, near Gatwick airport in the UK, company mainly serves the leisure travel customer and is organised and managed through four business sectors: Mainstream, Specialist Emerging Markets, Activity and Accommodation Destinations. In the financial year ended 30 September 2008 TUI Travel had revenues of  £13.9bn and an underlying profit before tax of  £320m. According to Phil Kelly (2009), the analysis of the external environment may be described as an external audit. To analyse the macro-environment of the TUI, this report utilises three tools namely; PESTLE analysis, five forces framework and Opportunity and Threat from the SWOT analysis. This report includes only critical issues from the current macro-environment whereas detailed analysis of PESTLE. PESTLE Analysis Political Environment: These include Tax policy: Tourists contribute to sales, profits, jobs, tax revenues, and income in an area. According to (Dye, 1992) the tourism tax policy is to ensure that the nation adopts the right policies to achieve the right goals. To diversify the currency and geographical risk of the TUI group. KEY DRIVERS TO CHANGE TUI embarked on steady programme of major acquisitions while divesting the noncore businesses. TUI group is also listed on London Stock Exchange. These strategic moves gave TUI group protection from devaluation of the currency and more access to capital market. But this strategy also exposed TUI to the high taxation policies of the developed economies. These high taxes could minimize the profit after tax of TUI. Political stability: Presently TUI is focussing on the markets of developing economies by using the cash from developed markets. Developing markets have high growth rate but this could be affected by the political instability in developing economies. Political instability in many parts of the world, increased risks of terrorism have a significant adverse impact on TUI Groups financial condition and results of operations. New political crises, terrorist attacks, wars and other hostilities could cause a significant decrease in demand for travel and tourism. Economical Environment: The most direct effects occur within the primary tourism sectors lodging, restaurants, transportation, amusements, and retail trade. Through secondary effects, tourism affects most sectors of the economy. An economic impact analysis of tourism activity normally focuses on changes in sales, income, and employment in a region resulting from tourism activity. Economic growth: The importance of channelizing the cash generated from developed markets to innovate new services and to invest it in high growth markets (Ghoshal, 1987). Spending on travel and tourism is discretionary and price sensitive. Interest rate: Many of the tourists prefer to take bank travel loans or holiday loans .so if the bank rates are high then tourist will really think twice before going on holiday this might have a great impact on tourism industry. Inflation rate: TUI customers may reduce or stop their spending on travel or opt for low-cost offers, in particular during periods of economic slowdown. TUI results were negatively affected in 2002 and 2003 by the general economic slowdown in our source markets. Although their tourism business improved considerably in 2004, their future economic downturns may cause significant reductions in demand for travel and tourism. Exchange rate: The exchange rate is commonly considered a determinant in the estimation of tourism demand and it is introduced either as an independent variable or by including it in the relative prices (Crouch, 1994). In this sense, Sinclair and Stabler (1997) argue that tourists consider the exchange rate since they have limited knowledge about relative prices. Thus exchange rate regimes with low uncertainty could promote tourism. Socio-cultural Environment: Social factors include the demographic and cultural aspects of the external microenvironment .These factors affect customer needs and the size of potential markets .some social factors associated with TUI are as follows Emphasis on safety, Health consciousness and age distribution, Change in lifestyle, Higher life expectancy. Technological Environment: TUI launched virtual tour operator TOUROPA.COM in Germany selling not only online but through travel agents, television and call centres. Hence TUI became European leader in direct sales of travel product with turnover of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 2.6 billion. Environmental: The environmental issue like global warming has led to the environmental protection laws such as carbon emission limits. This law limits the amount of carbon to be emitted by TUI Airlines which could affect the overall customer service in a particular region/country. Legal Environment: In the European countries in which TUI airlines operate, an air carrier is permitted to operate airline services only if it is majority owned, and effectively controlled, by member states of the European Economic Area (EEA) or their nationals. The carrier must be able to prove this at any time. Failure to do so may result in withdrawal of, or a refusal to issue, the carriers operating license or route licenses. Accordingly, TUI must remain majority owned and effectively controlled by EEA member states or their nationals in order for their airlines to maintain their operating and route licenses. In addition, there may be national ownership restrictions applicable to the grant of route licenses to TUI airlines. PORTER FIVE FORCES FRAMEWORK (also diagram please refer Appendix 3) Threat of new entrants: Low-cost airlines compete successfully on many routes against TUI charter airlines. For example, established low-cost airlines have gained significant market share on certain flight routes, in particular, routes between the United Kingdom and Spain. In response, TUI had introduced low-cost airline Hapag-Lloyd Express in Germany in December 2002 and introduced TUI low-cost airline Thomsonfly in the United Kingdom in April 2004. If TUI is unable to maintain a competitive cost structure for their airlines as compared to low-cost carriers, their airline and hotel utilization rates could decrease. Threat of substitutes: The entry of new players in the tourism industry is of very minimal threat to the market share of TUI Group. In developed market these new players are not highly preferred by the customers hence addressing this issue is of least strategic importance for the TUI. Competitive rivalry for TUI: There is high competition in tourism industry. This competition is fierce not only in developed market but also in developing market where TUI had a started a new cost cutting programme targeting a yearly saving of around à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬260 million and à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬100 m for 2004. The implication is to diversify in the world market and in new services to compensate the down trend in developed markets (Dickson, P. Ginter, J, 1987). Buyers: Due to high competition in tourism industry, the customers in tourism industry have high bargaining power. High bargaining power of buyer raises the importance of the marketing for TUI to create customer loyalty and price inelasticity in consumers to maintain high margin of its brands (Miller, D. 1988). Suppliers: The bargaining power of suppliers is very low because TUI enjoys the benefit of backward integration. Strengths TUI already acquired established players TUI has well established distribution channels. TUI took several measures to improve customer services TUI offers wide range of products. Backward integration because TUI has its own suppliers. Economies of scale benefits Weakness TU I has  £900 million share holder loans. TUI has no cheap accommodations GENERIC STRATEGY Cost Leadership TUIs primary goals is to expand tourism business, grow their container shipping business, complete divestment program and improve financial risk profile. The business strategy for TUIs tourism division includes the following key elements: Expand tourism business. TUI intends to capitalize on strong brands and market positions to expand tourism business, both in absolute terms and in terms of market share. TUIs growth strategy reflects belief that the quality of products, the strength of business model and ability to react to new market trends at early stages of development both in existing European source markets and in selected new source markets, such as the emerging markets of Eastern Europe, including Russia, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia, and Asia, including China and India. As part of the same strategy, we may divest assets or business units where appropriate returns cannot be earned in the foreseeable future. Exploit synergies and cost efficiencies across markets and products. TUI intend to take advantage of remaining synergy and efficiency opportunities to further optimize operational procedures and integrate tourism businesses at each stage of the value chain. TUI has started to integrate and optimize their maintenance, administration, IT network management and purchasing functions and have completed this process for their airlines by establishing a centralized airline management to ensure maximum utilization of airlines capacities. Continue to leverage the benefits of integrated business model and wide distribution network. TUI intend to continue to develop fully integrated business model to take advantage of new developments in the tourism industry in order to ensure the continued attractiveness of core products and to attain high utilization of own flight and hotel capacity. This strategy helps to maximize the utilization of own capacity at each stage of the value chain and provides considerable flexibility in making contractual arrangements for additional capacity with third parties. In addition, through TUIs multi-channel distribution network, they are able to initially funnel tourism products into their own tour operators, airlines and hotels and only subsequently into flight and hotel capacity that they purchase from third parties. Identify new trends and exploit developments in the tourism industry. The travel and tourism industry is changing rapidly. Recent trends are not only providing travellers new options but also providing industry participants with new opportunities. Recent trends include the growing customer demand for modular products, the growth of low-cost air carriers and the increasing availability of tourism information over the internet. TUI intends to continue to develop business model to take advantage of new developments and to ensure the sustained desirability of their core product offerings. TUI also intend further to align the activities of their airlines with each other to benefit from the generally high passenger load factors in the charter flight sector and the cost advantages of some of their own airlines. TUI believes that they can promote new products more effectively and profitably than non-integrated competitors through their presence at each stage of the value chain. VALUE CHAIN (for diagram please refer Appendix 4) With TUIs fully integrated business model, tourism division operates at all major stages of the tourism value chain: Retail sales. TUI is the largest distributor of package holidays in Europe based on number of travel agencies, with 3,399 travel agencies in source markets. They also distribute products through independent travel agencies and direct sales channels, such as internet sites and travel television. Tour operators. TUI tour operators in Europe sold approximately 18.4 million travel packages in 2004, approximately seven million of which were sold through their own distribution channels and approximately 11 million through third-party distribution channels. Air transportation. In 2004, TUI own airlines flew 22.6 million passengers (based on one-way trips) who had purchased one of their tour packages or flight-only products. TUI flew approximately 65% of package holiday customers on their own airlines, with the remainder flying on third-party airlines. Based on total passenger kilometres flown, their combined aircraft fleet was the fourth largest airline in Europe and the fifteenth largest worldwide (Source: Airline Business, August 2005. The Airline Rankings, Passenger Analysis). Destination services. TUI destination services are provided by 41 incoming agencies at major destination areas in 25 countries. Hotels. TUI owned, leased or managed a portfolio of 285 hotels and 162,800 beds worldwide as of September 30, 2005. At the end of 2004, TUI was the 12th largest hotel chain in the world based on number of hotels and bed capacity. (Source: Hotels Magazine, Industry Survey, July 2005). Future implications of the changing business environment General economic and political conditions affecting the tourism industry. Adverse effects on TUIs business arising from terrorist attacks or the threat of. terrorism, outbreak of Diseases and natural catastrophes. TUIs ability to remain competitive in the markets for their products and services. Changes in international legal, tax, administrative, regulatory or economic conditions. Risks associated with TUIs structure, the Bonds and their other indebtedness. The impact of exchange rate fluctuations. The impact of TUIs acquisition of CP Ships Limited and the related acquisition financing. Opportunities Customer needs are changing TUI has flexible travel experience with wide range of experience Expanding the group and creating values through acquisition Threats Economic conditions Restricted capacity management Own very few budget hotels. Lower job security. ANSOFF MATRIX Market penetration strategy: is the least risky since it leverages many of TUIs existing resources and capabilities. In a growing market, simply maintaining market share will result in growth and exists opportunities to dominate the market if competitors reach capacity limits. However, it has limits, and once the market approaches the saturation stage, another strategy must be pursued to continue expansion. Consolidation: Consolidation means focussing on current market and current products. There is also mention in the annual report of 2005 to focus on consolidation rather than acquisition and geographic diversification in order to defending market share and downsizing. Market development options include the pursuit of additional market segments or geographical regions. New market developments for a product may seem to be a good strategy if TUIs core competencies are related more to the specific product than to its experience with a specific market segment. This strategy posseses more risk than the market penetration strategy as TUI expands into a new market. It seems appropriate to adopt this development strategy as it relates TUIs strengths to its specific customers rather than to the specific product itself. Diversification is the most risky of all the growth strategies since it requires both product and market development activities and may be outside the core competencies of TUI. Diversification may be a reasonable choice if the high risk is compensated by the chance of a high rate of return. As from the case study in TUI group started a new cost cutting programme targeting around à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬260 m in 2003 and around à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬100 m for 2004.Then in april 2004 TUI opened its first low cost travel agency in hamburg germany with Touristik Express to sell low cost holidays. The optimal bases on which segment the market depend on the particular situation are determined by marketing research, market trends, and managerial judgment Limitations to ANSOFF matrix Ansoff matrix, particularly focuses on growth which may not be appropriate in some circumstances. Uses and Limitations of Tools Applied This analysis is useful in understanding the market growth or decline, business position and direction for TUI (Kotler, P., 1990). The result of the PESTLE analysis can be used to take advantage of the opportunities and to make plans to tackle the threats. It also ensures that TUIs performance is aligned positively with the powerful forces of change (Byars, L., 1992). Uses of PESTEL 1: Identifying past trend in the macroeconomic variables based on which future trends can be identified. 2: Identify the key scenarios affecting the strategy. 3: Identification of key scenarios help in taking right and informed decision. 4: Effective policy formulation. However, one of the disadvantages of this analysis arises from the issues of reliability, validity and relevance of the information from the secondary sources. Also the past data and past events has to be checked and be applied to the current business conditions. While considering the disadvantages of the PESTLE analysis, managers should understand that it is just a strategic starting point hence conclusions and findings of this analysis should be tested against the reality. Limitations to PESTEL 1: The variables in this model are highly speculative so analysis of past may not be the indication for future. 2: The analysis will be based on predictions so it may not be accurate. 3: It is practically difficult to analyse unlimited macro-economic factors. 4: It is difficult to identify the level of uncertainty. Limitations to Porters Five Forces The assumption that the organizations own interest comes first for some charitable institutions and government bodies may be incorrect. It assumes that buyers have no greater importance than any other aspect of the micro-environment. But the customer is more important than other aspects of strategy development and is not to be treated as an equal aspect of any analysis. It considers suppliers and buyers as threats to be tackled by the organisations, but some companies such as TUI found it useful to engage in closer co-operation with suppliers; such a strategy may be excluded if they regarded purely as threats. It ignores human resource aspects of strategy that might connect people to their own and other organisations. Uses of Porters Five Force Analyses 1: It helps to analyse the dynamics of industries or sector. 2: It helps to analyse the profitability of the industry as a whole. The high level of these forces denotes that industry is highly competitive and may not be attractive to compete in as hyper competition might prevail in the industry. Limitations of Porters Five Force Analyses 1: Five forces helps in identifying the industry structure but it may not remain fixed, as different strategies might change the structure. The acquisition of competitor might help to reduce the hyper competition and that might in turn increase power over buyers and suppliers. 2: Five force analyses takes into consideration industry as a whole but it does not segregate different segments. The individual analysis of each of the segment can be of much assistance than industry as a whole. 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(1990), Marketing: An Introduction, 2nd ed., Prentice Hall. Miller, D. (1988), Relating Porters Business Strategies to Environment and Structure: Analysis and Performance Implications, The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 31, Issue. 2, pp. 280-308. Porter, M. E. (2001). Strategy Internet. Haward Business Review, 63-79. Porter, M. E., Miller, V. E. (1985). How Information gives you competitive advantage. Harward Business Review , 149-160. Sinclair, M.T. and M. Stabler (1997): The Economics of Tourism. Routledge, London. TUI Annual Report. (2008). Annual Report. TUI AG. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/archive/410295-airline-business/august-2005.html accessed on 3rd November 2009. http://www.hotelsmag.com/article/CA6485150.html accessed on 3rd November 2009. http://www.ise.ie/debt_documents/3118.pdf accessed on 3rd November 2009 Appendix 1