A literature review. The purpose of such a characterization is to set Essay

A literature review. The purpose of such a characterization is to set up the need for your contribution. Summaries of a - Essay Example Amitai Etzioni asserts that regulations are the way to prevent an economic decline brought about by businesses. In terms of the consumer consumption, a culture change supersedes regulations, but it seems too difficult to develop such a change. Many Americans have continued to work hard to sustain their livelihoods in terms of reaching their wants. As he notes â€Å"what needs to be eradicated†¦ the obsession with acquisition that has become the organizing principle of American life† (Etzioni, 2012). People get to great length for the sole purpose of maximizing their earnings in an effort to meeting their physiological-motivated needs. The society has branded more money and more things to mean ‘good life’ when in real terms the struggles are too much compared to the benefits thereof. He continues to assert that the capitalism has been the key player in facilitating the consumer trends seen. However, capitalism cannot be solely blamed on the woes, what needs to be done is creating a balance between consumption and other engagements (Etzioni, 2012). The perception that increased income relates to increased happiness is misplaced and cannot hold. This is not an advocacy for laxity in striving to be economically stable, but a call for individuals to be cognizant of the need to regulate their consumption. Because of the perception taken against consumption, the public should be made to understand that manageable consumption could not be related to failure (Etzioni, 2013). On the other hand, Juliet Schor presents a view that consumption should be individualized and not be presented as a public affair. She talks about the misplaced thinking that prompts individuals to keep on spending. Her suggestions clearly depict a systematic approach to consumption. She notes that a decent living should be a factor of satisfying the needs and not the wants. In addition, she advocates that the focus should be to improve the quality of life and not a desire t o see the massive items all around them, pushing hard to belong to a consumption class is an irrelevant and displaced move. The consumption levels ought to be in a way that it encourages conservation of the ecology. Consumption also should be made to be free will without having influences from the producers and retailers (Schor, 1999). The two authors establish a common ground of argument. From their views, ‘political’ aspects in the consumption chain have hampered freedom of consumption. They strongly advocate for a change in consumption culture in an attempt to vary the current spending dynamics. Quality of life has also been emphasized; individuals should not only focus on earning and being reduced to shoppers who do not have even the time to do it. The little time available is fixed with one activity after the other. They also call for regulations through the government and the relevant stakeholders in order to create a need-related consumption. Revitalization of co nsumer and labor movements to focus on this hidden yet dangerous trend is an urgent need in an attempt to protect the consumers. At the end of their arguments, the suggestions provided are biased on cultural change among the consumers in order to prevent unnecessary hard work whose products are miserable spent in making acquisitions.

Welfare state and globalization Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Welfare state and globalization - Research Paper Example These traditional methods of social organization have now been dismantled by industrialization, which has put workers’ welfare at risk. Under this model, it is also assumed that the government has more resources because of the increased affluence brought on by industrialization processes, so the government can effectively perform the role of safeguarding its citizens’ welfare. On a larger scale, welfare systems may be regarded as a necessity of the openness of economic systems, which expose workers to external shocks thus causing governments to shield them from these shocks (Huber and Stephens 2). Alternatively, one may perceive welfare states as a reflection of state capabilities; some nations adopt comprehensive and all-encompassing welfare programs while others do not. These differences arise from the level of power dispersion in those countries as well as their capacities. Other than industrialism and state capacity, welfare systems can also be seen as manifestations of political or class struggles. In this school of thought, state policy is determined by the need to maintain a balance of power between capitalists and socialists. It is presumed that socialists mostly comprise of left wing party supporters and labor organizations; conversely, capitalists consist of right wing politicians as well as the government center. In some instances, left wing politics dominates politics thus putting right-wing advocates on the other end of the spectrum. In this theoretical school, a constant struggle exists between these two groups in the distribution of power. Capitalists want to e xtract as much output as they can from capital and labor while civil society wants to safeguard society’s interests; more often than not, these two entities clash, and a welfare system prevailed when the left outperforms the right. After examining how a welfare system comes about, it

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Essay Example for Free

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Essay The character Margaret is married to Brick, the son of Big Daddy. They live together in Big Daddys house, along with his wife, Big Mama. We, as readers learn a lot about her character from the way she speaks, by what is said about her and by the stage directions. We also gain a good insight into her relationships with the people around her. Margarets relationship with Brick comes across as quite bizarre. His lack of interest in what she has to say gives the impression that he doesnt care and also shows a slight lack of respect. For example, when Brick replies to Maggies first line in the play, he says Whad you say, Maggie? The stage directions prior to his response read A tone of politely feigned interest, masking indifference or worse. Other stage directions describing his attitude to Maggies statements share the same negativity; such as Without interest., Wryly, Absent mindedly, Dreamily, followed by sarcastic comments. We also get the impression that Brick doesnt find his wife as attractive as other men do. On page twenty-one, Maggie says Way he always drops his eyes down my body when Im talkin to him, drops his eyes to my boobs an licks his old chops! The fact that shes telling her husband how other men show interest in her comes across as a subtle hint to her husband that perhaps he should appreciate her more. Almost reassuring herself, as well as him that shes an attractive woman. Bricks response however doesnt seem like the reply she was looking for. He describes her talk as disgusting. Theres also a sense of insecurity on Maggies front. When she catches Brick staring at her, she asks him continuously what hes thinking when he stares at her like that. On page twenty-five, Maggie says I wish you would lose your looks This is a particular strange request to make of ones partner. It makes readers assume she doesnt want to be attracted to Brick any longer. This assumption is soon backed up with fur ther lines on page twenty-eight when the couple talk of the conditions Maggie has to follow in order for Brick to continue living with her. They also refer to their bedroom as a cage, giving the sense of entrapment. Margarets relationship with Mae seems strained and false. Maggies continuous insulting of Maes children gives the impression that they dont get along particularly well. The topic of children in Maggie and Bricks relationship also seems awkward. Mae seems to take a patronising tone with Margaret on page twenty-nine when she says Maggie, honey, if you had children of your own youd know how funny that is It seems that Mae is well aware of Maggies envy towards her for having children and likes to bring it up from time to time. Margaret often refers to Big Daddy when shes attempting to make Brick jealous. When she was talking of the man who was looking her up and down, she was talking of Big Daddy, Bricks father. She uses him as an example of a man who gives her attention to try and get Brick to do the same. She also talks of Big Daddy not getting along with Gooper, Bricks brother or Mae. On page twenty, she says Big Daddy dotes on you honey. And he cant stand Brother Man and Brother Mans wife Big Daddy is also supposed to be dying of cancer, therefore theres a lot of talk of who will be getting the large share of his will. Margaret is obviously very aware of her sexuality. On the first page of the play, a stage direction says She steps out of her dress, stands in a slip of ivory satin lace. She also cares a lot about her appearance and what Brick thinks of her. I feel this because of her asking Brick what he thinks of her when he looks at her and because of stage directions such as She adjusts the angle of a magnifying mirror to straighten an eyelash Her relationship with her husband seems one sided and cruel. It seems as thought she wants children and a happy marriage like her sister in law however its made obvious that Brick doesnt share the same passion. We know from the continuous talk of Big Daddys will that she has dreams of being rich. So far, Williams has made Maggie seem like a desperate, hurt character that covers her pain up with her loud personality.

Media, Sexuality And Teenagers

Media, Sexuality And Teenagers Youths living in the 21st century spend inordinate amounts of time with the media. They laugh with characters who are funny; they viciously attack and destroy evil creatures as they play their favorite video games; they see advertising for candy, makeup, and even liquor; they listen to rap lyrics about sex and violence; and they interact with people all over the world online. Needless to say, it is a completely different social world than the one their parents and grandparents faced during childhood and therefore, the effect media has on teenagers is overpowering. In constant contact with the media, Teenagers today are faced with often conflicting and confusing messages about how they are supposed to behave sexually. While adults, schools, and religious institutions are still reluctant to provide sexuality education for adolescents, the mass media is not at all reticent, portraying sexual behavior as riveting, common in everyday life, emotionally and physically risk free. Undoubtedly , the sexuality presented in the media has had a significant effect on the behavior of modern day teenagers, making the confusion between media and reality and the perception that teens have on reality. Considering the effect media has on adolescents. First of all, it must be recognized that over time, the amount of sexual content that is shown in the media has increased remarkably at a swift rate. Media and its leniency to what may or may not be shown or heard publicly have increased a great amount over the years. A study showed that Pornography is big business, generating $13 billion just in the U.S. in 2006 (IT Facts, 2007). Although sex magazines have greatly declined in circulation since the mid-1990s, that drop has been more than compensated for by video sales and rentals, cable and pay-per-view TV, and especially the explosive growth of Internet pornography, producing over 20% of the total revenue in 2006. (Bryant 305) Even the media that is meant for children is being tampered with and contaminated with information that most children do not and should not know. The book, Children, Adolescents, and the Media states that On television each year, American children and teenagers view nearly 14,000 sexual references, innuendoes, and behaviors, few of which (less than 170) involve the use of birth control, self-control, abstinence, or responsibility. (Strasburger 213) Adolescents today have too easy access to the variety of media and therefore, are more susceptible to any inappropriate or sexual content than their parents. There are four major sources of media that children and teenagers are exposed to. These are the shows that they view on television, the music, the games, and the Internet. When adolescents are exposed to this various media, they have a tendency to choose media and interact with it based on who they are or who they want to be at the moment. The assumptions of media uses are similar to gratifications theory, which suggests that media consumers come to the media with different needs and motives and that what they take away from the media will depend on why they came to it. (Brown 9) Moreover, what those adolescents learn also varies according to the adolescents sense of self-identity and lived experience. Since these teenagers are undergoing the crucial moment in their lives, shaping their own ego and identity and extremely vulnerable to all this tremendous amount of information from the media, what they choose to absorb from the media and what is sensational and stimulus in the media can be very influential. The exaggerated or distorted image of sex in the media is omnipresent and detrimental to adolescents who are not fully prepared to distinguish betwe en reality and situation that can only happen an unreal world, such as television show. One of the most influential media that affects teenagers is television. Many studies have documented televisions ability to transmit information and to shape attitudes. Television influences adolescents perception of social behavior and social reality. Television may offer teenagers a guideline for sexual behavior that they might not be able to observe anywhere else. Television stations such as Disney Channel, Nickelodeon or even Cartoon Network have been intensified and marketed in a way so that older children would continue to watch these channels. By doing this, the younger children who have initially always watched the shows are exposed to things that they shouldnt be experiencing. The most recent content analysis of television found that more than 75% of prime-time kids shows on the major networks contain sexual content, but only 14% of incidents include any mention of the risks or responsibilities of sexual activity or the need for contraception. This figure rises to 27% for sh ows depicting or implying intercourse. (Kunkel, Eyal, Finnerty, Biely, Donnerstein) Television is definitely one of the sources of media which convey wrong image of sex. Television has a tremendous impact on the behavior of children and teenagers over time by giving them improper knowledge of sex. The media and the amount of sexual and violent content that is allowed to be shown not only on childrens stations but on stations that are meant to be viewed as families have increased a lot. An example of this is just the commercials that are advertised on television. Even on channels such as Nickelodeon, advertisements that are shown are not necessarily appropriate for children. It is known that Nickelodeon guides children towards MTV by featuring artists whose music and actions are inappropriate for young children in concerts and in Kids Choice Awards. (McEntire) A major part of television is also music channels, such as MTV and many more. These channels are the most universally watched channels by teenagers both male and female. On these channels, there are not only reality shows in which they show characters as violent and show sex as accepted, but the re are many music videos which show many images of sex and violence. An example of reality shows on music channels are The Real World and Laguna Beach on MTV, or shows such as Jersey Shore, in which the main character was a girl who was known because of being a stripper and having pictures on MySpace with revealing clothes. On VH1 there are shows such as Flavor Flave in which a retired rapper is perused by many young women or I Love New York where a young, ignorant acting female is trying to be won over by many men. In these shows, there are many illustrations of promiscuous actions that were not necessarily sex, but may have led up to sex by what is shown in the show. However, music videos by themselves are a serious issue with the media. A surprising amount of illustrations of sex are shown in music videos, which were reported in the article by McEntire that said, The average music video contains 93 sexual situations per hour. This includes eleven scenes actually depicting interco urse or oral sex. (McEntire) These numbers are alarming, and to know that these are the programs that almost all teenagers view on a daily basis is upsetting. As Television has become increasingly sexually explicit, Music plays a large part in the media affecting teenagers and their behavior. Many different types of music, such as Rap, Hip Hop, and Rock music are mainly directing its sales to the younger generation of people. The lyrics of these songs portray sex and violence. In many of these songs, they downgrade the worth of women and promote violence as it should be accepted. When the younger generation listens to these messages, as it is played repeatedly they begin to believe that it is the way that they should act, and lose sight of reality. In these songs, they also encourage the use of illegal substances to the younger generation such as drugs or Alcohol. An article proves that As the popularity of music among youth grows, the number of teens who are becoming more violent, more sexually active and who are experimenting which drugs is steadily increasing. (Keshan) Teenagers who listen to large amount and genres of music are less li kely to be affected by the messages depicted in the music but those who mainly listen to one type of music are more likely to take in the message given out in this music. The particular genres of Rap, Hip-Hop and Rock and Roll have a large impact on the behavior of young females, especially those of the African-American and His panic races. A study shows that Girls who watch 14 hours or more of rap music videos are more likely to engage in unsafe sex with multiple partners and get a STD. (McEntire) Just like most teenagers never take off their head phones playing their favorite music, video games are played by all ages of children, from little toddlers who are starting out learning letters or how to count to the older teenagers who play games with more detail and different situations. Video games over time have gotten more violent with content that is not appropriate for teenagers. From games of racing and sports such as football or baseball, to games that involve shooting and killing as if it was normal. These games do not only affect the behavior of teens, but they desensitize the future generations and how they depict violence. Furthermore, the worst thing is that they include sexual images such as naked women and strippers roaming a town or even raping scene as a mission. These games provoke teenagers to have strong desire to try out those distorted sexual images in reality. Grand Theft Auto is a game that is popular among teenagers, especially boys. A study depicts that Gr and Theft Auto: Vice City, a video game rated M, was the best selling game among teens in 2002. In the game, players can simulate having sex with a prostitute and then killing her. (Greenspan) This is just one example of many ways that violence and sexuality can be shown in multiple different video games. These games are mainly marketed to males, between the ages of 13 and 17 who would be more likely to go out and ask for a game containing violence or cars. Although this game is marked as M for mature, many parents wouldnt know or check for the rating of a video game when purchasing the game for their child. Although adolescents enjoy their pastime playing video games, the largest source of information that teenagers spend most of their time doing would to be the internet. With search engines such as Google, it is possible to find any information that may want to be discovered, whether it is appropriate or not. However, this exposure to inappropriate content is not always by the free will of the person sitting behind the screen. According to a study shown in 2006 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.increased proportions of youth internet users were encountering unwanted exposures to sexual material and online harassment, but decreased proportions were receiving unwanted sexual solicitations (Online Victimization of Youth) which basically means that while being on sites that they had business being on, ads and pop-ups that were not necessarily appropriate appeared on the screen. This is the case on many children sites, such as Nickelodeon.com or NickJr.com. These advertisement and pop-ups which are mostly ab out pornography and mortgage increase teenagers curiosity and lead them to explore those inappropriate sites. All these contents in television, music, game, and internet, enhancing adolescents lust and injecting wrong perception of sex into teens affect the behavior of them and eventually lead to social catastrophe. A study manifests that Teens who see and hear a lot about sex in the media may be more than twice as likely to have early sexual intercourse as those who are rarely exposed to sexual contentà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦12 to 14-years old exposed to the most sexual content in movies, music m magazines, and on television were 2.2 times more likely to have had sexual intercourse when re-interviewed two years later than their peers who had a lighter sexual media diet. (Lagorio) This has agitated the mindsets of young children, primarily in America. Teen pregnancies over the past 10 years have been largely affected by the change in censorship in the media. As the amount of sexual content increased in the media, the amount of teen pregnancies or children having children has elevated proportionally. With the portrayal of teenagers having children in shows such as The Secret Life of an American Teenager in which the main character is a girl who is pregnant, the idea of teenage girls getting pregnant is becoming more accepted and more common. This girl carrying a child in the television show is only depicted as a fifteen years old, and although she is carrying a child she still maintains a child-like innocence herself, which emphasizes the fact that she is only a child carrying another chilled. This however, is not only the case in television shows. Many girls between the ages of 14 and 17 are turning out pregnant, although it is obvious that they arent capable of supporting a child on their own. Since the statistic of young girls h aving babies has skyrocketed, many public school systems have felt the need to add Daycare Units into the schools so that they can promote the teenage mothers staying in school, and having free care for their child while they continue to get an education. This all comes back to the media, which is unmonitored for the most part, and promotes messages of sex, and becoming caught in a sensual moment, which would result in a lack of protection because of no preparation. When sex is illustrated in many television shows, they make it as though the couple has sex without needing protection such as condoms. All these uncensored information from the media bring out a huge social consequence in a long term. The media, at large, does have an effect on the beliefs and behaviors of teenagers over a long period of time. In a society that limits access to sexual information, teenagers will look to the media for answers to their questions. More important, the media may have a strong effect on teens without their even being aware of it, especially those whose parents do not instill in them a strong sense of family values. Although many adolescents try to get answers from the media about sex, unfortunately the media answers to these questions are usually not the healthy or accurate answers. Hence, in order to prevent any further tragedy befalling to teenagers, immediate solution has to be made. One of the possible solutions that would grant youth a healthier view of sex and sexuality is that widespread advertising of birth control in mainstream media. Advertising birth control represents one means of increasing teenagers access to it. Such advertising needs to address the risks of pregnancy, not merely the superficial difference that birth control pills can make. Unless new products such as the morning-after pill are widely advertised, teenagers will not know about them or use them. Comparative studies between the United States and Europe make it clear that countries that promote the use of birth control via advertising, sex education classes, and programming are rewarded with lower rates of teen pregnancy. (Strasburger 254), yet the media remain resistant. Given that eight studies now prove that making birth control available to teenagers does not increase the risk of early sexual intercourse, there is no longer any excuse to withhold access to it. Like advertising birth control, second solution would be having a greater responsibility and accountability of mainstream media for producing healthy and accurate messages about sex and sexuality. Entertainment industry executives need to realize that, their product is educating American children and teenagers, since media have become one of the most important sources for sexual information for young people today. Besides reforming mainstream media, middle and high schools should not underestimate the sex education and inform students the fallacy in the media. This would be resulted in teenagers being less likely to overestimate sexual activity among their peers and more aware of the truth about sex and sexual imagery in the media. Third key to protect teenagers from the unhealthy information from media is to execute more and better counter advertising. Only the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy has engaged in long term efforts to counterprogram through the media. Although no clear data exists about this organizations success, several successful efforts involving counter advertising against tobacco and illicit drugs with teens as the target audience through the media have been demonstrated. Fourth solution would be having a greater sensitivity of parents to the influence of the media on adolescents. Many parents often seem not to see the impact of media on their children and teenagers. The most important steps that parents can take are to set rules about TV viewing, monitor what shows are being watched, and keep TV sets out of the bedroom. The last possible solution is to conduct better research on getting statistics on the effect of the media. Considerably more research needs to be funded, use a variety of methods and a variety of populations, and will need to take into account developmental, gender, and ethnic differences. School systems and parents need to grant access to researchers, and foundations need to fund such efforts. Foundations need to recognize media research as a new and much needed priority. Society needs to accept the fact that teenagers should be able to give consent for such research on their own and that parents can be informed about ongoing studies explaining the research. Although it is apparent that the medias negative effect on teenagers is catastrophic, we can take these resolutions discussed above and make adolescents prepared for unhealthy information from the media and enlighten them that some of sex and sexuality expressed in the media are false. Work Cited Brown, jane, Steele, Jeanne, and Walsh-Childers, kim. Sexual teens, sexual media: investigating medias influence on adolescent. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Eribaum Associates, Inc. Publishers Bryant, Jennings, and Mary Oliver. Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research. 3rd ed. New York, NY: TaylorFrancis, 2009. Greenspan.Sam. How the Silver Screen Affects Your Teen. 2004, 10 Feb 2010 Hart, Eileen. Teens, Sex, and Media. 2002, 15 Jan 2010 Lenhart, Amanda. Teens and Social Media. 19 Dec 2007 InternetAmerican Life Project. 17 Feb 2009 Lagorio, Christine. Media May Promt Teen Sex. 03 Apr 2006 17, Feb 2009 McEntrie, Teresa. The Prevalence And Effects of Sex In The Media. 2002 Strasburger, victor. Children, Adolescents, and the Media. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, inc, 2009.

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway Essay -- essays research pape

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ernest Hemingway's novel, To Have and Have Not, is about a man named Harry. Harry is a fisherman, and when he goes fishing he brings along a black man named Wesley. Eddy, who is a rummy, and Mr. Johnson who chartered Harry's boat also accompanied him on one of his fishing expeditions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On this fishing journey that Harry and all of his colleague's had taken, Harry said to Mr. Johnson, "I think you're going to have a chance to fight one today." About that time Mr. Johnson had a fish on his line. He kept on pulling on the fishing line and giving it slack. For a few moments, they all thought that the fish mighty be dead, but after he got off of the line they knew that Mr. Johnson had messed up and let the a great fish get away.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The second fish that Mr. Johnson snagged was a black marlin. He fought and fought with the fish until his arms went numb. After a couple of minutes, the fish took the rod, the real, and the line. Harry wanted Mr. Johnson to pay for the tackle that he lost, but Mr. Johnson ran off without paying.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After all of his troubles with Mr. Johnson, Harry went to Donovan’s and had a drink, and purchased a drink for Frankie. Frankie called himself a businessman, and he would always say "Me Frankie; much politics." Frankie set it up so that Harry and a guy named Mr. Singer could meet to talk about a new job for Harry. They meet at the Perla. Mr. Singer was a nice looking Chink. He wanted to know about H...

B&Q Case Study Essay

As data and information are readily available, and information communication technology (ICT) has highly advanced, organizations such as B&Q need to understand how knowledge creation can assist to improve internal and external processes and also encourage innovation. In task one, the aim is to differentiate between possession of knowledge and practice of knowledge and examine which epistemology B&Q uses throughout their supply chain. B&Q uses possession knowledge whereby it provides all their vendors with a code of conduct guidelines which they need to follow through. Knowledge is defined as â€Å"awareness, consciousness, or familiarity gained by experience or learning† (knowledge, n. d) which are the ways people in a social situations would understand and make sense of where they are and what they are doing. When knowledge is conducted and embraced in an organization, it will result to a group of people who develop shared beliefs, behaviours and routines that shape organization capabilities. Experts such as Polanyi (1966), Nonaka (1994) and Cook and Brown (1999) divide knowledge into two categories called tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is associated with the skills or know-how that people developed through their own experience in specific contexts. Whereas explicit knowledge is something that has been codified, written down or spelled out and is communicable across context. 1. 2 Possession and practice From the word possession itself, one can understand that it is about the knowledge that people have in their mind (Cook and Brown, 1999). Blackler (1995), and Cook and Brown (1999) refer possesion of knowledge as â€Å"knowledge† and practice of knowledge as â€Å"knowing†. Knowledge is a mental or cognitive capacity which is hierarchical in nature and comprises of data, information etc. moreover, possession of knowledge is a personal property where people render meaning from subjective experiences, perceptions and previous understanding. As human minds are individually unique, hence different people may perceive and intepret the same information or data differently. Meanwhile, practice of knowledge sees knowledge as something that it developed through social interaction such as project work, group assignment or group discussion. When people practice knowledge, they convert tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, thus transferring knowledge from one person to another. This is done through sharing stories, experiences or creating norms to a group of people hence enabling the experience of an individual to be related to a wider community. 3. 3 B&Q case B&Q plc works with many vendors such as Kingfisher Asia (KAL) who supply products to B&Q. Hence to manage their vendors and ensure processes and procedures are followed, B&Q come up with code of conduct (B&Q Operational Standards for Supply Chains) for all their vendors. The code of conduct is based on the international labour and envirnmental standards set by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions which factories and worksites of all vendors throughout the world need to comply to. In summary, vendors need to let B&Q have full visibility of the enitre supply chain and fulfill and obey the code of conduct criteria at all facilities. Any failure to meet the nine Critical Failure Points (CFPs) will result in B&Q not buying or purchasing their products. Through this code of conduct, we can deduce that B&Q adopts a possession of knowledge rather than practice of knowledge. B&Q receives knowledge about labour and environmental guidelines from ILO conventions and uses the basic context to write down or capture in an information technology (IT) system which is then made available as an organizational resource – B&Q Operational Standards for Supply Chains. This is in contrast of having a group discussion with the vendors and seeking their opinions and views on how to create a better working environment for the workers (practice of knowledge). For example, Baer (1987) and Abbott (1988) explained that in order to defend their position, occupational groups such as doctors would write down or ‘black box’ their skills and knowledge which is then used by others as guidelines or instructions to follow. B&Q is following the same concept as they wish to guard their position as a responsible organization or employer where the rights of all workers throughout the world are respected and protected. Thus, this results to an encoded knowledge (Blackler, 1995) for the vendors as information is transmited through the code of conduct.

Amy Tan Essay

Although the daughters know some Chinese words and the mothers speak some English, communication often becomes a matter of translation, of words whose intended meaning and accepted meaning are in fact quite separate, leading to subtle misunderstandings. †¢The first mention of this difficulty with translation occurs when Jing-mei relates the story of her mother’s founding of the Joy Luck Club. After attempting to explain the significance of the club’s name, Jing-mei recognizes that the concept is not something that can be translated. She points out that the daughters think their mothers are stupid because of their fractured English, while the mothers are impatient with their daughters who don’t understand the cultural nuances of their language and who do not intend to pass along their Chinese heritage to their own children. Throughout the book, characters bring up one Chinese concept after another, only to accept the frustrating fact that an understanding of Chinese culture is a prerequisite to understanding its meaning. †¢The Power of Storytelling Because the barriers between the Chinese and the American cultures are exacerbated by imperfect translation of language, the mothers use storytelling to circumvent these barriers and communicate with their daughters. The stories they tell are often educational, warning against certain mistakes or giving advice based on past successes. For instance, Ying-ying’s decision to tell Lena about her past is motivated by her desire to warn Lena against the pa ssivity and fatalism that Ying-ying suffered. Storytelling is also employed to communicate messages of love and pride, and to illumine one’s inner self for others. †¢Another use of storytelling concerns historical legacy. By telling their daughters about their family histories, the mothers ensure that their lives are remembered and understood by subsequent generations, so that the characters who acted in the story never die away completely. In telling their stories to their daughters, the mothers try to instill them with respect for their Chinese ancestors and their Chinese pasts. Suyuan hopes that by finding her long-lost daughters and telling them her story, she can assure them of her love, despite her apparent abandonment of them. When Jing-mei sets out to tell her half-sisters Suyuan’s story, she also has this goal in mind, as well as her own goal of letting the twins know who their mother was and what she was like. †¢Storytelling is also used as a way of controlling one’s own fate. In many ways, the original purpose of the Joy Luck Club was to create a place to exchange stories. Faced with pain and hardship, Suyuan decided to take control of the plot of her life. The Joy Luck Club did not simply serve as a distraction; it also enabled transformation—of community, of love and support, of circumstance. Stories work to encourage a certain sense of independence. They are a way of forging one’s own identity and gaining autonomy. Waverly understands this: while Lindo believes that her daughter’s crooked nose means that she is ill-fated, Waverly dismisses this passive interpretation and changes her identity and her fate by reinventing the story that is told about a crooked nose. †¢The Problem of Immigrant Identity At some point in the novel, each of the major characters expresses anxiety over her inability to reconcile her Chinese heritage with her American surroundings. Indeed, this reconciliation is the very aim of Jing-mei’s journey to China. While the daughters in the novel are genetically Chinese (except for Lena, who is half Chinese) and have been raised in mostly Chinese households, they also identify with and feel at home in modern American culture. Waverly, Rose, and Lena all have white boyfriends or husbands, and they regard many of their mothers’ customs and tastes as old-fashioned or even ridiculous. Most of them have spent their childhoods trying to escape their Chinese identities: Lena would walk around the house with her eyes opened as far as possible so as to make them look European. Jing-mei denied during adolescence that she had any internal Chinese aspects, insisting that her Chinese identity was limited only to her external features. Lindo meditates that Waverly would have clapped her hands for joy during her teen years if her mother had told her that she did not look Chinese. As they mature, the daughters begin to sense that their identities are incomplete and become interested in their Chinese heritage. Waverly speaks wishfully about blending in too well in China and becomes angry when Lindo notes that she will be recognized instantly as a tourist. One of Jing-mei’s greatest fears about her trip to China is not that others will recognize her as American, but that she herself will fail to recognize any Chinese elements within herself. †¢Of the four mothers, L indo expresses the most anxiety over her cultural identity. Having been spotted as a tourist during her recent trip to China, she wonders how America has changed her. She has always believed in her ability to shift between her true self and her public self, but she begins to wonder whether her â€Å"true† self is not, in fact, her American one. Even while a young girl in China, Lindo showed that she did not completely agree with Chinese custom. She agonized over how to extricate herself from a miserable marriage without dishonoring her parents’ promise to her husband’s family. While her concern for her parents shows that Lindo did not wish to openly rebel against her tradition, Lindo made a secret promise to herself to remain true to her own desires. This promise shows the value she places on autonomy and personal happiness—two qualities that Lindo associates with American culture. †¢Jing-mei’s experience in China at the end of the book certainly seems to support the possibility of a richly mixed identity rather than an identity of warring opposites. She comes to see that China itself contains American aspects, just as the part of America she grew up in—San Francisco’s Chinatown—containe †¢ Storytelling – Narrative Style, Symbolism, Figurative Language †¢She uses storytelling to in order for the different characters to understand each others struggles as well as the reader to understand the lives and emotions of both the mother and the daughters †¢The stories they tell are often educational, warning against certain mistakes or giving advice based on past successes. For instance, Ying-ying’s decision to tell Lena about her past is motivated by her desire to warn Lena against the passivity and fatalism that Ying-ying suffered. Storytelling is also employed to communicate messages of love and pride, and to illumine one’s inner self for others. †¢Another use of storytelling concerns historical legacy. By telling their daughters about their family histories, the mothers ensure that their lives are remembered and understood by subsequent generations, so that the characters who acted in the story never die away completely. In telling their stories to their daughters, the mothers try to instill them with respect for their Chinese ancestors and their Chinese pasts. Suyuan hopes that by finding her long-lost daughters and telling them her story, she can assure them of her love, despite her apparent abandonment of them. When Jing-mei sets out to tell her half-sisters Suyuan’s story, she also has this goal in mind, as well as her own goal of letting the twins know who their mother was and what she was like. †¢Storytelling is also used as a way of controlling one’s own fate. In many ways, the original purpose of the Joy Luck Club was to create a place to exchange stories. Faced with pain and hardship, Suyuan decided to take control of the plot of her life. The Joy Luck Club did not simply serve as a distraction; it also enabled transformation—of community, of love and support, of circumstance. Stories work to encourage a certain sense of independence. They are a way of forging one’s own identity and gaining autonomy. Waverly understands this: while Lindo believes that her daughter’s crooked nose means that she is ill-fated, Waverly dismisses this passive interpretation and changes her identity and her fate by reinventing the story that is told about a crooked nose. †¢ All the stories in her books are interlocking personal narrative in different voices. The narrators appear as characters in each other’s stories as well as tell their own stories, Tan does not have to fully develop the narrator’s voice in each story. While American daughters like Jing-mei employ personal narrative as a way of telling stories, the ’’ Because this indirect means is the only way Jing-mei’s mother c an interpret and express her experiences, she is shocked into silence when her daughter speaks directly about the daughters she abandoned in China years earlier. Point of View †¢In â€Å"Two Kinds† the perspective moves back and forth between the adult and then child. In this way, Tan tells the story through the child’s innocent view and the adult’s experienced eyes. This allows reader to make judgments of their own, to add their own interpretations of the mother daughter struggle. Figurative Language †¢This literary device also invites readers to think about the way memory itself functions, how we use events in the past to help make sense of our present. Literary critic Ben Xu explains that ‘‘it is not just that we have ‘images,’ ‘pictures,’ and ‘views’ of ourselves in memory, but that we also have ‘stories’ and narratives to tell about the past which both shape and convey our sense of self. Our sense of what has happened to us is entailed not in actual happening but in meaningful happenings, and the meanings of our past experience . . . are constr ucts produced in much the same way that narrative is produced. ’’ †¢In other words memory is a two-way street; it shapes the story as much as the story makes the memory. In Xu’s words, ‘‘memory is not just a narrative, even though it does have to take a narrative form; it is more importantly an experiential relation between the past and the present, projecting a future as well. ’’ Tan’s style is mainly composed of storytelling as a way for her characters to share their history and retell the significant events of their lives. The Chinese mothers find it exceptionally difficult to talk about their lives due to the language barrier; therefore Tan uses a strategy that is borrowed from Chinese folk tradition called talk story (Brent). E. D. Huntley defines talk story as ‘‘a narrative strategy for those characters whose ties to Chinese tradition remain strong. ’’ It allows these characters to ‘‘draw on traditional oral forms to shape their stories and to disguise the urgency and seriousness with which they are attempting to transmit to their daughters the remnants of a culture that is fading even from their own lives. ’’ This means that the mothers, ‘‘who have been socialized into silence for most of their lives,’’ learn to ‘‘reconfigure the events of hese lives into acceptable public utterances: painful experiences are recast in the language of folk tale; cautionary reminders become gnomic phrases; real life takes on the contours of myth (Huntley). † Story telling serves many different functions in the novel. Primarily, the mother’s use storytelling to communicate with their daughters about their past and better relate to their daughters. In Kitchen God’s Wife, Winnie and Pearl have a hard time understanding each other’s situation as they have had a disconnect since Pearl was a teenager. However, after Winnie tells Pearl the stories of the hardships she had to face living with her abusive husband in China and how that has made her the hard person she is today, Pearl is able to connect better with her mother and understand where she is coming from. Another purpose of storytelling is so the mother’s can teach their daughters important life lessons that can help them be happy as many of the daughters are struggling with their marriages. Thus, she knows that the only way to save her daughter is to tell her story, the story of how her submission to fate and other people’s wills led to discontent and even agony. In her novels, Amy Tan allows her characters to employ storytelling as a device for shaping their histories and making coherent sense of the significant events of their lives. For these characters, storytelling is a means of keeping the past alive and building a bridge between it and the present, of transmitting cultural codes and rituals, of subtly educating their daughters, and finally of somehow imprinting the essence of their selves on the next generation. Tan is especially gifted at weaving multiple stories with a variety of narrators into the intricate fabric of each book. Tan herself has recognized her own ability to construct distinctive and memorable narratives, commenting that her storytelling gifts are responsible in large measure for the ongoing popularity-with readers and critics alike-of her work. She has said that her childhood exposure to Bible stories as well as â€Å"tons of fairy tales, both Grimm and Chinese† (Wang) has made stories a significant element in her writing, and she credits her parents with both instilling in her the impulse to tell stories and providing her with models for unforgettable. In an interview with Gretchen Giles, Amy Tan reveals that she learned the craft of story construction from her father, a very busy Baptist minister who managed to spend quality time with his children by reading his sermons to them and then asking for their opinions on content and language. Citations Xu, Ben. ‘‘Memory and the Ethnic Self: Reading Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club,’’ in MELUS, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 3-16. Huntley, E. D. Amy Tan: A Critical Companion, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Brent, Liz. ‘‘Amy Tan Criticism Overview. ’’ Short Stories for Students. Ed. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 19–20: 288.