Proposal for Annotated Bibliography on Business Ethics

Title: Annotated Bibliography for Proposed Project on Business Ethics Proposal There are many different opinions in todays world about the necessity and importance of implementing a business ethics oath for all who wish to work in the corporate world. Society would greatly benefit from the implementation of a business ethics pledge being sworn by everyone who graduates from business school. Corporate greed would start to dwindle and there would be many more moral and ethical leaders in todays corporations.A business ethics pledge would help start corporate culture within todays leading businesses which can help not only keep a corporation ethical but help them to succeed financially and with their sustainability. Annotated Bibliography Gini, Al. â€Å"Business, Ethics, And Leadership In A Post Enron Era. † Journal Of Leadership & Organizational Studies (Baker College) 11. 1 (2004): 9-15. Business Source Complete. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. In this article, Al Gini describes how the et hics f leadership affect the ethics of the workplace and helps to form the ethical choices and decisions of the workers in the workplace.Gini goes on to explain that the central problem of ethics in business today Schweiger 2 is the absence of positive moral leadership and the neglected development of a moral culture within the corporation. He credits these problems for the rise in corporate greed and unethical behavior that occurs in todays society and economy. Gini describes how in todays world the availability and opportunity to express corporate greed has grown extensively due to the lack of moral leadership and a ethical corporate culture. Wayne, Leslie. â€Å"A Promise to be Ethical in an Era of Immortality. The New York Times (2009). In this article, Leslie Wayne presents the idea that todays generations very different from yesterdays. Today students are more concerned about how corporations affect the community, the lives of its workers, and the environment. They are still concerned with making money just like any other businessmen, but not at the expense of others and not unethically. Wayne tells in this article how some schools have already made a business ethics pledge mandatory for all students, and how some students at other schools are taking the pledge by choice.Wayne provides good arguments and supports them with evidence for why business ethics pledges should be constitutionalized and taken by all entering the corporate world. Sims, Brinkham, Johannes. â€Å"Enron Enthics: Culture Matters more than Codes. † Journal of Business Ethics, Jul 2003. Vol. 45, Iss. 3; Pg 243. In this article, by Ronald R. Sims, Brinkmann, and Johannes, the topical issue is the Enron Scandal that occurs in 2001. The authors provide different viewpoints of the scandal and point out that in the eyes of the executive managers of Enron, their actions where completely ethical and legal.In fact, before 2001, Enron was actually praised for being an excellent corporat e citizen and for obtaining a high standard of business ethics. Sims, Brinkmann, and Johannes suggest that some corporations look ethical to the public but in fact commit many violations of what is today called common business ethics. Heller, Nathan A. , and Victor L. Heller. â€Å"Business Ethics Education: Are Business Schools Teaching To The AACSB Ethics Education Task Force Recommendations?. International Journal Of Business & Social Science 2. 20 (2011): 30-38. Business Source Complete. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. In this article, Nathan A. Heller, and Victor L. Heller identify their shared views on the failure of business schools to provide graduates with the ethical skills they need to be a responsible and educated leader. Heller and Heller define business ethics as how individuals, at all levels of the organization, make decisions and live their lives according to a standard of right and wrong behavior.They observe the fact that business schools take pride and market success of thei r graduates, but fail to take responsibility, for their ethical failures. Heller and Heller believe that business schools have encouraged their students to focus too much on analytical skills in order to maximize profits at all costs without consideration of the ethical implications of their actions. Carroll, Archie B. â€Å"Reflections On The Business Ethics Field And Business Ethics Quarterly. † Business Ethics Quarterly 20. 4 (2010): 715-717. Business Source Complete. Web. 18 Oct. 012. In this article, Norman Bowie, former president of the Society for Business Ethics (SBE), develops reasons for the reoccurring lack of business ethics in todays society. Bowie credits mostly the fact that when business is booming, that business ethics seem to erode and businessmen don’t seem to mind walking all over others. He also identifies that lack of business ethics, particularly within the top level executives, to be the major downfall of the last decade resulting in events like the Enron Era and the Wall Street Financial Scandal of 2008.This is and interesting article which identifies the problem areas and lack of business ethics and can be greatly expanded on. Brenkert, George G. â€Å"The Limits And Prospects Of Business Ethics. † Business Ethics Quarterly 20. 4 (2010): 703-709. Business Source Complete. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. In this article, George G. Brenkert expresses his beliefs that schools of business must play a more active role in directing the thinking of future managers to more ethical business behavior.He goes on to say that instead of focusing on profit maximization, businesses should focus on making meaningful work for employees. Brenkert identifies the fact that many businesses still have not accepted moral responsibility for the Wall Street crisis of 2008, ad some even go as for to blame the federal reserve and the government instead of looking in the mirror. He believes that businesses must foster a higher level of ethical behavior i n order to avoid repeating this same financial crisis the future.

Stench of Kerosene

Gulper makes a choice by omitting suicide, when she finds out that Magna was forced too find a different wife. She keeps Masks flute under her Departs, which always reminds her of him, and his love to her, Outer / Inner Characterization Outer- There is not told about her apprentice, except a â€Å"Departs† which is a cloth, that Indies girls wear for different accessions. Silver rings Inner- Very happy, homesick, proud, very happy for â€Å"Mare† True love, Development Gulper, develops a lot of feelings for Magna, so strong that It ends in a tragic event.Her obsession Is stronger then life it ‘s self. Her love for Magna is stronger the the lifework Its self. Magna Gluer's Husband Magna, is the husband too Gulper, Hess been married too her for seven years, He has a responsibility, in the family to move their generation , and his mother is aware of that they have been together for many years, and still there has not been any progress in making a baby, which results in Guilder's death. Outer/inner Characterization Outer- none Inner- Nervous, Afraid , lost in thoughts,Respect for family â€Å"mother† Daydreamer Submissive role, passive,emotionalMagna develop his own true feelings, when the newborn baby that was place on his lap, all Hess feels, ends in chaos, as he releases his true feeling in his heart for Gulper by yelling and screaming â€Å"take him away he smells of Kerosene† in the end, he docent really develop himself in a positive way but in a negative in the truth in his heart for Gulper love that been lost forever. Vivian Manna's friend Vivian is a friend of Magna and brings the message about Guilder's death, this news, brings a lot of pain into Manna's heart and soul.Magna and Vivian, has a story together since, they knew each other from past â€Å"the fair† which comes every seven years,Vivian, and Magna have a very close relationship as friends, since he has a flute, like Magna does. Outer-Small bundle on his sh oulder/flute, Haunches Inner- Feeling uneasy, unsure, feeling bad, Manna's Mother Actions The mother has full control over Magna and controls him, she is ashamed of the fact that Gulper is destitute of offspring and she seek a wife for him, that can bear her child by paying for it, she forgets about his feelings.Outer/inner Characterizations Inner-Demanding, Cold hearted. Careless Settings and Time Physical setting The event occurs in small village called Lackawanna that is located outside Champ which is in India, The village that Gulper lives in is on a high ground, and there is a road that curves and descends, steeply downhill. And from that point you can see Champ. The stores takes part different place outside Champ, realistic or unrealistic environment the events that take place in this story are all realistic.Environment details There are a lot of mountains, in this area, many steep curves and slopes, small villages around. Atmosphere It gives you the impression of that, they p eople live in a very hot, place, since India is a very tropical and hot environment. Characters influenced by the environment Guilder's parents, live in Champ that shows, they are city people, Magna and Gulper live outside the city of Champ in a small village.This shows that when young people get married in India, they get to live in some small hut outside the city, where they have too take care of them self s. Just like husband and wife. Social Setting Guilder's parents are part of the middle / uppercases, people, It seems like parents ho choose their children marriage, are about the same middle / upper-class people and when the ceremony is done, they â€Å"happy' married couple are being downgraded into living in a low/middle class environment.Where they are forced too live as husband and wife, with a task that is demand, and this task is having a baby. Time The story its self progress its self trough out 2 days, where Manna's friend comes by, about long past, 7 years back, we ge t window into the past of a married couple. In other words, we get a lot of history about this couple until present day, and the happening of a tragic event.Narrator / Point of view The story is being switched between, 3†² rd person and 1 person, there is a story teller, and we get into the characters as they intact with each other trough out the story, and then we get back too the 3 ‘rd person. There's a bit off mix, and a little bit of omniscient in the story teller. The main character of the story is Magna, since he is the one who gets influenced, trough out the whole story by all the people around him, Gurgle has a important part in this story, since she the one who affects Magna the most in the end.Composition / Plot Title Stench of Kerosene, 1965 The Title indicates, a very strong symbol of that very tragic and dramatic event can occur in point's off woman's/girls life or in the matter of fact, everyone's life, when people get into a point where there is no turning back, that means, â€Å"point of no return† it can lead into a very horrific scenario, with actuality this title shows, we see it in the news, and we see it happen on TV, people setting them self on fire for reasons of desperate and urgent, matters, like no food, no work. Stench of Kerosene Gulper makes a choice by omitting suicide, when she finds out that Magna was forced too find a different wife. She keeps Masks flute under her Departs, which always reminds her of him, and his love to her, Outer / Inner Characterization Outer- There is not told about her apprentice, except a â€Å"Departs† which is a cloth, that Indies girls wear for different accessions. Silver rings Inner- Very happy, homesick, proud, very happy for â€Å"Mare† True love, Development Gulper, develops a lot of feelings for Magna, so strong that It ends in a tragic event.Her obsession Is stronger then life it ‘s self. Her love for Magna is stronger the the lifework Its self. Magna Gluer's Husband Magna, is the husband too Gulper, Hess been married too her for seven years, He has a responsibility, in the family to move their generation , and his mother is aware of that they have been together for many years, and still there has not been any progress in making a baby, which results in Guilder's death. Outer/inner Characterization Outer- none Inner- Nervous, Afraid , lost in thoughts,Respect for family â€Å"mother† Daydreamer Submissive role, passive,emotionalMagna develop his own true feelings, when the newborn baby that was place on his lap, all Hess feels, ends in chaos, as he releases his true feeling in his heart for Gulper by yelling and screaming â€Å"take him away he smells of Kerosene† in the end, he docent really develop himself in a positive way but in a negative in the truth in his heart for Gulper love that been lost forever. Vivian Manna's friend Vivian is a friend of Magna and brings the message about Guilder's death, this news, brings a lot of pain into Manna's heart and soul.Magna and Vivian, has a story together since, they knew each other from past â€Å"the fair† which comes every seven years,Vivian, and Magna have a very close relationship as friends, since he has a flute, like Magna does. Outer-Small bundle on his sh oulder/flute, Haunches Inner- Feeling uneasy, unsure, feeling bad, Manna's Mother Actions The mother has full control over Magna and controls him, she is ashamed of the fact that Gulper is destitute of offspring and she seek a wife for him, that can bear her child by paying for it, she forgets about his feelings.Outer/inner Characterizations Inner-Demanding, Cold hearted. Careless Settings and Time Physical setting The event occurs in small village called Lackawanna that is located outside Champ which is in India, The village that Gulper lives in is on a high ground, and there is a road that curves and descends, steeply downhill. And from that point you can see Champ. The stores takes part different place outside Champ, realistic or unrealistic environment the events that take place in this story are all realistic.Environment details There are a lot of mountains, in this area, many steep curves and slopes, small villages around. Atmosphere It gives you the impression of that, they p eople live in a very hot, place, since India is a very tropical and hot environment. Characters influenced by the environment Guilder's parents, live in Champ that shows, they are city people, Magna and Gulper live outside the city of Champ in a small village.This shows that when young people get married in India, they get to live in some small hut outside the city, where they have too take care of them self s. Just like husband and wife. Social Setting Guilder's parents are part of the middle / uppercases, people, It seems like parents ho choose their children marriage, are about the same middle / upper-class people and when the ceremony is done, they â€Å"happy' married couple are being downgraded into living in a low/middle class environment.Where they are forced too live as husband and wife, with a task that is demand, and this task is having a baby. Time The story its self progress its self trough out 2 days, where Manna's friend comes by, about long past, 7 years back, we ge t window into the past of a married couple. In other words, we get a lot of history about this couple until present day, and the happening of a tragic event.Narrator / Point of view The story is being switched between, 3†² rd person and 1 person, there is a story teller, and we get into the characters as they intact with each other trough out the story, and then we get back too the 3 ‘rd person. There's a bit off mix, and a little bit of omniscient in the story teller. The main character of the story is Magna, since he is the one who gets influenced, trough out the whole story by all the people around him, Gurgle has a important part in this story, since she the one who affects Magna the most in the end.Composition / Plot Title Stench of Kerosene, 1965 The Title indicates, a very strong symbol of that very tragic and dramatic event can occur in point's off woman's/girls life or in the matter of fact, everyone's life, when people get into a point where there is no turning back, that means, â€Å"point of no return† it can lead into a very horrific scenario, with actuality this title shows, we see it in the news, and we see it happen on TV, people setting them self on fire for reasons of desperate and urgent, matters, like no food, no work.

Othello has been called a ‘domestic tragedy’

A domestic tragedy takes place in a personal setting. In Othello, the men are in Cyprus to fight a war. However, the tragedy is the events within the relationships of the central characters. There is little discussion of the war and, although Desdemona blames state matters for Othello's change in behaviour, the real problems Othello faces are matters of the heart. The women in the play have no part in the war, but still their presence contributes to the downfall of both Othello and Iago, creating repercussions for the state. The historical context of the play is important when considering the female characters contained in it. The play was first performed in 1604 at the start of the reign of King James I. It is generally thought that wives were expected to be obedient to their husbands at this time, and play the â€Å"maiden never bold†, as Desdemona is described by her father in Act One, scene three. However, the time of the play's first performance was shortly after the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth never married and is known to have been of strong character. It is therefore likely that a strong-willed female character would have been accepted by an audience of this time. A feature of the play that should be considered is the misogyny shown by the male characters. In the first scene of the play, the language used by Iago to describe the sexual acts of Desdemona and Othello is coarse, â€Å"an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe†. The sexuality of women is valued little by the men in the play, except for Othello who seems to over-romanticise it. Iago is coarse and rude. Cassio is seen as a ladies man, but uses women for sex. Roderigo shows very little knowledge of Desdemona but loves her for her beauty. Othello is similar to this, he idealises Desdemona, showing little understanding of her as a person. As Leavis says, Othello has a â€Å"preoccupation with his emotions rather than with Desdemona in her own right.† The three men, Othello, Iago and Cassio, all have a typically male profession, that of a soldier. They are all, including Othello (despite his romanticism), very masculine characters. Othello's lack of understanding and failure to attempt to understand, the complexity of women contributes greatly to his downfall. The character of Desdemona is a complex one. She has strong beliefs and shows complete devotion to Othello. Her main belief is in true love, and her views on this never falter. She will do anything to maintain her love with Othello. Her first appearance in the play shows bravery, a true love of Othello and complete trust in him. It is here she first expresses her views on love. â€Å"to his honours and valiant parts Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.† Desdemona believes that to love someone is to give oneself to them completely. She has a very idealistic view on love and this is shown again in Act Four, scene three when she is discussing unfaithful women with Emilia. â€Å"Dost thou in conscience think – tell me, Emilia – That there be women do abuse their husbands In such gross kind?† It is her innocent and naà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ve views that show what Desdemona represents in the play. In ‘The Othello Music', Knight says â€Å"In Othello, pure love is the supreme good†. Desdemona's main belief is in pure love. This leads to the conclusion that Desdemona represents goodness and purity within the play, as when she is dead, Knight says â€Å"pure love lies slain.† Another value Desdemona possesses is compassion. When Cassio loses his status as Othello's Lieutenant, it is Desdemona that he goes to for help, under the instruction of Iago. Even though Iago is doing this to benefit himself, what he says to Cassio of Desdemona is entirely true. â€Å"She is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, that she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested.† As Knight states in ‘The Othello Music', Desdemona â€Å"is typically feminine in her attempt to help Cassio, and her pity for him.† Othello also tells the Senate in Act One, scene three that he loved Desdemona â€Å"that she did pity† him for the dangers he had passed. It is femininity that Desdemona also represents in the play. She is loved and admired for her girlish innocence and feminine compassion. Emilia represents a more down-to-earth, common sense woman. Her personality, like Desdemona's is feminine in many ways. For example, she is highly protective over Desdemona, acting as a mother figure to her. The femininity she represents is more mature than Desdemona's. As she is older than Desdemona, and has been married to Iago for a longer time than Desdemona to Othello, she is far more knowledgeable about love and life. She is also more cynical and far less romantic in her views. In her conversation with Desdemona about unfaithful women, she openly admits that she would be unfaithful to her husband if the whole world were her reward. Lianne Evans â€Å"who would not make her husband a cuckold, to make him a monarch?† Emilia knows that love and men are not as ideal as Desdemona believes them to be. When Othello's behaviour towards Desdemona changes, Emilia, unlike Desdemona realises that something is wrong with the relationship and that Desdemona should not let Othello treat her in such a way. â€Å"I would you had never seen him.† She stands for strength and common sense, and her views about marriage show this clearly. â€Å"Let husbands know Their wives have sense like them†. Bianca represents a quite impure love within Othello. She shows that she loves Cassio, but her lifestyle as a prostitute also shows this as quite corrupt. She represents the opposite of the innocent and naà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ve Desdemona. She is a woman with no responsibility to anyone but herself in the play. She has a relationship with Cassio but her reputation does not allow this to be taken seriously by anyone, including Cassio himself. She represents a love with few morals. Desdemona believes in completely faithful, perfect love, Emilia believes that being unfaithful is acceptable for a large price and Bianca, although she seems to care greatly about Cassio, has still made her living as a prostitute. She may show strong character in some areas, for example, when Emilia insults her, she comes back with, â€Å"I am no strumpet, but of life as honest As you that thus abuse me.† This shows that she is prepared to stand up for herself and her lifestyle, implying that she believes it is right. It is important when performing Desdemona to a modern audience to portray the strength of her beliefs. Bradley has described Desdemona as â€Å"helplessly passive† and I believe that this view of Desdemona should be avoided. To achieve maximum impact with a modern audience, it is important not to show Desdemona as a helpless victim of abuse, or too stupid to do anything about her unhappy relationship. For Desdemona to be admired and sympathised with, it would be necessary to show her stronger qualities. The reason she allows Othello to treat her with such disrespect is not because she is passive or helpless. She has already shown courage when she first appeared in the play, betraying her father for her love of Othello, and speaking out in front of the Senate. Her dogmatic nature, belief in pure love and loyalty to Othello are the qualities that would achieve a maximum impact with a modern audience. However, it would also be important to show her youth and innocence, being careful not to confuse this with stupidity. She always knows what she is doing, even though it is sometimes misconceived. When standing up for Cassio to Othello, it would be important to show her feminine charms and kind intentions. This would make it believable for Othello to suspect her of adultery, as her nature is so friendly. Emilia appears to be the most modern character of the three women in Othello. Her views on marriage would be much appreciated by a modern audience and her cynicism and wit would be found amusing. Many modern women could easily relate to Emilia. Portraying her mature, worldly personality would be very effective with a modern audience. It would also be important to show her loyalty, especially to Iago. It is clear that Emilia loves Iago as she stands by him throughout the play, until she discovers the real truth about him. According to Bradley, Emilia â€Å"remains perfectly true to herself†, but this is not true. Iago has a great influence over Emilia's actions, and because of Iago, Emilia compromises her own judgement. In stealing Desdemona's handkerchief she is doing something that she knows is wrong, but she does it all the same, just to gain the love of her husband. Showing his power over her would create sympathy for her. Her belief in her husband's honest nature, along with everyone else's, is part of the tragedy of Othello. At the end of the play however, Emilia's common sense returns and her most important scene would need to be performed effectively to create maximum impact. To do this it would be necessary to show Emilia's anger, frustration, hurt and disgust. The character of Emilia is very likeable with a modern audience, and it would be important not to lose any of her strong, amusing and loyal qualities. Performing Bianca would be a difficult task. Her character has little substance and it would be easy to lose her in a performance. Within the play she is mainly ridiculed and insulted. A modern audience could show admiration for her when she approaches Cassio about the handkerchief he gave her. As an actress, it would be important to show Bianca's strength here, and her belief in herself. Bianca could also be sympathised with as her love for Cassio is unrequited and despite her attempts to woo him, he only ridicules her. In general, a modern audience can sympathise with all the women in the play. All, despite their strengths, suffer at the hands of the men in their lives. Desdemona's unfaltering belief in pure love only results in Othello's killing her. Emilia's loyalty and strength leads her to being murdered, also by her own husband. Bianca's love for Cassio only brings her ridicule. In a modern society this supports the radical feminist view that no relationship with a man is beneficial to a woman. Each woman displays different feminine qualities. Desdemona's approach is obedience, Emilia's is loyalty and Bianca's, persistence, but none of these bring them any rewards. The women in Othello are so often misunderstood. The majority of criticism on the play is written by males and there is very little comment on the female characters at all. This has led to difficulty in performing these characters to create a Lianne Evans maximum impact with a modern audience. However, their roles are clear. They all show the negative qualities in the male characters, but at the same time have an effect on their lives. The play is a domestic tragedy but the effects of the domestic lives of the characters are shown in all aspects of their lives. The misunderstanding of Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca, within the play and in audiences has led to misinterpretations of their characters. To create a maximum impact with a modern audience, the female characters need to be given their own personality, and the effects they have need to be shown. Without the women going to war with their husbands, the tragedy of Othello would be a very different one.

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Ancient Greek Theater - Essay Example While ancient Greek theatre went through a number of incarnations there are a number of factors that remained consistent or thematic throughout its reign. In terms of staging, generally large theatrical spaces were constructed as the audience numbered as much as fourteen thousand individuals (Freund 2000). Quite notably the acoustical dimensions of these ancient Greek stages had to be constructed in a way that carried sound extremely favorably, as this was a pivotal aspect of catering to the sizeable crowds. Indeed, it has been noted that the Greek acoustic systems in these stages is in line with state of the art acoustic systems in the contemporary environment. In terms of seating the first opening seats were wooden, and this was followed by stone seating for the majority of the theatre audience. Later in the development of the theatre a back wall was placed onto the stage to add dimension and various theatrical elements to the productions. This wall also allowed for costume changes behind the scenes. In terms of content, Greek theatre spanned a wide range of theatrical concepts. Aristotle famously outlined a number of these genres, detailing what constituted comedy from tragedy (Lesky 1965). Still, Ancient Greek theatre is perhaps most remembered for it seminal tragedies. Among the most notable, Sophocles and Aeschylus constructed tragic dramas that explored elements of the human condition in great depth and consideration. Today these theatrical productions continued to be studied and remembered for the continued insight they provide into life, as well their dramatic form of artistry. Considering the actors in the plays, it was a custom that only men in masks be admitted into the productions. It follows that there was not a star-system as one finds in the contemporary Hollywood or Broadway climate, but rather a string of actors that were at best remotely popular for their skill and dexterity. Still, all audiences watched the plays. While the nobility generall y received privileged seating arrangements there was not a division between high and low culture or class in terms of who viewed the plays. One of the central aspects of these productions was the use of masks. The use of masks in these Greek productions was most likely a holdover from an earlier theatrical era. The tradition came such that all actors were adorned in masks throughout the production. The mask was so all-encompassing that there only existed holes for the face and head, in-effect covering the entire face of the actor as a means of obscuring their identity. This allowed for the greater emergence of the character the actor was playing to be seen. The lack of emotion in the masks and the obscuring of identity also functioned as means of allowing the audience to project onto the characters their own unconscious emotions and identity, in-effect making the theatrical productions that much more engrossing and interactive (Harsh 1944). There were unique masks created for partic ular characters and emotions which also contributed to the play through the multi-varied nature of the production. In terms of costumes there were a number of unique elements that are worth considering. The actors in tragic character positions were adorned with boots referred to as cothumuses. These elements give the actors extra height and elevation in comparison to the other players. The actors who played comedic

Consumer behavior Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Consumer behavior - Article Example The consumers tend to involve themselves in the products and follow up on the progress of the offers. An example of enduring involvement is a motorcycle enthusiast who constantly researches about motorcycles to find the best models. Further, enduring involvement is characterized by substantial interest in activities that boost the enthusiasm. Such activities include going to motor showrooms to check the models in the market. Situational involvement occurs when a consumer is interested in a product for a short time. The situation happens mostly as a result of need or demand for a certain commodity. The consumer may not have information or necessarily be interested in a long term involvement and looks for information to enable him make a purchase decision. For example, a consumer may get involved in smartphones when he or she wants to buy a phone. However, the interest on smartphones fades when the consumer purchase a smartphone of his choice. There are instances where consumers report their interest towards a certain offering or decision. In such instances, the consumer exhibits felt involvement and feels motivated towards making decisions regarding certain offerings. A consumer gets involved in offerings that he or she has had a psychological experience with (Samli 131). Thus, felt involvement arises from a historical perspective of the consumer about a product. For example, a consumer may form a positive opinion about a car that he or she has witnessed winning car races. Cognitive involvement occurs when a consumer is keen on understanding the offers in the market before making a purchase decision. The consumer then compares the information against his goals and makes a wise decision. In essence, cognitive involvement treats information gathering as part of the objectives off the consumer. For example, a consumer interested in a Ford

Research Proposal Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Research Proposal - Assignment Example Why the difference in that, because logically as the millers make profit the farmers should also enjoy from the profit. Does it mean that the millers are behind the rise in the poverty level of the farmers or the farmers are the source to there poverty. The millers should always be in support of the farmers, this is because farmers need to be motivated to increase the amount off the cane production and this intern will lead to the millers’ increment in production. If the farmers are demoralized, they my opt for production of other food staffs hence may lead to the collapse of the sugar industries due to lack of raw material for production. The third argument is that the poverty experienced in the sugarcane farmers maybe as a result of the poor cane production skills (Evenson and Pingali, 2009). Due to these, farmers may use huge amount of capital for sugarcane production but having little return during the harvesting, hence need to reduce the cost of cane production. However for this to be achieved, the need for the farmers and millers working together is very important which in most cases is not easy as millers are only determined in maximizing on the profit and not concerned of the wellbeing of the farmers. The Kenyan government should deploy extension officers at various regions in the sugar belt who should have an initiative of giving farmers the skills in sugarcane management and production. This may improve the quality and quantity of the cane being produced in the region hence intern reducing the poverty level of the sugarcane farmers. One argument that is to be analyzed in this research topic is the issue whether the millers should also be concerned with the wellbeing of the sugarcane farmers or just concentrate on profit maximization in the expenses of the farmers. It is always advisable that the millers should treat the farmers with grate importance as this will determine the amount of profit they make.

Transition to High School Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Transition to High School - Research Proposal Example According to the initial study that has been conducted, which was the collection of secondary data for the initial literature review, the author has gained an overall knowledge of the different aspects that pose challenges to students as well as teachers and parents when teenagers transition from primary to high school. And this knowledge has the author to design the framework for the study and the give the reader an overview of what can be expected throughout the entirerity of the research study. . In this document the author has given a brief description of the methods that will be used to carry out the main research study, the objectives of the research study, the structure of the dissertation, the timetable for the entire research study as well as the resources that will be needed to carry out the research study and finally the limitations of the research study. THE DIFFICULTIES FACED BY STUDENTS WHEN TRANSITIONING TO HIGH SCHOOL IN THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS, THEIR EXPECTATIONS AND SUBSEQUENT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AND THE SIGNIFICANT ROLE THAT CAN BE FULFILLED BY PARENTS AND TEACHERS ALIKE TO HELP MITIGATE THE DIFFICULTIES AND HELP EASE AND SMOOTHEN THE TRANSITION Introduction This is a research proposal that the author is completing in part fulfillment of her degree requirement. The area that the author would like to study is the difficulties faced by students when they transition into high school. Therefore in this research proposal the author will give an overview of the research objectives, the research topic, the resources needed for the research study, a brief literature review, the methodology for the research study, the limitations of the study, the timeline needed for the study and finally the structure of the dissertation when the entire research study is completed. In this document the author also gives the reader a basic knowledge of the manner in which the primary data will be gathered and the different sources that will be used to gather the primary data as well as a justification for the methods that will be used. Research Objectives Here the author will give a brief overview of the objectives of the research study that she will evaluate for completion at the end of the research. Gain an in-depth understanding of difficulties faced by students transitioning into high school in the British Virgin Islands To gain an understanding of the root causes of the difficulties faced by students when transitioning to the high school from the point of view of teachers and parents To understand how to make the transition from primary school to high school a smooth and easy transition. To gain an

IR Spectroscopy determination of xylene using an internal standard Essay

IR Spectroscopy determination of xylene using an internal standard - Essay Example This will be used to show the various concentrations of the m-xylene and p-xylene in the unknown sample. Infrared spectroscopy is the spectroscopy that uses the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is a region of lower wavelength than visible light, exciting molecules to higher vibrational states in order to detect energy of the vibrational modes in your sample. The infra-red radiation is passed through a sample by an infra-red spectrometer which uses a detector to represent the transmission in graphical representations. Infra-red spectroscopy can be used to study virtually every sample in any state of matter and the IR spectrometer utilizes FTIR spectroscopy which has improved the infrared spectra quality within a short time of analysis. This technique has been in existence since 1940’s where the instruments relied on prisms as the elements to disperse the radiations but further development has occurred which include the diffraction gratings and finally the most significant the use of interferometers and Fourier-transformation mathematical process. Infrared sp ectroscopy can be used a number of ways, one of which is based on absorption spectroscopy. Isomers of organic molecules display a unique vibrational frequency; thus by analyzing a specific region of the spectrum, overlaying pure and different concentrations of a sample molecule as well as any background spectra it is possible to determine the concentration of an unknown sample From the results the concentration of p-xylene and m-xylene in the two samples was determine using the Fourier transform infrared spectrometer using the internal standards. It was observed it is possible to calculate the exact concentration of both p-xylene and m-xylene in the samples if the exact concentration of the stock solution used is known. This determines their

You are the Consultant Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

You are the Consultant - Research Paper Example I therefore, in response to your questions, offer strategies that you can apply to increase job satisfaction, improve motivation, and increase performance, cultural issues that must be considered when dealing with a multicultural workforce, and possible mistakes to avoid when dealing with the type of workforce. I also explain ethical issues that the company might face and successful approaches to communicating to employees the importance of building and maintaining a sustainable global business. Strategies to increasing job satisfaction, improving motivation, and increasing performance across departments Job satisfaction is fundamental to successful human resource management. Its significance is even more important in a globalized environment because of the involved diversity. Deployment, the ability to obtain the desired skills for specific tasks in an organization’s diversified locations, is one of the applicable strategies to attaining employee satisfaction. It facilitates employee satisfaction by ensuring that employees work in environments that they are comfortable with and that they undertake tasks with which they are familiar, factors that identify interest in employees’ tasks and potentials that eliminate strains and boredom in the course of duty and instead increase satisfaction (Roberts, Kossek and Ozeki, 1998). Developing a level of understanding with employees in the globalized environment is another successful strategy to improving their job utility. Spending time with the employees, offering your time to listen to them, and reacting appropriately to their needs are instrumental in developing their sense of worth to you as their manager and to the organization. This further develops a strong bond between the employees and the organization and increases their satisfaction in working towards, and meeting, the organization’s objectives. Empowering the employees through enhancing their â€Å"knowledge, skill, and ability† to meet the organization’s objectives is another strategy to increasing their satisfaction by making their work easier through improved efficiency (Friedman, 2007, p. 160). Developing the employees’ potentials through seminars and mentorship roles also improves their efficiency and therefore interest in their jobs to enhance utility in their tasks (Friedman, 2007). Motivating employees in the global environment can similarly be achieved through psychological approaches that focus on each employee’s need. Cultural sensitivity will therefore play an important role in determining employees’ motivational factors in the diversified set up because successful motivational factors to American employees may not apply to Spanish employees. It will therefore be necessary to, besides understanding possible factors that can improve employees’ motivation, be able to understand and respond to employees cultural needs and attitudes (Osula, 2009). The developed cultu ral sensitivity, together with cultural awareness will further help in understanding the extent to which employees can be motivated by different factors because employees from different cultural set ups and different regions respond differently to environmental factors. Compensation and other rewards for example induce different levels of motivation across nations and cultural values are instrumental to understanding their relative effectiveness (Bloom, Milkovich and Mitra, 2003). You can also improve employees’ motivation by developing their potentials are in the organization. Training facilitates emplo

The Progressive Era Essay Example for Free

The Progressive Era Essay The Progressive Era was a thirty year period in which the United States was completely reformed. Actions were taken to improve working conditions for laborers, create a sexually unbiased work system and regulate the economy. President Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson both helped create a more direct democracy in which the people would have a voice. During those thirty years, amendments 16 to 19 were ratified to regulate and reform the country. Muckrakers were writers who worked for the printing companies exposed the public to all of the corruption that was occurring both openly and behind closed doors. By exposing the public to the corruption, American society was enlightened and inspired to reform itself. During this era, President Theodore Roosevelt worked diligently to regulate and conserve everything that was necessary. Even though Roosevelt believed in big businesses, he still believed in regulation and fair trade. He took the Sherman Anti-Trust act which had been dormant for many years and enforced it so that companies could price their products and made sure that no one specific company could take control of the market thus ridding the economy of bad trusts and preventing companies from creating a trade monopoly. Working conditions were horrible during the progressive era, and it was widely known because Muckrakers wrote only about the bad that happen in society. The safety of the nation’s meat supply is highly important because meat is consumed throughout the whole nation. The Meat Inspection Act was passed to rid factories of their gruesome and uncleanly working habitats and protect the nation’s food supply. Many people who came to the United States to live during the end of the 1900’s were unable to sustain a normal life because they were in such poverty. Settlement houses were created so that settlement workers could service the neighbors who wanted to find a place to get away from poverty. These settlement houses were places to gather and create a sense of unity amongst the poverty stricken. As people of these houses became more aware of the conditions around them, they proposed changes that would drastically change the way of life for them. Woodrow Wilson wanted to create a democracy, but he did not allow women to vote. What kind of a democracy did Wilson want if he did not allow how the population to vote? There were many women’s reform groups that wanted sexual equality so that women would have equal say which promoted women to take charge leading to the passing of the 19th amendment allowing women to vote and opening a whole new world for a woman’s voice. Blacks fought for the ideals of America in World War I but they did not receive any recognition for their hard work. Instead, they were still put under the â€Å"Jim Crow† laws which prohibited them from voting and segregated them from their superior races. This explains the decrease in percentage of eligible voters who vote from 1900 to 1920. The Clayton Anti-Trust Act targeted business monopolies that could easily control the whole economy. Wilson being the arrogant president that he was, created a few minor laws that would not greatly improve the economy. It would be the next successor of the president that would be left with all these problems. President Theodore Roosevelt believed highly in a direct democracy, he favored the idea of people deciding what they want with government. Later on, the 17th amendment is ratified allowing the direct election of the senate. Overall, the Progressive Era was full of reform in the economy, politics and society. Conservation and reform were the most important things and ideas during this era. Women’s right and racial desegregation were also accomplished during this time. The press was also a big part of the spread of information giving people new ideas and philosophies. The people who were presidents during this time greatly influenced the ideas of the people and in turn, reformed the nation into something better than before.

Business Plan For Hot Dog Mania Marketing Essay

Business Plan For Hot Dog Mania Marketing Essay Being one of the most popular food type in the world, hot-dogs are sold in enormous quantities worldwide. In the US alone, people eat around 16 billion hot-dogs every year. Because of the high demand on this type of food, companies are created every year with the purpose to satisfy the people need to eat a very simple, but fast and tasty food. Hot Dog Mania is a start-up company that will be entering the Romanian food-service industry with a worldwide known product that is not used by any of the ten big companies in this industry the hot dog. The competitive advantage of this product is that it will use different culinary recipes from famous hot dog countries and it will offer its customers the possibility to customize their own hot dogs from scratch, while being able to taste different world flavors. A French company named Gira Foodservice (Ionescu, C. (April 22, 2009), Radiografia pieÃ…Â £ei foodservice din Romà ¢nia [Radiography of the Romanian food service market], http://www.foodandbar.ro/actualitatea/1481-radiografia-pieei-foodservice-din-romania, Retrieved January 05, 2010) published a Romanian country report regarding the food-service industry, in which it stated that the market revenue for 2008 is approximately à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬3.4 billion, and it predicts that the market will increase annually with a two-digit percentage. The domestic market of the company is Romania, and in the future, after a country development to at least five major cities, it will address to other Balkan countries like Bulgaria. The primary customers of the hot dog products are people living in the urban areas, which have a high value for time and mobility, and prefer to eat fast food in order to be able to spare time for other activities. Other customers that will be targeted by HDM will be people who will visit large touristic resorts in the country. The last customer type that HDM targets is the one that is keen on social events like concerts, various exhibitions, fairs, and sport games, and would like to have a snack during a short break. The main priority of this business plan is to set up a fast-food company that will establish various outlets, starting with one on the seaside, with my personal equity. Later on, between three to six months, there will be a further development, were other business partners will be required. Company Description The company name will be Hot Dog Mania, and it will be a registered trademark together with the company logo and slogan at the Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademark. The internet domain name will be http://www.hotdog-mania.com and it will have numerous links that will redirect customers to it, depending on the country. For example, the Romanian customers will access the website http://www.hotdog-mania.ro and they will be instantaneously redirected to the .com site, with the Romanian language interface. Hot Dog Mania will be a privately held company, registered as a Limited Liability Company, with myself as a sole shareholder. Upon further development to other countries, when the brand will become a franchise, the company will be a franchisor and will have franchisees as partners in other locations. We will focus on selling mainly hot dogs and drinks. The hot dogs will have different variations from the original Frankfurters and Wieners to the hot dogs eaten in various counties in the US like Alabama, New York State or in Seattle Washington, or even the Patsos from Turkey. Besides the predetermined hot dogs, the customers will have the opportunity to customize their own hot dogs from scratch, by choosing the sausage, the bun type, the condiments, vegetables, and spices. The drinks will vary from the well knows juices, mineral water, and some beer assortments. HDM will also have a small merchandise activity, where it will offer its customers hats, badges, T-shirts or various hot dog clothing, in order to remain in the customer attention at all time. Besides the products, the company will try to provide the best quality services in the fast food industry, using the Just in Time method in order to always serve its customers as they make an order. Our main objective is to provide the high quality tasty food to our customers faster than a regular fast food. This mission is sustained by some values like: highly trained professionals, quality food, and faster than fast. The staff will be initially trained for two weeks, and then the store managers will permanently supervise the staff in order to make them provide the best services. These managers would have a higher success rate in the supervising activity because there are a few staff members necessary to run a location. The quality food will be assured by the suppliers, which will be chosen by annual auctions, so the suppliers with the best food quality will be selected. Faster than fast the generic service name that HDM chose for representing the Just in Time food preparing strategy, used by McDonalds. This way, there will be calculations of food demand depending on some factors like location, month, date, hour, events or Holidays, and media. The Just in Time method implies that every employee will have its own activity, and it will be perfectly related to the other employees activity, in order to have no time loss between product preparing and supplying. When there will be high customer queues, one member of the staff will use a Palm PDA to collect orders from the queue, and it will automatically send it to the food processing display, so other employees will be able to make the food before the clients arrive to the cash register, in order to make the waiting time lower. The mission of the HDM company providing high quality tasty food to the customers faster than a regular fast food, will be accomplished by this three main activities. The initial management activity will be conducted by me, and after the opening of another location, two of the staff members will be promoted as store managers one for each location. This means that in the first months I will need to work a little harder in order to both manage the first location, and the company as a whole. After undertaking an ambitious expansion plan, there will be area managers, which will supervise five different management locations in order to assure the correct operations between store managers and employees. Possible management positions will be added later after development, when it will be indispensable to have a Marketing Manager, a Sales Manager, a Store Operation Manager, Human Resources Manager, and Purchasing Manager. Regarding the personnel plan, each location will have two cooks, two cashiers and one store manager that will handle every situation required. Hot Dog Mania locations will be represented by medium and large caravans, that are both mobile and space sufficient for this kind of activity. The first location will be at the seaside, targeting a large number of potential customers, closest to the beach as possible. The fact that the company is using caravans offers the high mobility, which allows us to create new locations in just a few hours. One day the store can be at the seaside, and the other day at a concert event in Bucharest. The location will use large LCD screens to display the products and menus, and it will have its own originality in displaying the tasty hot dogs. We will equip the stores with modern technology, and we will aim for maximum cleanliness in order to attract the customers to maintain it. Another facility is to equip the store with umbrellas and tall bar tables, to allow them to eat the food just in front of the store. The mobile locations will be settled with priority to major events, like soccer games, concerts, exhibitions, fairs. There will also be seasonal locations, on the touristic areas, and fixed locations in the major cities, close to downtown. The initial funds will be covered from my own capital, and it will reach and approximate investment of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬50,000. The start-up funding necessary is shown in the table on the next page: Start-up Funding Start-up Expenses to Fund 800 Start-up Assets to Fund 43000 Total Funding Required 43800 Assets Non-Cash Assets from Start-up 0 Cash Requirements from Start-up 43800 Additional Cash Raised 5000 Cash Balance on Starting Date 48800 Total Assets 48800 Liabilities and Capital Liabilities Current Borrowing 0 Long-term Liabilities 0 Accounts Payable 0 Other Current Liabilities 0 Total Liabilities 0 Capital Planned Investment 50000 Additional Investment Requirement 0 Total Planned Investment 50000 Loss at Start-up 800 Total Capital 48800 Total Capital and Liabilities 48800 Total Funding 50000 The milestones and timelines of the company have been made on a five-year time interval, and they represent objectives of the company. They are shown on the table below: Task Timeline Milestone Make a sales volume high enough to reach the break even 1 month Reach break even Acquire the necessary licenses to set locations on events 3 months Obtain location licenses Set up the second location of hot dogs 6 months Acquire second location Set up the third location of hot dogs 12 months Acquire third location Expand the company to fixed locations in other major cities 3 years Develop in other cities Create a franchise to the company to have franchisees countrywide 3 years Create a Romanian franchise Expand the company to other countries in the Balkans area 5 years Expand abroad Industry Analysis and Trends The main characteristics of the fast-food industry are the following: Low cost in comparison to a traditional restaurant; The mobility that it offers to its customers, having them the opportunity to eat the food as they go; Specific demographic identities for customers: usually young people, sometimes families, driven by children; living in urban areas, and having medium or lower medium income, although recently young people with high income have developed a sympathy for this kind of food; Faster times in the food preparing, up to a few seconds after the order has been taken; Development in many locations, which are very important for this kind of activity; High competitiveness among companies, based on the fact that customers are not always loyal to a brand, and will consume the products based primarily on the location of the establishment; The fast-food industry in Romania has developed sensitivity to seasonality. In this respect, the industry cycle has fluctuations especially during the Holidays. For example, at the end of December, during the Christmas Holiday, the Romanians have developed a food cult, when they prepare specific Romanian dishes, which they eat for approximately two weeks. During this time, the fast-food industry suffers a dramatic sales drop. The same phenomenon occurs during the Easter Holiday, when Romanians have a highly valued religion holiday. Although these industry cycles are occurring every year, the companies in the market are aware of it, and they are not very affected by it, having time to prepare for these seasonality cycles. The industry life cycle has not yet reached the maturity stage, being in a constant growth for the last ten years. This is happening because the young people, like students, prefer to eat fast food in order to associate to a social trend. Afterwards, even if they have matured and have jobs, they still feel attracted to this food because of the high mobility that it offers. Nevertheless, the state will have a high influence on this trend in the years to come, since they have various campaigns against fast food. Future regulations will impose a vice tax to boost the fast-food prices, and the Ministry of Health is working together with the Ministry of Finance to increase the VAT for this economic sector. Since now, no law like such has been approved in the Romanian Parliament, and it will need the consent of the European Commission. The Romanian fast-food industry is having an accelerating rate of increase, according to a survey made by Euromonitor International (Stoica, A. (May 24, 2007), Fast-food-urile inghit doua miliarde de euro [The fast-foods are eating two billion euros], http://www.romanialibera.ro/bani-si-afaceri/a96203-fast-food-urile-inghit-doua-miliarde-de-euro.html, Retrieved January 05, 2010). According to them, the average growth rate is about 26% every year, and in 2005 the industry reached total revenues of $2 billion, and in 2007 it reached more than à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬2 billion. Bucharest is the Romanian city with the highest revenue in this market. The fast-food industry is consisted on many types of food, from the well-known hamburgers, to chicken, pizza, fries, hot dogs, and the Turkish kebab, called Shaorma in Romania. There are a total of more than 900 fast-food outlets in Bucharest alone, so there is a fierce competition. According to a local newspaper called Romania Libera (TOP 10 fast-food-uri in Bucuresti [Top ten fast-foods in Bucharest] (November 10, 2007), http://www.romanialibera.ro/a110940/top-10-fast-food-uri-in-bucuresti.html, Retrieved January 05, 2010), there are ten major competitors on the fast-food market in Bucharest, among them being McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Gregorys, Snack Attack, Burger King, Spring Time, and there is a rather new competitor, on a retail store specialized in furniture, Ikea, that offers food at competitive prices. We will make a detailed analysis of these competitors on the following pages. All of these major competitors can offer products that represent substitutes to the HDM hot dogs, but they have some differences. McDonalds represents the most important competitor that can offer substitute products, being the most appreciated fast-food company in Romania. Their products are not similar to hot dogs, but they have many stores all across the country. Their products have a high demand from customers because of the quality of the food and service. The only drawback of this company is that their food is standardized, and they rarely bring new products on the market. Having the nearest prices to the HDM food, and the same delivery speed, McDonalds is the most significant competitor that can offer substitution products. KFC and Pizza Hut are other competitors that can offer substitution products, although their products are completely different from the hot dogs. In fact, they are very different from another, too. One of them offers chicken recipes, and the other one offers pizza. The only main advantage of these products is that they have a very good taste, and they have various options to choose from. Besides that, the service type is different. Their companies offer customers experiences closer to restaurants, taking long times to prepare, and because of the food type, the customers need to stand at a table in order to eat them, and it takes quite some time to do so. Another drawback represents the high prices of their food, being at least three times more expensive than a traditional hot dog. The only reason that we can say that these two companies offer substitution products is the fact that they are major players in the fast food-industry. Gregorys and Snack Attack are two fast-food companies offering cold sandwiches with salami, ham, cheese and some vegetables. They have a few assortments, but their food is cold. The queue time is low, but the prices are considerably higher than a hot dog. Snack Attack has recently developed and is now supplying food to supermarkets, mini markets, and other stores that might have access to events. Ikea has a fast-food division that returns annual revenues worth of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬5 million. Although they are specialized in another industry, they have created a fast-food in every store to develop a differentiation competitive advantage, and this strategy has proven to be very efficient. Their food is very cheap, and they are the only competitors that can offer a similar product to HDM. Their hot dogs have the most competitive price on the market, with a price of only à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬0.25 per unit. The only reason why Ikea cannot become a very strong competitor is that they only build fast-food outlets inside their stores, and at this time, there is only one store in the country. Spring Time and Burger King are two other competitors that can offer substitution products for the HDM hot dogs. While Spring Time has reached a company life cycle of saturation and decline, Burger King is not appreciated by the Romanian consumers, and thus they cannot develop, as they register constant loss every year. Other fast-food firms that are selling hot dogs are insignificant, having just a small stand in the street, with no strategies and development plans, being managed by only one self employed person in general. After this analysis of the competitors, we can observe that the fast-food industry has multiple market segments. These market segments are shown in the chart below: As shown on this empirical made graph, the hot dog segment in the Romanian fast-food industry is not yet developed, and a strong competitor on this market segment would be able to benefit from this opportunity. McDonalds has had a continuous market share growth because the customers want to eat faster every year, and they were able to provide that. But a hot dog product can be eaten even in another manner, which would not necessary involve fast eating: doing it on the street. As anyone can see in socially developed countries like USA, Germany and Austria, the hot dog products are bought in the middle of the street, and are eaten on the street. This would provide the Romanian customers an even bigger mobility. The product customization will offer them a bigger flexibility. These two advantages combined with the fact that there are no major competitors in the segment, offers to the hot dog product every prerequisite necessary to become a successful brand in the Romanian market. Even if the market trend shows continuous growth every year, the Government regulations might lower the industry growth rate in the upcoming years. But offering a relatively new product in the market, which have not been exploited by other major competitor, will increase the customer interest to it, and will allow a fast development. Country Report Expansion is a problem which every developing company its asking to itself. Because there are various methods of expanding a company, the financial risks are lowering, and thus allowing growing companies to think about such measures. The first advantage that HDM would benefit from expansion is the fact that it will create an economy of scale. By increasing the total number of customers, than it will increase the order volume that it will make from its suppliers, and then the power of negotiation will increase, and thus, the costs with raw material per unit will be lowered. Another advantage that the company will have is a wider access to the customers, through more fast-food outlets. This should be identified as an opportunity, because at this point a marketing campaign would have expected results, attracting more customers to the stores, and creating a public awareness. If the customers are content with the products and services, then they will become devoted to the brand, although in general this happens to a relatively small number of customers. Higher revenues can be efficiently transferred into management budgets, and allow the company to hire professionals to manage activities with broader instruments and more time than one single manager for all the operations. A Marketing Manager, a Sales Manager, a Store Operation Manager, a Human Resources Manager, and a Purchasing Manager will be key positions to create a professional strategy of product improvement and expansion. By accessing a large number of customers, than the revenues will grow, and the profits will be increased as well, allowing the company to have future expansion at higher rate, because of the increasing capital. One other advantage that expansion brings to the company is the access to lower cost workforce, and especially in Bulgaria, lower raw materials. Expansion to more than ten different locations can bring in an optimistic financial hypothesis the possibility to create a production factory, where the company will have complete access to the raw food processing and it will acquire a complete quality control of the food. Besides, a vertical development can considerably lower the company fixed costs. There is a high opportunity to expand a hot dog company in Romania and even in the Balkans, because the markets have not reached their maturities, and being emerging countries, the middle class will expand in the upcoming decade. This way, the product lifecycle will be extended to at least five to ten years. The major opportunity of expansion to Bulgaria is that the country has similar fast-food industry segmentation as Romania, where the major competitors are addressing different segments, while the hot dog segment is only represented by small companies with low retaliation power. Another opportunity of expansion is represented by the fiscal measures regulated in the foreign countries. Bulgaria has lower taxations than Romania, and it will allow Hot Dog Mania to increase its gross profits. Hot Dog Mania will have two different methods to enter foreign markets. The first method is the foreign direct investment which consists in using the companys own capital to expand to foreign markets. The main advantage is that the expansion will have a high profit potential, while it will have a full control of the operations. The disadvantage of using the foreign direct investment is that the company will have higher financial risks than if it had used other expansion methods. In the foreign country, the company will have exposure to political risk, macroeconomic risk, authority abuse risk, and Government regulations. Setting up new headquarters also involves a managerial investment, but with a higher complexity because of two main reasons: if the manager is Romanian, than it will have to become accustomed to the foreign country culture, habit and measures of communication; and if the manager is foreign, then it will probably have a different perspective over the home country vision, which will be adjusted in a large period of time. The other method that HDM will use to enter foreign markets is the franchise. This is a very easy and financial risk free method to enter other countries. HDM will ask for a monthly franchise tax, and will supply the franchisee with the raw materials as a subcontractor, in order to maintain the food quality and higher income. The company will assess the country potential and will obtain know how about the foreign market, which will allow the company to extend to the country with risk free foreign direct investments. Nevertheless, the franchise method also has some disadvantages. Even if it will act as a subcontractor to the franchisee with the food supply, it will still have low margins to allow the franchisee to have competitive prices on the market. These low margins will offer a lower profit than a profit potential of a FDI. Having a franchisee creates dependence with him, because the home company will always need to supervise and check if the quality is maintain at the company standards. Another risk is that the franchisee could learn the know-how of the hot dog company, and create a new company adapted to its market, and act as a competitor. In the first expansion stage, the HDM company will select the franchise method, because its less financial risky than a foreign direct investment, and it will provide every necessary information that will allow the company to create a future FDI. The primary legal issue of HDMs target country, Bulgaria, is that the judicial system is not fully independent. According to the Heritage website, in Bulgaria Weak property rights, lingering corruption, and inefficient bureaucracy hold down the countrys overall economic freedom. According to the same website, The non-salary cost of employing a worker is high, but dismissing a redundant employee is costless. Even if these regulations are negative to the legal aspect of Bulgaria, the Investment Promotion Act offers equal treatment to both foreign investors and local ones. Another regulation that represents a good opportunity to extend to Bulgaria with a foreign direct investment method is the fact that EU members can buy land in this country. This way, opening new locations will allow HDM to have wholly owned subsidiaries. Starting a business in Bulgaria takes approximately 50 days, in comparison to the EU average of 38 days. According to the Heritage website, Bulgarias economic freedom score is 64.6, which is well above the world average. This is primarily because they have high fiscal freedom, with a flat corporate tax of only 10%. The general time lines for going global represent a projected plan, being subjected to different changes in the upcoming years, due to changes that may occur in the financial status. As in the timeline for the company description, I will use some of the milestones in order to project appropriate timelines for the distant future. The first two milestones that will lead to the extension of the company will be the expanding of the company in other major cities of the home country as a wholly own subsidiaries or franchises, to allow our management to gather enough experience and know-how for future, more complex expansions. After expanding to Bulgaria, the Hot Dog Mania will search other potential locations in the Balkans, with similar people patterns, and similar Government regulations. Considering the fact that the start-up year of the company will be in 2012, the expansion to other countries will take place in 2017. This information is shown on the following table and graph, shown bel ow: Event / Name Start End Length Expand in Other Romanian Cities 2014 2015 1 Create a Franchise 2014 2015 1 Expand to Bulgaria 2016 2017 1 Search for Other foreign Countries 2016 2018 2 Expand to Serbia 2018 2019 1 Expand to Slovakia 2018 2021 3

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? Having seen written and filmed visions of the future, one would think that by now we would all be moving around on flying skateboards and in hovering cars and that we would have our breakfast served by helpful, patient and understanding robots, under the risk that these robots go berserk and start taking over the world. The people who imagined such a future should have given the world a few more years to develop in such a way since smart-phones and tablet computers are still the most progressive gadgets of today. On the other hand, there are a significant number of cameras and tracking devices following every suspicious move one makes, practically everyone has access to our most intimate data and some governments enabled themselves to make undesirable people disappear  [1]. This would mean that most visionaries were pretty right about the way in which society would (d)evolve, but they were slightly over-optimistic when it came to technological breakthroughs. This is why I find it interesting to read about changes in the world and in the human mind various authors expected to have happened by now because most of them are currently happening, and people are turning away from each other and focusing mainly on themselves and their personal success (by personal success I mean money and power). Philip K. Dick depicted this estrangement in detail in his 1968-novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and I have been fascinated by it ever since I started playing the videogame Blade Runner when I was 14 years old. For that reason I chose to write about how Dick thought everyday life would look in the year 1992, which is when the novel takes place (on January 3rd, to be precise). First I will give a short outline of the storys plot and analyse the story according to Todorovs criteria of the Fantastic and Brooke-Roses theory of the encoded reader. The major part of this paper will consist of the description of the state of society after World War Terminus, the things that surround the humans who stayed on Earth and those who migrated to colonies on other planets, and of a description of the status of androids per se, as well as compared to electric animals. 1.2. Plot overview and analysis Philip K. Dick (born in 1928) takes us to the year 1992, 24 years after the novel was written. He introduces us to Rick Deckard who works for the San Francisco Police Department as a bounty hunter and whose job is to retire androids (replicants) that have fled from extraterrestrial colonies and come back to Earth. Deckard just received a new challenge to retire six Nexus-6 androids that are almost impossible to discern from real human beings. With the bounty of 1.000 $ per retired andy Rick could finally buy a real animal instead of having just an electric replacement that would embarrass him in front of the neighbours if they ever found out. After facing a few obstacles and intrigues, Deckard finally manages to retire the six replicants in one day, making him the SFPDs best bounty hunter, a role for which Deckard has become too weary after his whole life turned upside down and he lost faith in all the principles that led him through the story. Dick immediately takes us into this new future, he is not offering any rational explanations for why he believes the world would look like this in the future, and the reader doesnt feel the need to ask any questions. According to Todorovs criteria of the fantastic (1975:54-57) this novel fits into the category of the instrumental (scientific) marvellous, since all of the novums (Shippey, 2005 citing Darko Suvin) are introduced as if they were completely normal, everyday things that arent meant to provoke any awe in the reader. The determination of the text is balanced, according to Christine Brook-Roses theory (1981:122-124), which means that the reader is neither over- nor under-determined, he or she receives the same amount of information as the characters in the text, mostly through dialogues and the thoughts of the characters. The novel is one of the dystopian genre, which had its climax after the Second World War, and in which societies worse than those of our time are described (Wegner, 2005:88-91) through topics such as overpopulation, urban decay, environmental catastrophes etc., which were all major concerns in the years when the world was expecting a third World War. Estrangement and alienation between people and the search for identity, or, to be more specific, for what it means to be human are also issues frequently touched upon in this kind of literature. Part II Earth after World War Terminus à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ no one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won. (Dick, 2005:11) These are the words Dick uses to describe the absurdity of war it usually starts due to insignificant reasons and causes pain and loss to everyone involved. There can never be a real winner and the effects are felt for years afterwards. This particular nuclear war completely altered the face of Earth most of the population emigrated to colonies on other planets because their homes got covered by a veil of radioactive dust, most of the vegetation disappeared and animals became extremely rare. This gloomy atmosphere is nicely depicted in the film Blade Runner which was based on the novel, and in which it is clear that the sunlight doesnt even reach the street-level of the city due to all the dust and smog. 2.1. The colonization program Even before World War Terminus had the people of Earth started to move to other planets and build colonies there. But, as Dick writes in Chapter 2, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ now that the Sun had ceased to shine on Earth the colonization entered an entirely new phase. (2005:12) Large amounts of people began to emigrate in the search for a new home where they wouldnt be exposed to radioactive dust and where they could start over and try to live a normal life. The government and the UN encouraged these migrations, their scientists modified the Synthetic Freedom Fighters, a prototype of the android (as described in Chapter 2) which was supposed to assist humans in their migration. Later each human would receive an android servant specially designed to fulfil the needs of its master, as a welcome gift to their new homes. Those who decided to stay on Earth were constantly exposed to radioactive fallout. The remaining population was divided into regulars (those who passed the IQ test and had acceptab le reasons to stay on Earth) and specials (those who were considered to have insufficient mental capabilities, it was forbidden for them to emigrate and they were sterilised because their reproduction was undesirable). Regulars were obligated to visit a doctor on a regular basis, because the dust could soon turn them into specials too. That is why a popular TV slogan says: Emigrate or degenerate! The choice is yours! (2005:5) Earth was no longer safe and the longer one would remain here, the greater the chances were for the dust to take effect. 2.2. Dust and kipple The most important motifs Dick uses to describe the atmosphere on Earth after WWT are silence, dust and kipple. The silence is described in Chapter 2 and it is felt by John Isidore, a special who lives all by himself in a massive empty apartment building. Since most of the population has left Earth, most of the buildings are empty and one can find themselves often being completely alone. Isidore feels the silence radiating from every pore of the building from the appliances that had stopped working years before that, from the walls and from the ceiling. He felt as if the silence possesses a power of its own, as if its goal were to take over all the objects (and people!) and, finally, as if the silence had come alive, to claim its throne among everything there is. Another thing that is slowly occupying the routine on Earth is kipple, a term coined by Dick himself. Kipple are objects such as junk mail or gum wrappers people fail to throw away. Kipple then accumulates and reproduces itself (2005:52), it spreads all over mans daily environment. According to John Isidore, No one can win against kipple, one can try to fight it with non-kipple, but as soon as one surrenders or leaves, kipple will take over and, eventually, completely occupy the universe. Buster Friendly, a popular TV-personality whose importance I will elaborate later in this paper, warned that this would cause the ultimate decadence of Earth by saying: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Earth would die under a layer not of radioactive dust but of kipple. (2005:69) While the accumulation of kipple can at least be postponed, and the silence can be avoided by staying in the city surrounded by people, the dust is one thing that is completely independent of human influence. As already mentioned, the dust is radioactive fallout which remained on Earth after the nuclear war, and which still influences the mental and physical health of the remaining population. The effects of dust are well seen in the description of Hannibal Sloat, Isidores boss: The dust, over the years, had eroded him; it had left his features gray, his thoughts gray; it had shrunk him and made his legs spindly and his gait unsteady. He saw the world through glasses literally dense with dust. For some reason Sloat never cleaned his glasses. It was as if he had given up; he had accepted the radioactive dirt and it had begun its job, long ago, of burying him. (2005:60) The dust cannot be evaded, under its influence humanity on Earth would soon decay, and the only culprit is humanity itself, starting pointless wars and destroying what does not belong to them. Part III Humanitys favourite pastimes Humans would certainly cease to be humans if they would simply surrender to the depression and the silence. Life goes on, and there were things to do, people to judge and rituals to perform. It would be pointless to continue living without being able to take care of a real animal, without fusing with Wilbur Mercer or laughing at Buster Friendlys perpetually interesting jokes. 3.1. Animals The nuclear war wiped out most of the vegetation and almost every animal species known to mankind, starting out with owls and other birds and then affecting the others as well. Being in possession of a real animal is a symbol of status, but it is also an obligation not taking care of an animal and trying to restore the fauna on Earth is considered to be an act of moral turpitude. But real animals cost money, and the prizes are displayed in Sidneys Animal Fowl Catalogue, which is carried around by almost every human being hoping to be able to afford a real animal one day. Until that day, it is a social requirement to at least have a replica, even though it is, as said on page 6, gradually demoralizing. One does not simply admit that their pet is a fake one, which is why even animal repair services have to look like real animal clinics, so that this whole faà §ade can be preserved and no one has to feel bad. People will always strive to earn enough money to buy a real animal still, there is no money in the world that can resurrect extinct species, so even the owl belonging to the powerful Rosen corporation is proved to be a fake in the end. The death of an animal presents a heavy emotional burden for its owners, and it is no exception to have an identical replica of the deceased animal built. 3.2. Mood organs In this reality mood-altering products are either illegal or have to be prescribed by a doctor. In Philip K. Dicks world a Penfield mood organ is a must-have for every household. Using the mood organ that stimulates the brain and alters a persons disposition toward the world, one can choose with what mood they will wake up setting D, for example, makes one feel well-disposed toward the world (2005:1) in the morning. There are several hundred moods one can choose from to schedule for the days ahead, reaching from The desire to watch TV, no matter whats on it (mood 888) to the Awareness of the manifold possibilities open to me in the future (no. 481). By dialling a mood combination on another persons mood organ, one can easily manipulate other people in order to win arguments or persuade them into doing things the dialler wants them to do. One can also dial oneself into a depression and undergo the risk of causing harm to oneself. 3.3. Mercerism Ever since theres been humanity, there have also been religions, cults, belief in deities. In the world of Do Androids?, everyone is under the influence of Wilbur Mercer. By grasping the handles of the empathy box everyone owns, one undergoes a fusion with this old man who is climbing a mountain. The purpose of this ritual is to connect with every other person who is doing this same thing at the moment, to share emotions with others and to exchange the deepest thoughts with Mercer. It is considered polite to use the empathy box when one is feeling truly happy or grateful, and to share these positive feelings with those who might not be as satisfied at the moment. This strengthens empathy, a feeling characteristic of mankind only and a concept that is of utmost importance in the novels world. By holding the handles of empathy (2005:7) one finds out about Mercers past in his childhood he was able to resurrect animals by turning back time, until the killers found out about his talent, forbid him to use it and eventually attacked his brain with radioactive cobalt, which altered Mercers state of mind and at first sunk him into a pit of dead creatures. After a while, the creatures came back to life and Mercer started ascending with them, lost them, and since then he climbs the hill alone. Those who use the empathy box find themselves ascending with Mercer, being hit by rocks supposedly thrown by the killers (an entity of absolute evil) and, through these wounds, feeling Mercers pain and becoming one with him. People, who could not stand this torment which would grow the higher they climbed, have even been known to die during the fusion. Later in the novel, Buster Friendly announces some shocking news: Mercerism is a hoax! Busters team of scientists discovered that the hill and the sky in the scene of Mercers ascent are artificial, that the rocks are made of plastic and that Wilbur Mercer is, in fact, played by an unknown, failed actor. Although this revelation shook the belief of many Mercerites, John Isidore did not stop believing. When he heard the news, he approached the empathy box and once again fused with Mercer, who admitted that everything Buster said was true. However, nothing has changed, Mercer was still there, and so was John Isidore, and Mercer promised to always be there and never judge anyone. Afterwards Mercer begins to appear outside of the empathy box, he manifested himself in front of Rick Deckard to warn him about the androids and to support him. For Mercer everything is easy, he thought, because Mercer accepts everything (2005:182). This is why Mercer says that he himself is not a moral person because he accepts the good and the bad. For that reason he told Deckard it was alright to retire the androids, and Deckard could not comprehend this tolerance of his actions. Towards the end of the novel, Deckard got so tired from everything he had done that, for a moment, he became Mercer, climbing and being hit by real rocks, and nothing except for him existed. According to this, the collective mind of people could bring things into life although they were scientifically disputed. This would mean that empathy is a feeling above the individual, something connecting all the people on a higher level. I will return to the notion of empathy and its significance later. 3.4. Buster Friendly His Friendly Friends Buster Friendly His Friendly Friends is a popular TV and radio programme in the novel. Buster Friendly is a TV-comic beloved throughout the whole Solar System, and John Isidore refers to him as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ the most important human being alive, except of course for Wilbur Mercerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (2005:55) Busters show lasts for 23 hours every day, and Isidore finds it peculiar that he has time to tape both the radio and the TV show without ever repeating himself in content. In addition, his guests are always lovely females with whom he always engages in witty, non-repetitive conversations, despite having them in the show every other day. Although Isidore loves Buster, he cannot help being irritated by his constant mocking of Mercerism, and in the end it was Buster who exposed the truth about Mercer, after having announced his exposà © for days. Isidore, despite being a special, came to the sharp conclusion that Buster and Mercer are fighting over the human minds, trying to win ove r as much control over humanity as possible. Isidores boss agrees and considers Buster to be equally as eternal and immortal as Mercer (2005:61). This is proven to be false when the androids admit that Buster is one of them, which means that he has an approximate lifespan of four years. With this the reason for Busters disrespect towards Mercer is explained androids cannot comprehend the notion of empathy, and to them something that connects the humans in such a way is simply ridiculous. Part IV Androids The first humanoid robots were called Synthetic Freedom Fighters and they served as a weapon of war (2005:12). After the war ended, they were modified in order to assist in the colonization program, and later they became one of the motives for emigrating each emigrant would receive an android subtype of their choice, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦and, by 1990, the variety of subtypes surpassed all understanding, in the manner of American automobiles of the 1960s.(2005:12) One could order an android to be a servant or cheap (or rather free) labour, it would be designed to fulfil all of its owners needs. Even though they resemble humans and often act like them, androids are considered unequal people refer to them as andys and they use the neutral form it to talk about them. From time to time it would occur that a group of androids rebels and decides to go to Earth, after having killed the people who were standing in their way to freedom. This is where Rick Deckard and the other bounty hunters come in their job is to track down, test and retire the returned androids. The job is quite risky, but the bounty makes it worth the risk. And, since androids lack the capacity of empathy, they are inferior to human beings and thus perfectly legal to kill. Certainly, a bounty hunter is not allowed to simply run around and laser his suspects first he has to test whether they really are androids or not, and this is done with the Voigt-Kampff Altered Scale. 4.1. The Voigt-Kampff Test The Voigt-Kampff scale was designed to determine whether the subject being tested is a human or an android. The test equipment resembles a polygraph and it is supposed to measure the level of empathy and affect in the subjects. The principle is that only humans, who are used to undergoing the fusion with Mercer, are capable of feeling empathy. It is not entirely reliable because, as Deckards boss explains on page 30, the test could easily label schizoid or schizophrenic persons as androids due to their equally unempathic reactions. The SFPD is worried that the test will fail to work on the new model of androids, Nexus 6, which would leave them without a dependable method for detecting androids. The test uses two gauges to establish the movement of the eye-muscle and capillary reaction. The examiner presents the subjects with various hypothetical situations, and the subject has to respond accordingly. When, for example, he or she presents the following situation: You have a little boy and he shows you his butterfly collection, including his killing jar. (2005:38), the examiner is trying to determine how and whether the subject will react to the situation of butterflies being killed. The verbal response is utterly unimportant in this case, only the physical reaction matters, because it cannot be consciously controlled. The largest problem arises when the android does not now that he or she is an android. In this case, it takes many more test questions to determine the truth. If, after that, the examiner is still uncertain, the subject can be admitted to a bone marrow test which is slow and painful when applied to living subjects, but it is also the only bullet-proof method. 4.2. The Nexus-6 model Nexus-6 is an android model designed by the Rosen association, a major manufacturer of androids. According to Eldon Rosen, the colonist market demanded a progressive form of android, which would resemble a real human almost completely, so as to be the ultimate companion in the process of colonisation. The brain structure of the Nexus-6 is extremely complex, they à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦have two trillion constituents plus a choice within a range of ten million possible combinations of cerebral activity. In .45 of a second an android equipped with such a brain structure could assume any of fourteen basic reaction postures. (2005:23) The Nexus-6 is intelligent, fast, skilful, and it can barely be distinguished from real humans. Deckard is afraid of them for that reason because they almost undermined the Voigt-Kampff scale, the only method he knows that is adequate for detecting androids. His weak point are especially the female Nexus-6 Rachael, whom he slept with, Pris, who looked exactly like Rachael so it was hard for him to kill her, and Luba Luft, whose opera-singing and taste in art fascinated him, and for whom he thought that she seemed genuinely alive (2005:112). As John Isidore said (2005:129), the Nexus-6 are intellectual and able to thing abstractly, which is why they are so diffi cult to distinguish from humans. This is also what motivated the group of androids Deckard was after in the novel being equally (or even more) intelligent to humans was not enough. They wanted to feel the sensation of togetherness and be considered alive, and not just as mere machines. 4.3. Androids vs. humans: Empathy Empathy is the main notion in the novel, it is what defines people as people and it is the only positive thing that was left after World War Terminus. As a matter of fact, it is the only thing stopping humans from starting new wars and completely self-destructing. The fusion with Mercer is therefore highly important, in that it strengthens empathy between persons who do not even know each other, but who at that moment became one with Mercer and everyone else. Dick sees man as a herd animal (2005:24), and the whole herd depends on every single unit. Other animals, mostly those who depend on hunting, would starve if they felt empathy, because they would feel reluctant to kill their victim. Androids are incapable of empathising. They can develop a sense of identification (as Rachael did with Pris, since they are the same type of android) and they can wish to be alive (in the film Blade Runner the android Roy Batty was driven solely by the wish to live longer than 4 years; when he found out this was impossible, he became furious and killed his maker), but they will never be able to feel what a human being feels. Because of this lack, androids often react mercilessly. For Rick Deckard an escaped humanoid robot, which had killed its master, which had been equipped with an intelligence greater than that of many human beings, which had no regard for animals, which possessed no ability to feel empathic joy for another life forms success or grief at its defeat that, for him, epitomized The Killers. (2005:25) According to this, Deckard does not see androids as being merely different or inferior, no, he sees them as the ultimate enemy of Mercerism and everything human, and therefore it is not morally wrong to retire them. He also compares them to electric animals, feeling contempt towards both species. The electric animal does not appreciate the existence of another being (2005:34) and neither does the android. In the end, one can without any problems be considered as the inferior or superior version of the other. The androids are aware of the difference between them and humans. When Isidore took them in, they knew that, unlike Isidore, a fellow android would have turned them in first thing in the morning. Deckard also noticed that there exists no real sense of unity between androids when Garland had no problem with blowing the cover on the whole alternative police department. Something that is a moral taboo for humans, such as making an animal suffer, is no problem for an android who thinks completely logically if a spider could survive and move around with only four legs, then why does it need the other four? (2005:162) Some other characteristics that distinguish androids from people can be found in the novel. Firstly, in life-threatening situations, they would simply resign, as if all their life force was gone: Mechanical, intellectual acceptance of that which a genuine organism with two billion years of the pressure to live and evolve hagriding it could never have reconciled itself to. (2005:157) So, maybe in these situations, androids feel as if they had never even been really alive, and therefore easily resign to the fact that they are going to die. Secondly, Roy Baty let Deckard into the apartment when Deckard pretended to be John Isidore Deckard later calls androids stupid (2005:178) because they obviously could not distinguish the nuances between two completely different human beings. They also miss some common knowledge that humans have for instance, when Pris didnt know what bean curd (tofu) was (2005:118), and she was aware that that was something only an android wouldnt know so they would always raise a certain degree of suspicion, no matter how well they would adjust. Androids are yet another example of man wanting to play God, and as long as he can acquire enough money doing this, he will be hard to stop. The market required androids to look as authentic as possible, and the Rosen association complied with these requirements. So they created beings completely aware of themselves, with the ability to think and comprehend, but unable to control their physical, sensual passions (2005:154) a time bomb ready to explode any second, a time bomb that has been denigrated since the moment it came into existence. Therefore I can empathise with the androids actions in a way, because they just wanted to be treated the same as real human beings, and it is no surprise they were happy when Buster revealed that Mercerism, and maybe even empathy, was just a swindle. Now humans wouldnt have an advantage over androids anymore. But, as it always happens, it was easier for the humans to kill off their problems rather than solve them in a non-violent manner, or maybe even (but that would just be too radical) learn from their mistakes and cease to do them. Conclusion After World War II, it was no surprise that most authors lost their faith in humanity. One could not simply witness what one human being is capable of doing to another and then stay completely indifferent. There was only one thing left to do write a novel and try to warn the world about the possible consequences of its behaviour. This is precisely what Philip K. Dick has done. In every aspect of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? can we see criticism towards society: Deckards relationship with his wife, with whom he barely converses (they do talk, but there is no real communication behind that) and who voluntarily falls into a depression just so she could feel something; the Rosen association, producing androids so similar to humans, that it could easily happen that a real human gets retired instead of an android, just for the sake of profit; the commercials, aggressively inviting people to emigrate and start a new life with their custom android servant. Dick knows that the more people grow distant from each other and focus on their own needs, the higher the chances are for a new war which would bring societys doom. Luckily, there is a way out, something that should connect each one of us and something they should start teaching in kindergarten. It is called empathy, and it is one of the things that distinguish us from other species, in fact, according to Dick, it is the only thing that can actually prove that we are humans, and not just human machines. If we could just work on that, and have a bit more respect for other peoples feelings, maybe human would stop degenerating into a pejorative term and start standing for a being that is rational, civilised and empathic again. Works cited and consulted Brooke-Rose, Christine. A Rhetoric of the Unreal.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 122-124. pdf Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? London: Orion Books Ltd, 2010 (1968). Print. Jackson, Rosemary. Fantasy. The Literature of Subversion. London, New York: Routledge, 1981. 24-36. pdf Palmer, Christopher. Philip K. Dick. A Companion to Science Fiction. Ed. David Seed. Blackwell, 2005. 389-397. pdf Shippey, Tom. Hard Reading: The Challenges of Science Fiction. A Companion to Science Fiction. Ed. David Seed. Blackwell, 2005. 14-15. pdf Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic. A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. New York: Cornell University Press, 1975. 54-57. pdf Wegner, Philip E. Utopia. A Companion to Science Fiction. Ed. David Seed. Blackwell, 2005. 88-91. pdf