...“Specialization can bring short-term rewards, but can lead, in the long run, to an evolutionary dead end” (Wright, 28). The end of a civilization and the end of a company or business are drastically different measures, but similarities can be made in history patterns as to why a civilization or business might come to an end. The Enron collapse and other civilizations such as Easter Island and the Sumerians show these patterns which caused a “dead end” for both. While the details of history never repeat themselves, the patterns of history do — with alarming regularity. The circumstances only seem new because they arrive in different wrappers. But the contents are the same. The same human character repeats the same behaviour, creating the same problems and stresses that we respond to with an old familiarity. There is a pattern in the past of civilization after civilization wearing out its welcome from nature, overexploiting its environment, over expanding, overpopulating. They tend to collapse quite soon after they reach their period of greatest magnificence and prosperity. Ronald Wright’s book A short history of progress explains civilizations such as the romans, Sumerians, and most notably Easter island that came to a collapse. Easter Island was a smaller society that eventually came to an end by exploiting resources that benefitted them in the short run rather than the long. This is what wright explained in the book to be a “progress trap”. “Progress trap is when human ingenuity...
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...technological development ever to occur in human history was the domestication of plants (agriculture) and animals (pastoralism). Together these developments are called the Neolithic Revolution. To understand how the Neolithic Revolution occurred it is necessary to understand the economic system it replaced. Until the Neolithic, and in most areas for a long time after, all humans engaged in an economic activity called "hunting and gathering". This system is called "food extraction" as opposed to "food production" by agriculture and pastoralism. This period, which occurred between 12,000 and 8,000 years ago, brought along many profound changes to human society and culture, including the creation of cities and permanent dwellings, labor specialization, the baking of bread, personal property, more complex hierarchical social structures, non-agricultural crafts, slavery, the state, official marriage, personal inheritance, and more. I’ve chosen this topic because we can’t imagine our life, if there were not such a revolution. What would we be without the Neolithic Revolution? I think without the Neolithic Revolution I probably wouldn’t be writing this paper right now. We wouldn't be staying in one place for long, because we would be moving around hunting and gathering for our food. We wouldn't have time for learning, or going to work, or a lot of the things we do. The Neolithic Revolution was the most transformative event in history, it was the beginning of agriculture. With not...
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...Internet” or “I could not ever live without my cell phone” imply that life would be hard to live from the lack of such technologies. However, such expressions become rather ironic because life is already in harm’s way due to technology itself. The relationship between technology within society and environmental grounds are problematic. Technology serves as an efficient function to our lives yet can become detrimental to our health which is demonstrated through Ronald Wright’s theory of the progress trap and theories of environmental degradation (Cameron, par. 5). However, the repair and reversal of a damaged environment depends largely on technology through means for better water, cleaner air and conserving energy; insofar as being inevitable. Ronald Wright, a prestigious historian, coined the term “progress trap” in his book A Short History of Progress. Aprogress trap is a condition or situation in which unintentional long-term problems arise for the risk of losing a short-term quality of life (Cameron, par. 7). Progress traps often pose for negative consequences because of the lack of...
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...Each president of the United States that comes into office has a different agenda and a different way of running things. All of the decisions they make in office impact everyone. After the president leaves office, they leave a legacy behind. This legacy could either be satisfactory or unsatisfactory, depending on what they did while in office. Three presidents that left a big legacy on America are Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt and each of them impacted, either good or bad, the country in some way. While each left a legacy, one president's legacy was more impactful, in a helpful way, to America’s development and growth. Before Ronald Reagan came into office in 1980, there was a major recession in the late 1970’s. This means that there was a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity were reduced. Reagan’s promise to the people was that he was going to restore the economy, but everyone's question was how he planned to do that. His plan was to provide tax breaks to the very wealthy people. The idea was that if the wealthy class had more money, they could provide more jobs and the money would make its way down to the other classes, this was called trickle down economics (Corvo, Lecture). Reagan’s...
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...Benefit Segmentation: A Dedsion-oriented Research Tool RUSSELL I. HALEY been center M ARKETassegmentation has passessteadily moving towardresearch stage a topic of discussion in marketing and circles. Hardly a conference without at least one session devoted to it. Moreover, in March the American Management Association held a three-day conference entirely concerned with various aspects of the segmentation problem. According to Wendell Smith. "Segmentation l^ based upon developments on the demand side of the market and represents a rational and more precise adjustment of product and marketing effort to consumer or user requirements."^ The idea that all markets can be profitably segmented has now received almost as widespread acceptance as the marketing concept itself. However, problems remain. In the extreme, a marketer can divide up his market in as many ways as he can describe his prospects. If he wishes, he can define a left-handed segment, or a blue-eyed segment, or a German-speaking segment. Consequently, current discussion revolves largely around which of the virtually limitless alternatives is likely to be most productive. According to this ar+icle, mos+ techniques of market segmentation rely only on DESCRIPTIVE factors pertaining to purchasers and are not efficient predictors of future buyer behavior. The author proposes an approach whereby market segments are delineated first on the basis of factors with a CAUSAL relationship to future purchase behavior. The belief underlying...
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...INTRODUCTION Generally, there are two categories of small and medium enterprise (SME) in Malaysia. The first category comprises agriculture, services, information and communication technology (ICT) with less than 50 full-time employees or annual sales turnover fewer than RM 5 million. The second included manufacturing and agro-industries with less than 150 full-time employees or annual sales turnover not exceeding RM25 million. Small and medium sized enterprise (SME) is the engine for economic growth. Development of SME brings technology development and employment creation. Michael and John (1998) have noted that relative to larger firms, SMEs are well prepared for facing the challenges of increasing competition and globalization of markets. Planning is usually done first by entrepreneur when decided to start a SME. This is because everything else will be depends on the planning makes by the entrepreneur. A business plan plays an important role in obtaining funds and as a blueprint for the enterprise operates towards success. As Peel and Bridge (1998) and George and Jonathan (2002) reported, there is a strong connection between the success of a SME and its long-term planning. In Malaysia, National SME Development Council (NSDC) was established in June 2004. It acts as the highest policy-making body to chart the direction and strategies comprehensive and coordinated development across all sectors of the economy. Some examples of successful SMEs in...
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...Barack Obama Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States —becoming the first African American to serve in that office —on January 20, 2009. The son of a white American mother and a black Kenyan father, Obama grew up in Hawaii. Leaving the state to attend college, he earned degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Obama worked as a community organizer in Chicago, where he met and married Michelle LaVaughn Robinson in 1992. Their two daughters, Malia Ann and Natasha (Sasha) were born in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Obama was elected to the Illinois state senate in 1996 and served there for eight years. In 2004, he was elected by a record majority to the U.S. Senate from Illinois and, in February 2007, announced his candidacy for President. After winning a closely-fought contest against New York Senator and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, Obama handily defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee for President, in the general election. When President Obama took office, he faced very significant challenges. The economy was officially in a recession, and the outgoing administration of George W. Bush had begun to implement a controversial "bail-out" package to try to help struggling financial institutions. In foreign affairs, the United States still had troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warfare had broken out between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, illustrating the...
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...organisation’s objectives and strategy. Since it’s a ‘strategic’ approach to human resource, the company’s strategy according to (Johnson, Scholes & Whittington 2011; p3) should be ‘the direction and scope of an organisation over a long- term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment through its configuration of resources and competences’. However there have been many debates varying from academics to critics about what strategic human resource management (SHRM) actually embraces and implies for organisations. Definitions range from 'a human resource system, that is tailored to the demands of the business strategy', (Snow, 1984)to 'the pattern of planned human resource activities intended to enable an organization to achieve its goals' (Wright and McMahan 1992). However, organisations that invest in SHRM anticipate receiving a return on their investment. Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 Company Overview 4 Mission & Values 4 McDonald’s Strategy 4 McDonalds Human Resource Planning (HR practices) 5 Equal opportunities to diversity management 5 Managing Cultural Diversity in McDonalds 5 Culture...
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...Introduction to Literature‐I (History of English Literature‐I) Discipline English Cr. Hrs 3 Semester I Aims: One of the objectives of this course is to inform the readers about the influence of historical and socio-cultural events upon the production of literature. Although the scope of the course is quite expansive, the readers shall focus on early 14th to 19th century Romantic Movement. Histories of literature written by some British literary historians will be consulted to form some socio-cultural and political cross connections. In its broader spectrum, the course covers a reference to the multiple factors from economic theories to religious, philosophical and metaphysical debates that overlap in these literary works of diverse nature and time periods under multiple contexts. The reading of literature in this way i.e. within the sociocultural context will help the readers become aware of the fact that literary works are basically a referential product of the practice that goes back to continuous interdisciplinary interaction. Contents: • Medieval Period • Renaissance and Reformation • Elizabethan Period • Milton, the Metaphysical, and the Cavalier Poets • The Age of Reason and Neo-Classicism • Restoration Drama • Augustan Satire • The Rise of the Novel • Romanticism Recommended Readings: 1. Long, William J.: English Literature: Its History and Significance for the life of English speaking world, enlarged edition, 2006. 2. Evans, Ifor. A Short History of English Literature...
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...It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back: The War on Drugs, Mass Incarceration, and a Call to Action for America's Black Youth By Carl L. Young An Alternative Plan Paper Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science In Sociology: Corrections Minnesota State University, Mankato Mankato, Minnesota Spring 2013 Final Draft 4/20/2013 1 This Alternative Plan Paper has been examined and approved by the following members of the Examining Committee. _____________________ Dr. Leah Rogne, Advisor _____________________ Dr. William Wagner _____________________ Dr. Penny Jo Rosenthal _____________________ Dr. Nadarajan Sethuraju ________________ Date 2 Abstract This alternative plan paper examines the circumstances that have evolved as a result of the Reagan Administration’s War on Drugs and the increase of mass incarceration of the Black community. In the last thirty years, the federal government of the United States of America has engaged in campaign known as the “War on Drugs,” which has involved a variety of policies to stop the production, distribution and sale of illegal narcotics. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent in a war that has targeted the most vulnerable in our society, impacting its youth for generations to come. This alternative plan paper addresses the impact of the War on Drugs and the criminal justice policies that have impacted the life chances of Black youth nationwide and calls for a new social movement...
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...Maybe it is time to rediscover bureaucracy? Johan P. Olsen Working Paper No.10, March 2005 http://www.arena.uio.no 1 Abstract The paper questions the fashionable ideas, that bureaucratic organization is an obsolescent, undesirable and non-viable form of administration, and that there is an inevitable and irreversible paradigmatic shift towards market- or network organization. In contrast, the paper argues that contemporary democracies are involved in another round in a perennial debate and ideological struggle over what are desirable forms of administration and government, that is, a struggle over institutional identities and institutional balances. The argument is not that bureaucratic organization is a panacea and the answer to all challenges of public administration. Rather, bureaucratic organization is part of a repertoire of overlapping, supplementary and competing forms co-existing in contemporary democracies, and so are market-organization and network-organization. Rediscovering Weber’s analysis of bureaucratic organization, then, enriches our understanding of public administration. This is in particular true when we (a) include bureaucracy as an institution, and not only an instrument; (b) look at the empirical studies in their time and context, and not only at Weber’s ideal-types and predictions; and (c) take into account the political and normative order bureaucracy is part of, and not only the internal characteristics of “the bureau”...
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...Amazon.com the Hidden Empire Three digital engines to reshape and dominate retail Amazon.com: a digital shop around the corner… … and a digital colossus. Did you know: all these companies belong to Amazon… Did you know: Amazon is also… AmazonBasics Amazon-branded electronic products AmazonFresh sells and delivers groceries in Seattle AmazonStudios online social movie studio Amazon WarehouseDeals offers discounts on refurbished products Did you know: Amazon has had one of the fastest growths in the Internet’s history… Revenues reached within first 5 years $2,8 bn $1,5 bn $0,4 bn eBay Google Amazon Amazon and eBay results from 1995 to 2000, Google from 1998 to 2003. Even though Zynga and Groupon appear to have an even quicker growth, they haven‟t been compared because 1- sales have not been officially disclosed 2- they haven‟t reach their fifth year Did you know: Amazon Web Services drives these companies… Did you know: Amazon.com is a giant… Y/Y growth for Q1 2011 +38% Market cap $90 bn Customers 137 m 3 × growth of 2 × market cap 2 × # customers E-commerce market Employees 33,700 Annual revenue $34 bn Internet traffic rank 16th Retail brand 1st Paid out $1.2 bn 15 × more than 16% more than before before to buy Source: Amazon.com, Alexa, Brandz. Market capitalization as of April 2011. Why? A vision… From 1994, Jeff Bezos knew he could create a retail website that would not have the limitations...
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...Entrepreneurship Research, April 2008 KC Lim Contents Abstract 1. Introduction a. b. The Continuing and Evolving Research on Entrepreneurs The Importance of Successful Entrepreneurship Today and Tomorrow 3 4 4 5 2. Literature Review a. Introduction i. Definition of Entrepreneurs Previous Areas of Entrepreneurship Research i. Personality Traits • Motivation • Risk Propensity and Uncertainty ii. Cognition • Intention and Opportunity Seeking • Innovation iii. Population Ecology c. Topic for this Study/Theoretical Framework i. The Broad Research Problem 5 5 7 9 9 10 10 10 11 12 13 13 13 14 14 15 16 16 16 16 18 18 19 22 24 27 27 29 30 b. 3. Hypothesis for Research a. Hypothesis Statements 4. Methodology 5. Analysis of Survey Data a. b. Data Compilation Analysis & Findings i. Background Data of Respondents ii. Findings 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Cognition in Basic Business Areas Do Emotions Figure? Preferences for Source of Funds Preferences in Knowledge Acquisition More Specific Business Aspects i. Holding Company Together ii. Growth Factors iii. Continual Growth . HELP University College, 28 October 2009 Page 1 of 43 Entrepreneurship Research, April 2008 KC Lim 6. Limitations 7. Recommendations 8. Conclusion 9. Appendix 10. References 32 32 33 35 36 . HELP University College, 28 October 2009 Page 2 of 43 Entrepreneurship Research, April 2008 KC Lim Abstract This paper presents the findings of a general opinion survey on successful small...
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...Gracie King Dr. Morgan Advanced Readings in Energy 15 August 2015 The Prize: Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power The history of the petroleum industry is a long and enduring journey. It was not started by one single individual, but by the actions of a long list of entrepreneurial figures whom all play a part in this oil journey. Oil was first used as a sort of home remedy by the Indians. They called it “Seneca Oil” and it was used to cure headaches, upset stomachs, burns, to heal wounds and the list goes on. George Bissell was a very important individual in the creation of the oil industry. He spotted a bottle of this Pennsylvania rock oil in one of his professor’s classrooms. He became very curious with the rock oil and believed that it could be used as an illuminant because it was flammable. If this rock oil could become the new illuminating oil, Bissell would become an extremely wealthy man and that became his motivation. In 1854, Bissell gathered investors and hired a professor from Yale, Benjamin Silliman, to analyze all the properties of this oil to determine if it could indeed be used as an illuminant and lubricant. Sure enough, the research proved that rock oil was the next big illuminant and Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company was created in 1854. However it was not a breeze to get this oil. Edwin Drake, a retired railway conductor, was tasked to use his salt techniques to find oil. In spring of 1859, Drake’s driller who was called “Uncle Billy” spotted oil...
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...Amazon.com the Hidden Empire Three digital engines to reshape and dominate retail Amazon.com: a digital shop around the corner… … and a digital colossus. Did you know: all these companies belong to Amazon… Did you know: Amazon is also… AmazonBasics Amazon-branded electronic products AmazonFresh sells and delivers groceries in Seattle AmazonStudios online social movie studio Amazon WarehouseDeals offers discounts on refurbished products Did you know: Amazon has had one of the fastest growths in the Internet’s history… Revenues reached within first 5 years $2,8 bn $1,5 bn $0,4 bn eBay Google Amazon Amazon and eBay results from 1995 to 2000, Google from 1998 to 2003. Even though Zynga and Groupon appear to have an even quicker growth, they haven‟t been compared because 1- sales have not been officially disclosed 2- they haven‟t reach their fifth year Did you know: Amazon Web Services drives these companies… Did you know: Amazon.com is a giant… Y/Y growth for Q1 2011 +38% Market cap $90 bn Customers 137 m 3 × growth of 2 × market cap 2 × # customers E-commerce market Employees 33,700 Annual revenue $34 bn Internet traffic rank 16th Retail brand 1st Paid out $1.2 bn 15 × more than 16% more than before before to buy Source: Amazon.com, Alexa, Brandz. Market capitalization as of April 2011. Why? A vision… From 1994, Jeff Bezos knew he could create a retail website that would not have the limitations...
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