Month: June 2017
Methodology Research Data
Introduction
According to Walliman (2001), a methodology explains the theory behind the research methods or approaches. This chapter highlights the theories behind the methodology employed and examines the research methods that are most appropriate for this research which help to better understand the topic under investigation. This research undertakes an analytical review of customer retention techniques of Indian banks, using Citibank as a case study. This chapter outlines how this analysis is undertaken and describes the rationale behind the choice of research design and the construction of the method.
Research Method Construction
Much of the research undertaken in social sciences is primary. This is based on the collection of primary data, that is, data originated by the researcher for the purpose of the investigation at hand (Stewart and Kamins, 1993). Primary analysis is the original analysis of data in a research study. It is what one typically imagines as the application of statistical methods. However, not every study or research undertaking must begin with the collection of primary data. In some cases, the information required is already available from published sources. This is called secondary research – the summation, collation, and/or synthesis of existing research. Secondary information consists of sources of information collected by others and archived in some form. These sources include reports, industry studies, as well as books and journals. The collection, generation, and dissemination of information is growing. This means that there exists a tremendous amount of secondary data that is relevant to today's decision-making problems. Knowledge accumulation increasingly relies on the integration of previous studies and findings. Glass (1976) argues that when the literature on a topic grows and knowledge lies untapped in completed research studies, "this endeavour (of research synthesis) deserves higher priority ... than adding a new experiment or survey to the pile" (Glass, 1976, p. 4). One of the main reasons to value secondary data comes from the ease of collection for research use (Houston, 2004). This information can be of considerable importance for two reasons.
- Time savings – typically, the time involved in searching secondary sources is much less than that needed to complete primary data collection.
- Cost effectiveness – similarly, secondary data collection in general is less costly than primary data collection. For the same level of research budget a thorough examination of secondary sources can yield a great deal more information than can be had through a primary data collection exercise.
Another, and perhaps more important, benefit to researchers from employing secondary data is that alternative types of data can provide multi-method triangulation to other research findings (Houston, 2004). This is because the knowledge bases regarding many constructs, such as retention and loyalty, have been built heavily through survey research approaches. All things being equal, secondary data should be used if it helps researchers to solve the research problem (Saunders et al., 2006). If there exists data that solves or lends insight into the research problem, then little primary research has to be conducted. Because resource constraints are always a problem for the researcher, it makes good sense to exhaust secondary data sources before proceeding to the active collection of primary data. In addition, secondary data may be available which is entirely appropriate and wholly adequate to draw conclusions and answer the question or solve the problem. This secondary analysis may involve the combination of one data set with another, address new questions or use new analytical methods for evaluation. Secondary analysis is the re-analysis of data for the purpose of answering the original research question with different statistical techniques, or answering new questions with old data. Secondary analysis is an important feature of the research and evaluation landscape. Generally, secondary research is used in problem recognition and problem clarification. However, in addition to being helpful in the definition and development of a problem, secondary data is often insufficient in generating a problem solution (Davis, 2000). Whilst the benefits of secondary sources are considerable, their shortcomings have to be acknowledged. There is a need to evaluate the quality of both the source of the data and the data itself. The first problem relates to definitions. The researcher has to be careful, when making use of secondary data, of the definitions used by those responsible for its preparation. Another relates to source bias. Researchers have to be aware of vested interests when they consult secondary sources. Those responsible for their compilation may have reasons for wishing to present a more optimistic or pessimistic set of results for their organisation. Also, secondary data can be general and vague and therefore may not help with decision-making. In addition, data may be incomplete. Finally, the time period during which secondary data was first compiled may have a substantial effect upon the nature of the data. Considering these shortcomings, primary data collection strategy was also adopted after analysis and collection of secondary data. This was purposely done by the author as the author wanted to analyze the previous similar researches before drafting a primary data collection questionnaire. In constructing the primary data collection method, data needs were first specified. Primary data was collected in the form of interviews with Citibank operational and branch managers, focus groups were also conducted with a sample of Citibank customers. These methods were considered to be the most appropriate in terms of achieving the objectives of the study and worked out best within the time and cost constraints. Semi-structured probing interview with Citibank management staff revealed in depth information and insights on customer retention and relationship banking. Focus groups conducted with Citibank customers was the best way to get information out of them as ideas from person sparked off ideas from another and the group gelled together very well. Also, facial expressions and bodily movements indicated quite a lot in a focus group. It wasn't feasible to conduct telephonic interview or video-conferencing due to the costs involved. Though, initially some thoughts were given to conducting telephonic interviews with Citibank employees, but later on the idea was shelved because of time and cost constraints. Secondary data for this research concentrated on collecting data from books, journals, online publications, white papers, previous researches, newspapers (Economic Times) taped interviews, websites, research databases etc. Secondary data was collected and partially analyzed before embarking onto primary data collection methods so that the designing of focus group and interview questions can be framed properly. Although, most of the secondary data was collected by the time primary data collection methods were embarked upon, but secondary data collection didn't stop altogether. In a way, the data collected from the secondary data and the data gathered from field research helped in triangulation. The field research also helped in testing the hypothesis that was developed after studying the concepts and theories (deductive approach). Also, after gaining sufficient insight on the topic, it made it easier for the author to frame the questionnaire, because first the questions to test the hypothesis were framed and then specific questions were framed which would have helped in forming a hypothesis (inductive approach). Primary research tried to delve as deep as possible into areas which could not have been covered by secondary research and where first-hand information was absolutely necessary to come to a definitive conclusion.
Research Approach
Qualitative method is a kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification. It is based on a meaning expressed through words (Saunders, 2006). Qualitative research method often provides rich descriptive and exploratory data and is exploratory in nature. Quantitative methods on the other hand, uses numbers and statistical method, it tends to be based on meanings derived from numbers. The research approach used for this research is primarily qualitative. Both the primary data collection methods concentrate on qualitative data collection. But, quantitative data is also collated in the form of company reports. Company reports were reviewed to analyse the effect of retention measures on management accounts. So, both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection technique is applied, although the major part of the research relies upon qualitative data and its analysis. Qualitative secondary information from a variety of sources are gathered like Citibank Case Studies, Web page , Reference books , Journals , Online journals, Newspaper and Magazine Articles , Taped interviews , Business news channel views , Research Agency) databases . Quantitative data from Citibank Company Reports and other supermarkets are collected and analyzed to compare and contrast the effect of various retention initiatives.
The Research Design
A research design is the framework or a plan for a study used as a guide to collect and analyse data, it is the blueprint that is followed (Churchill and Iacobucci 2005; pg 73). Kerlinger (1996; pg 102) defines 'a plan and structure of investigation to obtain answers to research questions.' The plan here means the overall scheme or program of the research and includes an outline of what the researcher seeks to do from hypotheses testing to the final analysis of the data. A structure is framework organization or configuration of the relations among variables of a study (Robson, 2002; pg 73). The research design expresses both the structure of the research and the plan of investigation used to obtain empirical evidence on the relations of the problem. Some of the common approaches to research design include exploratory research, descriptive research and causal research. For the purpose of this research, an exploratory research is conducted as little previous researches are available on customer retention in Indian banks. Hence little information is available on how to solve the research since there is little past references. The focus of this study is on gaining insights and familiarity with the subject area of customer retention for more rigorous investigation at a later stage. The approach is very open and a wide range of data and information can be gathered and it will provide the conclusive answer to the problem defined. This research will study which existing theories or concepts with regards to customer retention can be applied to the problem defined. It will rely on extensive face to face interviews conducted with Bank Managers of Citibank to understand the concept of customer retention and how it is implemented. One of the reasons for carrying out an exploratory study for the purpose of this study is, because some facts about customer retention are known by the author but more information is required to build a theoretical framework.
Sample
Sample selection in this study, was driven by the need to allow maximum variation in conceptions. Individual managers were interviewed according to their expected level of insight regarding customer retention. In total, five interviews were conducted, all participants were employed by Citibank in India. In addition, two interviewees had been directly involved in developing the retention strategy while the other three had gained experience in implementing retention strategies. Thus, the likelihood of uncovering a range of variations between conceptions of retention was increased. Focus group participants banked with Citigroup in some form or the other (current accounts, credit cards, loans etc). These participants represented a mix of genders, age, banking experience, discipline and experience of banking with different banks.
Method of Data Collection
Data was collected using a semi-structured interview technique, which is characterized by (Booth, 1997 as being both open and deep.Open refers to the fact that the researcher is open to be guided by the responses made by the interviewee (Marton, 1994; Booth, 1997). Deep describes how, during the interview, individual interviewees are encouraged to discuss their conceptions in depth until both the researcher and the interviewee reach a mutual understanding about the phenomenon in question (Booth, 1997; Svensson, 1997). In this study, this facilitated the prompting of interviewees to move beyond the concept of retention and into relationship building and loyalty. All face-to-face interviews were conducted with a single member separately in the participant's office, with the interviews lasting between 30 and 40 minutes. Initially a "community of interpretation" (Apel, 1972) between the researcher and participant was established, with the researcher explaining that the objective of the research was to understand what constitutes effective retention strategy and the importance of retention within the banking community. The question encouraged the participants to reflect upon and articulate their own lived experience of retention. They also focused on the "structural-how" aspects of customer retention. In asking about the roles and activities related to retention, it tried to figure out the 'how' component of retention. The interviews progressed around these topics, with participants guiding the agenda based on the extent of their interest in the topic. For example, the majority of interviewees drew upon comparisons between the American banking systems when expressing their views on the retention process. In addition to the primary questions, follow-up questions were asked as appropriate. Examples included "What do you mean by that?", "What happens?", and "Is that how you see your role?" These questions encouraged individual participants to elaborate the meaning of customer retention.
Data Analysis
All five interviews and focus group sessions were taped and then transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were then analysed by the research team using investigator triangulation (Janesick, 1994). In line with the suggestions of Francis (1996), a structural framework for organizing the transcripts was first developed. This prevented the research team getting lost in the enormous amount of text contained in each transcript and ensured we focused on the underlying meaning of the statements in the text, rather than on the specific content of particular statements. The components of the framework were dimensions of supervisors' conceptions, which were not predetermined by the researchers but were revealed in the texts. The phenomenographic approach seeks to identify and describe the qualitatively different ways of experiencing a specific aspect of reality (Marton, 1981, 1986, 1988, 1994, 1995; Van Rossum & Schenk, 1984; Johansson, Marton, et al., 1985; SaA¨ ljoA¨ , 1988; Sandberg 1994, 1997, 2000, 2001; Svensson 1997). These experiences and understandings, or ways of making sense of the world, are labelled as conceptions or understandings. The emphasis in phenomenography is on how things appear to people in their world and the way in which people explain to themselves and to others what goes on around them, including how these explanations change (Sandberg, 1994). The framework we used to organize the data in each transcript comprised four dimensions of the explanations that supervisors used to make sense of their world, as expressed by them in the interview: (a) What the interviewee's conception of supervision meant to the interviewee in terms of the goal of supervision (referential-what); (b) How the conception was translated by the interviewee into roles and activities (structural-how); (c) What the conception meant to the interviewee in terms of the desired outcomes of the PhD supervision (referential-what); and (d) What factors influenced the interviewee's conception (external influences). The organizing framework was then used to reduce the text in each interview transcript to its essential meaning. Each researcher reread the first interview transcript. Discussion, debate, and negotiation then followed as we applied the components of our organizing framework to the first interviewee. Where differences of opinion occurred, a researcher attempted to convince the others of the veracity of their claims. As a result of this ongoing and open exchange, we reached agreement about the components of the first interviewee's conceptions that we believed were most faithful to the interviewee's understanding of their lived experience of PhD supervision, as represented by their interview transcript. We then repeated this process for the next interviewee until all of the transcripts had been reduced into the organizing framework. Conceptions began to emerge from our organizing framework as we alternated between what the interviewees considered PhD supervision to be, how they enacted supervision in their roles and activities, and why they had come to this understanding of supervision. Once these conceptions emerged, we tentatively grouped together interviewees who shared conceptions of supervision that were similar to each other and were different from those conceptions expressed by other super-visors. We then cross-examined our interpretations of each interviewee's understanding of supervision by proposing and debating alternative interpretations. This cross-examination continued until we, as a group, reached agreement on two issues: First, we believed we had established the most authentic interpretation of each interviewee's understanding. Second, we believed we had grouped interviewees expressing qualitatively similar understandings into the same category of description and had grouped interviewees expressing qualitatively different conceptions into different categories of description. Five categories of description, which we labelled as Conceptions 1 through to 5, emerged from this process. Through the same iterative process, and through open dialogue and debate between the members of the research team, we were then able to map the five conceptions into an outcome space. The outcome space illustrates the relationships between the differing conceptions in two ways: First, the outcome space illustrates the outcome of higher priority sought by the supervisor (completion of the PhD or new insight). Second, it distinguishes the fundamental approach to supervision as either pushing (the student is a self-directed learner) or pulling (the student is a managed learner) the student through the process. Table 2 summarizes the techniques we applied, as derived from the literature, to improve the validity and reliability of our interpretations of the interviewee's experiences as expressed in the transcripts.
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Various Motives for Corporate Takeovers
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) occur when two or more organisations join together all or part of their operations (Coyle, 2000). Strictly defined, a corporate takeover refers to one business acquiring another by taking ownership of a controlling stake of another business, or taking over a business operation and its assets (Coyle, 2000). Corporate takeovers have been occurring for many decades, and have historically occurred on a cyclical basis, increasing and decreasing in volume in what has been termed merger waves since the late 1800s (Sudarsanam, 2010). There can be a number of distinct motives for corporate M&A and this short essay will discuss a number of these, drawing on theoretical and financial theory as well as empirical evidence to explain their rationale. The first group of motives to be discussed are those that relate and can be explained by the classical approach to financial theory (Icke, 2014). These motives assume that firms do not make mistakes and acquire other companies as they believe that doing so will result in increased profitability (Baker & Nofsinger, 2010) as they allow for the achievement of enhanced economies of scale or scope (Lipcynski et al., 2009). This theoretical perspective can be used to explain a number of motives. First, corporate takeovers can be used as a route to achieving geographic expansion. By acquiring another company in a different country or with more geographically-diverse operations, an acquiring company can expand its markets and thus expand its sales opportunities. The larger business post-acquisition can then, if implemented efficiently, benefit from economies of scale associated with reducing unit input costs, ultimately increasing profitability. A second reason for completing a takeover could be to increase market share within a market a firm is already operating in. This can result in increased profits through again allowing for increased economies of scale through decreasing unit costs and can also increase profitability by reducing the number of competitors in a market. Thirdly, acquiring businesses at different stages in the supply chain, known as vertical integration (Icke, 2014), can allow for enhanced profitability as it can facilitate enhanced value in the supply chain and the potential to exercise control and scale benefits over inputs to production and the overall cost of output. Other motives for corporate takeovers can be categorised as being more consistent with the behavioural school of thought. This considers that M&A is driven by factors other than for pure profit maximization (Icke, 2014; Martynova and Renneboog, 2008). There a number of reasons why M&A may take place where the opportunity to benefit from scale economies is not the key driver.
First, a company may engage in an acquisition in a bid to increase their size to prevent bids from other companies. This is consistent with the concept of ‘eat or be eaten’ (Gorton et al., 2005) which hypothesizes that during waves of M&A activity, firms feel vulnerable to takeover bids and as such feel compelled to engage in their own M&A activity in order to increase their size and minimize interest from potential bids. A second motive for M&A that relates more to the behavioural school (but does possess some economic basis) is the opportunistic M&A activity associated with management taking advantage of a relative increase in the value of its stock to acquire a target in an equity-funded acquisition. In this case, it is the perceived opportunity to buy another company ‘cheaply’ that drives the acquisition, rather than the profit motive if all other variables are held equal.
What empirical evidence do we have in regard to value creation following a takeover for:
- the bidder firm’s shareholders
- the acquired firm’s shareholders
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) occur when two or more organisations join together all or part of their operations (Coyle, 2000). A number of empirical studies have been performed in order to ascertain the extent of value creation following a takeover for both the bidder firm and the acquired firm. Shareholders of the acquired firm have consistently experienced positive value impacts (Icke, 2012; Martynova and Renneboog, 2008) following completion of a takeover, while evidence of value creation following a takeover for the acquirer has been inconsistent and is broadly considered to be inconclusive (Angwin, 2007). This essay will discuss the empirical evidence of the value impact following corporate takeovers for both parties, looking at a broad range of evidence spanning the time following announcement to the fiscal years following completion of a takeover. The essay will briefly discuss the limitations of the evidence based on the highly differentiated nature of the M&A landscape and the presence of significant independent variables. It will then evaluate the results before arguing that for the bidder firm’s shareholders evidence of value creation is broadly inconclusive and that it appears that any value creation that is witnessed differs depending on the type and motives for the acquisition, as well as when it is taking place. It will argue that, as is consistent with the majority of empirical studies, value creation for the acquired company’s shareholders is positive (Martynova and Renneboog, 2008). The value creation experienced by shareholders in the bidder firm following a takeover can be considered both post announcement and in the years following completion and integration of the businesses.
Value impacts at announcement are most profound in the impact of share price fluctuations while performance-based metrics, such as profitability, can be used to assess value impacts following takeover (Icke, 2012). First looking at the empirical evidence that supports positive value creation for the acquiring shareholders it is clear that there are a number of studies that demonstrate the positive value creating effects of a cross-section of transaction types. Looking at the US and Europe, Martynova and Renneboog (2008) measure the value impacts following a takeover by studying a century of historical M&A transactions. The evidence indicates that in the case of European cross-border transactions, value is created in terms of post-acquisition performance. Looking at developing countries, Kumar (2009) finds that in the case of developing economies, acquirer shareholders tend to experience better returns in both the short and long term following an acquisition than in developed economies. Gugler et al (2003), look specifically at the impact on sales and profitability of a takeover and find that acquisitions have a statistically significant impact on profit of the acquiring company.
Chari et al. (2010) look at cross-border transactions and provides evidence that the acquirers will experience improved post-merger performance, but that this is dependent on having intangible asset advantages that can be exploited abroad. Villalonga (2004) studied diversification takeovers in a study that reviewed the share price performance of diversified conglomerates versus non-diversified trading peers in the years following the transaction.
The evidence reveals that diversified firms actually trade at a large and significant premium to their peers, thus suggesting that this type of acquisition can drive long term value gain for shareholders in the post-acquisition entity. Draper and Paudyal (2006) studied the value creating impacts of private versus public takeovers and found that value creation for the acquiring company when the target is private is broadly positive. An empirical study by Icke (2014) looks at European and US M&A transactions by motive for takeover and finds that, in terms of announcement effects on share price, transactions driven by an increase in market share, research & development synergies and vertical transactions are rewarding for the acquiring company. In terms of longer term gains, Icke (2014) shows that transactions driven by increase in market share, geographic expansion, vertical integration and diversification all have a positive effect. In contrast, there is a wide body of empirical research which contrasts with the findings of the above studies and covers a range of different M&A situations where value is in fact destroyed for the acquiring company shareholder both in terms of share price at announcement and in terms of post-integration performance. In a study that considers a broad range of takeover motivations, Walker (2000) finds that acquiring companies experience overall negative value impacts and those anomalies in which acquirers actually gain in the longer term are so infrequent they are considered to be statistically insignificant. When Martynova and Renneboog (2008) study US transactions aimed at achieving diversification the evidence indicates that post-acquisition value is destroyed for acquiring shareholders following a transaction and that wealth effects at announcement for acquirers are inconclusive. In a 2005 study, Powell and Stark (2005) find that post-acquisition performance in terms of sales impact, is actually positive for the acquirer, however, when this is controlled for extra working capital, the effect is inconclusive and likely a net negative result. Looking at vertical integration takeovers, both Kedia et al (2011) and Walker (2000) find that in the case of US transactions, takeovers result in value destruction for acquiring company shareholders.
Icke (2014) also found that R&D driven takeovers have a negative effect. The empirical evidence in relation to target firms’ shareholder value creation is significantly more conclusive across the spectrum of types of M&A. Empirical studies, which tend to focus on value creation for the owners of target companies primarily looks at shareholder value at announcement (Icke, 2014) in the form of share price rises and the premiums acquirers pay. Martynova and Renneboog (2008) find that targets gain value from announcement of a takeover and furthermore find that this gain is consistent across merger cycles, regardless of whether the takeover occurs during the peak or the low of the merger waves witnessed throughout the past century (Martynova and Renneboog 2008). Their study into US takeovers demonstrates that the value creation is significant in size, often reaching double digit growth on the value prior to announcement. In a study of hostile versus friendly takeovers, Shwert (1996) found that target shareholders experience significant gains from a takeover that has come about as a result of a tender process, rather than a hostile a single party bidding round, although found broadly positive results across both types for target shareholders. Likewise, studying the method of payment and the impact on value creation for target shareholders, Goergen and Renneboog (2004) found that all-cash offers trigger ARs of almost 10 percent upon announcement whereas all-equity bids or offers combining cash, equity and loan notes only generated a return of 6 percent but still resulted in positive value creation for the target company. Empirical studies have also been conducted on transaction data based around the concept of merger waves. That is to look at transactions not as isolated occurrences but as events that have taken place within one of the six identified waves of M&A activity since the late 1800s (Sudarsanam, 2010). By looking at takeovers from the perspective of when they occurred, it is possible to identify more consistent patterns in value creation and to derive theories of attribution for these gains. Icke (2014) reviews a number of studies and finds that value creation for shareholders in both the target and the acquiring company varies depending on the wave in which it occurs when other variables are considered to be constant.
Icke (2014) shows that the third wave generated largely positive returns for parties engaged in takeovers, while the fourth was broadly negative and the value impacts were indistinguishable during the fifth. This evidence of environment-sensitivity adds further complexity to the evidence surrounding value creation in takeovers. Overall there is a wealth of empirical evidence available into the value impacts of corporate takeovers, however, the evidence is broadly inconclusive in determining the value creating opportunities for acquirers while it is broadly conclusive that target company shareholders will gain (Martynova and Renneboog 2008). The inconclusive nature is caused by methodological inconsistencies as a result of mixed methods, the difficulty capturing operational change, the different time periods and sample size distortions (Icke, 2014) as well as the vastly differentiated base of empirical evidence that exists, as discussed in this essay. As Icke (2014) states, the value effects of takeovers are, ultimately, non-conclusive. However, based on the empirical evidence discussed in this essay and drawing on Wang and Moini (2012), the general conclusion can be seen to be that in short-term event studies (addressing the impacts post-announcement) acquirers’ will either experience some normal returns or significant losses, while the target firms have shown to consistently experience positive value creation in the same timeframe. Post-acquisition performance is extremely difficult to measure and the evidence has been mixed.
Furthermore, as Angwin (2007) argues, strategic motivations are essential for understanding post-takeover performance and for measuring the isolated effects of the takeover. In conclusion, there exists a number of studies and a diverse body of empirical evidence into the value creating effects of takeovers for both target and acquirer shareholders. For target shareholders, studies focus on the announcement effects and are broadly positive, while for acquirer shareholders, studies look at both announcement and post transaction performance and show a broadly negative value impact with some evidence of positive value creation in certain types of M&A scenario and during certain periods (waves) in history.
Bibliography
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Various Motives for Corporate Takeovers. (2017, Jun 26).
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Collaborative Practice in Australian Maternity Settings: Focus on Rural and Remote Practice
In the context of maternity care, 'collaboration' is defined as a shared partnership between a birthing woman, midwives, doctors and other members of a multidisciplinary team (National Health & Medical Research Council, 2010). Collaborative practice is based on the philosophy that multidisciplinary teams can deliver care superior to that which could be provided by any one profession alone (National Health & Medical Research Council, 2010). Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that collaborative maternity practice does improve outcomes for women, including both clinical outcomes and consumer satisfaction with care (Hastie & Fahy, 2011). Collaborative practice is particularly important in Australian rural and remote maternity settings, which are characterised by fragmented, discontinuous care provision (Downe et al., 2010). As such, both the Code of Ethics for Midwives in Australia (for midwives and obstetric nurses) and the Collaborative Maternity Care Statement (for obstetricians and other doctors) require that a collaborative model of care be adopted in Australian maternity settings. However, inconsistencies between and among midwives and doctors about the definition of 'collaboration', and subsequent ineffective collaborative practice, remain key causes of adverse outcomes in maternity settings in Australia (Hastie & Fahy, 2011; Heatley & Kruske, 2011). This paper provides a critical analysis of collaborative practice in Australian rural and remote maternity settings.
Rural and remote maternity care in Australia
It is estimated that one-third of birthing women in Australia live outside of major metropolitan centres – defined for the purpose of this paper as 'rural and remote regions' (National Health & Medical Research Council, 2010). However, the number of facilities offering maternity care to women in these regions is just 156 and declining (2007 estimate) (Australian Government Department of Health, 2011). Australian research suggests that the decreasing number of rural and remote maternity services is resulting in more women having high-risk, unplanned and unassisted births outside of medicalised maternity services (Francis et al., 2012; McLelland et al., 2013); indeed, one recent study drew a direct correlation between these two factors (Kildea et al., 2015). Additionally, statistics suggest that both maternal and neonatal perinatal mortality rates in Australia are highest in rural and remote regions (Australian Government Department of Health, 2011). High perinatal mortality rates and lack of services in rural and remote communities mean that many rural and remote women are transferred to metropolitan centres, often mandatorily, for birth (Josif et al., 2014). This system has resulted in fragmented, discontinuous care for many rural and remote women – which is itself a poor outcome (National Health & Medical Research Council, 2010; Sandall et al., 2015). Many women find such models of care to be significantly disempowering, which again may result in poorer outcomes (Josif et al., 2014). Indeed, many women, and particularly Aboriginal women, may resist engaging with medicalised maternity services to avoid being transferred 'off-country' for birth (Josif et al., 2014). Furthermore, those women who are transferred 'off-country' for birth bear a significant financial, social and cultural burden (Dunbar, 2011; Evans et al., 2011; Hoang & Le, 2013).
Australian maternity services reform
In response to these issues, in 2009 the Australian government commenced a major reform of maternity care. This reform included attempts to shift maternity services provided to rural and remote women to more collaborative, continuous, community-centred models (Francis et al., 2012). These new models of care require midwives to work collaboratively with general practitioners, obstetricians and rural doctors to care for a rural or remote woman in her own community to the greatest extent possible (McIntyre et al., 2012a). Evidence suggests that rural and remote women desire to be cared for in their local communities provided the maternity services offered are safe (Hoang & Le, 2013). Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that women, and particularly Aboriginal women, who birth within their communities have an increased likelihood of positive outcomes (Commonwealth of Australia, 2009). However, the National Guidance on Collaborative Maternity Care, which resulted from the government reforms, notes there are a number of unique and significant challenges to achieving collaborative practice in rural and remote community settings (National Health & Medical Research Council, 2010).
Collaborative care in Australian maternity settings – challenges and complexities
The fundamental aim of collaborative services in Australia is the provision of 'woman-centred care', where women are empowered to be active partners in the provision of their care (National Health & Medical Research Council, 2010). It is well-established that the delivery of woman-centred care in a maternity setting produces the best outcomes, in terms of both clinical outcomes and consumer satisfaction with care (Pairman et al., 2006). In a recent Australian study, Jenkins et al. (2015) suggest that collaboration is fundamental in the achievement of woman-centred care in rural and remote settings in terms of continuity of care – including consistency in communication between care providers – across often vast geographical regions. However, conflicting definitions and interpretations of the concept of 'woman-centred care' between midwives and doctors are a key barrier to achieving collaborative practice in Australian maternity settings (Lane, 2006). These problems are magnified in rural and remote settings, where transfers of care between midwives and doctors often occur abruptly when women are transported 'off-country' to deliver (Lane, 2012). Differences in understandings of the concept of 'woman-centred care' between midwives and doctors – and, therefore, impairments to effective collaboration – are underpinned by midwives' and doctors' differing perceptions of 'risk' in childbirth. Indeed, a study by Beasley et al. (2012) identified incompatible perceptions of best-practice strategies to mitigate risk as the key factor underpinning the lack of collaborative practice between midwives and doctors in Australian maternity settings. Whilst midwives focus on normalcy, wellness and physiology in birth, doctors place an emphasis on intervention – both valid approaches to risk mitigation in birth, but fundamentally contradictory (Lane, 2006; Beasley et al. 2012; Downe et al., 2010; Lane 2006). These differing philosophies of care have resulted in increasing tensions in maternity settings, and this has been exacerbated by sensationalist media reporting, particularly following the Senate Inquiries into Media Reform of 2008/09 (Beasley et al., 2012). The concept of risk is particularly important in rural and remote settings, given the decision to transfer a woman 'off-country' is often made on the basis of risk. The reforms to the Australian maternity system – including the introduction of the Nurses and Midwives Act 2009 – have resulted in significant increases to midwives' scope of practice and autonomy (National Health & Medical Research Council, 2010; Beasley et al., 2012). This is particularly important in rural settings, where midwives are often required to be 'specialist generalists' with a diverse suite of clinical skills (Gleeson, 2015). However, this expansion in midwives' scope has further challenged the achievement of collaborative practice in Australian maternity settings. Tensions have occurred because doctors often perceive themselves to be solely accountable for the outcomes of maternity care and, therefore, legally vulnerable when practicing under midwifery-led models of care focusing in risk-mitigation strategies to which they may be unaccustomed or opposed (Lane, 2006; Beasley et al., 2012). These issues are particularly obvious in rural and remote maternity settings, where the referral of the care of birthing women by midwives to doctors may occur primarily during obstetric emergencies. Doctors in Australia have been particularly vocal about the fact that there is poor evidence to support the safety of midwifery-led models of care, including in rural and remote maternity settings (Boxall & Flitcroft, 2007). The expansion in midwives' scope of practice has also challenged the achievement of collaborative practice in Australian maternity settings in other ways. Australian research suggests doctors fear the expansion of midwives' scope will result in them becoming redundant in, and therefore, excluded from maternity settings, and that a decline in clinical outcomes will result (Lane, 2012). As noted by Barclay and Tracy (2010), despite the recent increases to midwives' scope of practice, both midwives' and doctors' continue to have a distinct scope in terms of caring for a birthing woman and both remain legally bound to practice within this scope. However, many doctors continue to oppose the reforms to the maternity system on the basis of changes in midwives' scope – and also because these reforms may not be evidence based, may fail to meet the needs of women (and particularly the unique needs of rural and remote women), and are driven by service providers rather than consumers (Boxall & Flitcroft, 2007; McIntyre et al., 2012b; Hoang & Le, 2013). Again, doctors' opposition to changes in midwives' scope significantly impairs the achievement of collaborative practice in Australian maternity settings. These issues are further complicated by the fact that Commonwealth law now requires midwives practicing in Australia to have 'collaborative arrangements' with a medical practitioner if they are to receive Medicare-provider status (Barclay & Tracy, 2010). This particularly affects private-practice midwives practicing in rural and remote areas of Australia. However, as noted by Lane (2012), such legislation – which effectively forces midwives and doctors into a collaborative relationship – is fundamentally inconsistent with the concept of collaboration as a professional relationship based on equity, trust and respect. Further, these reforms impose collaboration and compel midwives and doctors to form collaborative relationships are unworkable in many rural and remote maternity settings. Often, midwives practicing in these settings work with doctors who are fly-in fly-out locums, who are on temporary placements or who are located in regional centres many hundreds of kilometres away, making the establishment of genuine collaborative relationships a highly complex process (Barclay & Tracy, 2010).
Collaborative care in Australian maternity settings – opportunities and achievement
Despite these significant issues, however, research suggests that collaboration can be achieved in Australian rural and remote maternity settings. The first step in achieving collaboration in this context is for both midwives and doctors to undergo a 'shift in perception' with regards to each other's' professional roles and boundaries (Lane, 2006; McIntyre et al., 2012a). This will particularly involve doctors' increasing acceptance of midwives' expanding role in rural and remote maternity care provision. Rural and remote maternity services in particular provide positive examples of midwifery-led models of maternity care providing maternity services which are both safe and effective (McIntyre et al., 2012a); indeed, one study concludes that shared but midwifery-led models are the best way to achieve continuity of care in rural and remote maternity settings (Francis et al., 2012). Therefore, evidence from these models may be used to bolster doctors' confidence in the efficacy of midwifery-led approaches to maternity care. However, for this to be achieved, incompatibilities in care philosophies between midwives and doctors must be overcome. This may commence with midwives and doctors recognising that both professions share the same basic goal of achieving the best outcomes for women (Lane, 2006). Communication is also fundamental to the achievement of collaborative practice in Australian maternity settings (National Health & Medical Research Council, 2010). Indeed, Lane (2012) notes that effective communication between midwives and doctors is one of the 'minimal conditions' which must be met if collaborative practice in maternity settings is to be achieved. However, there are a range of barriers to effective communication between midwives and doctors in rural and remote maternity settings, the most significant of which is geographical distance. 'Telehealth', which involves the use of telecommunication technologies to facilitate communication between clinicians – and particularly those who care for 'priority consumers' such as mothers and babies' – in geographically diverse regions of Australia may be useful in promoting collaborative practice in rural and remote maternity settings (Australian Nursing Federation 2013). The National Health & Medical Research Council (2010) also identifies written documentation – including pregnancy records, care pathways and a transfer / retrieval plan – to be important in fostering collaborative practice in in rural and remote maternity settings. Collaboration, or practice based on a shared partnership between a birthing woman, midwives, doctors and other members of a multidisciplinary team, results in improves outcomes for birthing women. As such, codes of practice for both midwives and doctors in Australia require that collaborative practice be utilised in Australian maternity settings. Research evidence suggests that due to the unique challenges posed by rural and remote maternity settings in Australia, collaborative practice is particularly important in this context. However, in Australia in general – and in rural and remote maternity settings in particular – collaborative practice is both lacking and challenging to achieve. This paper has provided a critical analysis of collaborative practice, with a particular focus on Australian rural and remote maternity settings. It has concluded that whilst it may be challenging to achieve, collaboration in Australian rural and remote maternity settings can – and, indeed, should – be achieved in order to promote the best outcomes for birthing women in these regions.
References
Australian Government Department of Health, (2011), Provision of Maternity Care, accessed 02 October 2015, https://www.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/pacd-maternityservicesplan-toc~pacd-maternityservicesplan-chapter3#Rural%20and%20remote%20services Australian Nursing Federation, (2013), Telehealth standards: Registered midwives, accessed 02 October 2015, https://crana.org.au/files/pdfs/Telehealth_Standards_Registered_Midwives.pdf Barclay, L & Tracy, SK, (2010), Legally binding midwives to doctors is not collaboration, Women & Birth, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 1-2. Beasley, S, Ford, N, Tracy, SK & Welsh, AW, (2012), Collaboration in maternity care is achievable and practical, Australia & New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, vol. 52, no.6, 576-581. Boxall, AM & Flitcroft, K, (2007), From little things, big things grow: A local approach to system-wide maternity services reform in the absence of definitive evidence, Australia & New Zealand Health Policy, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 18. Commonwealth of Australia, (2009), Improving Maternity Services in Australia: The Report of the Maternity Services Review, accessed 02 October 2015, https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/624EF4BED503DB5BCA257BF0001DC83C/$File/Improving%20Maternity%20Services%20in%20Australia%20-%20The%20Report%20of%20the%20Maternity%20Services%20Review.pdf Downe, S, Finlayson, K & Fleming, A, (2010), Creating a collaborative culture in maternity care, Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 250-254.A Dunbar, T, (2011), Aboriginal people's experiences of health and family services in the Northern Territory, International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 2-16. Evans, R, Veitch, C, Hays, R, Clark, M & Larkins, S, (2011), Rural maternity care and health policy: Parents' experiences, Australian Journal of Rural Health, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 306-311. Francis, K, McLeod, M, McIntyre, M, Mills, J, Miles, M & Bradley, A (2012), Australian rural maternity services: Creating a future or putting the last nail in the coffin?, Australian Journal of Rural Health, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 281-284. Gleeson, G (2015), Contemporary midwifery education focusing on maternal emergency skills in remote and isolated areas, Australian Nursing & Midwifery Journal, vol. 22, no. 11, p. 48. Hastie, C & Fahy, K (2011), Interprofessional collaboration in delivery suite: A qualitative study, Women & Birth, no. 24, vol. 2, pp. 72-79. Heatley, M & Kruske, S (2011), Defining collaboration in Australian maternity care, Women & Birth, no. 24, vol. 2, pp. 53-57. Hoang, H & Le, Q (2013), Comprehensive picture of rural women's needs in maternity care in Tasmania, Australia, Australian Journal of Rural Health, vol. 21, pp. 197-202. Jenkins, MG, Ford, JB, Todd, AL, Forsyth, R, Morris, J & Roberts, CL (2015), Women's views about maternity care: How do women conceptualise the process of continuity?, Midwifery, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 25-30. Josif, CM, Barclay, L, Kruske, S & Kildea, S (2014), 'No more strangers': Investigating the experience of women, midwives and others during the establishment of a new model of maternity care for remote dwelling Aboriginal women in northern Australia, Midwifery, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 317-323. Kildea, S, McGhie, AC, Ghao, Y, Rumbold, A & Rolfe, M (2015), Babies born before arrival to hospital and maternity unit closures in Queensland and Australia, Women & Birth, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 236-245. Lane, K (2006), The plasticity of professional boundaries: A case study of collaborative care in maternity services, Health Sociology Review, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 341-352. Lane, K (2012), When is collaboration not collaboration? When it's militarized, Women & Birth, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 29-38. McIntyre, M, Francis, K & Champan, Y (2012a), The struggle for contested boundaries in the move to collaborative care teams in Australian maternity care, Midwifery, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 298-305. McIntyre, M, Francis, K & Chapman, Y (2012b), Primary maternity care reform: Whose influence is driving the change?, Midwifery, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 705-711. McLelland, G, McKenna, L & Archer, F (2013), No fixed place of birth: Unplanned BBAs in Victoria, Australia, Midwifery, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 19-25. National Health and Medical Research Council (2010), National Guidance on Collaborative Maternity Care, accessed 02 October 2015, https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/publications/attachments/CP124.pdf Pairman, S, Pincombe, J, Thorogood, C & Tracy, S (2006), Midwifery: Preparation for Practice, Churchill Livingstone Elsevier, Sydney. Sandall, J, Soltani, H, Gates, S, Shennan, A & Declan, D (2015), Midwife-led continuity models versus other models of care for childbearing women, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, accessed 02 October 2015, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004667.pub4/abstract
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What is Meant by Market Effciency?
Market efficiency has been a topic of interest and debate central amongst financial economists for more than five decades. Indeed, two of the recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2013, Eugene Fama and Robert Shiller, have debated about the efficiency of markets since the 1980s. Concerns about market efficiency were catapulted to prominence most recently by the financial crisis of 2007-8. Efficient capital markets are foundational to economic theories that posit the allocative efficiency of free markets, which requires informationally efficient capital allocation markets, such as those for equity and fixed income trading. An extended line of research has uncovered evidence of various anomalies which seem to challenge notions of market efficiency, and has also attempted to explain the causes of one such anomaly, the so-called "size effect." Though there appears to be substantial evidence that the size effect is real and persistent, violating the efficiency market hypothesis, no substantial evidence supports the size effect as violating market efficiency.
Market Efficiency
Refers to the efficiency with which markets allocate savings amongst competing investments. "In an allocationally efficient market, scarce savings are optimally allocated to productive investments in a way that benefits everyone" (Copeland, et al., 2005, p. 353). To provide optimal investment allocation, capital prices must provide market participants with accurate signals, and therefore prices must fully and instantaneously reflect all available relevant information (Copeland, et al., 2005). In advanced economies, secondary stock markets play an indirect role in capital allocation by revealing investment opportunities and information about managers' past investment decisions (Dow & Gorton, 1997). For secondary stock markets, and other formal capital markets, to efficiently and effectively fulfill these two roles, securities prices must "be good indicators of value" (Fama, 1976, p. 133). Therefore, allocative market efficiency requires capital market prices to be informational efficient. Informational efficiency implies no-arbitrage pricing of tradeable securities and entails several defining characteristics that form the basis of the efficiency market hypothesis. Generally. "
A market is efficient with respect to information set if it is impossible to make economic profits by trading on the basis of information set (Jensen, 1978, p. 98), where economic profits are defined as risk-adjusted returns minus trading and other costs. If security prices reflect all available relevant information, such as P/E ratios and past return variances, then it would be impossible to to use such information to profitably trade these securites. Therefore tests of the possibility of using publicly available information to earn economic profits constitute tests of infomational effiency. Tests of informational market efficiency generally take three forms, and comprise the elements of the efficient market hypothesis. Fama (1969) defined the three forms of market efficiency as the weak, semi-strong and strong form, with each form characterised by the nature of the information central to its application. Weak form efficiency tests are tests of the viability of using past price history of the market to predict future returns (which is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for trading for economic profits).
The semi-strong form of the efficienct market hypothesis tests whether all publicly available information could be used by traders to earn economic profits. And finally, the strong form of market effiency tests the viability of using all information, public as well as private, to generate economic profits. In the literature and amongst practicioners, it is the semi-strong form which "represents the accepted paradigm and is what is generally meant by unqualified references in the literature to the 'Efficient Market Hypothesis'" (Jensen, 1978, p. 99). And though some references to 'market efficiency' allude to the allocative efficiency of markets, the term market efficiency usually refers to informational efficiency as operationally defined by Fama's efficiency market hypothesis, specifically the semi-strong formulation. Since its formulation in the late 1960s, researchers have conducted thousands of tests of the efficiency market hypothesis and have found various anomalies, such as the size effect, which appear to violate the market efficiency.
Banz (1981) examined NYSE-listed common stock returns between 1936 and 1975 and found stocks with the smallest market capitalisaation earned a risk-adjusted return 0.40% per month higher than the remaining firms in his sample, which was the first evidence that the 'size effect' posed a challenge to semi-strong form efficiency. Analysing a sample of 566 NYSE and AMEX stocks over the 1963–1977 period, Reinganum (1981) found that portfolios constructed based on size exhibited predicatability of future returns, with the smallest sized portfolio outperforming the largest decile by 1.77% per month. Keim (1983), testing NYSE and AMEX stocks over the 1963-1979 period, reported a size premium of approximately 2.5% per month. Lamoureux & Sanger (1989) found a size premium for NASDAQ stocks (2.0% per month) and for NYSE/AMEX stocks (1.7% per month) over the 1973 to 1985 period. Fama & French (1992, p.438) concluded, "The size effect (smaller stocks have higher average returns) is robust in the 1963-1990 returns on NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ stocks." Though evidence continued to mount of a size effect, which entails that average stock returns of firms with small market capitalisation were significantly higher than the average returns for large capitalisation firms, Fama and French's paper preceded decades of research regarding explanations for the size effect and its possible implications.
Over the years researchers have offered a variety of empirical explanations, some of them mutually exclusive, for the size effect. Robert Merton (1987) argued that smaller firms have smaller investor bases and are less likely than larger firms to enjoy an institutional following amongst investors, making smaller firms less liquid and cheaper, which resulted in greater risk-adjusted returns. Chan & Chen (1991) asserted that smaller firms are more likely than large firms to either be distressed or only marginally profitable, and therefore small firms' prices are more responsive to changing business conditions, which loaded the size effect. Fama & French (1993, p.5) formed 25 portfolios of securities based on size and book-to-market and found that these "portfolios constructed to mimic risk factors related to size and BE/ME capture strong common variation in returns, no matter what else is in the time-series regressions. This is evidence that size and book-to-market equity indeed proxy for sensitivity to common risk factors in stock returns." Verifying their argument that the size effect was a proxy for common risk factors, Fama & French (1995) found evidence that firm size loaded profitability risk into the cross-section of stock returns. These, and other, empirical findings shed light on possible reasons for the size effect, but a consensus explanation never developed around a single cause. In contrast to the empirical and economic explanations for the size effect, some researchers questioned whether the size effect existed at all. Shumway & Warther (1999) argued that the small firm effect is essentially a statistical illusion, related not to actual share prices but to market microstructure issues which inhibit proper measurement of price movements.
They examined prices of NASDAQ-listed firms from 1972 to 1995, a period previous research associated with significant size effect, and found that after considering delisting bias (by accounting for delisted firms' final price movements before removal from the sample), the size effect disappeared completely. Wang (2000) argued along similar lines, contending the size effect resulted from survivorship bias. He argued that small stocks are relatively more volatile and therefore more likely than large firms to be delisted due to bankruptcy or failing to meet listing requirements. These delisted stocks are often excluded from the samples studied for the size effect, which would bias the returns of small stocks upwards. Wang (2000) used simulation experiments to test for the likelihood of the small firm effect under such circumstances and concluded that the effect was spurious. Examining all of the above explanations and others, Dijk (2011, p. 3272) concludes, "The empirical evidence for the size effect is consistent at first sight, but fragile at closer inspection. I believe that more empirical research is needed to establish the validity of the size effect." Though the causes of the size effect are interesting and remain an important topic of debate, more important are the possible implications of the size anomaly for the efficiency market hypothesis. The size anomaly appears to present a violation of efficient markets, especially to those observers who wrongfully presume that market efficiency implies stock prices must follow a random walk; however, no researcher has yet to show that information related to firm size can be leveraged by traders to earn economic profits. Recalling Jensen's (1978) definition of informational efficiency, the size effect violates market efficiency only if such information could be used to generate risk-adjusted abnormal returns. Though the size effect may indicate that stock returns are predictable, "if transaction costs are very high, predictability is no longer ruled out by arbitrage, since it would be too expensive to take advantage of even a large, predictable component in returns" (Timmermann & Granger, 2004, p. 19).
Therefore return predictability invalidates market efficiency when it produces risk-adjusted returns that subsume transaction costs. According to Stoll and Whaley (1983), who test whether the size anomaly can be exploited to earn risk-adjusted returns greater than transactions costs, find it is not possible for the sample of NYSE-listed firms examined over the 1960 to 1979 period. This is due in part to the relatively insignificance of small firms in relation to the market as a whole. As noted by Fama (1991, p. 1589), "the bottom quintile [of stocks] is only 1.5% of the combined value of NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ stocks. In contrast, the largest quintile has 389 stocks (7.6% of the total), but it is 77.2% of market wealth." So, even if the size effect is granted perfect validity, it does not necessarily negate the efficient market hypothesis. A final set of reasons ameliorating concerns about the size effect's threat to market efficiency is related to model specification. Abstracting from the specific arguments related to size effects, consideration of the joint hypothesis problem dampens concerns that size effects could be determined to violate market efficiency. Roll (1976) noted that the pricing models used to test market efficiency were also necessarily testing the validity of the specification of the market model (specifically, the validity of the market model proxy), which means that researchers' models were necessarily underspecified.
Violations seemingly attributable to the size effect, or any other apparent anomaly, can always be attributed to mispecification of the market model or mismeasurement of the market proxy, making it impossible to definitively infer anamolous behavior as evidence of market efficiency. Additionally, this time pointed out by Fama (1991, pp. 1588-9), "small-stock returns…are sensitive to small changes (imposed by rational trading) in the way small-stock portfolios are defined. This suggests that, until we know more about the pricing (and economic fundamentals) of small stocks, inferences should be cautious for the many anomalies where small stocks play a large role…".
Therefore, though there seems to be robust evidence for a size effect, transaction costs overwhelm risk-adjusted returns and model specification concerns generally blunt notions that size effects can be shown to disprove market efficiency. The global financial crisis of 2007-8 renewed prominent calls for dispensation of the notion of efficient markets, as the allocative efficiency of markets seemed in doubt after so much capital appeared to be wasted on ill-advised investments. But efficient market allocation of investments relies not on ex post views of past downturns, but on ex ante decisions about future investment opportunities. Efficient markets imply that all relevant information is impounded in current asset prices, maximising market participants' ability to allocate investment, which necessarily implies that the future is unpredictable—market efficiency prohibited the ability to forecast the financial crisis, as the model predicts. Alternatively, a long line of research has examined the possibility that anomalies, such as the size effect, disprove market efficiency. The size effect, however, though an interesting puzzle regarding the cross-section of stock returns, does not disprove market efficiency.
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How do Multi-national Corporations Raise Funds?
Sources of Finance
Multinational corporations have an array of methods they can utilise to raise capital as a means to fund different operational needs. This essay will critically analyse varied sources of finance, looking at their respective advantages and disadvantages. One of the most common methods entails borrowing funds from a bank (Taylor and Thrift, 2012). Whilst this is one source, it consists of three forms, short, medium or long term lending (Gurkaynak et al, 2005). These different forms serve diverse needs and have different interest rates, which is an important business decision facet. Short term lending represents a period under three years where the interest rate that is charged is conditioned on the credit rating of the company (Van Thadden, 2004). Multinational corporations are preferred clients for a bank, and the interest rates for different loans are negotiated as part of the agreement with the institution based on the company's credit rating (Grubel, 2014). Loans for a medium term period are usually three to ten years and generally consist of a fixed interest, or variable rate (Graham et al, 2008).
Under the latter, variable rate, the interest is adjusted at three, six, nine months and one year intervals periods in keeping with fluctuations of the Base Lending Rate (Goodfriend and McCallum, 2007). This rate is computed by banks under a formula that computes the cost of money to the bank along with its administrative overhead (Goodfriend and McCallum, 2007). As a means to understand the fluctuations in the Base Lending Rate among banks, the following table provides insight: Table 1 - Base Lending Rate for Selected Banks (realestateagent, 2015, p. 1) As can be seen, there are variations in the interest rates, which depending on the size of the loan can amount to a significant difference in the interest to be paid. Short and medium term loans can also consist of a discounted loan rate where the interest and other charges are computed when the loan is approved and then subtracted from the face amount (Gambacorta, 2008). These types of loans are beneficial to the borrower as the payments go to principle as opposed to paying down interest and principle under conventional loan types. Long terms loans are usually for a period over ten years, and can either be at a fixed or variable rate where the interest is progressively collected at the beginning stages of the loan, with more going to pay down the principle after the half way point (De Bondt, 2005).
This kind of loan is usually for large amounts and banks usually seek collateral guarantees that tie up property or other asset forms. As can be deduced, regardless of the bank loan type, a multinational is paying out a significant interest charge for the cost of borrowing the bank's funds. The other downside of any form of bank lending is that these show up on the multinational's balance sheets (Berger et al, 2005). This impacts analyst's ratings, depending on the size and term of the loan, as these types of events can negatively impact the stock trading price due to heightened liabilities. This can also affect the company's shareholders and in some causes cause a selloff of stock or initiate short selling that drives down a stock's price. Another method multinationals use to raise funds is through capital markets (Brunnermeir and Pedersen, 2009). This entails the issuance of stock using the current stock price as the basis for putting more shares into the company's public float. The negative impact of this approach is that it dilutes the holdings of existing shareholders if the stock price does not rise.
The benefit of this method is that the corporation does not incur any debt as the money raised is from the sale of shares (Brunnermeir and Pedersen, 2009). This can be accomplished by a number of methods. Private placement is usually the preferred method large multinationals use. This consists of selling blocks of stock to pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds or investment bankers (Kwan and Carleton, 2010). One of the negatives of raising funds in this manner is that private placement permits the buyers to acquire shares at a price lower than the current market (Ming and Siyong, 2009). This represents the incentive for purchase. The private placement includes a holding period where the buyers cannot sell these shares and sometimes limits the size of the blocks they can release. The company would need to work to raise the stock price in the interim period (usually one year) to absorb these stock sales when the waiting period expires in order to provide the buyers with an incentive to participate in future private placements (Cronqvist and Nilsson, 2005). Essentially, the corporation is betting that the use of the funds raised will positively impact the stock price causing it to rise and stay at a heightened level.
The negative aspect is that brokerage firms and investors are made aware of private placements, and if their reaction to this is negative, the company's stock price might retreat (Cronqvist and Nilsson, 2005). This could potentially sour relationships with the buyers and cause short selling. The use of equity financing is a deft financial move by a multinational that can be beneficial in terms of the lack of borrowing costs (interest), but it also can negatively impact share prices if the use of funds does not garner positive revenue results or acceptance by the market. Retained earnings are another method multinationals use for finance. This represents money the corporation has accumulated from past operations, which can be significant (Farma and French, 2005). The problem with the use of retained earnings as a source of finance is that it is a balance sheet item that analysts use to value the price of a company's stock (Crawford et al, 2005). Drawing on funds held as retained earnings can sometimes impact the company's stock price. This is not always the case as there are instances such as Apple, where shareholders have complained that some of the company's massive retained earnings could be put to better use (Lax and Sabenius, 2006). Depending on the cash reserves a company has, if the amount of funds depleted from retained earnings is significant, it could cause the stock price to be revalued downward. Apple is an unusual example as the company's retained earnings as of May 2015 was an astonishing $100,920 billion (Ycharts, 2015, p. 1). Whilst this is not a UK company, it serves as an example of the power of retained earnings as companies doing business with Apple understand that it has the financial clout to cause deals to happen. It also means that Apple can negotiate for better terms. This is a critical aspect in financing as it can reduce the cost of the deal and thus add potential value from this stage in addition to projected earnings that will accrue (Lax and Sabenius, 2006).
Sources of Finance for a UK Company seeking to expand in Asia
In terms of a UK company seeking to expand its operations into Asia, there are a number of factors and considerations a multinational corporation needs to take into account in terms of the method used to raise funds. There are many forms such and expansion could take. These can be the UK company setting up a wholly owned subsidiary, to acquiring the operations of an Asian company as well as joint venture deals. Regardless of the approach, a UK company needs to be mindful that the company will be negotiating on some level with Asian companies, officials or agencies (Pruitt, 2013). Another important consideration is that there are different cultural nuances in dealing with Asia. This is a highly important point in terms of negotiations for land, new facilities, suppliers, joint venture partners as well as labour. In an article by Benoliel (2007, pp. 2-4), he states that business practices and cultural values differ in Asia from the UK. This entails understanding the impact of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism (Benoliel, 2007, p. 3).
A key underpinning of Asian cultures is "wu lun"(Benoliel, 2007, p. 3). Its relevance to this study is that the term signifies stability, which is a cornerstone of Asian values. Other Asian values include harmony, behaviour towards others, mastery, respect for traditions and reciprocity of favours (Benoliel, 2007, p. 3). These aspects have been mentioned because meetings and negotiations are a part of any process concerning a UK company expanding into Asia. In terms of the sources of finances reviewed, the top selection represents retained earnings. This has been selected as the use of a company's accumulated cash represents a wise use of funds where the anticipated return would be greater than the interest earnings from finance vehicles. More importantly, funds that a company invests in its operations, represented by expansion in Asia have other benefits. The first is control. The use of retained earning for investing in an Asia expansion project, regardless of the type (plant, new markets, production, new suppliers, or joint ventures), means the company has control over its funds.
This is not the case in terms of investing in financial vehicles using idle cash. Being able to finance a deal from internal cash means the company has the resources to weather unforeseen situations and circumstances that might occur. In selecting retained earnings, this assumes that the company's cash hoard is sufficiently large enough so that the deal does not deplete all of the company's financial reserves. A benefit of using retained earnings is that depending on the type of expansion area the projected earnings window concerning revenue generation and extent of company exposure is the question. If the percentage of retained earnings used allows for a good reserve, typically 60 percent, then the prospects of dealing with unforeseen events is heightened (Farma and French, 2005). The second preferred method entails a mixture of retained earnings and equity financing. These two sources in combination represent a debt free approach when the company's retained earnings are not large enough to finance the expansion project and leave a sufficient reserve against unforeseen events.
Depending on the amount of retain earnings used, 40 percent of the total seems to represent a good figure if the company's on hand cash is not large enough to underwrite the entire project. This would leave 60 percent in reserve. A private placement provides the means to secure the remaining financing. In some instances, the use of an equity and retained earning approach might have more benefits than simply using all retained earning funds. The basis for this statement is that if the company controls most of the critical aspects in the expansion plan, such as manufacturing, outlets, and control over supplies, then the use of part stock might be beneficial. This means that the UK company will have to plan effectively to cause the project to meet the targets set in order to minimise negative assessments by analysts. The third choice would represent an all equity finance approach using private placement. As brought forth, this eliminates the need for debt and interest charges, but there are downsides to this approach. The first is the amount of projected funds needed to complete the project. Unforeseen events are always a risk element (Merna and Al-Thani, 2011).
This means the company would need to add a contingency of at least 20 percent in the private placement in order to have a reserve. The problem with this is it means additional shares are issued. As these shares later become tradable, the company is taking the risk that if projections and target dates are missed, the impact of shares hitting the market in the future could negatively impact the share price. This represents the impact of share dilution that cannot be absorbed by the market when the project is not meeting projected results. This method represents more risk on the part of the UK multinational as it is betting its future stock performance against project results. The consequences could negatively impact present shareholders and institutional investors if the company's opportunity does not go as planned. As mentioned, this can also include short selling. Any form of bank borrowing is the least preferable of all the methods. This is because the company would be taking on debt. From a shareholder and analyst viewpoint, it could indicate that the corporation is not financially sound in terms of preparations for such an expansion because it did not accumulate the needed capital internally. There are instances where an attractive deal presents itself so that a firm has to act. This means that borrowing might represent a level of commitment. As indicated, the downside is the debt taken on to fund the deal. This places pressures on the corporation to the point where unforeseen circumstances could put the entire company in an adverse position.
References
- Benoliel (2007) Negotiating Successfully in Asia. (online) Available at https://www.centerfornegotiation.com/assets/Negotiating_successfully_in_Asia.pdf
- Berger, A., Miller, N., Petersen, M., Rajan, R., Stein, J. (2005) Does function follow organizational form? Evidence from the lending practices of large and small banks. Journal of Financial Economics. 76(2). pp. 243-245.
- Brunnermeir, M., Pedersen, L. (2009) Market Liquidity and Funding Liquidity. The Review of Financial Studies. 22(6) pp. 2205-2206.
- Crawford, D., Franz, D., Lobo, G. (2005) Signalling Managerial Optimism through Stock Dividends and Stock Splits: A Re-examination of the Retained Earnings Hypothesis. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. 40(93). pp. 538=539.
- Cronqvist, H., Nilsson, M. (2005) The choice between rights offerings and private equity placements. Journal of Financial Economics. 78(2). pp. 377-379.
- De Bondt, G. (2005) Interest Rate Pass-Through: Empirical Results for the Euro Area. German Economic Review. 6(1). pp. 45-47.
- Farma, E., French, K. (2005) Financing decisions: who issues stock? Journal of Financial Economics. 76(3). pp. 551-553.
- Gambacorta, L. (2008) How do banks set interest rates? European Economic Review. 52(5). pp. 796-799.
- Goodfriend, M., McCallum, B. (2007) Banking and interest rates in monetary policy analysis: A quantitative exploration. Journal of Monetary Economics. 54(5). pp. 1485-1487
- Graham, J., Li, S., Qiu, J. (2008) Corporate misreporting and bank loan contracting. Journal of Financial Economics. 89(1). pp. 49-50.
- Grubel, H. (2014) A theory of multinational banking. PSL Quarterly Review. 30(123). pp. 34-47.
- Gurkaynak, R., Sack, B., Swanson, E. (2005) The Sensitivity of Long-Term Interest Rates to Economic News: Evidence and Implications for Macroeconomic Models. The American Economic Review. 95(1). pp. 431-431.
- Kwan, S., Carleton, W. (2010) Financial Contracting and the Choice between Private Placement and Publicly Offered Bonds. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking. 42(5). pp. 911-912.
- Lax, D., Sabenius, J. (2006) 3-D Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in Your Most Important Deals. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.
- Merna, T., Al-Thani, F. (2011) Corporate Risk Management. New York: John H. Wiley & Sons.
- Ming, Z., Siyong, G. (2009) Private Placement under the Control of Major Shareholder and Wealth Tunneling. London: The 19th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management. pp. 131-133.
- Nagel, S. (2005) Short sales, institutional investors and the cross-section of stock returns. Journal of Financial Economics. 78(2). pp. 281-283
- Pruitt, D. (2013) Negotiation Behavior. New York: Academic Press.
- Realestateagent (2015) Base Lending Rate (BLR). (online) Available at https://www.realestateagent.com.my/whatisblr.htm
- Saffi, P., Sigurdsson, K. (2010) Price Efficiency and Short Selling. The Review of Financial Studies. 24(3). pp. 826-828.
- Taylor, M., Thrift, N. (2012) The Geography of Multinationals. London: Routledge.
- Van Thadden, E. (2004) Asymmetric information, bank lending and implicit contracts: the winner's curse. Finance Research Letters. 1(1). pp. 14-16.
- Ycharts (2015) Apple Retained Earnings (Quarterly). (online) Available at https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/retained_earnings
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Example Film Studies Essay
European film movements are most clearly understood as part of the cinema of periphery in relation to popular Hollywood productions. In consideration of examples from one European country, to what extent is this an accurate view?
This essay will focus on some of the key movements in British cinema, looking at how they relate to the world of Hollywood. Firstly,I shall look at how British films have found their way into the American and world markets via the London-based company Working Title Films, and to what extent these films are integrated into the Hollywood scene. Secondly, There will be an assessment of the tradition of social realism in British cinema,including the New Wave and Brit Grit movements, and their place in international cinema. Next, I shall look at the documentary movement in British cinema, and its impact on the wider world. One of the most noticeable movements in British cinema in recent years has been the proliferation of the Working Title Films Company. Founded in London by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, Working Title has enhanced the profile of British cinema to an unprecedented extent. The screening of Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994 proved a turning point in the history of British film, proving vastly popular with American audiences,and subsequent productions from Working Title have helped to cement the place of the British Blockbuster in Hollywood. In this way, British cinema has been able to produce films with international mass appeal, and it is probably fair to say that there are more mainstream British films on at the cinema now than there were fifteen years ago. However, it is important to consider that,although there has been an increase in the commercial success of British film,it is still arguably seen as a satellite of Hollywood. For instance, even successful British films are often labelled as art cinema. In an article on Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth, Julian Hill argues that, Although it does offer entertainment through a fascinating narrative, the film as a whole is presented in a creative way, owing to the amateurish vision of Kapur. (Hill, 2000) Indeed, its relationship to Hollywood is entirely coloured by its status as an art film, and by implication, its partly British origins. Bordwell and Thompson argue that any British film of this type would be viewed as art cinema in Hollywood, as art cinema is a term, used by the US film industry to describe imported films of interest the upper-middle class, educated audiences. (Bordwell and Thompson, 1990) In this respect, British film is still marginalized in relation to Hollywood. Commercial success has been forthcoming, but the very fact that a film is British in origin leads it to be viewed in different terms to those in which a Hollywood movie is viewed. Even the big blockbusters of the Four Weddings ilk are viewed at least partly as foreign curiosities, and crucially they often try to appeal directly to an American audience, for example, containing a token American character. One area in which British cinema has perhaps demonstrated greater independence from Hollywood is in the field of so-called social realism films. There have been many movements over the different eras which fall into this category, from the New Wave cinema of the 1950s and '60s, such as Room at the Top (1958), to the what have been called Brit Grit films, like Nil by Mouth (1997), and this recurring idea of kitchen sink realism forms an important part of the British cinema tradition. Indeed,it has been suggested that all of these movements are a tradition in themselves(Thorpe, 1999, cited in Lay, 2002) It is in this area that, for many critics,the real essence of British cinema is found. It has been argued that the aesthetics of British realism are defined in terms of opposition to Hollywood spectacle. Visual and acting styles were to be restrained, the emphasis was to be on ordinary people in ordinary settings. (Cook, 1996) In this respect, British cinemais not always a mere satellite of Hollywood, as it also tries to be deliberately antagonistic towards Hollywood ideals. Unlike many of the Working Title films, with their quasi-American leanings and their use of a highly stylised Britishness, some social realism has sought to challenge this position. For example, in Trainspotting the audience is introduced to a much darker vision of Britain, and one less obviously palatable to Hollywood audiences, than that which is seen in Four Weddings and a Funeral. At first glance, one could argue that much British realism is so idiosyncratic as to be marginalized in the wider world, but films like Trainspotting and The Full Monty show that it is possible to make a film depicting ordinary British life that has mass appeal. However, although this form of cinema apparently demonstrates an indifference to Hollywood conventions, as cook notes above, it is actually not indifference but a form of rebellion. In this sense, British social realism as a part of international cinema can be seen as still subservient to Hollywood, albeit in a more subtle way than some of the other blockbusters. In order for it to be deliberately antagonistic toward the ideals of Hollywood, it is necessary that those ideals must exist,and in that sense, social realist films are peripheral to Hollywood as they fulfil the role of a counter-movement. Alongside realist fiction, a major area of British cinema is the documentary. Arguably Britain's major contribution to world cinema, its heyday was in the 1930s. The documentary movement was headed by John Grierson, and funded by the film units of the Empire Marketing Board and the General Post Office. Through landmark productions such as Housing Problems (1935), the movement used its state backing, and freedom from commerce, to highlight many of the social problems of its day, and has been identified as the first movement to have a lasting influence on the art of film (Rotha, 1972). Like the fictional forms of social realism, it demonstrated a freedom from, and to some extent an aversion to, the ideals of Hollywood. However, unlike other forms of social realism, it is often criticized for its lack of aesthetics. There was no consistent artistic theory underlying the movement; the film art was to be used as a means to apolitical end. (Guynn, 1975) In this sense, then, not only is there the consideration of the documentary movement being antagonistic to Hollywood, but also the fact that it lacks artistic drive means that it can only form part of a balanced view of cinema. The art of film making is certainly able to deliver important views and to comment on the state of the world, but it is ultimately an art, and in this aspect the documentary movement, as we have seen, was lacking. Therefore, it must necessarily be peripheral since it does not engage the full potential of its genre, rather in the way that apolitical pamphlet usually shows less artistic development than a poem or a novel. In the light of this consideration, one could view the documentary movement and its legacy as a marginal aspect of cinema - an important marginal aspect, even a necessary one, but nevertheless something that exists as a useful sub-genre and therefore is secondary to Hollywood. In conclusion, it does seem that British cinema is to some extent peripheral to Hollywood. Working Title films have in recent years brought British films into the Hollywood mainstream, but many of the films have contained an Americanised element, or have been seen as art cinema. In this way, even hugely popular British films are in a sense marginal. Social realism has provided an avenue in which British cinema has been able to shrug off Hollywood ideals in favour of showing ordinary people's lives, and many films of this type have been successful overseas. However, in rebelling against Hollywood in this way, such films can be viewed as peripheral to it in an antagonistic sense. Similarly, the documentary movement rebelled against Hollywood to some extent, and the movement's international importance is undoubted, being described as Britain's major contribution to world cinema. However, its lack of an artistic aesthetic makes it necessarily marginal in the world of cinema. Film is, at bottom, an art form, and any movement that neglects the artistic element in favour of a political message can only ever be a marginal - if important - part of the whole. British cinema then, when viewed in an international context, is always peripheral to Hollywood. It is doubtless an important part of world cinema, and has made invaluable contributions to both the art of film and to the tradition of reportage through film, but the dominance of Hollywood in the international scene means that any movement that is outside it is, as a matter of course, a comparatively minor player in world cinema.
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Behavioural Finance in the Field of Finance and Investment
Introduction
The intention of this essay is to analyse the development of 'Behavioural Finance' within the field of finance and investment. It will highlight some of the literature that has come about as a result of research in the field, some of the implications it has had on historical theories and some of the implications it has had within the world of investment.The Birth of Behavioural Finance
Behavioural Finance is considered by many to be a new field within finance, but it does have its origins in the early 20th century. One of the initial publications to highlight the importance of investor psychology was authored in 1912 by George Selden, the intention of this book was to discuss the "belief that the movements of prices on the exchanges are dependant to a very large degree on the mental attitude of the investing and trading public"(Selden, 1912, pp. Preface), this was a pioneering thought and began the start of linking psychological aspects within the world of finance. Throughout the 20th century, many developments were made in relation to combining psychological aspects to the world of finance. Since George Selden, many have built upon this idea and "in 1956 the US psychologist Leon Festinger introduced a new concept in social psychology: the theory of cognitive dissonance."(Sewell, 2010, p.1). This was of importance as considering the dynamic nature of finance, a decision one makes can often be offset by the introduction of new and inconsistent information, this may often lead practitioners to make irrational decisions which in turn affects markets, pricings and causes inefficiencies. After this, John Pratt "considers utility functions [and] risk aversion"(Sewell, 2010, p.1), which considers how practitioners evaluate a monetary amount gained or lost and also how they feel about incurring various levels of risk and how this affects behaviour and decision making. From this point the research and developments entered rapid expansion as more researchers and prominent people within the fields began to take interest in this idea that psychology may play an important role within markets and practitioner behaviour.. In 1973, two psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman put forth an article and within this paper they "explore[d] a judgmental heuristic in which a person evaluates the frequency of classes or the probability of events by availability, i.e., by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind.”(Tversky and Kahneman, 1973, p.207). A heuristic is something that financial "practitioners use [as a] rule of thumb...to process data... they are generally imperfect. Therefore, practitioners hold biased beliefs that predispose them to commit errors."(Shefrin, 1999, p. 4). This along with the earlier articles and research began to explore in more depth the affects of individuals' cognitive errors and misjudgements which we now know can lead to market inefficiencies. Then, in 1974, Tverky and Kahneman produced another article with the intention of further developing the field and gaining a more in depth determination of the heuristic identified in their previous paper, within this article they had identified and described three heuristics which can be seen to be in use when making decisions under uncertainty. These three heuristics are as follows; "representativeness, which is usually employed when people are asked to judge the probability that an object or event A belongs to class or process B,"(Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, p.1124) in simple terms this is when someone tries to predict the probability of an unknown event by comparing it to a known event and assuming the probabilities will be similar. This can and usually does lead to errors as practitioners may over or underestimate the probability, and also may misjudge the comparative example which in turn will lead to errors. The second heuristic is that of "availability of instances or scenarios, which is often employed when are asked to assess the frequency of a class or the plausibility of a particular development,"(Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, p.1131) in simple terms they have described a way in which individuals are more inclined to assess the frequency of an event by the ease in which instances of the events can be brought to mind. The third heuristic is that of "adjustment from an anchor, which is usually employed in numerical predication when a relevant value is available"(Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, p.1131) in simpler terms they have described how an individual will use an initial piece of information and then any other piece of information gained thereafter will encounter a bias based on the initial information. This leads the practitioner to hold on to their initial beliefs in regard to the scenario and leads to an inaccurate reading of the situation resulting in errors. These are heuristics, which are mental-shortcuts which, through a lack of adequate mental analysis and evaluation, lead to an inaccurate reading of the situation, leading to a misjudgement. These heuristics are important as they began to form reasons why financial practitioners' are prone to make mistakes, which in-turn lead to market inefficiencies and in the area of investment cause stock-prices to deviate from their fundamental value. From this point, Tversky and Kahneman went on to produce another article in 1979 They discovered that people tended to value losses greater than equivalent gains; "An alternative theory of choice is developed, in which value is assigned to gains and losses rather than to final assets and in which probabilities are replaced by decision weights."(Tversky and Kahneman, 1979, p. 263). This was named Prospect Theory. This was an important development as it showed further irrational behavioural of practitioners and put greater emphasis on the study of how human errors do affect the financial markets, something that was held in contrast to popular belief at the time, it also contributed further to the study of how practitioners deal with the evaluation of money. Then, in 1985, Werner De Bondt and Richard Thaler published an article that discovered that "most people tend to 'overreact' to unexpected and dramatic news events.. The empirical evidence... is consistent with the overreaction hypothesis... market inefficiencies are discovered."(De Bondt and Thaler, 1986, p.793). This discovery, aided by the previous advancements of the better part of a century's worth of research effectively formed the start of what has become known as behavioural finance and was of great importance and the field now had empirical evidence which backed up theory to suggest that psychological errors contributed to market inefficiencies thereby putting into question historical theories which had once been considered valid. To summarise, over the course of the 20th century there has been significant research within the field of psychology and then a merging of psychological research with the field of finance. Many consider Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman to be the pioneers with the vast amount of research they conducted in the field, which lead to Werner De Bondt and Richard Thaler producing empirical evidence, with the use of psychologically based background, in their paper; "Does the Stock Market Overreact?"which proved that at times there exists inefficiencies within the markets.How it has Affected Historical Theories
The birth of Behavioural Finance has had many implications within the fields of finance and investment. One of its greatest and most important impacts is calling into question the rationality of financial practitioners, this notion that practitioners are rational provided an assumption which formed the foundation on which some of the most influential economic and financial hypothesis were created. To analyse the full impact of behavioural finance as a topic is something that cannot be achieved within this essay, instead it will discuss its effect on Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), a theory put forth by Eugene Fama in 1970 titled "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work,”(Fama, 1970) . Within the document Fama describes an efficient market as "a market in which prices always 'fully reflect' available information,"(Fama, 1970, p. 383) in order for markets to fully reflect available information an assumption is made that the markets and the investors within them are rational, this is one of the assumptions that provides a foundation for Efficient Market Hypothesis; This notion of rational markets and investors has been seriously questioned by the development of 'Behavioural Finance' and due to the research that has been conducted and empirical evidence which proves that at times the markets both over and under react to information which results in inefficiencies; it can be stated that the Efficient Market Hypothesis isn't entirely correct. This is important as since the theories inception; financial practitioners accepted it as valid and began to develop ideas, models and other theories with EMH as a foundation. Other theories such as Capital Asset Pricing Model have been put into question as they were developed and "buil[t] on the assumptions of EMH.”(Bell, 2010). The development of 'Behavioural Finance' and the findings from various researches which put into question market efficiencies, it can now be stated that long held beliefs and theories about the way markets and financial practitioners operate can be considered false. It has also brought about an idea named 'Adaptive Market Hypothesis (AMH)' which was put forth in 2004 by Andrew Lo, he argues that "the emerging discipline of behavioural economics and finance has challenged [EMH], arguing that markets are not rational... [he] propose[s] a new framework that reconciles market efficiency with behavioural alternatives."(Lo, 2004). This new hypothesis seems to make more sense and is in conjunction with behavioural finance issues and while we wait for it to be solidified by long-term empirical evidence, it seems that the future is more AMH than EMH.Its implications for Investment
Since the development of 'Behavioural Finance' and the psychological aspects that are at play within the world of finance and within the investors psyche have been seen to "lead to unhelpful or even hurtful decisions. As a fundamental part of human nature, these biases affect all types of investors,"(Byrne and Utkus, 2013, p.4) and often lead to misjudgements and errors, the implications for this are that each and every investor will make use of these heuristics and inevitability will make mistakes. The world of investment has now recognised that this area of study is of great importance and can help explain not only investor behaviour, but also the behaviour of markets. One of the intentions of 'Behavioural Finance' is to identify these errors and their causes so that investors are in a position to work around them or profit from other investors' mistakes. There are now many heuristics and biases which have been discovered and have an impact on financial practitioners decision making ability and in turn have implications for markets, some of these are as follows; Availability Bias, Representativeness, Gamblers Fallacy, Frame Dependence, Mental Accounting, Loss Aversion and Overconfidence to name just small amount. One of these biases, 'Overconfidence', "has found that humans tend to have unwarranted confidence in their decision making. In essence, this means having an inflated view of one's own ability."(Byrne and Utkus, 2013, p.4). In terms of investment this can lead some investors to have placed an overestimation on their own investment choices and ability and as such, at times, disregard the overall external factors which have an impact on the market. Another affect that overconfidence may have on certain investors is in relation to trading, for example, too much confidence is placed within their own ability to trade. "Professors Brad Barber and Terry Odean studied US investors with retailed brokerage accounts and found that more active traders earned the lowest returns.”(Byrne and Utkus, 2013, p.6). Another bias is that of the 'loss aversion' where "behavioural finance suggests investors are more sensitive to loss than to risk and return,"(Byrne and Utkus, 2013, p.8) where traditional finance theory tended to focus solely on the relationship between risk and return. Two professors, Hersh Shefrin and Meir Statman, developed theories put forth by Tversky and Kahneman in a paper titled "The Disposition to Sell Winners Too Early and Ride Losers Too Long: Theory and Evidence"where they found evidence to suggest that investors "sell winners too early and hold losers too long."(Shefrin and Statman, 1985, p.777). This can negatively affect investor returns and depicts some form of short-termism within investors' psychology down to the bias of loss aversion.Conclusion
To conclude, 'Behavioural Finance' is a field that has had profound effects on the world of finance and investment, so much so it has put into question previous theories that were once considered valid and used as a foundation for most economic and financial hypotheses such as EMH and CAPM. As the field has developed practitioners have taken more notice of their own and others' irrational behaviour, which is important considering prior to the introduction of psychological issues most were of the belief that themselves and others were rational. This can now be considered to be false, and as the dynamic nature of the financial work-environment induces mental and behavioural short-comings it is likely that the field will see further developments.Bibliography
- Bell, W.P. (2010). Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) Contributing to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). [Online]. Available at: https://williampaulbell.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/capital-asset-pricing-model-capm-and-efficient-market-hypothesis-emh-contributing-to-the-global-financial-crisis-gfc/
- Byrne, A.B. and Utkus, S.U. (2013). "Behavioural Finance - Understanding how the mind can help or hinder investment success,"Vanguard, pp.1-32. [Online]. Available at: https://www.vanguard.co.uk/documents/portal/literature/behavourial-finance-guide.pdf
- De Bondt, W.B. and Thaler, R.T. (1986). "Does the Stock Market Overreact?"The Journal of Finance, 40(3), pp. 793-805. [Online] Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1985.tb05004.x/pdf
- Fama, E.U. (1970). "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work”, Journal of Finance, 25(2), pp.383-417, Wiley Online Library [Online] Blackwell Publishing for the American Finance Association. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1970.tb00518.x/pdf
- Lo, A.L. (2004). The Adaptive Markets Hypothesis: Market Efficiency from an Evolutionary Perspective, National Bureau of Economic Research, pp. 1-31. [Online]. Available at: https://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~sok/papers/l/JPM2004.pdf
- Selden, G.C. (1912). Psychology of the Stock Market. New York, Ticker Publishing Company. Available at: https://archive.org/details/psychologyofstoc00seldrich
- Sewell, M.S. (2010). "Behavioural Finance,"University of Cambridge. [PDF] Available at: https://www.behaviouralfinance.net/behavioural-finance.pdf
- Shefrin, H.S. (1999). "Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioural Finance and the Psychology of Investing."New York. Oxford University Press, Inc.
- Shefrin, H.S. and Statman, M.S. (1985). "The Disposition to Sell Winners Too Early and Ride Losers Too Long: Theory and Evidence,"The Journal of Finance, 11(3), pp.777-790. [Online] Available at: https://www.economia.unimib.it/DATA/moduli/7_6069/materiale/shefrin-statman-85.pdf
- Tversky, A.T. and Kahneman, D.K. (1973). "Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability,"Cognitive Psychology, 5(2), pp. 207-232 [Online]. Available at: https://dtserv2.compsy.uni-jena.de/__C1257641005FF6B0.nsf/0/1538BC6A54743092C125764700444391/$FILE/TVERSKY+Availability+A+heuristic+for+judging+frequency+and+probality.pdf
- Tversky, A.T. And Kahneman, D.K. (1974). "Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases”, Science, 185(4157), pp.1124-1131. [Online]. Available at: https://psiexp.ss.uci.edu/research/teaching/Tversky_Kahneman_1974.pdf
- Tversky, A.T. And Kahneman, D.K. (1979). "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk"Econometric, 47(2), pp. 263-291. [Online]. Available at: https://www.princeton.edu/~kahneman/docs/Publications/prospect_theory.pdf
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A Critical Analysis of the Documentary “Supersize Me” by Morgan Spurlock
In 2004, the American film-maker Morgan Spurlock made a documentary film “Supersize Me”. Produced in response to the unsuccessful legal suits against McDonald’s fast food, the film brings to light Spurlock’s own experiment with eating fast food and, above all, addresses those Americans who are obsessed with unhealthy fast food. The film-maker conducted the experiment for a month, during which he ate food only from McDonald’s and observed the impact of fast food on his physical and emotional well-being. The more he ate in MacDonald’s, the more side-effects he experienced, including depression, fatigue, sexual problems, headache, and chest pain.
The camera captures all emotional and physical changes which occur in Spurlock. The film-maker cooperates with three doctors (a gastroenterologist, a cardiologist, and a general practitioner) who indicate the changes in his physical and psychological state (Sheehan, 2005, p.69). However, the principal idea to which Spurlock constantly returns throughout his documentary is that McDonald’s fast food increases obesity in the United States (Sheehan, 2005, p.68). As is shown in the documentary, the weight of Spurlock before the experiment was 84 kg. In a period of one month, his weight increased up to 95 kg (Lusted, 2008, p.33). In addition to the weight increase, his cholesterol level changed from 168 to 230 (Sheehan, 2005, p.69). Observing such a damaging impact of fast food on patient’s health, the doctors recommended Spurlock to stop eating fast food in McDonald’s. Although a low-budget documentary (with a budget only $65,000), “Supersize Me” has acquired great popularity among the national and international public due to its crucial social commentary on the issue of increasing obesity (Baym and Gottert, 2013, p.159). Spurlock’s film consists not only of his own reflections and investigations, but also of a series of interviews which he took in the process of experiment (Day, 2011, p.116). Through his interviews with nutritionists, gym teachers, doctors, lawyers, cooks, and other experts, the film-maker attempts to gather diverse views on fast food eating and the fast food culture of modern America. In addition to the interviews, Spurlock also spreads a survey among children and finds out that they know perfectly well who Ronald McDonald is and know nothing about Jesus or George Bush. As is shown by Spurlock, McDonald’s encourages children to eat fast food by organising birthdays and giving children free toys with its Happy Meals. To make his film more vivid, interactive, and factual, Spurlock uses cartoon animation (e.g. when showing how McNuggets are produced), statistics, and graphics (Day, 2011, p.116). Some statistical data are rather disturbing; for instance, the evidence gathered by the film-maker suggests that over 60 percent of Americans suffer from obesity and diabetes because of eating unhealthy fast food (Fazekas, 2005, p.144). Besides, 10,000 fast food advertisements are shown on television annually, attracting attention of not only adults, but also children (Fazekas, 2005, p.144). Throughout the documentary, the film-maker employs the shock techniques to evoke powerful emotions and reactions in his viewers. For instance, he depicts liposuction surgery, his own vomiting during the second eating of McDonald’s meals, the numerous images of obese Americans, and school children’s addictive ingestion of harmful food. Spurlock also constantly returns to his own fast food addiction, demonstrating that he feels good only when he eats McDonald’s food. While at the beginning of his experiment Spurlock looks and feels healthy, his physical and emotional state becomes worse with the progression of the experiment.
Spurlock’s girlfriend acknowledges that he smiles less than before, has sexual dysfunction, and depressive moods. Spurlock also demonstrates his own fears over the health problems which occur during the experiment.
For instance, he depicts that one night he wakes up because of his inability to breathe. He is so afraid of this side-effect that he doubts whether to continue the experiment that threatens his life. However, Spurlock decides to finish the experiment even at the expense of his physical and emotional health. At the end of the film, Spurlock shocks his viewers by stating that he restored his physical and emotional health for about 14 months. He also shows a tombstone for the clown Ronald McDonald and asks his viewers: “Who do you want to see go first, you or them?” In addition to the use of shock techniques, the film-maker also uses comparative techniques. For instance, he contrasts American schools with fast food meals and soda machines to a school for troubled teenagers in Wisconsin where fast food was substituted for natural food (Fazekas, 2005, p.145). As Spurlock demonstrates, this food change has positively influenced children’s emotional well-being and behaviour. The film-maker gathers people’s opinions and visits McDonald’s restaurants not only in Manhattan, but also in other American cities, such as Texas and California. By using both shock techniques and comparative techniques, Spurlock makes an attempt to engage the public into a dialogue on the issue of fast food eating. He also encourages parents to reconsider their children’s eating in McDonald’s and their own responsibility for children’s healthy development. As Spurlock clearly shows in his documentary, parents are responsible for developing healthy eating habits in their children; otherwise, the consequences of their neglect will be detrimental for their children. In addition to parents’ irresponsibility, Spurlock also speaks against constantly increasing advertising of fast food.
Although McDonald’s claims that the company does not bear responsibility for people’s decision to eat fast food, it spends billions of dollars on advertising its products (Fazekas, 2005, p.144). To make things worse, Spurlock compares the amount of money which fast food companies spend on advertisements to the amount of money which healthy food organisations spend on advertisements. The figures he brings to the fore clearly demonstrate that the budget of healthy food organisations is significantly lower than the budget of fast food companies. In addition to his appeals to parents, advertisers, and the general public, Spurlock also appeals to the American government which fully neglects the reasons for people’s visits of McDonald’s and consumption of unhealthy fast food. For instance, he shows the community which has no playground for children; hence, parents go to McDonald’s because it has a playground. In other scenes, the film-maker focuses on school meals, demonstrating that schools often purchase fast foods for children because it is cheaper to buy fast foods than to prepare fresh meals. In view of such limited choices, children have to consume fast food instead of consuming healthy food. All these examples mentioned in Spurlock’s documentary signify that both the government and educational establishments maintain the fast food culture to gain their own profits. Spurlock’s documentary consists of several sections, each of which brings to light a new factor for his criticism of fast food eating. The film-maker often employs humour and satire in his discussion of a serious issue. On the one hand, this makes his documentary significantly entertaining. On the other hand, Spurlock succeeds in producing a black comedy which heavily relies on the elements of comedy to spread some crucial messages.
This is especially evident in the scene when the American family tries to perform the Pledge of Allegiance near the White House, but forgets the words and starts singing McDonald’s song. Although such scenes evoke laugh, they also make people think. Spurlock intentionally introduces funny elements to destroy people’s barriers and encourage them to perceive crucial information. As “Supersize Me” has clearly shown, such a technique is really successful as people tend to create barriers to somebody else’s views and opinions; they tend to perceive these views with caution and distrust. However, when views and opinions are presented in a light, funny, and entertaining manner, people are more willing to accept them and, more importantly, believe the speaker.
The film-maker also integrates music (e.g. Fat-Bottomed Girls by Queen) and new phrases (such as McStomach Ache or McTwitches) into his documentary to create appropriate mood and atmosphere. Besides, Spurlock pays great attention to details (e.g. a hair in his food), uses entertaining pictures when changing the scenes, and effectively combines video and graphics. The use of all these techniques signifies that Spurlock attempts to produce not only a reflexive film, but also a highly experimental and dynamic film. Due to a masterful juxtaposition of techniques, Spurlock gradually engages viewers into the discussion. However, instead of providing a balanced standpoint, the film-maker expresses a significantly biased view on popularity of fast food eating in the United States. As such, the results of Spurlock’s non-scientific experiment can be exposed to some criticism. For instance, Guy Russo, the chief executive of Australian McDonald’s, opposed the view expressed by Spurlock by claiming that people do not eat fast food every day for three times (Gumbel, 2004, n.p.). Russo also criticised Spurlock’s decisions not to do physical exercises and double his usual food intake during the experiment. In his viewpoint, such irresponsible and extreme actions, but not fast food eating had detrimental effects on Spurlock’s physical and emotional well-being (Gumbel, 2004, n.p.). Klosterman (2006, p.65) points at the fact that Spurlock exaggerates the negative impact of fast food on his health because it is impossible to “sell a movie about eating fast food and feeling fine”. Klosterman (2006, p.65) also asserts that instead of putting the blame for eating fast food on an individual person, Spurlock puts the major blame on McDonald’s and the American government.
However, in the viewpoint of Klosterman (2006, p.66), McDonald’s only gives “people the product they want”. Despite the mentioned critical comments, Spurlock has succeeded in producing a very important documentary which questions increasing popularity of fast food eating and makes the public and the American government reflect on the issues of unhealthy food and obesity. The film-maker has taken active steps in recognising a serious problem and in stirring up people’s emotional responses to the problem of unhealthy fast food and obesity.
Throughout the documentary, Spurlock tries to convince viewers that fast food is a really bad choice; by bringing to light his recollections of childhood eating habits (e.g. when his family gathered together and ate home-made food), the film-maker demonstrates that such eating habits are significantly healthier and benefit children more than visits to McDonald’s restaurants. As for Spurlock’s biased views on fast food eating, it is necessary to take into account that the film-maker attempts to produce a point of view documentary which draws on the subjective approach and “is strongly skewed toward a certain viewpoint” (Lees, 2010, p.99). According to this distinct viewpoint, it is not only unhealthy menus of McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants that pose a threat to the physical and mental well-being of children and adults, but the impact of fast food culture on people’s values and lifestyles. Spreading fast food culture throughout America, corporations serve their own interests, while fully neglecting the needs and interests of common people. Although McDonald’s fast food is inexpensive and tasty, the excessive consumption of this food (as Spurlock has clearly shown in his documentary) may be poisonous to the body of an adult, let alone to the body of a growing child. Spurlock’s decision to focus on McDonald’s restaurants does not mean that the film-maker has a personal dislike for McDonald’s. His choice is explained by the fact that McDonald’s is the largest company in the American fast food industry. Hence, by attacking McDonald’s, Spurlock expresses his criticism of the whole fast food industry which manipulates people and makes them develop unhealthy eating habits.
Although at times Spurlock turns to exaggerations, his documentary is perceived as a realistic account of the situation with American fast food eating. The film-maker intentionally exaggerates some facts to accentuate the seriousness of unhealthy eating and obesity. In response to Spurlock’s documentary, McDonald’s has diversified its menu with some healthy food and has taken away the supersizing option (Sood, 2004, n.p.; Lusted, 2008, p.34; Baym and Gottert, 2013, p.159). Moreover, McDonald’s has also started to provide information on fat content and calories so that McDonald’s visitors can decide for themselves what to eat. As such, Spurlock’s film has inspired slight changes in the American industry of fast food.
Bibliography
Baym, G. & Gottert, C. (2013). 30 days. Social engagement. In: E. Thompson & J. Mittell (Eds.), How to watch television (pp.159-167). New York: New York University Press. Day, A. (2011). Satire and dissent: Interventions in contemporary political debate. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Fazekas, I. (2005). The alkalizing diet: Your life is in the balance.
Virginia Beach: A.R.E Press. Gumbel, A. (2004). The man who ate McDonald’s. The Independent, 18 April. Available from: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-man-who-ate-mcdonalds–acirc-6167144.html [Accessed 17 April, 2015] Klosterman, C. (2006). Chuck Klosterman IV: A decade of curious people and dangerous ideas. New York: Simon & Schuster. Lees, N. (2010). Greenlit: Developing factual/reality TV ideas from concepts to pitch. London: A&C Black Publishers. Lusted, M. (2008). Obesity and food policing. Edina: ABDO Publishing. Sheehan, M. (2005). Supersize Me: A comparative analysis of responses to crisis by McDonald’s America and McDonald’s Australia. In: C. Galloway & K. Kwanash-Aidoo (Eds.), Public relations issues and crisis management (pp.67-80). Melbourne: Thomson Social Science Press. Sood, S. (2004). Weighing the impact of Super Size Me. Alternet, 29 June.
Available from: https://www.alternet.org/story/19059/weighing_the_impact_of_%26%238216%3Bsuper_size_me%26%238217%3B [Accessed 18 April, 2015]
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A Critical Analysis of the Documentary "Supersize Me" by Morgan Spurlock. (2017, Jun 26).
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Real War Movies
Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from IWO JIMA: Two perspective of the same war
Introduction
War movies have stand the test of time and gain critical and commercial success because it is important that it should be about the real war. War movies, particularly movies depicting World War II have a trend in being one sided (Feroze, 2008). The topics explored in war movies are combat, survivor, getaway stories, tales of fearless sacrifice and struggle, submarine warfare, studies of the inefficiency and brutality of the battle, the effects of war on society, and intelligent and reflective explorations of the moral and human issues. The distinctive elements in an action-oriented war plots consist of submarine warfare, surveillance, camp experiences and escapes, personal heroism, brutalities, air fights, hard infantry experiences, and male bonding adventures during the battle. Various war movies carry out balance in soul-searching, tragic consequences and inner turmoil of fighters with action-packed, dramatic scenes, passionately demonstrating the enthusiasm and chaos of warfare. Some war films focus on the home front rather than on the conflict at the military war –front. However most of them present criticism of senseless combat. In order to motivate national pride and morale, and to present the dignity of one's own forces while ruthlessly showing and criticizing the evilness of the opponent, especially during war and post-war periods, war movies have been frequently using a "flag-waving" propagandas. Jingoistic-type war does not typically symbolize realistic war to support national interest, whereas avoiding the realism of horrors of war. The good guys are depicted as colliding with bad guys (Dirks, 2008). War movies as an important genre started after the occurrence of World War I. Film makers have been using the American history, extending from the French war and Indian war to the Vietnam war, as the foundation of making war movies. In general, wars from the 20th century specifically the first and second world war gives the film makers ideas in creating a good war film. An ordinary factor of controversial war films, whether it was made by American, European, or Asians, is the lack of noticeable enemies (Buruma, 2007). Clint Eastwood had made two movies of the same subject but differentperspective of the characters. He has broken all the leads of the traditional jingoist war movie genre and produced two excellent films, one in English: Flag of Our Fathers, and one in Japanese: Letters from Iwo Jima. The inspiration of Clint Eastwood in making the movie "Letters From Iwo Jima" was the letter from of Japanese commander Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi to his family while fighting with the Americans during the battle in Iwo Jima (Ellison, 2007). Part of the letter was quoted by Buruma (2007): "I may not return alive from this assignment, but let me assure you that I shall fight to the best of my ability, so that no disgrace will be brought upon our family. I will fight as a son of Kuribayashi, the Samurai, and will behave in such a manner as to deserve the name of Kuribayashi. May ancestors guide me."IWO JIMA
During the World War II, American marines invaded the island of Iwo Jima from February 19 to March 26, 1945. The battle between the US marines and the Japanese troops was a main idea of the Pacific Campaign of the WW II. The Marine assault, renowned as the Operation Detachment, was indicted with the undertaking of taking over the airfields of the island. Early in the battle, six US marines have reached Mount Suribachi in the island of Iwo Jima and raised the US flag. However, only three of the six has survived the battle. The battle between the American marines and the Japanese army was depicted in the movies of Clint Eastwood, Flag of Our Fathers and Letter From Iwo Jima. The Flag of Our Fathers was the American point of view of what happened during the battle at Iwo Jima. The movie was based on the book written by the son of one of the surviving marines who raised the flag in Mount Suribachi. During the battle, more than 22,000 Japanese soldiers defended their island while almost 26,000 American marines spearheaded the invasion. The main feature of the movie is the tragic life stories of the six men who raised the American flag at the top of the Mount Suribachi during the battle. The movie tried to highlight the heroism of the three survivors of the battle who have raised the American flag during the battle and after they had returned home. The Letters From Iwo Jima is the Japanese perspective of the Iwo Jima battle which was the first battle that the Americans attack on the Japanese lands. The island stands in between the American marines and the islands of Japan. Thus, the Japanese Army is hopeless in stopping the Americans in providing a take-off point in invading the island of Japan. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was given authority of the forces on Iwo Jima and begins to plan for the forthcoming attack. Yet, General Kuribayashi was against the traditional tactics advised by his subordinates, and offense and confrontation fester among his staff. In the lower rank, Saigo, a poor civilian, struggle with his friends to survive the strict command of the Imperial Japanese Army, all the while knowing that a violent war is a about to happen. When the Americans attacked, Kuribayashi and Saigo achieve strength, honor, courage, and horrors beyond imagination. The movie focuses on how the Japanese army defended their land. The Flags of Our Father and Letters From Iwo Jima is a human tragedy of friendship and love, sacrifice and manipulation, set touching the brutal clash of the battle. The movies of Eastwood had brought together home and war which became a very important feature of both movies.Comparison and Contrast
The scene in the black-and-white sulfur shore appeared in both movies of Clint Eastwood. It was shot on Iwo Jima which is considered as a part of Tokyo City in Japan. In both movies, the brutal effect of the war was shown. A man whose arm was blown off in explosion and Japanese soldier staring at the man face who was exploded was focused in detail. Soldiers in closed gaps were set on fire with flamethrowers. The movie Flags of Our Fathers highlights the flag raising of the six American in Iwo Jima which was shown in the Letters of Iwo Jima at a distance. The American perspective focused the lives of the six men during and after the battle while the Japanese perspective featured the nobility of the soldiers. The movies on the battle in Iwo Jima showed that the Japanese and American armies consist of noble men and men with selfish and morally disgusting decisions. The narrative arrangement of the movie was presented by using flashbacks. These lets the story goes in and out of the battle scenes which have prevented a long battle followed by a falling action. The Flag of Our Fathers has displayed the character of heroism, the idea of patriotism, and the effectiveness of war. Letters From Iwo Jima explored the same premise more philosophical. Terribly lack of supplies and starving, the Japanese soldiers excavates and eagerly waited the arrival of the American troops. Many of the Japanese soldiers suffered dysentery. Some of them know that their fleets have been damaged. The American patriotism displayed in the Flags of Our Fathers was planned and well intentioned but established on half truths. The Japanese patriotism showed in Letters From Iwo Jima was a force one basing from honor, fear and oppression. The greatest honor of a Japanese soldier was to die in defending the land of their country. The Letters of Iwo Jima also showed how Americans killed Japanese soldiers cruelly. It was shown that even the Japanese soldiers surrender, Americans still kill them. It was also shown how the soldiers commit suicide instead of being killed. The cautious expression of doubts and brutal signs of humanity are presented in dialogues between the young soldiers. General Kuribayashi has doubted his knowledge on wars but never doubted to carry his duty until death. Unlike Saigo that he prioritize his family instead of sacrificing his life in the battle. The character of Saigo is different from Ira Hayes in the movie Flags of our Fathers. Ira Hayes, who is an Indian reserve, acted by Adam Beach had found home and comfort and marines and has an interesting character in the movie. Hayes portrayed a loyal soldier because he has considered the US Marines as his family. Hayes was one of the Marines who raised the flag and has survived the battle. The role of "Doc" Bradley was the highlight of the Flags of Our Fathers. In the movie, it was seen how Bradley risks his life by crawling in a lethal crossfire to help a wounded soldier. This act of Bradley has nothing to do with heroism and patriotism but it shows that war is not only dying for one's country but also dying for a friend (Buruma, 2007). The subtitles in the Japanese perspective reveal the use of rude languages such as the "damn" and the s-word. The Flags of the Fathers is depicts the war in a colorless battle scenes in flashbacks in the Letter in Iwo Jima, it was in present tense appearing in black-and-white shots with a tint of green uniforms and some colorized flashbacks. The movies show and optimistic sensibility when the American troops attacked the Japanese knowing that there is a possibility for them to die but they fought and tried to survive unlike the Japanese soldiers that the defense of Iwo Jima is a mission that they can not turn their backs to ant would rather commit suicide than surrender (Ellison, 2007). It is nice to see Flags of Our Fathers prior to Letters of Iwo Jima to help in putting the events that is display scenes in the Letters of Iwo Jima into perspective. The movies display both perspectives of the Americans and Japanese regarding the battle in Iwo Jima which help the viewers analyze critically what really happened in the battle. The movies also showed different point of view on war and dignity.Significant Scenes
The most significant scene in the movie Flags of Our Fathers was the raising of the American flag. This event is significant in the American history because it symbolizes the victory of the Americans in the battle of Iwo Jima. One significant point in Eastwood's movie is when Saigo was seen lying on the ground lined with wounded American soldiers and he was not recognized as an enemy. The importance of these scene signifies the surrender of Saigo and chooses not to commit suicide in order to go home to his family.4.1 Characters of the movies
The most outstanding performance in the movie Flags of our Fathers was from Adam Beach who played the soldier who is the most expressively troubled by the battle, and he did not at all agreed with what the press and military had done after the publishing of the photo. The three main soldiers in the movie "Flag of our Fathers" were portrayed by Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, and Adam Beach. No one of the three are A-list leading men and many minor characters were played by known actors such as Paul Walker, Barry Pepper, and Robert Patrcik. Kuribayashi was played by Ken Watabe in the Letters From Iwo Jima and the only famous actor in the movie. The character of the Kuribayashi displayed a noble obligation on his men and dislike for the brutal officers who look upon him as a soft American-lover. It was his idea to fight underground rather fighting face to face with the enemies. Kuribayashi also shows a fighter who displays much affection in fighting with dignity. He also displays a typical Japanese soldier role that would die with honor and valor. Unlike other Japanese leaders seen in typical war movies, General Kuribayashi was in front of his men and was not afraid of a tactic retreat. He is also a leader who defends his men from brutality. The character of Kuribayashi and Saigo displays a complicated and compelling answers on what is the meaning of living and dying with honor. In the real battle, 22,000 Japanese troops defended Iwo Jima but only a thousand have survived. In the movie, Saigo is the only survival in his unit. He lived in the idea that there is no shame in surrendering. He displayed a role of a family-loving man. The role of Saigo showed sanity as he surrendered because of wanting to see his family. He identified the natural value of life that is shown in a flashback scene in the movie. One of the soldiers in the movie, Shimizu, displays blind obedience and suicidal passion. He threatens Saigo when Saigo refuses to commit suicide but he himself has doubt of killing himself for honor during the battle and at last decided to surrender but was killed by the Americans. The characters of Saigo and Shimizu show that not all soldiers who fight in the battlefield are ready to sacrifice their lives for honor, valor, and dignity. Some soldiers fight because it is their duty to fight for their country but the heart of dying for the country was not instilled in them.4.2 Focus
In the movie Flag of the Fathers, it highlights the raising of the flag and the life of the survivors who raised the flag. The movie is not a typical war movie that centers on the battle, instead it shows the significance of the flag raising. The movie did not show where the enemies or did not emphasize on the battle itself, instead focused on the effect of the on the survivors of the flag raisers. The movie showed how the surviving soldiers were abused by the government to sell war bonds to finance the war (Roten 2006). The movie Letters From Iwo Jima focused on the battle for Iwo Jima during the World War II. It showed how the soldiers tried to defend the island from the Americans. It showed what Japanese soldiers mean by dying with honor. The movie is not focused on only one character but focused on the different response of the soldiers on the battle. Unlike in the Flags, the focus is on the three survivors of the war. In the Flags, the Japanese soldiers were seen but they are faceless. It was seen that there are firing from bunkers and tunnels but the people firing were not seen. In the Letters, it showed the strategic plan of the officers of the Japanese soldiers in the counter attack to the Americans but the Americans were not also seen.4.3 American and Japanese values
The Japanese soldiers display the character of fighting with honor. For them to fight with honor is to die in the battle. They know that there is no way to win the battle but some of the soldiers have the courage to die instead of surrendering. Some of the soldiers like Saigo depict the character of giving importance to family than dying in the battle that is hopeless. The Japanese perspective movie shows the other side of the battle. It demonstrates patriotic acts and heroic acts on the part of the Japanese soldiers. On the American perspective, the movie demonstrates patriotism in the way the American troops gave their full loyalty to their country that with them knowing the consequences of the battle for Iwo Jima.Conclusion
The Flags of Our Fathers raises the issue on discrimination of the people involved in the battle. It also displays how the surviving soldiers were exploited by the US government after the war. The movie shows that soldiers do not fight to become heroes instead fight for nationalism and patriotism (Greydanus, 2006). The Letters From Iwo Jima is a unique American-made war movies the displays the battle from the losers point of view and it considered the American to be the enemy. The movie showed the how the Japanese officials strategically fought the enemies and lead his people until death displaying the true meaning of fighting with honor. The movies of Clint Eastwood had changed the perception on war movies. Both, the Flag of Our Fathers and The Letters From Iwo Ima, displayed, in a way, the value of war and family at the same time. Also, the movies showed a two-sided view of the battle which is very important in order for the viewers to fully understand the real battle scenario that had happened. War movies of Clintwood give us a clear point of view that winning a battle is not just killing all enemies. A soldier can be a winner depending on what he believes in. War movies are now a famous genre. The two movies of Clint Eastwood showed a different trend of war movies. It did not focus on the battle itself, unlike other war movies, but on the effects of war to the soldiers who fought and its impact to the society. War movies capture a great interest to the movie goers but their satisfaction depends on the quality and the sequence of the movie. Movie goers love a war movie that depicts a real war. A movie that displays a battle with good lighting, sounds, proper sequencing, and near to true-to-real battle stories will give audience give a good critique.References
Berardinelli, J (2006). Letters from Iwo Jima Buruma, I. (2007). Eastwood's War. The New York Review of Books, 54, (2) . Dirks, T. (2008) War and Anti-War Films. https://www.filmsite.org/warfilms.html Ellison, M. S. (2007) Letter From Iwo Jima: a Film to write about. Feroze, T (2008) Letters from Iwo Jima: The war from the other side https://www.dhakacourier.net/issue22/other/doc3.htm Greydanus, S. (2006) Flag of Or Fathers. Decent Film guides. https://www.decentfilms.com/sections/reviews/flagsofourfathers.html. Koresky, M (2006) Eyes of a Stranger. https://www.reverseshot.com/article/letters_iwo_jima Myers, J. (2007) Letters From Iwo Jima. https://www.mercatornet.com/articles/letters_from_iwo_jima/ February 2, 2007 Roten, R. (2006) Laramie Movie Scope:Flags of Our Fathers Dealing with both terrible war memories and fameCite this page
Real War Movies. (2017, Jun 26).
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A Corporate Governance Report of William Hill
INTRODUCTION
Corporate governance typically describes the way corporate power is exercised within business organisations. Good corporate governance practices are typically defined in terms of practices, processes, and sound economic performance (Turnbull 2010). The present report examines the implementation of sound corporate governance management practices in William Hill, a U.K. sports betting company. Particular attention will be paid to the practices and processes prescribed by the Corporate Governance Code (2014), the leading template for good corporate governance practices in the U.K. The goal of this report is to enlighten Institutional Investors as to a potential investment in the company.
BRIEF COMPANY BACKGROUND
William Hill is a global sports betting and gaming company, and one of the most trusted brands in the sports gaming industry. According to the company's latest available key financial statistics, total revenue ascends to £1.61 billion, gross profit is £1.32 billion, while EBITDA is £385 million (Yahoo Finance 2015a). The company's EBITDA is revealing as to the company's financial soundness. The above-mentioned sound financial statistics are clearly reflected in Figure 1 (Yahoo Finance 2015b), which depicts the 5-year stock price trajectory of William Hill. The company's share price has almost tripled in value since January 2011. Notwithstanding, it should be pointed out that, for the sub-period between 2011 and 2013, the stock price soared; whereas, for the period 2013-2015, the stock price is relatively stable, which might point to the existence of impending regulatory shifts conditioning a potential demand weakness for its gaming products (e.g., the company is currently being affected by a significant decrease in profits accruing from gaming machines, in view of tougher gaming regulation (The Economist 2014)). Figure 1: Stock Market Price of William Hill (5-year chart) Source: Yahoo Finance; 5-year stock market prices (closing prices A£)
WILLIAM HILL: A CORPORATE GOVERNANCE ANALYSIS
The present section focuses on the following main five (5) topics of analysis that are relevant to the William Hill, where a more thorough examination of its corporate governance structure and practices are concerned. The first topic addresses the composition of the company's Board of Directors (Leadership); the second topic refers to the company's governance structures and Boardroom Practices (Effectiveness); the third focuses the reporting to shareholders and/or external audit procedures (Accountability); the fourth topic refers to the pay level of the company's Directors and Senior Executives (Remuneration); finally, communications and relations with shareholders are also examined (Relations with shareholders). These topics are quite crucial to our assessment pertaining to the implementation of effective and sound governance procedures and mechanisms at William Hill.
Leadership - The Board of Directors
William Hill's Board of Directors is composed of nine Board members (7 men and 2 women). The current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is Mr. James Henderson, who heads "the Group's overall strategic direction, the day-to-day management and profitability of the Group's operations"(Hill 2015a). Mr. Henderson possesses extensive industry experience, having climbed the company's corporate ladder through his appointment through several company roles. Moreover, the company's CEO is seconded by the Mr. Neil Cooper, the Group's Finance Director. Mr. Cooper possesses extensive finance experience, having performed various roles outside the Group. The Board is also composed by the Chairman, Mr. Gareth Davis, who is responsible for the company's best corporate governance practices. Finally, the Board is also composed of a set of five independent non-executive Directors and a Company Secretary. The company had, in 2013, a number of female Board members compliant with best practices associated with fair gender treatment at the Board level (The Guardian, 2013). However, in the current year, the number of female members seems to have fallen below best industry practices (Tonello 2010), but care should be taken to further increase the percentage of women on Board beyond the prescribed legislation (according to U.K.'s Governance Code, that minimum percentage should equal 25% of women on Board). This might be a temporary setback, but it currently stands as a non-compliance issue (Financial Reporting Council 2014). The above-mentioned corporate governance structure is compliant with the best practices currently being promoted in the UK, in strict accordance with the UK Corporate Governance Code of 2014 (Financial Reporting Council 2014). The Board's composition seems to ensure that compliance with the Code is adequately assured. For example, there is a clear division of corporate responsibilities within William Hill, with no function overlap nor unfettered powers of decision held by any specific Board member. Moreover, the percentage of 'outside' Directors ensures proper oversight.
Effectiveness - Governance and Boardroom Practice
According to Tricker (2012), there are a number of factors that decisively influence the effectiveness of a company's governance, the most relevant of which are related to the necessary skillset of the top management team, as well as functional flow of both internal and external communications with stakeholders. On both counts, William Hill possesses the necessary requisites in order to comply with the outlined good practices of governance. As previously described, the company's composition is quite diversified and experienced so as to effectively pursue the company's ambitious goals (the previous section describes in more detail the profiles pertaining to the main Board members); at the same time, the inclusion of non-executive Board members vis A -vis the executive members clearly points out to a proper balance of powers within the sports betting group. That is, good governance practice dictates that 'inside' (i.e., executive) vs. 'outside' (i.e., non-executive) members co-exist, so that the latter typically do not possess a previous link to the company which might jeopardise their autonomous and independent business judgement. On the other hand, the flow of information to outside investors seems to be quite proficient, most notably where the structure of communications through the Internet and social media is concerned. For example, the company's website provides accurate and in-depth details pertaining to the company's governance structure, balanced Board composition, the company's articles of association and the company's latest available annual accounts (for 2014), and the professional details of the company's auditor and corresponding Annual Report and Accounts. Online transparency seems to be a major company policy, which thus sustains the argument in favor of an effective and balanced governance practice (Hill, 2015b). It is hoped that this strategy of good corporate governance might also be applicable to the case of institutional investors, who typically require a greater insight into the company's operations and accounts, information which is normally not available online. This topic might be of importance in the subsequent investment decision making process of institutional investors, insofar as this class of investors typically undertakes a significant proportion of equity into the company and require detailed company information. A major caveat associated with this report concerns the fact that such a subsequent investment position assumed by the institutional investor might be less positively construed by the company's current management (i.e., it might be seen as a potential takeover of William Hill). Finally, a formal and rigorous annual evaluation of the company's top management team is also regularly conducted. The Report on Corporate Governance reveals that good corporate governance is linked to the performance of William Hill. The measures ensuring good corporate governance at the company, in compliance with the U.K. Governance Code, are the following: the induction of Board members through a bespoke program; Board members have full access to all the required information about the company; the Board members are subjected to re-election at least every three years (conditional on effective performance); and the Nomination Committee ensures the nomination for the Board constitutes a transparent process (Hill 2015c).
Accountability - Reporting to Shareholders /External Audit
The Financial Reporting Council prescribes that a truly effective corporate governance structure relies on a number of components, namely: accountability to shareholders and their rights; the full availability of information pertaining to the company's performance and corresponding governance framework; finally, an ethical framework supporting a certain type of irreproachable behavior pattern by the companies, as evinced by either codes of conduct or statutes. In this respect, a distinction is maintained between the law as a stalwart of basic standards of conduct and corporate transparency and statutes or codes that are more efficient in encouraging best governance practice (Financial Reporting Council 2011). Accordingly, William Hill's website provides accurate and timely information to existing and prospective shareholders. This information is quite detailed in the 'Investors' area of the company's website, a fact that reveals the company's concern with upholding best governance practices. On the other hand, full details pertaining to the company's auditor has also been properly disclosed, as well as the company's latest accounts (Hill 2015c).
Remuneration - Directors and Senior Executives
The company's levels of remuneration to top executives should be sufficiently attractive to attract, retain and motivate Board members with the necessary quality to manage the company successfully. Simultaneously, the pay level should not be substantially above current market prices. A further point concerns the fact that the latter pay level should be adequately linked to both corporate and individual performance (Tricker 2012). Furthermore, pay levels should be subjected to a transparent and formal procedure, so that the executives involved are not directly responsible for deciding his or her remuneration. According to publicly available information on this topic, the remuneration level of the leading Board members is available through the 'Directors Remuneration Report', which has been included in the company's annual accounts for the latest year. A detailed breakdown of the accrued remuneration benefits is explicitly detailed in the report. This practice of publicly divulging remuneration levels of William Hill's top management is quite compliant with U.K.'s best governance practices. Moreover, the remuneration decision process, although somewhat complex, is fully transparent as the existence of mechanisms that ensure that the pay level is not determined by the interested party, and is effectively linked to individual performance (Hill 2015c). A potential area of non-compliance resides in the fact that the 'Remuneration Report' does not fully disclose the remuneration levels for all the Board members, as well as in the fact that the disclosure of remuneration information pertaining to its CEO, although explained, is not entirely formulated in a simple and effective manner.
Relations with Shareholders
Effective governance practices dictate that relations with shareholders should be adequately based on the mutual understanding between the company's top management and the heterogeneous set of interests pertaining to existing shareholders. Moreover, a transparent process of communications between these two structures should also be implemented, properly taking into account the pursuit of the company's organisational goals (Tricker 2012). According to publicly available information, The Board remains strongly committed to maintaining good relationships with external investors, through constant dialogue, presentation of financial results, and adequate availability of top management to discuss governance issues, thus indicating efficient governance procedures (Hill, 2015d).
RECOMMENDATION
Global demand for gaming products is typically growing, as the popularity of both gambling and online entertainment continues its expansion at a truly global level. This global expansion should stand to benefit William Hill, and its long-term growth expansion. There are, however, two caveats (KPMG 2010) that warrant an investor's attention. First, the online gaming market is undoubtedly a very attractive area of expansion for software developers, casinos and other land-based gambling operators, related suppliers, and industry newcomers and investors alike. This might increase a given company's operating costs, dragging down future growth, as competitive pressures increase in the industry. Second, there are several quite unpredictable political and legislative hurdles in place in many countries, and those obstacles might also condition future global growth. Nevertheless, online gaming seems to have a promising foothold in many European markets. Under this perspective, an investment in William Hill is also an investment into the future of online gambling, and the risk-return payoff might be quite interesting from a financial point of view. The online gaming industry thus possesses enormous growth potential, especially in advanced markets such the U.S. and the U.K. Notwithstanding, an impending ethical governance issue within the company might be linked to the allegations that the company might be exploiting addicted gamblers, by further enticing them through the advertisement of credit services to problematic gamblers (news.co.au 2015). This might pose a serious legal risk that might ultimately result in the dampening of growth and should be vehemently addressed through the implementation of adequate governance procedures. The present report sustains that an institutional investment in William Hill is thus justified by the company's sound and promising financial standing, the existence of proper mechanism that ensure that effective and robust corporate governance procedures and mechanisms have been properly implemented, and, ultimately, by the very buoyancy of the sport gaming industry in advanced economies.
CONCLUSION
In view of the analysis provided by this report, it is our assessment that William Hill is quite compliant with the UK Corporate Governance Code of 2014 (notwithstanding the fact that some issues pertaining to the process of effectively communicating remuneration levels to interested external stakeholders should be made more transparent and the number of female members to the Board should be increased). Finally, an investment decision by our institutional investors should be pursued, taking into consideration the company's financial soundness and its medium to long term growth prospects, notwithstanding the existence of impending regulatory issues that might condition the global growth of the sports betting industry.
REFERENCES
- Hill, W., 2015a. Board of Directors [Online]. Available: https://www.williamhillplc.com/about/board-of-directors/
- Hill, W., 2015b. Board and Governance. [Online]. Available: https://www.williamhillplc.com/investors/board-and-governance/
- Hill, W., 2015c. William Hill Plc Annual Reports and Accounts 2014. [Online]. Available: https://files.williamhillplc.com/media/1832/2014-final-results-accounts.pdf
- Hill, W., 2015d. Shareholder engagement. [Online]. Available: https://www.williamhillplc.com/investors/board-and-governance/shareholder-engagement/
- Financial Reporting Council, 2011. Effective Corporate Governance. [Online]. Available: https://www.frc.org.uk/FRC-Documents/FRC/FRC-Effective-Corporate-Governance.aspx
- Financial Reporting Council, 2014. The UK Corporate Governance Code. [Online] Available: https://www.frc.org.uk/Our-Work/Publications/Corporate-Governance/UK-Corporate-Governance-Code-2014.pdf
- KPMG, 2010. Online Gaming: A Gamble or a Sure Bet? [Online] Available: https://www.kpmg.com/EU/en/Documents/Online-Gaming.pdf
- News.co.au, 2015. William Hill offers customers $1000 credit. [Online]. Available: https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/william-hill-offers-customers-1000-credit/story-e6frfmci-1227286743077
- The Guardian, 2013. FTSE 100 companies still 66 female directors short of boardroom target. [Online]. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/07/female-directors-boardroom-target-business-cable
- The Economist, 2015. A risky business. [Online]. Available: https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21598671-gambling-machines-are-controversialand-increasingly-unpopular-risky-business
- Tonello, M., 2010. Board Composition and Organization Issues. In: Baker, H.K. and Anderson, R., eds. Corporate Governance: A Synthesis of Theory, Research, and Practice. United States: John Wiley and Sons Inc., pp. 195-223.
- Tricker, B., 2012. Corporate Governance. Principles, Policies and Practices. Second edition. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
- Turnbull, C.S.S., 2010. What's Wrong with Corporate Governance Best Practices?. In: Baker, H.K. and Anderson, R., eds. Corporate Governance: A Synthesis of Theory, Research, and Practice. United States: John Wiley and Sons Inc., pp. 79-96.
- Yahoo Finance, 2015a. Key Statistics. [Online]. Available: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=WMH.L
- Yahoo Finance, 2015b. Basic Chart. [Online]. Available: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=WMH.L&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=
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A Corporate Governance Report of William Hill. (2017, Jun 26).
Retrieved November 4, 2025 , from
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Principals of Corporate Finance – Motorway Access Ltd
Introduction
The question of whether or not to proceed with a project requiring significant capital expenditure is one which involves considerations running the gamut of issues facing the firm. Taking a purely financial perspective the firm is required by Fischer's Separation Theorem to return the maximum amount of wealth to shareholders (Fischer, Reprinted 1977). In the modern firm ownership is separated from control in the form of the capital of the company being held, traditionally at least by shareholders who have little to do with the day to day running of the firm, this being entrusted to the Directors appointed to the board by the trustees and shareholders. As such in the modern finance world there is a considerable agency problem whereby the owners of the firm's capital have a degree of separation from the control of their capital (Farma, 1978). As such it is expected, and enforced by the market in terms of the willingness of investors to place capital under a firm's control, that a firm will return wealth consummate with an acceptable degree of risk. Indeed it is the risk of an investment which dries the importance of investment appraisal in firms and understanding the difference between systematic and un-systematic risk underpins much of the following discussion of the investment appraisal process (Hirshliefer, 1961). Un-systematic risk is the risk associated with the unique operations and conditions of the firm and is relatively unimportant (at least in terms of the financial theory) whilst systematic risk, especially as represented as the Beta of the firm (more of which later) is the risk of the class of share within the market (Pogue, 2004). The theory is that a share price is determined by its relation to the capital market line, in terms of the random walk theory, which governs the movement of the share with the market. Shares move as the market moves, generally speaking, and so how much they move represents the systematic risk to the shareholder. Beta is now one of the most common ways to measure the value of equity capital and is also used heavily in portfolio theory. It is not without controversy or criticism. Betas are worked out using a wide range of financial data from the past and as such many commentators have argued that Beta has little to tell us about the future. There are significant problems with translating accounting data into price relevant information, particularly there is at best a tenuous link between earnings and book values of assets and prices observed in the market. Particularly the Ohlson model which it is argued demonstrates a coefficient between these figures and price (also which it is assumed makes sense of both the Modigliani and Miller relevancy hypothesis and Gordon and Shapiro's value metrics) (Pogue, 2004). Notwithstanding these criticisms and the accepted criticism of the random walk theory, which are considerable, Beta is still widely accepted as a way of dealing with systematic risk. What does this mean for Investment Appraisal techniques? In terms of the accepted methodology of investment appraisal the goal of such appraisal has to be the increase in wealth of the shareholders, and as such many of the techniques which are readily deployed by managers have no theoretical basis. In the following appraisal of the project a number of techniques are used to give decision relevant information of the project (Graham, 2001). The company has two criteria which it uses to judge the acceptability of a project, the Return on Investment, which it states must be above 15% and the payback period, which must be within three years. Both of these methods give information in terms of in the first case, accounting data, and in the second a rule of thumb for recouping the initial investment within a specified time period. Neither of these methods tell us much about the financial and wealth creating aspects of the project in question (Hajddasinski, 1993). Payback is simply a measure of the amount of time it takes to recoup the initial investment, and as such has little to do with maximising shareholder wealth, it is entirely possible for a project to recoup the initial investment very quickly but them go on to actually destroy wealth in later years, particularly when a project runs for a significant period of time. The Accounting rate of return similarly tells us little about the wealth creation of the project, considering as it usually does non financial items such as depreciation which have little to do with the amount of actual wealth returned to shareholders. Neither of these techniques takes into consideration systematic risk to shareholders, and as such ignores an important and fundamental aspect of modern finance theory. Indeed it is only Net Present Value (NPV) which can tell us about the wealth creating and destroying aspects of a project and as such it is this technique (along with the similar technique of Internal Rate of Return (IRR)) which can give decision relevant information in terms of shareholder wealth (Lefley, 2004). Briefly NPV uses a discount factor, based upon the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) which adjusts the incremental net cashflows of a project for systemic risk, thus ensuring that the wealth created for the company reflects the time value of money (Amran, 1999). Much of the methodology in NPV requires one to recognise incremental cashflows and to remove those which have no relevance to wealth creation, particularly accounting derivations such as depreciation. Other cashflows which need not be included are sunk costs and other costs which would exist regardless of the projects acceptance. Thus the analysis concentrates on the wealth creating (or destroying) aspects of projects rather than the book conventions and ephemeral of other techniques. It results in a cash figure, in terms of either wealth added or destroyed by the acceptance of the project and is particularly useful for the ranking of projects in times of capital rationing. NPV is a powerful decision making tool, but not without considerable problems in and of itself. NPV requires the firm to estimate future cashflows, and as will be seen, the accuracy of these cashflows are of significant importance to the viability of the project (Amran, 1999). Further the use of NPV is considered by many to be far more complex than most other techniques and non specialists may find the results and even the preparation of this analysis to be a significant challenge. Further the discount factor itself is often controversial, WACC is only one of a range of factors which can be used, but is most theoretically correct (as will be seen in the discussion later of the capital gearing theory), but without a very accurate discount factor the analysis is at serious risk of error (Hillier, 1963). Notwithstanding these problems NPV is one of the most relevant and reliable tools of investment appraisal and satisfies much of the theoretical underpinning of the subject of finance. This report finds that the project returns a positive NPV and satisfies all of the other investment criteria and therefore should be undertaken (Graham, 2001).Results & Findings
Please see appendix A for the full derivation of the results and findings.| Net Profit (£) | 2792009 |
| Payback | 2.5 years |
| ARR% | 55.84018 |
| NPV | 1767785 |
| IRR | 21% |
Discussion and Analysis
As has been established in the introduction the primacy of the NPV technique carries with it a significant theoretical advantage over other methods. IRR too is based on the same methodology and gives the cost of capital at which the NV of the project would be zero, as such it provides for the maximum cost of capita at which the project would be viable. It would seem that this project is worth undertaking, not only does it satisfy all of the existing criteria for the firm, but it also returns wealth to the shareholders given the risk class of the share. The problems of NPV have to, however, be considered in line with the predictability of cashflows and the sensitivity of the project to the accuracy of these cashflows (Kim S.H. & Crick, 1986). If the cars per day through the toll booths were a thousand less the project returns a negative NPV and in effect destroys wealth for shareholders:| Time | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Income | |||||
| - Vehicles (Est) p/day | 0 | 2000 | 1400 | 1200 | 1000 |
| - Toll p/car (£) | 0 | 4 | 5 | 5.5 | 6 |
| - Income p/day | 0 | 8000 | 7000 | 6600 | 6000 |
| - Income p/annum | 0 | 2920000 | 2555000 | 2409000 | 2190000 |
| Expenditure | |||||
| - Operating costs (@£ p/vehicle) | 0 | 2 | 2.5 | 3 | 3.5 |
| - Total Operating costs | 0 | 1460000 | 1277500 | 1314000 | 1277500 |
| - Wages (@£288 p/day * 365) | 0 | 105120 | 105120 | 105120 | 105120 |
| - Outlay | 5000000 | ||||
| Total Expenditure | 5000000 | 1565122 | 1382623 | 1419123 | 1382624 |
| Net Income | -5000000 | 1354878 | 1172378 | 989877 | 807376.5 |
| Net Profit | -675491 | ||||
| ARR% | -13.5098 | ||||
| Discount @ 6% (Cost of Equity Capital) | 0.942 | 0.888 | 0.8375 | 0.7903 | |
| DCF | -5000000 | 1276295 | 1041071 | 829022 | 638069.6 |
| NPV | -1215542 | ||||
| Time | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Income | |||||
| - Vehicles (Est) p/day | 0 | 3000 | 2400 | 2200 | 2000 |
| - Toll p/car (£) | 0 | 4 | 5 | 5.5 | 6 |
| - Income p/day | 0 | 12000 | 12000 | 12100 | 12000 |
| - Income p/annum | 0 | 4380000 | 4380000 | 4416500 | 4380000 |
| Expenditure | |||||
| - Operating costs (@£ p/vehicle) | 0 | 3 | 3.75 | 4.5 | 4.75 |
| - Total Operating costs | 0 | 3285000 | 3285000 | 3613500 | 3467500 |
| - Wages (@£288 p/day * 365) | 0 | 105120 | 105120 | 105120 | 105120 |
| - Outlay | 5000000 | ||||
| Total Expenditure | 5000000 | 3390123 | 3390124 | 3718625 | 3572625 |
| Net Income | -5000000 | 989877 | 989876.3 | 697875.5 | 807375.3 |
| Net Profit | -1514996 | ||||
| ARR% | -30.2999 | ||||
| Discount @ 6% (Cost of Equity Capital) | 0.942 | 0.888 | 0.8375 | 0.7903 | |
| DCF | -5000000 | 932464.1 | 879010.1 | 584470.7 | 638068.7 |
| NPV | -1965986 | ||||
| IRR | -14% | ||||
| Debt | Equity | |
| % Cost | 5 | 6 |
| Gearing | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Wacc | 5.5 | |
Recommendations
The report makes the following recommendations o the managers of the company. The project, as it is presented in the brief is a viable project given the cost of capital the company has. There are a number of concerns, however, and these need to be taken into consideration before proceeding. These are- The cashflows of the project are sensitive, specifically the revenue and operating costs of the project, changes to these will change the profitability and wealth generation of the project. It is recommended that further sensitivity analysis be undertaken.
- The cost of capital is the hurdle rate used for the analysis, the Directors may wish to use other figures to demonstrate other risks in terms of the project.
- The price of the debt and the marginal tax rate.
- The Preference of equity holders.
- The amount of risk of financial distress posed by the debt.
Conclusions
This report has summarised some of the key themes in modern financial thought, tracing its roots back to the seminal work of the key players in the field, especially Modigliani and Miller. Finance is neither science or art , rather it is an amalgam of the two, there are no ‘off the peg' solutions and many of the techniques discussed herein are merely tools with which one can transform the data at hand into more relevant information. None of the approaches alone can give one a ‘right' answer from available data. One must consider the full range of issues, from the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of the appraisal techniques and gearing theory, to the specific features of the project and company themselves to arrive at an optimal decision. As such one needs to understand how finance operates at a fundamental level of the firm and the consequences of decisions made by managers on firm performance and investor attitude. The recommendations made herein are based on the limited data available via the brief and many other factors are likely to come into play.Bibliography
Amran, M. a. (1999). Real Options: Managing Strategic Investemtn in and Uncertain world. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Arnold, G. (2007). Financial Managment. London: Prentice Hall. Drury, C. (2006). Managment & Cost Accounting. London : Prentice. Farma, E. (1978). The effects of a firms investment and financing decisions. American Economic Review 68 (3) , 272-84. Fischer, I. (Reprinted 1977). The Theory of Interest. Porcupine Press. Fisher, F. &. (1983). On the misuse of accounting rates of return to infer monopoly profits. Amaerican Economic Review 73 , 82-97. Graham, J. &. (2001). The Theory and Practice of corporate fiinance; evidence from the field. Journal of Financial Economics 60 (2-3) , 187-243. Hajddasinski, M. (1993). The Payback period as a measure of profitability and liquidity. Engineering Economist 38 (3) , 177-91. Harris, M. &. (1991). The theory of capital structure. Journal of Finance, 46 , 297-355. Hertz, D. B. (1964). Risk analysis in capital investment. Harvard Business Review , 95-106. Hillier, F. (1963). The derivation of probabilistic information for the evaluation of risky investments. Managment Science , 443-57. Hirshliefer, J. (1961). On the theory of optimal investment decision. American Economic Review , 112-20. Kim S.H. & Crick, T. (1986). Do executives practice what academics teach? Management Accounting , 49-52. Lefley, F. (2004). An assessment of various approaches for evaluating project strategic benefits; Recommending the strategic index. Management Decision 42:7 , 850-862. Modigliani, F. &. (1958). The cost of capital, corporation finance and the theory of investment. American Economic Review 48 , 261-97. Pinches, G. (1982). Myopia, capital budgetting and decision making. Financial Managment , 6-19. Pogue, M. (2004). Investment appraisal A new approach. Managerial Auditing Journal 19:4 , 565-570. Ross, S. (1995). Uses, abuses and alternatives to the Net Present Value tule. Financial Managment , 96-102. Solomon, E. (1963). The Theory of Financial Management. New York: Columbia University Press. Wilkes, F. (1980). On multiple rates of return. Journal of Business, Finance and Accounting, 7 (4) .Cite this page
Principals of Corporate Finance - Motorway Access Ltd. (2017, Jun 26).
Retrieved November 4, 2025 , from
https://studydriver.com/2017/06/page/6/
How Income Statements are Prepared Using Marginal and Absorption Costing
This paper aims at looking at how income statements are prepared using marginal and absorption costing. The absorption costing method charges all direct costs to the product costs as well as a share of indirect costs. The indirect costs are charged to products using a single overhead absorption rate which is calculated by dividing the total cost centre overhead to the total volume of budgeted production. On the other hand under marginal costing, only variable costs are charged to cost units. Fixed costs are written off the profit and loss account as period costs. Sections and below show the marginal and absorption costing income statements respectively for HLtd that manufactures and sells a single product during the years ending 2006 and 2007. It is assumed that the company uses the first-in-first-out (FIFO) method for valuing inventories. In addition it is assumed that the company employs a single overhead absorption rate each year based on budgeted units and actual units exactly equalled budgeted units for both years. Workings are shown the attached excel file.
Marginal Costing
|
H Ltd Income Statement (Marginal Costing) |
2006 |
|
2007 |
||
|
£'000 |
£'000 |
||||
| Sales Revenue |
3000 |
3600 |
|||
| Cost of Sales: | |||||
| Opening Stock |
0 |
400 |
|||
| Production cost (W1, W2) |
700 |
500 |
|||
| Variable Marketing and Admin |
1000 |
1200 |
|||
| Cost of Goods available for sale |
1700 |
2100 |
|||
| Ending inventory (W3, W4) |
200 |
100 |
|||
|
1500 |
2000 |
||||
| Contribution Margin |
1500 |
1600 |
|||
| Less Fixed costs | |||||
| Marketing and Admin |
400 |
400 |
|||
| Production overheads |
700 |
700 |
|||
|
1100 |
1100 |
||||
| Operating profit |
400 |
500 |
|||
Absorption Costing
|
H Ltd Income Statement (Absorption Costing) |
2006 |
|
2007 |
||
|
£'000 |
£'000 |
||||
| Sales |
3000 |
3600 |
|||
| Cost of Sales | |||||
| Beginning Inventory |
0 |
400 |
|||
| Production Cost (W5, W6) |
1400 |
1200 |
|||
| Ending Inventory (W7, W8) |
400 |
240 |
|||
|
1000 |
1360 |
||||
| Gross Profit |
2000 |
2240 |
|||
| Marketing and Admin Expenses | |||||
| Fixed |
400 |
400 |
|||
| Variable |
1000 |
1200 |
|||
|
1400 |
1600 |
||||
| Operating profit |
600 |
640 |
|||
Reconciliation of net income under absorption and Marginal Costing
|
Reconciliation |
|
2006 |
|
2007 |
|
£'000 |
£'000 |
|||
| Absorption operating profit |
600 |
640 |
||
| Less Fixed overhead cost in ending inventory (W9) |
200 |
140 |
||
| Marginal Costing net income |
400 |
500 |
||
Under marginal costing inventory of finished goods as well as work in progress is valued at variable costs only. On the contrary, absorption costing values stocks of inventory of finished goods and work in progress at both variable costs and an absorbed amount for fixed production overheads. In the case of H Ltd, under marginal costing, only variable costs are included in the ending inventory figure. This results in a profit figure of £400,000. On the other hand absorption costing includes additional £200,000 as fixed overhead in the ending inventory for 2006. As a result absorption operating profit is overstated by £200,000 in 2006. In like manner, the absorption profit under absorption costing is overstated by £140,000 due to an inclusion of £140,000 of fixed overhead cost in the ending inventory figure for 2007. To reconcile the profit under absorption costing and marginal costing, we may either subtract the fixed overhead included in ending inventory from the absorption cost operating profit to arrive at the marginal cost operating profit or add the fixed overhead costs in ending inventory to the marginal cost operating profit to arrive at the absorption cost operating profit.
Stock Build-ups
Stock build-ups may result from using absorption costing for performance measurement purposes because inventory is valued at both fixed and variable costs. Firstly, profit is overstated. In fact absorption costing enables income manipulation because when inventory increases fixed costs in the current year can be deferred to latter years and as such current net income is overstated which in effect results in financial statements that do not present fairly and as such affect users' decisions on the financial statements. Secondly, maintaining high levels of inventory may result in obsolescence and as such declines in future profitability resulting from the loss in value of the inventory.
Advantages of Absorption Costing and Marginal Costing
According to ACCA the following arguments have been advanced for using absorption costing:
- It is necessary to include fixed overhead in stock values for financial statements. This is because routine cost accounting using absorption costing produces stock values which include a share of fixed overhead. Based on this argument, financial statements prepared using absorption costing present a true and faithful representation of the actual results of operation of the company.
- For a small jobbing business, overhead allotment is the only practicable way of obtaining job costs for estimating and profit analysis.
- Analysis of under - over-absorbed overhead is useful to identify inefficient utilisation of production resources. ACCA also identifies a number of arguments in favour of marginal costing. Preparation of routine cost accounting statements using marginal costing is considered more informative to management for the following reasons:
- Contribution per unit represents a direct measure of how profit and volume relate. Profit per unit is a misleading figure.
- Build-up or run-down of stocks of finished goods will distort comparison of operating profit statements. In the case of closing inventory, the inventory is valued only at the variable cost per unit. This makes the profit under a situation where there is closing inventory to be the same as the case when there is no closing inventory thereby enabling the comparison of operating profit statements over time.
- Unlike under absorption costing, marginal costing avoids the arbitrary apportionment of fixed costs, which in turn result in misleading product cost comparisons.
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To what Extent are the Stock Markets Overvalued?
Introduction
Stock markets are considered to be among the most preferred investment platforms by investors, as they generate a high return on investment (Fong, 2014). There are many underlying reasons for this high return, one of which may be the valuation of the financial commodities traded in the stock market (Chang, 2005). Some financial analysts believe that the stock markets are extremely overvalued (Phoenix, 2014), while there are others who consider them as being slightly overvalued (Rosenberg, 2010). Another school of thought has a viewpoint that they are fairly valued (Wolf, 2008); while, some hold the opinion that they are undervalued (Pan, 2009). Due to these differences in viewpoints, it becomes difficult to gauge the extent to which stock markets are overvalued. The reasons for these differences in opinions are the different geographical locations (Tan, Gan and Li, 2010) and the different assumptions made in comparisons (Cheng and Li, 2015). The difference in the methods used for valuation also turns out to be one of the reasons, as every method has its merits and demerits (Khan, 2002). Stock market overvaluation may have severe negative effects including a market crash or increasing organisation's agency costs, which need to be considered by managers in organization-wide strategic management (Jensen, 2005).Methods used for Stock Valuation
Various methods are used for stock valuation; some of the common ones include Price to Earnings ratio (Stowe et al., 2008), Knowledge Capital Earnings (Ujwary-Gil, 2014) and Dividend Discount Model (Adiya, 2010). The price to earnings ratio is the most common method used to evaluate stock markets, whereby the company's current stock price is compared with the predicted earnings it will yield in future (Stowe et al., 2008). Knowledge Capital Earnings - KCE is another method through which a company's intellectual capital can be gauged and interpretation of the extent to which it is overvalued can be given (Ujwary-Gil, 2014). The KCE method, however, is specifically subjective if the analyst is interested in estimating the potential future earnings of an organization (Ujwary-Gil, 2014). The Dividend Discount Model is based on the assumption that the price of a stock at equilibrium will be equal to the sum of all its upcoming dividend yields discounted back to its current value (Ivanovski, Ivanovska and Narasanov, 2015). One of the shortcomings of this model is with the company's growth estimation, in which the averaged historical rates do not provide an accurate picture, as they ignore the ongoing economic conditions and the changes that take place in the company (Ivanovski, Ivanovska and Narasanov, 2015). Another issue identified by Mishkin, Matthews and Giuliodori (2013) is related to the accuracy of dividends forecasted based on the company's past performance and the predicted future trends of the market; critics cast doubts on the accuracy of these figures, as they are purely based on estimation of analysts and may not be always correct.Stock Markets are Extremely Overvalued
Hussman (2014), who is well-known for his accurate insights about the financial markets, comments in one of his speeches that due to their Zero Interest Rate and Quantitative Easing policies, the central banks have driven the stock prices up to twice as high as they are supposed to be. This imparts the stock markets to be overvalued by 100%. While different authors argue that every evaluation metric has its merits and demerits, which makes it difficult to conclude whether stock markets are overvalued when calculated via a specific metric, a Phoenix (2014) report provides evidence of the fact that stock markets are overvalued by almost every metric used for valuation. According to Autore, Boulton and Alves (2015), short interest rates are also a determinant of stock valuation; the lower the short interest rate of the initial stock, the more overvalued the stock will be. An example could be that of the U.S. stock market which is analysed to be overvalued by 55% (Lombardi, 2014), while it is estimated to be overvalued by 80% according to another research (Heyes, 2015). Lombardi (2014) identifies it to be overvalued to such an extent due to the increasing presence of bullish stock advisors as compared to bearish advisors, which results in the investors being complacent without being anxious about a huge market sell-off. By evaluating the market through various methods, Tenebrarum (2015) established an opinion that the U.S. stock market is valued at its highest peak to date. Additionally, Lombardi (2014) recognises these indicators to be similar to those before the stock market crash in 2007. Hence it may lead us to a prediction that history might repeat itself, as specialists have already expected the forthcoming crash (Heyes, 2015).Reasons behind Extreme Overvaluation
Moenning (2014) explains one of the reasons behind stock overvaluation to be investors' inclination to fall in the trap of investing based on stock valuation, instead of business cycles. He further elaborates that due to the investors' inclination towards highly valued stocks, companies raise their stock prices to make their stock seem attractive to be preferred by investors over that of other companies. Qian (2014) identifies a solution to this that if investors are discouraged from merely considering stock valuation while looking for investment options, companies will not have an incentive to undertake systematic mispricing of their stocks, which results in overvaluation. Another reason behind overvaluation of stock market has been suggested by Autore, Boulton and Alves (2015); according to whom the stocks are overvalued to a great extent due to the higher levels of failure to deliver. Three major exchanges report a huge number of failures to deliver in their daily listings approximately equal to 10,000 shares or 0.5% of the overall outstanding shares, which further explains the reason behind extreme overvaluation of stock markets (Autore, Boulton and Alves, 2015).Stock Markets are Slightly Overvalued
Some analysts estimate the stock markets to be slightly overvalued as compared to what their value should be. Rosenberg (2010) further strengthens this point in his research which revealed that stock markets are overvalued by 35%. A Newstex (2010) report provides little evidence about the market being overvalued by 26%. Specialists from this school of thought believe that stock overvaluation may only result in a temporary disruption in the market, which may be resolved by cautiously reducing the stock prices.Stock Markets are Fairly Valued
The ideal situation is the one when stock markets are appropriately valued, which Wolf (2008) identifies as an opportunity. He says that fairly priced stock markets are favoured by the investors and risk-seeking governments, as it is the situation with lesser uncertainty. With an overall market yield of 4%, Paler (2012) recognised the stock markets to be fairly valued, regarding them as a suitable investment platform. For example, Newstex (2015) reported Amazon's stock price to be fairly valued at $295 per share as opposed to $380. This is because financial analysts believe that factors such as the potential decline in the annual revenue growth, reduction in operating profit margins due to increasing technology, marketing and other costs, and increased investment in growth strategies, such as international expansion, need to be accounted for when valuing stocks. It can thus be understood that overvalued stocks pose to be a threat for the financial markets because investors lose confidence, which results in a drop in revenue growth (Akbulut, 2013). The slightly overvalued stock markets may find their easy escape if the decline in the Central Bank rates results in a decrease in the wider interest rate spectrum (Saler, 1998).Stock Markets are undervalued
Pan (2009) supports the claim that stock markets are undervalued, along with which he gives the example of the Asian stock market, which is approximately 30% undervalued. One of the reasons he identified for it was the political instability. Another example is provided by Pawsey (2009), whereby he analysed that most of the UK stock market remains undervalued and it has not been so in decades. The reason he identified was that the stocks are undersold as compared to the sales estimation. On one hand, the U.S. stock market is viewed as being extremely overvalued, while on the other, the U.K. stock market is severely undervalued. It can thus be seen that the geographical location plays a great role in the differences of opinion about overvaluation and undervaluation of the stock markets (Tan, Gan and Li, 2010). There are some specific markets which are consistently undervalued for certain periods of time. An example could be the Russian stock market; Putin (2008) found Russian companies to be severely undervalued. Caldwell's (2015) analysis also depicted that Russian stock market is among the three most undervalued markets globally. The analysis also included predictions that the Russian stocks might go down further, therefore investors need to beware before investing in such markets.Reasons behind Stock Undervaluation
One of the reasons behind undervaluation of stock markets is the investor's inclination towards highly valued stocks. Although some companies set their stocks at a lower price to make them seem cheaper and more attractive for the investors to buy, they find the investors doing the opposite, i.e. opting for highly valued stocks in anticipation of higher returns (Warner, 2010).Reasons for Different Viewpoints
Different Assumptions and Valuation Methodology
The different viewpoints mentioned about stock valuation are based on the different assumptions (Cheng and Li, 2015) and different methods used for valuation (Khan, 2002). It also follows that these different methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, which if accounted for, may result in a different perspective. For example, price to earnings ratio is considered to be a worthless tool by some analysts because of its overoptimistic estimates (Tenebrarum, 2015). Taboga (2011) identifies another issue with this ratio, that it is mostly influenced by the fluctuations in earnings due to the business cycle oscillations. Hence he assumes that relying merely on this method may not provide a true picture of the extent to which stock market is overvalued.Implications of Overvaluation
Hunter, Kaufman and Pomerleano (2005) explain that extreme overvaluation of the stock market should be taken into consideration and a solution should be devised for it, otherwise there would be higher probability of a crash. Liao (2014) also found a positive relationship between highly overvalued markets and possibility of a crash. He also found a negative relationship between extreme overvaluation and future share price jumps. Jensen's (2005) study revealed that the overvaluation of a company's stock gives rise to certain organisational forces which become difficult for the management to handle, damaging the organisation's core value either partially or entirely. On one hand, overvalued stock markets pose threats to the financial markets, while on the other, they help in boosting up the aggregate demand and supply, such that this positive effect may potentially be able to subside the negative effect (Cecchetti et al., 2000). Jones and Netter (2012) believe that mispriced stocks prove to be a source of encouragement for investors to trade, as a result of which they are reverted back to their reasonable prices.Conclusion
The valuation of stock markets has long been an area of concern for financial institutions and analysts. The differences in valuation and the opinions regarding valuation occur because of the differences in the methods used for calculations and making estimates. Each method has its pros and cons and research suggests that one method alone cannot provide a true picture of the degree to which stock markets are overvalued or undervalued. There is evidence about stock markets being extremely overvalued, and there is also an equal amount of research suggesting they are fairly valued and/or undervalued. Considering the differences in methods used and the variation in geographical locations where these researches are conducted, it is difficult to hold a strong opinion about the extent to which stock markets are overvalued or undervalued, because critics against each school of thought have logical reasoning proving the limitations of the valuation method used by the other analysts. It is therefore necessary for the analysts to use a combination of two or methods for stock valuation, so that the doubts of the critics may be reduced, ensuring transparency in the financial data analysis.References
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Measuring the Strategic Readiness of Intangible Assets
Introduction
It is increasingly clear from the example at the beginning, that, in 21st century's knowledge-driven, services-dominated, economy, it is the intangible assets, and not so much the physical and financial assets, which are playing an increasingly important role in shaping a business's success. At the same time, it is realized by management, that there is a need to objectively evaluate the readiness of these intangible assets in enabling a business to achieve its strategy. For the benefit of analysis, we start by defining intangible assets as any nonphysical assets that can produce economic benefits. These cover intellectual capital, knowledge assets, human capital and organizational capital as well as more specific attributes like quality of corporate governance and customer loyalty. (Zadrozny, Wlodrek). So what is required to map and manage these assets for the success of a business's strategy?Analysis of Situation
According to Kaplan and Norton, while developing Balanced Scorecard (a concept for measuring a company's activities in terms of its vision and strategies, and helps to give managers a comprehensive view of the performance of a business), they identified three major categories of intangible assets: No. | Intangible Assets | Encompassing Elements |
| 1 | Human Capital | Skills; Training; Knowledge |
| 2 | Information Capital | Systems; Databases; Networks |
| 3 | Organization Capital | Culture; Leadership; Alignment; Teamwork |
Discussions and Findings
As we discover, there are unique features of intangible assets that make their behaviour different from the physical and financial assets. These are: 1. Intangibles assets mostly cannot create value for an organization in a standalone form. They need to be combined with other assets. The implication of this is on a firm's ability to assign a value to these assets on a standalone basis. 2. These assets rarely affect financial performance directly, unlike physical or financial assets which immediately start paying off. Intangible assets contribute indirectly through a chain of cause and effect. For example, the investment in training a team in total quality management may decrease defects and therefore may give rise to customer satisfaction and heighten positive brand perception. 3. While human capital and information capital are easier to map and manage, organizational capital is much more difficult. 4. Human capital may be measured by mapping the jobs and identifying the strategic job families before focusing on getting these jobs ready for strategy implementation. Information capital may be evolved by identifying and creating a portfolio of transactional, analytical and transformational computer applications and sturdy network infrastructure that give a positive edge to the manner in which business is conducted. One such example is the complete transformation in retail banking with deployment of information systems that empower a customer exponentially. 5. Organizational capital is the most challenging element to map and manage because of the complete behavioural change required in conducting business at all levels. Changing the base culture - that involves the employees' shared attitudes and beliefs, and the Climate – which comprises of the shared perception of the organization's policies, procedures and practices, require a grip on deep-rooted, socio-psychological dynamics at work within the organization. For example, changing National Health Services (NHS) culture from a budget oriented operations to a dynamic business plan oriented operations that focuses on health consumer, is more challenging than mapping the strategic jobs and putting state-of-the-art information capital. For bringing organizational capital readiness, leadership plays a very important role, as do communication and knowledge-sharing. 6. Once these intangible assets are brought in state of strategic readiness, they start contributing in generating cash for the business. For example, if McDonalds sets a service response time of 30 seconds and trains its human capital to achieve this target, the customer turnover at the counter will increase and lead to higher revenues. 7. Finally, for these assets to come into a state of strategic readiness, they need to be aligned with the organization's strategy. If they are not properly aligned, it can lead to chaos. For example, if McDonalds promises its customers a 30 seconds service but does not care to bring its human, information and organizational assets up to required standards, there will be widespread dissonance amongst its customer base and the risk of erosion in brand value will be very high.Cite this page
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Greenhouse Gas Emissions Essay Download Pdf
Introduction
Greenhouse gas emissions, and other forms of environmental pollution, are economic externalities as they impose costs on individuals and communities who did not create the pollution (Jaffe et al, 2005). These economic externalities are side effects that are experienced by individuals not connected with the polluting process. As such, the individual or entity from which the pollution originates does not need to reflect the pollution costs within their prices. The problem therefore lies in the associated costs to society that environmental pollution causes. These damages and costs, which include climate change, in the form of biodiversity loss, rising sea levels and extreme weather events, are not paid for by the companies or industries that emit the pollution and so they do not need to factor these costs into the market price of the goods or services that they provide.
The result of this is that society produces and consumes high volumes of pollution-creating products, whilst industries continue to produce these goods and services without having to account for the costs associated with environmental pollution (Frankel and Rose, 2005). This form of market failure is addressed by market-based environmental policies that construct systems which incorporate the costs associated with environmental pollution into the industry's decision making and financial process (Metcalf, 2009). The theoretical basis for these market-based policies is that when an industry or other pollution making entity see, and must pay for, the societal cost of pollution, then they will design innovative ways in which to reduce their environmental impact. In addition, the full environmental cost of the products will be reflected in the price, therefore enabling consumers to make informed purchasing decisions (Owen, 2006). The remainder of this document will consider the effectiveness of market-based policies compared with traditional command and control regulations.
Command and Control versus Market-Based Policies
Traditional command and control policies required polluters to reduce emissions by installing specific technology in order to meet specific performance emission standards (Hepburn, 2006). However, opponents to the command and control mindset state that this form of regulation is inflexible and does not take into consideration that some industries are able to meet these targets at a much lower cost than others (Liu et al, 2014). Additionally, the command and control regulatory approach does not incentivise industries to innovate and reduce their environmental impacts by more than what is required by the standard (Haselip et al, 2015). Conversely, market-based approaches have been reported to provide greater flexibility for industry (Pirard, 2012). However, it is necessary to address the type of pollutant being emitted, as there are some that need to be maintained at a very low level for health-related reasons (Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions, 2012). As such, it may be necessary to control these types of pollutants with command and control regulations in order to ensure that health-related thresholds are not breached. Greenhouse gases are not harmful on a localised basis.
Their effects are only seen when they are globally mixed within the atmosphere and cause damage on a global scale (Meinshausen et al, 2011). As such, many proponents claim that market-based regulatory approaches are particularly appropriate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Pirard, 2012; Hrabanski et al, 2013; Boisvert et al, 2013). Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that these policies provide greater compliance flexibility and can reach and improve environmental objectives at much lower overall costs (Boisvert et al, 2013). One key aspect of these market-based policies is that they provide a financial incentive for industry to develop and deploy lower environmental pollution emitting technologies, whilst leaving the private market to decide which technologies can be expanded and utilised (Pirard, 2012). Within this structure, each regulated industry is able to independently choose the most cost-effective method to achieve the required pollution abatement. As previously mentioned, some industries are able to reduce their pollution more easily and cheaply than others, due to the technology or equipment that they are using. This enables them to reduce their pollution more, therefore compensating for those industries who are unable to meet traditional command and control targets due to the costs involved.
As such, the overall environmental target can still be achieved but at a much lower societal and industry cost (Pirard, 2012). A good example of the success of market-based policies has been seen within the US. At the federal level, sulphur dioxide emissions have been reduced at a fraction of the original estimated cost (CCES, 2012). In addition, at state level, market-based approaches have been successfully incorporated into cap-and-trade and renewable energy programs to reduce nitrogen oxides and other greenhouse gases (CCES, 2012). The following sections will consider two distinct examples of market-based policies that can control greenhouse gas emissions.
Taxes
Taxes, that set a price on each unit of pollution, are the most basic form of market-based policies. This pollution tax ensures that the industry producing the pollution pays an additional cost dependent on the amount of pollution that is emitted (Vossler et al, 2013). This cost incentivises the industry to reduce the amount of pollution produced and encourage them to change their processes or incorporate better technology within their production line (Suter et al, 2005). As such, the more emissions that are reduced, the less pollution tax the industry needs to pay. However, it is necessary to calculate the societal cost of the pollution in order to set the price of the tax (Chiroleu-Assouline et al, 2014). This can be a complex process with the societal costs of pollution being difficult to quantify. For example, if the pollution emitted from a certain industry caused a population decline in a commercial shellfishery, then the damages could be based on the lost value of the shellfish at current market price. However, if the emitted pollution causes the extinction of a species or the destruction of a habitat, it is less clear on how society should assign a financial cost which equates to that loss. In addition, it is necessary to address how the environmental pollution emitted from today's industries can cause damage to future generations and how to quantify these consequences when there are a range of possible outcomes (CCES, 2012).
Cap-and-Trade
The cap-and-trade approach sees the regulatory authority determining a total quantity of pollution that is acceptable (Betsill and Hoffmann, 2011). This is the cap. Industries are able to trade emission allowances based on their needs. However, there is a limited number of these allowances, so trading comes at a cost (Betsill and Hoffmann, 2011). Each regulated industry holds enough allowances to ensure that the cap is not breached whilst also creating demand for the allowances (Stephan and Paterson, 2012). For some businesses, it may be less costly for them to reduce their emissions than to buy allowances, therefore encouraging them to analyse their polluting activities and reduce their environmental impact. Some businesses are able to reduce their emissions to such an extent that they have excess allowances, which can be either banked for future use or sold to businesses that are struggling to reduce emissions. However, due to the scarcity of the allowances and their tradable nature, a price is placed on greenhouse gas emissions (Stephan and Paterson, 2012). This price results in an incentive for businesses to develop innovative technology to reduce emissions, with an added incentive to reduce their emissions to such a level that they can avoid buying allowances or can trade allowances they have been given (Betsill and Hoffmann, 2011). With the latter, businesses are able to raise revenue by selling these excess allowances (Piraud, 2012). This reduced environmental cost can then be passed on to their consumers, with cheaper goods and services, therefore giving them an advantage within the consumer market.
Problems with Quantity-based and Price-Based Market Policies
Evidence suggests that there is a tradeoff between quantity-based (cap-and-trade) and price-based (pollution tax) approaches (CCES, 2012). This tradeoff is either greater environmental certainty or greater compliance cost certainty. By setting an explicit price on each unit of environmental pollution, the regulated businesses have a high degree of price of certainty (Pizer, 2006). However, what is less certain is the amount of environmental pollution reduction that can be achieved, as each business will respond differently to the tax costs. For example, by placing a tax on each litre of fuel, one company may reduce its fuel consumption by 20%, whilst another company may only reduce its consumption by 2%. As such, it is difficult to estimate what price to place on the tax in order to achieve a specific emission reduction goal. Conversely, with quantity-based market approaches, such as the cap-and-trade program, there is more certainty surrounding the environmental outcomes due to the scarcity of pollution allowances that make up the cap (Pizer, 2006). However, with this environmental certainty comes a cost uncertainty for the businesses emitting the pollution, as the cost of this pollution will be determined by the market price for the allowances (Pizer, 2006). Yet some market-based policies can be designed to allow more certainty for both price and quantity. For example, The Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions (2011) included price floors and allowance reserves, which act as prices ceilings, within the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in California, in order to give more compliance cost certainty.
Revenue Uses from Taxes or Allowance Sales
Both price-based and quantity-based regulatory approaches have the potential to raise revenue for the government (Nordhaus, 2007). With environmental taxes, potential revenue raised will equate to the total quantity of greenhouse gas emissions released to the environment within a set timescale multiplied by the price of the tax. With cap-and-trade programs, the amount of revenue generated depends on the price allowances make on the open market and the number of allowances that are offered up for sale (Nordhaus, 2007). Regardless of how these revenues are raised, the benefits to society of this revenue stream are clear. Revenue use examples include the reduction of existing distortionary taxes on capital and labour investments in order to reduce the economy wide cost of the program, and the offset of taxes on the labour markets, individuals and businesses, as seen in both Sweden and British Columbia (Aldy et al, 2008). Nevertheless, some experts suggest that this carbon revenue should be used for other purposes. These experts argue that there is a need to address the question of equity in addition to economic efficiency (MacKenzie, 2009). This equity would avoid burdening some households and businesses, particularly if they adopted clean energy approaches, technological adaptation, or positioned themselves within the research and development arena. An example of this can be seen within the member states of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. In this initiative, 100% of allowances are auctioned and 25% of the revenues generated are targeted towards consumer benefit, energy efficiency programs and renewable energy schemes. In total, over the last 7 years, these allowance auctions have generated more than $2 billion (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, 2015).
Conclusion
It can be seen from the above narrative that both price-based and quantity-based market approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions can be highly successful and popular methods of achieving environmental targets. Environmental taxes ensure that the cost of environmental pollution is covered by the polluter in a "polluter pays" approach. Each unit of pollution is given a specific price which the polluter has to pay. These costs incentivise the industry to adopt more environmentally friendly approaches in order to reduce their financial outgoings. Cap-and-trade programs have a given number of allowances distributed between businesses within an industry sector. Companies that can produce their goods in a more environmentally friendly manner, which sees them having an excess of allowance, are able to trade these allowances on the open market to companies who are less able to meet environmental targets. However, due to the costs of these allowances, there is an added incentive for businesses to adopt, or develop, new technologies that reduce their environmental impact. However, both approaches have their limitations as it is difficult to quantify the financial costs of pollution in order to set a price on environmental taxes, and there are many uncertainties for the environment and for businesses with the cap-and-trade approach. Nevertheless, despite these uncertainties and challenges associated with price setting, it is considered that the flexibility for businesses and potential improvements for the environment by adopting these approaches over the traditional command and control regulation outweigh any negatives. Whilst it is accepted that market-based approaches will not work for all environmental pollutants, for greenhouse gases, which cause effects on a global scale, the evidence suggests that these approaches will encourage innovation and incentivise businesses to adopt best available technology.
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Introduction
If one considers the most profound changes in the social and physical conditions attached to human existence, one would have to suggest that the land use dimensions, including the shift to sedentary agriculture, the Industrial Revolution and large-scale urbanisation, are the most significant. However, it is important to understand that land is more than a mere material base. Indeed, Gladwin et al (1995) described land as a diverse, contradictory property with both social and cultural meanings that are mixed with human labour, the biotic community and a land ethic. From this it is easy to understand why land use has been the subject of persistent political struggle over the years and why it is challenging in both theory and practice to ensure sustainable development, whilst also taking into account the needs of a growing population. The eco-modernist interpretation of sustainable development encourages the use eco-efficient building materials and heat and power sources, and encourages doing more with less (Banerjee, 2003). Whilst this has shown that there is a theoretical possibility that energy and material intensity can be reduced, therefore reducing the environmental impact of population and industrial growth, this somewhat simplified approach does not take into consideration the relationships between land, the environment and economic activity (Baker, 2007). The focus on pollution and resource consumption by many ecological modernist theorists has failed to address the intrinsic qualities of the non-human world that are generally the cause of many conflicts over the use of greenbelt land (Hajer and Versteeg, 2005). Part of the problem lies in the way in which the development of land and environmental change causes uncertain effects. These effects are generally caused through the multiplicity of direct, indirect and cumulative processes that are difficult to predict (Hudson, 2005). These processes operate within economic, political and legal dimensions, with many crossing over between a number of jurisdictions. Whilst interactions between proximal land uses have historically concentrated on the effects of pollution, odour and noise on the human population, it is only recently that consideration has been taken over the effects of these environmental problems on the local flora and fauna and the wider scale sustainability of vulnerable species (Scully-Russ, 2012). From this it can be seen that land use and sustainability go hand in hand. As such, it is deemed necessary to focus attention on the planning processes and regulations currently utilised within the UK. The remainder of this essay will consider the way in which UK planning processes have been designed to protect the environment before critically discussing the reasons that they fail.Sustainable development: the need for planning
The concept of sustainable development emerged in the late 1980s with Brundtland et al (1987), followed closely by the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), forming the view that it is necessary to consider planning applications as interrelated processes that need to take into account the needs of both human and nonhuman residents (Barkemeyer et al, 2014). This encouraged the development of national sustainability plans, whilst Agenda 21 of the UNCED encouraged the environmentally sound physical planning of sustainable development within urban areas (Jabareen, 2006). These planning and sustainability ideas were rapidly incorporated into local government policy. In the UK, these ideas encouraged a new environmental movement that saw local councils considering the environmental impact on both urban and rural developments (Jabareen, 2006). Indeed, by the start of the 1990s, nearly 75% of all councils within the UK had developed a green charter that recognised the need for environmental planning to mitigate against issues such as global warming, the destruction of the rainforest and depletion of the ozone layer as well as considering the impacts such a development would have on the local environment (Barkemeyer et al, 2014). The emerging concepts of sustainability and the connections with the planning process were often outside of the statutory domain; however, incentives from central government, which supported sustainable development and controlled land use planning often encouraged the development of local policies (Cowell and Lennon, 2014). These local policies, along with international commitments, were rapidly incorporated into legislation, with the UK's first official sustainable development White Paper urging planning authorities to consider the environmental effects of all planning policies (Cowell and Lennon, 2014). In the same year, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 ensured that all planning applications considered the conservation, natural beauty and amenity of the land. This act also encouraged improved traffic management and changes to the physical environment within both urbanised and rural areas in order to deliver sustainable land use change. Despite the UK Government generally falling short of making sustainable development a legal requirement of all planning laws, they have developed a number of Acts that can be called upon in certain situations. These include the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act 1991, the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 (Wilkinson et al, 2013). Section 121(1) of this latter act places responsibility on the National Assembly for Wales to set out proposals for the promotion of sustainable development within the Welsh region. However, more recently there has been an international emergence of the ecosystem assessment approach to land planning. This approach is promoted to ensure that the true value of the environment is taken into account during all decision-making processes (Adelle et al, 2012). The key concept of the ecosystem assessment approach is that natural ecosystems provide significant benefit, in both health and economy, to human society. Numerous proponents of the ecosystem services approach describe how the method would benefit the spatial planning of habitats to help deliver ecosystem services (Medcalf et al, 2012), in environmental assessment (Wilkinson et al, 2013) and in order to plan for a more environmentally friendly urban development (Baker et al, 2013). The following section of this paper will consider the problems encountered by UK planners in balancing the needs of an expanding population and the potential impacts on the environment.Planning Difficulties
In order to highlight the issues associated with planning and environmental protection, it is deemed necessary to utilise a number of case studies in which planning departments have clashed with developers. The first of these cases occurred in the early 1990s in the county of Berkshire and was described by Cowell and Owens (1998). Berkshire County Council received a planning application to expand the capacity of a construction minerals extraction quarry to 2.5 million tonnes per year. The application was supported by central government, who at that time had apportioned a share of projected national demand for construction aggregate to each county. However, Berkshire County Council was concerned about the environmental consequences of this increased carrying capacity and decided that to meet the share of aggregate demand would be unsustainable for their region as it would breach the county's environmental capacity. In order to reach this decision, the county planning department used a methodology that involved an assessment of environmental suitability at the quarry. This methodology included a traditional sieve analysis, a process of strategic choice and public engagement. In their report, Berkshire Planning Authority stated that the protection of environmental features within the county was vital and the conservation value of the broader environment outweighed the economic benefits of such a development. The planning authorities stated that the environmental capacity of the area would be breached and that this environment capacity was based on the county council's judgements about the compensatable and critical environmental capital within the county. As such they framed sustainable development by identifying the environmental limits of the area. Indeed, Berkshire Planning Authority asserted that the level of aggregate supply should fall by 3% per year from 1996 to 2011. As was expected, the quarry company appealed the decision and the planning enquiry inspector sided with industry. The appeal report criticised Berkshire Planning Authority for ignoring the economic, local and national need for aggregates. The enquiry inspector did find the planning authority's explanation of environmental capacity and the need for sustainable development persuasive; however, the report suggests that there is lack of demonstration on why the county could not maintain production of construction aggregates at 2.5 million tonnes per year. As such, the enquiry inspector agreed with the objections made by the quarry company that the concept of critical environmental capital and environmental capacity carried no weight within current realms of planning policy. The planning decision was therefore overturned. The second case study also occurred in Berkshire where a major international company applied for planning permission to build its new headquarters in a green field location (Parker and Street, 2015). The plans immediately raised objections from local residents and environmental pressure groups who claimed that congestion and pollution would increase if the company's headquarters was located in this area as well as damaging sensitive wildlife habitats. These opponents claimed that the government planning guidelines, which sought to reduce dependency on cars, would be flouted if the planning application was granted. However, the Planning Authority was significantly influenced by the company's 'green transport' plan and the potential employment and economic benefits that such a development would bring. Therefore, following acrimonious debate, planning permission was granted without any formal environmental assessment being carried out in the area. In the Cairngorms, a planning application to develop a tourist funicular railway, to carry passengers to the peak of the mountains, was met with much resistance (Warren, 2002). Initially, the Planning Authority sought to reject the application, claiming that such a development would encourage more visitors to the remote area and damage an ecologically vulnerable area. However, pressure from other council departments, who saw opportunity for economic growth, additional employment and future potential development, forced the Planning Authority to grant permission, regardless of the extensive Environmental Impact Assessment that had been carried out by the Planning Authority proving that the development would cause considerable harm to the sensitive habitats of this area. Despite these case studies showing significant failures in the UK's planning regulations, there is one instance where the environmental value of a particular area was successfully defended. This final case study occurred within the cathedral city of Salisbury (Parker and Street, 2015). The Planning Authority received an application from the Highways Agency to construct a bypass that would reduce congestion within the city centre. This was in line with the County Council's green plans to reduce pollution within the area. However, the route of the proposed bypass would bisect the environmentally important water meadows surrounding the city. These water meadows provided the habitat for a large number of migratory wading birds and were considered environmentally important areas. However, the subsequent public enquiry supported the application, claiming significant benefits for the city if the bypass was built. As such, a number of government advisory bodies on nature conservation and landscape protection were consulted in order to find ways in which to mitigate the impacts of the bypass on the wetland areas. These advisory bodies found that there were no measures that could be adopted that would effectively protect the sensitive habitats and mitigation, for the damage could not be advised. This led the Planning Authority to refuse the application and forced the Highways Agency to consider alternative routes.Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be seen that, despite sustainable development being at the forefront of the planning regulations, pressure from industry and the need for economic growth has a tendency to sway Planning Authority decisions. Despite all local and county councils now having green plans and sustainable development plans which encourage protection of the local landscape and environment, many are not being fully utilised. It is considered that until sustainable development is incorporated into national policy and regulations, then the needs for economic growth will always outweigh the needs of the environment. In addition, it is considered that whilst there are ways in which human impacts on the environment can be mitigated against, in many instances these opportunities are not fully taken due to the cost implications associated with adopting many of these mitigation measures. Therefore it is concluded that current UK planning regulations do not hold enough weight to successfully protect the environment.References
Adelle, C., Jordan, A., & Turnpenny, J. (2012). Proceeding in parallel or drifting apart? A systematic review of policy appraisal research and practices. Environment and Planning-Part C, 30(3), 401. Baker, S. (2007). Sustainable development as symbolic commitment: declaratory politics and the seductive appeal of ecological modernisation in the European Union. Environmental Politics, 16(2), 297-317. Baker, J., Sheate, W. R., Phillips, P., & Eales, R. (2013). Ecosystem services in environmental assessment—help or hindrance?. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 40, 3-13. Banerjee, S. B. (2003). Who sustains whose development? Sustainable development and the reinvention of nature. Organization Studies, 24(1), 143-180. Barkemeyer, R., Holt, D., Preuss, L., & Tsang, S. (2014). What happened to the 'development'in sustainable development? Business guidelines two decades after Brundtland. Sustainable Development, 22(1), 15-32. Brundtland, G., Khalid, M., Agnelli, S., Al-Athel, S., Chidzero, B., Fadika, L.,& Okita, S. (1987). Our Common Future. World Commission on Environment and Development, Ginebra (Suiza). Cowell, R., & Owens, S. (1998). Suitable locations: equity and sustainability in the minerals planning process. Regional Studies, 32(9), 797-811. Cowell, R., & Lennon, M. (2014). The utilisation of environmental knowledge in land-use planning: drawing lessons for an ecosystem services approach. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 32(2), 263-282. Gladwin, T. N., Kennelly, J. J., & Krause, T. S. (1995). Shifting paradigms for sustainable development: Implications for management theory and research. Academy of management Review, 20(4), 874-907. Hajer, M., & Versteeg, W. (2005). A decade of discourse analysis of environmental politics: achievements, challenges, perspectives. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 7(3), 175-184. Hudson, R. (2005). Towards sustainable economic practices, flows and spaces: or is the necessary impossible and the impossible necessary?. Sustainable Development, 13(4), 239-252. Jabareen, Y. R. (2006). Sustainable urban forms their typologies, models, and concepts. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 26(1), 38-52. Medcalf, R., Small, N., Finch, C., Parker, J. (2012). Spatial framework for assessing evidence needs for operational ecosystem approaches, JNCC report No. 469, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Peterborough, Cambs. Parker, G., & Street, E. (2015). Planning at the neighbourhood scale: localism, dialogic politics, and the modulation of community action. Environment and Planning C. Available online at https://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=c1363 accessed 1 October 2015. Scully-Russ, E. (2012). Human resource development and sustainability: beyond sustainable organizations. Human Resource Development International, 15(4), 399-415. Warren, C. (2002). Of superquarries and mountain railways: recurring themes in Scottish environmental conflict. The Scottish Geographical Magazine, 118(2), 101-127. Wilkinson, C., Saarne, T., Peterson, G. D., & Colding, J. (2013). Strategic spatial planning and the ecosystem services concept-an historical exploration.Ecology and Society, 18(1), 37.Cite this page
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Explore the Significance of the ‘Monster’s’ Voice in Mary Shelley’s Novel
From the novel Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) edition Chris Baldick argues that "the 'monster's' most convincingly human characteristic is of course his power of speech."
Explore the significance of the 'monster's' voice in Mary Shelley's novel.
Few texts have pervaded the cultural consciousness to take on the afterlife of a haunting myth, as with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). To a twenty-first century reader, the image of ‘Frankenstein,’ often wrongly identified as the creature rather than creator, has become conflated with that of Boris Karloff, an actor in a 1931 filmic representation, which, in a true expression of creative license, was a non-speaking role. However, readers of the text will remember the creature as both intellectual and articulate in voicing his account of life through to the projection of his death. This paper seeks to explore the significance of the creature’s voice, arguing that it adds a philosophical and moral dimension to the novel that would have otherwise been absent. The narrative structure of Frankenstein involves imbedded stories, where tales appear nested within other tales. Even the very epistolary nature of the text itself is fraught with tension, as the final pages reveal the letter-writing to align itself more closely with journal entries, with the poetic ending to the text neglecting either a form of signing off to the reader or a self-reflexive ending common to diary entries. This makes us question whether Walton’s sister, Margaret, was indeed the intended reader of the entire narrative, which notably and often conceals the letter-writing format to allow the action of the narrative to take precedence. The narrative structure thus problematises any interpretation of language as straightforward and individually assigned and distinct. A study of Frankenstein as a gothic novel would introduce readings of cultural binaries, where the juxtaposition of normal and human with monstrous and inhuman would suggest that the creature’s voice was intended to sharpen these distinctions. However, as Joyce Carol Oates argues, ‘everyone in Frankenstein sounds alike’ (1983: 549). All events are relayed retrospectively; conversations have often been mediated by knowledge of more recent events, and have been filtered, in the creature’s case, through an expanding consciousness. Voices echo one another, in a blurred and indistinct fashion. This is largely because the epistolary format means that the only voice we hear is actually Walton’s own, and even this has been mediated for a selected female readership. The monster’s voice is largely heard through his petition to the one who seeks his ruin, and even the reliability of Walton’s tale is mediated and arguably jeopardised by his earnest desire for friendship and his wish that Victor would fulfil that role. Noticeably, the voice of the creature appears identical in both Walton’s account of Victor’s story and of Walton’s narration of his own encounter with the creature. This is largely attributable to the fact that all events are filtered through multiple layers, including Walton’s own memory. Interestingly, Oates further argues that it is naive to read Frankenstein as one would a novel, for 'it contains no characters, only points of views; its concerns are pointedly moral and didactic...' (1983: 549). Baldick interprets this as ‘dialogical openness,’ (1997: 44) whereby the moral framework of the novel is an open debate between the perspectives of Victor, the creature and Walton. The employment of multiple narrations is an effective tool for undermining verisimilitude, as it compromises the certainty of identity and narration, proving these to be unknowable and always mediated. These ‘contrasting’ points of view do not hold fast; the monster is both sympathetic and vengeful, and his reflections are unreliably mediated by his transformation into a heightened state of consciousness. In terms of the creature’s identity as a gendered being, many feminist critics have argued that the creature is constructed as a woman through his acquisition of language. The creature’s passive surveillance of domestic life mirrors the female sphere, and his education is largely informed by Felix’s tuition to his intended bride, Safie. As one criticism that is oft levied against Mary Shelley is that her female characters do not take an active stance but conform to traditional ideas of femininity, we have no reason to believe that Safie’s education is atypical or controversially aligned with the masculine sphere. Although it is outside of the remit of this essay to speculate on a gendered construction through language, it is important to note that the creature’s voice is a product of an education largely intended and deemed suitable for the domestic sphere. As a foreigner, Safie is allowed access to the shared collective that is language; however, her right of access is granted on the grounds that she has a musical voice and a ‘countenance of angelic beauty and expression.’ (Shelley, 1993: 93) She does not posit a challenge to conventional definitions of normality. Indeed, the blind De Lacey permits a conversation with the creature before his impressions become mediated through the eyes of the dominant group. Participating in a shared system of language is thus only effective in generating empathy or connection up until the moment that sight is introduced. Shelley reveals here that language may be knowledge, but it is not wisdom. Indeed, De Lacey mimics the reader, for the oral nature of storytelling restricts visibility and privileges the command of language. The creature becomes highly articulate, and is also considered persuasive by both Walton and Frankenstein. Walton responds to the monster’s declaration by stating, His voice seemed suffocated; and my first impulses, which had suggested to me the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend, in destroying his enemy were now suspended by a mixture of curiosity and compassion. (Shelley, 1993: 187) However, Walton can only register the persuasiveness of the monster’s words whilst he is neglecting the sensation of sight. To sustain communication with the creature, he must avert his eyes, for as soon as his eyes encounter the deformed being, his indignation returns and his sympathy dissolves. Likewise, Frankenstein destroys the female being that he is creating, after gazing upon the monster’s distorted features and being consumed by a fit of passion. The monster’s articulate powers of persuasion are thus rendered subservient to sight, which takes precedence over a convincingly human-sounding tongue. Echoing the villagers, who pass condemnation before allowing the monster to speak, Victor states upon first encountering the monster in his bedchamber; ‘he might have spoken, but I did not hear’ (Shelley, 1993: 40). The creature correctly articulates that ‘the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union’ (Shelley, 1993: 119). Indeed, the word monster, which Shelley frequently repeats, is derived from the Latin word mon-strare, which means ‘to show… bodily anomaly signified’ (Ingebretsen, 2001: 211). It thus implies an element of display, of visual difference. Interestingly, the way that the monster interacts with humans throughout the course of the novel alters from being visually sighted to, as in the last few encounters, his presence being heard or detected through sound. This calls into question the very notion of his monstrosity, as he has been transformed from an object on display to a being, endowed with the powers of communication. Baldick argues that the ‘monster's’ most convincing human characteristic is of course his power of speech' (1997: 45). Harold Bloom echoes this premise: the creature is both more ‘intellectual and more emotional’ and ‘more human than his creator’ (1965: 613). The ability to experience and convey pain is transmitted entirely through the creature’s use of language: voice enlightens where the narratives of others fail. The creature is portrayed as thoroughly a product of the grand narratives that were central to the Romantic period, born a blank slate with works of cultural standing subsequently informing his mind. His moral and intellectual compass is largely shaped by the reading of three texts, which form what Peter Brooks refers to as a ‘Romantic cyclopedia universalis’ (1993: 205). Mastering the Romantic worldview enables him to speculate and self-identify as a sympathetic figure. One such influential text that forms his education is Milton’s Paradise Lost, which seeks to recast the tragedy of creation on a scale of mythological and biblical magnitude. The creature views his struggle through the lens of Milton’s epic, as a victim of the violation of the natural order. Indeed the epigraph of the novel, also from Paradise Lost, laments his very existence: Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me? (Milton, 1873: 743-745) Borrowing a line from such an epic work underpins the central argument of a disgruntled creation wrestling with his creator. By allowing the monster’s viewpoint to dominate the epigraph and frame the novel, Shelley provides an authorial and sympathetic sanctioning to the monster’s plight of unsolicited existence. The techniques that Shelley uses to construct the monster’s voice are both informed by and a comment on the philosophical views held by leading figures at the time of writing. The creature is not merely presented as a sympathetic character, but as a portrayal of emerging consciousness. In the act of relating his narrative, the creature does not repeat the incident that had originally formed such an unfavourable impression upon Frankenstein. That is to say, the creature does not begin his tale from the scene where he invades his creator’s bedchambers and is rejected in his quest to seek community. Shelley thus sacrifices an opportunity of soliciting sympathy from the reader through allowing the monster to offer an explanation of innocence that would have added colour and dimension to Victor’s account. The creature’s story leaves Frankenstein’s account unmodified, neglecting the tale of rejection for a higher purpose. Shelley instead commences the monster’s narrative from his dawning of consciousness, and compares it to that of a newborn. Arguably, Shelley plays with philosopher John Locke’s idea that we are born as a blank canvas, with the mind a ‘white paper void of all character’ (1952: 11, 1, 2). The monster actively sets out to acquire language out of his need for human intimacy, mirroring the acquisition of language of a child. Infancy has its stem in the Latin word infans, which translates to one ‘who cannot speak’ (Brookes, 2004: 606). He thenceforth learns language through imitation, as a child would; learning is thus how one forms human consciousness. The creature learns through causation and effect, often experiencing pain and learning how to address the sensation by taking action. Upon mastering language, the creature retrospectively constructs a narrative out of a flood of competing sensory signals that characterised his early days of education. By relaying his past impressions through an enlightened state of consciousness, the monster shows that he has the emotional sensitivity of a baby who weeps upon first entering the world. This evocation is not just using heavily emotive language to elicit sympathy from Victor, but through the narration of his initial sensations, the reader is positioned to view him as one would a vulnerable, abandoned child. As Jones argues, Shelley ‘emphasise[s] the importance of learning to the emergence of human consciousness and understanding’ (2003: 158). The monster hypothesises that a mastery of language will bring him into communion with humans, and compensate for deficiencies of countenance. In this aim, he acquires articulacy and understanding of the cultural codes that construct human civilisation. The acquisition of education results in producing a voice that ultimately proves ineffectual, as it only heightens his disconnection to the social group that he desires communion with. Importantly, the relationship between Felix and Safie demonstrates that romantic attachments can transcend language barriers. However, as Jones argues, the cultural discourses that the creature seeks to emulate ‘are borrowed from the very ideology that excludes him’ (2003: 211). Shelley shows that language is artificial, a cultural construction that benefits only the ruling class. In Frankenstein, the creature’s voice has been intricately crafted by Mary Shelley to aid her portrayal of a sympathetic character, who refuses to conform to our expectations of the ‘other’. Shelley problematises conventional ideas of what is monstrous, revealing a character whose speech at the very least simulates human consciousness, but also is inseparably connected with and filtered through another’s way of seeing. The creature’s narrative is a profound philosophical and moral comment on the Romantic consciousness, ultimately revealing that no perspective reigns supreme, and labels and perceptions of difference collapse at their very borders.Bibliography:
Baldick, C., (1997) In Frankenstein's Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bloom, H., (1965) Frankenstein, or the New Prometheus, Partisan Review, xxxii, 618. Brookes, I., (ed) (2004) Chambers Concise Dictionary. New Delhi: Allied Chambers. Brooks, P., (1993) What is a Monster??(According to Frankenstein) In Body Work. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, pp. 199-220; reprinted in Frankenstein/Mary Shelley (1995) ed. Fred Botting. New York: St. Martin's Press, pp. 81-106 Ingebretsen, Edward J., (2001) At stake: monsters and the rhetoric of fear in public culture. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. Jones, Jonathan D., (2003) Orphans: childhood alienation and the idea of the self in Rousseau, Wordsworth and Mary Shelley. PhD thesis, University of Warwick. Locke, J., (1952) “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” in Great Books of the Western World 35 ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica. Milton, J., (1873) Paradise Lost. London: Basil Montagu. Oates, Joyce C., (1983) Frankenstein's Fallen Angel. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 10, No. 3 Mar., pp. 543-554. Shelley, M., (1993) Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus: The 1818 Text, ed. Marilyn Butler, London: William Pickering.Cite this page
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Evaluate the Use of Masculinity in Hemingways in our Time
The theme of masculinity suggests itself as an obvious area of focus with Hemingway’s collection In Our Time, as these short stories and vignettes are explicitly concerned with men, male activities, male professions and traditionally masculine areas of human experience such as war, hunting and fighting. The collection is notable for its focus on male characters, most notably figures such as Nick Adams, and for the relative absence of women (indeed, Hemingway titled another of his short story collections Men Without Women). Where women do feature, it is often in a secondary or passive role, with the male characters in the story wielding power in the text and also providing the perspective of Hemingway’s narration. This essay will argue that masculinity is a central theme in In Our Time, and moreover that much of the tension within the texts comes from the conflict between characters’ self-perceptions of their own masculinity and the reality of their masculine behaviour.
Defining what masculinity means, both for themselves and in the context of other characters’ perceptions of them, is a central concern of Hemingway’s male protagonists in this collection, as in his oeuvre more generally (Fore, 2007). In the early story ‘The Indian Camp’ and the vignette Chapter II, Hemingway presents women from the perspective of men: they are associated with children in general and with childbirth in particular. Notably, women are not given a voice in either of these stories; instead, they are seen from the perspective of men. As passive individuals whose primary role is to give birth, women in In Our Time are figured as secondary. Their lack of masculinity means a lack of driving force in the text, which instead comes from male characters, male actions, and male interactions. Hemingway championed, in his fiction as well as in his life, the notion of the competent, masculine male; his motto on this subject was the masculine notion of ‘grace under pressure’ (Durham, 1976). The ability to perform a task or job well is one that Hemingway values in his life and fiction, and in In Our Time we see this confident, competent male type embodied by Nick Adams’ father the doctor. In the story ‘The Indian Camp,’ his visit to the camp is predicated on the notion that he is an extremely competent doctor, able as he notes to perform a caesarian with a jack knife and stitch it up afterwards. In this same story, the doctor can be contrasted with the Indian father who kills himself, thereby dichotomising the able male and the unable male and introducing another of Hemingway’s key themes: namely, suicide. That suicide in the text is no less gendered than professional competence is made evident in the exchange between Nick and his father which follows their leaving the Indian Camp: “Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?” “Not very many, Nick.” “Do many women?” “Hardly ever.” “Don’t they ever?” “Oh, yes.
They do sometimes.” (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.) The differences in the behaviour of men and women take on an almost anthropological quality in the gendered presentation of character in In Our Time. Men are explicitly figured as active, aggressive and macho in contrast to women’s passivity.
Whilst Hemingway of course nuances his presentation to include different types of men, and to suggest that there is more than one way of being masculine, there are recurrent themes which can be said to centre around the idea of violence. Men in the stories measure themselves and each other in terms of acts of violence. In the story ‘The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,’ masculinity is presented as a form of awareness of one’s own capacity to commit acts of violence. Dick Boulton’s very felicity as a male seems to depend on the accuracy of his awareness of his own masculinity: ‘Dick Boulton looked at the doctor. Dick was a big man. He knew how big a man he was. He liked to get into fights. He was happy’ (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.). Violence, recognition of one’s capacity to commit violence, and comfort in one’s own power as a male, are here presented as key features of felicitous masculinity. By contrast, those male characters who are unhappy and who commit acts of violence against themselves (alcoholism, more literally suicide) are ones whose self-perceptions of their own masculinity do not accord with the reality, leading to what some critics have identified as the ‘crisis of masculinity’ in Hemingway’s fiction (Hatten, 1993). The very title of the story ‘The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife’ contrasts the male and the female characters as Hemingway sees them: the Doctor is impulsive, angered, and takes the more cynical interpretation of his adversary’s actions; by contrast, his wife is presented as pious, forgiving, and somewhat naive in her reading of human motives.
However, she is able to calm the doctor down and he goes outside to see Nick. Tellingly, however, Nick decides to go off with his father at the end of the story rather than go inside to see his mother. He tells his father he knows where there are black squirrels, and they set off to take part in that most male of activities: hunting. Ultimately, female piety and compassion only temper the masculine urges and drives in the story; it is masculinity which pervades as a theme, and violence – or the potential for violence – which is restored by the story’s close. Hemingway’s presentation of masculinity must therefore be contrasted with his notions of femininity, and it can be noted that both are presented in terms of types. In In Our Time, the greatest type division is between men and women; within these divisions, there are sub-categories. Thus the short story ‘Mr and Mrs Eliot’ presents the dichotomy of the male and female in its title, and then proceeds in the story itself to break down this division further into different types. At no point, however, is it questioned that there are certain characteristics which can be considered exclusively or predominantly feminine, and those that can be considered masculine. Femininity and masculinity are not abstract notions but rather the locus of concrete differences in the text.
Thus Mrs Eliot is presented in terms of stereotypes concerning her gender and geographical origins: ‘Like all Southern women Mrs. Elliot disintegrated very quickly under sea sickness, travelling at night, and getting up too early in the morning’ (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.). This sentence is not a qualified presentation of an individual, but a stereotyping of all females from the South of the United States. This is typical of the way in which gender, masculinity and femininity, are presented in the texts: there are clear archetypes for human characteristics, and characters are presented as conforming to them or deviating from them. Implicit in the short story ‘Mr and Mrs Eliot’ is a critique of the ways in which Mr Eliot departs from the ideal of masculinity presented in the collection more generally: he is a poet, he drinks white wine, he has not been with many women and he tries, unsuccessfully, to have a baby with his wife. Ultimately, he is emasculated and usurped from the marital bed and his role as a masculine impregnator of women: ‘Mrs. Elliot and the girl friend now slept together in the big mediaeval bed.
They had many a good cry together’ (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.). Instead, the bed becomes the site not of any female (lesbian) eroticism but instead of female communication and empathy: the women cry there together. This is presented as an antithesis to the idea of idealised masculinity, in which actions speak louder than words. In such a context, Mr Eliot’s being a poet, and dedicating his nights to writing verse and drinking white wine instead of more becoming masculine pursuits, can here be read in a critical light as a satire on the ‘modern’ man who departs from the traditional notion of masculinity as embodied in the collection by figures such as Nick Adams and his father. The story which perhaps most clearly presents the idealised model of masculinity, and the key notion of the potential difference between men’s perceptions of themselves and the reality of their masculinity, is ‘Big Two-Hearted River.’ Here, Nick Adams is presented as happily in an elemental, masculine state. Men are happy in Hemingway when they are doing an activity well, and here Nick Adams is presented as engaged in fishing the river, a feeling which he enjoys and an experience which he knows well. Hemingway explicitly presents this activity in physical terms; masculine behaviour is notable in the collection for being physically impressive and physically demanding, and the impression is of behaviour which is rewarding for men to the extent that it is physically draining. Thus Nick is happy in proportion to the degree to which he exerts himself: ‘The road climbed steadily. It was hard work walking up-hill.
His muscles ached and the day was hot, but Nick felt happy’ (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.). The pleasure of physical exertion is a defining theme of masculinity in this collection as well as in Hemingway’s writing more generally (Fore, 2007); it is seen in the context of a number of typically male activities, from fishing as in this story through to war, bullfighting and shooting (Vernon, 2002). The story also presents a key Hemingway theme in the context of masculinity: namely, male bonding and the ways in which men negotiate their own masculinity together. Much has been made of homoeroticism and suppressed homosexualities in Hemingway’s work as well as in his life (Blackmore, 1998; Cohen, 1995; Elliott, 1993; Fantina, 2004), but what is more obviously present here is the notion that masculinity is something which is negotiated between men, indirectly rather than directly.
Thus Nick Adams measures his own masculinity alongside his old friend Hopkins, who is now presumably dead, drinking a tribute coffee to the man whom he bonded with and against whom he measured some elements of his own masculinity: Not the first cup. It should be straight Hopkins all the way. Hop deserved that. He was a very serious coffee drinker. He was the most serious man Nick had ever known. Not heavy, serious. That was a long time ago. (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.) Significantly, this male bonding is something which is negotiated indirectly, with intervening time and space coming between Nick and Hopkins.
Even more significantly, Hemingway presents this masculine bonding indirectly, through the free indirect discourse of Nick’s thoughts and reminiscences. This device allows Hemingway to present masculinity indirectly, and to emphasise in the nostalgia and pathos of this longer story the loss and pain that the masculine world of war creates (Clifford, 1994). Nick is not presented as having any direct contact with Hopkins, there is no quoting or speech, but instead Nick and the reader are obliged to experience this process of masculine connection from a distance, at a remove. To conclude, it is evident that masculinity is an extremely important theme in In Our Time. In particular, it allows for a dichotomy to be present in the texts between males as active, violent and powerful on the one hand, and women as passive, responsive and objectified on the other. Women are the subject of the male gaze, which is always seeking to define itself in terms of idealised masculinity. However, men also turn their gazes on themselves and each other, and it can be noted in conclusion that a central source of narrative tension in the text is the conflict between characters’ perceptions of their masculinity and the reality. This comes to the fore in relationship problems with women, but also in acts of violence and conflict between males, where the need to assert one’s masculinity comes at the expense of denying another man the opportunity to fully exert his.
The pathos of this disconnect between idealised masculinity and the harsh reality of many of his male characters’ existences is what gives to Hemingway’s collection In Our Time its unmistakably elegiac tone.
References
Blackmore, D. (1998). ” In New York it’d mean I was a…”: Masculinity anxiety and period discourses of sexuality in The Sun Also Rises. The Hemingway Review, 18(1), 49. Clifford, S. P. (1994). Hemingway’s Fragmentary Novel: Readers Writing the Hero in In Our Time. The Hemingway Review, 13, 12-23. Cohen, P. F. (1995). ” I won’t kiss you… I’ll send your English girl”: homoerotic desire in’A Farewell to Arms.’. The Hemingway Review, 15(1), 42-54. Durham, P. (1976). Ernest Hemingway’s Grace under Pressure: The Western Code.
The Pacific Historical Review, 425-432. Elliott, I. (1993). A farewell to arms and Hemingway’s crisis of masculine values. Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory, 4(4), 291-304. Fantina, R. (2004). Hemingway’s Masochism, Sodomy, and the Dominant Woman. The Hemingway Review, 23(1), 84-105. Fore, D. (2007). Life Unworthy of Life?: Masculinity, Disability, and Guilt in The Sun Also Rises. The Hemingway Review, 26(2), 74-88. Hatten, C. (1993). The Crisis of Masculinity, Reified Desire, and Catherine Barkley in” A Farewell to Arms”. Journal of the History of Sexuality, 4(1), 76-98. Hemingway, E. (1925) In Our Time. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Available online at scribd.com [accessed 3rd March 2016] at: https://www.scribd.com/read/236832081/In-Our-Time. Vernon, A. (2002). War, Gender, and Ernest Hemingway. The Hemingway Review, 22(1), 34-55.
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Environmental Science Essay Example for College Students
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The programme and promotion of global environmental concern and sustainability.
- Cotswold Canal Regeneration Portfolio
- Particular aspects of the environmental background of the Cotswold canals.
- The Regeneration project in terms of sustainability.
- Strengths and Weaknesses of the Programme.
- Main Issues of the Programme.
- Justification of the Proposed Action Plan.
- Adequacy of the proposed programme.
- Strengths and weaknesses of the proposed partnership between local government and the community.
- Local population: needs and characteristics.
- The mechanism within the Action Plan.
- Conclusions
The programme and promotion of global environmental concern and sustainability.
Cotswold Canal Regeneration Portfolio
The regeneration project can be considered an example of environmental micro-management. In the same way that it is possible to cause a change by tackling a major issue across a system, it is also possible to cause a change by tackling a number of minor issues. The disadvantage of tackling major issues is their inertia, which requires more resources and more time to achieve an effect. The disadvantage of tackling minor issues is that their individual impact is more difficult to be assessed within a global frame. In the case of environmental sustainability, however, there is an advantage in solving a problem close to the public. As long as the public realises the benefits of sustainability/restoration policies, small scale environmental restoration projects may win over the public to support more radical policies (on manufacturing, emissions, etc). This is important due to the conflicts between conservation, technology and economics in policy making (Portney, 1992)Particular aspects of the environmental background of the Cotswold canals.
In the specific case of this project, there are a number of considerations concerning the environmental benefit of the canal restoration project. It is true that a more or less running course of water (the open canal) is preferred to a more or less stagnant water body (the derelict canal). Stagnant waters may not only look unattractive, but in hot seasons may become a source of disease and discomfort. The Cotswold canals had been abandoned completely from 1941, although some sections had been abandoned in1927 and the last cargo boat passed its summit in 1911. The canal had been built in successive stages, starting in 1757. The climatic point was the opening of the summit of the canal in 1786. Connection from the Severn to the Thames rivers was achieved in 1789. Because of a series of design flaws in the locks, and also because of cracks in the canal bed at the summit, the canal wasted huge amounts of waters.The Regeneration project in terms of sustainability.
The above information shows that the Cotswold canal was a disruption of the environment and actually was draining water from some areas, changing the availability of water in the catchment area and the reception area (or wasting it, as was the case at the summit). So, from a direct point of view, the maximum apparent environmental benefit would come from undoing the canal. By choosing adequately the landfill materials used to make sure they are inert (e.g. earth from a construction work) it could be closed. By digging out and building or rebuilding structures, actually pollution and materials to be disposed will be generated. Topping (Turner, 1995) indicates that according to CIEC (1992) the construction industry was responsible by 1992 both of using 50%of all the available landfill volume and of wasting about 10% of all the construction materials used. However, undoing the canals is a negative action course, and the complete undoing would not provide anything remarkable. Landscape management on the other hand falls within EU conservation policies (Lowe and Ward, 1998). On the other hand, policy aspects on sustainability can certainly be developed by supporting the Cotswold Canal Restoration Project.Strengths and Weaknesses of the Programme.
Weaknesses include the fact that the canal is not going to be profitable commercially and that it relies on volunteer work. This means that the programme may come under scrutiny on the grounds that it will not be able to show benefits, for example, in terms of reduced consumption of fuel for transportation of goods/passengers. The Stroud District Council, in its Thames and Severn Canals Restoration Position Statement clearly states that it expects economic advantages to come from tourism and employment derived from construction and development. It fails to mention the canal as a commercial trade route. Reliance on a volunteer workforce hints to the lack of interest by investors and companies in the project. The environmental aims are minor and may be criticised by environmental action groups. After all, preserving or restoring wildlife is not the same as landscape management. A more potent case of canal restoration is the Rochdale Canal, in Greater Manchester (Manchester Forum, 2001). In this case, the restoration has amongst its purposes to guarantee the survival of one of the largest colonies of floating water plantain (Luronium Natans) which has thrived in this canal during its disuse. This plant is a water weed nearly extinct which is protected by both UK and European legislation. The Rochdale Canal is also home to other rare water weeds like water soldier, fringed water lily and American pond weed. In the Rochdale case a strong case on conservation of biodiversity, relevant to global environmental issues is made (Harris, 2004)The Stroud District Council, in its Thames and Severn Canals Restoration Position Statement fails to mention any specific cases in which biodiversity will be preserved by the restoration project Strengths are mainly two. The first come from the fact that the programme creates a local volunteer work force and therefore identifies highly motivated and environmentally aware individuals who might be committed to other environmental initiatives. This may include either working in other environmental projects, in specific environmental campaigns, or generally supporting sustainability policies and lobbying with the political parties, and the various councils. Raising awareness is part of the EU Environmental Action Plan (EU EAP, 2002) Additionally, this will have an effect which may be considered as environmentally conservative, as it will be restoring a previous, more desirable state of being of the canals and their environment. In the long run, restoring the canal may provide leisure opportunities, a relatively better ecological situation, some level of business, a more appealing landscape, increase the chances of population moving into the area from more saturated parts of the country helping disperse population and its environmental impact and, most importantly, will impress upon the local community of the benefits of environmental restoration projects in general. In the long run, the programme may contribute to create in the wider population a favourable disposition to environmental sustainability policies.Main Issues of the Programme.
The main issues are economic and social. There is the potential interest of the owners of various stretches of the former canals to retain current property. These include private owners owning parts of the canal which have been filled in, and industrial owners, including water utilities owning stretches of the canals or transport authorities controlling roads built in parts of the canals which have been filled in. However, private owners along the canals are going to benefit from the restoration, as in some points the state of conservation of the canal, with muddy water, weeds, stagnant water does not add to the quality of life of the local population. On the other hand, the aims declared for exploitation by the Stroud District Council are mainly connected with leisure. They intend to attract tourism, to attract population to settle in the area (neighbourhood regeneration as described by Stroud District Council) and to attract contracts for the development of the area around the canal, besides the regeneration of the canal itself. It is difficult to imagine major tensions in connection with said initiatives.Justification of the Proposed Action Plan.
As indicated above, the main concern of the authorities and partnerships involved is on restoration of the canal and its environment for leisure than with a view of recreating a sustainable environment (which would mean a self-sustaining environment, protected to some extent from outside influences, e.g. pollution sources, and therefore not requiring direct action to keep it going, but indirect action to prevent external factors to interfere). With this in mind, and considering that the main purpose of my action plan is to promote sustainability, the logical direction is to use the project as a focus for environmentalist mobilisation. This idea was presented already in Strengths and Weaknesses. It can be further developed by declaring the aim of the Action Plan to create a gathering of environmentally minded individuals, work with them in the Action Plan, probe the inherent weaknesses of the initiative in discussion with them, articulate on the basis of the debate between its members a cohesive action group, and have the action group take responsibility for political lobbying for more effective environmental policies. A motivated action group, aware of the need to break economic growth on a varied evidence of its impact on the environment through poor choice of technological options (Harremes etal, 2002) The key strength of the Proposal Action Plan is that it does not antagonise any of the parties involved during the execution of actions connected with the Restoration of the Cotswold canals. It does not antagonise town councils, the district council, the Cotswold canals partnership or the residents (at least beyond what they may be antagonised by the intent of purchasing from them part of their property of otherwise taking it back from them.Adequacy of the proposed programme.
The programme includes as steps procurement of the local government, publicity of the plans, collection of feedback, creation of task groups, generation of a background report, proposition of an action plan, discussion and amendment of the action plan, definition of a road map, identifying contractors and subcontractors, seek funding, whether public funding, industrial sponsorship or private subscriptions. The procedure is straightforward and consistent with practice within organisation ranging from city council to EU research programmes (EUResearch, 2005). The advantage of the specifications points chosen is that they fit well with policies of urban conservation, and therefore can be naturally embraced by the local government as they are identical to their own policies for urban areas. This prevents the possibility of conflicts.Strengths and weaknesses of the proposed partnership between local government and the community.
The main weakness of the partnership is that being locally based and on the basis of its inherent weaknesses as a true environmental initiative, it is more likely to be showcased as wasteful or resources which could be allocated to more clearly conservationist policies. Against that criticism, which might come initially from small groups but could later be taken up by larger environmental protection organisations (e.g. Greenpeace) a small and little known partnership has a lower profile upon which to support its rebuttal of criticism. Also, as the local authority has no control on decision making beyond its sphere of influence, it is restricted in its ability to show how it can integrate its initiative within a larger framework of environmental protection activities. On the other hand, the strength of the partnership is based on the closeness of both parties and their awareness, or ability to gain awareness, of the issues involved. Also, the partnership derives strength from the immediacy and direct evidence of any benefits derived from the implementation of the action plan, including the evident improvement in the landscape, and the potential for business and leisure. While the reasons why the wider community may be expected to be committed are described before, the nature of the environmental action plan is synergistic with the broader aims of the local council.Local population: needs and characteristics.
The population can be described in terms of their occupation and the trade sector they work in. There are some 76,000 people aged 16 to 74 years. Those working can be broken down as follows: By type of work Managers Professional Clerical Skilled trades Personal service Sales and customer service Plant and machine operatives Elementary occupations 8,400 6,900 6,200 7,280 3,500 3,200 4,900 5,500 The breakdown suggests that there is a substantial number of people with relatively high income: one third of all people are managers (in fact, managers or senior officials). This breakdown becomes clear when distributing the po9pulation by trade: By activity Real state, renting, business activities 6,400 Wholesale, retail and repair of motoring vehicles 8,000 Financial intermediation 1,950 Agriculture 1,300 Public administrations and defence 2,400 Manufacturing 10,250 Education 4,400 Construction 3,800 Health & social work 5,700 Electricity and water supply 950 Hotels & catering 2,000 Mining and quarrying 140 Transport, storage and communication 2,600 Fishing 15 Other 2,400 It is not difficult to see why the emphasis by local councils is on the leisure potential of the project, and why the true sustainable character in it is limited. The fact that the environmental aspects of the project are weak and the strong influence of officialdom, estate-related business and financial services in the make-up of the community reinforces the case for a soft environmentalist approach focused on creating a committed lobbying group for future action.The mechanism within the Action Plan.
As indicated, the action plan is intended to mobilize individuals with a predisposition to work altruistically in activities aimed to the improvement of the environment. The specific points of action, e.g. disposal of litter, elimination of graffiti, gardening are not conflictive with the leading aim to convert the area in a leisure and tourism resort. In this way the group could be formed, initiate its activities and consolidate. Working with companies and the administration will provide the group members with the contacts and hopefully insight of the aims and interests of the various parties, which would be valuable when considering further initiatives on sustainability, in terms of relevance to the various parties, existence of conflicts or possibility of support: companies willing to go green (Sadgrove 1992) Internal debate within the action group should provide it with the opportunity to establish a longer term aim on environmental issues within the region, e.g. availability of technology which may convert the Cotswold Canals in a significant goods transport route with positive impact on issues like greenhouse gas emissions, etc.Conclusions
. The proposed action plan intends to use the momentum of the Cotswold Canals Restoration Project to create a local lobby of environmentally aware and motivated people to pursue abroad range of initiatives to promote environmental conservation and sustainabilityCite this page
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Water Essay Example for Free
Introduction / Background
Can we imagine life without water? Water is a very precious and limited vital natural resource. The demand of water for development of agricultural, industrial, urban use and power generation is increasing at very fast rate. Wise use of these resources should really be the concern of all people, whether they are involved in agricultural production activities or not. By accepting it, we can manage to conserve soil and water effectively, then there will be measurable effect on the development of country. Watershed resources play a significant role in the development of a country depending on the location of a watershed; we can get water for domestic, agriculture and industrial uses. It is for this purpose, proper evolution and management of water resources acquires significant importance. Detailed survey work is carried out to find points of equal elevation, ridges and valleys. The reduced levels obtained from this survey were plotted to obtain contour plan. Three main valleys, which yield the water, were obtained from contour map. The water from these valleys in rainy season is not conserved and gets wasted, and adverse effects are seen such as soil erosion and gully formation. Conversely, if we save and utilize this water there will be proper soil conservation and recharging ground water table will be possible. According to the slopes found on contour plan, various soil and water are constructed in our watershed area. Due to several conservations schemes the water, which have been wanted will get conserved and will give benefit to residents of the area. Water is a limited natural vital resource, which is indispensable for the existence of all-living matter, plant, animal and man. Potable water, which was once thought to be an infinite natural resource, it would not last longer and become as dearer as are fossil fuels today. Today water covers 7/10th part of the globe surface, fills its atmosphere and lies unfathomed, beneath the crust of the world. Only less than 1% of it is fit and available for use and consumption by mankind. There are serious apprehensions that greater part of earth may go without water in the coming decades. Water tables in several Asian countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have already gone significantly low. The further projections are that by 2025 grater part of India may go without water unless suitable new resources are tapped and available water is conserved. Total water in the world estimated to be 1.5 billion cu.Km. about 95% of this is in the salty seas, of the remaining 5% fresh water, 60M.cu.Km are immobilized as continuously frozen polar ice and snow, leaving only 1.5M.cu.Km. As fresh liquid water for plants, animals and man. of the 15 M.cu.Km.of fresh water, of which about 1% is surface water and 99% is stored at varying depths. About half of the ground water is stored at depths greater than 1000m. Therefore for all practical purposes 7M.cu.Km.of fresh water is at reasonable depths plus the 150000cu.Km.of surfaces water is the worlds, usable water where, at any, only 15000 cu.Km.of fresh liquid water exists in lakes and streams of the world. Each year 380000 cu.Km. Of fresh water falls on land oceans, and the same amount is evaporated from the oceans and lands. On an average country like India receives about 120cm of precipitation per year, mostly as rainfall. On the volume basis is 400 M.Ha.m. The fate of precipitation is estimated as, evaporation 18%; surface runoff 29% and soil infiltration 53%. Nothing can be done to reduce this 18% loss by evaporation. However, wise management can reduce 29% of surface runoff. This can be various water conservation techniques. The wisest management of water is to encourage every drop of rainfall to move into the soil at the point where it strikes the earth. When this happens, evaporation will be at a minimum, there will no erosion and crop production will be at a maximum. Watershed management or protection implies the proper use of all land water resources of a watershed for optimum production with minimum hazard to natural resources. Proper planning is therefore absolutely so as to obtain as many benefits as possible with minimum expenditure. Planning for water resources development in its wider sense may broadly be defined as through study of pros and cons of various possible ways of harnessing this wonderful natural resource and finally bring down the means and ways of achieving the best and optimum benefits. The concept of watershed is basic to all hydrologic designs. Since big watersheds are made of many smaller watersheds, it is necessary to define the watershed in terms of a point. This point is usually the location at which the design is being made and is referred to as the watershed outlet. With respect to the outlet, the watershed consists of all land area that sheds water to the outlet during a rainfall. Using the concept that water runs downhill watershed is defined by all points enclosed within an area from which rain falling at these points will contribute water to the outlet. Watershed development has been proved as an attractive approach to rural development over recent decades. All the Projects and programmes have been put into practice across America, Africa and South Asia, but it is perhaps in India where the approach has been most popular and permanent. Here, central government investment has been running at over US$ 500 million a year. This paper considers watershed development in rural areas where water supplies for domestic use. Several new studies and papers have mentioned the current use of watershed development efforts. When we see some country like India, which are implemented by government, have been widely criticised for a lack of impact. (Rhoades, 1998; Malla Reddy, 2000). Weaknesses in participation, and inflexibility in choice of technology have been blamed in many cases and guidelines for watershed development have been improved. Where watershed development projects have achieved significant impacts, it is often the landed (and not the poor) who have benefited. Positive impacts of projects in dry land India include improved agricultural production, and development of local-level institutions (Batchelor et al. 2000). In India large irrigation canals are were built in the nineteenth as well as twentieth centuries and large number of multipurpose water resources projects were built in the last century. These projects were either entirely funded or heavily subsidized by national government in recognition of the crucial role of that water plays in national development. Approximately 170 million hectares in India are classified as degraded land, the majority falling in undulating semiarid Areas where rain fed framings is practised (Farrington and Lobo, 1997). These areas are characterised by deforestation, loss of biomass, high rates of erosion and lack of fertile soils which results in low productivity of land and poverty. Seasonal or permanent migration tends to be high in these areas. Migration increases the seriousness of problems related to urbanisation, such as unemployment, poor health and housing problems. Therefore, arresting environmental degradation and increases in land productivity are both necessary aims of rural development programmes in south Asia. The Government of India is giving particular attention to environmental regeneration of catchment areas. Approximately US$ 300 million per year are disbursed by the Government of India on interventions that are aimed at improving all categories of land in watersheds (Farrington and Lobo, 1997). Apart from the Government of India, various state governments, national and international organisations are funding watershed development projects. World population has increased nearly threefold in the last 50 years. The standard of living has gone up. In India nearly 70% of the population still depends up on the agriculture which is the biggest user of water. There is considerable uncertainty as to the climate change and its manifestation. In developing countries both non-government organisations and government development agencies have implemented watershed management projects for last 25 years with the aim of increasing agricultural productivity and reducing poverty on hillsides in rural areas. Many of the watershed management projects throughout the world have not taken into account land use capacity and its restoration and prevention potential. They have centred on activities that although important at the plot level do not add up to transformations at the landscape level. A major question is, therefore, how to select watershed management sites and activities in such a way that organisations can simultaneously address the social and economic goals for local inhabitants as well as the aims of watershed conservation and restoration. This paper summarises observations derived from earlier assessments of watershed management projects, including short-term reviews of watershed management projects in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Thailand and Uganda carried out by Perez between 1989 and 1999. In all these case, they visited field sites, interviewed project personnel and participant farmers and reviewed project documents and other technical literature. They have also taken into account evidence from the international literature on watershed management.Aim
The main aim of this research study is: To investigate the demand of water for development of domestic use and agriculture use and To examine how to manage existing water resources.Objectives
The objectives of this study are: To control damaging excess. To manage and utilize excess for useful purposes. To control erosion and effect reduction in the sediment production. To have moderate floods in the downstream areas. To enhance ground water storage. Appropriate use of the land resources on the watershed and thus developing Forest and FoodResources
The research will look at the current development of various natural resources, particularly land and water, the watersheds or hydraulics units are considered more efficient for carrying out necessary surveys and investigations for assessment of these resources as well as for subsequent planning and implementation of development programs. The watershed approach is more rational because the inherent potential of soil and water resources in a particular area is governed by various factors, most important of which are physiographic, geological base, soil characteristic's, climate, present land use, socio economical and legal aspects and other relevant factors. It has been observed that there is optimum interaction between the natural factors of physiographic, soil and climate on watershed bases for their optimum utilization and output. The watershed approach is, therefore, increasingly being employed in various development programmes like soil conservation, command area development, deficiency level area programmes, shifting cultivation, recovery or very hungry areas, erosion control in catchments of river valley projects etc. the watershed also important with respect to the development of water resources in the shape of major, medium and minor irrigation projects. The programmes for water harvesting on form level have been developed on watershed bases. After all the feasible sites for exploitation of the surface water are explored, the only alternative left to cope with the droughts is to make the use of ground water resources. As ground water also depends on the rainfall received, there is need to harvest and use this resources sufficiently with the help of watershed management. For planning a particular watershed, the planner must have a basic objective or multiple objectives and keeping this in mind should then proceed with the formulation and evolution of the various alternatives. The objectives of watershed management programme are to control damaging runoff, to manage and utilize runoff for useful purposes, to control erosion and effect reduction in the sediment production, to have moderate floods in the downstream areas, to enhance ground water storage. Appropriate use of the land resources on the watershed and thus developing forest and fodder resources. These objectives can be achieved by bringing about improvement in physical condition of soil through proper managing and cropping with a view to increase water infiltration and holding capacity. Ensuring good crop growth by adopting the recommended agronomic practices for each crop. Practicing other conservation measures like contour Bunding, terracing, contour trenching, contour cultivation, strip cropping, mulching, reclamation of gullies etc. adoption of conservation farming practices to improve agriculture, controlled grazing to keep the pastures productive , water management for irrigation and drainage and all other types of erosion control measures could be considered as the parts of watershed management.Methodology
A wide variety of methods were used for data collection. These include Best Interviews, Participant observation, Semi-structured focus group interviews, Questionnaire and Case study method. A flexible approach was used for deciding methodologies. In the initial stages of data collection best interviews and group interviews were conducted with experienced watershed committee members, farmers, government officers and non-government organisation representatives. It takes considerable courage to openly accept and discuss the argument one is facing. Therefore in focus groups and best interviews importance was given to active listening, creating a comfortable and friendly atmosphere, building trust and acknowledging the experiences of the narrator without criticism or judgement. To make it easier for participants to discuss their argument and to build relationship, previous argument and their management were discussed to help feel safe through the distance that time gives. After understanding was built people felt more comfortable discussing their present arguments. The other technique of creating distance was through asking similar questions in the context of other watersheds. For this reason, the author of this report explains what a research study is and how it is carried out in this chapter. Definition of research The word research has been defined and explained in so many different ways, but more importantly; all the various definitions seek to point out in one particular direction. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines Research as A search or investigation undertaken to discover facts and reach new conclusions by the critical study of a subject or by a course of scientific enquiry. Research was defined by Hitchock and Hughes (1993), as the systematic enquiry that is characterized by a certain amount of rigor and governed by set principles and guidelines for procedures. For instance, social research, therefore, refers to both the collection and analysis of information on the social world in order thereby to understand and explain it better. According to Naoum (1998), there are two types of research strategies, namely 'Quantitative research' and 'Qualitative research'. The choice of the type to use depends on the purpose of the study and the type and availability of the information which is required.Qualitative Research
This type of research emphasizes meanings, experiences, description and so on. The information obtained after carrying out a qualitative research can be categorized into two classes of research. These classes are 'exploratory' and 'attitudinal'.Quantitative Research
It is defined as an enquiry into a social or human problem, based on testing a hypothesis or a theory composed of variables, measured with numbers, and analyzed with statistical procedures, in order to determine whether the hypothesis or the theory hold true. Quantitative data is, therefore, not abstract, they are hard and reliable; they are measured of tangible, countable sensate features of the world. Quantitative research, therefore, is said to be 'objective' in nature.Exploratory research
This type of research is used when there is limited amount of knowledge about the topic under consideration. The purpose of exploratory research is intertwined with the need for a clear and precise statement of the recognised problem. The raw data provided in exploratory research will be exactly what people have said (in interview or recorded conversation) or a description of what has been observed.Attitudinal research
This type of Qualitative research is used to 'subjectively' evaluate the 'opinion', 'view' or 'perception' of a person, towards a particular object. Qualitative research, therefore, is said to be 'subjective' in nature.Postal Questionnaire
This technique of data collection is maybe the most commonly used. It is very suitable for surveys with clearly defined objectives and normally asks questions that need specific response, like 'write' or 'wrong'. The main advantages of postal questionnaires are Economy, Speed and Consultation.Personal interview
This is yet another technique of collecting data or information from respondents by a face-to-face interactions. With this technique, answers to questions are received instantly. For the purpose of this work, the author in a bid to collect data for the research analyses, the personal interview technique will be adopted. Personal interviews will be conducted and with a number of selected watershed companies. The feedback received from respondents of the companies selected will then be analysed and conclusions drawn from them. From the conclusion drawn, suitable recommendations will then be made. This research method will be used due to the fact that unlike the research questionnaire, the respondent is known and there is a close interaction between interviewer and respondent. Even though it takes a longer time to go through the interview and the cost is high, the sample size is smaller and the quality of information received is deep and detailed. This is because the interviewer has the chance to probe and the flexibility to reword question and clarify terms that are not clear. Moreover, with this technique, answers to questions are received instantly, they are more accurate, the rate of response is relatively high and it is easy to analyse why the particular answers are given to the questions. The data received from the interview will be represented and analysed by using graphs and charts. For the purpose of this research, both published and unpublished literature available in the subject area as well as similar areas will be reviewed critically and in details in order to establish facts about the topic and draw conclusions. Also journals, such as magazines and watershed journals will be reviewed since they tend to discuss very current issues in the industry. Other literature to be reviewed will include other research reports as well as reports from seminars. Watershed management websites will be reviewed and information will be gathered from them. Due to the method selected to be used to collect data, which is the personal interview technique, equipment such as voice recorders and hand held PDAs will be used in order to enhance the data collection process and facilitate easy analysis afterwards. During the data collection process, the writer imagine a lot of travelling hence various transportation means available, such as trains, public buses, taxis and private means, will be used. After the collection of data, computer software such as SPSS will be used to present and analyse the data. Other computer programmes, like Microsoft Office Project and Microsoft Office Excel among other software will be used in order to enhance the final presentation, analysis and conclusion of all the data collected. This proposed research program, even though will yield very physical and useful results, will involve a lot of financial investment due to the resources needed to carry it out successfully. Hence it will cost the researcher a lot of money to be able to achieve good and useful results. Another major control picture will be the willingness and availability of respondents to the survey. It will be very difficult to get respondents who are willing to spare some time to give an interview and even if they do, they might not be sincere in giving accurate responses especially if the questions are a bit searching into their company's activities or personal opinions.Research Beneficiaries / Dissemination
This proposed research, when completed successfully, will be a useful report which will go a long way to blow on the watershed industry because it will bring out and highlight some, of the points, of the existing water management in the country and continue to improve the general performance of the watershed industry in the world. Even though quite a lot of research has been carried out in this area and a lot of reports written, most of them are focused on Watershed management and more especially relating it mainly to water resources issues, which is what makes this research a bit different and unique for that matter. This report will be forwarded for publication in different print magazines in the industry and also posted on the internet so that anybody can have access to it. It will not only benefit the watershed industry but other industries can also access it and apply the theories propounded as well.Cite this page
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Can Tony Harrison’s Poem V be Considered an Elegy for a Passing Culture
When first broadcast on Channel 4 in 1987 Tony Harrison's long poem v. caused a furore, mainly in the popular press. Famously, the Daily Mail condemned it as 'featuring a torrent of four-letter filth' (Harrison, 1989, p.40), and a number of other, principally tabloid newspapers published critical articles and columns which helpfully totted up for their readers the number of swear words used in the poem. In the House of Commons an Early Day Motion was proposed on 27th October 1987, calling upon Channel 4 not to broadcast the poem on the grounds that it featured a 'stream of obscenities' (Harrison, 1989, p.60). For a brief period Harrison's poem was a battleground fought over by conservative and liberal opinion concerning freedom of expression in the media. That so much attention was paid to the use of 'bad language' in the poem may be at least partly explained by Harrison's innovative development of the film poem medium (see Harrison, 1995), which meant that v. gained the sort of exposure otherwise closed off to contemporary poetry in Britain. This suspicion is to some extent supported by the observation that the poem had appeared in print in 1985 and caused not much of a stir beyond the fairly small readership for contemporary poetry. However, the main point here is that such a focus upon the 'controversial' nature of the language of the poem might distract us from its main concerns and strengths. In a newspaper article written in support of v. Blake Morrison described it as 'a real state-of-the-nation poem' (Harrison, 1989, p.57), and said that the real 'shock' delivered by the poem is that 'it describes unflinchingly what is meant by a divided society' (Harrison, 1989, p.56). Such an assessment identifies the political character of v., a poem written at the time of the Miners' Strike in 1984-5, which is often considered to be not only the most bitterly fought industrial conflict of the post-war era in Britain, but also the event which brought about the end of that era and of a whole class and its way of life, especially in the North of England. It is for this latter that v. may be said to be an elegy, an elegy which has both personal and collective dimensions. Traditionally, as a genre the elegy has been seen as providing consolation to those who have lost someone they have loved or valued. According to Jahan Ramazani, the elegy has had the propensity 'to translate grief into consolation' (1994, p.3). Ramazani cites such examples as John Milton's 'Lycidas' and Percy Shelley's Adonais as elegies which end with their subjects affixed in the firmament or in the landscape as permanent, transcendent entities whose light will never fade (1994, pp.3-4). Much the same tendency may also be found in Rupert Brooke's self-elegy 'The Soldier' (1914), in which the speaker offers the compensation that after his death 'there's some corner of a foreign field/That is forever England' (see Ramazani, 1994, p.70). For the purposes of a discussion of Harrison's v., however, it is arguably the most famous example of the elegy in the English language which has the most relevance - Thomas Gray's 'Elegy written in a Country Churchyard' (1751). That relevance is partly founded on the fact that Gray's poem was apparently prompted by the writer's contemplation of the churchyard in Stoke Poges where his mother was buried, just as Harrison's poem arises from a visit made to the family plot in Holbeck Cemetery in Leeds. Moreover, like Harrison's, Gray's poem is a self-elegy concluding with a self-composed epitaph for the speaker, as well as being an elegy for the nameless 'rude forefathers' (Price (ed.), 1973, p.662, l.16) mouldering away in their unmarked, or crudely inscribed graves in the churchyard. In these ways, Gray's poem combines both personal and impersonal or collective elements. Tony Harrison has explicitly acknowledged his use of Gray's 'Elegy' in discussions of v. (see, for example, BBC, 2011). In doing so, Harrison focusses upon his use of Gray's metre, stanza and alternate rhyme scheme (although, it should be said that he employs rhymed iambic pentameter organised into quatrains in many of his best known poems). For Harrison, to write using such versification is important in making his poetry accessible to a wider audience, but also it may be said that he employs such forms for subversive purposes – to take the traditional forms of poetry and fill them with explicitly political, if not 'confrontational' content. In an interview with John Tusa on Radio 3 in 2011 Harrison talked of v. as 'a rage in an urban churchyard' (BBC, 2011), and of his purpose being to find a voice for that 'rage' rather than melancholic reflection. If the humble dead scattered about Stoke Poges are for Gray largely anonymous, for Harrison they are family, or substantial people, in more than one sense. However, in the poem Harrison communicates his sense of division with regards to his relationship with the people who occupy the grave-plots in Holbeck Cemetery and to his origins in the working class community of Beeston Hill in Leeds more generally. It could be said that v. is an elegy for his parents (both of whom had died only a few years before the poem was written), and is also an elegy for the working class community and culture from which they and Harrison came, a community slowly dying from the process of de-industrialisation hastened along by the Thatcherite economic policies of the 1980s. However, in addition it may be said that the poem constitutes an elegy for the poet's own lost connection with and belonging to the community and family in which he was brought up. At the beginning of the poem the speaker takes us on a tour of the tombs and memorials of the solid citizens who made up the community of Beeston Hill in the past – 'Wordsworth', who 'built church organs', 'Byron', who 'tanned/luggage cowhide in the age of steam' (1989, p.7). Of course, Harrison makes effective ironic use of these names, playing with our recognition of them as the names of central figures in the canon of English poetry, whilst simultaneously pulling the rug from beneath the feet of our expectations. As Helmut Haberkam points out, Harrison's description of himself as 'bard' in the opening stanza of the poem suggests 'the romantic idea of the vates' (1994, p.92), or prophetic poet, which was popularised by the likes of Thomas Gray in the 18th century (Gray even wrote a poem of that name). However, Harrison immediately undermines this (quite literally) in the following stanza by revealing that the graveyard sits above the galleries of an old coal mine which one day in the future will cause his grave and those of 'the distinguished dead to drop/into the rabblement of bone and rot' (1989, p.7). So, rather than being set apart as a figure with a specially privileged vision, Harrison implies that he in fact will end up where he began, amongst the 'rabblement' of 'butcher, publican, and baker' (1989, p.7), thus, according to Haberkam, validating the idea of the poet 'as a socially responsive and responsible contemporary' (1994, p.92). However, the scenario developed in the poem by Harrison from this point on radically puts into question his entitlement to represent poetically the community and culture to which he used to belong. We learn that whilst his father would come home 'with clay stains on his trouser knees' every week after having tended his mother's grave, Harrison's visits to their graves have been more sporadic and of shorter duration ('odd ten minutes such as these' (1989, p.12)). What seems to be implied is that the work of remembrance is precisely that – a matter of the hard graft of ritual and routine, of tending graves in practice but also, by so doing, maintaining links with the past and the dead by making them part of our lives in the present. Although Harrison is 'horrified' by the obscene and racist graffiti he finds sprayed on the graves, he is forced to ask the question 'who's to blame', the drunken Leeds Utd fans who rampage through the graveyard, or people like himself, who left Leeds 'for work or fuller lives' (1989, p.12), people whose relationship with their origins might be said to be, at least, ambivalent. In order to convey this ambivalence towards his origins and his sense of loss, Harrison – whose first successes, it should be remembered, were as a dramatic poet – employs dialogue and character. The sight of the racist and obscene graffiti causes the anguished Harrison earnestly to question their meaning and their cause:
But why inscribe these graves with CUNT and SHIT?
Why choose neglected tombstones to disfigure?
...
What is it that these crude words are revealing?
What is it that this aggro act implies?
Giving the dead their xenophobic feeling
or just a cri-de-coeur that man dies? (1989, pp.16-17)
However, at this point another voice – that of an unemployed skinhead - interjects violently: 'So, what's a cri-de-coeur, Cunt? Can't you speak/the language that yer mam spoke '(1989, p.17). From this point in the poem onwards, Harrison is engaged in an increasingly desperate dialogue with the skinhead (his 'alter ego' (1989, p.31)), who taunts the poet for his claim to 'represent' people such as himself: 'Don't talk to me of fucking representing/the class yer were born into any more…/Who needs/yer fucking poufy words. Ah write me own.' (1989, p.22). For a poet who throughout his writing life has documented his struggle to give voice to the experience and culture of the community in which he was brought up (in the well-known poem 'Them and [Uz]', for example (Harrison, 2003 (3rd ed.) pp.102-3), the skinhead's question is a crucial one, and one for which the only answer Harrison has seems to be to re-enact that struggle dramatically and poetically. Michael Thurston writes that whereas Thomas Gray can peacefully contemplate his elegiac resources in the quiet context of graveyards, Harrison is called on to defend both poetry and his own poetic practice against claims lodged by a spokesman for history's victims (2009, p.148). By this reckoning, the traditional compensations made available by the elegy form – the assurance offered by the poet that the subject of the elegy will achieve a permanence and a transcendence in the shape of the elegy itself – are dependent upon a tacit agreement that the poet may legitimately represent the absent subject. This assurance, however, is denied to Harrison, for whom 'all the versuses of life' (1989, p.11) - the political conflicts that divided Thatcherite Britain, 'class v. class as bitter as before,/the unending violence of US and THEM,/personified in 1984/by Coal Board MacGregor and the NUM' (1989, p,11) – these conflicts extend into the graveyard itself and into the poetry and the language employed by Harrison. According to Terry Eagleton, 'Harrison is a natural Bakhtinian', for whom language itself 'is a terrain of struggle where opposing accents intersect' (1991, p.349). The skinhead with whom Harrison engages in the poem may well be alienated from the community which spawned him (from both its past and its present) but, unemployed and xenophobic as he is, he may also be more representative of that community than the poet could ever hope to be. Moreover, the skinhead sees Harrison himself as the class enemy, as one of those who speaks down to him, treats him like he is 'dumb' (1989, p.19). He has his own words and way of expressing them, which in the end may be just as valid as those 'brief chisellable bits from the good book' (1989, p.10) engraved on the gravestones which the graffiti obscure, or those of Harrison himself. However, although the conflict enacted by Harrison in the poem would seem to put into doubt his right to commemorate and to speak for the community which the skinhead's very presence would appear to mark as having past, this in itself is rendered ambiguous by the revelation that the 'foul-mouthed' disaffected skinhead and the polyglot cultured poet are one and the same ('He aerosolled his name. And it was mine.' (1989, p.22)). The words that the skinhead has spoken throughout the poem have been Harrison's, and the skinhead himself, as Harrison has made clear, is what he may have become if he had not benefited from the 1944 Education Act which enabled him to go to Leeds Grammar School (BBC, 2011). So, in the end, the skinhead is revealed as the ghost of the life that Harrison did not lead – one where he stayed in Leeds, found himself subject to social and economic forces beyond his control or understanding, and was ultimately dumped on the slag heap. The poem has been, by this account, an elegy for that lost life.
Bibliography
BBC (2011) The John Tusa Interviews: Tony Harrison. [Online]. Available from https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00nc89r [Accessed 30th October 2015] EAGLETON, T. (1991) Antagonisms. In ASTLEY, N. (1991) Bloodaxe Critical Anthologies: 1: Tony Harrison. Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books (pp.348-50). GRAY, T. (1751) 'Elegy written in a Country Churchyard'. In PRICE, M. (1973) The Oxford Anthology of English Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press (pp.661-5). HABERKAM, H. (1994) These Vs. are all the Versuses of Life. In BARFOOT, C. (ed.) In Black and Gold: Contiguous Traditions in Post-War British and Irish Poetry. Amsterdam: Rodopi Press (pp.79-94). HARRISON, T. (1989) v. (2nd Ed.). Tarset: Bloodaxe Books. HARRISON, T. (1995) The Shadow of Hiroshima and other Film Poems. London: Faber and Faber. HARRISON, T. (2003) Selected Poems (3rd Ed.). London: Faber and Faber. RAMAZANI, J. (1994) Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. THURSTON, M. (2009) The Underworld in Twentieth-Century Poetry: From Pound and Eliot to Heaney and Walcott. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Can Tony Harrison's Poem V Be Considered An Elegy For A Passing Culture. (2017, Jun 26).
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The Ways in which Toni Morrison Portrays Negative Representations of her Female Characters
To Explore the Ways in Which Toni Morrison Portrays Negative Representations of her Female Characters and How She Goes Further to Challenge These Representations in Relation to Black Feminist Thought
Introduction
Toni Morrison is considered to be one of the most popular and most important authors of the 20th Century, especially considering that much of her literary work has actively challenged the stereotypes that have been imposed on African American women throughout history. The characters in her novels are beautifully crafted in order to allow the reader to explore their journeys and the way in which they are presented, thus questioning the perspective of history that has been created. However, many of the stereotypes have undoubtedly stuck in the African American conscious and so it is necessary to initially perpetuate women in those images prior to examining exactly how to expel those stereotypes for good. According to Ghaly, “Rethinking the traditional perspectives on identity and its relation to culture, [Morrison] eschew binary logic to explore multiple forms and root causes of social marginality.” As such, with this in mind, this essay will examine the African American female self in its stereotypical form within Morrison's work and how it is constructed in relation to black feminist thought. This will be done with a view to concluding that Morrison undoubtedly goes some way to dispelling such negative representations and furthers the achievements of black feminism thought in the process. The book used for examination will be Sula (1973).Black Feminist Thought and Negative Stereotypes
Patricia Hill Collins is one of the foremost scholars concerning the way in which African American women have been portrayed since the 19th Century, offering analysis as to how and why many black authors, intellectuals and prominent figures have been able to challenge stereotypes over the years. She stated that: “Black women intellectuals have laid a vital analytical foundation for a distinctive standpoint on self, community, and society and, in doing so, created a multifaceted, African-American women's intellectual tradition.” Collins's argument is indeed correct in that numerous authors have provided a firm analysis of the race's female self through the eyes of the individual rather than the dominant white perspective. In highlighting this, Collins has also identified numerous themes, or “...six distinguishing features that characterize Black feminist thought may provide the common ground that it so sorely needed both among African-American women, and between African American women and all others whose collective knowledge or thought has a single purpose.” Those six areas that provide common ground and thus a common feminine experience are work and family, controlling matriarchs, self-definition, sexual politics, love relationships, motherhood and activism. Although these six areas provide common ground and thus can also form a collective identity of African American womanhood, they also provide the foundation of negative representations. Dubey states that “...the black writer must replace negative stereotypes with positive images.” However, the use of the term “replace” gives the impression that negative stereotypes should be ignored rather than examined and developed in order to expel them, ensuring that female characters are allowed to evolve into positive images. Conversely, Collins advocates empowerment via experience and consciousness and that implies exorcising negative representations by exploring them thoroughly in order to humanise the black female experience. Morrison subscribes to this particular perspective, as her characters prove. However, it is necessary to explore the characters in Sula in order to assess whether or not she goes further to challenging representations in relation to black feminist thought or not.The Whore and the Good Wife
Morrison offers two specific characterisations of the negative stereotypes that had traditionally been foisted on African American women – the whore and the good wife. The former is of course a means of describing Sula and the latter her “good” counterpart, Nel. The relationship between the two serves as one of the “black women's friendships” that Collins states are vital to expelling negative representations. However, before examining the relationship between the two, it is important to examine the stereotypes they present individually. Sula is the promiscuous black woman that steps neatly into the role of whore at first glance as a result of her attitude towards sex and thus womanhood: “To Sula, sex is disconnected from emotion, a disembodied act of the body that allows her to feel a sorrow unattainable through any other means.” Although this highlights the aspect of the negative stereotype that suggests that black women are promiscuous by nature, it also hints at a far deeper significance that the act itself adopts for Sula, thus challenging the traditional representation. This is reinforced in the description of her upbringing that is offered by Morrison. Her mother “...taught Sula that sex was pleasant and frequent, but otherwise unremarkable.” As such, the stereotype presented by the character is effectively created by a maternal liberal attitude towards sex rather than it being an innate destructive quality that she was born with, as the traditional stereotype suggests. This directly challenges the stereotype by humanising the figure of the whore and thus also dispels the negativity associated with it, regardless of how taboo the subject of promiscuity may be. However, the stereotype of the whore, which Sula is designed to both embody and challenge within the book, is not only challenged via the use of the her back story but also via her attitude towards sex: “For Sula, sex becomes a means to assert herself and to defy social convention. She seduces her best friend's husband and is accused of the worst degradation of all: sleeping with white men.” As Collins highlights, African American women were traditionally used by white men and objectified as a result. However, in the case of Sula the roles are reversed. She actively uses men to feel alive, to explore who she is and to form her own self-identity that does not depend on conforming to the social expectations that were imposed on African American women at that point in time. Sula is therefore not a whore but instead a woman simply searching for her place in the world, thus rendering her race incidental. Finding that sex put her “...in a position of surrender, feeling her own abiding strength and limitless power”, Sula explores her true self by rejecting the accepted boundaries of sex and forming her own expectations of life: “Single-handedly, she rejects the values of the margin to which she belongs, a margin that mirrors the centre in that it represses any stirrings of discontent.”Sula's discontent is tangible and thus renders the stereotype of the whore a societal construction that is designed to oppress rather than a viable label with which it is possible to brand her. Morrison therefore uses the themes established by Collins in order to examine the negative representation of the whore and pushes back the boundaries that had previously been imposed with little understanding of what drove the women perceived as promiscuous. Even though the entire community condemned Sula, including her best friend Nel, the judgement is subtly passed by Morrison on them for not embracing the collective conscious rather than Sula herself. The whore is not the only negative representation of the African American woman that black feminist thought has acknowledged and tried to dispel. The timid good wife who absolves her husband of all fault is another. The role is filled by Nel in Sula: “Nel, Sula's complementary “other,” is presented as the prim and proper child who grows up to be a selfless wife and mother who unquestioningly conforms to the stereotypes of womanhood. She is everything that Sula was supposed to become but did not and would not.” She is subordinate to Jude, her husband, keeps house, remains faithful and never goes against her man in any way. In essence, she releases her own identity in order to assume that of her husband, thus meaning that she has no identity and so cannot be said to be living her life on her own terms as Sula is. The two girls contrast greatly but Morrison ensures that they share one element of their lives – that their characters and thus representations are not inevitable but instilled. Just as Sula's promiscuity is encouraged, so is Nel's role of the good wife: “Under Helene's hand the girl became obedient and polite. Any enthusiasms that little Nel showed were calmed by the mother until she drove her daughter's imagination underground.” She was forced to relinquish her identity and only ever retained it when around Sula, with whom she shares a sisterhood that Collins advocates as being essential in dispelling stereotypes. However, that sisterhood is negated by the conscience of the good wife: “And Nel creates a scapegoat in Sula to absolve Jude of deliberate acts of moral evil, marital infidelity and familial desertion, which destroy their marriage. Nel abnegates Jude's potential for evil.”. The wife overtakes the sisterhood, thus subverting the notion of community once again. However, although the good wife stereotype is adhered to initially, Morrison later challenges it via a process of self realisation, self determination and the discovery of an autonomous identity. The realisation comes as Nel rejects the stereotype. Marriage is consistently perceived as damaging by Morrison. She states the following in relation to the institution and its effect on women like Nel, the good wife: “Those with husbands had folded themselves into starched coffins, their sides bursting with other people's skinned dreams and bony regrets” In doing so, she highlights the importance of other elements of life through the eyes of Nel and Sula with particular emphasis on friendship. However, it is Sula who initially realises the value of friendship in black womanhood: “She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be – for a woman.” This is somewhat ironic given the fact that she threw that friendship away by sleeping with Nel's husband. However, Sula dies without having been given Nel's forgiveness. It is not until after her death that Nel realises the true nature of friendship between African American women, as per Collins's examination of black feminist thought and Morrison's will to push the women further in order to dispel stereotypes: “It is only after Sula's death and burial that Nel realizes that it has been Sula – not Jude – whom Nel has missed through the years.” In short, according to Morrison, it is the love of the sisterhood that is necessary to survive and nurture an identity instead of the institution of marriage. This undoubtedly rejects the stereotypes of the whore and the good wife because it negates the role of men in general, thus empowering women to forge their own destinies. This is undoubtedly an evolution of black feminist thought rather than in keeping with it.Conclusion
In conclusion, Morrison uses her characterisations of Sula and Nel in order to thoroughly examine the viability of African American female stereotypes and effectively offers enough proof as to why they must be challenged and dispelled. They not only mask the true nature of what it means to be a woman but also set her alone when in fact the collective conscious defies the imposition of any such stereotype. Collins's theory as to the nature of African American womanhood via black feminist thought provides an excellent foundation for understanding Morrison's work, but she goes above and beyond the values and factors offered by Collins in order to ensure that the novel undoubtedly goes some way to dispelling such negative representations and furthers the achievements of black feminism thought in the process. In Sula and Nel, the whore and the good wife are undoubtedly negated in favour of friendship, identity and true black womanhood.Bibliography
Beaulieu, Elizabeth Ann, 2006. Writing African American Women: An Encyclopedia of Literature by and About Women of Color. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Collins, Patricia Hill, 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge. Davis, Anita Price, 1998. Toni Morrison's Sula. Piscataway, NJ: Research & Education Association. Dubey, Madhu, 1994. Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Eckard, Paula G., 2002. Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Lee Smith. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. Ghaly, Salwa, 2004. Evil Encounters with “Other” in Tayeb Salih and Toni Morrison: The Case of Mustafa Saeed and Sula Peace. In Richard Paul Hamilton & Margaret Sonser Breen eds. The Thing of Darkness: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 21-36. Jennings, La Vinia Delois, 2008. Toni Morrison and the Idea of Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morrison, Toni, 1987. Sula. New York: Penguin Books. Salwa Ghaly, 2004. Evil Encounters with “Other” in Tayeb Salih and Toni Morrison: The Case of Mustafa Saeed and Sula Peace. In Richard Paul Hamilton & Margaret Sonser Breen eds. The Thing of Darkness: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 21-36, p. 21. Patricia Hill Collins, 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, pp. 2-3. Patricia Hill Collins, 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, p. 22. Madhu Dubey, 1994. Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, p. 94. Patricia Hill Collins, 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, p. 103. Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu, 2006. Writing African American Women: An Encyclopedia of Literature by and About Women of Color. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 827. Toni Morrison, 1987. Sula. New York: Penguin Books, p. 44. Madhu Dubey, 1994. Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, p. 91. Paula G. Eckard, 2002. Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Lee Smith. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, p. 56. Patricia Hill Collins, 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, p. 135. Toni Morrison, 1987. Sula. New York: Penguin Books, p. 123. Salwa Ghaly, 2004. Evil Encounters with “Other” in Tayeb Salih and Toni Morrison: The Case of Mustafa Saeed and Sula Peace. In Richard Paul Hamilton & Margaret Sonser Breen eds. The Thing of Darkness: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 21-36, p. 29. Toni Morrison, 1987. Sula. New York: Penguin Books, p. 120. Salwa Ghaly, 2004. Evil Encounters with “Other” in Tayeb Salih and Toni Morrison: The Case of Mustafa Saeed and Sula Peace. In Richard Paul Hamilton & Margaret Sonser Breen eds. The Thing of Darkness: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 21-36, p. 29. Toni Morrison, 1987. Sula. New York: Penguin Books, p. 18. Patricia Hill Collins, 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, p. 191. La Vinia Delois Jennings, 2008. Toni Morrison and the Idea of Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 51. Toni Morrison, 1987. Sula. New York: Penguin Books, p. 122. Toni Morrison, 1987. Sula. New York: Penguin Books, p. 121. Anita Price Davis, 1998. Toni Morrison's Sula. Piscataway, NJ: Research & Education Association, p. 9.Cite this page
The Ways in Which Toni Morrison Portrays Negative Representations of her Female Characters. (2017, Jun 26).
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Body Modification Essay Example Pdf
Changing image of Asian women - why these changes have occurred and investigate the effect Westernfashion imagery has on Asian women.
A recent and rapidly-developing trend among an alarming number of Asian women has become a major focus of attention: the lengths to which they will go in pursuit of beauty or rather, the Western version of it. Growing numbers of Asian women are relying on artificial procedures to alter sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently their appearances to fit an unrealistic Western ideal. At one end of the spectrum are quick cosmetic applications which may or may not have lasting side effects. At the other end are surgical procedures, ranging from minor to major, all of which pose varying degrees of risk. Whatever the procedure from applications of skin-lightening chemicals to permanent changes in tissue and bone structure, one message is very clear: white features continue to be the prevailing ideal, and for many Asian women, achieving this ideal is a goal to be attained at any cost. All of these processes from the temporary, relatively benign ones to the riskier, sometimes life-threatening procedures are actively promoted by the fashion industry. Ubiquitous advertisements link professional and personal success to women with Western, or Caucasian, features, along with a not-so-subtle message that to succeed, one must follow this Western paradigm. Furthermore, these procedures are tacitly condoned by a society which allows them to proliferate a society which allows its members to fall victim to these pressures to conform to an ideal of beauty that is unrealistic, unattainable, and of questionable worth. In their attempts to achieve this goal, Asian women risk physical health, mental well-being, and financial security often to the detriment of the lives of the friends and family who surround them. This dangerous trend must be put to an end, and that will not happen while the fashion industry continues to promote the value of Caucasian features to non-Caucasian individuals, particularly women. This paper will explore the factors that cause Asian women to feel pressured to conform to the Western ideal of beauty, as well as the cosmetic and surgical procedures they resort to in this pursuit. Finally, it will explore the complex issues raised by these societal pressures, and suggest that the key to change lies within the psyche of the Asian woman.Body Modification: A Historical Perspective
Modification of the female body is nothing new; women have willed themselves to meet the prevailing modes to satisfy societal standards for years. Body modification has been practiced in a number of ways and for a variety of reasons since ancient times; it has existed on many levels for thousands of years. Historical evidence suggests that, as many as 20,000 years ago, red dye extracted from hematite was used to paint and decorate the body. After that, archaeological evidence proves that as many as 10,000 years ago, parts of animal bones, animal teeth, and colourful stones were used as adornments. The first hair grooming objects appear to have been combs, the earliest of which date back to nearly 5,000 years ago. As for mirrors, ancient people observed their image as it was reflected in pools of water. This, however, changed when the first mirror is believed to have been invented, approximately 4,500 years ago (Yaghmaie, 49-52). Society has progressed since those early days. One need only turn on the television or leaf through a magazine to be bombarded with all kinds of advertisements for body modification. Chemical treatments can straighten hair and change skin tone and texture. Surgical procedures can decrease or (more often) augment breast size. Unwanted fat can be removed in any number ways, ranging from dietary changes to liposuction. Some signs of ageing can be temporarily reversed with injections of Botox; others can be permanently altered, again through surgery.Body Modification Across Cultures
Today in the Western world, body modification is widely practiced in all classes of society, often as a result of societal pressure to achieve perfection. However, this is not an issue unique to Western cultures: physical appearance matters across cultures, across ages, across genders. Hence, we see that Asian cultures are just as immune to societal pressures to conform. Lisa Takeuchi Cullen points out that in the past, Asia had lagged behind the West in catching the plastic surgery wave, held back by cultural hang-ups, arrested medical skills and a poorer consumer base. However, it is now clear that cosmetic surgery is enjoying increasing popularity. According to Cullen: In Taiwan, a million procedures were performed last year, double the number from five years ago. In Korea, surgeons estimate that at least one in10 adults have received some form of surgical upgrade and even tots have their eyelids done. The government of Thailand has taken to hawking plastic surgery tours. In Japan, non invasive procedures dubbed 'petite surgery' have set off such a rage that top clinics are raking in $100 million a year. Thus, Asian women, including those living in their native countries as well as those in the Western world, have begun to respond in increasing numbers to the pressures of fashion. As a result, they may subject themselves to a range of procedures, pay exorbitant fees, and suffer both mental and physical pain. As Cullen points out, Asians have always suffered for beauty: Consider the ancient practice of foot binding in China, or the stacked, brass coils used to distend the necks of Karen women. In fact, some of the earliest records of reconstructive plastic surgery come from sixth century India: the Hindu medical chronicle Susruta Samhita describes how noses were recreated after being chopped off as punishment for adultery. Current practices embraced by Asian women indicate that pain continues to remain an inherent element in their quest for physical perfection. Phoebe Eng discusses this in Warrior Lessons: An Asian American Woman's Journey Into Power, explaining that operations like eye-lifts have become as common as root canals: They are the most frequently occurring plastic surgery procedure among Asian women in America. In fact, Eng notes, eye-lifts are so accepted among Asian women in cultural hubs like Los Angeles that it is not uncommon for women who have had them to let friends know proudly where they got theirs done, and for how much, and by whom (119). The second most common procedure is nose build ups, in which a section of ear cartilage, bone or plastic is surgically inserted to enlarge the nose (Eng,1999, 118-119). One of the major body issues concerning Western women is weight but this is one issue that plays a subordinate role for Asian women. According to Eng, the more prevalent issues seem to involve the facial features that make us indelible and patently 'Asian,' and therefore different. Facial features, asserts Eng, are what most clearly and uncomfortably place Asian women outside the concept of an American 'norm' (121). Once outside this norm, the Asian woman is seen as foreign and exotic, and all that implies (Eng 121). But what lies behind this fixation on physical attributes? Eng asserts that the definition of us as a group, whether we like it or not, bonds us more by our faces than by any particular shared set of perspectives.. She asserts that Asian women are defined, by themselves as well as by others, by a set of common physical features, and that they are define more by physical appearance than by any single set of historical experiences or political agendas (122). Thus the very features that highlight Asian women, that make them stand out as separate and unique, ultimately end up being divisive and destructive. Instead of celebrating the shared features that draw them together, many Asian women opt to instead modify them. They do this in a number of ways, and with varying success, and often with less than satisfactory results but always start out with the same ultimate goal: to break free of the physical ties to their heritage, and in effect to other Asians, in order to become more acceptable in Western society. Eng also points out that unlike other minorities such as blacks and Latinas, Asian American women do not have a strong sense of cultural identity that might give them a firmer inner sense of their own beauty and a self-respect that goes beyond appearances (122-123). Lacking this, they are more vulnerable to the over whelming outside pressures of society and of their own strong desires to succeed. Our solution up till now has been to obliterate the differences either through attempts at assimilation or, more extremely, by cosmetic alteration, asserts Eng. In this way Asian women fail to develop a framework for appreciating physical differences, so that the onus of change is societal rather than individual (Eng122).Cosmetic Alteration: Skin Tone
Eng followed a survey conducted by an Asian-based lingerie company and reported the results as follows:- Beijing women (already tall by Asian standards) want to be even taller.
- Taipei women want to be curvier they seek the classic hourglass figure.
- Hong Kong and Singaporean women lean towards breast augmentation.
- Bangkok women want wider hips.
Cosmetic Alteration: Focus on Eyes
Using makeup to enhance one's eyes is hardly a novel concept. As noted earlier, this practice has been in effect since ancient times. Skilful use of shading can disguise perceived flaws and accentuate strong points; it can create, or at least enhance, the appearance of desired illusions, even if the effects are fleeting. It is a well-established practice. However, items such as glue and tape are not normally found in the makeup bags of Western women at least not as eye treatments. Makeup routines for Asian women who want to change the appearance of their eyes to mimic Western eyes will probably contain at least one of these items. Glue, or tape, are often used to hike up the eyelid....the skin stays folded for most of the day. Some Asian teens say they do this to make their eyes look bigger and prettier. Others would simply say it makes them look more Caucasian (Valhouli).Cosmetic Alteration: Permanent
In Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery, Sander Gilman states that Asian-American women, whose 'blank' look is equated in American society with 'dullness, passivity, and lack of emotion, 'have 'their eyelids restructured, their nose bridges heightened, and the tips of their noses altered' (99). In some Asian cultures, the acceptance of any surgical procedure at all is a relatively recent development. The traditional Chinese prohibition against opening the body limited all forms of surgical intervention until fairly recently (Gilman 99).Modern medicine in China is in many ways Western medicine combined with traditional methods. In Japan, plastic surgery was not even recognized until 1975, and then only for reconstructive purposes. It was not until 1978 that aesthetic surgery elective plastic surgery was sanctioned as an acceptable subspecialty (Gilman 100). However, procedures to correct the shape of the eye had been performed on a frequent and regular basis since the end of the nineteenth century. These procedures were considered, significantly, to be within the bounds of official medical practice. In the 1930s,Gilman explains, American surgeon Henry Junius Schireson claimed that the shape of the Japanese eyelid actually impaired proper vision a claim that was totally false. However, it is significant in that it reflects again the view of Asian features as somehow inferior and in need of correction. The claim that the eyelid form has a negative impact on sight is nonsense, asserts Gilman, but he concludes that it was clearly evident that the focus of the surgery was to create beautiful women beautiful according to Western standards (102). After World War II, with the American occupation of Japan, there was a renewed interest in surgical procedures which would transform Japanese eyes into Western eyes. It was just a matter of time before the number and range of surgical procedures increased throughout Asia to include other types of physical enhancements, particularly breast augmentation. Again, here, as Gilman notes, this responded to the introduction of the Western notion of the larger breast as a sign of the erotic (103). Dr. Ichiro Kamoshita, director of Japan's Hibiya Kokusai Clinic, believes that the prevalence of this type of elective surgery is a direct result of the massive advertising efforts of aesthetic salons. The advertising encourages inferiority complexes in Japanese women of all ages in fact, surgical procedures in adolescents are rising in number. There is now a pattern of presenting procedures as gifts from patents to children, especially those seen to be 'hindered by small eyes, a flat nose or a big face' (Gilman 104). Use of the word hinder is quite telling here; the notion that Japanese features will impede an individual's future accomplishments is practically a given. Cullen notes that in Asia, surgically enhanced beauty is both a way to display wealth and a tool with which to attain it. However, advertisers continue to lure those who are less wealthy. Individuals who have strong aspirations to get ahead often succumb to the promise of upward mobility that is not-so-subtly implied in these advertisements. It is not uncommon for individuals to take out loans or empty savings accounts in order to finance these procedures. The rationale for paying such exorbitant fees is based on their belief that this will help them get ahead. Often they believe this is the only way they will get ahead. Sexual allure is also part of the advertising package: just as Asian faces require unique procedures, their bodies demand innovative operations to achieve the leggy, skinny, busty Western ideal that has become increasingly universal (Cullen). A surgeon in Seoul, Dr. Suh In Seock, has struggled to find the best way to fix an affliction the Koreans call muu-dari and the Japanese call daikon-ashi: radish-shaped calves. Liposuction has proven to be ineffective in changing the appearance of the calves of Asian women the way it does for Western women, since the tissue to be removed is mostly muscle, not fat. Rather than accept thick calves, some Asian women will resort to the type of surgery Suh now performs exclusively. The procedure involves severing a nerve behind the knee; this, explains Suh, will eventually cause the muscle to atrophy, "there by reducing its size up to 40% (Cullen). The most drastic form of surgery, it may be argued, is a surgical procedure that actually increases the patient's height. In a Time Magazine feature, it was explained that this procedure originally developed in Russia to help patients with legs disfigured by accidents or birth defects, such as dwarfism (Beech2001). Though in Western hospitals the practice is limited to cases in which it is explicitly for medical conditions, in Asian countries it has become a popular and profitable procedure. Despite the exorbitant fees, the considerable risk, the lengthy recovery time, hospitals and clinics that provide this procedure often have waiting lists of a year or more. The procedure is particularly popular with individuals who aspire to professions for which they do not meet the height requirements. In addition, it is clear that increased height is sought by those with strong drives to get ahead, particularly in Western societies. Yet this may be seen as yet another way and a drastic one at that in which Asians respond to the pressure to appear more Western. Some who have studied overseas felt inferior because of their lack of stature the article points out. A surgeon at a Beijing hospital explains that for individuals who feel disadvantaged because of their height, "for them, the main purpose of the operation is not to improve their physical health...it is to help their psychological growth [Beech]. However, the value of such drastic surgery as an antidote to feelings of inferiority is fraught with ethical issues. The fact that many will resort to such drastic measures to have an equal footing in society speaks volumes about the tremendous pressure placed on women to meet unrealistic ideals. It is also a telling statement about the power of advertising in not only shaping but reinforcing these beliefs. In the larger framework of society, this has ominous implications for the future.Social, Legal and Moral Issues of Cosmetic Alteration
Doctors Bennett Johnson and Ronald Moy explain that cultural traditions and resistance often have a profound psychological influence on the non white person who is contemplating cosmetic surgery, and these changes can be far-reaching. Changing ethnic appearance (e.g., 'Westernization' of the Asian eye lid or reduction cheiloplasty in blacks) can cause feelings of guilt (Johnson &Moy, 245). The decision to choose surgical body modification may in fact affect the entire family, particularly older family members who are less willing to understand or accept the need to conform to Western ideals: because elders play a dominant role in many non white societies, their acceptance or rejection of cosmetic procedures has a psychological influence on the ethnic patient (Johnson & Moy 245). The fact that so many women continue to opt for elective surgery is especially frightening when considering the possible complications. As Johnson and Moy assert: Complications are not uncommon with blepharoplasty in Asians; up to 10% will require revision procedures. Complications that are of special concern with blepharoplasty in Asians include eyelid asymmetry, loss of the palpebral fold, laxity of pretarsal skin, retraction of the upper eyelid, hypertrophicscars, and excessive fat removal (257). Eng, too, writes of the side effects, which can sometimes be quite drastic, that can result from botched surgeries or infections. The procedures are more risky and complicated than beauty magazines and friends' accounts let on, asserts Eng, citing post-surgical infections and permanent scars as the most common. In some cases, operations to re-contour the jaw line can cause the jaw to weaken to the point that it becomes difficult to even chew. And like any invasive surgery, the months that follow can be uncomfortable and chock-full of antibiotics, as the body attempts to heal (Eng119). The legal complications that result from surgeries which fail to produce the desired results are incredibly complex. The complexity is further deepened by the murky psychological and social issues involved in both making the decision and following through on it. Surgeries which not only fail to fulfil expectations, but also result in additional pain and suffering, are even more complicated, as well as emotionally-charged. The financial losses individuals, and sometimes their families and friends, are burdened within the wake of these procedures, are rarely compensated. Part of the problem, notes Cullen, is that, unlike the medical malpractice suits in the West, legal recourse in Asia is much more difficult to obtain. Most Asian lawyers avoid malpractice cases, writes Cullen, since so few result in victory and financial payoff. Cullen asserts that it is the bargain-hunting instinct that leads patients astray, tempting them to use unqualified cosmetic practitioners. However, bargain rates are still exorbitant sums to individuals who pour their life savings into something they view as an investment in their future, and the future of their children. People who pay high prices in the attempt however misguided to further their success, often disregard the risks that accompany the procedures. Driven to succeed, they are compelled to move on, fully cognizant of and choosing to ignore the risks. According to Cullen, elsewhere in Asia, this explosion of personal re-engineering is harder to document, because for every skilled and legitimate surgeon there seethes as warm of shady pretenders. As an example, she cites Indonesia, which has a mere 43 licensed plastic surgeons registered yet which somehow manages to perform 400 illicit procedures each week in the capital city. Another example Is Shenzhen, China, which Cullen describes as a boomtown housing thousands of unlicensed "beauty-science centers." These centers cunningly target the upwardly mobile and openly vulnerable to market a new pair of eyes or anew nose as the perfect accessory to their new cars and new clothes. The ease and immediacy of access increase the probability that women will succumb to the pressure to undergo risky procedures in questionably safe environments, and there is little recourse available to them if the procedures fail, or worse, cause additional harm.Conclusion
These murky legal issues will demand to be addressed eventually. Many believe that strict government regulations, faithfully and consistently enforced, will be the only controls on this highly-profitable industry. However, considering the fact that this industry is so profitable, government regulation will probably be along way off. In the meantime, the government's inaction suggests a tacit approval. This approval only serves to help the proliferation of unethical, unsafe surgery centers, and it further reinforces the negative messages that women are already bombarded with through advertisements. Indeed, these issues are far-reaching; steeped in cultural taboos and mired in medical complications, the root of the problem is often obscured. The plain and glaring truth, however, is that risky procedures are continually undertaken by Asian women, often with tragic and irreversible consequences, physical and psychic damage, and considerable financial loss. Benignly disguised in the language of self-improvement, the fashion industry continually bombards them with the message that this is what they must do to fit in. Essentially, the message that is so powerfully reinforced is that in order to get ahead, they must change who they are...if you are an Asian woman who wants to succeed: this is your last resort. Large numbers of Asian women continue to cling to this belief that assimilation of Western features will facilitate their advancement in the world; that it will make them sexier, more successful, and of course more content. The lengths to which some of them will go to achieve this are frightening on a number of levels, as demonstrated here. It has also been made clear that selling the concept of Westernization is a profitable business: industries promoting it are largely unregulated by government, resulting in gross abuses and often tragic results. The key to change, then, lies within the psyche of the Asian woman. More and more Asian women are becoming aware of the manipulative methods and subliminal messages that they are bombarded with on a daily basis. This awareness is what will give them the power to decide not to buy into an unrealistic and unattainable ideal, and to take charge of their bodies and their futures.Cite this page
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The Theme of Isolation in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea
Compare and contrast the ways in which the writers present the theme of isolation to construct the characters of Rochester, Jane and Antoinette in “Jane Eyre” and “Wide Sargasso Sea”. The theme of isolation is utilised in English literature to shape the principal characters and provide a particular vision on some crucial aspects of their identities. The aim of this essay is to compare and contrast the ways, in which Charlotte Bronte and Jean Rhys interpret the theme of isolation to construct such characters as Rochester and Jane from the novel Jane Eyre and Antoinette from Wide Sargasso Sea. In these literary works the ideas of isolation are presented as a direct result of characters’ loneliness that they have experienced since early childhood, thus the writers apply both to social and inner isolation. The reality, in which these people live, is so harsh that they isolate themselves from the rest of the world.
Such alienation is a complex psychological disorder that influences the formation of characters’ identities. Isolation results in the expulsion of a person from all social affairs and interactions, preventing him/her to become a full member of society. Although Jean Rhys utilises the similar idea of isolation as Bronte’s narration, she provides her own interpretation of this issue. Contrary to Bronte, the writer considers that madness of a woman is not innate, but rather is a consequence of the injured self that is formed in a person because of isolation and oppression. In this regard, isolation is perceived by characters as a certain rescue that seems to save them for a time being, but, in fact, it gradually destroys these protagonists. The fact is that the identity of a person is created through certain social and cultural interactions with people, but isolation deprives him/her of acquiring the completeness of identity. Jane Eyre and Antoinette Cosway, the principal female characters of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, are portrayed as entirely isolated personalities who, despite the different background and different living conditions, experience similar loneliness and despair.
Jane is a little orphan who is treated cruelly by her aunt and who is isolated from the rest of the household. When Jane is sent into Lowood Institution, her isolation is aggravated; she is transformed into a reserved and serious woman with low self-esteem and lack of hopes.
Similar to Jane, Antoinette’s isolation starts at home and continues in the nunnery, influencing her identity. She spends almost all time in the room and close people regard her as mad, although she acts in a rather normal way. But, contrary to Jane, such prolonged isolation results in more complex psychological destruction and further madness of Antoinette . As she claims at the beginning of the narration, no one came near us. I got used to a solitary life (Rhys 18). No one notices her and her family; instead people betray her trust and hopes. Antoinette’s isolation in childhood shapes her personality, negatively influencing her adult life and relations with people.
This vulnerable and emotionally destroyed woman lives in her own created world, and when Rochester, a person whom she loves, alienates from her, she can no longer endure this isolation. Antoinette seeks love and attention, but her own husband fails to understand her. Rhys reveals that Rochester’s isolation can’t be explained by his severity; instead he is portrayed as a destroyed personality who is forced to marry a person chosen by his family and who has to live in a place alien to him. Antoinette regards Rochester’s alienation as his inability to accept something that is different from his well-ordered life and habits. As a result of Rochester’s alienation, his attitude to Antoinette is sometimes negative, and gradually, she is transformed into a mad female, like her own mother, but Rhys opposes to the view that Antoinette inherits this madness from her mother. Instead, throughout the narration she stresses on the fact that isolation inevitably brings a woman to this psychological disorder. Antoinette’s mind is split and she flees into the past, isolating herself not only from the outside world, but also from her present life. Such isolation appears to be really dangerous for such a sensitive woman, and, as Coral Howells puts it, Antoinette’s moment of authenticity is also the moment of her destruction (121). In pursuit of escaping this isolation, Antoinette commits a suicide. Thus, Antoinette fails to eliminate the negative emotions and feelings that are evoked by her loneliness and isolation.
Although Jane Eyre also experiences anger and scorn towards her relatives, she manages to destroy these emotions. Unlike Antoinette, this young woman who feels isolation since childhood meets a person who experiences the same loneliness, and falls in love with him. This powerful feeling saves her from despair and finally destroys her isolation, she no longer wants to alienate from people, and especially from Rochester. The relations between Jane and Rochester differ from the relations between Rochester and Antoinette; in the case of Bronte’s narration both characters destroy their isolation and find necessary strength in each other, they are identical in many ways and are unable to live apart. As Jane claims, I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities or even of mortal flesh; – it is my spirit that addresses your spirit equal, – as we are! (Bronte 238). Rochester’s wives have really traumatic past that is aggravated by their isolation, but they respond differently to it. Although Jane loses her parents and is constantly ignored by society, her isolation helps her to develop some skills that provide her with necessary strength and allow her to overcome negative feelings.
She becomes a mature young woman who possesses own viewpoints and who is able to evoke powerful feelings in another person. Jane expresses her dreams and loneliness in her beautiful drawings that allow her to successfully cope with her isolation. When Jane learns about Rochester’s wife, she decides to isolate herself from him, but finally she feels that he needs her and returns to him. Being an orphan, Jane understands that she has nobody to rely on, and she learns to rely only on herself. Contrary to Jane, Antoinette lives with her mother at the beginning, but she is alienated from her, because her mother is attached only to her brother, and when she loses him, she is destroyed. As a naive and lonely girl, Antoinette finds comfort in her isolation, but deep inside she strives for attention and love. When she marries Rochester, she believes and trusts him, considering that he is her closest person.
But when his attitude towards her changes, she isolates herself from him, destroying their relations. According to Schapiro, Both characters are furious at being unrealised by the other (99). Unlike Jane who becomes mature in Lowood School, Antoinette remains a little child who is greatly depended on other people and who is unable to act independently. In this regard, Antoinette’s madness aggravates alienation of Rochester who isolates himself even more after his unsuccessful marriage.
Rochester finds it impossible to love a woman who is imposed on him, and when he starts to name her Bertha, he reveals his isolation from her. When Rochester meets Jane, he is attracted to her from the very start, but he finds it difficult to trust a woman again. He makes constant attempts to alienate from her, but he is unable to escape his feelings. Therefore, Antoinette’s isolation from reality and from close people slightly differs from isolation of Jane and Rochester. Their isolation is of different nature, they are socially isolated human beings. This especially concerns Jane who is distinctly alienated from society throughout the narration.
When she marries Rochester, a member of the upper class, she still distances herself from others. Contrary to Antoinette who sometimes applies to provoking behaviour to attract attention of people towards her, Jane limits her relations to some close people. But unlike Antoinette, she doesn’t isolate herself from reality, trying to overcome the difficulties with her powerful spirit and moral principles. Perhaps, Jane’s social isolation is explained by the fact that this young woman is unable to accept society that has constantly pushed her away. In childhood, instead of playing with children, Jane sits in the room in Gateshead listening to the sound of the piano or harp played below the jingling of glass the broken hum of conversation (Bronte 21).She is prohibited to enter the drawing room; only these sounds unite Jane with the world. Such isolation deprives Jane of any social interactions with other children or adults, resulting in her loneliness. As Jane claims, long did the hours seem while I awaited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie’s step on the stairs (Bronte 22). Bessie is the only person in this house who helps Jane to endure her complex position. Further in the school Jane meets Helen Burns and Miss Temple, the persons who have greatly influenced the character’s identity.
Due to their close relations, Jane starts to feel warmth, love and sympathy, gradually destroying her negative feelings. Unlike Jane, Antoinette doesn’t have such people in her life, thus her isolation and loneliness result in the tragic end. While Jane finally finds her identity, Antoinette’s alienation complicates her relations with people. As Schapiro puts it, Rhys’s novel explores a psychological condition of profound isolation and self-division (84). Antoinette’s lack of identity makes her rather helpless. Jane is simply isolated from society, but Antoinette is destroyed by society, because she is depended on people that reject her. As a result of her isolation, Antoinette is unable to understand her true self or form definite principles.
Such inner tension deprives the female character of normal life and reveals a complex position of a woman in a patriarchal world. Although Jane is portrayed in the similar social context, she manages to overcome these biases and make other people respect her. She possesses more strength and restraint than Antoinette, that’s why Jane’s isolation doesn’t destroy her, as she finds her identity. But Antoinette’s inability to acquire identity deprives her of normal life and happiness. She is constantly utilised as an object, but is never accepted as a woman with willpower and strength.
Thus, Antoinette’s madness is a tragic sequel of her isolation. When she marries Rochester, she makes an attempt to overcome this isolation, but as Rhys claims, You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone (130). Analysing the ways in which the writers present the theme of isolation to construct the characters of Rochester, Jane and Antoinette from Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, the essay suggests that Bronte and Rhys provide both similar and different interpretations of this issue.
Jane and Antoinette are brought up in the similar environment and are constantly isolated from society. It is in this isolation that these young women find necessary solace from the cruel reality, but, though this isolation seems rescued for a while, it finally negatively influences the characters’ identity. Due to the fact that isolation of these characters is of different nature, their destinies are also different. Jane is socially isolated throughout the narration, but she manages to find her identity and overcome negative feelings, and, although she is still alienated from the rest of society, she is very close with some people who love her. Antoinette is not only socially isolated, but she is also mentally isolated from reality. Contrary to Jane, she fails to acquire her identity; as a result, isolation and loneliness finally destroy her mind and make her commit a suicide.
The lack of social relations and solitude of Antoinette deprive her of the possibility to recognise her true self. Her sensitive nature wants attention and love, but when she fails to receive them, she creates an unreal world, isolating herself even from her husband. Rochester is also isolated from society and from Antoinette, but his isolation is connected with his inability to accept an imposed marriage and everything that is different from his well-ordered existence. Rochester’s attempts to isolate himself from Jane reveal that he is afraid of powerful feelings; as his marriage with one woman fails, he alienates from other females as well. Besides, Rochester is fully ignored by his own family, thus all three principal characters are isolated in one way or another, either from society or from reality.
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The Different Types of Pervasive Electronics
Discuss the different types of Pervasive electronicsDate authored: 23 rd August, 2014. The invention of the transistor in mid twentieth century gave birth to modern day electronics. Rapid advancements in semiconductor and fabrication technologies allowed the exponential growth of electronic components especially in the last two decades. Electronics with new functionalities have started to emerge in all aspects of human life.
Silicon and other material (organic and inorganic) technologies have enabled electronics to be realised on extremely smaller scales. Apart from smaller scales, these technologies also allow dense packing, durability, simpler integration, flexibility and low weight for electronics. These characteristics have rapidly pushed the trend of pervasive and ubiquitous electronics (Maliniak, 2002). Pervasive Electronics is very much related to consumer electronics. The invention of and later improvement in silicon transistor technology reduced the size and cost of electronic devices such as televisions, video recorders, computers, mobile phones, etc. In the last fifty years, television sets and video recorders have become house-hold devices and more recently computers and mobile phones. These devices could only be realised with the help of improved and cheaper electronic fabrication processes.
This resulted in the lower cost and smaller size of devices, making them affordable for the people. Rapid penetration of these electronics followed after that and this allowed these devices to become pervasive in nature.
The major motivations behind all these improvements were necessity, entertainment, information access, health care, business development and better and easier life (Stern, 2012; Grant, 2011). Now the trend is towards introducing new and radical functionalities. Pervasive electronic systems consist of active and passive electronics devices. Active devices mainly include different sensors. Theses sensors are mostly electronic devices which respond to changes in the ambient environment, user commands, human gestures, etc.
These devices are more like input devices. The passive devices are usually actuators. These actuators are electronic devices that respond to the information or command send to them by the controller or user. A complete electronic system consists of both of these. The electronic system ends up being a complex integration of sensors and actuators, designed for particular or diverse functionalities or applications. The functionalities and applications of modern pervasive electronics include smart and intelligent clothing, flexible displays, smart health monitoring and diagnostic systems, smart phones, wearable computing devices, energy storage and generation, smart bio-compatible devices, etc (Axisa, et al., 2005; Min & Cruz, 2012; Gallozzi, 2012). One of the earlier pervasive electronic systems was the television set.
The transistor allowed better, smaller and cheaper electrical switching systems. This helped the television set to become a household commodity in the 1950s and 1960s. Later, the advancements in display technologies and better circuitry made television sets much cheaper, lighter and compact. This resulted in an exponential growth in the number of television sets and display screens. Present day television sets are mostly LCD (Liquid crystal display) based.
The old initial cathode ray tubes are almost history while other available display technologies including Plasma Displays, LED (Light Emitting Diode) displays, OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) displays, projection displays and rear projection displays are emerging rapidly as alternative electronic technologies. (Goldberg, n.d.; Fischetti, 2001) One interesting technology is the flexible OLED. Flexible electronic displays have been developed recently and they can be used as electronic newspapers, portable TV screens, cloaking, etc. Extensive research is underway in this regard and numerous designs and modifications using different materials have been proposed. Organic materials are the more preferred choice of researchers as they allow more flexibility when compared to inorganic materials. Different substrates has been developed modifying existing printing and fabrication technologies. Inkjet printing has been extensively researched for printing electronic circuitry on these substrates (Berggren, et al., 2007). New materials such as Graphene have also been used in developing flexible electronic systems.
Graphene is a two dimensional metal which provides ideal flexibility for such applications. Competing materials such as Indium Tin Oxide have emerged but constantly increasing cost along with complex methods for material synthesis have multiplied the demand for Graphene. On the other hand, conventional semiconductor materials do not have the required physical properties as Graphene and therefore, cannot be easily used as a material for flexible electronics.
Although, some methods for modifying the physical properties of conventional semiconductor materials are reported in the research literature but still they are unable to match the success of materials like Graphene and Indium Tin Oxide in the domain of flexible electronics (Hamers, 2001; Y. Sun, 2007; Forrest, 2004; Nathan, et al., 2012). Video recording and playing equipment is another example of a pervasive electronic system. It started with recording on tape. The initial devices were electromechanical devices. Later the tape took the form of a cassette. The recorders became smaller in size and the VCR (video cassette recorder) became the big thing in the 1980s and 1990s. The technology was later replaced by the DVD and DVR recorders.
The tape was replaced by a digital disc and the mechanical parts in the systems were reduced to a few components. Blue Ray and Laser based recording technology emerged after the DVD technologies. These devices were compact and were easily able to interface with the existing display technologies which resulted in a massive impact on the popularity of these devices. They were cheap, compact and easily attached with the television sets or projectors, which led to the creation of personalised entertainment systems. The current trend is towards the 3D holographic and optical storage of videos (Gallozzi, 2012). The discussion of pervasive electronics is incomplete without reference to personal computers.
Computer started as a bulky machine almost equal in size to a small home, consuming enough power to run a small town and had very slow computation speeds. In the two to three decades, this machine has been transformed to the size of a wrist watch and even smaller. The contributions of people like Steve Jobs and companies like IBM, Apple, Intel, Samsung, HP, etc. cannot be ignored in making computers – a personal and pervasive electronic device. The prices have then decreased from millions of dollars to a few hundred dollars. It was estimated in year 2001 that more than 125 million personal computers were sold compared to approximately 48,000 computers in 1977 and that there will be more than 2.5 billion personal computer units by the end of 2014 (Kanellos, 2002; Lunden, 2014). Audio technology has also improved with the advancement in electronics. Instead of huge and bulky audio systems like gramophones and phonographs, electrical and magnetic recording and sound playing systems emerged.
These systems were much smaller, cheaper, compact and less energy consuming. In the last few decades the size of audio playing and recording systems has reduced drastically. The initial tape recorder and player systems, although not the size of gramophones or phonographs, were still lacking portability. First came portable electronic cassette players (e.g. Walkman by Sony) and today people are using electronic Pods and MP3 players (e.g. iPod by Apple) that are not bigger than a wrist watch (Beal, 2010; Boehret, 2012). Apart from the size, they have the ability to store thousands of songs and a battery life of almost a week. These Pods have been very popular for almost a decade now but the recent surveys and reports have shown a decline in the sales of these devices because of the emergence of smart phones, Pads and tablets (Hollister, 2014). The success of wireless cellular phones, smart computing tablets and the emergence of internet technology is another significant chapter in the story of pervasive electronics. Early telephones were wired and bulky electromechanical devices.
Wires caused major portability issues for the phones. The first wireless mobile phone appeared in 1973 developed by Motorola and the flood gates for wireless handset technologies were opened after that.
The improvement in radio frequency transmission technologies (GSM, CDMA, etc) and emergence of cellular networks led to the development of better and improved wireless handsets. This again happened because of the advancement in electronic technologies. These sets were initially simple wireless electronic devices which can be easily carried around and had calling and call receiving facilities but in the last decade only, the size reduced and the functionalities provided by the handsets increased drastically. The decrease in cost along with massive manufacturing allowed the people to have multiple handsets with them having different features.
Companies like Samsung, Apple, Nokia, LG, and Motorola have a major contribution in the development and commercialisation of these handsets. Reports suggest that Samsung and Apple respectively shared about 31% and 15.6% of the world’s mobile phone sales in 2013 only (Egham, 2014). The handsets and mobile phones of 1970s and 1980s have improved drastically with introduction of many different features and applications that now they are termed as “smart phones”. Apart from the voice calling facilities of their predecessors, these “smart phones” provide numerous other facilities to their users. These facilities include multimedia entertainment, embedded computing, internet connectivity, GPS tracking and navigation, messaging, audio/video recording and playback capabilities, etc. These functionalities are all embedded on a single electronic board inside the “smart phones” which only became possible because of improved integrated circuits and micro-fabrication techniques. This makes these devices inherently electronic in nature.
Computing Tablets or Smart Tablets are hand held computing devices. These are equipped with sensors, microphones, accelerometers, cameras, high resolution and touch enabled display screens, processors, memories and batteries in a single module. They have capability of a phone and a computer at the same time. The last decade has seen tremendous growth in the concept of such electronic devices.
One of the first such devices was developed by AT&T in 1991. Many such tablets were later developed by different companies but the trend setting device was iPad developed by Apple Computers and released in 2010. In last four years, many companies have jumped into the tablet computer industry. Samsung, Asus, HP, Microsoft, Google and Lenovo are the major manufacturers of tablets. These tablets have introduced a revolutionised reading by providing the readers a new interaction experience. High resolution, capacitive and touch enabled screens enjoyed great success among book and newspaper readers. Amazon’s “Kindle Fire” and Barnes & Noble’s “NOOK” are great examples such electronic devices, with sales reaching more than 5 million units in 2010. These devices are highly portable, efficient, powerful, compact, multi-purpose and cheap.
This is why they are having a huge amount of success among the people around the globe. They are now extensively employed in the third world countries for education and learning purposes. It is estimated that by the end of year 2015 the overall number of tablets sold throughout the world will be more than the number of personal computers which is currently estimated to be around 2.5 billion units as mentioned earlier. (Chen, 2012; Lunden, 2014) The “smart phones” and “smart tablets” lose the “smart” word without the availability of the internet.
The internet technology developed out of US defense research and later commercialised in 1990s. The age of internet exploded in 2000s and we are currently living in that age. Internet provides connectivity to billions of computer across the world where they are connected and can share and access information via “world wide web”. Internet also owes its success to the electronic components involved in it. Computers, communication networks, communication infrastructure, data storage centers, etc. all have electronics involved with them. These things cannot exist without electronics. It is primarily because of the constant improvement in electronics that internet is capable of withstanding connectivity of the 6 billion people across the world. The latest trends and research for the pervasive electronics have been driven by the advancements in flexible electronics.
Flexible electronic materials and substrates have renewed the interest in new bio-medical, health care devices and numerous other areas. Electronic devices with shapes conforming biological surfaces have been realised (Nathan, et al., 2012). Electronic systems replicating human senses have been demonstrated by the researchers. Electronic Tongue (taste sensors) and Nose (smell sensor) has been reported in the literature. (Buratti, et al., 2011) Similarly, bionic versions of human eye have been realised by researchers in many different manners exploiting the advancements in electronics. (Min & Cruz, 2012). The flexible electronics has started to revolutionise health care by providing non-invasive monitoring and diagnostics. It has also enabled the researchers and scientists to interact, control and integrate with living organs and organisms (Hamers, 2001). One of the emerging trends in pervasive electronics is towards developing intelligent clothing, wearable computing and autonomous homes. Availability of many electronic technologies such as telecommunications, micro-fabrication, low power design, new textiles and sensors have made it possible to develop human friendly materials to enhance comfort and security. Researchers are developing clothes and textiles equipped with smart sensors and electronics for non-invasive monitoring of patients.
Apart from the monitoring aspect, these clothing are also designed to be environment friendly, to provide health care facilities and illness protection. (Axisa, et al., 2005) Electronic devices have penetrated in every aspect of modern day human life. Today these electronic devices are used everywhere from our homes, offices, medical centers, schools, government institutions and even for travelling around. Importance of these devices is realised when a device gets damaged. Electronics have now become a part of everyday human life bringing many advantages and disadvantages with it, but, as a whole it is impossible to realise modern world without these electronic devices.
References
Axisa, F. et al., 2005. Flexible technologies and smart clothing for citizen medicine, home healthcare, and disease prevention. Information Technology in Biomedicine, IEEE Transactions on, 9(3), pp. 325–336. Beal, V., 2010. Webopedia. [Online] Available at: https://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/iPod_mp3Player.asp [Accessed 27 August 2014]. Berggren, M., Nilsson, D. & Robinson, N. D., 2007. Organic materials for printed electronics. Nature Materials, 6(1), pp. 3-5. Boehret, K., 2012. The Digital Solution. [Online] Available at: https://allthingsd.com/20121023/with-new-sizes-and-features-ipods-grow-up/ [Accessed 27 August 2014]. Buratti, S. et al., 2011. Monitoring of alcoholic fermentation using near infrared and mid infrared spectroscopies combined with electronic nose and electronic tongue.
Analytica Chimica Acta, July, 697(1-2), pp. 67-74. Chen, B. X., 2012. The New York Times – Bits. [Online] Available at: https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/7-inch-tablets/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 [Accessed 19 August 2014]. Egham, 2014. Gartner. [Online] Available at: https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2665715 [Accessed 19 August 2014]. Fischetti, M., 2001. MIT Technology Review. [Online] Available at: https://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/401240/the-future-of-tv/ [Accessed 27 August 2014]. Forrest, S. R., 2004. The path to ubiquitous and low-cost organic electronic appliances on plastic. Nature, 429(6986), pp. 911 – 918. Gallozzi, S., 2012. Holographic Grid Cloud, a futurable high storage technology for the next generation astronomical facilities. arXiv:1112.6128v2, p. 15. Goldberg, R., n.d. About Technology. [Online] Available at: https://tv.about.com/od/highdefinitionhdtv/a/Tv-Technologies-Comparison-Guide.htm [Accessed 27 August 2014]. Grant, A. M., 2011. America Psychological Association. [Online] Available at: https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2011/07/motivating-creativity.aspx [Accessed 27 August 2014]. Hamers, R. J., 2001. Flexible electronic futures. Nature, August, 412(6846), pp. 489-490. Hollister, S., 2014. The Verge. [Online] Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2014/1/27/5351918/apples-ipod-rides-into-the-sunset [Accessed 19 August 2014]. Kanellos, M., 2002. CNET. [Online] Available at: https://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-940713.html [Accessed 19 August 2014]. Lunden, I., 2014. Gartner. [Online] Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/06/gartner-device-shipments-break-2-4b-units-in-2014-tablets-to-overtake-pc-sales-in-2015/ [Accessed 19 August 2014]. Maliniak, L., 2002. Electronic Design. [Online] Available at: https://electronicdesign.com/defense/1950s-transistors-fill-vacuum-digital-age-begins [Accessed 27 August 2014]. Min , J. & Cruz, L. d., 2012. The bionic eye: a review. Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology, 40(1), pp. 6-17. Nathan, A. et al., 2012. Flexible electronics: The next ubiquitous platform. Proceedings of the IEEE, 100(Special Centennial Issue), pp. 1486-1517. Stern, B., 2012. Inventors at Work: The Minds and Motivation Behind Modern Inventions. s.l.:Apress. Y. Sun, J. R., 2007. Inorganic Semiconductors for Flexible Electronics.
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Health Essay Online for Free
Smoking
Smoking is the current single largest cause of preventable illness and early death in the UK, although it seems likely that this will soon be superseded by obesity (Peterson, 2015). Smokers aged between 45 and 64 are three times more likely to have early deaths compared to non-smokers, and double for those aged between 65 and 84 (Peterson, 2015). There were 106,000 deaths in the UK (86,500 in England alone) in 2010 which were primarily linked to smoking (Oza, 2011). The main causes of death were chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancers (in particular lung cancer, but also cancers of the oesophagus, pharynx, larynx, bladder, pancreas, and mouth), and circulatory disease, in particular peripheral vascular disease (Oza, 2011). In addition to this, there is a 60% increase in the levels of mortality in smokers from circulatory disease, which rises to 85% in those classed as heavy smokers (Carter, 2015). Overall, 1 in 5 premature deaths are directly attributable to circulatory disease caused by smoking (Carter, 2015). Those exposed to second-hand smoke on a regular basis have a 25% increased risk of circulatory disease (Carter, 2015). Complete smoking cessation will reduce overall morbidity and mortality, but any reduction will reduce the risk of developing aforementioned diseases (Jha, 2013). Current guidance states that all smokers should be advised to stop smoking and should be offered evidence-based interventions (Cahill, 2013). Examples of interventions include school-based interventions which aim to prevent the uptake of smoking by informing pupils about the health effects of tobacco use in addition to social and economic aspects of smoking (Cahill. 2013) and community-based interventions such as cessation support groups. In addition to this, research has demonstrated that all healthcare professionals can have a positive effect on a person's decision to stop smoking and so all should be aware of how to direct those who wish to stop to local stop smoking service providers (Cahill, 2013, Jha, 2013). Reviews have demonstrated that the most effective of these interventions are community-based, such as cessation support groups; however this is a problematic conclusion as many support groups were only run for the duration of the study with no longer term follow-up, meaning that longevity of smoking cessation in participants could not be established (Cahill, 2013, Jha, 2013). In addition to this, the sheer diversity of many of the school-based interventions makes generalisation of results difficult, particularly when tailoring interventions which target high-risk groups, including low income communities (Cahill, 2013, Jha, 2013).Weight management
Behaviour and lifestyle choices are also fundamental factors in a person's weight, and are key factors in the development of obesity (Cahill, 2013). A combination of an unhealthy diet and little or no physical activity are major risk factors for becoming overweight or obese, in addition to a number of other chronic health conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and some forms of cancer (Cahill, 2013, Jha, 2013). Physical activity is a key factor in determining energy utilisation, which is key in both weight loss and control, (Cahill, 2013). Current recommendations from the Department of Health (DoH, 2011) stipulate that adults spend at least 150 minutes a week performing aerobic activity of at least moderate intensity, and children over the age of 5 should spend at least 60 minutes doing physical activity each day (Doh, 2011). However, recent research has demonstrated that even those who exercise at the recommended levels are still at higher risk of poor health outcomes if they are still otherwise sedentary for a large amount of time (Nicholas et al, 2015). It is important that physical activity is incorporated into regular daily life, as research has shown that this is at least as effective, if not more effective, than weight loss through a supervised exercise programme, either in schools or in a community setting (Plasqui, 2013). Further research has also shown that regular aerobic exercise is the most effective form of exercise when reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and can also be used as an effective treatment for peripheral vascular disease (Plasqui, 2013). Despite a number of interventions such as Strength and Flex, Forever Fit, and increased funding for classes such as yoga which particularly target older adults there is still a clear disparity between the targets and the actual levels of physical activity (Sallis, 2012). Reviews of the literature suggest that this may be in part due to level of importance ascribed to exercise within the community, and also in part due to concerns around participating and therefore increasing the risk of falls or injury in the elderly (Sallis, 2012). Plasqui (2013) demonstrated that if these concerns are addressed before the programme is commenced, there will be a statistically significant increase in the levels of satisfaction reported, and an increase in the amount of time spent participating in exercise; however, there was no attempt to increase the level of importance ascribed to exercise within the participants. There is also a variation of physical activity according to social class and ethnic background, with black Caribbean men and women being the most likely to be physically active, and those from south Asia the least likely to achieve recommended levels (Sallis, 2012), although no clear cause for this has been established (Sallis, 2012). It is important to note that within this study, there was no robust method for validating the levels of activity reported; therefore, the levels of activity reported may not accurately reflect reality. Levels of decreased physical activity can lead to obesity, which occurs when the intake of energy from food and drinks is greater than the total energy expended by the body through maintenance of normal homeostasis, the body's metabolism, and overall physical activity (Carlsson, 2015). Current industrialised nations can be described as obesity-causing, meaning that it can be difficult for the population to maintain a healthy weight (Carlsson, 2015). This is usually because there is an abundance of highly calorific foods and drinks available and an increase in sedentary lifestyles due to an over-reliance on motorised transport and a decrease in physical activity (Plasqui, 2013). There is also strong evidence to suggest that eating habits which are established in childhood through cultural and familial traits are often upheld into adulthood (Carlsson, 2015). Research into obesity and obesity interventions generally lack specific details about effective approaches or individual programmes, and guidance extrapolated from this research is quite vague (Ding, 2012). An overall review of the literature shows a great variation in study design and other parameters, such as standardised service settings, long-term follow ups and their intervals, cost-effectiveness data, and intervention groups which included minority or those deemed to be more vulnerable (Ding, 2012). There is clear research evidence which states that obesity interventions should be focused on both diet and physical activity together rather than attempting to modify either in isolation, as research data demonstrates that a combined approach is more effective for weight outcomes (Ding, 2012). As obesity interventions should be multi-faceted, it is important to recognise the role of behaviour change and to develop strategies which encourage increased levels of physical activity and improve eating behaviours, as well as the quality of the food selected (Wadden, 2012). In addition, many interventions can also be delivered to families as well as individuals (Wadden, 2012).Nutrition
Nutrition is not just a key component in tackling obesity, but is in itself a key area of interest when considering public health outcomes. It is estimated that up to a third of deaths from cancer may be attributable to unhealthy diets (Lang, 2012). In addition to this, the World Health Organisation accredit almost 5% of the overall disease burden in industrialised nations to poor nutrition, specifically to a low intake of fruit and vegetables, and achieving an intake of 5 fruit and vegetables portions per day is viewed as second only to a reduction in smoking when preventing cancer (Lang, 2012). It is also well documented that an intake of 5 fruit and vegetable portions will reduce the risk of stroke by 6% and the risk of heart disease by 4%, will contribute to other nutritional goals such as weight loss or maintaining a healthy weight, and will contribute significantly to controlling diabetes and lowering blood pressure (Popkin, 2012). Research in this area has shown that when experimental groups increased their vitamin and mineral intake by either increasing their dietary intake of fruit and vegetables or by taking dietary supplements which contained isolated vitamins and minerals, the isolated dietary supplements did not show the same beneficial effects as an increased level of fruit and vegetable intake (Popkin, 2012), although this was a short-term study and therefore this data does not indicate the long-term impact that additional dietary supplements may have. There are a number of factors which may present difficulties in increasing the average fruit and vegetable consumption from the current levels of less than 3 a day, which is lower still among those on low incomes and among children (Yang, 2012). The first of these factors addresses access and availability and is concerned with environmental variables, such as location, range of produce available, and costs (Yang, 2012). The second of these is focused on the individual, and addresses more personal motivations such as beliefs and knowledge, habits, and taste (Popkin, 2012). Programmes aiming to improve nutrition and address obesity are addressing these issues by working with the food industry to change food labelling, establish goals for reducing the levels of fat and sugar in food and improving the ease of access to healthy foods (Popkin, 2012). As these changes would be relatively simple to implement, it is concerning to see that research shows that figures for children's consumption of fruit and vegetables remain low (Yang, 2012). The average consumption is around 15% of the daily recommended intake, with poorer areas reporting lower averages of less than 10% (Yang, 2012). Perhaps the most important factor in this will be the knowledge and motivations of the care provider and it is important that programmes which aim to improve children's consumption of fruit and vegetables also includes the wider family (Popkin, 2012). In conclusion, there is strong evidence that lifestyle interventions can be effectively employed to improve public health in the short-term where there is funding to do so and where there are clear examples of effective strategies and follow-ups within research. However it is important to note that users of these services will often require input from more than one intervention service, and that consideration of integration of some key services such as smoking cessation and weight management should be considered. There is a clear need for longer follow-ups within all intervention research and it is important to recognise that many of these interventions will have numerous strands, targeting both individuals and their wider social groups. It can thereby be seen that lifestyle factors and poor health outcomes are clearly irrevocably linked, and that any intervention put in place to prevent poor health outcomes should involve both the individual and the wider community in which they are involved. This may act as a source of support and encouragement, and may be instrumental in motivating individuals. Although a large number of these interventions require individual motivation, it is also important to note that in order for these interventions to be successful, individuals and communities must be able to take effective steps to achieve their aims. For example, in the case of childhood nutrition, unless there is ready access to healthy and nutritious food, any educational programmes aimed to increase awareness will only be partially successful. Lifestyle factors and public health can therefore be seen to be the responsibility of not only the individual, but those providing the intervention and the community as a whole.References
Behrens, G., Fischer, B., Kohler, S., Park, Y., Hollenbeck, A., and Leitzmann, M. (2013). Health lifestyles behaviours and decreased risk of mortality in a large prospective study of U.S men and women, European Journal of Epidemiology, 28(5), pp.361-372. Cahill, L. (2013). Pharmacological interventions for smoking cessation: an overview and network meta-analysis, British Medical Journal, 1521(23), pp.264-270. Carlsson, A. (2015). Physical activity, obesity, and risk of cardiovascular disease in middle-aged men during a median of 30 years follow up, European Journal of Preventative Cardiology, 101(2), pp.246-249. Carter, B. (2015). Smoking and mortality – beyond established causes, New England Journal of Medicine, 372(4), pp. 631-640. Department of Health, (2011). Making the case for UK physical activity. Elsevier: London. Ding, D. (2012). Built environment, physical activity, and obesity: what have we learned from reviewing the literature? Health and Place, 18(1), pp.100-105. Doubeni, C. (2012). Health status, neighbourhood socioeconomic context, and premature mortality in the United States: the National Institutes of Health – AARP Diet and Health Study, American Journal of Public Health, 102(4), pp.98-107. Jha, J. (2013). 21st century hazards of smoking and benefits of cessation in the United States, New England Journal of Medicine, 368(2), pp.341-350. Lang, J. (2012). Paediataric allergy, immunology, and pulmonology, Allergy, 25(2), pp.64-75. Li, K. (2014). Lifestyle risk factors and residual life expectancy at age 40: a German cohort study, BMC Medicine, 12(59), pp.1186-1189. Nicholas, J., Lo, G., Lynch, B., Friedenreich, C., and Csizmadi, L. (2015). Leisure-time physical activity does not attenuate the association between occupational sedentary behaviour and obesity, Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 1123 (4), pp.692-698. Oza, S. (2011). How many deaths are attributable to smoking in the United States? Comparison of methods for estimating smoking-attributable mortality when smoking prevalence changes, Preventative Medicine, 52(6), pp.428-433. Peterson, M. (2015). The combined impact of adherence to five lifestyle factors on all-cause cancer, and cardiovascular mortality: a prospective cohort study among Danish men and women, British Journal of Nutrition, 113(5), pp.849-858. Plasqui, G. (2013). Daily physical activity assessment with accelerometers: new insights and validation studies, Obesity Reviews, 14(6), pp.451-462. Popkin, N. (2012). Global nutrition transition and the pandemic of obesity in developing countries, Nutrition Reviews, 70(1), pp.3-21. Sallis, J. (2012). Role of built environments in physical activity, obesity, and cardiovascular disease, Circulation, 125(2), pp.729-737. van der Brandt, P. (2011). The impact of a Mediterranean diet and healthy lifestyle on premature mortality in men and women, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 94(3), pp.169-174. Wadden, T. (2012). Lifestyle modification for obesity: new developments in diet, physical activity, and behaviour therapy, Circulation, 125(11), pp.1157-1170. Yang, Z. (2012). Nutrition in pregnancy and early childhood and associations with obesity in developing countries, Maternal and Child Nutrition, 9(1), pp.105-109.Cite this page
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E-learning Essay Example Pdf
Introduction
This paper aims to critically explore the use of e-learning in the workplace, identifying both its benefits and its limitations as a viable alternative to more traditional forms of training and education at work. It begins by examining the growth in the use of e-learning systems and the rationale for this, and outlines its various forms. The paper then investigates the relative benefits e-learning has for organisations alongside some of the perceived challenges and criticisms of its use. The paper concludes by summarising the key learning points raised.
The growth of E-Learning
Globally, the e-learning market has been growing rapidly, and e-learning is beginning to emerge as the new model of training and education across a wide range of different sectors and industries (Su et al, 2008). This growth has resulted in part from extensive changes in the working environment, and from a shift from a product-based economy to a knowledge-based one, meaning that there is a more pressing need to train and educate workforces in new technologies and services (Ong, Lai and Wang, 2004). In addition, technological advancement and challenges in technology-oriented working life have paved the way for new forms of electronic learning (Cheng et al, 2014). Consequently, e-learning now accounts for a significant proportion of corporate investment in workforce training (Deeney, 2003).
Understanding the nature of E-Learning Systems
According to Govindasamy (2002), e-learning is a learning experience that is delivered by electronic technologies including for example, the use of the internet, intranets, interactive TV, virtual classrooms and so forth. However, there is no clear agreement on its definition and as a concept, it has been researched in various forms such as an 'instructional medium' (Salas et al, 2002), a 'training method' (Burgess and Russell, 2003), and a 'learning environment' (DeRouin, Fritzsche and Salas, 2005). It has been reported that the lack of consensus over the typology of e-learning in an organisational setting, the vagueness of the terminology used, the vastness in the range of technology and pedagogy involved demonstrates the complexity of e-learning as an entity (Cheng et al, 2014). For some, e-learning is considered only as a mechanism for delivering training and education via electronic medium (Engelbrecht, 2005), whereas for others, it is seen as a distinct form of learning which uses collaboration, internet-based communication and the transfer of knowledge to enhance and develop both the individual themselves and their organisation (Kelly and Bauer, 2004). Whichever way it is viewed, the growth of the e-learning market has resulted in the development and innovation of a vast range of different e-learning technologies including media streaming, providing learners with a much more stimulating and interactive learning experience (Liu, Liao and Pratt, 2009).
The Benefits of E-Learning
Some of the most commonly cited benefits of using e-learning systems as a means of training and educating the workforce include: a reduction in costs due to decreasing the amount of time spent off-site at expensive courses, travel and venue costs, and allowing more effectual use of downtime at work (Jewson, Felsted and Green, 2015); overcoming the limitations of time and physical space to deliver training courses (Gordon, 2003); an increase in the level of compliance to mandatory training for large workforces (Harun, 2002); increased convenience for the participants themselves in terms of choosing when to undertake training and access the course materials (Capper, 2001); and not needing to depend on the time or availability of a trainer (Bouhnik and Marcus, 2006).
It has been claimed that with e-learning, employees are able to take part in self-faced and interactive learning that would otherwise not be possible, and that the learner-centered approach required by e-learning influences employees to alter their learning behaviours within their work environment as well as being an influential training tool (Bandura, 2002). However, it has also been noted that learner control does not always deliver better outcomes; in that programmes and resources may be used superficially whereby learners skim read the e-learning materials without really absorbing the meaning of what is intended to be conveyed (Kraiger and Jerden, 2007). It has been noted that e-learning can also be useful to organisations in terms of standardising their training and in delivering it simultaneously to large geographically dispersed employees (Brown and Charlier, 2013). Required training can also be delivered much more quickly to large numbers of staff than with more traditional approaches (Welsh et al, 2003). Furthermore, in comparison to more traditional classroom based training, studies have found that e-learning can be just as effective, and has advantages in terms of helping to overcome learning barriers associated with introversion and physical distance (McKenzie and Murray, 2010).
However, it has also been recognised that undertaking e-learning may require better personal time management and study skills than those needed in a more directed taught environment (Helyer, 2010), and that e-learning may not be appropriate for all types of learning and content (Welsh et al, 2003). Another, less frequently cited benefit of e-learning is that it has the potential to manage the growth in the amount of information that employees are required to learn. It is claimed that this growth has often led to information overload during training sessions, leading to ineffective training where learners cannot retain all that is being presented to them. By conducting the training via e-learning and only the most interactive part in a traditional classroom setting, the information can be delivered over a longer period of time, and therefore improve information retention (Welsh et al, 2003). Finally, a further potential benefit of e-learning programmes is their capacity to track the activity of learners and their level of achievement in terms of online testing of learner activities (Welsh et al, 2003). Within e-learning, tracking and storage can be made automated. This is particularly beneficial when training is required to demonstrate compliance to mandatory training requirements for example (Welsh et al, 2003).
Limitations of E-Learning Systems
Whilst the benefits of e-learning systems are widely recognised, it has also been criticised as not being as effective or inclusive as more traditional approaches to training and education, and concerns have been expressed that e-learning sometimes fails to live up to its full potential demonstrated through high attrition and sometimes low usage rates (Wang, 2010). Deltsidou et al (2010) found that some individuals who use e-learning systems experience higher levels of anxiety when doing so due to limited IT skills, which subsequently has a detrimental impact on their experience of learning. It has also been argued that for those who are more computer literate, some traditional types of e-learning programmes are found to be restrictive and do not facilitate effective self-directed learning (Pata, 2009). The lack of learner interaction that occurs in the more traditional classroom setting has also been identified as a potential drawback for e-learning programmes (Brown and Charlier, 2013).
In particular, it is felt that senior management could become too preoccupied with the capability to push information onto employees and forget that in order for learning to become embedded it involves more than just information provision and instead also requires practice, feedback, and guidance (Welsh et al, 2003). Other limitations of e-learning systems which have been identified stem from problems associated with the technology itself. In particular, unreliable IT systems can act as a key barrier to e-learning with insufficient access to technical support, freezing computer screens, intermittent internet connections, and excessively long download times for accessing course material (Creedy et al, 2007). Issues around security such as computer hacking and viruses can also be problematic for e-learning programmes and the organisations who use them (Ramim and Levy, 2006). From a cost point of view, implementing e-learning systems often involves high levels of upfront investment to purchase not only the hardware that is required, but also in relation to the ongoing costs involved in maintaining and renewing licenses that are often associated with external e-learning packages (Childs et al, 2005). Specific costs include development costs to design and build the actual courses as well as hardware and software costs to allow users to access the training (Welsh et al, 2003). Furthermore, conducting testing of learning can be challenging with e-learning in relation to assuring the authenticity of those taking the test or exam (Gunasekaran, McNeil and Shaul, 2002).
Acceptance of E-learning in the workplace
The acceptance of e-learning as an appropriate means of training and education by employees is critical to its successful implementation in the workplace, and the reasons why employees might accept or reject such technology must be considered by organisations (Joo Yoo, Han and Huang, 2012). One of the main theories used to explain such acceptance and the relative success or failure of the implementation of new technology such as e-learning, is the technology acceptance model (TAM) (Liu, Liao and Pratt, 2009). The TAM was derived from the theory of reasoned action and proposes two speciïc perspectives on why new technology is accepted or not which relate to the usefulness of the technology and its ease of use (Vijayasarathy, 2004). The greater the perceived usefulness and ease of use of a system, the stronger the willingness and intention is to use it (Davis, 1989). The perceived usefulness relates to the extent to which it is considered that the technology will improve performance, and the perceived ease of use is the degree to which it is believed that using the technology will be unproblematic (Davis et al, 1989). In relation to e-learning, Ong, Lai and Wang (2004) identified that computer self-efficacy significantly impacts on its perceived usefulness and ease of use, with those who have higher levels of computer self-efficacy being much more likely to have positive perceptions of usefulness and ease of use.
Therefore, organisations need to take into consideration the level of computer efficacy amongst its workforce before implementing e-learning. Associated with the TAM is the theory of flow. This theory is concerned with concentration and asserts that when individuals are in flow, they become engrossed in their activity, and according to Liu, Liao and Pratt (2009), this theory can help to explain the intended and actual use of e-learning programmes by individuals. Media rich and interactive e-learning systems are more likely to engage individuals and result in 'flow' which then impacts on their learning outcomes and experience. Critics of e-learning state that a high level of self-motivation is needed in order to effectively complete programmes, and Roca and Gagne (2008) propose that self-determination theory is useful for conceptualizing the influence of organisational factors in an individual's motivation to use e-learning. From their study, they found that individuals were more likely to continue using e-learning when they feel autonomous, competent and enjoy using it. They conclude that consistent with self-directed theory, when individuals participate in learning because it is interesting and enjoyable, they are more likely to engage with it and benefit from it.
Conclusion
From the critical review above, it is evident that the use of e-learning, as a model of training and education in the workplace, is growing at a rapid pace in response to the demands from ever changing working environments, shifts towards knowledge based economies, and advancements in technology. Numerous benefits of e-learning have been identified focusing mainly around cost savings, learner convenience, flexibility, consistency and particularly in its ability to provide training and education to large, dispersed workforces simultaneously. However, a number of challenges for organisations have also been identified around, gaining the acceptance of the workforce in implementing such e-learning technologies, underpinned by different theories such as TAM, flow and self-determination theory. Other limitations of e-learning have also been cited in relation to high start-up costs and problems associated with equipment and internet problems. Further concerns that have been identified in the current literature are around the lack of interaction between learners with e-learning which exists with the more traditional classroom learning environment. However, despite the identified limitations, it would appear that e-learning in the workplace is going to continue to grow alongside continuous advancements in associated technology, and sophistication of e-learning programme design. In addition, computer usage and the use of digital technologies is expanding and becoming the norm and so acceptance of e-learning is becoming much more prevalent. It is therefore likely to continue to form a significant proportion of corporate investment in workforce training and development in the future.
References
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- Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 28, pp. 942–950. Kelly, T. and Bauer, D. (2004). "Managing Intellectual capital via e-learning at Cisco". In C. Holsapple (Ed.), Handbook on knowledge management 2: Knowledge directions (pp. 511–532). Berlin, Germany: Springer. Kraiger, K. and Jerden, E. (2007). A new look at learner control: Meta-analytic results and directions for future research. In S. M. Fiore, & E. Salas (Eds.), Where is the Learning in Distance Learning? Towards a science of distributed learning and training (pp. 65–90). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Liu, S.H., Liao, H.L. and Pratt, J.A. (2009) "Impact of media richness and flow on e-learning technology acceptance", Computers and Education, Vol. 52, pp. 599–607. McKenzie, K. and Murray, A. (2010) "
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Primary School Essay Example for Free at Magic Help
How can the benefits of play be most effectively maximised within the classroom environment?
This project is presented with a twofold task. First: articulate the benefits of play. Second: identify the ways in which play can be incorporated into a structured learning environment, or, more accurately, in which a learning environment can be structured around play. Either approach yields positive results, but this project argues that the most viable ethos for educators who wish to benefit from play is not to shoehorn play into their existing attitudes toward and plans for teaching, but to start with a play activity and explore the learning opportunities it presents. Power and Park (in Laosa, 1982: 148) indicate that pre-school learning takes exactly this form. Parents are seldom qualified educators with a formal scheme of learning and development; they provide opportunities for play, engage in play, and promote learning indirectly. Historically, say Power and Park, researchers have suggested that this parent-guided learning through play develops children's goal-directed behaviour, object permanence and the acquisition of turn-taking skills. More recent research (Fleer, 2010: 101) asks whether these play activities are motivated internally or externally, e.g. whether they arise out of biological imperatives in the individual parent or are inspired by social/cultural forces which define what a parent should do. In the Anglophone world, Fleer explains, research on play has tended to emphasise the biological imperative. Encouraging and engaging in play has been seen as something which parents do naturally, and therefore not part of a teacher's remit. By contrast, social forces are more emphasised in Eastern European research by cultural and historical theorists like Vygotsky, Leontiv and Elkonin (in Fleer, 2010: 105). Elkonin (2005) observes that play has developed over time. What was a procedure of imitative learning in which children were involved in the work of keeping their communities alive became a process of teaching using scaled-down versions of more complex tools: play with toys was in Elkonin's view originally a form of learning. As work tools became even more complex or actively dangerous for children to use, the concepts of 'childhood' and 'play' (as discrete from work) as we know them today came into being. Teaching could not begin until the child was physically and cognitively able to understand what was being taught; a new stage in development emerged. During this stage, children pretend to participate in the adult world in which they cannot be directly involved. This kind of play – role play and make believe – is socially necessary (children must be occupied, and they must understand concepts such as safety and co-operation in order to participate in the complex survival activities which have emerged). As a consequence, it is social in nature: play which develops the child's sense of interpersonal relationships. If a synthesis between the two strands of thought is attempted, the benefits of play can be summarised as "preparation", i.e. introduction to the prerequisites of learning to survive in the contemporary world. These include technical skill (motor control and object manipulation), concept formation (object recognition, identification of and working toward goals), and interpersonal activity (turn taking, role recognition and interdependent co-operation). However, according to Lillard et al (2013), pretend play has little impact on interpersonal skills but significant positive effects on development of language, narrative and emotion regulation, on reasoning, and on creativity, intelligence, conservation and mindfulness. The authors are careful to note that the personal and environmental characteristics in which the play occurs are likely to be the true causes of the positive effect, and it is easy to imagine pretend play with indifferent partners in a dysfunctional environment being a form of pure escapism rather than constructive development. The comparison to parents involves more than just methodology. If childcare is increasingly a specialised professional function rather than the sole purview of parents, as suggested by Fonagy (2005: 125-126), it must be acknowledged that parents and childcare professionals need some awareness of early learning theory and practice, and vice versa. It is necessary for teachers and other professionals to adopt the "learning through play" paradigm practice by parents, since there is no guarantee that parents will have had the time to complete this stage of their children's development. All of this indicates the sort of strategies which are ideal for maximising the benefits of play in the classroom. The desired outcome is development in language, reasoning and creativity. The desired activity is one which develops co-operation, concept formation and physical skill (since not all play can apparently be relied upon to develop these). The desired environment is one in which all participants in play – adults and children – are engaged and in which play is seen as functional and purposeful. It remains to identify and discuss examples of practice in these terms. Wood and Atfield (2005) present a series of strategic points for developing a pedagogy of play. Some are more specialised than others (any competent teacher should be observing in a specific and targeted manner, for instance) but some require a reassessment of the core processes instilled during teacher training. For instance, they emphasise sharing intentions rather than developing elaborate plans. Young children's agendas and interests change; play themes are discarded or retained 'early' or 'late' in a manner which can strike adults as arbitrary. There should be a planned outcome, but it should not be introduced in a forced way which disengages the children from play (Wood and Atfield, 2005: 160). Wood and Atfield (2005: 165) also advise teachers to listen in different ways, since 'the meanings that children construct are not always immediately visible to adults'. Children negotiate the layers of reality in pretend play with a fluency that surprises many professionals, stepping in and out of character in order to structure, define, negotiate and direct the shared fantasy. This should not be seen as an undesired outcome or a failure to achieve – "breaking character", as a drama teacher might see it – but as a demonstration of social skills and reasoning, as well as a different kind of discipline in creativity. The third lesson to take from Wood and Atfield (2005: 170) is the management of disputes and anti-social behaviours. Actively disrupting the play in progress disengages the children, and pretend play often engages with problematic ideas relating to strength and weakness, good and evil, justice and injustice, belonging and rejecting, and so on. Discriminatory and abusive comments can occur legitimately within a play context; likewise, it is easy for the patterns of teacher intervention to perpetuate discriminatory stereotypes (for instance, intervening in the noisy play of boys more than the quiet play of girls, thus leaving the stereotypes more free to take root with the girls). Wood and Atfield's proposed solution (2005: 171) is to discuss the content of the play and the children's feelings toward it parallel to play, explaining the realities of the play's context without disturbing it as it happens. This exemplifies the practice of scaffolding, derived from the work of Vygotsky and defined by van der Stuyf (2002: 2) as instruction in which a more knowledgeable other provides supports to facilitate a learner's development. The scaffolds facilitate the learner's ability to build on prior knowledge and internalise new information, through activities which are just beyond the levels of what the learner can do alone. In this case the scaffolding accepts that children are capable of role playing by the time they enter the education system but that thinking through the consequences and contexts is beyond their capability. Such a position is supported by Kavanaugh (2014: 274), who claims that role-play is an exercise in perspective-taking which by definition forces children to appreciate what someone else is doing and why they are doing it. 'Without an understanding of the play partner's view of the world the role play episodes cease to be productive', Kavanaugh (2014: 274) writes, and from an appreciation of a partner's point of view it is possible to build awareness of the points of view of others: 'a profoundly important step in children's understanding of the role of thoughts, beliefs and emotions in everyday life.' However, it is important not to make assumptions regarding the ability of all children to participate in play of any sorts. Continuing with the example of pretend play, it must be noted that some children do not display the expected facility to play roles and make believe. This can be due to background factors, such as a domestic environment characterised by parental indifference to pretend play (Fleer, 2010: 102) or a cultural background which does not prioritise pretending or tolerate it at all (Fonagy, 2005: 125), or by learning difficulties which prevent play on a more fundamental level. As Wood and Albright (2005: 171) note, children with special educational needs often take smaller steps in learning and playing, and need more time to build their skills and confidence. For example, children with autistic spectrum disorders encounter barriers which Soule (2015: 10) characterises as play-specific and play-external. Play-specific barriers are differences in skill development which prevent children with ASD from practical participation, while play-external barriers are situations where there is no practical factor preventing children with ASD from participating. Play-specific barriers include variety and purpose of object manipulation, struggles with symbolic thought and interpretations of the unwritten rules of pretend play (Soule, 2015: 11-12). Play-external barriers include the social initiation skills necessary to start or enter a play interaction, attention span to sustain it and skills in sensory and emotional regulation in order to participate without becoming dysregulated and experiencing a negative outcome (Soule, 2015: 13-14). Lack of access to play is arguably definitive of the autistic experience (Soule, 2015: 14), and yet access to play helps to develop the skills necessary to overcome these barriers. It is therefore important to develop an inclusive play-as-education practice which breaks this cycle and scaffolds children with ASD into groups with neurotypical children. Freeman, Gulsrud and Kasari (2015: 2259) identify several benefits to inclusive play groups and friendships between children with and without ASD, including higher closeness and lower conflict between peers (i.e. elimination of behavioural difficulties) and greater helpfulness displayed by all parties (i.e. more developed co-operation skills and awareness and mindfulness of difference). The early development of these skills may play a role in children's later friendship development and quality of relationships. It is therefore suggested that the 'managerial intervention' (Wood and Atfield, 2005: 169) by teachers in play involving children with ASD should involve managing these barriers, establishing activities and contexts and helping children with ASD to negotiate the social initiation and manage their sensory input without directing their participation in play. Before concluding, it must be observed that while the examples presented in this project have focused on pretend play (with an implicit humanities/arts context), play has a place in learning and development for the sciences too. In this field it is often asserted that science concept learning should be addressed in the later years of schooling, with the result being a lack of emphasis on science teaching and learning in the early years (Blake and Howitt, 2012: 281). Blake and Howitt (2012: 281) suggest building on the instinctive knowledge acquisition of children, using sensory observation to develop classification, explanation and prediction – the core skills of the scientist. These skills should be built through dedicated unstructured play time, resources and adequate space to enhance logical thinking and science learning, and a significant adult to assist conceptual understanding. The role of this adult 'should acknowledge an awareness of the everyday nature of science and the potential of every child to be a scientist', which is the ultimate spirit in which play should be deployed in education. The play should be seen as everyday, a normal activity for children to engage in, and an opportunity to develop everyday skills in an organic and unforced context. The potential of every child to engage in and develop through play should be recognised, and the initiative of children who initiate and engineer opportunities for play should be rewarded rather than restricted. Children play. The wisest practitioners in early years education let them get on with it, while keeping one eye out for the learning opportunities that are generated through the play as it takes place.Works Cited
Blake, E. and Howitt, C. (2012). 'Science in Early Learning Centres: Satisfying Curiosity, Guided Play or Lost Opportunities?' in Chwee, K.; Tan, D. and Mijung, K. (eds.) Issues and Challenges in Science Education Research. Springer Netherlands. pp. 281-299. Elkonin, D. B. (2005). 'The Psychology of Play', trans. Stone, L. R., in Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 43(1), pp. 11 – 21. Fleer, M. (2010). Early Learning and Development: Cultural-historical Concepts in Play. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Freeman, S. F. N.; Gulsrud, A.; Kasari, C. (2015). 'Linking Early Joint Attention and Play Abilities to Later Reports of Friendships for Children with ASD'. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45(7), pp. 2259 – 2266. Fonagy, P. (2005). 'Patterns of attachment, interpersonal relationships and health', in Blane, D., Brunner, E. and Wilkinson, R. (eds.), Health and Social Organisation: Towards a Health Policy for the 21st Century. New York: Routledge. pp. 125 – 152. Lillard, A. S; Lerner, M. D.; Hopkins, E. J.; Dore, R. A.; Smith, E. D.; Palmquist, C. M. (2013). 'The impact of pretend play on children's development', in Psychological Bulletin, 139(1), pp. 1 – 34. Kavanaugh, R. D. (2014). 'Pretend Play', in Spodek, B. and Saracho, O. N. (eds.), Handbook of Research on the Education of Young Children. New York: Routledge. pp. 269 – 279. Power, T. G. and Parke, R. D. (1982). 'Play as a Context for Early Learning', in Laosa, L. M. (ed.), Families as Learning Environments for Children. New York: Plenum Press. pp. 147 – 178. Soule, S. E. (2015). Autism, play, and language output. Diss. San Francisco State University. Van der Stuyf, R. R. (2002). 'Scaffolding as a Teaching Strategy.' Adolescent Learning and Development. Section 0500A, Fall 2002. Wood, E. and Atfield, J. (2005). Play, Learning and the Early Childhood Curriculum. London: SAGE.Cite this page
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