Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Economic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Economic - Essay Example When the government relaxed its price control and promoted foreign investment, the United States started to invest in PRC beginning 1979 after both countries establish diplomatic relations. With Japan as their fund provider since 1978 through soft loans, PRC is now the fastest growing major economy in the world. Its success has been attributed to a formula of cheap labor, ease government policy, overall infrastructure, high productivity, and some say, an underrated exchange rate. In spite of a growing trade surplus, PRC is consciously making effort to lower its inflation rate and/or manage inflation expectations by raising bank reserve ratio of deposits through a directive from PRC’s Central Bank. This brings as to the first question as to how will this affect the balance sheets of both the banks and the PRC’s Central Bank. As regard to the banks, their assets, particularly deposits will decrease and the same amount will increase the reserve in the â€Å"Liabilitiesâ⠂¬  portion in their Balance Sheet. Expectedly, the assets of the Central Bank either in receivables or deposits will increase as well as their reserves. Normally, banks hold two bank reserves, one is use for cashing checks or satisfying client’s withdrawals while the other is called â€Å"legal reserves† or sometimes called â€Å"federal reserves† or central bank reserves. ... Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in its 2011 Asian Development Outlook that â€Å"there is very little risk of hard landing because growth momentum remains robust for the medium term†. As compared to last year the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth will slow to 9.3% in 2011, a dip from 10.3% annual growth in 2010 (Global Times), mainly due to stubborn inflation this year. One determinant factor of inflation is the Consumer Price Index (CPI), as the CPI rise so is the inflation. Consumer consumption is one of the major components in arriving at the total GDP, the others are government expenditures, gross investment and the net of exports versus imports. Consumer consumption may not be a factor at this time because wages will not outpace production. Government expenditures were already programmed to pay maturing foreign loans, hence will be constant, while investment will decrease minimally due to expected increase in interest rates. The one that will affect most in computing the GDP is the net difference between exports and imports. As I analyze it, imports will continue to outpace exports due primarily to higher demands for fuel consumption, which are outsourced externally. The World Bank said â€Å"strong domestic demand and relative price changes has reduced the importance of external trade for China† (Reuters.com) There might be an oversupply of products which will considerably affect prices and therefore have an effect on equilibrium. As regard the aggregate expenses, again this will tend to be low as the net effect of imports versus exports is high. PRC’s Central Bank raising of RRR will certainly have an effect on the money multiplier since it will

Monday, October 28, 2019

A Reflection of Faith Essay Example for Free

A Reflection of Faith Essay A Reflection of Faith As I reflect upon my faith journey, I realize that like so many other â€Å"cradle Catholics,† I had become complacent. I was raised in a predominantly Catholic nation, by an Anglican mother and Catholic father. After being dutifully baptized into the church, I was set upon my path as any ‘good Catholic† should. Even though I attended Catholic girls’ school, my early days of catechesis consisted of Mass and Sunday school more as a ritual than an integral part of living my faith. I performed the rites of First Holy Communion and confession with no real understanding of my commitment and responsibilities. Confirmation was a spiritual fiasco, from which I almost did not recover. My parents did their best to provide a religious foundation for my siblings and me. In retrospect, they were probably ill-equipped to do so. My higher education and pursuit of my vocation have sometimes made it difficult for me to accept and conform to some simple dogmas of the church. I hold many strong personal views on many issues and have had considerable challenges applying the dogma to my personal life. I have always believed that God has a purpose for us all; my purpose was rather hazy until about seven or eight years ago. The illness and death of my mother at age 56, was a tremendous catalyst in my faith journey. I realized that in my vocational quest, I was not following Christ’s plan, moreover, I was trying to fit Christ into my plans. Consequently, my fervent observation of the Holy Days, abstinence form meat of Fridays in the early days, and unending serviced to my parish in the form of Eucharistic minister, Sacristan, and Catechist, were spiritually void. Once I truly succumbed to Christ and sought His path, my commitment to discipleship was fortified. When God provided me the privilege to serve at St. John, He facilitated a means for me to further enhance my own faith, and to impact that of students on a daily basis. This quote from 1 Timothy 4:12 â€Å"Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe;† allowed me to embrace my vocation and truly see its gifts. I am called to live out my vocation in the classroom and positively communicate the doctrines of our faith. This, as well as additional Catechesis has taken my understanding of the â€Å"universal† church to new levels. I love each and every one of my students for his or her uniqueness and ability to motivate me to be the best example of Christ that I am able. I no longer focus on my personal flaws or on the â€Å"flaws† I once perceived in the dogma; but on each minor success I gain in the Christian values of my students. Now that my role in Catholic education has come full circle, I feel very blessed to be part of such a rich tradition of faith and discipleship. I passionately believe in my purpose as a Catechist and I know that God will continue to strengthen me as I continue to walk His path.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Essay examples --

Mass Mmedia is made up of several communications systems that reach millions of people every day. But who owns the media? Actually, through the long history of mergers and acquisitions, few big companies have been controlling what we see, hear, and read by maintaining the ownership of mass media. However, the issue of media conglomeration has produced a significant amount of controversy. Since the media’s power and the control of the communications system have been dominated by a few corporations, media conglomeration has been viewed as an obstruction and limitations of diversified contents. While opponents believe there is a crisis impending due to the perception of increased concentrated ownership and convergence of the media industry that interfere with message pluralism, supporters argue the media system has increased diversity more than before and large companies offer advantages that a small company can never afford . This paper examines the history of media owners hip and the current FCC regulations, and discusses the effects of media conglomeration on our society. In the United States, there are a few corporations that control the mass media. The Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP), founded in 2000 to provides research and advocacy on free speech, copyright, and media democracy issues indicates: there are ten corporations that control the mass media in the United Stets: Viacom, Time Warner, Walt Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, and Vivendi Universal. While media concentrations have been going on for quite some time, there are concerns about how this conspiracy of media monopolies started ? In early 1900, telecommunications markets were not monopolies. After the radio was invented, regulations were ... ...lt Disney Company, Liberty Media Corporation, AT&T Corporation, News Corporation, Bertelsman, Vivendi Universal, and Sony. After several rounds of rulemaking and court challenges, the FCC announced a new â€Å"Broadcast Ownership Rules† in June of 2003. This law raised the ceiling for national market share from 35% to 45%. Responding to widespread protests, Congress overturned this increase as part of its 2003 appropriations bill. However, after President Bush threatened to veto the entire appropriations bill, a compromise was reached at 39%, which allowed Viacom and the News Corporation to keep all of the stations they currently owned. (Miller) For many years, despite the enormous revenues that have been generated by these few big media companies, media conglomeration caused a mutilation of viewers’ thinking and suppression to segments of the communicated message. Essay examples -- Mass Mmedia is made up of several communications systems that reach millions of people every day. But who owns the media? Actually, through the long history of mergers and acquisitions, few big companies have been controlling what we see, hear, and read by maintaining the ownership of mass media. However, the issue of media conglomeration has produced a significant amount of controversy. Since the media’s power and the control of the communications system have been dominated by a few corporations, media conglomeration has been viewed as an obstruction and limitations of diversified contents. While opponents believe there is a crisis impending due to the perception of increased concentrated ownership and convergence of the media industry that interfere with message pluralism, supporters argue the media system has increased diversity more than before and large companies offer advantages that a small company can never afford . This paper examines the history of media owners hip and the current FCC regulations, and discusses the effects of media conglomeration on our society. In the United States, there are a few corporations that control the mass media. The Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP), founded in 2000 to provides research and advocacy on free speech, copyright, and media democracy issues indicates: there are ten corporations that control the mass media in the United Stets: Viacom, Time Warner, Walt Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, and Vivendi Universal. While media concentrations have been going on for quite some time, there are concerns about how this conspiracy of media monopolies started ? In early 1900, telecommunications markets were not monopolies. After the radio was invented, regulations were ... ...lt Disney Company, Liberty Media Corporation, AT&T Corporation, News Corporation, Bertelsman, Vivendi Universal, and Sony. After several rounds of rulemaking and court challenges, the FCC announced a new â€Å"Broadcast Ownership Rules† in June of 2003. This law raised the ceiling for national market share from 35% to 45%. Responding to widespread protests, Congress overturned this increase as part of its 2003 appropriations bill. However, after President Bush threatened to veto the entire appropriations bill, a compromise was reached at 39%, which allowed Viacom and the News Corporation to keep all of the stations they currently owned. (Miller) For many years, despite the enormous revenues that have been generated by these few big media companies, media conglomeration caused a mutilation of viewers’ thinking and suppression to segments of the communicated message.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Notes for Institutional Theory

The aim of this essay is to explore the response of organisations when confronting with institutional pressures. The essay is organised as follow. Firstly, some concepts as well as explanation related to institutional theory will be introduced. Then, this essay will define and explain the conception of legitimacy and the connection between legitimacy and institutional process. Thirdly, the strategic responses of organisations to deal with the pressures from institutional process and an example of response in terms of institutional control will be examined.Institutional theory is a concept that emphasizes the existence of some norms, values and beliefs of the society which organisations conform with. And the process of conformity called institutionalisation is reflected in the structures and practices of organisations (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991). According to Oliver (1991), institutional theory emphasizes more specifically on the pressures and constraints from the institutional environm ent which is one of its two issues addressed (the other one is technical pressures). Institutions here include the state, professions, interest group as well as public opinion (Scott, 1987b).These institutions have interconnected and interdependent relationships with organisations, as the behaviours of organisation are restricted by outside pressures exerted by institutions. In order to survive, organisations have to force themselves to adapt to the environment. So, they have no other choice but to make their behaviours consistent with external norms and rules. After discussing the environment perspective of institutional theory, the next section will regard motives of conformity as the point of departure.Institutional theory demonstrates that stability and legitimacy is what organisations to attain (Powell & DiMaggio, 1983; Oliver, 1991). In terms of obtaining stability, institutional theory can explain why organisations conform to external rules, norms and beliefs, not because of the direct link to a positive outcome but organisations would be unthinkable to do otherwise. In other words, this consistency may not be driven by the objective of interest maximisation, but by preconscious acceptance of institutionalisation.Uniform rules, norms and beliefs produce less contradiction Oliver (1991). Due to attempt to obtain stability, organisations would like to draw experience from pre-existing audiences within the current external environment and imitate those organisational structures, decision-making mode and so on to response to the external pressures. Before regarding obtaining legitimacy as the other motive of conformity, it is necessary to define the concept of legitimacy. There are many different definitions of legitimacy with varying degrees of specificity (Suchman, 1995).Legitimacy refers to an array of established cultural accounts made by organisations to provide explanations for its existence (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991). Another specific definition is th at legitimacy is a generalized perception that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, and beliefs. In addition, there are three types of legitimacy, which are pragmatic legitimacy, moral legitimacy and cognitive legitimacy (Suchman, 1995). After explaining some conception of legitimacy, the next section will focus on the connection between legitimacy and institutional process.As every parts of organisation is constructed and interpenetrated by external institutions as well as culture can determine how the organization is built, how it is run, and, simultaneously, how it is understood and evaluated, legitimacy empowers organizations by making them seem natural and meaningful. So legitimacy is critical to organisation survival. Then it can also imply the easiest approach to gain legitimacy, which suggests organisations to adapt to the existed institutional context and adjust their structures to fit with the existed norms, rules and beliefs.This point is just consistent with the emphasis of the institutional theory. So gaining legitimacy is a more significant reason why organisations accept institutional process. When confronting with institutional pressures, acquiescence will be the most probable response taken by organisations. However, if anticipated legitimacy is low, organisations may have different responses to institutionalisation, like compromising on the requirements for conformity, avoiding the conditions that make conformity necessary, denying the requirements that are advised to conform, or even manipulate the criteria of conformity.As can be seen, there are five kinds of strategic responses that organisations may conduct to institutional process, which are acquiescence, compromise, avoid, defy and manipulate(Oliver, 1991). Organisations may have different responses to variable cause, control, context, constituents and content and to even different degree of the same iss ue. For example, in the terms of institutional control, legal coercion or government mandates and voluntary diffusion are two processes pressures exerted to organisations (Powell & DiMaggio, 1983; Oliver, 1991).

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Mcdonald’s Green Marketing Strategy

How McDonald’s Change Their Customer Perspective and Increase Their Sales with Green Marketing The green issue has became a global issue since year 1990s, peak in year 2000s. In business, it can drive people perspective to choose which brand was good or bad. McDonald’s probably is one of the company that realize this issue is very important for their business in this century. McDonald’s is the biggest fast food chain in the world with more than 32,000 outlets in 117 countries. The company has employed more than 1. 7 million people. Last year, they’ve made 1. 2 bn out from 6. 1 bn.For years, many critics came up against McDonald’s about how bad they treat world environment and questioning how far they care about people healths, especially on obesity. The most famous â€Å"attack† to this fast food company probably was a documentary film that tells a people who eat Mcdonald’s meals for a month would hasten his death. McDonald’s al so considered to have responbility of 28% waste package (littering) in UK. Public suggested the company to more persuade their customers not to do littering. And also, public critics McDonald’s happy meal which caused early obesity to child.Those critics had succeed to change people perspective, in year 2000, their income declined with some outlets shut as their new record. Started in 2000s, McDonald’s is fighting back, massively and quietly counter the critics with green marketing. It is not only to increase the company sales, but more important to change the way customers think about McDonald’s, their perspective. But how they do it? McDonald’s is not sustainable company from the beginning, they has core DNA to create delicious food, fatty foods, and sugary foods.They must be careful to take an action, the green strategy not only have to change customers willing to buy, but also it could reduce cost and generate more valuable profit. McDonald’s i s aiming to blow up their green with five criteria, there are nutrition and well-being, sustainable supply chain, environmental responbility, employee experience, and community. They started to create a new logo –switching their traditional red background with the deep green one- to promote a eco-friendlier image.McDonald’s has done a lot of things in order to prove their environmental responbility to their customers, especially by reduce the energy they used. In Germany, at less 100 McDonald’s restaurant would use the green logo by the end of year 2009. And also, some restaurant in Great Britain and France would too. They started to use eco-friendly package – 80 percent of their package was made of renewable resources-. They change white napkins with plain brown, which saves 1. 3 million dollars annualy, while reducing energy, woods and water use.In France, some restaurants has made an innovation to use eco-friendly sofware that can reduce electricity us age by 11%. In Sweden, they use CO2 detector in their restaurants to adjust ventilation, which is reduce the usage of electricity by 15% anually. Various anti-littering campaign is spread to many countries, such as Portugal, UK, France, Switzerland, Australia, and others countries. From their menu, they change a bit in the name of their customer health, they reduce French fries size, adding fruits to its food, bring more healthier salad, less sugar drinks and foods, even low fat foods.Moreover, in Germany, there are some restaurants that provide no burgers and sells salad at just 7 euros, they can choose 5 traditional salads and mix it. Another weapons is sells coffee –sustainbly grown coffee and organic milk- with brand McCafe, while they offering low-calorie foods in the other sides. This strategy was made a significant growth, in Germany there are currently 1386 reaturants with 737 integrated McCafe inside, encouraged by a worlwide revenues of 23. 5 billions dollars.They a lso made a contribution to the local communities, all supply of each restaurants is provided by the local farmers in that city, except their global sponsor drinks, Coca-Cola. They also prove that they care about woman livings, 28. 1% of worldwide top management (VP and Ups) are women, while 50% Company Owned Restaurant Managers are women too. The last but not least, more than 30 countries recognises McDonald’s as great place to work. All of green things above was successfully delivered to customers by various medias, it proved by the increasing growth 13% sales in year 2011 from year 2008.And also, the legendary Big Mac sales rose 10 percent last year, helping keep the company stock price to nearly $100 a share. In the other hand, the advertising budget has been estimated to exceed $2 billion. It shows that McDonald’s has successfully came back to winning by counter critics with the right strategic green marketing. They do the strategy without change the â€Å"fastfoo d† image, but they do with showing their will and contribution to the environment. Finally, it can change human perspective and willing to buy with the increasing sales as the success parameter.Sources Birkner, Christine. 2012. McDonald’s Scores Itself on Sustainability: Will Consumers Be ‘Lovin’ It’?. http://www. marketingpower. com/ResourceLibrary/Documents/newsletters/mne/2012/1/mne_mcdonalds_sustainability. pdf. September 3rd 2012. O Brien, Keith. 2012. How McDonald’s Came Back Bigger Than Ever. http://www. nytimes. com/2012/05/06/magazine/how-mcdonalds-came-back-bigger-than-ever. html? _r=1pagewanted=all&&pagewanted=all. September 3rd 2012 Environmental Leader. 2012.McDonald’s Counters Criticism With Green Marketing Effort. http://www. environmentalleader. com/2009/05/19/mcdonalds-serves-up-green-practices/. September 3rd 2012. Salisbury, Peter. 2011. Behind the Brand: McDonald’s. http://www. theecologist. org/green_green_li ving/behind_the_label/941743/behind_the_brand_mcdonalds. html. September 3rd 2012 Laura, Nerdy. 2011. McDonald’s going green – I’m lovin’ it. †¦?. http://businessnerds. wordpress. com/2011/05/29/mcdonald%E2%80%99s-going-green-%E2%80%93-i%E2%80%99m-lovin%E2%80%99-it/. September 3rd 2012.