Analysis of Food Inc. Essay

Studies have shown that many people all over the world are unaware of where their food comes from. When an individual goes to consume a food product, he or she could be completely oblivious to the methods of manufacture, processing, packaging or transportation gone into the production of the food item. It is often said that ‘ignorance is bliss’ – perhaps this rings true in the case of food, its origins and its consumption as well. In such a scenario, eating well could seem like an unlikely prospect. The definition of ‘eating well’ in modern times seems to have gone from eating healthily, to eating ethically. The manner in which food is produced and consumed has changed more rapidly in the past fifty years than it has in the previous ten thousand years (Pollan and Schlosser, 2008). With this swift transformation, various ethical issues came to the fore. Food production is now done large scale in factories, rather than in farms. Mass production of various types of food, from crops and vegetables to seafood and meat, is very much the norm. The fact that food is mass produced nowadays is already something that a lot of people do not know about. The reason behind this is that food producing firms do not want the consumers – their customers – to know too much about the food manufacturing industry (Pollan and Schlosser, 2008), in the fear that customer loyalty could be lost upon their finding out various truths. To retain their customer base, according to documentary film ‘Food, Inc.’, narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, the image associated with food in th e United States of America is that of an American farmer. Various motifs plastered all over food packaging and advertisements for food products, such as green pastures for grazing cattle, picket fences, the typical farmhouse, vast meadows and, most importantly, the farmer, lead consumers to believe that their food still comes from farms, or at least a pastoral version of small time cottage industries. With these motifs constantly pervading the sensibilities of the average American consumer, it is little wonder that the consumer continues to ‘eat unethically’ – they are simply in the dark. Because what these motifs represent could not be further from the reality. The apparent crop central to all mass food production, as shown on ‘Food Inc’ (Pollan and Schlosser, 2008) and alluded to in Pollan’s book, ‘In The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ (2006), is corn. Corn is used in a vast assortment of ways in the food manufacturing industry. Bes ides, of course, being a food crop for direct consumption by humans, it is used to make a range of additives in processed food too, such as high fructose corn syrup, ascorbic acid, xanthan gum, et cetera. Corn is also a significant constituent of animal fodder, and is fed to almost all kinds of livestock. These include animals that are not meant, by evolution, to eat corn, such as cattle and fish (Pollan and Schlosser, 2008). The massive demand for corn is only counterbalanced by the massive supply of corn in the United States. This is due to the American government subsidising the cost of production of corn, encouraging corn farmers to produce more than the amount is truly required. Because of such heavy subsidies, corn becomes extremely cheap, produced at merely a fraction of its cost of production, and results in an enormous scale of production of corn. This manner of overproduction and consumption of corn alone raises a few ethical issues. First of all, the feeding of corn to cows and fish – not the natural food of such animals – causes immense problems to these animals, which could bring about serious repercussions to humankind as well. Take for instance, the feeding of corn to cows. Because corn is produced extremely cheaply, meat manufacturers are inclined to use corn as their choice of feed for their livestock, in order to cut down on the selling price of meat. Studies have shown that feeding corn to cows has brought about the emergence of a new, acid resistant strain of E.coli bacteria (Pollan and Schlosser, 2008). This, coupled with the terrible rearing conditions of the cows, causes the new strain of E.coli to get into the meat meant to be eventually sold. This strain of bacteria has proven to be dangerous, having claimed the lives of many people. Knowing this, the expected public reaction would be an outcry against the food manufacturing industry, demanding answers and greater, better checks of food producing companies. However, even such reactions may not yield any permanent solutions. According to ‘Food Inc.’, food regulatory bodies are being led by people from the very firms they are meant to regulate. This has appeared to cause certain food monitoring measures to become relaxed, such as a sharp decline in number of chec ks conducted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States, from 50 000 in 1972, to 9164 in 2006. One woman’s constant lobbying for better checks and regulation after her son, Kevin, passed away due to contaminated food brought about a ‘Kevin’s Law’, which, six years into her efforts, still had not been passed (Pollan and Schlosser, 2008). There is little surprise that the food produced nowadays is getting more and more dangerous for consumption. Given these circumstances, ‘eating well’ has become even more unlikely – the general public’s efforts to control the quality of their food gets constantly thwarted by powerful corporate and political institutions. Still, all does not seem to be lost. Some farmers are recognising the need to ‘de-industrialise’ the production of foodstuff. Michael Pollan’s ‘All Flesh is Grass’ talks about a ‘grass farmer’, Joel Salatin, who is a non industrial producer of food, and whose methods of production revolve around grass. (2006). ‘Big Organic’, another article by the same author, describes how food products in the whole foods aisle are properly farmed, as opposed to mass manufactured, therefore being processed or refined as little as possible. There are two downsides to be noted in both instances. For one, Joel Salatin produces foodstuff only for the local population, and expressly refuses to supply meat and other animal by-products from his relatively healthier farm animals all over the country. As a result, his ideas of rearing animals, as opposed to manufacturing them, by feeding them what they are meant to instead of cheaply obtained corn, are restricted to the borders of Swoope, Virginia (Pollan, 2008). On the other hand, to supply such products to various parts of the country, or the world, would fly in the face of the idea of sustainable food production practices. This presents quite a paradox. Another downside would be the added expense of consuming whole foods in the place of processed and mass produced food. One of the core reasons for choosing to malnourish animals by blanket feeding them corn, despite the negative implications, was the resultant driving down of cost of production of meat. This is how the average American consumer is able to put away two hundred pounds of meat every year (Pollan and Schlosser, 2008), otherwise such large quantities of meat may not be as easily produced. People nowadays have the option of buying meat and animal by-products derived from ‘freerange animals’ – referring to animals that are left to roam freely to feed, instead of restricting their movement in enclosures – for slightly more money. In economic terms, consumers seek products that minimises costs while maximising benefit. In this case, consumers are ostensibly unmoved by the prospect of consuming meat and other products from ethically raised animals, favouring instead, the cheaper, corn fed, mass produced alternatives. With this mentality to begin with, ethical eating habits would be difficult to foster. Completely giving up consumption of animal products and by-products entirely (i.e. becoming vegan) has becoming a rising phenomenon all over the world. It seems, to many vegan converts, to be the move that could galvanise the promotion of sustainable agriculture and animal welfare into action. However, according to an article on The Conversation, ‘Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands’, turning vegan, or even simply vegetarian, could be more detrimental than helpful (The Conversation, 2011). To provide the extra plants required to feed the changing diets of Australians alone would mean clearing native flora and fauna off arable land ‘the size of Victoria plus Tasmania’ (The Conversation, 2011) – already killing off a vast amount of animals and native plants to make way for plant based food. The above scenarios only serve to confuse the consumer even further. Most consumers do not have any way around purchasing food off the supermarket shelves that are, more often than not, tainted by ethical quandaries such as animal welfare issues etc. They also don’t exactly have the option of changing their diets to spare the lives of animals, as the result could be more damaging that the current situation. As such, an ostensible impasse seems to present itself regarding this issue. In my opinion, ‘eating well’ – ethically, and with as little animal blood on consumers’ hands – will never truly be viable in modern society. Bibliography: Pollan, M. (2006), ‘All Flesh is Grass’, In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Penguin Press: New York, pp. 123-133 Pollan, M., Schlosser, E., 2008, ‘Food Inc.’, Available at: [Accessed 19th May, 2013] Pollan, M. (2006) ‘Big Organic’, In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Penguin Press: New York, pp. 134-184. The Conversation, 2011, ‘Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands’ [online] Available at: [Accessed 19th May, 2013]

Recruitment Policy vs Recruitment Process

Find (Cntl-F) Best Paper Index Table of Contents RECRUITMENT POLICY VS. RECRUITMENT PROCESS: ESPOUSED THEORY AND THEORY-IN-USE ANNA M. STAFSUDD Department of Business Administration Lund University P. O. Box 7080 SE-220 07 Lund Sweden INTRODUCTION This paper argues that recruitment policy does not influence the recruitment process to a large extent, as it represents an espoused theory, which is used to explain and idealize behavior after it has occurred. Instead, it is argued that recruitment decision assumptions will guide the recruitment process, as they represent theories-in-use. These recruitment decisions, in the form of how internal employees’ firm-specific knowledge is valued, will affect whether managers are internally promoted or externally recruited. How an organization values such knowledge may be inferred from control systems, which is illustrated using the examples of socialization and bureaucratic control systems. These control systems have been chosen, as they represent opposite perspectives on the value of firm-specific knowledge and will, therefore, have opposite impacts on internal or external recruitment being more probable. ESPOUSED THEORY AND THEORY-IN-USE The framework of Argyris and Schon (1974) presents how espoused theory and theory-inaction relate to each other, as well as to other variables. As can be seen in figure 1, espoused theory and theory-in-use can be positioned against each other, resulting in either congruence or incongruence. Furthermore, the figure depicts the assumption that espoused theory is separated from action and only serves to explain and idealize it afterwards. Instead, it is theory-in-use, which influences action, as people act according to the requirements of the governing variables of their theories-in-use. Theories-in-use will also tend to influence how a person will perceive the surroundings, i. e. the behavioral world. This is a world created by human convention and continued by human choice, rather than being an inherent nature of reality. Concluding a feedback circle, the behavioral worlds will be used as validation for those same theories-in-use, by which the behavioral worlds have been created and tend, therefore, to further reinforce them. This framework thus, depicts one problem with having theories-in-use, in that they tend to be self-sealing. Theories-in-use shaping action and behavioral world, while still using action and behavioral world as reasons and validation tends to enforce a circular logic, where a feed-back loop is dependent on the prior assumptions. One example of such a problem is presented by Argyris and Schon (1974), where a teacher experiences a self-sealing problem of assuming that his students are stupid. In assuming that the students are stupid, the teacher acts as though they are in fact stupid. By clearly letting the students know that he thinks they are stupid, the teacher will ask such questions as elicit stupid answers from them, thus, enforcing stupid behavior on the part of the students. The teacher will then test his theories and as he himself enforces stupid behavior in the students, his theories will be reinforced. The longer the teacher and the students interact, the more firmly will the teacher become in his theory-in-use of them being stupid. Academy of Management Best Conference Paper 2003 HR: G1 ———————-Figure 1 about here ———————–Apart from the earlier discussed variables there are five more, with which espoused theory, theory-in-use, action and behavioral world can be analyzed and which represent possible dilemmas in or between the other variables. Internal consistency may be analyzed for each of the two variables of espoused theory and theory-in-use, as a description of how internally consistent the theories and the assumptions of the theories are. Congruence, on the other hand, represents a means for analyzing fit or consistency between espoused theory and theory-in-use. Espoused theory and theory-in-use are related in the way that espoused theory represents what one says one is doing, whereas theory-in-use represents what one actually does do. Thus, theory-in-use influences action and behavioral world. Effectiveness is a variable, with which one can analyze how well actions enforce the behavioral world that a theory-in-use would lead to without the mediating variable of action. Effectiveness is, therefore, not used when analyzing espoused theory, as it will not influence action. The model also depicts a feedback loop, as theory-in-use influences action, which in turn leads to a behavioral world, which is then used to validate and reinforce theories-in-use. How well the behavioral world can be used to reinforce or gainsay theory-in-use in turn depends on how well the theory-in-use can be tested, i. e. the testability of the theory in a specific situation. Apart from these analytical variables, there is one more variable, which represents a normative dimension of the framework. This variable is represented by the values of the behavioral world. After having analyzed the other variables, a person would finally also ponder whether the behavioral world, created by the process involved in the framework, would be considered a positive or negative one. Depending on the answer, the person would perceive a propensity for stability or change. RECRUITMENT POLICY AND RECRUITMENT DECISION ASSUMPTIONS The espoused theory in the case of an organization’s recruitment activities is represented by the recruitment policy, as stated by the organization, whereas theory-in-use is represented by the assumptions on which the recruitment is actually based. An internal recruitment policy may in general be assumed, due to it being so common as it represents marketing towards the employees (Coff, 1997; Chan, 1996; Browner and Kubarski, 1991; Tanushaj, Randall and McCullough, 1988). In contrast to espoused theories, theories-in-use cannot be easily observed (Argyris and Schon, 1974). It can be argued that recruitment decision assumptions may be observed indirectly through what candidates are in fact recruited, but in such cases we would resort to tautology in assuming that persons are selected based on the fact that they are selected. However, patterns may of course be observed and analyzed. As for recruitment decision assumptions, it seems safe to argue that the primary governing variable in a recruitment process is recruiting the best candidate available for the position. The ability of a candidate is, however, difficult to evaluate and recruiters will, therefore, use different proxies in order to evaluate ability and reduce information uncertainty. Focusing on the recruitment process in terms of choice between internal promotion and external recruitment, it would seem more probable for an organization to recruit internally, as this reduces information uncertainty in that candidates may be directly observed. Furthermore, Academy of Management Best Conference Paper 2003 HR: G2 internal recruitment may be preferred due to employees’ firm-specific knowledge (Chan, 1996). The higher the value placed on firm-specific knowledge, the likelier will internal recruitment be. Recruitment decision assumptions in the case of what value is placed on firm-specific knowledge may be observed through what control systems are used. This argument is based on the assumption that control systems not only represent measurement systems in evaluating a manager’s behavior, but that they also signal what behavior is considered appropriate and, therefore, will be learned by managers. This reasoning is based on expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964), stating that motivation for a certain behavior depends on a person’s beliefs of what outcomes will tend to result from a specific behavior and the attractiveness a person attaches to those outcomes in terms of their ability to satisfy a person’s needs. Thus, persons will be shaped by what is expected from them by others. Consequently, as behavior and values are affected, control systems will have an impact on whether certain skills can be found in the organization or not. Here, the impact of the two control systems of socialization and bureaucratic control systems will be presented, as they relate to whether learning of corporate-approved behavior is valued or not. Thus, the difference lies in whether appropriate behavior needs to be learned over time or if it has been formalized by the organization in terms of for example rules and regulations. Socialization is a form of premise control, i. e. ontrol is exerted prior to the action (Cyert and March, 1988), which means that appropriate behavior is internalized by the employees. Not only actions, but also thinking, are thereby influenced to include appropriate assumptions and values. This is related to how institutionalization will tend to become self-reinforcing, after a while needing no rewards or other intervening procedures, as once institutionaliz ed social knowledge will tend to become a part of organizational daily life (Zucker, 1977). Lack of displaying the appropriate behavior will result in personal consequences. Reinforcements of proper behavior and thinking are in this context made in terms of peer approval, membership and leadership. In contrast, not displaying appropriate behavior will result in the person’s actions being perceived as deviating, which is punished by belittlement, hostility and ostracism (Anthony, Dearden and Bedford, 1989). A high degree of socialization will affect the recruitment process in numerous ways. First, managers who do not embrace the appropriate values and display the appropriate behavior will have a lesser chance of being promoted. Second, the internal managers will have an advantage, compared to the external ones, in the recruitment process. Third, a recruiter would tend to feel less uncertainty in recruiting a person from within the organization, knowing that the person has had opportunity to learn appropriate behavior and not having to resort to indirect signaling of such behavior in other candidates. Bureaucratic control systems do not provide the difficulty of observation that socialization does, in that this form may be termed the most visible of controls, where appropriate behavior is signaled by such mechanisms as budgets, reports and other documents. This form of control may be termed action control (Cyert and March, 1988), i. e. control is exerted during the action, which means that appropriate behavior is not internalized. Instead, tasks are simply performed in accordance with for example manuals, without having to reflect on what the appropriate action is. Thus, this form of control concerns mainly behavior and not an internalization of appropriate thinking. However, I stress my use of the word mainly, as repeated actions may in time be internalized and transferred into control of thinking and especially so if the bureaucratic control mechanisms in question are stable over time. Here, reinforcements of appropriate behavior consist of management commendation, monetary incentives and promotions, whereas Academy of Management Best Conference Paper 2003 HR: G3 punishment for the wrong behavior will tend to consist of demanding the person accountable to explain the behavior in question (Anthony, Dearden and Bedford, 1989). Reinforcements and punishments can in the case of bureaucratic control systems be considered to consist of more normative than affective mechanisms, as compared to possible ostracizing in organizations with a high degree of socialization. In the case of bureaucratic control systems, internal candidates will not tend to have the advantage of inherent knowledge of corporate values, to which external candidates do not have access. Therefore, as no internalization of appropriate values is present, external candidates will have a greater possibility of attaining a position, as compared to when organizations use socialization as control mechanism. The competitive situation will be more equal and the possibility and probability of external recruitment is, therefore, increased. However, there may still be higher costs incurred and a higher information uncertainty with external recruitment, as internal candidates may be observed directly. The above arguments do not include a certain prediction that a high degree of socialization will invariably lead to internal recruitment and bureaucratic control systems to an external one. They propose that external recruitment is made possible and, therefore, more likely by the absence of internalized knowledge of appropriate behavior and thinking, as such is instead formalized into rules and regulations. Indeed, this proposition may also include the opposite relationship, where a high degree of socialization may in fact incapacitate employees in terms of new thinking and dealing with new situations (Alvesson, 1993). For example, Wiersema and Bantel (1992) found that organizational tenure in CEOs was negatively correlated with strategic change. This implies that the longer persons stay in an organization, the more will they strive to preserve the organizational status quo and especially so in the case of a high degree of socialization. Thus, if new thinking is required in an organization with a high degree of socialization, due to for example a changing external context, external recruitment may be needed in order for the organization to cope with it. Degree of resistance to attempts of change tends to be related to the degree of institutionalization (Zucker, 1977). Still, the proposed relationship of recruitment being influenced by what value an organization places on firm-specific knowledge holds true, as the inherent knowledge of the internal employees has been transformed from a competitive advantage into a competitive disadvantage. A DILEMMA OF TWO EVILS When deciding on form of control system, the organization will not only communicate and influence its recruitment decision assumptions in terms of internal and external recruitment, it will also influence what conflict it will be affected by when trying to achieve its goals. Inconsistency in one’s theories-in-use leading to no attaining one’s goals or incongruence in what one is doing and what one is saying one is doing, leading to not keeping one’s worldpicture constant. With a high degree of socialization, an organization will tend to have congruence between recruitment policy and recruitment decision assumptions, promoting a positive self-image. The organization will, however, tend to suffer from the conflict of an internally inconsistent theoryin-use in the form of recruitment decision assumptions, as internal candidates will not be the best ones in all situations, although having the advantage of internalized knowledge of corporate values. This conflict may be lessened by prioritizing internal recruitment, which would also Academy of Management Best Conference Paper 2003 HR: G4 avoid incongruence between recruitment policy and recruitment decision assumptions. Just such a case has indeed been promoted by previous research (Chan, 1996), in claiming that external candidates will be recruited only when they are very superior to internal ones, in that employee well-being needs to be promoted for the organization to be able to continue its existence. If instead recruiting the best candidate is prioritized, the organization will instead suffer from the same conflict as organizations with a high degree of bureaucratic control systems. In promoting the best candidate, external recruitment will be more possible as well as probable and the existing employees’ may perceive the incongruence of an internal recruitment policy and external recruitment. As for an organization with a high degree of bureaucratic control systems, the recruitment decision assumptions are internally consistent. However, it will face a conflict of incongruent recruitment policy and recruitment decision assumptions, as the recruitment decision assumptions promotes the recruitment of the best candidate, regardless of organization membership. Although those responsible may not believe in the espoused theory, the incongruence may nevertheless be noticed by employees, who may feel deceived and mistreated in receiving less promotion opportunities. This may lead to consequences such as a lack of motivation for staying with the organization and, in time, a high employee turnover. Furthermore, this conflict would probably not be resolved by the organization boldly admitting to not recognizing organization membership as a variable in recruitment decisions, as this would hardly result in persons wanting to enter into the organization in the first place. In such cases when corporations with a high degree of bureaucratic control systems recruit internally, no incongruence will arise. However, it is unlikely that internal candidates will always be the best ones and, therefore, one of the wo conflicts will tend to arise. The conflicts of inconsistency in recruitment decision assumptions and incongruence between recruitment policy and recruitment decision assumptions may be perceived as the organization breaching the implicit contract of them providing employees with future economic safety, while the employees have fulfilled their part of it by providing the organization with ability (Morrison and Robinson, 1997; Cassell, Juris and Roomkin, 1985). As organizations commonly only succeed in inspiring conditional trust in their employees, any discrepancy in behavior may lead to a distrustful environment (Jones and George, 1998), which is hardly conducive for employee well-being, nor for productivity. Although such mistrust is bad in itself, the situation may worsen if perception of breach of contract evolves into a perception of violation of contract (Morrison and Robinson, 1997), as breach of contract focuses on the cognitive aspect, whereas violation affects the employee emotionally. Whether a breach of contract will evolve into a violation in the perceptions of the employees depends on the perceived magnitude of the discrepancy, how it affects the employee, whether the discrepancy is perceived as purposeful or not, if the procedure leading to the discrepancy is perceived to have been fair and the employee’s overall social relationship with the organization. Thus, in the case of discrepancies caused by the recruitment process, the evaluation will, first, be worsened by employees having a relational contract, i. . it is broad, open-ended and long-term, based not only on monetary elements but also socio-emotional ones such as loyalty and support (Rousseau and McLean Parks, 1993). Second, individual situations will determine perceptions of magnitude and fairness, but perceptions of discrepancies will generally worsen, due to the purposeful breach in deciding on recruiting an external candidate. Counterintuitively, employees will tend to experience less violation if discrepancies in contract are more common than not, which is, however, consistent with unexpected negative events leading to more intense emotional responses than expected ones (Ortony, Clore and Academy of Management Best Conference Paper 2003 HR: G5 Collins, 1988). Therefore, we would expect external recruitment to elicit more severe conflict in organizations with a high degree of socialization than in the case of bureaucratic control systems. As this breach will occur in relation to recruitment decision assumptions and organizational norms, this will probably also increase perceptions of breach of contract. However, as such recruitment will tend not to occur on an extensive basis, the impact on present managers will not be great, unless in the case of filling top management positions with external candidates, thus, extensively lessening internal managers’ possibility of advancement. In the case of organizations with a high degree of bureaucratic control systems, the discrepancies will be more common and relate to not following the recruitment policy, which will probably lessen the impact of such breaches. Nevertheless, such extensive external recruitment will reduce internal managers’ possibilities of advancement. Although this may not lead to recurring perceptions of violation of contract, it may instead infer a state of organizational cynicism (Dean, Brandes and Dharwadkar, 1998) among employees. Such cynicism would then infer a belief that the organization lacks integrity, a negative affect towards the organization and tendencies to disparaging and critical behavior towards it. Such perceptions seem unlikely to improve individuals wanting to join the organization, nor will they tend to improve motivation. Ultimately, evaluation of organization behavior will depend on employees’ beliefs about whether they have been treated honestly and respectfully as well as having received adequate justification for the contract breach (Bies and Shapiro, 1987). Perhaps this is the cause of organizations sometimes specifying their policies by saying that although they are, of course, intended to bring about internal promotion, this has to be re-evaluted in specific cases, such as when recruiting experts or managers. Figure 1 Argyris and Schon’s framework contrasting espoused theory and theory-in-use. Espoused Theory Internal Consistency Congruence Effectiveness Values Internal Consistency Theory-in-use Action Behavioural World Testability REFERENCES AVAILABLE FROM AUTHOR Academy of Management Best Conference Paper 2003 HR: G6

Brannigan Case Analysis Essay

  Strengths: Brannigan Foods’ Soup Division has the largest soup market share in the United States at 39.8%. They are willing to change and have the capital to do so.   Weaknesses: The soup industry as a whole has been on a consistent decline over the last several years. Brannigan’s has wasted money acquiring small businesses that have done little to nothing for profits. They have also been developing different types of soup in which only 1 out of 100 is actually well received by consumers.   Opportunities: They have the potential to be the leaders in healthy canned soups that are offered in a variety of trendy flavors. Brannigan Foods is already a well –established brand with many loyal followers who can regain their brand identity through less marketing than a newer or smaller business.   Threats: Frozen and deli soup industries are trending and causing the market shares of shelved soups to plummet. Any quick and easy meal option from fast food to macaroni and cheese are threats to this industry and to Brannigan’s The problem presented in this case is that Mr. Bert Clark needs to make a formal budget and action plan for the CEO to address the three year downturn in profitability, market share and sales. Consumers aren’t purchasing as much soup as they have in the past. With so much variety, not only within soups, but among all food options, it’s hard to make consumers choose only your brand every time. Price plays a large role in buyer decisions when it comes to items that they plan to store in their cupboard. If the price isn’t low enough, they can just switch brands or wait until later to purchase their stock items. Brannigan’s has been steadily increasing their price to ebb the effects of the lower sales amounts. Brannigan’s hasn’t done anything to increase the value of their soups in the minds of consumers; they have only raised the price. The true problem is that customers aren’t finding enough value in Brannigan Foods Soups to rationalize spending more on them than they had before. I propose that they have a contest to develop new flavors of soups, with the winner receiving a combination price of money and a year’s supply of Brannigan Foods Soups. Buying up smaller brands of soups doesn’t sound feasible seeing as how it hasn’t worked at any time before for this company. Another option is to seasonalize the soups to allow for new flavor varieties to be introduced in spurts. Heartier (potato, noodle and cream) soups are desired in the winter, where as a gazpacho is in a higher demand in the summer. Allow consumers to take surveys to receive coupons for your products and ask them what they want in a soup. The contest concept can do wonders for creating a buzz about your product and is the best alternative. Even more importantly, you are gaining insight into exactly what the consumers want. This nation has been so overly advertised to that people tend to ignore ads all together. What they don’t ignore is the chance to win something with no risk. Lay’s â€Å"Do Us a Flavor† contest has been a great success over traditional marketing strategies. Why you ask? â€Å"The answer is simple: consumers don’t trust traditional marketing strategies anymore, and businesses are getting creative, using consumer-generated marketing—directly involving the customer in the marketing and development of products—to succeed† (Jones, 2013). Works Cited Jones, Alex. â€Å"Potato Chips and the Role of the Consumer in Marketing and Product Development.† FRESHMR. Market Strategies International, 17 May 2013. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.

Case study for entrepreneurship and small business course

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Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 6

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How sucessful has the government and the bank of england been in running the british economy over the past 2 years - Essay Example The major Economies of the world are facing a credit crunch and this has also affected the British Economy in more ways than one. Obtaining credit has become one of the most difficult tasks and in addition to this; the cost of mortgages has also adversely affected the major Economies of the world. â€Å"A significant level of short-term debt—unsecured or secured against property, as well as credit cards—is widespread. Over the last ten years the economy under the Labor government has grown in large part because of consumer spending financed by debt. (The Impact, 1 October 2008). According to a report it was found that out of 47.5 million adults in UK, 4.8 million people were found to be spending more than what they earned. It is predicted that in the near future the British Economy is going to be affected by the credit crunch, just like the economy of United States of America. The British economy is facing two major problems as of now namely, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth is really slow and the rising rate of Inflation has taken on a toll on the British Economy. The bank of England is trying everything possible to stimulate the economic growth in the British Economy; the cut in the interest rates proves the same. Currently the British Economy can take a little satisfaction from the fact that the employment rate has risen and there is less unemployment found in Britain than what it used to be earlier. â€Å"â€Å"The employment rate for people of working age was 74.5 per cent for the three months to October 2007, up 0.1 from the previous quarter but unchanged over the year. The number of people in employment for the three months to October 2007 was 29.29 million, up 114,000 over the quarter and up 226,000 over the year. Total hours worked per week were 940.0 million, up 5.1 million over the quarter and up 11.7 million over the year. These figur es for people in employment and hours worked are the highest since comparable records began

Marketing ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Marketing ethics - Essay Example However, in contemporary competitive market, the task of aligning is excessively challenging (Appelbaum, et al., 2009). In this particular study, the researcher will primarily focus on ethics of marketing, which addresses certain standards and principles associated with suitable conduct in the market (Ferrell, n.d.). According to the author, marketing is an activity usually conducted by an organization to promote a particular product or service and unethical practices arise out of pressure to achieve performance objectives. Misleading sales approach, overbilling customers, price fixing and fraud antitrust are all categorized as unethical marketing practices. Although such practices may fetch short-term benefits for the company; in the long run, these have devastating impacts. Such impacts may deteriorate financial performance of a company or tarnish its reputation to such an extent that downfall of the company becomes inevitable. This is precisely the reason why conducting ethical marketing is so important. Organizations that efficiently manage ethics are able to methodically absorb, respond and adap t to most breakdowns in decisions or conduct. In the contemporary consumer oriented society, human rights play a crucial role. Given the aforesaid fact, greater number of companies has been exposed to several positive as well as negative ethical issues of which count of the latter is increasing day by day. This has been largely possible due to rising power of media and the way this system is structured. Consequently, the system has a considerable impact on organizations that are involved in such means. In light of the aforementioned facts, this study will take a look at GlaxoSmithKline, which is a UK based pharmaceutical company and assess few of the ethical marketing challenges faced by the company, thereby seeking evidences as to why these

Issues in Developmental Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Issues in Developmental Psychology - Essay Example Every person is doing one's own duty in one's own station for which one is best suited to do by Nature. There are others like John Locke who considers that a person is like a tabula rasa or a blank slate when someone is born. What is expounded here suggests that a man's personality can be molded into any desired and aspired for direction and shape through modern means of education. Empty mind, however, is the devil's workshop! Similarly, early influences on human mind have a more lasting and prolonged effect in one's life. Most of the psychologists, including Sigmund Freud, believe that experiences of an early age cause deep imprints upon the concerned human mind. Experiences are more efficacious way of shaping up of a man's than merely the classroom lessons. How and at what pace change from birth to life is taking place These changes are merely quantitative or they are qualitative as well Children at certain stage of development show more of specific skills than others. Why is it like this To grasp these aspects of human growth and development, it is necessary to go into the Freudian psycho-sexual, Erik Erickson's psycho-social, Pavlov's classical conditioning, D. F. Skinner's operant conditioning and Piaget's cognitive stages of development theories related to psychologists through different experiments and experiences. According to developmental guidel... For modern psychologists, falling behind a normal yardstick of growth may at times be due to individual differences of personality and not due to any abnormalcy on the part of the concerned person. All above mentioned issues are mutually interrelated. They are to be understood in a balanced way. Freud's psycho-analytic approach to human growth depending on psycho-sexual stages, Erickson's lifespan theory of development in stages, Pavlov's environment and mutual interaction aspect, Skinner's operant conditioning impact and Piaget's focus on development of mental processes, skills and abilities are all to be known before delving deep into the developmental psychology. Analyses and Opinion This article on "Issues in Developmental Psychology" pin points major concerns in this field. As such, the concise nature of this article maybe appreciated. Mainly four issues raised are related to apparent questions about importance of a child as a person. What is more significant - inherent nature, acquired education, social environment or learned skills -- in bringing about a change in one's personality Answers to such questions are indicated to be found in different approaches to child growth and development. This is, indeed, a thought provoking article for those who are seriously inclined to find relevant answers to problems faced by them in their routine life of dedicated teachers and parents. The main weakness of this article lies in its attempt to keep away from finding answers to highlighted issues. It seems Wagner does not want to impose her own answers upon readers and practitioners of education and knowledge. She is just putting before us a few available options. An apparent difference is

Current issue speech about hospitality marketing Essay

Current issue speech about hospitality marketing - Essay Example Research conducted by Redshift Research reports that, statistically, hotel uses lead the number of people using social media in the hospitality industry followed by vacation activities, attractions and restaurants. Olenski has used a few examples to drive his point home (Web). He argues that four seasons hotels and resorts band is very famous in the hospitality industry yet promoting it through the social media has never been successful as expected. Olenski says that an attempt to increase weekend booking through the social media by Maxine saw only a few people visiting the different social media sites such as Facebook, twitter and Instagram (Web). The few people who visited the social media platform did not have a huge impact on the market target. It is apparent that marketing the hospitality industry through the social media is not an easy task. It is indeed challenging for players in the hospitality industry to target the right audience through social media. Social media marketing also requires highly engaging and interactive platform in order to benefit a given brand. Social media marketing in the hospitality industry therefore, requires improvement on a few areas. A few mistakes are made by different brands who market their products and services in the social media in the hospitality industry. Usually, social media is accompanied with additional pressure on company’s resources including staffs that can make sure a high-level of engagement with social media users. According to Olenski, social media can only do well when issues such as immediacy, engagement and reliable are maintained (Web). Immediacy, engagement and reliability are the only way hospitality industry can gain from the social media marketing. Internal resources are significant in providing the real benefits of products and services to consumers through interaction and engagement. Social media should be utilized by the internal

Analyzing the uses of scheduling methods in IT project management Coursework

Analyzing the uses of scheduling methods in IT project management - Coursework Example The data that I will use in this research will be collected from notes and documentation of projects that has been done before. I will particularly make use of planning processes of various projects so that I get to know what is required of a project. I preferred internet databases that would exploit electronic links like; Springer Link, Emerald Management Extra, Sweets Wise Online content and Ulrich. These databases provided a lot of information on applied sciences access to abstracts, full-text versions of articles that have been published in electronic books and project management journals. I found these sources quite intriguing as they enabled wide access of full text reviews, case studies and publications to a greater extent. To obtain information, I logged on the four links mentioned above and absolutely found variety of details on project management. I aimed at reviewing the importance of scheduling in any project undertaking but most exciting was not the relationship between scheduling with traditional engineering and manufacturing projects but relating scheduling concept to the recent IT projects in this instance cloud computing. I therefore found a broad relationship between scheduling and cloud computing, inferring that scheduling is the most preferred mode of ensuring all projects have successful implementation and completion. In a nutshell, the entire search exercise was informative and exciting upon discovering that numerous studies have been made and documented in systematic and logical order in the tune of employing project management tools as Critical Path and Gantt charts. This ordering method enabled me to mark and continue reading the files in phases. My study entailed... This study looks into scheduling is a critical aspect of IT project management in implementation of all level projects. Indeed, the articles and journals highlighted above methods that have been discovered and practically used to achieve and attain project goals. The importance of scheduling is synchronous to the anticipation of IT project managers in effectiveness of information technology. Critically speaking, scheduling and efficiency of IT projects is an practical element in information age. The whole safety boundary that was previously created in to each project is given identity the critical chain optimizing. The total project time period is always reduced when the safety margin is there in every individual activity. But in case of any withdrawal and only one critical activity go beyond the estimated length, the finishing date for the whole project not met. There exist important evidences in this studies that many IT project managers use scheduling and a method to effectively i mplement projects and enable them to run into completion. In a research project done by Dayal, Zachariah & Rajpal the findings indicates that scheduling through network diagrams requires creating a line of balance in development of project plan in which various techniques can be used to implement the planning and control technique for manufacturing and processing that were improvised. This technique is unique in that it identifies and notes the resources needed for each phase and hence the succeeding phase is not affected therefore the goal outcome is attained.

Langford, Galileo, Science and the Church Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Langford, Galileo, Science and the Church - Essay Example The Catholic Church faced another threat from the scientist's arguments- one of the demystification of Christ. This was "The man Jesus as the personal, visibleonly way to the actuality of redemption [p.201], not realizing that knowledge was a precursor to salvation simply and succinctly through the Holy Scriptures. The knowledge of Christ was what followers sought. And this was coveted by Churchmen- that the knowledge of Christ = salvation. St.Thomas Aquinas would have earlier stated that one need not have been smart to come to understanding of this. What is needed for an introduction but a name. It would have gone something like: "Jesus meet follower A." It doesn't take much to make an acquaintance. What proves valuable is what kind of relationship ensues. For example, such as Master to Teacher, Parent to Child, Creator to the Created and ideally of Friend to Friend. Galileo's groundbreaking views of the universe were demystified with science and religion working together. Whereas the author of this book deemed the church cautious, this reluctance to accept the fated duo (Science and the church) delegated the Catholic Church to play the role, in a sense, of a magician who vowed never to divulge his tricks. Galileo's ment

The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Changes in Changez Essay Example for Free

The Reluctant Fundamentalist Changes in Changez Essay ?The collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing or person is definitively recognizable or known is their identity. A person’s behavior, his/her background, the inevitable bits and pieces of his/her nature and history sown together make him/her who he/she are. Changez is the protagonist of the Novel â€Å"The Reluctant Fundamentalist† by Mohsin Hamid. His character is complex and diverse from the rest. It is volatile and his perspective of his identity is irresolute. By this I mean that his understanding of who he is constantly being altered through the course of the novel, and I will discuss this in the following paragraphs. Changez’s identity refers to who he is; every aspect of his personality adds up to his identity. Changez belongs to an upper-class family from Lahore, Pakistan. He lives in a house with his parents, his sister his brother. This family is not poor, but is not wealthy compared to the society it mixes with. Changez’s family is relatively liberal as everybody, including the women, work, in order to maintain the high living standards that they are used to. Changez has been born and brought up in Lahore and has always been a promising and scholarly student. The novel states that he has gone through his entire school life without getting a single B grade. Post his education at school; he received a scholarship to Princeton. This reflects two aspects of Changez’s life; first, his above average intellect that made him eligible for such a pristine offer, and second, his dire need for the financial aid in order to be able to be part of such a prestigious institution. Like for everybody, Changez’s history is inevitably a part of his identity. It may not be very important, but his financial condition does raise barriers in his life and can be categorized as important enough to be a part of his identity as this causes constraints. Other than these aspects of his life, an important part of Changez’s identity is his mindset. Before getting to Changez’s metamorphosing personality, I would like to state a constant about him: His mannerisms. Through the course of the novel, Changez’s way of speaking is always polite and humble. This may be a contradiction to his proud and confident personality. As I see it, Changez believes that he is a cut above the rest and works tirelessly to prove it and live up to his own expectations. However, while he feels superior to his acquaintances, he is never seen being impolite or cocky towards them. As Changez’s journey begins in Princeton, he is always slightly different from his acquaintances. His politeness makes him bit of an outsider and he is never quite part of the people there. Another thing that makes Changez different from the rest is his economic stability. A part of Changez’s identity worth commenting on is not only the need for him to work three jobs whilst being at college, but his efforts to not let his peers at Princeton find out about these jobs. In my view, he wants to keep up with everyone and flourishing on the financial front is one of his life’s goals. I think this is one of Changez’s catalysts that make him work so hard. It is one of the factors that provide him with the drive to flourish. Underwood Samson employs Changez for a job that is almost out of reach. This reflects his diligence and charm. At this point in his life, Changez claims to be a lover of America and his admiration for the country stands strong. As Changez is not as wealthy as he projects himself to be, it is difficult for him to watch as his friends part with money thoughtlessly on their trip to Greece. ‘Lahore-ancient city†¦democratically urban, similar to Manhattan. ’ Changez claims that coming to New York was like coming ‘home’ for him. New York is full Urdu speaking cab drivers and has other similarities to Lahore. Changez feels like he is ‘immediately a New Yorker, never an American. ’ In my view, this shows that while he is drawn to New York in a binding way, and while he feels like he belongs to the city, he does not belong to the country. He feels like his nationality is Pakistani and that is where he belongs. I don’t think that at this point he is conflicted between New York and Pakistan, I think he feels like he belongs to both the places, one city and another country. He wears his country’s attire with pride and he also mentions that he from the moment he was in New York, he felt like a New Yorker. Changez’s national identity, at this point, is Pakistani. Earlier, however, Changez leaked a sense of pride towards belonging to Pakistan. There is no displacement or confusion in Changez as far as the identification of home belonging to a certain geographical space is concerned. On the contrary, the idea of home seems fixed and determined as Pakistan. A further possible hint of his pride of being Oriental, rather than a Westerner, is given by his decision to combine a pair of jeans with a kurta, a typical item of clothing worn in Pakistan and in some other Eastern countries, when meeting Erica’s parents, hence an important occasion. Later, in contrast, Changez recognizes that Pakistan was once at the forefront of modernity but he feels a sense of shame and resentment that it is now poor –disparity compared to the view he gets from the 41st floor of his office building. Changez feeds off the power and money that he feels coming closer to him, as these are the base of his ‘American Dream’ and as I earlier mentioned, his need to earn money drives him to work hard. Changez’s identity withholds a hunger for these things, and at the same time he feels ‘privileged’ to be given this opportunity to become the person he has been working towards becoming. Filipino workers ‘look up’ to rich young Americans and Changez starts to adopt the same attitude and language in order to be looked at with the same respect as his collogues when they are in Manila. He feels sense of power that comes with the realization that due to his job, he decides people’s futures. This power is a part of Changez’s identity, whether the power is present or not. The hunger for the power is a definitive part of Changez. He is, however, unsettled by a taxi driver who shows hostility towards him. Changez feels like he is part of a play and ought to be making his way ‘home’ like the Taxi driver. The realization that he is falsely altering his identity haunts him, and he feels like he is acting like ‘one of them. † Here, his identity is unsettled and in the state of flux as it is not concrete and sure. In chapter six, I quote Erica, who says, â€Å"I love it when you talk about where you come from, you become so alive. † This is an observation made by Changez’s lover at the time. She feels like a part of Changez feels either proud or joyed to be talking about his native land. In my opinion, this observation made is free from any bias and is purely based on Changez’s behavior that unintentionally and unknowingly gives off a sense of liveliness when he speaks of Pakistan, because somewhere inside, it makes him feel alive. Also, after having a seemingly awkward and immensely intimate experience of almost making love to Erica, Changez falls asleep and dreams of ‘home’, which in my view refers to Lahore. This projects his subconscious as being predominated by his thoughts of his home in Pakistan. An important part of the novel as well as a definer of Changez’s identity is the instance where he sees reports of the 9/11 on TV and his thoughtless reaction is to smile at it. This act can be interpreted in many ways, and my understanding of it is that while Changez loves America and is in awe of it’s power, it gives him a sense of relief that even something as grand as the USA could be brought down to it’s knees. He is aware that this act of destruction was done by Afghanistan. Changez is not a sadistic person and derives no pleasure from the realization that a substantial number of people were harmed during this attack; this lack of sensitivity is not a part of his identity. Having said that, I would like to point out that it is a sense of indifference to the victims that makes him smile. He does not smile at the way the power is exerted, but at the existence of the power. Previously, Changez saw America as almost indestructible and invincible, which made him feel small in comparison. Based on that idea, I think Changez finds a sense of relief when he sees that even a country like America can be brought down. For a lover of America, this is rather strange reaction to the tragedy that is the 9/11. Changez’s identity conflict comes into light here. Other than his national identity, Changez’s pride, which is a part of his personal identity, is also seen being flippant soon after. Changez claims that ‘he does not know how to describe his experience.. He did not seem to be himself† when he pretends to be Chris in order to help Erica make love to him. This is an extremely stark contrast to Changez’s personality traits that are proud and hold high self-esteem and self-contentment. Later, he does claim that he had ‘diminished’ himself in his own eyes. This shows conflict in his mind as to who he is and what stands conscientious in his eyes. After the 9/11, Changez’s perception of America as a nation that looked forward was altered to a nation that was looking back, and he felt like ‘an outsider. ’ This is an important change in his identity as Changez goes from being an outsider to blending in to the American society associated with Underwood Samson back to being a misfit. Changez returns to Lahore for some time later on. â€Å"This was where I came from, this was my provenance, and it smacked of lowliness,† says Changez. â€Å"The house had not changed in my absence, I had changed; I was looking about me with the eyes of a foreigner, and not just any foreigner, but the particular type of entitled and unsympathetic American who so annoyed me when I encountered him†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Here, Changez’s conflict seems to clear up but his change in identity is more evident. He accepts the change in himself and also points out that he has evolved into the person that he resented previously. On the next page, he states that he was a man lacking in substance and hence was easily influenced by even a short sojourn in the company of others. This is also a contradiction to the person Changez was when he started at Princeton or at Underwood Samson. He no longer seems proud of who he is, and pride was a core element in his identity. When Changez’s brother ruffled Changez’s hair, Changez felt like he had not been touched so familiarly in a while. He said he felt an ‘almost child-like twenty-two year old. † This is who he is. He is unsure of who he is. He feels like a middle-aged child and his age may be a constant, but his youth or adulthood is a question and he does not know where he stands. This adds clarity to the idea of him being conflicted when trying to be definitive of his own identity. He feels like whilst trying to be an earning member of the family, he is also the youngest. He continues to feel a little bit like a child irrespective of his status and career placement. On returning to America, in spite of numerous suggestions from his mother and colleagues, Changez does not shave his beard. He claims that it is a ‘form of protest’ on his part, ‘a symbol of identity’. He also thinks that it may be a symbol of the reality he had left behind. This shows that he is beginning to believe that the home he has left in Lahore is reality and he is no longer a New Yorker, but a patriot, that in times of need and conflict he belongs to Pakistan. â€Å"I know only that I did not wish to blend in with the army of clean-shaven youngsters who were my coworkers and inside me, for multiple reasons, I was deeply angry. † Changez states that he does not want to blend in with the Americans. This is yet another aspect of his identity. He does not want to be an American and when a choice has to be made, even when it is more difficult to be a Pakistani, in fact more then, he choses to be one. After being sent on a project by his company, Changez understands that the ambitious part of him that was predominant in his personality now takes a back seat when his country and family come into question. In the beginning of the novel we see Changez as a hardworking person who goes out of his way to make his way to the top. It is a vital part of his personality; it does not hold the same amount of importance anymore. Changez returned to his country, Pakistan, and takes care of his family. In the novel, there is no definitive reason as to why Changez left America, but I believe that he did not purely leave because something from Pakistan was pulling him back, but because because there was not enough in America to keep him there. While he felt a connect with New York and had strived to reach there, there was an open-ended relationship with Erica that had little hope of ever being resolved. Also, his job, was no more. I believe that this was clearly very important to Changez. So, he returned to Pakistan and continued his life as a college professor there. Changez’s identity goes through a major evolutionary process over the course of the years he is in America. These changes are reflected on his personality in many ways, ranging from his career-orientation, his personal life, his nationality as well as his priorities. There is, however, never complete clarity to me as to what he thinks of as important and where ‘home’ is to him, until the end. I cannot for sure clarify that he is completely content because in spite of his return I sensed an undertone of sadness when he left his dream behind.

Strengthening Community Resilience Through Disaster Risk Management Environmental Sciences Essay

Strengthening Community Resilience Through Disaster Risk Management Environmental Sciences Essay Disasters pose serious threats to development as it holds back countrys progress and its achievement towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) while highlighting, particularly among poor countries, the prevailing poverty situation. Despite billions of budget spent by the government and assistance from the international development organizations for development programs and projects, interference of disasters could put these efforts into nothing; as disasters could result to enormous physical, economic and psycho-social damages and decades of development could be wiped out in a minute. Disasters destroy infrastructures, such as roads, bridges, communication satellites, buildings, schools and houses. It can also damage livelihood and agriculture; from pest infestations to droughts, extreme rains and floods, which could wreak havoc on the entire community livelihood. Moreover, as disaster happens, it displaces people and exposes them to diseases and injuries which could further lead them to hardship, starvation and deprivation. In general disaster can lead to loss of public and private resources and investments, disruption on the production of goods and provision of services, loss of employment for formal and non- formal economy, interruption of development programs and switching of crucial resources to other short-term needs such as recovery and emergency response programs, and health concerns (UNDP-DMTP, 1994). These problems on natural disasters are further compounded by the issues of climate change. Disaster risks and climate change are threats to human well-being and adversely reinforce each other. Disaster risk is an intrinsic characteristic of human society, arising from the combination of natural and human factors and subject to exacerbation or reduction by human agency (OBrien, 2008:7). The effects of climate change can increase disaster risks, by changing the magnitude and frequency of extreme events. The changes in the average climatic conditions and climate variability, affect the underlying risk factors, and generate new threats, which could create more serious consequences to human and the environment (Tearfund, 2008). The increasing global average temperature, occurrence of extreme weather events, changes in precipitation and sea level rises would, likewise, adversely affect human health, agriculture, forests, water resources, and coastal areas. Direct impacts are: less food pr oduction, increase range of infectious diseases including vector-borne and water-related diseases, decline in fresh water resources; and indirect impacts such as increase in prices of goods and services. These ultimately increase poverty. The poor, vulnerable and at risk communities are mostly affected for they have few options (DAP, 2010). Disaster is indeed a development concern; however despite this recognition, we argue that many disasters are rooted mainly from many development failures (UN-ISDR, 2010). The lack of appropriate development planning where disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation are loosely or weakly integrated into the local and national agenda is seen as a weakness to development. And the inadequateness of top-down and one-way approach in dealing with disaster management, is considered ineffective stance in providing rightful and productive solutions among problems encountered at the community level, frequently, resulting to failure in addressing local needs, untapped potential local resources and capacities, consequently, increasing peoples vulnerabilities (Victoria, 2003). Nevertheless, with the shifting paradigm from emergency management to disaster risk management, and the growing recognition on community participation, this shed another area where parallel effort from the national, local and community levels can be harmonized and replicated. And in line with community participation, the Community Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) emerged to address the needs of vulnerable communities and to improve their disaster resiliency. It is an approach that emphasizes active involvement of communities; while strongly locates people at the heart of the decision making and implementation of disaster risk management activities (ADPC-CBDRM-11, 2003). Purpose and Objectives The paper aims to determine how Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) increases community resiliencies and contributes towards climate change adaptation. The objectives of this study are to explain the features, processes and actors of the CBDRM and how it contributes to community resiliency; identify the strengths and weaknesses of the approach within the frame of community participation and participatory development; to cite best practices of CBDRM applications, and to provide recommendations for future policy and research studies. Methodology and Limitations The paper explores the effectiveness and potential of CBDRM to address impact of climate change variability. The arguments rendered are mainly based on deskwork and cursory research that is limited to literature review from available case studies, articles and publications from various local, national and international sources. The paper is divided into four parts. First, we link disaster risk management with climate change adaptation by identifying their commonalities and differences. Second, we closely examine what CBDRM is, its feature, processes and actors involved. Third, we determine what would be the possible limitations or challenges in applying community participation in disaster management. Fourth, we give practical examples by listing down several good practices of CBDRM being implemented in different countries. And fifth, we provide conclusions and recommendations. Linking Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation As noted, disasters have enormous impact on human development while changes in climate will further extend the challenges brought by disasters. With the increasing concerns on its impact, this has emphasized the urgent move from disaster response to preventive measures mainly aimed at reducing the likelihood that a natural hazard translates into a disaster. The shift to disaster risk management (DRM) from emergency management, implies addressing underlying social, economic and environmental vulnerabilities to reduce the probability of a disaster occurring. Moreover, DRM tries to address hazard risks as an integral part of development. DRM is based on a continuous assessment of vulnerabilities and risks and involves many actors and stakeholders, such as governments, technical experts and local communities. (Sperling, F., et.al., 2005: 11). According to ISDR, policy responses concerned with disaster risk management and adaptation to climate change have developed along different tracks (Sperling, F., et.al., 2005: 12). The DRM, on one hand, is based on humanitarian assistance efforts; the specific response measures are based from accumulated experiences of exposure to disasters. The responses are localized with broader preventive measures with the aim of addressing vulnerabilities. On the other hand, response to climate change, being a global issue, has been mostly top-down process through advances in scientific research leading to international policy responses through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Responses to climate change are categorized under mitigation and adaptation which are both interdependent; mitigation tackling the cause of climate change, while adaptation tackling the effects. (Sperling, F., et.al., 2005). DRM and adaptation to climate change have commonalities and differences. On their commonalities, the policies and measures for both areas are concerned with risk management approach with the aim of addressing the underlying vulnerabilities. While both acknowledge that the degree of vulnerability is a function of the magnitude of physical exposure and prevalent environmental and socioeconomic conditions; thus both depend on evaluating risks, vulnerabilities and possible remedial measures characterized as being continuous process and forward looking perspective. Additionally on dealing climate change risks, the adaptation measures is based on the existing vulnerability to climate variability and extremes; hence improving the capacity of communities, governments or regions to deal with current climate vulnerabilities is likely to improve their capacity to deal with future climatic changes (Sperling, 2005:16). On their differences, the time horizons for DRM is concerned more of the present or near term trends, that is 5-10 years, while climate change projections are usually 20 or even hundred more years. Another is on physical exposure; mitigating disaster is different from climate change mitigation. The former is focused on limiting the adverse impact of a particular hazard; while the latter is a function within the capacity of humans to influence their exposure to change, concluding that climate change is largely driven by anthropogenic activities. Lastly, on the scope of disaster, DRM includes not only climate related disasters such as hydro-meteorological (torrential rain, floods, droughts, storms) but also geo-morphological (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions) hazards (Sperling, 2005). Supporting the claim of Sperling (2005:17), DRM and adaptation to climate change have converging agendas; this therefore offers an opportunity to build a comprehensive risk management framework which recognizes current and future vulnerabilities as well as the compound effects of multiple disasters within a given region. This brings us next to a specific DRM approach where its aim is to increase community resiliency through the active participation of community members. The Community-Based Disaster Risk Management Approach Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction (DRR), as part of the DRM framework, into national and local development agenda is among the crucial concerns for many international organizations, national governments, civil society organizations, research groups, and local development actors. The recognition on its importance stemmed out from understanding the link between development and disaster, and disaster intensity and climate change. Under DRR lens, disasters are seen as complex problems that demand collective actions from different sectors; hence, this locates community at the forefront of disaster management. As defined by Abarquez (2004), communities are group of people that may share one or more things in common such as living in the same environment and similar disaster risk exposure. Their differentiation in terms of socio-economic aspects, linkages and dynamics are several factors that contribute to their vulnerabilities. By and large, it is the communities who are directly affected by both development and disasters, for being either beneficiaries or victims of the two circumstances. They are the front liners. They understand their local opportunities and constraints and they are the most interested in understanding local affairs where survival and well-being is at stake. Hence, integrating them within disaster risk management framework entails a promising outcome. Whereas, a growing consensus asserts that most top-down disaster risk management and response programs fail to address specific local needs of vulnerable communities, ignore the potential of local resources and capacities, and may in some cases even increase peoples vulnerability (Abarquez, 2004:12). Community participation provides opportunities for the poor to air their concerns, and allowing the poor to have more control over development assistance. This ensures that allocation of development funds is responsive to the needs of the poor, better targeting of poverty programs, more responsive government and better delivery of public goods and services, better maintained community assets, and a more informed and involved citizenry that is capable of undertaking self-initiated development activity (Mansuri, 2003: 2). According to World Bank, in general, community driven development aims to (i) enhance sustainability; (ii) improve efficiency and effectiveness; (iii) allow poverty reduction efforts to be taken to scale; (iv) make development more inclusive; (v) empower poor people, build social capital, and strengthen governance; and (vi) complement market and public sector activities. (Mansuri, 2003: 2) The CBDRM provides opportunities for the local community to evaluate their situations based on their own experiences and promotes participation and partnership. They take responsibility for all stages of the program including both planning and implementation, and in partnership with local, provincial, and national entities. As defined, CBDRM is a process of disaster risk management in which at risk communities are actively engaged in the identification, analysis, treatment, monitoring and evaluation of disaster risks in order to reduce their vulnerabilities and enhance their capacities. This means that the people are at the heart of decision making and implementation of disaster risk management activities. (Abarquez, 2004:9). Given the existing natural hazards and vulnerabilities of a community, the CBDRM process should lead to progressive improvements in public safety and community disaster resilience. And it should contribute to equitable and sustainable community development in the long term (Abarquez, 2004:20) As shown in the conceptual framework below, natural hazards such as hydro-meteorological, geo-morphological and climate change induced hazards can interplay with existing community vulnerabilities which in turn could pose high risks to the affected community. As a consequence of a disastrous event, people are helpless victims who rely heavily on external assistance for aid. The cost and damage assessment is done by external experts, and recommendations are usually mainly focus on material or physical aid and technical solutions. Due to lack of community plan, outside donors decide on what the needs are. The aim of existing disaster management is to reduce the immediate suffering and meet emergency needs and bring back the situation into normal. With the application of CBDRM approach, people participate in disaster management, where people are involved in planning, decision-making, damage, needs and capacity assessment. The people perceived as active actors in rebuilding their lives and livelihood. The focus is community preparedness and strengthening the organization with the aim of reducing vulnerabilities and increase peoples capacity to better cope with disasters. With the result of safe, disaster-resilient and developed community, this ultimately contributes towards poverty reduction. Figure : Conceptual Framework The CBDRM Features In summary the CBDRM features as according to Abarquez (2004) are: Role of community is central in disaster risk management. That is, local people are capable of initiating and sustaining their own development and they are the prime movers in reducing disaster risks in their community. Community is the key resource in disaster risk management. The communities are the main beneficiaries, the same way that they are the key resource and frontline actor in the CBDRM implementation. The aim is disaster risk reduction. The main strategy is to enhance capacities and resources of most vulnerable groups and to reduce their vulnerability in order to avoid the occurrence of disasters in future. Recognition of the link between disaster risk management and the development process. CBDRM should lead to general improvement in peoples quality of life and the natural environment. The approach assumes that addressing the root causes of disasters, e.g. poverty, discrimination and marginalization, poor governance and bad political and economic management, would contribute towards the overall improvement in the quality of life and environment. Application of multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary approaches. CBDRM brings together local community and even national stakeholders for disaster risk management to expand its resource base. CBDRM recognizes that different people have different perceptions of risk, different vulnerabilities and capacities. The CBDRM Process The CBDRM process entails a thorough assessment of the communitys hazard exposure and analysis of their vulnerabilities as well as capacities. The gathered information serves as the basis for activities, projects and programs to reduce disaster risks. Community involvement is required in the process of assessment, planning, and implementation to ensure that all needs and concerns felt at the local level are considered and appropriately tackled. Using the NGO CBDRM implementation perspective, according to Luna (2007) and Abarquez (2004), generally the processes include: Community/site selection and partnership building. Communities that are very vulnerable are selected, based on previous experiences in disaster and current threats. Other criteria include the poverty situation, interest and cooperation of the LGU officials, accessibility of the area, the peace and order situation, and the presence of local workers in the community. Formation and training of Community Disaster Action Teams and Volunteers. Training of the local government officials and community leaders are done to enhance their capacity for disaster prevention, mitigation and response. The training is done in participatory manner in such a way that after the series of training, the participants would be able to come out with community assessment, hazards maps, and plan for disaster mitigation projects. The participatory rural appraisal techniques are used for community assessment. Hazard mapping. Actual on-site mapping of the community is done by the volunteers using ocular survey and global positioning system. This is a diagnostic process to identify the risks that the community faces and how people overcome those risks. The process involves hazard assessment, vulnerability assessment and capacity assessment. In doing the assessments, peoples perception of risk is considered. People themselves identify risk reduction measures that will reduce vulnerabilities and enhance capacities. These risk reduction measures are then translated into a community disaster risk management plan. Formulation of the Local Disaster Action Plans. The community assessments and the hazard map became the basis for formulating a local disaster action plan. Plan Integration and Implementation. The plan formulated by the Disaster Action Team is forwarded to the local council for integration in comprehensive development plan. The Community Disaster Action Teams and Volunteers should lead to the implementation of the community plan and motivate the other members of the community to support the activities in the plan. Project monitoring and evaluation by the community, local government and outside evaluators. The CBDRM Actors Under CBDRM local community serves as the main actor together with the participation and support from other stakeholders. The actors in the CBDRM are composed of two layers, the insiders and the outsiders. Actors in the inner layer are the individuals, family, organizations and other stakeholders who are located within the community. The multiple stakeholders such as farmers, fishers, women, laborers, youth and other members of the community that has special concerns and needs, with their differing perceptions, and interests are important to be considered in arriving in a broad consensus on targets, strategies and methodologies in the community. The outsiders refer to those sectors and agencies which are located outside of the community. These are external NGOs, national government agencies and other international organizations (Abarquez, 2004). This brings us to a consideration of the shortcomings and limitations of participatory development. Limitations and Challenges of Community Participation in Disaster Management Though we have argued that community participation in the context of disaster management is imperative, there are still several debates under the context of participatory development that could somehow influence its successful implementation, hence, should be taken into account especially during the planning phase of the CBDRM First, the complexity of individual motivations. It is difficult to move a community towards certain direction, particularly if its members have different interests and motivations. As noted earlier, community is a complex social structure comprised of different perspectives, opinions and motivations. Conversely, motivation and willingness to participate is dictated by individual thinking and determined by own underlying interests. Their experiences on disasters could influence their behavior; however for community members who have not experienced extreme natural disaster, raising their interest in prevention and capacity building becomes more difficult as it seems abstract for them, unlike physical measures or infrastructure such as installing early warning devices and others. Similarly, exposure to external aids could influence communitys interest to participate; this is in particular to urban areas, who have become accustomed to receiving external assistance thus their reluctance to undertake risk management on their own (Solo, n.d.). Another area under this is the personal-driven motivations with vested interests that could influence, hamper or even deviate the result of the participatory development process. And politicians or soon to be politicians find this kind of activity personally beneficial for them. Second, participation requires effort and time. The CBDRM implementation is comprised of various activities, such as planning and capacity buildings, that require active and continuous participation from various stakeholders. While these activities involved a considerable time and effort, some community members perceive these series of participation as waste of time and/or economically unproductive activity, thus opt to focus more on their work and earn money, instead. While for the part of the organizer, participatory process such as public consultation is also time consuming. Organizing requires proper and detailed planning for scheduling of activities, identifying stakeholders, sending out invitation and confirming attendance. The quality and productivity of the activity is affected by the possible low turn-out of attendance among target participants. Second, restricted women participation and cultural boundaries. The CBDRM puts emphasis on the different risks and vulnerabilities faced by members of the communities, such that, male perceived risks differently as compared to female, and similar with adult to children. However, some culture restricts participation and voluntarism; concrete example is on women participation. There are some cultures that confine womens role within the boundaries of domestic activities. Despite the current effort to gender mainstream disaster reduction, with the consequent enormous household tasks directly or indirectly imposed to them, these offer women less time to interact in social activities and participate in community development actions. Third, local power relation within the community. The dynamics that exists within the community is clearly manifested on the relationship between the rich and poor, elite and commoners, and literate and illiterate. These relationships bring us to the questions on who can really participate, who can talk and verbalize their opinions during public consultations or workshops. Often times, those who are well-informed and have time to participate dominate the discussion, while leaving behind the poor and the illiterate who has the greater degree of vulnerability. To put stress further, the UNDP states that the communities who are most vulnerable to natural events are frequently those who have a disproportionately high number of illiterate members (Solo, n.d.). Fourth, local knowledge influenced by local power relations. CBDRM builds on the existing local knowledge to assess community risks, and serve as basis in developing plans. However, local knowledge can be influenced by local power relations, authority and gender (Mosse, 2002). Other personalities or stakeholders may impute their own interests to or influence the local knowledge which would not necessarily resolve the issues of disaster risks or lead for the greater and common interests of improving community resiliency. Fifth, creating development fatigue among stakeholders. Since participatory development is among the most popular approaches in development, many development initiatives have embraced and integrated it within their programs and projects. Consultations and/or collaboration among stakeholders has been repeatedly being undertaken along different stages of one or more different programs and projects, this repeated process could eventually create fatigue among stakeholders, especially when despite of continuing consultations no advancement or progress is achieved. These are some of the limitations and challenges that may be faced by project implementers of CBDRM. And to understand more what CBDRM is as applied to real world, the next part gives us practical examples illustrating how CBDRM could potentially increase community resiliency. CBDRM Good Practices Globally, CBDRM has been promoted as an approach to improve community resiliency. International development organizations and non-government organizations strongly lobby CBDRM for policy adoption and mainstreaming in the disaster management framework of national and local governments. Currently, most CBDRM projects are led by local and international NGOs, either in partnership with other civil society organizations, NGOs, international development organizations or local government. The United Nation International Strategy for Disaster Reduction compiled the good practices in CBDRM that illustrates how communities have worked together towards a common goal and benefitted from their undertaking. Below are some of the examples that are considered CBDRM good practices and linked with climate change adaptation being implemented in different countries. Involving community members in increasing public awareness and capacity building through creating information campaigns to enhance the safety of the population at risk. The project stimulates creativeness and innovativeness from the local actors and similarly optimizes local knowledge and local resources in a way easily understandable to the local community members. This is a project implemented in Haiti in 22 settlements in coordination with their Local Civil Protection Committees (LCPCs) through the assistance from Oxfam GB. Another is creating access among low income groups to disaster micro-insurance scheme. Taking into account that risk transfer supports sustainable economic recovery, micro-insurance could serve as a cushion to lessen impact of disaster, particularly among the poor victims whom majority have little or no access to risk transfer schemes. Micro-insurance represents an innovative approach to risk identification, pooling and transfer; wherein risk is transferred from the individual level to the community or inter-community levels. With the implementation of micro-insurance, this elicit positive feedbacks from the communities claiming that insurance in times of crisis is essential, the affordability of the scheme makes it accessible for the poor households, and which consequently result to reduced dependence from outside relief. This is the approach of the Afat Vimo scheme, a project implemented in India, which is part of the Regional Risk Transfer Initiative (RRTI), an action learning pro ject (ALP) of the Gujaratbased All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI). With the long drought being experienced, crop failures and the consequent food shortage, this has led a community in Indonesia to identify a mechanism to prevent food shortage. The community established a monitoring system for food security and livelihood and community early warning system largely based from their indigenous knowledge in combination with modern science. The project has three components: community awareness and indicator development to monitor food security and livelihood; community early warning system; and advocacy on appropriate agricultural system such as promotion of crops suitable for drought-prone land. The project is in partnership with local NGO aiming to increase community resilience from drought in Southeastern Indonesia. Another project where it illustrates that local context of communities can be a dynamic force in reducing risks, is on creating flood and typhoon-resilient homes through employing a cost-effective retrofitting. The program central theme is to make families and the community active players in the process of reducing the vulnerability through the integration of storm resistant techniques in existing and future houses and buildings. It involves local and grassroots consultation and preventive action planning. The project is Development Workshop France (DWF), a program initiated in Vietnam through Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and European Commission Humanitarian aid Office (ECHO) In order to understand local environmental situation, develop awareness and capacity to deal with, and to contribute to relevant policy formulation, one of the communities in Namibia established an inter-community platform and local-level monitoring as support for local decision making. The plat-form serves as medium for community organization and communication. Moreover, the approach strengthens capacity among the community to coordinate their own activities and preparing their development plans. The local-level monitoring, on the other hand, is used to support information exchange and decision making designed by the communities. The communities identify relevant indicators to monitor their livelihoods including key environmental elements. They discuss the results, analyze them and use them where appropriate for decision making. This provides a tool for identification of environmental changes affecting livelihoods that may be based on management actions, climate variability, policy changes or other factors. The project contributes to capacity building and institutional development among communities so they can enhance their own resource management and livelihoods and thereby enhance their capacity to manage and reduce risks related to drought and desertification and other potential disasters. This is a project implemented in Namibia, where several policy instruments have been influenced by the project and a number of derivative projects are ongoing. The convergence of a community-level approach and city governments participation strengthens sustainability and ownership; this is the underlying assumption in one of the CBDRM projects in the Philippines. Wherein, it mainstream community-based mitigation in the city governance through partnering with the local government in the implementation of the project. The project has five (5) components, these are: (i) CBDRM participatory risk assessment training of trainers (ToT) for the city officials, who in turn provide training to communities; reactivation of the City Disaster Coordinating Council and Barangay Disaster Coordinating Council; institutionalization of a school Disaster Safety Day; celebration of the Disaster Safety Day in all schools; developing and implementing a City Disaster Risk Reduction Plan. This is a CBDRM project implemented in the P

Impact of the Recession on Innovation and Technology Growth

Impact of the Recession on Innovation and Technology Growth 1. Introduction Entrepreneurs cause Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a function of the entrepreneur E + f(e). Entrepreneurship is the interaction of skills related to inner control, planning and goal setting, risk taking,  innovation, reality perception, use of feedback, decision making, human relations and independence. Creating a new enterprise model involves considerable change in virtually everything to do with peoples working  lives starting with the future model of Entrepreneurship. A model for entrepreneurship that explains in industries  employment change by combining technology with innovation demand, it is proposed in this article. This article explores the way economic cycles influence the relationship between innovation and human relationemployment  in manufacturing industries. The article investigates whether the ups and downs of cycles alter the possibility of exploiting innovation,  technological opportunities which can affect patterns of job creation. Human resources the employment dynamics  have always followed cyclical patterns expansions of production; bring new jobs when recessions lead to job losses  (Mastrostefano and Pianta, 2009). A large macroeconomic literature, has investigated employment dynamics in their relationship to the cyclical  patterns of economic growth. Labour economics perspectives; have focused on the role of knowledge wages in  affecting employment and the economical periods of high cyclical unemployment (Pisarides, 2009, Pianta, M.  2005). Distinctions have been made between the determinants of employment in business cycles and in long-term  growth, capital-labour complementarities, and the evolution of labour supply and, more recently, the diversity of  labour skills. ( Lucchese, M and Pianta, M., 2012) . * Corresponding In order to summarize the diversity of industry patterns in innovation and employment over the cycle, it is  necessary to take in consideration the well-known Pavitt taxonomy. It provides a relevant conceptualization of the  differences in the process of technological change by classifying firms and industries on the basis of their dominant  sources of innovation, the forms of appropriation of technology and market structure. In his taxonomy, Pavitt (1984)  identifies four groups that describe the level of technological opportunities of each industry: (a) Science-Based industries include sectors based on advancements in science; (b) Specialized supplier industries create specific products for users-industries, and these typically include  machinery and equipment, with an active role for human capital; (c) Scale intensive industries include sectors characterized by large economies of scale, high capital intensity and  strong relevance of organizational improvements such as motor vehicles; (d) Supplier dominated industries include traditional sectors including food, textiles, clothing. Along the article, the author generally assumed to operate and established the relationship between labour and how  innovation can influence the employment as a final solution for economical development. 2. Methodology The sample was draw for people involved in business activity in Baia Mare city. A total of 250 respondents were  contacted. Respondents were surveyed using a forth part structured questionnaire. Part 1-measured variables using single items such as educational background, type of business activity, type of  organization. Part 2 measured the factors, which were classified into entrepreneurial core, work core, individual and social core  relevant for leadership style of the respondent person. Part 3- measures the profile of leadership, the attitude in different situation of the manager, and identify the type of  leader. Part 4- measure the perception for new development and new orientation into organization, identify some individual  suggestions. The surveyors have been questioned about their business and the opportunity to implemented change management  and introduce innovation in their organization. The internal consistency of the measure and the results indicate that  the items in measuring the organizations activity dimensions are reliable. Also the survey make a radiography upon  the economic activity of the city Baia Mare and give an answer to economical and employment problems. 3. Results Traditional industries such as supplier-dominated sectors are characterized by a long-term decline in employment  associated with the broader patterns of structural change and demand dynamics. The number of individual business  organizations reflects the engine of economy structure especially on small business in a miner region like Baia Mare  city, where ‘’old factories’’ are just a memory for 50’ generation. From the survey dates obtained, I identify that  major activity are non productive sector, as a matter of fact the production it is not developed yet in our region,  organizations are under the discovering faze of the miracle products which can be produce. The diversity of  activities structure is special in the commerce retailer and wholesaler fields and the employers number its low. This paper offers the opportunity to step outside the normal organization day-to-day experiences and mentally  travel a brain road toward people tomorrows—in a world moving toward unimagined futures. Day-to-day experiences tend to trap people in yesterday. I think it is necessary to count also the rapid technological  change, increasing competition because of globalization, and tremendous innovation. At the same time knowledge is  constantly making itself obsolete. Its not possible to invest time in something thats not on your radar. Some kind of  valuable radar enhancement is needed: Results, Approach, Deployment, and Assessment, Review. Unfortunately there are no answers just alternatives and a constantly receding horizon. Entrepreneurs should  establish and maintain an environment within the business to encourage efficiency among employees. Based on thesurvey, I concluded that not in every organization management the manager leader, understand the managerial  competency in the some connotation. Archibugi (2001), Bogliacino and Pianta (2010) identify Pavitt’s groups that describe the level of technological  opportunities in industry and the influence of innovation and new technology for future development and  harmonization with market customers needs. Taking in consideration the survey results a classification can be easy  done, the economical activities can be structure in the category of supplier dominated industries here we include  traditional sectors food, textiles, clothing, hand makes products, training and other activities. Evangelista and Savona (2003) present the same importance of the relation between innovation and skills in  services and the direct relation between the necessity of structural change and economic dynamics. Desire for greater life flexibility, seeking challenges, fulfilling a long-felt desire or escaping from organizational  glass ceiling is also among the motivation factors especially for women to start-up their own business (Figure 1). The diversity in the patterns of employment in the manufacturing sector is documented in this paper also where the  dynamics of employment depends of economic cycle. The ups and downs of aggregate demand have been shown to  affect changes in production and demand for labour. It is not surprising from the survey dates that the number of  women entrepreneur gas increased and growing because of their interests in privatisation, self-employment and  business oriented employment. All this facilitated by the growth in various sectors such as general commerce,  personal and public services, training and consultancy and other reflect the cycle from market in a continuing  fluctuation for an unfavourable miner area. The productive sector doesn’t exist anymore because of technological adaptation and missing innovation, which is  the future provocation for our market. The organization must deal with the practical impact of unpleasant change,  but more importantly, must labour under the weight of employees who have given up, have no faith in the system or  in the ability of leaders to turn the organization around. Leadership before, during and after change implementation is the golden key to getting through the swamp. Out of  250 respondents, majority of them are aged educated that’s the motive of involvement in his own business (26%  baccalaureate and 57% academic studies) as a solution of adaptation on actual market. Management refers to the  ways of the personnel in charge of directing the organization, which in this instance is an entrepreneur. In the  context of demand shortage, an increase of the quality and variety of goods cannot be associated with value added  growth, while productivity growth and a higher competitiveness can be obtained through lower employment. Figure  2 plots the change of the manager mentality groups as the first evidence of the diversity in the relationship between  innovation and employment during the economic cycle and their organization new orientation on market. Blackburn and Pelloni (2004) combines the lessons from the macroeconomic analysis of business cycles with an  attention to the nature of technology and the patterns of structural change in manufacturing industry. A model that explains industries employment change by combining technology and demand is proposed also in this  article. High technology sectors, especially science-based industries, are affected by the ups and downs of the  economy, although they traditionally devote more resources to innovation and new products. As time goes from industrial revolution to the information revolution confirm by Freeman and Louca (2001)  innovation perspectives is the best solution for increasing the employment and reoriented the entire management  economy. The part 4 of survey measures the perception for new development and new orientation into organization and  identifies some individual manager suggestions. The target of survey was to capture the human resources attitude in  front of new orientation for organization perspective. The new generation encourages the implementation of new  trends from the market and push the manager and staff organization to be open for new changes. They suggested some ways to be followed in future: organized training and inform the staff 76%, implement a total  controlling knowledge process to avoid the appearance of different mistakes 45%, a new orientation for  organization, management change and a mentality change in a good direction 41.5%. An open innovation seems to be the best solution for the youngest organizations. Management realizes that the only  education organization aware of the need for change and provide a means by which change and development can be  achieved. This situation show that the enterprise performance depends on the level of personnel incentive and are some  imbalances in the operating activity of the company, because the share of staff costs in value added is higher than it  should be. We can complete the f (e), with the others factors which are variable and dynamic along the economical cycle,  technological and cost competitiveness strategies have a contrasting effect on employment, employment growth  emerges in product innovation oriented sectors, while new processes generally result employment losses. The missing factors present in fact the real situation not only from our region but it is necessary to take in count the  global situation. Boglacino and Pianta (2009) present also this particularly view relevant in the context of the economical crises that  has hit most of organizations in the shadow of the financial crisis of 2008 and of the European debt crisis of 2011. Does innovation stimulate employment? To that question answer Harrison Jaumendreu, Mairesse and Petres  (2008), Greeman and Guellec (2000), that technological innovation and employment reallocation is a solution. Barbuta Misu (2012) reflect about the inverse relation between staff costs rate and probability of bankruptcy, we can  argue that is an unusual situation that the share of staff costs in added value to be high to the enterprises with no risk  of bankruptcy, especially because the high value of personnel expenses diminishing the profit. During industry growth, as well as productivity increases appeared to be supported by both new products and new  processes as both technological and cost competitiveness may lead to output or efficiency improvements. 3. Conclusion This article has shown that recessions disrupt the mechanisms of innovation-based growth and push firms toward a  technological trajectory based on labour-saving new processes that increase efficiency but destroy jobs. Results show that, new products, exports and wage growth affect employment change, while new processes  contribute to restructuring and job losses. Along with jobs, competences, skills and production capacity are lost  during recessions, with the risk of setting the engine of growth on a lower path of development. Employment has  always been affected by business cycles and the economic literature has long explored the macroeconomic and  demand determinants of this relationship. The originality of article perspective is that in investigations by innovation and economical management cycle, the  conclusion shows that employment outcomes are affected by the nature of technological change. Since 48% entrepreneurs are focus on retailer activity and services, and only 24% it is involved in productivity  activity, a new orientation it is necessary to encourage the economical growth of the city. This article investigates whether the ups and downs of cycles alter the possibility of exploiting technological  opportunities and affecting patterns of job creation. Technological competitiveness is expected to have a positive  effect employment but it could play a minor role in a downswing because of the lack of demand. The impact of a  technological innovation will generally depend not only on its inventors, but also on the creativity of the eventual  users of the new technology. A clear difference emerges between new products that support job creation in times of  growth, and new processes that are instrumental in job destruction in times of recession. These differences in the nature of innovation are visible in the diversity of industries, characterized either by a  dominance of product-oriented efforts at technological competitiveness. The article conclusion is to argue and sustain the relationship between specific innovative strategies and their  employment when new products may open up new markets and offer new jobs, when new processes may come to  dominate technological change, leading to restructuring and job losses. The Matrix factors for entrepreneurship leadership profile examines the personal background, stage of career, early  life experiences and growth environment, indirect benefits, opportunities in the carrier prospect and the impact of  market conditions. Specifically, the 4R are: research, relationship, reputation and recognition, each R category is  discussed in light of the contemporary economical situation on Romanian market. The benefits of the 4R are explored and present the real situation on economical and management production like a  problem or a false fake? From research work perspective various attempts were undertaken to identify factors that  support the growth of economy and comprehensive list of factors are identified and put in evidence the object of this  study.