See instructions Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

See instructions - Research Paper Example In licensing this technology to foreign firms, the licensing firm stands a chance to lose the technology to the competitor (Wuhan University of technology, Para. 2). This is in the form of the competitor developing the technology beyond the level that it was originally. Proprietary technology is known to give an edge to the owner by denying competitors of the benefits it has to offer. Proprietary technologies owners use them as a source of revenue by controlling the market prices of their products, as well as those of their competitors (Economides & Katsamakas, 2006, Para. 1058). In such cases, the technology is used as a benchmark for market prices, and licensing it would, therefore, be a demerit to the owner. At the same time, licensing would be a good opportunity for the owners to up their performance by increasing the level of competition. With competition, they can provide better products and services to consumers (Business Wire, Para. 3). The advantage is, therefore, not lost in any way. Instead, it throws the competitors off balance due to the possibility that the technology owners may have better deals. Licensing proprietary technology is an outright loss of competitive advantage to the owners as a result of creating an alternative source of technology to consumers. This is because; licensing makes the technology open source. According to studies, proprietary technology tends to dominate the market while open source is always a runners up thus it should be avoided at all cost (Economides & Katsamakas, 2006, p. 1059). Economides, N., & Katsamakas, E. (2006). Two-Sided Competition of Proprietary vs. Open Source Technology Platforms and the Implications for the Software Industry.  Management Science,  52(7),

Chapter 4 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Chapter 4 - Assignment Example For this to succeed, communication must be present as it facilitates identification of goals, request making, and problem solving. Collaboration allows mutual support as well as the ability to share knowledge appropriately. The chapter maintains that the most important aspects of collaboration include parity, trust, respect, and establishment of common goals. We also learnt that there are several communication styles that can be used and incorporate unilateral, directional, and transactional where transactional method is preferred since it favors a two way mode of communication. However, there are several barriers that affect communication and collaboration. These include cultural background, gender, age, interests and experiences. To eliminate these barriers, both the teacher and the family need to exercise strong communication skills. It is more helpful to ensure that both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication are exercised appropriately so as to eliminate the barriers. The barriers are responsible for miscommunication. Specifically, the teacher should ensure that they avoid quick fixes to certain problems, avoid minimizing feelings by using false reassurances, and ask the most appropriate questions. When barriers emerge, problem solving strategies are used to retaliate. Such strategies include avoiding emotional responses and relying on a step to step procedure. This process incorporates identification of the problem, generation of potential solutions, evaluation of those solutions, implementation of the selected solution, and evaluation of the so lution. These steps also ensure that a conflict is resolved in a constructive manner. There are several myths thought to reduce miscommunication that include more communication being better, communication being a natural ability, and open communication being effective in solving problems. We also

Slave Culture Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Slave Culture - Assignment Example h of slavery, as Couvares and Saxton state, â€Å"had plunged him deeply into social history, that is, into the realm of group experience and collective fate that seemed very far away from the world of intellectuals and political leaders that had once so occupied him† (16). Morgan found no conflict between the ideas of liberal democracy as espoused by America’s founding fathers and the country’s dependence upon slavery. Instead, he believed that slavery minimized class conflict, thus making the experiment of social democracy easier to accomplish in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Unlike other historians of his era, Morgan believed that racism had little to do with the origins of slavery. Rather, he felt that its existence had more to do with â€Å"elite English attitudes towards manual labor, a short supply of indentured servants, and an elite fear of their unruliness† (111). In other words, slavery was used by the English colonists of the U.S. to control the lower classes. For Morgan, slavery was more of a class issue than a race issue. Black slavery developed out of a response to a serious labor shortage in the colonies, not due to violent feelings towards Africans. Morgan pointed to the English treatment of Native Americans earlier and stated that they were not enslaved as Africans were because their attempts to exploit Native Americans failed. Consensus about other beliefs, Morgan held, had more to do with the origins and development of slavery in

Journal Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Journal - Term Paper Example One of the first insights Thoreau makes when he states, â€Å"a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone† (Thoreau, pg. 335). This statement is somewhat complex and difficult to discern. While Thoreau is referring to his interactions on the Pond, it’s clear the statement can be extended to the larger context of existence. For me the statement is referring to a sort of wealth that isn’t necessarily linked to money, but is more rooted in wisdom or knowledge. In these regards, Thoreau means that the individual that can go without certain elements in life, has already experienced or gained spiritual insight into their nature and as such can go without them. Another insight I found highly enlightening was Thoreau’s insights into the nature of daily existence and art. In these regards, he states, â€Å"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the day, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep...to affect peoples' quality of life, that is the highest of arts† (Thoreau, pg. 338). This section of the essay is very loaded and complex. In one sense, Thoreau seems to be indicating that the Socratic belief that the unexamined life is not worth living is accurate. He is stating that the individual should wake up every morning with the desire to discover some new truth or an ‘infinite expectation of the day’. Rather than leaving the reader at this stage, however, Thoreau extends this to include the nature of art. He indicates that the greatest type of art should affect individuals’ quality of life. In these regards, Thoreau has gone beyond simply Socratic insights, into stating that the individual should also contribute their intellect to the betterment of society. For me, this underlines the passage and a great deal of Thoreau’s mission. "Reading" 351-362; "Sounds" excerpt 363-364 In the section tit led ‘Reading’ Thoreau considers the nature of reading as it relates to self-edification and culture. In his discussion Thoreau considers a number of works, all of which are considered ‘classics’ in the traditional sense. He has a great support for these works and argues that the information contained therein represent the pinnacles of human thought distilled and articulated into literature that has lasted the test of time. In his support of classic literature, Thoreau laments the unwillingness of others to embrace these texts. He states, â€Å"A man, any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered, and whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us of;- and yet we learn to read only as far as Easy Reading, the primers and class-books† (Thoreau, pg. 357). While underlining Thoreau’s support of classic literature, this quote also indi cates a sort of general displeasure Thoreau has with the general social order. It should be no surprise that an individual who chose to live life for a period in seclusion on a farm should have some general disagreements with the nature of society. As the text progresses, it’s clear that Thoreau’s vision is in large part critical of traditional social assumptions

Further Principles of Trusts Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Further Principles of Trusts Project - Essay Example The management of the amount has been left entirely to the discretion of the trustees, who by default, now have the power to invest the funds for the benefit of the entire trust of the deceased. Hence at the outset, the immediate dispersal of funds to the nephews and nieces is not a mandatory requirement on the part of the trustees, who have the power to invest it as they see fit. IT must be clarified straight away, that the trust fund for the nephews and nieces does not entitle them to immediately be entitled to all of the proceeds, hence dispersal of the total amount of 500,000 pounds is out of the question. It must also be noted that among the nephews and nieces of Alan Benson, the deceased, only two are above the age of 18. The Trustees now have the power to invest trust funds by default and they have the option to invest the entire capital of 500,000 pounds for the benefit of all the beneficiaries, i.e, the four children, until all of them reach the age of eighteen. Since the Trustees will be expected to invest the funds or manage them to the best of their ability for the benefit of those named as beneficiaries of the trust, there is a pre-existing factor working against the breaking up of the total trust amount into its four constituent parts of 125,000 pounds, which each child will be entitled to. By immediately disbursing the funds of the trust as requested in Tahir Hussain’s letter, the trustees run the risk of being accused of mismanaging the funds, especially if the proposed ventures, i.e, expansion of existing business and vacations trips, etc are not successful and res ult in a loss of monies, thereby contravening the goal of allocation of these funds for the benefit of those children. It is significant to note that no restriction has been imposed in the will on the trustees’ power of investment of the funds, which suggests that the original intent of the deceased may have been to ensure that the allocation of 500,000

American History Essay Example for Free

American History Essay â€Å"The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil† was a wise phase once uttered by Hannah Arendt. I love this quote because is perfectly describes the two boys from â€Å"American History X,† Danny and Derek. These two boys have seen and done it all when it comes to hate groups, as both were members of a neo-nazi hate group. Neo- Nazi hate groups use authoritarian, scapegoat, normative, and exploitation theories to justify their hate, discrimination, and torture of anyone who isnt a part of the â€Å"supreme race,† or white. Boy Danny and Derek end up in this life from an early age. Parents are one of the biggest, if not the biggest influence on a childs life. When Danny and Derek were both relatively young they looked up to their father, thought of him as the â€Å"ideal† man. However their father was a racist, influencing almost every thought the boys had. At family dinner when talking about about a black school teacher their father said, â€Å"Its nigger bullshit,† and warned Derek not to buy into the equality teachings. Because Danny and Derek both looked up to their dad so much, this would be and example of the exploitation theory. Exploitation theory is when one societal group, in this case whites, use hostility to keep their position and power intact. This really come into play after Danny and Dereks father was murdered and Derek believes it was a race related killing. Right after their father died, Derek joined a neo-nazi hate group known as the DOC(Disciples of Christ). Being extreme believers in the white supremacy movement, the DOC acted out with violence and extreme hatred toward any other race, especially blacks. Derek, being a high ranking member, murdered 2 black men for the cause. He served three years for the murders, which impacted his whole family tremendously. At the beginning of Dereks sentence he did not want any visitors, claiming it would be to hard to see his family. He made friends with other neo-nazi members in prison, but soon started realizing that they were not serious about the cause like he was. He also started becoming friends with his black work partner who said, â€Å"I aint the nigger in here, you are† Derek started realizing that white supremacy what basically just a scapegoat. Meaning that the followers of the movement were just trying to find someone to blame for their problems, which in this case happened to be  the blacks. After befriending his black work mate he realized that blacks are human too. Once he could recognize blacks as human he finally felt guilt for killing to people, not niggers, people. Derek was determined to help his brother and family by getting them out of the gangs and hate. One of the biggest influences on Derek while in jail was his principal from high school. He was a black man with experience in dealing with â€Å"troubled youth.† He gave Derek the push he needed by saying, â€Å"Has anything youve done made your life better?†. Later Derek told Danny, â€Å"Its just because I was pissed off†. I think this was Dereks way of responding to his principal, he really didnt believe in the cause it was more of just an outlet for his anger that his father would have approved of. While Derek is locked up.

Customer Satisfaction And Loyalty In Mobile Phone Industry Marketing Essay

Customer Satisfaction And Loyalty In Mobile Phone Industry Marketing Essay A customer is the person who brings us his wants. He is not an interruption of our work, but the purpose of it. We are not doing a favor by serving him; he is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so (Sara Gustafson, Erica Lundgren 2005). Customer satisfaction is the degree to which customer expectations of a product or service are met or exceeded (BNET Business Directory). The term customer loyalty is used to describe the behavior of repeat customers, as well as those that offer good ratings, reviews, or testimonials (WiseGeek). Consumer satisfaction and loyalty plays an important role in the success of any business. Therefore these are considered as priority task for many businesses (Kotler et al, 2002), as satisfied and loyal customers bring in profitability and competitive advantage to an organization (Bowen and Chen, 2001). As Gould (1995) proposes that no company can survive in business without satisfied and loyal customers. This is the reason, that organizations put efforts to develop and provide offerings to satisfy their customers and maintain their loyalty. Loyal and satisfied customers not only increase the value of the business, but also enable it to maintain the costs lower than those associated with attracting new customers (Beerli et al, 2004). 3. Industry Background The mobile phone service industry provides network services for communication of voice or data signals through wireless mode. There are more than 74 million mobile phone subscribers in U.K. in which 85% of the adults have a handset. UK represents the most competitive market in Europe and there is a huge war among the service providers to differentiate themselves from their competitors (Mintel 2008). Subscription levels are expected to continue to grow, however, it should be noted that while there were 73.5 million subscriptions in UK in 2007, it has been cited that nine million subscriptions are for SIM cards that are inactive and a further 7.7 million that are barely active. Mobile phone subscriptions are forecast to increase in 2008 to 76 million subscriptions. Currently the UK represents approximately 9% of the European market and by 2010 it is forecast to have 78 million subscriptions. (Mintel 2008) There are five mobile phone networks currently operating in the UK : O2, T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone and most recently 3. Vodafone and O2 (formerly BT Cellnet) are the largest and oldest. These two networks were joined by T-Mobile (formerly One 2 One) swiftly followed by Orange. All of these companies now operate digital networks. In addition, there are many virtual networks operating on these major networks, packaged under a different name. e.g. Virgin, OneTel, Lycatalk etc. All the above mentioned facts shows that there is a huge market for Mobile service providers in U.K. Mobile phone is everyones need and there is a large customer base who uses the services of more than one network provider. 4. Justification for the choice of research Over the last decade organizations of all types and sizes have increasingly come to understand the importance of customer satisfaction. It is a renowned fact that it is far less costly to keep existing customers than to make new ones. It is becoming accepted that there is a strong link between customer retention, customer satisfaction and profitability. In a large area of public sector customer satisfaction itself is the measure of success (Nigel Hill, 2002). Mobile phone network industry is a giant industry in U.K. I chose this research topic because I personally observed there is a huge competition in this industry, and the industry is prone to face problems of customer decay. The average business loses between 10 and 30 percent of its customers each year; but they often dont know which customer they have lost, when they were lost, why they were lost or how much sales revenue and profit this customer decay has cost them (Nigel Hill and Jam Alaxender, 2002, p 3). A loyal customer fe els committed towards the organization and results in profit and growth to the organization. In this highly competitive era, every company tries to offer uniqueness and best value for money, an educated and smart customer has some determinants to choose which organization to stay committed with and which company to switch over. 5. Research objectives 5.1 To find out the right service gap Service gap is the difference between the present quality of service and ideal quality of service. It is very important for an organization to know the right service gap so as to focus on narrowing down that service gap and offer better services to the customer. Nigel Hill and Jim Alaxender have specified five types of service gaps (Nigel Hill and Jim Alaxender, 2002, p 5.): Promotional Gap -When what is said about the service differs from the standards actually delivered. Understanding Gap when managers perceptions of customers expectations are inaccurate Procedural Gap when customers expectations are not translated into appropriate operating procedures / system. Behavioural Gap When the service delivered is different from the specifications of the service. Perception Gap When the level of service perceived by customers differs from the service actually provided. 5.2 To find out the degree of customer loyalty There are different levels of customer loyalty referred as a ladder of pyramid in literature. These levels of loyalty vary from the customer perspective. These are defined as follows (Nigel Hill and Jim Alaxender, 2002, p 16.): Suspects When suspects are unaware of the product or have no inclination to purchase it. Prospects When customers have some attraction towards the organization, but they have not yet taken the step of doing business yet. Customers usually one-off purchaser or may be sometimes repeat buyers, but no real feelings towards organization. Clients Repeat customers having positive feeling towards organization, but their support is passive rather than active. Advocates Actively supporting clients who recommend organization to others. Partners Strongest form of loyalty, where both parties see mutual benefit in partnership. Predicting the right level of customer loyalty towards an organization helps in strategically planning the measures to enhance customer trust and shifting from bottom to top level of the loyalty pyramid. There is usually a homogenous segment of customers lying at each level. Identifying that segment and planning accordingly will help in increasing customer retention. 5.4 To analyse the factors that affects customer satisfaction and loyalty. A questionnaire will be designed with an aim to find out first two objectives and carrying out customer expectations from their mobile service provider. In-depth analysis of the data obtained will bring out the factors that affect customer satisfaction and loyalty. The organization can thus underpin those factors in their customer relationship process and try to retain customer commitment. A committed customer stay longer, buy more often, buy more range, spend more, recommend more, consider competitors less and feel committed. (Nigel Hill, Jim Alaxender, 2002) 6. Research Methods The research is clearly classified as exploratory study. This kind of study is a valuable mean of clarifying the understanding of a problem (Saunders et al. 2003, p.96). The above research objectives will be achieved using qualitative primary data in the form of unstructured questionnaire. The primary data will be collected from the below mentioned sample size in the form of unstructured questionnaires. The research strategy that will be carried out will be Survey in the form of unstructured questionnaire. The research will be exploratory study as the precise nature of the problem is not sure (Saunders et al. 2007, p.138). 7. Data collection and analysis Both primary as well as secondary data will be used for this research. Secondary data will be obtained from various sources to obtain theoretical background for carrying out the research. The secondary data collection source would be :- Research Methods for Business Students Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill, 2003. Handbook of customer satisfaction and loyalty measurement Nigel Hilla and Jim Alexander, 2002. Online library resources e.g. Mintel, Emerald etc. After getting the theoretical background for carrying out the research, Primary data would be collected from the sample size in the form of unstructured questionnaires. Unstructured questionnaire would be preferred as compared to other survey methods as it will be less complicated and deems fit for carrying our research like this. . 8. Time scale and resources I have sufficient resources to carry out this research. I have divided my research plan into activities with clear completion time frames and my tendency would be complete the research within the designed time frame. Month Day Activities March 1-15 Further reading on key theories and concepts involved in research and drawing relevant information for the literature review. Mid March to April 20-30 Commencement and finishing of critical literature review drafts May to June 5-30 Collection and compilation of research data July to mid August 1 17 Analyzing the data and writing the first research draft. Mid August to Mid September 17 30 Compiling the final research and carrying out conclusions and recommendations. References Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrain Thornhill (2003) Research methods for business students 3rd Edition. FT Prentice Hall Financial Times Pearson Education U.K) Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrain Thornhill (2007) Research methods for business students 4th Edition. FT Prentice Hall Financial Times Pearson Education U.K) Nigel Hill and Jim Alexander (2002) Handbook of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Measurement. 2nd Ed. USA : Gower Publishing Company. Mintel (November 2008) UK Mobile Services and Network Providers.