Strategic Management Essay Example for Free

Strategic Management Essay Unilever is one of the world’s oldest multinational companies. Its origin goes back to the 19th century when a group of companies operating independently, produced soaps and margarine. In 1930, the companies merged to form Unilever that diversified into food products in 1940s. Through the next five decades, it emerged as a major fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) multinational operating in several businesses. In 2004, the Unilever 2010 strategic plan was put into action with the mission to ‘bring vitality to life’ and ‘to meet everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good, and get more out of life’. The corporate strategy is of focusing on bore businesses of food, home care and personal care. Unilever operates in more than 100 countries, has a turnover of â‚ ¬ 39.6 billion and net profit of â‚ ¬ 3.685 billion in 2006 and derives 41 per cent of its income from the developing and emerging economies around the world. It has 179,000 employees and is a culturally-diverse organisation with its top management coming from 24 nations. Internationalisation is based on the principle of local roots with global scale aimed at becoming a ‘multi-local multinational’. The genesis of Hindustan Unilever (HUL) in India, goes back to 1888 when Unilever exported Sunlight soap to India. Three Indian, subsidiaries came into existence in the period 1931-1935 that merged to form Hindustan Lever in 1956. Mergers and acquisitions of Lipton (1972), Brooke Bond (1984), Ponds (1986), TOMCO (1993), Lakme (1998) and Modern Foods (2002) have resulted in an organisation that is a conglomerate of several businesses that have been continually restructured over the years. HUL is one of the largest FMCG company in India with total sales of Rs. 12,295 crore and net profit of 1855crore in 2006. There are over 15000 employees, including more than 1300 managers. The present corporate strategy of HUL is to focus on core businesses. These core businesses are in home and personal care and food. There are 20 different consumer categories in these two businesses. For instance, home and personal care is made up of personal wash, laundry, skin care, hair care, oral care, deodorants, colour cosmetics and ayurvedic personal and health care, while food businesses have tea, coffee, ice creams and processed food brands. Apart from the two product divisions, there are  separate departments for specialty exports and new ventures. Strategic management at HUL is the responsibility of the board of directors headed by a chairman. There are five independent and five whole-time directors. The operational management is looked after by a management committee comprising of Vice Chairman, CEO and managing director and executive directors of the two business divisions and functional areas. The divisions have a lot of autonomy with dedicated assets and resources. A divisional committee having the executive director and heads of functions of sales, commercial and manufacturing looks after the business level decision-making. The functional-level management is the responsibility of the functional head. For instance, a marketing manager has a team of brand managers looking after the individual brands. Besides the decentralised divisional structure, HUL has centralised some functions such as finance, human resource management, research, technology, information technology and corporate and legal affairs. Unilever globally and HUL nationally, operate in the highly competitive FMCG markets. The consumer markets for FMCG products are finicky: it’s difficult to create customers and much more difficult to retain them. Price is often the central concern in a consumer purchase decision requiring producers to be on continual guard against cost increases. Sales and distribution are critical functions organisationally. HUL operates in such a milieu. I t has strong competitors such as the multinationals Procter Gamble, Nivea or L’Oreal and formidable local companies such as, Amul, Nirma or the Tata FMCG companies to contend with. Rivals have copied HUL’s strategies and tactics, especially in the area of marketing and distribution. Its innovations such as new style packaging or distribution through women entrepreneurs are much valued but also copied relentlessly, hurting its competitive advantage. HUL is identified closely with India. There is a ring of truth to its vision statement: ‘to earn the love and respect of India by making a real difference to every Indian’. It has an impeccable record in corporate social responsibility. There is an element of nostalgia associated with brands like Lifebuoy (introduced in 1895) and Dalda (1937) for senior citizens in India. Consequently Indians have always perceived HUL as an Indian company rather than a multinational. HUL has attempted to align its strategies in the past to the special needs of Indian business environment. Be it marketing or  human resource management, HUL has experimented with new ideas suited to the local context. For instance, HUL is known for its capabilities in rural marketing, effective distribution systems and human resource development. But this focus on India seems to be changing. This might indicate a change in the strategic posture as well as recognition that Indian markets have matured to the extent that they can be dealt with by the global strategies of Unilever. At the corporate level, it could also be an attempt to leverage global scale while retaining local responsiveness to some extent. In line with the shift in corporate strategy, the focus of strategic decision-making seems to have moved from the subsidiary to the headquarters. Unilever has formulated a new global realignment under which it will develop brands and streamline product offerings across the world and the subsidiaries will sell the products. Other subtle indications of the shift of decision-making authority could be the appointment of a British CEO after nearly forty years during which there were Indian CEOs, the c hanged focus on a limited number of international brands rather than a large range of local brands developed over the years and the name-change from Hindustan Lever to Hindustan Unilever. The shift in the strategic decision-making power from the subsidiary to headquarters could however, prove to be double-edged sword. An example could be of HUL adopting Unilever’s global strategy of focussing on a limited number of products, called the 30 power brands in 2002. That seemed a perfectly sensible strategic decision aimed at focusing managerial attention to a limited set of high-potential products. But one consequence of that was the HUL’s strong position in the niche soap and detergent markets suffering owing to neglect and the competitors were quick to take advantage of the opportunity. Then there are the statistics to deal with: HUL has nearly 80 per cent of sales and 85 per cent of net profits from the home and personal care businesses. Globally, Unilever derives half its revenues from food business. HUL does not have a strong position in the food business in India though the food processing industry remains quite attractive both in terms of local consumption as well as export markets. HUL’s own strategy of offering low-price, competitive products may also suffer at the cost of Unilever’s emphasis on premium priced, high end products sold through modern outlets. There are some dark clouds on the horizon. HUL’s latest financials are not satisfactory. Net profit is down,  sales are sluggish, input costs have been rising and new food products introduced in the market have yet to pick up. All this while, in one market segment after another, a competitor pushes ahead. In a company of such a big size and over-powering presence, these might still be minor events developments in a long history that needs to be taken in stride. But, pessimistically, they could also be pointers to what may come. Questions: 1. State the strategy of Hindustan Unilever in your own words. 2. At what different levels is strategy formulated in HUL? 3. Comment on the strategic decision-making at HUL. 4. Give your opinion on whether the shift in strategic decision-making from India to Unilever’s headquarters could prove to be advantageous to HUL or not. CASE: 2 THE STRATEGIC ASPIRATIONS OF THE RESERVE BANK OF INDIA The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is India’s central bank or ‘the bank of the bankers’. It was established on April 1, 1935 in accordance with the provisions of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1935. The Central Office of the RBI, initially set up at Kolkata, is at Mumbai. The RBI is fully owned by the Government of India. The history of RBI is closely aligned with the economic and financial history of India. Most central banks around the world were established around the beginning of the twentieth century. The Bank was established on the basis of the Hilton Young Commission. It began its operations by taking over from the Government the functions so far being performed by the Controller of Currency and from the Imperial Bank of India, the management of Government accounts and public debt. After independence, RBI gradually strengthened its institution-building capabilities and evolved in terms of functions from central banking to that of development. There have been s everal attempts at reorganisation, restructuring and creation of specialised institutions to cater to emerging needs. The Preamble of the RBI describes its basic functions like this: ‘†¦.to regulate the issue of Bank Notes and keeping of reserves with a view to securing monetary  stability in India and generally to operate the currency and credit system of the country to its advantage.’ The vision states that the RBI ‘†¦.aims to be a leading central bank with credible, transparent, proactive and contemporaneous policies and seeks to be a catalyst for the emergence of a globally competitive financial system that helps deliver a high quality of life to the people in the country.’ The mission states that ‘RBI seeks to develop a sound and efficient financial system with monetary stability conductive to balanced and sustained growth of the Indian economy’. The corporate values of underlining the mission statement include public interest, integrity, excellence, independence of views and responsiveness and dynamism. The three areas in which objectives of the RBI can be stated are as below. 1. Monetary policy objectives such as containing inflation and promoting economic growth, management of foreign exchange reserves and making currency available. 2. Objectives set for managing financial sector developments such as supervision of systems and information access and assisting banking and financial institutions to become competitive globally. 3. Organisational development objectives such as development of economic research facilities, creating information system for supporting economic decision-making, financial management and human resource management. Strategic actions taken to realise the objectives fall under four categories: 1. The thrust area of monetary policy formulation and managing financial sector; 2. Evolving the legal framework to support the thrust area; 3. Customer service for providing support and creation of positive relationship; and 4. Organisational support such as structure, systems, human resource development and adoption of modern technology. The major functions performed by the RBI are: †¢ Acting as the monetary authority †¢ Acting as the regulator and supervisor of the financial system †¢ Discharging responsibilities as the manager of foreign exchange †¢ Issue currency †¢ Play as developmental role †¢ Related functions such as acting as the banker to the government and scheduled banks The management of the RBI is the responsibility of the central board of directors headed by the governor and consisting of  deputy governors and other directors, all of whom are appointed by the government. There are four local boards based at Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi. The day-to-day management of RBI is in the hands of the executive directors, managers at various levels and the support staff. There are about 22000 employees at RBI, working in 25 departments and training colleges. The RBI identified its strengths and weaknesses as under. †¢ Strengths A large body of competent officers and staff; access to key data on the economy; wide organisational network with 22 regional offices; established infrastructure; ability to attract talent; and financial self sufficiency. †¢ Weaknesses Structural rigidity, lack of accountability and slow decision-making; eroded specialist know-how; strong employee unions with rigid industrial relations stance; surplus staff; and weak market intelligence. Over the years, the RBI has evolved in terms of structure and functions, in response to the role assigned to it. There have been sweeping changes in the economic, social and political environment. The RBI has had to respond to it even in the absence of a systematic strategic plan. In 1992, the RBI, with the assistance of a private consultancy firm, embarked on a massive strategic planning exercise. The objective was to establish a roadmap to redefine RBI’s role and to review internal organisational and managerial efficacy, address the changing expectations from external stakeholders and reposition the bank in the global context. The strategic planning exercise was buttressed by departmental position papers and documents on various subjects such as technology, human resources and environmental trends. The strategic plan of the RBI emerged with four sections dealing with the statement of mission, objectives and policy, a review of RBI’s strengths and weaknesses and strategic actions required with an implementation plan. The strategic plan reiterates anticipation of evolving external environment in the medium-term; revisiting strengths and weaknesses (evaluation of capabilities); and doing away with the outdated mandates for enhancing efficiency in operations in furtherance of best public interests. The results of these efforts are likely to manifest in attaining a visible focus, reinforced proficiency, realisation of shared sense of purpose, optimising resource use and build-up of momentum to achieve goals. Historically, the RBI adopted the time-tested technique of responding to external environment in a pragmatic  manner and making piecemeal changes. The dilemma in adoption of a comprehensive strategic plan was the risk of trading off the flexibility of the pragmatic approach to creating rigidity imposed by a set model of planning. Questions: 1. Consider the vision and mission statements of the Reserve Bank of India. Comment on the quality of both these statements. 2. Should the RBI go for a systematic and comprehensive strategic plan in place of its earlier pragmatic approach of responding to environmental events as and when they occur? Why? CASE: 3 THE INTERNATIONALISATION OF KALYANI GROUP The Kalyani Group is a large family-business group of India, employing more than 10000 employees. It has diverse businesses in engineering, steel, forgings, auto components, non-conventional energy and specialty chemicals. The annual turnover of the Group is over US$2.1 billion. The Group is known for its impressive internationalisation achievements. It has nine manufacturing locations spread over six countries. Over the years, it has established joint ventures with many global companies such as ArvinMeritor, USA, Carpenter Technology Corporation, USA, Hayes Lemmerz, USA and FAW Corporation, China. The flagship company of the Group is Bharat Forge Limited that is claimed to be the second largest forging company in the world and the largest nationally, with about 80 per cent share in axle and engine components. The other major companies of the Group are Kalyani Steels, Kalyani Carpenter Special Steels, Kalyani Lemmerz, Automotive Axles, Kalyani Thermal Systems, BF Utilities, Hikal Lim ited, Epicenter and Synise Technologies The emphasis on internationalisation is reflected in the vision statement of the Group where two of the five points relate to the Group trying to be a world-class organisation and achieving growth aggressively by accessing global markets. The Group is led by Mr. B.N. Kalyani, who is considered to be the major force behind the Group’s aggressive internationalisation drive. Mr. Kalyani joined the Group in 1972  when it was a small-scale diesel engine component business. The corporate strategy of the Group is a combination of concentration of its core competence in its business with efforts at building, nurturing and sustaining mutually beneficial partnerships with alliance partners and customers. The value of these partnerships essentially lies in collaborative product development with the partners who are the original equipment manufacturers. The foreign partners are not intended to provide expansion in capacity, but to enable the Kalyani Group to extend its global marketing reach. In achieving its successful status, the Kalyani Group has followed the path of integration, extending from the upstream steel making to downstream machining for auto components such as crank-shafts, front axle beams, steering knuckles, cam-shafts, connecting rods and rocker arms. In all these products, the Group has tried to move up the value chain instead of providing just the raw forgings. In the 1990s, it undertook a restructuring exercise to trim its unrelated businesses such as television and video products and concentrate on its core business of auto components. Four factors are supposed to have influenced the growth of the Group over the years. These are mentioned below: †¢ Focussing on core businesses to maximise growth potential †¢ Attaining aggressive cost savings †¢ Expanding geographically to build global capacity and establishing leading positions †¢ Achieving external growth through acquisitions The Group companies are claimed to be positioned at either number one or two in their respective businesses. For instance, the Group claims to be number one in forging and machined components, axle aggregates, wheels and alloy steel. The technology used by the Group in its mainline business of auto components and other businesses, is claimed to be state-of-the-art. The Group invests in forging technology to enhance efficiency, production quality and design capabilities. The Group’s emphasis on technology can be gauged from the fact that in the 1990s, it took the risky decision of investing Rs. 100 crore in the then latest forging technology, when the total Group turnover was barely Rs. 230 crore. Information technology is applied for product development, reducing production and product development time, supply-chain management and marketing of products. The Group lays high emphasis on research and development for providing engineering support,  advanced metallurgical analysis and latest testing equipment in tandem with its high-class manufacturing facilities. Being a top-driven group, the pattern of strategic decision-making within seems to be entrepreneurial. There was an attempt to formulate a five-year strategic plan in 1997, with the participation of the company executives. But no much is mentioned in the business press about that collaborative strategic decision-making after that. Recent strategic moves include Kalyani Steels, a Group company, entering into a joint venture agreement in may 2007, with Gerdau S.A. Brazil for installation of rolling mills. An attempt to move out of the mainstream forging business was made when the Group strengthened its position in the prospective business of wind energy through 100 per cent acquisition of RSBconsult GmbH (RSB) of Germany. Prior to the acquisition, the Group was just a wind farm operator and supplier of components. Questions: 1. What is the motive for internationalisation by the Kalyani Group? Discuss. 2. Which type of international strategy is Kalyani Group adopting? Explain. CASE 4: THE STORY OF SYNERGOS UNFOLDS Synergos is a young management and strategy consulting firm based at Mumbai. It was established in 1992 at a time when there were a lot of expectations among the industry people from the liberalisation policies that were started the previous year by the Government of India. The consulting firm is an entrepreneurial venture started by Urmish Patel, a dynamic person who worked with a multinational consulting firm at the time. He left his comfortable position there to venture into the management consultancy industry. The motivation was to be ‘the master of his own destiny’ rather than being an employee working for others. Urmish comes from an upper middle-class Gujarati family, settled in a small town in Rajasthan. His father was a government servant who retired with a meagre pension. His mother is a housewife. His other siblings are all educated and well-settled in their  respective careers and professions. Urmish is a creative individual, uncomfortable with the status-quo. During his student days at a college at Jaipur, he was continually coming up with bright ideas that some of his friends found to be preposterous. To him, however, these were perfectly achievable ideas. He studied biotechnology and then went to the US on a scholarship to do his Masters. After a semester at a well-known university there, he lost interest and switched to pursue an MBA. He liked it and soon settled down to work with an American consultancy firm and toured several countries on varied assignments during the seven years he worked there. In 1992 came the urge to Urmish to chuck his job and be on his own. It was risky, yet an exciting step to take. His accumulated capital was limited—just enough to rent office space, buy a few computers and hire an assistant. There were no consultancy assignments for the first three months. But an acquaintance soon came to his aid, introducing him to the CFO of a major family business group who needed advice on a performance improvement project they wanted to launch. The opportunity came in handy though the returns were nothing to write home about. That project was the first step to many more that came gradually. Synergos started gaining presence in the competitive management consultancy industry and attracting attention from the people whom they worked for. Word-of-mouth publicity led them from one project to another for the first three years till 1995. Synergos took up whatever came its way, delivering a cost-effective solution to its clients. A team of four had formed by now, each member of the team specialising in services rendered to the clients. For instance, one of the members is a specialist in engineering projects, while another has expertise finance. The third one is a service sector specialist, also having experience in dealing with government matters. The phase of rapid growth started some time in 1995 when the Synergos team decided to focus on the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These were firms that realised they had problems needing specialist advice, but were apprehensive to approach the big firms on account of their limited outlay and inexperience of dealing with such firms. Synergos came to their aid by tailoring their services as near as possible to their needs. Another differentiation platform Synergos offered to its client was a fully-integrated consultancy service where it got involved right from the stage of planning down to its implementation and monitoring.   Presently, Synergos has grown to be a medium-sized consultancy firm, serving clients in India and abroad, working for industries ranging from auto components to financial services and for manufacturing organisations to service providers. Some-how, nearly half of the assignments it has worked on have been for mid-sized, upcoming, family-owned businesses, a niche it has served well. These organisations typically need a boutique sort of consultancy that can offer customised services dealing with a broad range of practices related to strategy, organisation design, mergers and acquisitions and operational matter such as logistics and supply-chain management. Synergos fits in with their requirements owing to its personalised service and reasonable commission structure. The organisational structure at Synergos has a board at the top, consisting of seven people, including the four founding members and three independent directors. One of the independent directors is the chairman of the board. Urmish, as the founder CEO, also heads an executive management committee with each of the founding members, leading three other top-level committees dealing with business portfolio, service management and executive recruitment. The management team is called the professional group. The rest of the employees are referred to as the staff. The professional group has young women and men who are graduates from some of the best institutions in India and abroad. They are assigned to taskforces based on their qualifications, experience and interests. The departmentation at Synergos is flexible, based on an interplay of the three categories: skill, service and specialty. For instance, a professional may have IT skills, may have worked to provide supply-chain management ser vices and developed expertise in handling operational assignments for medium-sized food and beverage firms. There is a lot of multi-tasking however, to utilise the wide range of skills and special expertise that the professionals have. For administrative matters, the professionals are assigned to client-service departments of industry solutions, enterprise solutions and technology solutions. The flexibility that such an organisational arrangement affords seems to have been the major reason for the evolution of the organisation structure at Synergos over the years. The staff group of employees consists of the support people who provide a variety of services to the professionals. Among  these are research assistants, industry analysts, documentation experts and secretarial staff. There is no set pattern for assignment of staff to the administrative departments and generally, a need-based approach is followed, depending on the workload at a particular time. Recruitment for professionals is stringent. Synergos typically looks for a good combination of education and experience and lays much emphasis on the compatibility of the prospective employee with the shared values. Creativity, broad range of professional interes ts, intellectual acumen, team-working and physical fitness to undertake demanding tasks and work for long hours are the criteria for hiring. There are not many training opportunities except the on-the-job learning. New professionals are assigned to a mentor for some time till they are ready to handle assignments autonomously. The staff members are usually recruited from fresh graduates, with good degrees from reputed institutions, in arts, sciences and commerce. The staff positions are also open for persons wanting to work on part-time or project-bases. Emphasis is given to the ability of the prospective staff to undertake multi-tasking and work with documentation and word processing and presentation software packages. The compensation system consists of a base salary with commission and bonus depending on performance. There are other usual elements such as medical reimbursement, loan facility and gratuity and retirement benefits. the performance appraisal is informal, with at least one of the four founding members being part of the evaluation committee for a professional. Usually, the founding member closest to the work area of the employee is involved in determining the rewards to be given. The time-cycle for appraisal is one year. Management control is discreet and performance-based rather than behaviour-based. The means for control are informal, such as direct supervision. Urmish is a strong proponent of the emergent strategy and is not in favour of tying Synergos to a fixed strategic posture. So are the other founder members, though at times they do talk about deciding on a niche such as SME organisations as clients and enterprise solutions as the core competence. In the highly fragmented consultancy industry where it is possible for even one person to set up an office in a commercial area and leverage connections to secure projects, Synergos is open to opportunities as they emerge, while trying to maintain the flexibility that has made it successful till now. Questions: 1. Identify the type of organisation structure being used at Synergos and explain how it works. What are the benefits of using this type of structure? What are the pitfalls? 2. Express your opinion about whether the structure is in line with the recruitments of the strategy that Synergos is implementing. 3. Based on the information related to the information, control and reward systems available in the case, examine whether these systems are appropriate for the type of strategy being implemented. CASE: 5 EXERCISING STRATEGIC AND OPERATIONAL CONTROLS AT iGATE GLOBAL SOLUTIONS The Bangalore-based iGATE Global Solutions is the flagship company of iGATE Corporation, a NASDAQ-listed US-based corporation. Known earlier as Mascot Systems, it was set up in India in 1993, to offer staffing services. It acquired business process outsourcing (BPO) and contact centre businesses in 2003, making it an end-to-end IT and ITES service provider. Its service portfolio includes consulting, IT services, data analytics, enterprise systems, BPO/BSP, contact centre and infrastructure management services. iGATE has over 100 active clients and centres based in Canada, China, Malaysia, India, the UK and the US. Chairman, Ashok Trivedi and CEO Phaneesh Murthy, an ex-Infosys IT professional and their partners hold a major stake, with some participation by institutional and public investors. The revenues for 2006-2007 are over Rs. 805 crore and net profits, Rs. 49.6 crore. The corporate strategies of iGATE are offering integrated IT services and divesting the legacy IT staffing busin ess and possibly making acquisitions in the domain expertise for financial services businesses. The business strategy is focused differentiation based on the focal points of testing, infrastructure management and enterprise solutions. The competitive tactic is avoiding head-on competition with the formidable larger players in the  industry by carving out a niche. The business definition is serving large customers and staying away from sub-contracting work. iGATE adopts a differentiation business model based on an integrated technology and operations model which it calls as the iTOPS model. This is an advancement over the prevalent model in the ITES industry based on low-cost arbitrage model. iTOPS is based on transaction-based pricing for services and supporting the clients by providing the platform, processes and services. The strategic evaluation and control has both the elements of strategic as well as operational controls. The functional and operational implementation is aimed at achieving four sets of objectives: a) Shifting from small customers to large customer (Fortune 1000 companies) b) Shifting away from stocking to project-consulting assignments c) Working directly with clients rather than with system integrators d) Moving from a local to international markets Some illustrations of the performance indicators that reflect these objectives are: 1. On-shore versus off-shore mix of business revenues: In 2004, this ratio was 55:45 and in 2007, it has improved to 27:73, indicating a much higher revenue generation from off-shore business. 2. Billing rates: Revenue charged from clients on assignments. With project consulting assignments from off-shore clients, where the revenues are typically higher, with lower costs and higher productivity in India, the realisations from billing have to be higher. The industry norms for ITES are US$18-25 per hour for off-shore and US$ 55-65 per hour for on-shore assignments. 3. The number of large clients from Fortune 1000 companies: Presently, iGATE has nearly half of its more than 100 clients from Fortune 1000 companies, of which the top 10 account for 70 per cent of its business. 4. Controlling employee costs: This is an area where concerted effort is required from the HR and finance functions. Hiring less experienced employees lowers the compensation bill. In the IT and ITES industry, attracting and retaining well-qualified and experienced employees is a critical success factor. The performance indicator for this objective is the cost per employee. 5. Human resource metrics such as the hiring and attrition rates: In the IT and ITES industry, the human resource metrics such as hiring and attrition rates are critical indicators.  Increasing the number of employees and lowering the attrition rate by retaining the employees is a big challenge. There are presently about 5800 employees, likely to go up to 8500 in the next two years. The attrition of 20 per cent presently at iGATE is on the higher side. But such attrition is common in the industry where the employee mobility is high and employee pinching a widespread trend. The human resource management function being critical in an industry where so many challenges exist, needs a strong emphasis on training and development, motivation, autonomy and attractive incentives. iGATE has an integrated people management model focusing on developing technical, behavioural and leadership competencies. The three metrics by which the HR function is assessed are: human capital index, work culture and employee affective commitment. The reward system at iGATE consists of meritorious employees across all levels being granted restricted stock options, thus providing an incentive to remain with the company till they become due. The company, though, is an average paymaster, which disadvantage it tries to trade-off offering a more challenging work environment, quicker promotions and chances for practising innovation. Critics say that that iGATE lacks the big-brand appeal of the larger players such as Infosys and Wipro, cannot compete on scale and is still under the shadow of its original business of body-shopping IT personnel. Questions: 1. Analyse the iGATE case to highlight how it could apply some of the strategic controls such as premise control, implementation control, strategic surveillance and special alert control. 2. Analyse and describe the process of setting of standards at iGATE. 3. Give your opinion on the effectiveness of the role of reward system in exercising HR performance management at iGATE and suggest what improvements are possible, given the environmental conditions in the IT/ITES industry in India at present.

The American Nurses Association Code of Ethics Essay -- Ethics

The American Nurses Association (ANA) is an organization with a strong ethical foundation. Nurses in general are known as an honest and trustworthy profession in the United States. This reputation was created because of nursing organizations like the ANA. In this paper the ANA’s goals are described and tied to their ethical principles. The role and importance of the ANA’s ethical values are explored. A discussion of the ANA’s culture and ethical decision making is described. The ANA’s ethical values and how they support author’s ethical views is explained and last the ANA’s social responsibility to the community. ANA’s goals and ethical principles The ANA’s goals are to provide a unified focus of professional, competent, and ethical care to all patients. To treat every patient with dignity, respect, and compassion free from any personal judgment of race, social or economic status, personal disparities, or disregard to health status. The Nursing organization strives to provide equal care to all individuals with their primary focus on the patient, without regard to outside influences, such as the media, family, or the community. Nurses are accountable for the best welfare of the patient while in his or her care. They must respect professional boundaries, to include the privacy and confidentiality of the patient and family. Nurses must maintain a respect for human dignity, and hold in highest regard the importance of the patient’s best interests. The nurse’s duties include the responsibility to follow guidelines and regulations, acting only on duties within the scope of the professional practice. The nursing organization also has responsibilities to the public in maintaining awareness and knowledge regarding the health and welf... ...unity education and wellness and especially to the response efforts during disasters. The ANA is there for the wellbeing and ethical treatment of all mankind. Works Cited American College of Healthcare Executives. (2011). Creating an ethical culture within the healthcare organization. Retrieved from http://www.ache.org/policy/environ.cfm International Institute for Sustainable Development. (2012). Corporate social responsibility. Retrieved from http://www.iisd.org/business/issues/sr.aspx Rakichevikj, G., Strezoska, J., & Najdeska, K. (2010). Professional Ethics-- Basic component of organizational culture. Tourism & Hospitality Management, 1168-1177. Wright, D., Brajtman, S. (2011). Nursing Ethics, relational and embodied knowing: Nursing ethics within the inter-professional team. Vol.18 Issue 1, p20-30. Sage Publications at EBSCO Host

Digital Media

Introduction: You may have heard of digital media, but you may have no idea what it is and how it can help you out when it comes to marketing. It's definitely important that you get up to speed so you can use this to benefit your business. Basically digital media refers to any type of electronic media out there. Today media can be accessed in many ways, including with hand held devices like mobile phones, laptops, desktops, mp3 players, and more. Digital media must be stored in an electronic way, so there is a lot of digital content on the internet today, including text content, pictures, audio content, as well as video content.Through the history of internet, digital media has been developing in various ways. Here's we'll take a look at how it has affected the Internet and ways that it may be integrated moving forwards (Rogers 2006). One type of digital media is text; this in fact represented the very first explosion of  this  type of content  out there on the Internet. When t he Internet first got big, there was an explosion of content on the web, especially with all the text editors and word processing options out there today (Rogers 2006).Larger companies started to put date on computers instead of storing it in cabinets, and the internet definitely allowed a great way to share, transfer, and store content as well. As the Internet grew, images began to appear. Instead of just text emails, soon people could send photos, and soon photo sites for sharing photos began to pop up. Then in the middle 1990s, audio began to become an important part of digital media with the mp3 files that could be easily used. Soon music and more was shared online with sites that allowed you to share audio.Last in the digital media development was video. YouTube definitely made video sharing a hugely popular form of modern media distribution and this is continuing to grow as we speak today. Now with new technology seen in things like the iPhone,  this new form of virtual medi a  is available in handheld devices as well, and no doubt  this sector  is only going to continue to grow in the future (Rogers 2006). Now that you understand a bit more about the technology side, you may be wondering how it can help your business.Well businesses are using digital media for marketing more and more today, realizing that there is a huge marketing field out there and that  it can help to draw in visitors and can even provide better search engine visibility with you. Text content can be kept updated on your site and helpful content is a great part of good marketing. Expertise in your field can really help your business and get traffic flowing into your business website. Photos, charts, diagrams, and models are always popular online and will help you to get more visibility as well.Audio allows you to use music on pages or to do podcasts for your business. Creating videos is a popular method of digital media marketing today, and videos do very well in search engin es (Rogers 2006). With the popularity of digital media, it is definitely important that you continue to create and use it for good marketing and business results. Even if you have to hire someone to help out, the benefits will make it worth the money. So knowing about and using digital media is definitely important for your business success todayProblem statement: Most people accept the idea that the media can influence people. But the degree of that influence, as well as who is most-impacted, when, how and why, have been the subjects of great debate among communication scholars for nearly a century. Media effects refers to the many ways individuals and society may be influenced by both news and entertainment mass media, including film, television, radio, newspapers, books, magazines, websites, video games, and music.To understand digital media effects, it is first critical to consider how media are used and for what purposes. Communication scholars have traditionally fallen into tw o camps – functionalists, who believe the media audience tends to be in control and active, and critical/culturalists who believe the audience has less control and is therefore more passive. The balance may lie somewhere in the middle and may vary from country to country. Purpose of the study: In this paper we are going to study and evaluate the digital media and its effect on children in general.The following text is a general idea: Youth spend an average of ;7 hours/day using media and the vast majority of them have access to a bedroom television, computer, the Internet, a video-game console, and a cell phone. In this paper we review the most recent research on the effects of media on the behavior and health and well-being of children and adolescents. Studies have shown that media can provide information about safe health practices and can foster social connectedness.However, recent evidence raises concerns about media's effects on aggression, sexual behavior, substance use , disordered eating, and academic difficulties. We provide recommendations for parents, practitioners, the media, and policy makers, among others, for ways to increase the benefits and reduce the harm that media can have for the developing child and for adolescents. More than 50 years of media research attests to the significant influence of media on child and adolescent health.Both â€Å"old† media (television, movies, magazines) and â€Å"new† media (the Internet and social networking sites, video/computer games, cell phones) can have an impact on virtually every health concern that practitioners and parents have about young people, including aggressive behavior, risky sexual behavior, substance use, and disordered eating. Although the media are not the leading cause of any of these problems, the research reviewed here suggests that they are significant.Yet, despite the evidence of potential harm, there is also evidence that media can be beneficial for youth (eg, by increasing empathy and acceptance of diversity through modeling of prosocial behaviors and developing children's early literacy skills through educational programming). Those concerned with child and adolescent health need to be aware of the research on the effects of modern media on youth. Theoretical framework: Literature review: Media affect youth not only by displacing time they spend doing homework or sleeping but also by influencing beliefs and behaviors.According to social learning theory, children and adolescents learn by observing and imitating what they see on the screen, particularly when these behaviors seem realistic or are rewarded. Cognitive development theory asserts that children's cognitive capacities at different stages determine if and how they understand media content. For example, children younger than 8 years who are not yet able to comprehend persuasive intent will be more vulnerable to advertising.In addition, media present youth with common â€Å"scriptsâ €  for how to behave in unfamiliar situations such as romantic relationships. Finally, superpeer theory states that the media are like powerful best friends in sometimes making risky behaviors seem like normative behavior. With the variety of theories suggesting a potentially powerful effect of the media and the growing empirical evidence for negative impact, one might hypothesize that parents would take care to limit exposure to detrimental media content.However, the â€Å"third-person effect† (a well-documented phenomenon in the communications literature) shows that teenagers and adults think that the media influence everyone except themselves or their children Violence and Aggression By the age of 18, the average adolescent will have seen an estimated 200 000 acts of violence on television alone. Much of the violence on television and in movies is presented in a sanitized and glamorized fashion, and in children's programming it often is presented as humorous.More than 1 0% of 10- to 14-year-olds saw 40 of the most violent movies in 2003. Both music videos and rap music have become increasingly violent. Interactive media can encourage antisocial beliefs and behavior in children and adolescents, particularly because violence in new media has been found to be prevalent as well. A recent analysis of video games revealed that more than half of all games contain violence, including ;90% rated as appropriate for children aged 10 years and older.Health professionals worry most about first-person shooter video games. In the aftermath of the West Paducah, KY school shooting, it was discovered that the shooter had never fired a real gun in his life before that day, yet his marksmanship was both accurate and lethal. Researchers believe that repeated exposure to mediated violence can lead to anxiety and fear, acceptance of violence as an appropriate means of solving conflict, and desensitization, with resulting increases in aggression and decreases in altruism. In particular, the portrayal of justifiable violence that is common in American media—â€Å"good guys versus bad guys†Ã¢â‚¬â€places children at risk because it is so powerfully reinforcing. The relationship between media violence and real-life aggression is nearly as strong as the impact of cigarette smoking on lung cancer not everyone who smokes will get lung cancer, and not everyone who views media violence will become aggressive themselves. However, the connection is significant. The most problematic forms of media violence include attractive and unpunished perpetrators, no harm to victims, realism, and humor. SexResearchers investigating the impact of exposure to sexual content in media on adolescent sexual beliefs and early sexual initiation have found modest but significant associations, particularly in the realm of pornography. In a national sample of 1500 10- to 17-year-olds, nearly half of the Internet users had been exposed to on-line pornography in the prev ious year. In a sample of middle-school youth, exposure to sexually explicit (X-rated) content predicted perpetration of sexual harassment (for males), more permissive sexual norms, having oral sex, and engaging in sexual intercourse while in high school.Longitudinal studies now exist that have linked heavy exposure to sexual content in mainstream media with more rapid progression of sexual activity, earlier coital behavior, greater risk for and unplanned pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease. One explanation for this relationship may lie in the role of the media as a â€Å"superpeer† that gives adolescent audiences a consistent message that sex is normative and risk free. In addition, media play an important role in providing sexual information to adolescents in the United States and in shaping their beliefs about how males and females behave in romantic relationships.Television shows geared toward teenagers actually have more sexual content than adult-oriented shows, yet there is little mention of the need for contraception or for responsibility. Virtually every Western country makes birth control available to adolescents, including allowing birth control advertisements in the media, but the major US television networks balk at airing ads for contraception. This flies in the face of the fact that a substantial body of evidence shows that giving teenagers’ access to condoms does not lead to earlier sexual activity.Parents and child advocates often express concern over children connecting with strangers on-line. Although there have been disturbing cases of Internet sexual predatory activity by adults on children, most recent studies of Internet safety have suggested that sexual solicitation of minors is more likely to occur by other minors. Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook enable adolescents to present themselves publicly, sometimes in very sexually suggestive ways; however, adult on-line predators are not using social n etworking sites to find or entice their victims.One national survey of â€Å"sexing† with cell phones, conducted with 13- to 19-year-olds, revealed that 20% had sent and 48% had received sexual messages. However, social networking sites can also be used prosocially for safer-sex campaigns, for example. Substance Use In the United States, more than $22 billion is spent marketing and advertising drugs ($13 billion on tobacco, $5 billion on alcohol, and $4 billion on prescription drugs), and many research studies have shown that it has a significant impact on adolescent use.Children and teenagers can also see considerable alcohol and drug content in on-line videos. Recent studies of social networking sites have found that substance abuse is referenced in 40% of the profiles. Portrayals of tobacco are also prevalent in the movies: ? 70% of movies made in the United States today contains smoking, and smoking is rarely associated with negative health outcomes. Longitudinal prospect ive studies have revealed that exposure to movie smoking at baseline (grades 5–8) predicts smoking initiation 1 to 8 years later.Experimental research has helped illuminate why exposure to movie characters' smoking is associated with smoking initiation: viewers who identify with the storyline and the characters are more likely to increase their intention to smoke. Obesity and Eating Disorders Numerous American and international longitudinal studies (one of them as long as 26 years in duration) have shown that media use is contributing to the current epidemic of obesity worldwide. However, the mechanism for why heavy television-viewing, in particular, is predictive of children's weight status is unclear. Food marketing may be 1 culprit.Children and teenagers see 4400–7600 ads per year for junk food and fast food on television alone. Randomized, controlled experiments have provided evidence that exposure to junk food advertising has an impact on children's food beliefs a nd preferences. The Internet now presents a new concern. As the Kaiser Foundation noted, â€Å"There is a vast amount of food related content online, with the potential to significantly expand and deepen children's exposure to food marketing messages. Apart from the influence of advertising, eating while viewing may lead to greater food consumption.College-aged students showed significantly greater consumption of food when subjects were watching television versus listening to classical music. The investigators hypothesized that satiety cues are suppressed in viewing conditions. Although the evidence that television-viewing displaces physical activity is equivocal, researchers are now examining whether heavy media use, particularly at nighttime, displaces sleep. Children who do not get enough sleep are more likely to engage in sedentary behaviors (such as television-viewing) and less likely to engage in physical activity.The media play a crucial role in the formation of body self-im age and may be responsible for creating unrealistic expectations and body dissatisfaction. Females who are regular readers of fashion and beauty magazines in early adolescence are more likely to suffer from a distorted body image during their teenaged years. A natural field experiment in Fiji revealed that the prevalence of eating disorders increased dramatically after the introduction of American television programs, which show excessively thin female lead characters.On the Internet, there are now ;100 proanorexia Web sites that not only encourage disordered eating but offer specific advice on purging, severely restricting caloric intake, and exercising excessively. School Performance and Learning Problems The possibility of a connection between television-viewing and ADD or other learning disabilities is currently an issue of great controversy. An initial study in 2004 revealed an association between daily hours of television-viewing at the ages of 1 to 2 years and subsequent atte ntional problems at the age of 7.However, a more recent study in which 59 children with ADD and 106 comparison children were examined actually revealed that the latter had more impairment in their cognitive processes after viewing television than the former. At least 4 studies have shown an impact on academic performance, especially if there is a television set in the child's or teenager's bedroom. Other Health Effects Heavy television-viewing has also been associated with hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, an increased prevalence of asthma, sleep disorders, mood disorders, psychological distress, and depression.These were largely correlational studies and, therefore, did not necessarily show cause and effect. Prosocial Effects Despite the negative effects listed above, the media can be powerfully prosocial and educational. Children and teenagers can learn antiviolence attitudes, empathy, tolerance toward people of other races and ethnicities, and respect for their elders. Video ga mes can be beneficial as well, including improving compliance with chemotherapy regimens in adolescents with cancer.Important and useful public messages can be successfully embedded into primetime television shows that are popular with adolescents. In an episode of the television program Friends, for example, Rachel tells her boyfriend Ross that she is pregnant although they had used a condom. A national telephone survey conducted with Friends viewers after the episode aired found that adolescents learned that condoms are not fool-proof and were more likely to discuss contraception with their parents.Similarly, a recent episode of Gray's Anatomy was effective in teaching viewers about HIV and pregnancy. Research into the impact of digital media on relationship formation and maintenance has revealed that on-line communication and on-line self-disclosure can stimulate adolescents' social connectedness and, thereby, their well-being. However, the benefits of socializing on-line are not equal for every child or adolescent. The positive Internet effect holds only when adolescents predominantly talk with their existing friends.Communication technologies that are most often used to communicate with strangers (eg, chat in a public chat room) or more solitary forms of Internet use (such as surfing the Web) have negative effects on social connectedness. TRADITIONAL MEDIA AND NEW MEDIA Children and adolescents spend more time with media than they do in any other activity except for sleeping—an average of ;7 hours/day. Children's bedrooms are replete with media technology: by 2005, two thirds had a television set, one half had a VCR or DVD player or video-game console, and nearly one third had Internet access or a computer.Media impact is increased significantly with the presence of a bedroom television: viewing increases 1 to 2 hours/day, risk of overweight increases by 31%, and the likelihood of smoking doubles. When a television is in the bedroom, parents are le ss able to monitor viewing habits , children participate in fewer activities such as reading and hobbies, and sleep is shortened Field Observation: Focus group: One of the aims of my research paper was to understand what children feel about the way they are affected by the Digital media. To do this i used one of our qualitative methods – focus group.A focus group is a method that is used by researchers to find out what people’s opinions and views are. During a focus group the researcher(s) will ask questions to stimulate discussion within the group, while taking note of what people are saying about particular issues. The focus group were conducted in Notre dame college-lwaize in total, 10 young people (5 males and 5 females) took part, who were all aged between 9 – 12year. Question asked during the focus group: * Do Digital media take a lot of your time? * Do you feel lost when you are not connected? Do you go online to check for new updates? * Do you feel you a lways have to go online to learn/view information? * Do you forget to eat when you are connected? * Do you use online social networking to retrieve any type of information? * Does spending time on social networking affects on your grades in a negative way? * Do you think you can stop yourself from always connecting online? * Are you unable to continue your day without checking for updates of news / friends online? * Has social networking sites made you become depressed? Do you enter sexual websites? * Do you talk with stranger people online? Analysis: After the focus groups were done, the information was analyzed and i was able to put together the information to have a basic result. I can say that each person had his/her own view, the information was not possible to evaluate and conduct on a percentage scale. The focus group study it showed that the males spend more time on social networking sites then men. They believe they do spend more time online which allows them to play ad ent er many kind of websites.All participants believe online social networking is time consuming and has its negatives. Some of the negatives given about online social networking. Some positives were: it has allowed a number of people to be curious to want to know more information, to learn more, to be able to communicate with people in different countries and be entertained. Solution and recommendation: Parents should limit total screen time for children older than 2 years to no more than 1 to 2 hours/day, and avoid screen time for children younger than 2 years.Also keep children's bedrooms free of screen media; and co-view media with their children and discuss the content.. Parents also need to avoid exposing young children to PG-13– and R-rated movies, given the prevalence of violent and sexual content in higher-rated film sand the new evidence that movie scenes that depict drinking alcohol and smoking may be very influential in teenagers' decisions to use alcohol and tobacco. In addition, parents can be mindful of their own media practices, because studies have shown that the strongest predictor of children's heavy media use is parents' heavy media use.Parental efforts to interpret, elaborate, and provide supplemental information on topics introduced by television have been found to be successful in countering negative or harmful content. In a recent study on exposure to sexual media content, adolescents who report that they discuss the content of what they see on television are less likely to engage in risky sexual activity. Moreover, Schools have not kept pace with modern media, especially in violence prevention, drug prevention, and sex education programs.With the amount of sexual suggestiveness currently displayed on television and in movies, schools no longer have any excuse for not providing comprehensive school-based sex education programs for children and adolescents, including full discussions of contraception and discussions of how sex and sex uality are portrayed in the media. Similarly, drug education programs must progress beyond scare tactics to incorporate principles of media education, teaching young people how to deconstruct alcohol and tobacco ads and, therefore, become more resilient.Conclusion: During the past 50 years, thousands of research studies have revealed that the media can be a powerful teacher of children and adolescents and have a profound impact on their health. To date, too little has been done by parents, health care practitioners, schools, the entertainment industry, or the government to protect children and adolescents from harmful media effects and to maximize the powerfully prosocial aspects of modern media. More research is needed, but sufficient data exist to warrant both concern and increased action. Digital Media Introduction: You may have heard of digital media, but you may have no idea what it is and how it can help you out when it comes to marketing. It's definitely important that you get up to speed so you can use this to benefit your business. Basically digital media refers to any type of electronic media out there. Today media can be accessed in many ways, including with hand held devices like mobile phones, laptops, desktops, mp3 players, and more. Digital media must be stored in an electronic way, so there is a lot of digital content on the internet today, including text content, pictures, audio content, as well as video content.Through the history of internet, digital media has been developing in various ways. Here's we'll take a look at how it has affected the Internet and ways that it may be integrated moving forwards (Rogers 2006). One type of digital media is text; this in fact represented the very first explosion of  this  type of content  out there on the Internet. When t he Internet first got big, there was an explosion of content on the web, especially with all the text editors and word processing options out there today (Rogers 2006).Larger companies started to put date on computers instead of storing it in cabinets, and the internet definitely allowed a great way to share, transfer, and store content as well. As the Internet grew, images began to appear. Instead of just text emails, soon people could send photos, and soon photo sites for sharing photos began to pop up. Then in the middle 1990s, audio began to become an important part of digital media with the mp3 files that could be easily used. Soon music and more was shared online with sites that allowed you to share audio.Last in the digital media development was video. YouTube definitely made video sharing a hugely popular form of modern media distribution and this is continuing to grow as we speak today. Now with new technology seen in things like the iPhone,  this new form of virtual medi a  is available in handheld devices as well, and no doubt  this sector  is only going to continue to grow in the future (Rogers 2006). Now that you understand a bit more about the technology side, you may be wondering how it can help your business.Well businesses are using digital media for marketing more and more today, realizing that there is a huge marketing field out there and that  it can help to draw in visitors and can even provide better search engine visibility with you. Text content can be kept updated on your site and helpful content is a great part of good marketing. Expertise in your field can really help your business and get traffic flowing into your business website. Photos, charts, diagrams, and models are always popular online and will help you to get more visibility as well.Audio allows you to use music on pages or to do podcasts for your business. Creating videos is a popular method of digital media marketing today, and videos do very well in search engin es (Rogers 2006). With the popularity of digital media, it is definitely important that you continue to create and use it for good marketing and business results. Even if you have to hire someone to help out, the benefits will make it worth the money. So knowing about and using digital media is definitely important for your business success todayProblem statement: Most people accept the idea that the media can influence people. But the degree of that influence, as well as who is most-impacted, when, how and why, have been the subjects of great debate among communication scholars for nearly a century. Media effects refers to the many ways individuals and society may be influenced by both news and entertainment mass media, including film, television, radio, newspapers, books, magazines, websites, video games, and music.To understand digital media effects, it is first critical to consider how media are used and for what purposes. Communication scholars have traditionally fallen into tw o camps – functionalists, who believe the media audience tends to be in control and active, and critical/culturalists who believe the audience has less control and is therefore more passive. The balance may lie somewhere in the middle and may vary from country to country. Purpose of the study: In this paper we are going to study and evaluate the digital media and its effect on children in general.The following text is a general idea: Youth spend an average of ;7 hours/day using media and the vast majority of them have access to a bedroom television, computer, the Internet, a video-game console, and a cell phone. In this paper we review the most recent research on the effects of media on the behavior and health and well-being of children and adolescents. Studies have shown that media can provide information about safe health practices and can foster social connectedness.However, recent evidence raises concerns about media's effects on aggression, sexual behavior, substance use , disordered eating, and academic difficulties. We provide recommendations for parents, practitioners, the media, and policy makers, among others, for ways to increase the benefits and reduce the harm that media can have for the developing child and for adolescents. More than 50 years of media research attests to the significant influence of media on child and adolescent health.Both â€Å"old† media (television, movies, magazines) and â€Å"new† media (the Internet and social networking sites, video/computer games, cell phones) can have an impact on virtually every health concern that practitioners and parents have about young people, including aggressive behavior, risky sexual behavior, substance use, and disordered eating. Although the media are not the leading cause of any of these problems, the research reviewed here suggests that they are significant.Yet, despite the evidence of potential harm, there is also evidence that media can be beneficial for youth (eg, by increasing empathy and acceptance of diversity through modeling of prosocial behaviors and developing children's early literacy skills through educational programming). Those concerned with child and adolescent health need to be aware of the research on the effects of modern media on youth. Theoretical framework: Literature review: Media affect youth not only by displacing time they spend doing homework or sleeping but also by influencing beliefs and behaviors.According to social learning theory, children and adolescents learn by observing and imitating what they see on the screen, particularly when these behaviors seem realistic or are rewarded. Cognitive development theory asserts that children's cognitive capacities at different stages determine if and how they understand media content. For example, children younger than 8 years who are not yet able to comprehend persuasive intent will be more vulnerable to advertising.In addition, media present youth with common â€Å"scriptsâ €  for how to behave in unfamiliar situations such as romantic relationships. Finally, superpeer theory states that the media are like powerful best friends in sometimes making risky behaviors seem like normative behavior. With the variety of theories suggesting a potentially powerful effect of the media and the growing empirical evidence for negative impact, one might hypothesize that parents would take care to limit exposure to detrimental media content.However, the â€Å"third-person effect† (a well-documented phenomenon in the communications literature) shows that teenagers and adults think that the media influence everyone except themselves or their children Violence and Aggression By the age of 18, the average adolescent will have seen an estimated 200 000 acts of violence on television alone. Much of the violence on television and in movies is presented in a sanitized and glamorized fashion, and in children's programming it often is presented as humorous.More than 1 0% of 10- to 14-year-olds saw 40 of the most violent movies in 2003. Both music videos and rap music have become increasingly violent. Interactive media can encourage antisocial beliefs and behavior in children and adolescents, particularly because violence in new media has been found to be prevalent as well. A recent analysis of video games revealed that more than half of all games contain violence, including ;90% rated as appropriate for children aged 10 years and older.Health professionals worry most about first-person shooter video games. In the aftermath of the West Paducah, KY school shooting, it was discovered that the shooter had never fired a real gun in his life before that day, yet his marksmanship was both accurate and lethal. Researchers believe that repeated exposure to mediated violence can lead to anxiety and fear, acceptance of violence as an appropriate means of solving conflict, and desensitization, with resulting increases in aggression and decreases in altruism. In particular, the portrayal of justifiable violence that is common in American media—â€Å"good guys versus bad guys†Ã¢â‚¬â€places children at risk because it is so powerfully reinforcing. The relationship between media violence and real-life aggression is nearly as strong as the impact of cigarette smoking on lung cancer not everyone who smokes will get lung cancer, and not everyone who views media violence will become aggressive themselves. However, the connection is significant. The most problematic forms of media violence include attractive and unpunished perpetrators, no harm to victims, realism, and humor. SexResearchers investigating the impact of exposure to sexual content in media on adolescent sexual beliefs and early sexual initiation have found modest but significant associations, particularly in the realm of pornography. In a national sample of 1500 10- to 17-year-olds, nearly half of the Internet users had been exposed to on-line pornography in the prev ious year. In a sample of middle-school youth, exposure to sexually explicit (X-rated) content predicted perpetration of sexual harassment (for males), more permissive sexual norms, having oral sex, and engaging in sexual intercourse while in high school.Longitudinal studies now exist that have linked heavy exposure to sexual content in mainstream media with more rapid progression of sexual activity, earlier coital behavior, greater risk for and unplanned pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease. One explanation for this relationship may lie in the role of the media as a â€Å"superpeer† that gives adolescent audiences a consistent message that sex is normative and risk free. In addition, media play an important role in providing sexual information to adolescents in the United States and in shaping their beliefs about how males and females behave in romantic relationships.Television shows geared toward teenagers actually have more sexual content than adult-oriented shows, yet there is little mention of the need for contraception or for responsibility. Virtually every Western country makes birth control available to adolescents, including allowing birth control advertisements in the media, but the major US television networks balk at airing ads for contraception. This flies in the face of the fact that a substantial body of evidence shows that giving teenagers’ access to condoms does not lead to earlier sexual activity.Parents and child advocates often express concern over children connecting with strangers on-line. Although there have been disturbing cases of Internet sexual predatory activity by adults on children, most recent studies of Internet safety have suggested that sexual solicitation of minors is more likely to occur by other minors. Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook enable adolescents to present themselves publicly, sometimes in very sexually suggestive ways; however, adult on-line predators are not using social n etworking sites to find or entice their victims.One national survey of â€Å"sexing† with cell phones, conducted with 13- to 19-year-olds, revealed that 20% had sent and 48% had received sexual messages. However, social networking sites can also be used prosocially for safer-sex campaigns, for example. Substance Use In the United States, more than $22 billion is spent marketing and advertising drugs ($13 billion on tobacco, $5 billion on alcohol, and $4 billion on prescription drugs), and many research studies have shown that it has a significant impact on adolescent use.Children and teenagers can also see considerable alcohol and drug content in on-line videos. Recent studies of social networking sites have found that substance abuse is referenced in 40% of the profiles. Portrayals of tobacco are also prevalent in the movies: ? 70% of movies made in the United States today contains smoking, and smoking is rarely associated with negative health outcomes. Longitudinal prospect ive studies have revealed that exposure to movie smoking at baseline (grades 5–8) predicts smoking initiation 1 to 8 years later.Experimental research has helped illuminate why exposure to movie characters' smoking is associated with smoking initiation: viewers who identify with the storyline and the characters are more likely to increase their intention to smoke. Obesity and Eating Disorders Numerous American and international longitudinal studies (one of them as long as 26 years in duration) have shown that media use is contributing to the current epidemic of obesity worldwide. However, the mechanism for why heavy television-viewing, in particular, is predictive of children's weight status is unclear. Food marketing may be 1 culprit.Children and teenagers see 4400–7600 ads per year for junk food and fast food on television alone. Randomized, controlled experiments have provided evidence that exposure to junk food advertising has an impact on children's food beliefs a nd preferences. The Internet now presents a new concern. As the Kaiser Foundation noted, â€Å"There is a vast amount of food related content online, with the potential to significantly expand and deepen children's exposure to food marketing messages. Apart from the influence of advertising, eating while viewing may lead to greater food consumption.College-aged students showed significantly greater consumption of food when subjects were watching television versus listening to classical music. The investigators hypothesized that satiety cues are suppressed in viewing conditions. Although the evidence that television-viewing displaces physical activity is equivocal, researchers are now examining whether heavy media use, particularly at nighttime, displaces sleep. Children who do not get enough sleep are more likely to engage in sedentary behaviors (such as television-viewing) and less likely to engage in physical activity.The media play a crucial role in the formation of body self-im age and may be responsible for creating unrealistic expectations and body dissatisfaction. Females who are regular readers of fashion and beauty magazines in early adolescence are more likely to suffer from a distorted body image during their teenaged years. A natural field experiment in Fiji revealed that the prevalence of eating disorders increased dramatically after the introduction of American television programs, which show excessively thin female lead characters.On the Internet, there are now ;100 proanorexia Web sites that not only encourage disordered eating but offer specific advice on purging, severely restricting caloric intake, and exercising excessively. School Performance and Learning Problems The possibility of a connection between television-viewing and ADD or other learning disabilities is currently an issue of great controversy. An initial study in 2004 revealed an association between daily hours of television-viewing at the ages of 1 to 2 years and subsequent atte ntional problems at the age of 7.However, a more recent study in which 59 children with ADD and 106 comparison children were examined actually revealed that the latter had more impairment in their cognitive processes after viewing television than the former. At least 4 studies have shown an impact on academic performance, especially if there is a television set in the child's or teenager's bedroom. Other Health Effects Heavy television-viewing has also been associated with hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, an increased prevalence of asthma, sleep disorders, mood disorders, psychological distress, and depression.These were largely correlational studies and, therefore, did not necessarily show cause and effect. Prosocial Effects Despite the negative effects listed above, the media can be powerfully prosocial and educational. Children and teenagers can learn antiviolence attitudes, empathy, tolerance toward people of other races and ethnicities, and respect for their elders. Video ga mes can be beneficial as well, including improving compliance with chemotherapy regimens in adolescents with cancer.Important and useful public messages can be successfully embedded into primetime television shows that are popular with adolescents. In an episode of the television program Friends, for example, Rachel tells her boyfriend Ross that she is pregnant although they had used a condom. A national telephone survey conducted with Friends viewers after the episode aired found that adolescents learned that condoms are not fool-proof and were more likely to discuss contraception with their parents.Similarly, a recent episode of Gray's Anatomy was effective in teaching viewers about HIV and pregnancy. Research into the impact of digital media on relationship formation and maintenance has revealed that on-line communication and on-line self-disclosure can stimulate adolescents' social connectedness and, thereby, their well-being. However, the benefits of socializing on-line are not equal for every child or adolescent. The positive Internet effect holds only when adolescents predominantly talk with their existing friends.Communication technologies that are most often used to communicate with strangers (eg, chat in a public chat room) or more solitary forms of Internet use (such as surfing the Web) have negative effects on social connectedness. TRADITIONAL MEDIA AND NEW MEDIA Children and adolescents spend more time with media than they do in any other activity except for sleeping—an average of ;7 hours/day. Children's bedrooms are replete with media technology: by 2005, two thirds had a television set, one half had a VCR or DVD player or video-game console, and nearly one third had Internet access or a computer.Media impact is increased significantly with the presence of a bedroom television: viewing increases 1 to 2 hours/day, risk of overweight increases by 31%, and the likelihood of smoking doubles. When a television is in the bedroom, parents are le ss able to monitor viewing habits , children participate in fewer activities such as reading and hobbies, and sleep is shortened Field Observation: Focus group: One of the aims of my research paper was to understand what children feel about the way they are affected by the Digital media. To do this i used one of our qualitative methods – focus group.A focus group is a method that is used by researchers to find out what people’s opinions and views are. During a focus group the researcher(s) will ask questions to stimulate discussion within the group, while taking note of what people are saying about particular issues. The focus group were conducted in Notre dame college-lwaize in total, 10 young people (5 males and 5 females) took part, who were all aged between 9 – 12year. Question asked during the focus group: * Do Digital media take a lot of your time? * Do you feel lost when you are not connected? Do you go online to check for new updates? * Do you feel you a lways have to go online to learn/view information? * Do you forget to eat when you are connected? * Do you use online social networking to retrieve any type of information? * Does spending time on social networking affects on your grades in a negative way? * Do you think you can stop yourself from always connecting online? * Are you unable to continue your day without checking for updates of news / friends online? * Has social networking sites made you become depressed? Do you enter sexual websites? * Do you talk with stranger people online? Analysis: After the focus groups were done, the information was analyzed and i was able to put together the information to have a basic result. I can say that each person had his/her own view, the information was not possible to evaluate and conduct on a percentage scale. The focus group study it showed that the males spend more time on social networking sites then men. They believe they do spend more time online which allows them to play ad ent er many kind of websites.All participants believe online social networking is time consuming and has its negatives. Some of the negatives given about online social networking. Some positives were: it has allowed a number of people to be curious to want to know more information, to learn more, to be able to communicate with people in different countries and be entertained. Solution and recommendation: Parents should limit total screen time for children older than 2 years to no more than 1 to 2 hours/day, and avoid screen time for children younger than 2 years.Also keep children's bedrooms free of screen media; and co-view media with their children and discuss the content.. Parents also need to avoid exposing young children to PG-13– and R-rated movies, given the prevalence of violent and sexual content in higher-rated film sand the new evidence that movie scenes that depict drinking alcohol and smoking may be very influential in teenagers' decisions to use alcohol and tobacco. In addition, parents can be mindful of their own media practices, because studies have shown that the strongest predictor of children's heavy media use is parents' heavy media use.Parental efforts to interpret, elaborate, and provide supplemental information on topics introduced by television have been found to be successful in countering negative or harmful content. In a recent study on exposure to sexual media content, adolescents who report that they discuss the content of what they see on television are less likely to engage in risky sexual activity. Moreover, Schools have not kept pace with modern media, especially in violence prevention, drug prevention, and sex education programs.With the amount of sexual suggestiveness currently displayed on television and in movies, schools no longer have any excuse for not providing comprehensive school-based sex education programs for children and adolescents, including full discussions of contraception and discussions of how sex and sex uality are portrayed in the media. Similarly, drug education programs must progress beyond scare tactics to incorporate principles of media education, teaching young people how to deconstruct alcohol and tobacco ads and, therefore, become more resilient.Conclusion: During the past 50 years, thousands of research studies have revealed that the media can be a powerful teacher of children and adolescents and have a profound impact on their health. To date, too little has been done by parents, health care practitioners, schools, the entertainment industry, or the government to protect children and adolescents from harmful media effects and to maximize the powerfully prosocial aspects of modern media. More research is needed, but sufficient data exist to warrant both concern and increased action.

The And What Morrison Does It More Compelling With Things

group. The author of this article gets into how this story works as a ritual and what Morrison does to make it more compelling with things like pulling the reader into making a framework for the novel. The reader has a lot to do as they have to put together the pieces of the story separate from Sethe’s recovery and grieving. Morrison uses a lot of African-American cultural referencing to help with giving the vision of who the characters in the story are and what they sound like in their ritualistic personalities. This novel uses a lot of imagination to heal wounds that are extremely deep. We learn a lot about the healing process of Sethe due to what Beloved has done to her. Beloved forces Sethe to confront her past so much that she is†¦show more content†¦After being freed from slavery for 60 years, Baby Suggs opens her world up to others in need of a figurative ‘hug’ and helps all previous slaves heal from the psychological wounds endured during the diff icult times. She has morals and her own strong spirit that tie in with a literal psychoanalytic process of the Freudian way, as this is something Morrison has brought into the story. As it appears, Baby Suggs was of strong spiritual belief. â€Å"She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more. She did not tell them they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure. She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it.† (88) The only person in the entire story that Morrison has given this title of something significantly philosophical and moralistic. Morrison uses her as one of the positive foundations in this story vs. Beloved to be a negative foundation of how brutally abrupt and hateful things could be at the time. The article focuses not just on the way Baby Suggs attempts to handle getting in touch with feelings and properly handling em otions of a tattered past, but on the way Sethe handles herself as well. It has to be essentially because Sethe is our main character. She is the energy that is captured negatively in a sense as she goes through aShow MoreRelatedEssay about Beauty in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison1243 Words   |  5 Pagesideal beauty that most have tried to obtain. But what if that beauty was impossible to grasp because something was holding one back. There was nothing one could do to be ‘beautiful’. Growing up and being convinced that one was ugly, useless, and dirty. For Pecola Breedlove, this state of longing was reality. Blue eyes, blonde hair, and pale white skin was the definition of beauty. Pecola was a black girl with the dream to be beautiful. 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