Dubai: Globalization on Steroids Essay

Promotions for Dubai on CNN, BBC World, and other satellite channels show a shimmering skyline of glass and steel office towers with their graceful curves and aquiline shapes, suggesting a distant galaxy where all the unpleasantness of urban life has been airbrushed away. But advertising almost always offers more promise than reality, whether the product is potato chips or a city or a country. Seen through the lens of the everyday, nothing in this city is so clear. It’s hard to come to terms with Dubai, be ­cause there is confusion even in the way it is described by the media. It is often referred to as a Persian Gulf country (which it definitely isn’t), or a city-state (wrong again), or a Gulf emirate (also not accurate, because Dubai, the city, is only part of Dubai, the emirate, which is an integral part of the United Arab Emirates). But one thing is clear: during the three years I’ve lived here, it has undergone the kind of transformation that a city might experience once in a lifetime. Each time I leave my apartment block, I drive past shells of unfinished buildings with piles of sand and rubble spilling onto the sidewalks, and I’m struck by another irony of Dubai— that the more the city aspires to be the premier megalopolis of the 21st century, the more it resembles 1945 Dresden. The pace of growth has left many residents wondering what the hurry is. Yet everyone seems to be in a rush. On Sheikh Zayed Road, the 12 lanes linking Dubai with Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital 100 miles to the south, drivers barrel down the fast lanes at 90 miles an hour. Late on a Friday night, drivers weave in and out of the speeding traffic, which results in an appalling accident rate that leaves crushed fenders and tangles of gnarled metal piled along the roadsides. Has any place on earth grown as quickly or been transformed so completely? Aerial photos from the early 1960s show a dusty, ramshackle trading post tucked be-tween the Persian Gulf and the Creek, Dubai’s inland waterway and outlet to the sea. Ten years later it was beginning to take on the look of a prosperous city; a decade after that it had changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable. The one-runway airstrip had been replaced by an international airport, a forest of office towers had grown up along the Creek, and residential tracts had spread across barren expanses of desert that stretched to the horizon. Dubai today is often described as a Wild West town, and the widespread economic opportunism lends some truth to the description. Driving the expansion is neither natural resources nor old-world industrialization but rather the gears of a 21st-century economy—banking, technology, trade and tourism, real estate, and media outlets. The tycoons cutting business deals in hotel restaurants and on beach-club patios are representatives of this new global economy—Taiwanese bankers and Lebanese import/exporters, Russian oligarchs and Iranian property investors. But even Dubai is not immune from the vicissitudes of global economics—the September worldwide financial crisis drained almost $6 billion from its financial markets. In spite of its rapid growth and the influence of globalization on Dubai, a bit of the old city can still be found. Walk through the covered market on the Deira side of the Creek, past spice vendors displaying their wares in 100-pound sacks; then go up winding, narrow lanes past the gold, silver, and textile dealers from Pakistan and Iran and the Indian merchants who speak fluent Arabic, their roots in Dubai reaching back generations. From there it is only a short walk up to the Al-Hamadiya School, now a museum, the first place to offer formal education in Dubai. Exhaust-spewing water taxis still shuttle commuters across the Creek between the twisting streets of Deira and the traditional Bastakia quarter, home to the pre-oil ruler’s palace, a covered market, and the site of a former fort. On the Deira side, ships unload pallets of cargo, just as they have ever since Dubai served as a convenient transit point for much of the trade that passed between India and Africa and the rest of the Arabian peninsula. In the neighbourhoods of Jumeirah and Umm Suqeim, quiet side streets lined with white houses topped with red tile roofs glisten in the afternoon sun, suggesting the placid tranquillity of southern California when southern California was tranquil and placid. Early in the morning, Indonesian housemaids sweep driveways with dried palm branches, and South Asian labourers still use these primitive implements to clear the paths in the local parks. It is hard to reconcile such images with those more popularly associated with Dubai. There is the Royal Mirage Hotel, whose silent, soaring hallways and courtyards have been designed in palatial Arabian splendour. Not far away is the Madinat Jumeirah, another hotel complex and an adjoining shopping arcade, where the tinkling music of the oud is pumped into the elevators and down the narrow, serpentine corridors in an effort to re-create the sensual mysticism of the Arabian covered market. But here, too, like almost everywhere in Dubai, the traditional clashes with the modern, and the uneasy blend is meant to serve consumerism: at the Madinat Jumeirah, res-taurants and cafà ©s surround artificial lakes, gift boutiques cater to upscale travellers, and live music echoes from the JamBase, one of Dubai’s hot spots. All of the glitz has made Dubai trendy among the globetrotting business set and holidaymakers interested in a taste of the Middle East—as long as it is tempered with a hefty dose of Club Med— but the changing character of the city is not e ndorsed by everyone. Among so-called locals, or Emirati nationals, there is increasing fear that their culture will eventually succumb to Westernization and foreign influence. Such apprehension is justified, for the demographics are not on their side. Emiratis now account for only 20 percent of the population (an official estimate, probably inflated); within 20 years, as more foreigners pour in from South Asia, the Far East, Russia, and Africa, the percentage is likely to fall to the sin-gle digits. But it is hard for locals to grumble too loudly when they have also been seduced by the global consumer ethos. After midday pray-ers on a blazing Friday afternoon, they head for the blissfully cool shopping malls, as do Indian and Filipino families and British expatriates, to scoop up the latest in mobile phones and other electronic gadgets. Women display designer handbags over their flowing black abayas but wear blue jeans under them, and many young men complement their crinkly clean kandouras with a baseball cap instead of the traditional white headdress. Out in the parking lot, families cram the backs of their Range Rovers and Ford Explorers with plastic shopping bags and a month’s groceries. The good life has created a sedentary life, and with it a sharp rise in obesity and diabetes. As though suddenly seeing the need to change direction, Dubai has begun making desperate attempts to preserve its past. In April 2007 the Dubai Municipality issued a ruling ordering the preservation of more than 2,000 buildings it considered â€Å"having historical significance in the United Arab Emirates.† But the breakneck development all over the city makes this a fool’s errand. Glossy advertisements for unbuilt real estate tracts cover the arrivals hall at the airport, fill billboards beside the highway entrance ramps, and push the news off the front pages of the local news-papers. The inside pages promise more: one full-page ad shows a Venetian gondolier, against a backdrop of faux Mediterranean chic, paddling along an artificial canal, past cafà © tables with Western and Asian patrons relaxing beneath palm trees. The most widely advertised development is now the Lagoons, a name that, like the Greens, Springs, Lakes, and Meadows, belies the arid land it occupies. Indeed, image more than oil (little of which ever existed in Dubai anyway) is now the city’s most valuable export. But what reality might that image exploit? The city was never one of the great centres of Islamic learning or Arab culture, like Cairo or Damascus. It has always been a centre for trade, a way station for commerce. Even today it boasts no impressive mosques; shopping malls are the grandest edifices, and the best-known universities are imported satellite campuses from the United States, England, and Australia. So with no great cultural legacy to celebrate, Dubai has embraced the culture of celebrity. Last February, Tiger Woods was once again victorious in the Dubai Desert Classic, and Roger Federer tried (unsuccessfully) to defend his title in the Dubai Tennis Championships. A year ago George Clooney promoted his movie Michael Clayton at the Dubai International Film Festival, and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been spotted frolicking with their children on the b each of the Burj Al Arab, the sail-shaped hotel that is the city’s current signature landmark. Dubai is often described as an Arabian Disneyland, and the characterization is not wide of the mark. Tourists, residents, and celebrities (including Michael Jackson and Rafael Nadal) have slid down the foaming cascades at the Wild Wadi water park. Across Sheikh Zayed Road, the enclosure for the indoor ski slope at the Mall of the Emirates angles into the sky like a giant airplane hangar tipped on end, glowing with a streak of lurid colour at nightfall. To accommodate the 15 million tourists a year that the city is planning to host by 2010, another resort complex of 30 hotels and 100 cinemas was sketched out on the city planner’s boards, but as a sign that even Dubai’s aspirations have been tempered, the project has been put on hold. Not, however, the Mall of Arabia, which promises to surpass the West Edmonton Mall as the world’s largest shopping and entertainment complex. The most impressive feature of Dubai isn’t the George Jetson architecture, or even the Burj Dubai, destined to be the tallest building in the world when completed, but the fact that people who would normally be at each other’s throats in their home countries—Indians and Pakistanis, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Serbs and Bosnians, Ethiopians and Eritreans—manage to live and work together in remarkable harmony. This is also part of the legacy of Dubai, that for generations it has served as a crossroads of cultures and a transit point for people as well as goods, and so it evolved into a tolerant neutral space where the petty feuds of other parts of the world have no place. The downside of this polyglot society is a paucity of the shared concerns that can form a social consciousness and hold a society together. â€Å"I don’t want Hezbollah running my country,† the Lebanese receptionist at a medical clinic says when I ask her thoughts on the fallout of the Israel-Lebanon war. That issue is a nonstarter for the Asian staff who share her office. â€Å"She was a beautiful, beautiful woman!† the Pakistani security guard outside my apartment building croons, two days after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who spent part of her political exile in Dubai. Being so far from the cafà © tables of Lahore or Karachi, it is probably the first chance he’s had to pour out praise for the populist leader. Dubai is just a short airplane hop from the crises in Sudan, Iraq, and Palestine, but in an odd irony, this global city remains blissfully alienated from the pressing global issues that surround it. Car bombings in Baghdad and street battles in Gaza seem to exist in some parallel universe far from Dubai’s beach clubs and poolside barbecues. If talk radio is a barometer of popular sentiment, Dubai lacks social angst, or even concern about the world’s troubles. On Property Week, callers swap tips on the latest real estate investments. On another show, listeners offer advice on ways to kill time in traffic and compare the brunch buffets and weekend getaway packages offered by five-star hotel chains. One program is devoted to nuanced analysis of rugby, soccer, and cricket matches for United Kingdom and subcontinent expatriates. When the local English daily celebrated its 35th anniversary, readers praised the paper for its coverage of business, sports, and entertainment, but there was no han-k-ering for more articles on inter-national current events, some fright-ening-ly close to home. Life in Dubai is not all whimsical indulgence, however, for vice has arrived as an inseparable part of the global village. Dubai’s crime rate, still modest by Western standards, has risen to a level that would have been unknown a generation ago. Street crimes are still rare but drug seizures are not, and black markets in consumer goods have sprung up. (In a caper that Butch Cassidy would have envied, a gang of thieves drove two stolen cars through an entrance of the upscale Wafi City Mall, smashed a jewellery store display window, and made off with the goods.) Where economic adventurism thrives, so does the world’s oldest profession. Prostitutes from China, the Philippines, Russia, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet republics hover near hotel entrances, hoping to snag returning guests. To its credit, Dubai can be called a true microcosm, but it’s hard to believe that a coherent society can be composed of guest workers who have migrated solely for lucrative jobs and have no longterm stake in the city’s future. Beneath the veneer of harmony is the disturbing sense that everyone knows his or her place. Class asserts itself in an unsavoury caste system where national and ethnic identity determines whether one is offered employment or a lease for an apartment. The city’s reputation as a haven of safety and security in a troublesome part of the world is upheld by affirming an â€Å"old world order† left by the colonial power Dubai would like to believe it has moved beyond. Social equality is a noble ideal promoted by the government but flouted in practice, proving once again that the democratic society is still a modern notion, at war with the more widespread tendency of human beings to create a hierarchy. A landlord may refuse to rent apartments to â€Å"bachelors,† the code word for men from the Asian subcontinent working in Dubai who may be supporting wives and children back home. The term would never apply to an unmarried German electrical engineer or a Canadian English teacher. â€Å"Eight years,† a taxi driver replies when I ask how long he has been plying the roads of Dubai, and I know this means 12 hours a day, six days a week. On Friday afternoons he probably goes to the closest Western Union office, like hundreds of others, to wire money back to his family in Mumbai or Peshawar. Class asserts itself also in the division between servers and the served. I still feel a little awkward when supermarket clerks address me formally and the deliveryman from Pizza Hut (â€Å"Ahmad,† according to his name tag) is overly grateful for a modest tip. But I remind myself that since Dubai is not a democracy and few of its residents come from democratic countries, there is no way its society could resemble one. If someone had to pinpoint one spot on earth that epitomizes the most unsavoury aspects of globalization, Dubai could be Exhibit A. It is a place where the whims of a consumerist society overwhelm a simple native Bedouin culture, the predilections of the affluent obliterate local climate and ecology, and the divide between rich and poor is unapologetically laid bare. Discussion points Read the above account of Dubai and discuss the following questions in groups: 1. To what extent can the Dubai story be regarded as the epitome of Globalisation? Explain your answer. 2. In what ways can Dubai be regarded as vulnerable? 3. What negative aspects of the Dubai story can you identify? 4. How might these negative aspects be mitigated?

Economic And Social Essay

In a century of modernisation, the memorable decades shoot the stars of one decade so bright and called the sixties. It was definitely unlike others. It screamed for its entity of liberty, knowledge, power, wealth, thrill, wanted to see a generation through Purple Haze. Taking communication beyond the realm of any hesitation with television and movies; ‘60s are back’. Civil rights marches, urban riot, soldier fighting at Vietnam and citizen protesting back home, students taking over college campuses, hippies in their unconventional dresses with flowers in their wiery hair, rolling on drug and rock music, rock and rolling on spirit of free love. It was a revolution in the air for the social deconstruction through the social and political activism of ‘the movement’ of the left wing leaving a collective memory of the contrasts that ever any decade has seen, of its Economic and Social changes, like America of 60s and beyond saw (Whitfield 2004). The materials of this web site of Duke University Press are reflecting the issues of the race, labour market and social disorder of the twentieth century America through its journal of Social Science History. It introduces the rise of the African Americans in the central cities from 10% approx. , in contrast to the post 60s reading clocks nearly at 60%, far than that of whites. But the site is also arguing on the discriminations and poverty rising due to various economic factors, kinds of markets, social systems, policies and movements. In the United State’s social history the site contributes the connection of the historic redistribution of the Black population. The site is recommendable for the research as it has the relevant concern for the subject matter and has eventually gone deeper into the subject, projecting the post 60s U. S. economy and society. More over the web site is a typical research oriented one that provides social journals with a vision, ‘Today’s Research. Tomorrow’s Inspiration’ that holds the emblem of the Registration of Project Muse. The whole effort is produced by ‘The Johns Hopkins University Press’ with an extended academic support of ‘The Milton S. Eisenhower Library’. Thus, it goes for the motion that the site can be employed for the research for its viability and genuineness of the academic and literary interpretations (Collins 1971). The site of Lone Star College – Kingwood is describing the American cultural history from 1960 to 69 precisely. Apart from the general review of the decade, it also has the facts and the figures of the same. From art, architecture to books and fashion, from events and technology to music and war, from people and sports to television and politics, the site has cover roughly everything of the decade, in a very briefly manner. But, since it is brief; it does not convey the message that it can not support a research. The said is the only pen picture of the homepage, which again has number of links to get access to great deal of details. The site has extra links of library and research guide, which makes it more suitable for research purpose. It is a college library site with a dot command of education, proving it to be an educational site and can be employed for the research (Lone Star College 2008). Since the topic about post 60s America, here it draws a sharp contrast by sifting the focus to South America. Growth and structural change in Latin America since 1960 analyses the economic and trade effect on the society. It comparing the effect since 1930s and what happened in 70s and 80s. economic slowdown, import substitute, export and reliance on foreign debts have the economy of the region and have not been engaged in creative response anymore. Though it has a slow starting but has argued the growth considering the emerging power later. The site is absolutely perfect for the research. Firstly, the article is developed by Harvard Institute for International Development and Bar Ilan University, Israel and got the patent of the ‘The University of Chicago’. Again it has the patent of the Jestor community, which is served and supported by the community of the scholars and exclusively an academic site. Thus, it is high employable (Syrquin. 1986). This site is about the sustainable development of America through its history of environmental politics, policies and common good. The site has explained the millennium ecosystem assessment from now till post 60s era. But the site can not be used in the research as it is much of a blog than a site. It has the option to post comment. The open domain nature of this site has made it prone to bias feedbacks and confusing conclusion (Environmental Economics & Sustainable Development 2006). The American Scene describes the age of abundance, which includes the American politics, movie, culture, etc. that happened as the baby boomers grew up, and once who saw the war in their childhood. But the site shares the same problem like the previous one. It is kind of blog and has got the place to leave replies there is no academic support and viability to have faith on the articles (The American Scene 2008). Fertility change in Utah: 1960-1975 has discussed the fertility rate of the area and it social and economic contribution that started from 1800 and continued till the post 60s period. But it is futile to discuss on this site as the site is lacking in genuineness. It appears to be a word document with certain links to connect for further information. Even the source cited is also absurd up to a great extent (Fertility change in Utah: 1960-1975 2008). Reference Andrews, Richard N. L. 2006. Learning from History: U. S. Environmental Politics, Policies, and the Common Good. Environmental Economics & Sustainable Development. http://environmental-economics. blogspot. com/2007/08/sustainable- development-21st-century. html (accessed October 30, 2008). Collins, William J. 1971. Race, Labor Markets, and Social Disorder in Twentieth- Century America: An Introduction. Social Science History 29, No. 2: 235-239. http://muse. jhu. edu/login? uri=/journals/social_science_history/v029/29. 2collins. h tml (accessed October 29, 2008). Goodwin, Susan. and Bradley, Becky. 2008. American Cultural History 1960 – 1969. Lone Star College – Kingwood. http://kclibrary. lonestar. edu/decade60. html (accessed October 29, 2008). Syrquin, Moshe. 1986. Growth and Structural Change in Latin America since 1960: A Comparative Analysis. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 34, no. 3: pp. 433-454. http://www. jstor. org/pss/1154048 (accessed October 29, 2008). Spicer, J. L. 2008. Fertility change in Utah: 1960-1975. POPLINE Document Number: 015540. http://www. popline. org/docs/0576/015540. html (accessed October 30, 2008). Tim Lee 2008. The Age of Abundance. The American Scene. http://www. theamericanscene. com/2008/06/27/the-age-of-abundance (accessed October 30, 2008). Whitfield, Stephen J. 2004. A Companion to 20th-century America. Blackwell Publishing.

Is a successful marriage a utopia today? Essay

The latest marriage statistics should make every couple doubt about whether their relationship shell be sealed with a marriage. Beside the fact that considerably less couples decide to marry at all, in the US every second, in Austria (as an example for middle Europe) every third marriage is divorced. This is not a particularly promising prospect for a couple planning to marry and swear to love each other for the rest of their lives. Therefore the question must be raised: Is a successful marriage Utopia today? When I take a closer look at our society, I can imagine some reasons why successful marriages, which mean staying together happily for a lifetime, have become so rare. One reason might be a shift in our society towards more self-realization and less responsibility. In my opinion many couples may not detect the enormity of their decision to marry. Before making that decision each partner should think about all consequences a marriage might have on the relationship and all consequences a marriage definitively has when it comes to legal terms. Taking the decision whether or not one wants to marry his or her partner should not be made hasty in a romantic mood or occasional feelings of perfect happiness and love. Nevertheless many couples fix their marriage either before really knowing each other or not thinking of the consequences it has. After a little time, when the butterflies in their stomachs are often gone, many couples realize that their relationship has changed, but they then have to realize as well that divorcing is by far not the same as breaking up. A second reason might have to do with the role of women in our society. Nowadays nearly every woman is educated or emancipated enough to earn her own money. Therefore only some women are still financially dependent on their husbands which was/is often a reason for women staying married although being unhappy in the relationship. A woman who earns her own money and can lead an independent life without her husband as well will have no fear of getting divorced, as this was the case in the last centuries. However, not only the roles of women, but also our society as a whole has changed and made divorce absolutely tolerable. In former times our society consisted of either happy or unhappy married couples with at least one or two children. These couples married or were forced to marry fairly early and stayed together till the end of their days. Nowadays our society is structured completely different: many couples life together without marrying or having children, others marry and get divorced once or more often. Additionally homosexual relationships are relatively tolerated and the number of singles, who spend the main part of their life alone, is one the raise too. In such a heterogeneous society divorce has become a normal, for some even a natural, thing. Terms like common law spouses have emerged and some people think of their partners as temporary phenomenon only. Nevertheless I truly believe that in the 21st century a successful marriage must not be or is not Utopia. I, for myself, cannot tell what future holds in store for me and my relationship, but I can observe many happy and therefore successful marriages which have been lasting for more than 25 years by now in my surrounding. In my opinion the society and therefore the people living in a society are always subject to change. And these changes also include changes of people’s behaviours, customs, morals or values. Although today’s marriage statistics do not suggest bright expectations for a successful marriage, I think it is still can and does happen. Maybe the preliminaries for such a marriage have changed, nevertheless many couples show us that living in our society happily and married is still possible. So, for many couples a successful marriage has become Utopia, but the alternative is still there.

The Ethics of Distribution, How to distribute health care fairly Essay

The Ethics of Distribution, How to distribute health care fairly - Essay Example Even after increased spending on the United States health care, the country could not manage to improve health status significantly. Currently, access to health care in the United States is far from equitable; this has raised the legitimate question of justice. Health care insurance has managed to obtain access for most Americans, but 15 percent of individuals remain without coverage. A lot of people are still not able to access modern medicine, and this raises an important topic in medical ethics (Trotochaud, 2006). In the conceptual bioethics framework, access to health care is under the principle of justice, for example; entitlement to resources, equitable distribution, and fairness. The issues of justice in the health care system are divided into two related but different dimensions; access and allocation. Allocation is the process that is used to determine the health care resources for distribution to individuals and populations. The allocation issue has three levels; social level, this is the amount of resources spent by the government on health care compared with other budgetary needs. Second tier is allocation at the point of healthcare service; this is the decisions of health care portions of the federal budget and to whom, where and how the funds will be spent. The final level concerns the individual patient; access to health care in the United States is determined by the ability to have health insurance coverage. Access relates to whether individuals who should be or who are entitled to access health care services can receive them. Even with all the government spending on health care, a majority of people in the United States go without health insurance coverage (Trotochaud, 2006). For example, in the year 2009, 50.7 million individuals lacked healthcare cover. For the many individuals covered by insurance, they can access high-quality care with ease but at high costs. Those without coverage, or without adequate cover forgo much-needed care,

Do you agree that feminism remains a highly relevant ideology in its Essay

Do you agree that feminism remains a highly relevant ideology in its challenge to patriarchy and gendered inequality - Essay Example Through the efforts of earlier feminists, there have been major historical changes to favour women in enhancing their rights mostly in the west. Feminism has gone through development in three waves with each of the aiming at achieving particulars goals within a particular period. The first wave that came into place in the early twentieth century to the late 1950s mostly referred to as women’s suffrage that ensured that women had the right to vote in different parts of the world. After that came in the second wave that began in the 1960s that majored in ensuring that women had equal social and legal rights in the society. Later on, the 1960s came the third wave that is aimed to achieve most of the second wave goals that were not achieved within that period. The third wave has extended since then to date with various feminist identifying and fighting for the rights of women that are being infringed in different parts of the world. In today’s world feminism remains to be a highly related philosophy in its challenge to gender inequality and patriarchy (Fraser 2009). The idea of gender offers acknowledgement to the fact that each recognized society differentiates between men and women. Thus, the concept/term of gender is a logical method of understanding women and men socially and the modelling of affiliations amongst them. The idea of patriarchy assists the study of male domination in the social order. Gender inequality denotes to the unequal perception or treatment of individuals according to their gender. It ascends from dissimilarities in socially built gender roles in addition to biologically through hormonal differences, brain structure, and chromosomes. Feminists are individuals either men or women who require equivalent opportunities for both genders. Feminist writings on gender became common in the early 1970s when the feminist saw the

Behaviors of customers and Environment Influence on Marketing Essay

Behaviors of customers and Environment Influence on Marketing - Essay Example Attracting customers is an integral part of marketing, but retaining them is even more important. This can be achieved through several means including understanding the behavior of current and future customers and the environment. In addition, recognizing changes in the market environment allows the firms to capitalize on marketing opportunities or prepare for threats in the market. Understanding of the market environment requires the firms to be conversant with current market trends, technology developments and competitors’ strategies. Therefore, this paper seeks to analyze customers’ current and potential behaviors and the market environment, as well as they affect marketing strategies. In order to successfully market their products firms need to understand both the behavior of current and potential customers and the influence of the marketing environment. In understanding the current customers’ behavior, marketers are able to do an analysis of their buying trends. This also helps to recognize the prevailing needs of the customer and hence produce products that satisfy target customers’ needs. It is also very important to be aware of the consumer buying process so as to influence the choice of the consumer. In doing so, it is paramount to understand that the buying process consists of several stages, all of which are of great interest to marketers (Thomas, 1995, p.248).

Managing Organisations and People Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Managing Organisations and People - Essay Example In essence, Ansoff's model of strategic growth is used by Chase in the efforts of enabling the Tyrrell Crisp business to grow. The acknowledgement of Mr Chase that consumer is ready to pay more for traditional products because of the exceptional ingredient are also a concept that can be noted in this model. His packaging which was meant for the locals and therefore designed to suit their needs was equally of importance. This goes along with the Ansoff's model such that the redesigning of the packaging shows that or aims at the existing customers in a new market. This eventually reflects the qualities of Ansoff's model of new products being sold in existing market and new products sold in new markets. In this regards the concept of market penetration is crucial. This is a strategy Chase uses to penetrate the market a market that is apparently not saturated. He does this by attracting new customers for the product and ensuring that the existing ones are adequately furnished by the product and are satisfied. Mr. Chase attains this by aggressively doing the marketing for the product and selling it directly to t he consumers cutting off the link of the distributors who he considers not enthusiastic. In terms of market penetration, Chase uses the strategy to ensure that he makes his sales to the stores. It is to this effect that it can be deducted that distributors if not well managed or well laid out can lead to the detriment of the company rather than the flourishing of the company. Another concept that Mr. Chase use which is a concept in the Ansoff's model is that of diversification. He intends to diversify into other products including cereal bars, biscuits and muesli. Diversification enables the company not to rely heavily on one product. This enables the company to easily overcome any disaster which may be associated with a single product. In this sense diversification according to this model involves the introduction of new products. For long term survival of a company diversification is essential since reliance on one product can lead to uncertainty of the company's future. The behavior approach was researched on in the 1940s since the researchers wanted to find out the source of effective leadership. They considered behaviors of individuals since there was a belief that behaviors could be observed in an objective manner and measured (Allen: 1997). They equally believed that behaviors could be measured. In this regards a researcher Kurt Lewin 1938 gave information that led to the basis of behavior approach of leadership. In this he identified a range of leadership behaviors including democratic style, autocratic style and laissez-faire style. However there is no particular style that has been identified as the most effective in leadership and thus many managers and leaders use a mixer of this styles where appropriate or where the styles suite them. By reflecting the mode of leadership manifested by Chase it shows that Mr. Chase use various types of leadership skills to ensure that his company's products reach various destined locations. This approach th erefore enabled the company to penetrate the Market. The behavior approach of leadership has the views in relation to motivation and can be categorized into two views known as theory X and theory Y. these