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Mega Project Management and Society

Pages:11

Requirements:

Understand the connection between projects and society in the globalized economy
• Analyse theories and emergent ideas in project management
• Identify and critically appraise societal forces influencing projects and the management of projects
• Evaluate the impact of global and mega or major projects on society
• Develop and apply research skills to examine global and mega or major projects

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Abstract

Globalized framework and economic development are crucial elements for any country. Today, globalization has rapid advancement in terms of better and improved infrastructure, facilities, and complex projects. The current research essay discusses the scope of a megaproject in an economy and its influence on society. In the global economy, the megaprojects are necessary to build better infrastructure, to connect world economies, and to bring sustainability. The project management framework, in this regard, takes the lead to explain the competitiveness in the global economy. Megaprojects are managed under project management forces, concepts, and theories. These theories involve better organizational framework, ideas, and management implications.

The megaprojects work inherently for an economy, as discussed in this research essay. They have a substantial role in global demand and supply-side because it is always preferred to become a cost-effective organization. Due to better equipment, better infrastructure, and workplace, an organization can work better for employees and provide them better opportunities. This set up also help to bring state of the art system of information. This research essay explains the role of megaprojects, their significance, and persistence in today’s economy. The purpose and scope of these projects are discussed. The global environment is related to the structural aspects of extensive projects. The impact of megaprojects on society is also elaborated in this paper. Global suppliers, contractors, and team members are crucial to working under project management. They not only act globally but also provide and achieve the advantage of a professional team and cost-effective systems.

 

Introduction

The current global environment thrives due to intense competition. Organizations must consider their behavioral practices to place the importance of project management. It is critical to know that global projects are managed by integrated informational technology tools. The scope of cultural differences to manage complexity and risk of the project is always extensive when viewed under mega projects (Bovensiepen, J. and Yoder, L.S.M., 2018). Integrated IT tools enhance focus on improving competitiveness, innovation, and effectiveness. A review of research studies provides ample evidence about global project management. The effect of global projects on society and their implementation develops a managerial framework.

The rationale of this study is to explore the impact of global megaprojects on society. When global projects are developed, improved performance and structural maintenance are viewed. The study begins with the premise of megaprojects and project management scope. It will discuss the interaction of integrated IT factors to accomplish megaproject development. The interrelationship of these variables will define the role and responsibilities of project management. To that end, key concepts and theories of project management will be included in this paper. Critical evaluation and reflection is also discussed in the paper.

Global Project Management

Megaprojects, energy infrastructure, transport, urban regenerations schemes, new towns, city clusters, and technology parks are some examples of megaprojects. These are reconfigured spaces that have a prominent role of local and regional elites as well as public-private capital (Cummings, L., 1997). The design and implementation of megaprojects are according to the need for harmonized scales. This structure increases the global visibility and urban competitiveness.  In a diverse socio-economic context, the political power configuration exhibits a unique relationship between regional, national, local, and universal domains. The meaning of planetary urbanization also presents the nature of urban projects and their location that adds to the urbanization process. Due to urban competitiveness and development, the megaproject construction has a significant role in globalization and neoliberalism (Bovensiepen, J. and Yoder, L.S.M., 2018).

The megaprojects actively participate in the planetary urbanization. These projects are nominated as privileged particles that contribute to development. They are also considered as trait making. They not only change the structure of society but also fit in the pre-existing structure of society and attempt to modify it. The megaprojects in urban areas offer different packages of development (Purkayastha, P., 2017). There is a clear relationship in megaprojects and development because massive scale development is attributable to the iconic design that transform the image of a city. The scope of urban governance to entrepreneurialism is based on a global networking that defines perceived linkages to global economy. In regaining global visibility, the quintessential economic strategy serves representational transformation (Fang, J., Fu, Y. and Yao, D., 2010).

Megaprojects are the immense scale investments that attract public attention, so a substantial impact on communities occurs. Megaprojects bring a positive change in the economy, in terms of increased spending and buying. There are different aspects of the city related to megaprojects that deliver long term changes. Though complicated projects face economic fluctuations and many other methods like cost estimation and forecasting, bring shortcomings. The urban megaprojects also effect on societal groups due to their broader domain—the negative and positive effects of their implementation move with demographic migration. In the context of the city, native and non-native groups face change in identity, character, and physical environment.

The concept of sustainable urban development under different purposes serves the urban future. In European cities, minimum use of natural resources, space and efficient administration, protecting public health, and equal access to resources are some main objectives considered before developing megaprojects (Anantatmula, V. and Thomas, M., 2010). The significance of sustainability is related to social, economic, ecological, and cultural needs under urban indices. In Iran, to maintain urban tourism, a complex in Padideh city is formed. The complex is built on more than 50 hectares and consists of shopping malls, hotels, entertainment, Water Park and apartments. This example of megaproject at the municipal level is considered due to its national, local, and regional importance and to attract citizens. Arranging an undertaking is connected to the improved creation and utilization of crude material. Literature has concentrated on critical advantages and structures necessary for an economy to look for financial development (Anabestani, Z., Sarvar, R. and Hajiluie, M.O.M., 2016).

Impact of global projects on society

The socio-economic significance of megaprojects is based on globalization. Four global processes are attributable to neoliberalism and globalization. First is city-based competition at the worldwide level. Second is knowledge economy mobility and growth, third is the movement of investment from physical to human capital, and the fourth is market rule ideology and its dominance. Significant economic and political change is associated with megaprojects. Increased complex projects tend to increase foreign direct investments. This indicates a wide relationship between urban development and globalization. If international direct investment increases, it brings a change in the economy, so the centrality of manufacturing industries move to information-based development (Habison, R., 1985). Global foreign direct investment services increase the extent of global capital mobility. It develops the aim of capturing a world share of mobile wealth; the situation of global competitiveness brings economic survival.

Megaproject impacts positive on economic productivity, development of infrastructure, quality of life, housing, recreational activities, cost of living, and public prosperity perception. Research studies argue that the efficiency of most populated cities is based on accessibility level. There are specific patterns required to use land and transportation that can bring immense scale benefits. The relationship in prosperity and urban growth guides the geographical nature and socio-economic status. The megaprojects work significantly to shape society. In modern project management, customer relations, and economic profitability matter most (Korytárová, J. and Hromádka, V., 2014). The projects are linked to utility values and financial investments. They need initial outlays, but utility value differs from the investment costs. The megaprojects are critical to change the fate of any nation, and in less created economies, these structures improve remote direct venture. They are additionally impressive to upgrade the salary stream in the marketplace.

In public and private undertakings, client or customer holds an important role. The scope of economic performance is linked to megaprojects so they collectively induce change in the society. In the matter of development, the organizational actions work significantly for community. The social impact is all about wellbeing of community in terms of economic growth, better economic opportunities and access to opportunities. The megaprojects always behave positively with the benefit of society and this impact is counted positive in terms of economic value. The scope of global project is linked to globalization because all over the world, economic development is attributable to these megaprojects. Megaprojects give a reasonable guide under undertaking the executive’s system (Purkayastha, P., 2017). They are enduring segment of the task the board on the grounds that in dealing with an enormous scope venture, the industry needs to concentrate on arranging and authoritative structure.

Project Management concepts

Management theory today relates to construction and engineering projects. The management concepts related to organization and labor coordination work since the 19th century under the transition of entrepreneurial capitalism. The classical theory under management framework undertakes two primary schools of thought. The first one is scientific management, and the second is the administrative theories. The scientific management allows efficiency framework, for instance, under the growing industrial production while the managerial theories suggest further discussions. These are bureaucracy and administration. The bureaucracy is based on the principles of bringing changes in society under social sciences. The administration approach was developed by a mining engineer Fayol that categories classical theories into further concepts.

The scientific framework allows for the elemental work under the rule of thumb method that is based on competence and set out some regulations. The other purpose is related to the cooperation carried out to work on a decision-based mechanism (Korytárová, J. and Hromádka, V., 2014). This process is based on specific details that need administration. Under project management, classical theories are related to the human relations movement. The behavioral approach presents that management and organization work on an ongoing process under a dynamic framework to enhance social wellbeing. This process undertakes consideration of human aspects (Purkayastha, P., 2017). For example, a theory of motivation in project management is presented by McGregor that follows motivational dimensions. The motivation theory states that managers can develop a condition where employees confirm the expectations of managers. The behavior can be motivated where it is desired according to the satisfaction. This further needs physiological safety and fulfillment of social needs.

Under a project management framework, dynamic and static concepts highlight the notion of the organizational environment. In a dynamic environment, the exchange of information occurs under either stable systems or chaotic systems. The durable systems are about the input of limited sensitivity, and chaotic systems are about the high sensitivity systems. This concept is based on the chaos theory that highlights individual cases. The dynamic aspect is further based on the non-deterministic element that works on the basis of the global cascade. The complex systems are about the characterization of resilience or sensitivity, which can bring minor changes in the input. The complex system is based on complexity theory.

The project management theory is based on four leading schools of thought. First is industrial, it is about encompassing of Smiths’ labor division to accomplish work activities under administrative approaches. The second is humans that surround human aspects as the behavior of an organization. The third aspect is biological, which represents the system theory and incorporates static and dynamic systems.  Due to the structural framework, the deterministic characteristics are included in this system.  The fourth approach is evolutionary that represents non-deterministic complex systems.  For project management understanding, these essential concepts work integral. Fayol’s function of project management is divided into five parts; for instance, it plans to forecast, to organize, to coordinate, to command, and to control. The traditional approaches of project management are linked to the visibility of work structure, its time scale, and complexity (Purkayastha, P., 2017). Under the project management framework, the process-based systems work integral, while lean and agile methods are moved with traditional theory.

Under project management aspects, the totality of work is linked to semi-permeable boundaries of works that act as influencing vectors. The initial decomposition is related to initial transformation. The strategic business objectives are essential to consider the influencing vectors and their required timeframes. In large projects, the exclusive focus is to satisfy the client; otherwise, it’s not possible to get project success.

Critical Evaluation & Reflection

Megaprojects are a basic need of metropolitan cities. Research studies have discussed that public, private partnership, and regional structures as complex projects form the most significant settlements of the economy. Literature has focused on key benefits and structures necessary for an economy to seek economic growth. The megaprojects are essential to transform the destiny of any country, and in less developed economies, these structures improve foreign direct investment. They are also considered to enhance income flow in the marketplace. The megaprojects are long term transformations for any country that lead the underdeveloped nation to a developed one. They offer the opportunity to many sectors of the economy to boost and increase their rate of economic development. The megaprojects are also a form of power generation for the economy because of the development of related structures, transportation, and raw material (Timo, P., 2013).

They deliver clear benefits to the existing physical assets of the country, some main advantages of megaprojects are; optimal use of natural resources, irrigation expansion, improved quality of life, the opening of new markets, enhanced productivity, opening up of trade, increased efficiency of government and better infrastructure of the economy.

Megaprojects provide a clear roadmap under the project management framework. They are a perennial component of project management because in managing a large scale project, the industry has to focus on planning and organizational structure (Purkayastha, P., 2017). Planning of a project is linked to the enhanced production and use of raw material. Project development is linked to the managing of team members, suppliers, and partners. The global impact of project management is seen from the extended levels of a project team—for example, deployment of a new management system work to involve highly specialized teams under the global company. The relocation of highly advanced machinery and professionals to a certain project is based on expertise to handle a complex project and reduce cost.  In my view, megaprojects are large-scaled functions that are inherent in the global economy, and their influence on the globalized world is significant because one segment attracts others.

Conclusion

Megaproject management and its sustainability is a key issue in the global world. Large scale projects are the cornerstone of any economy because they aid in production and work to enhance development. There are certain factors in urban planning that matter mostly during planning and implementation. Urban context mostly focuses on managers, leaders and entrepreneurs to remember the scope of decision making elements. In viewing the global project management and its influence over globalization, the effective communication, efficient coordination of stakeholders and team members’ interaction is positive to consider. Megaprojects are a key part of any global economy, and this link can be better understood by the connection of project management. The societal forces that work to determine project management are socio-economic, regional, and local factors. Global or mega projects are a key part of an economy, and their influence on society is great in terms of economic development.

References

Anabestani, Z., Sarvar, R. and Hajiluie, M.O.M., 2016. The Effect Of Mega-Projects On Sustainable Urban Development From The Perspective Of Citizens (Case Study: Padideh Tourism Complex Of Shandiz). Turkish Online Journal Of Design, Art And Communication, 6(JLYSPCL), pp.374–396.

Anantatmula, V. and Thomas, M., 2010. Managing Global Projects: A Structured Approach for Better Performance. Project Management Journal, 41(2), pp.60–72.

Bovensiepen, J. and Yoder, L.S.M., 2018. Introduction: The Political Dynamics and Social Effects of Megaproject Development. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 19(5), pp.381–394.

Cummings, L., 1997. Waste Minimisation Supporting Urban Tourism Sustainability: A Mega-Resort Case Study. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 5(2), pp.93–108.

Fang, J., Fu, Y. and Yao, D., 2010. Application of Meta-synthesis Method in Project Management of Large-scale Complex Projects. Management & Engineering, pp.3–10.

Habison, R., 1985. Time and cost securing in complex large-scale projects. International Journal of Project Management, 3(3), pp.178–181.

Korytárová, J. and Hromádka, V., 2014. The Economic Evaluation of Megaprojects – Social and Economic Impacts. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 119, pp.495–502.

Purkayastha, P., 2017. Managing innovation projects in the global system. Proceedings of Engineering Management Society Conference on Managing Projects in a Borderless World.

Timo, P., 2013. Development at the Cost of Violations: The Impact of Mega-Projects on Human Rights in Brazil. SSRN Electronic Journal.

Vickerman, R.W., 2012. Cost–Benefit Analysis and the Wider Economic Benefits from Mega- Projects. Decision-Making on Mega-Projects.

 

 

Recommendation for Improving Value, Creativity, and Innovation in a Specific Company

Pages:

1.0. Introduction

This report gives a brief of the U.S. health care industry and the leading corporations that are redefining the health care system. It put emphasis on CVS Health Org’. CVS Health is a Health care services corporation that provides: Pharmacy Services, Retail, and Corporate. This report analyzes the company’s position in the healthcare industry and major trends that keep the company’s financials healthy. Further, it explains the recent innovations and strategies adopted by the company’s management. The company’s innovation strategies are simple, not very complicated, dedicated to customers’ satisfaction, and making a brand image. CVS Health is exploring new ways to expand its customers base with services that are exploding the traditional expectations. The company has been involved with the Trump administration in containing the coronavirus. It also partnered with IBM and Apple to create a user-friendly and reliable app for faster delivery and services. However, the company faces competition from other players in the industry and is continuously looking for ways to get one step ahead of them.
Furthermore, it analyzes the company’s competitive strategies and the hardcore rivalry brought by other major players in the industry. The new federal policies related to healthcare and the practices initiated by health authorities have impacted CVS Health’s game-plan. At the end of the report, we have highlighted some of the innovative, functional strategies that, if adopted, will benefit CVS, both in the short and long term.

2.0.Analysis

CVS Health is the largest pharmacy services provider in the U.S. It is a publicly held company with a revenue of $194.6 billion, a market cap of $69.2 billion, and an enterprise value of $78.5 billion. It employs more than 280,000 individuals and provides services to around 5 million people a day(CVS, 2020). CVS Health is exploring new ways to expand its customers base with services that are exploding the traditional expectations. In recent years, it started its ’Digital Innovation Lab’ that initiated an Apple-watch compatible app that lets users scan their insurance paper and drug prescription –for online purchases. The company partnered with IBM Watson’s AI to predict which customer needs precautions to avoid health issues shortly(Most Innovative Company: CVS Health, 2019). Despite being the leader in healthcare and pharmacy retail, the company is facing severe competition from other players in the industry, as well asan economic and political downturn.

2.1.Risk

Pharmacy retail is a resilient industry marked by severe price competition and a small-scale disparity. Changes never come easy in the health care industry, and CVS Health certainly has a limited capacity for financial flexibility after acquiring Aetna via debt financing.
CVS Health is in a tight, functioning market. A report issued by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S., said that healthcare spending is expecting to rise to about 19.5% in the coming five years. While, higher spending may be a good thing for pharmacy and healthcare companies like CVS Health, but there is an edgy side to that increase; as costs increases, it is a disincentive for most public and private health payers like insurance companies and Medicare, because as cost rises, it lowers the margins. CVS Health has already seen thin margins in the last few years. As of 2019, Gross Margin for CVS Health was 0.00040%; in 2018, the Gross Margin was a little higher to be 0.00055%. The company is also encountering certain risks related to its operational activities, such as risks associated with cybersecurity and threat related to information security. CVS Health has experienced many cyber-attacks and is still facing danger. The company also has come across several automated attempts to gain access to public-facing networks, brute force, SYN flood, and several service attacks, including vulnerability scanning, ransomware attacks, spear-phishing campaigns, and PHP injections.  Moreover, CVS Health has seen many unknown attempts trying to gain access to patients’ information and personal data and demographics info (Health, 2019).
Furthermore, numerous laws related to health care and regulations about the industry are under the consideration of the federal state, which will potentially impact the profits of CVS Health in all its three fundamental segments: Retail drugs, Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM), and Health care benefits. Of all the three main divisions, ‘Retail’ has proved to be the most profitable for CVS Health, which eventually will put the company in a spot to face immense pressure; if the prices do not decline enough to compensate for the insurers’ reimbursement rates. With the ownership of its own, CVS Health has got some relief, but this trend is likely to go down the road in the coming years.
Moreover, the ‘Retail’ segment, especially personal health care products, is likely to be pressured by e-commerce giants like Amazon. The comfort of click-and-order and instant & free home delivery is unlikely to beat. Amazon recently acquired PillPack (a licensed pharmacy in almost 49 states), that also sells directly to insurance companies.
Although Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) services are likely to reduce the costs for customers, the prices for customers and insurance companies have significantly increased due to the complex issues related to rebate money.  Therefore, congress in now investigating pharmaceutical companies’ practices and the role of PBM in costs and profits, which could put CVS Health’s profits from this segment under pressure. CVS Health has maintained a good relationship with drug manufacturers for the PBM. If for some reason, they lose relation with one or more drug manufacturers or if the manufacturers stop providing discounts, the companies’ operating cash and cash flows will be significantly affected. Moreover, PBM clients ask for periodic negotiation of prices. Hence the clients are well informed of the cost and environment and can move between CVS Health and other players in the industry if the price offered by CVS Health is too high.  (Health, 2019)
In the Health Care segments of CVS Health, the company has to grow Medicaid, dual eligible special needs. However, in order to obtain the government customer’s business, the company has to bid against its competitors, like Walgreens, in a highly competitive market. Additionally, competitors are may likely offer services and products at low prices that CVS Health may not be ready for this. Competitors might adopt a more reliable and less costly product and services in the future. Disruptive innovation by competitors could halt the company’s existing business strategy. (Health, 2019).

2.2.Competition

The biggest rivalry that CVS Health faces in the industry is Walgreens. Based on their historical performance, Walgreens is attractive as compared to CVS Health in the current situation of the coronavirus. Pharmacy retails open around the globe, but Walgreens is doing more than that; it is selling daily use staples, which will likely help its revenue growth and also help attract more customers. Walgreens’s pharmacy sales and retail sales could help it contain the coronavirus pandemic better than CVS health, which could face pressure due to high waiver cost (Team, 2020)
Moreover, Walgreens has partnered with UnitedHealth to connect emergency care centers and drugstores physically. The company also provides FedEx services for next-day prescription delivery. In addition to that, Walgreens partnered with LabCorp to offer blood and urine testing facilities at stores (Jimenez, 2019). ‘Walgreens Plus’ is a customer loyalty program, that provides a 20% discount on online and store item purchase, and up to 60% discount on some prescriptions. Moreover, the rivalry between Walgreens and CVS Health is not a winner-take-all, but its close (CVS and Walgreens race to deliver the fastest prescriptions online and off, 2019)
Walgreens’s marketing strategy also has a big impact on its sales. Nonetheless, the marketing campaign is not too-digital, the human-touch is very crucial in pharmaceutical businesses, and this is what Walgreens has adopted. To find the best technology, and combine it with the health-care services to provide customers with great and enthusiastic experiences. – Walgreens’s CMO.
Walgreens practices a support program that highly rewards its most loyal & engaged customers. The fundamental factor of the trust and confidence of customers’ is attributed to the company’s idea of personalization. Every person on the planet needs personal and reliable health-care when in need, so Walgreens is reaching people on a personal level, and making & empathetic deep connection with its customers (Talbot, 2019).
Another competition faced by CVS Health is the third-largest drug store chain in the U.S.: Rite Aid. Recently, Rite Aid has announced its new strategy, in collaboration with Adobe, called “Path to the future.” The plan is to acquire advanced technology, techniques, and deliver a unique consumer experience; bring a digital transformation as well as enhance the company’s profits. Rite Aid is determined to connect customers across the widespread geographic locations with the products, services, and experiences they like better with enhanced digital and tech-solutions. The company is working with tech-savvy organizations to develop and operate the new digital systems that will accompany this digital-variation. It will enable strategic guidance, operational foundation, and expertise with industry specialists.  This innovation will undoubtedly provide Rite Aid customers with a shopping experience that revolves around online and in-store shopping. Additionally, Rite Aid has adopted a new outbound marketing strategy, with the help of Adobe cloud computing, that will make it easy to generate a broad view of its customers and add actions across channels and strategy, to increase its impact. Losing one small portion of customers could result in a significant loss, therefore, with this innovation Rite Aid, is armed with Adobe AI and cloud computing, will empower the integrated data sets to meet their strategic goals (CIO, 2019)

 

Figure:The above chart shows the comparison of all the three big players in the healthcare industry. As we can see, the revenue of CVs Health is vast as compared to others too, but the Gross profit of the company is the lowest. The data for this figure was taken from the financial reports of each company.

2.3.Collaboration

In 2019, Walgreens had teamed-up with Microsoft for a healthcare delivery innovation. The innovation is based on combining Microsoft’s AI and cloud computing with Walgreens’s local history and outpatient ministration; it provides a new way of services and care. Post-merger, Walgreens has opened 12 in-store “digital shelves and corner,” solely attentive to selling healthcare devices and gadgets. The partnership is providing Walgreens’s customers the choice to avail of a virtual-care and construct a data infrastructure to health information & data systems, which will help doctors and clinicians to provide better medical care, to cop with costly emergency room visits, and eliminate excess hospital readmissions. This initiative will assist Walgreens to trace the customers’ data, harness it, prescribed the right medication, and assistance at the point of care.
As a part of the partnership, Microsoft will become the cloud computing service provider to Walgreens, and Walgreens will make use of the office 365 software suite in all of its stores and make sure all the 380,000 of its employees around the world make use it while working. Both the companies have agreed to partner on a multiyear ‘Research & Development (R&D)’ to work on health-related publications and healthcare products, and have their eyes set on a joint innovation center. With this partnership, consumers are likely to turn to Walgreens for reliable and more convenient care options as well as virtual care delivery. The intent is to create next-generation, digitally enhanced healthcare delivery solutions for consumers, altering the stores into a tech-modern healthcare destination with the expansion of customers’ offerings (Truong, 2019).
Walgreens has also joined hands with Alphabet. The synergy is intent to customers with chronic illness and disease; shifting technology towards reliable care management has been pitched as a fundamental factor to decrease the cost of care for such patients. The partnership will allow for coherent scaling of healthcare solutions across the widespread geographic footmarks. The companies announced that they are working on developing an initial project to enhance the medication constancy through tech-gadgets and devices; this will undoubtedly improve the real-world issues of healthcare faced by the community at large. One fundamental object of the collaboration is to make technological solutions like sensors, screen software for diagnosis. Moreover, Walgreens will also subsume a virtual diabetes solution. The synergy will provide value-based care to meet the patients’ needs and address the opportunities that may come along the way (Truong, Walgreens teams up with Alphabet’s Verily to tackle chronic disease, 2019).
Another great synergy was formulated by the most significant market players: Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon, and JP Morgan called the ‘Haven.’  The team of experts from all three corporations will make a team of doctors by performance-data analysis, cost, and other fundamental factors. Second, it will make connections with employees and guide them with the appropriate type of care required for specific conditions. ‘Haven’ is a type of ‘Steerage’ that prevents workers and employers from seeing doctors that are charge over-cost and under-perform. Haven will make a risk-based clinically integrated network. Haven will contract directly with hospitals and provide them quality solutions rather than the number of customers/patients. Haven has big plans. “Haven is a port in a storm;” (Farr, 2019).

3.0. Action Plan

The Healthcare industry is very critical in terms of losing customers and facing severe challenges from external sources. Therefore, strategic planning is crucial for both short time and long term competitive advantage; competitive advantage comes from small factors, like personalization with patients, virtual assistance anywhere anytime, fast prescription delivery. However, it would be a mistake for CVS Health to copy the same strategies that its competitors applied. To create value, CVS Health does not have to focus on competence alone, but also focus on how each of its segments is providing benefits to the company and the society as a whole; The focus here is concentrated on four broad areas: People, Context, Content, and Method. An effective strategy is one that focuses on all four elements. CVS Health would be better off with making use of ‘Fit,’ in the context of combining healthcare benefit products and services, Coram infusion and Accordant, nurse care management services. Combing all these together will broaden the customer base, in as much as one out of every third American. With the Global pandemic of coronavirus, the company needs to connect with each client and patient personally so that to share empathy. Therefore, starting a messaging program to engage with its customers (more than 81 million) would be a great idea. The company should make good ties with the U.S. government and tech giants like Facebook and Microsoft further to increase its reach and collaboration for technology-healthcare products. Making use of automation to streamline the internal processes as well as broaden the geographic footprints.
The HealthHUB segment of CVS Health has shown significant benefits to the company as well as society. Therefore, it would be better to initiate a new health hub in places like Tampa, Philadelphia, Houston. Moreover, proving pharmacist panels at the HealthHUB locations will be a good pilot program, if initiated, for CVS. This panel will combine patients’ medical information and pharmacy for a holistic view. The pharmacist at panels can improve medication adherence and make the best use of medication regimens for the patients.
Furthermore, starting an online subscription will also extend the customers’ base and trust; Providing subscription for $5 per month, which includes free prescription delivery, 24 hours a day helpline for seven days a week.

 

References

CIO. (2019). Rite Aid and Adobe Chart a “Path to the Future”. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from GIO: https://www.cio.com/article/3432791/rite-aid-and-adobe-chart-a-path-to-the-future.html
CVS. (2020). Company info. Retrieved from CVS Health.
CVS and Walgreens race to deliver the fastest prescriptions online and off. (2019, Jan 1). Retrieved May 1, 2020, from Digital Commerce 360: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2019/01/09/cvs-and-walgreens-race-to-deliver-the-fastest-prescriptions-online-and-off/
Farr, C. (2019, March 13). Everything we know about Haven, the Amazon joint venture to revamp health care. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/13/what-is-haven-amazon-jpmorgan-berkshire-revamp-health-care.html
Health, C. (2019). Reports 2019.
Most Innovative Company: CVS Health. (2019). Retrieved May 4, 2020, from FastCompany: https://www.fastcompany.com/company/cvs-health
Talbot, P. (2019, july 21). Inside Walgreens’ Marketing Strategy. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultalbot/2019/07/21/inside-walgreens-marketing-strategy/#314d3261428c
Team, T. (2020, April 2). Buy Walgreens Over CVS? Retrieved May 1, 2020, from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/04/02/buy-walgreens-over-cvs/#6ab87e861da0
Truong, K. (2019). Walgreens and Microsoft partner on healthcare delivery innovation. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from MedCity News: https://medcitynews.com/2019/01/walgreens-and-microsoft-partner-on-healthcare-delivery-innovation/
Truong, K. (2019). Walgreens teams up with Alphabet’s Verily to tackle chronic disease. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from MedCity News.

 

 

 

Youth language on Instagram platform in UAE.

Pages:20

 Abstract:

In this paper, we will be exploring the evolution of language as it happens over social media specially Instagram, with a particular focus on how it develops among the youth. Language is a very valuable resource in the evolution of culture itself. Youth identity, while being performed in various ways including fashion, music, dance, etc. is very much performed through the medium of language as well. Social media is a platform through which this language is employed and developed by the people most invested in their online livesthe youth. The activities of social media are not static but mobile since users can document their movements with the help of phones and their cameras, thus bringing in the language of mobility and description of space, which gives insight into the perception of space as well. In a space where image crafting is essential, people are careful about the language they use and do not use to make sure they express their identities just right. This is also aided by the accessibility that mobile phones provide. Content Analysis is being used to draw finding regarding the youth language on Instagram platform in the UAE. hundredsInstagram comments will be analyzed in order to view the use of language by Youth while using simple random sampling technique.

1.0  Literature review:

1.1 Trait model for linguistic behavior:

In a paper,Kulkarni, & Kern(2018), developed a trait model for linguistic behavior on social media. Given the expanse of data present within social media, they decided to forgo questionnaires and directly collect this data to avoid systematic response biases. In line with trait theory, they developed what they called behavior based linguistic traits that they infer by analyzing the plethora of words and phrases used by social media users. They developed five factors that capture real personality traits and this study aimed to see if these factors are stable across time and subpopulations and generalizable with good predictive power (Kim &Phua, 2020 p.12). Their dataset was also skewed towards the youth with the average age being 25.49 years. They concluded that the factors that they established were indeed generalizable and stable. This proved to be a significant step towards research into inferring personality characteristics online (Kulkarni. 2018)Schwartz Park in an article discusses the use of social media language for automatic personality assessment. In the study they assess personality using open vocabulary analysis of language from 66,732 accounts of Facebook. As per the findings, assessment based on language can aid immensely in constituting the personality measures. It can also aid in assessing the mental/ psychological traits of associated with rich portraits.(Park, 2015)

1.2 Language identification technology:

In a study by(Shekhar, Sharma &Sufyan Beg, 2019) the researchers have tried developing a system using Artificial Intelligence to identify language used on social media. The authors focus on English and Hindi, acknowledging that the language used lately on social media is a mix of both languages, that they call Code-mixed text. Online Hindi is written using the English alphabet and often English and Hindi are mixed together in the same sentence. Since there are no established spelling rules for Hindi when it is written in English script, given that people write them as they are pronounced and some pronounce them differently than others, this process is tricky because words become difficult to identify(Shashi, 2019 p.2).

Souvick Ghosh in an article discusses Sentiment analysis is the (NLP) task managing discovery and order of in text sentiments. While a few assignments manage distinguishing the element of in text sentiments, others target to decide the extremity of the text classifying it as neutral positive, and negative. Sentiment analysis tasks intends to decide the subjects, the objectives and the extremity or valence of the conclusion. In their work, they attempt to naturally extricate feelings (positive or negative) from Facebook posts utilizing a machine learning approach (Ghosh, 2017).  In another study, Instagram influence about brands and campaigns was targeted and influence of advertisement was estimated (Kim &Phua, 2020, p. 12).

1.3 Emojis and their role in relaying emotions:

In “Psyco-emotional Impact of Social Media Emoji’s (Zareen, N., Kareem, N., Khan, U., 2016)the researchers carried out a questionnaire regarding the psychological importance of emoji’s. Ninety-seven people from different workplaces and educational institutions in Rawalpindi and Islamabad in Pakistan filled out the questionnaire. An almost equal number of males and an equal number of females took part in the survey. The results showed that ninety percent of the participants considered messages containing emoji’s more meaningful than ones that did not contain emojis. 42% considered emoji’s a strong indicator of emotional expression. They concluded that, given their importance, the use of emojis can cause stress and psychological trauma (p.7).  They also noted that there was a difference in response rate across age groups and gender regarding the emotional impact of emojis and their effectiveness in emotional expression(Zareen, 2016).

Socialmedia needs a marketingrhetoric that grasps rising language use and the growing communicationnorms(Bookman & Hall, 2019 p.4). The Emoji’shave become major components of communication on socialmedia; yet, their job in supporting attempts of persuasion have not been analyzed efficiently. Based on general rhetoric, this study dismembers, depicts and names influencers on socialmediato initiateengagementthrough emoji’s whereposts from 600 Weibomade by 200 influencers were gathered to build up a scientific classification of emoticons.(Ge, 2018).

1.4 Linguistic diversity and determining authenticity:

Sender Dovchin explores the linguistic diversity in the linguistic practices online of Mongolian students in university.  He takes into account the socio-cultural, historical and ideological meanings behind the use of language in interactions online as well. The paper explores two main questions. One looks into the extent of these Mongolian students integrating varied lingua-cultural resources in their social media interactions (p.24). The second question explores the meaning of linguistic authenticity as perceived by these young people. He drew on sets of data taken from Facebook. His findings provide understanding into the co-existence of numerous authenticities within the increasingly globalized social sphere(Dovchin, 2015).Bookman & Hall (2019) in a study explained the impact of Instagram that has highlighted significance of brand under youth and involvement in gaining knowledge.  Ingrid Piller, in an article discusses the element of social inclusion in neoliberal markets. The agenda of social inclusion has been widely adopted and the policies of social inclusion are blinded bythe ways in whichmediation of social inclusion is made via language ideologies in societies that are linguistically diverse. As per the findings, it has a major impact on the policies of the social medium being chosen. (Piller, 2011)

1.5 Identifying regional dialects:

Jacob Eisenstein, in Identifying regional dialects in online social media (2014), looks at how social media language is influenced by region. The study explores how geography might impact social media language and how it is related to the spoken language of the geographical location and the long-term implications of this variation. His dataset consisted of Tweets containing GPS metadata from the United States of America, taking into account demographic variance. His research showed how language trends in social media change over time and how they vary regionally. He looked at various abbreviations that are used online and how their usage varies across different areas. His study also shed light on how certain dialects have begun to spread beyond their original region of use because of how people from different people, used to different modes of communication start coming into contact with them online. These trends are explored over the years (Eisenstein, 2014 p.8).

YuanHuang in an article discusses the US regional linguistic variation in twitter alongside the analysis of data. It understands the US regional linguistic variation by data analysis. The tagged tweets were analyzed to understand, what are the variations in the language used across the US and as per the regionalization results linguistic variations were found in in the U.S. The discovered regions not only confirm past research findings in the literature but also provide new insights and a more detailed understanding of very recent linguistic patterns in the U.S.(Huang, 2016).

1.6 Social Media and Drama:

Kathleen P. Allen conducted a case study about Tweeting, Texting (2014) into the drama that can take place on social media.  Her case study focused on a mother and herteenage upper middle-class daughter who was at the center of the drama. Her study attempts to confirm if the kind of drama that takes place on social media conforms to the already existing definition of drama. This is confirmed in the case study. Furthermore, her work develops emerging themes and fill gaps within the current understanding of drama and its literature(Allen, 2014, p.2).

(O’Meara) 2019,highlighted the inclusion of dramatic conversation in order to make the conversation effective. The population was secondary school students of Australia. The technique used was regarding the development of digital pretext for the project. The approach generate the examination of the student’s in order to discover the understanding of mistaken identities. The twelfth night from Shakespeare was performed in the classes.

1.7 Language practices based on platforms:

Every social platform has a different way of communication, and that leads to having a different style of language(Soukup, 2000, p.410). For example, Tweeter has allowed users to create status and tweets that include a maximum of 140 characters, so the public does not have a massive space to express or to convey what they want to say clearly. Otherwise, Facebook, which permits people to uses approximately 60,000 characters that mean Facebook’s statuses exceed twitter over 430 times the amount of content.  However, Twitter’s audience more likely to use the shortened style of language to fit their social platform requirement. Compared to Facebook, which does not border its characters as it is difficult to reach up to number 60,000. Most often, users on Facebook do not shorten their expression and words as much as Twitter’s users do(Aeid, 2015).

Alexandra Georgakopoulou, in an article discusses YouTube being a major source of using internet and leading as the top video sharing website, where people from around the world share their video content and over the years, it has evolved as a major source and medium of information sharing. The title and description of the videos alongside thee hashtags are relevant in helping spread the website and content. Using the right words leads to be in the top searches. (Georgakopoulou, 2015)

1.8 Generational gap in communication:

A study conducted by the BBC regarding social media contribution in reducing the level of Arabic language between youth. They say that most of young create a circle linguistic consider as a boundary which does not allow other generations to understand what they mean. Probably, this case is spread between university students that creates thousands of words which only being understandable with them. Furthermore, this study illustrated main reason of why youth abandon their mother language. Some writers and thinkers use a contemporary language, but it is full of ambiguity or vocabulary that is difficult to understand its context at times. At the same time, it brings a book to the difficulty of the task for young people through the use of old and challenging vocabulary and structures that may contribute to alienating youth from classical, and choosing to refrain from reading(Khateeb, 2019).

In the United Arab Emirates, many youth groups see that this contemporary youthful language call “Arabizi”, which mean the mixture between Arabic and English, became a necessity imposed by the dimensions of technology. Moreover, its effects multiplied with the identity crisis in our Arabic societies, making us between a crossroads(Mousa, 2012).

2.0 Theoretical Framework

New Media theory refers to the conceptualization and understanding of digital culture and mediums that are computational in nature. From search engines to video & picture sharing websites, the new media theory helps understand the content and what each image, sign, symbol etc. mean. (Kim &Phua, 2020, p. 15).

The Emoji’s. Comments, tone of the comments, hence each and every element in the study is linked with this theory.

Through the lens of new media theory a content analysis of the posts made by a set of people who use Instagram in the UAE will be analyzed in this study.The new media has introduced the participatory culture where users become a part of the story and directly comment.  Each Post creates its own mythology and shapes the mind of the viewer(O’Meara, 2019, p. 21). Like said, social media Emoji’s have psychological impact on the viewer. One major question that this research plans to address is how much of a role do theseusers deliberately let language play in the crafting of their online personas and theaesthetics of their Instagram profiles.

New media theory will aid in analyzing that how they use certain phrases, abbreviations,etc. to come off a certain way and maintain consistency with a certain aesthetic? This theory describes about digital technologies and sophisticated configuration regarding digital culture. New media is about digital platform that contains information and the theory is organized on socio-political principles (Jeknic, 2014, p.180). Further, how do they feel the language is a significant contributor to maintaining and enhancing their chosen aesthetic? New media theory will also aid in that this research aims to look at the relation between the Instagramusers’ online personas and their real lives and, most importantly, the relationship betweenthe language they use online and the language they use offline. It will aim to establishwhether the online images and impressions are crafted to provide users with an alter egoof themselves – to escape their real lives in a way – or whether it serves to enhance andfacilitate their present selves (Soukup, 2000, p 410).

3.0 Research Questions and Research Methodology:

This research aims to look at what young people in the age (18-25) who use Instagram think of the kind of language they use online for their posts. Instagram accounts usually are deliberately crafted around certain themes or aesthetics. Following are the research questions this study aims to address:

  1. What are the common languages used by youth on Instagram in UAE?
  2. How Instagram raises linguistic trend among youth language in UAE?
  3. How emojis contribute to the meaning message by youth language on Instagram?

The methodology of this research will involve content analysis of the posts made by a set of people who use Instagram in the UAE. The content on their Instagram profiles will be analyzed and they will be categorized into Personas. The frequency of certain words and phrases will be recorded. New Media Theory will be applied as well to see how many different mediums are being used by the participants and how their outreach is affected by new mediums and where the things influencing them come from and how.

The participants will be grouped into Personas and then into the broader communities. Their interactions with different communities and people with different personas will be analyzed to answers.

4.0 Content Analysis:

4.1 Case Background

The case is featuring the comments of the students of University of Sharjah and Higher College technology official Instagram account. There are hundreds of comments regarding distance learning because of coronavirus issue was evaluated on the basis of which the results were drawn. Simple random sampling technique was used in order to conduct the study and on the basis of its findings with regard to the research questions a conclusion will be addressed.

The profiles of the youth will be chosen what are the common language is used by youth on Instagram in UAE. How are they using languages like Arabic, English, Arabize.  In order to figure it out hundredInstagram accounts will be evaluated with the text written and we’ll conclude our result based on these accounts and the comments sample. We studied the different comments, almost every student was worried about the distant learning strategy. Students who are not friendly with the technology were confused of online classes and exams because they prefer to attend classes in person. We experienced different emotions in comments by the students, they seemed to be furious against the decision of this distant learning and online exams. In this pandemic, where people are already psychological disturbed, students are more concerned about their studying techniques and they didn’t find themselves ready to accept this distant learning idea.  We will evaluate the comments posted on these specific posts & the responses gathered in terms of their post likes.

 4.2 sampling

We chose the qualitative content analysis in our study to analyze the youth language on social media. Besides, official Instagram accounts of Higher Colleges of Technology and the University of Sharjah in terms of the new decisions and regulations regarding distance learning and the new grading system. The number of student’s comments on these posts in both universities has increased. However, it was easy to collect a diversity of student’s impressions and assess their uses language on social media.

According to the official Instagram account of Higher Colleges of Technology. Occasionally, they are uploading posts concerning new politics and regulations, which consider as controversial news between college students. In light of the Coronavirus crisis, HCT established new decisions that led to attracting a considerable number of student’s participation. Besides the comments, we will observe the diversity of feedbacks and opinions between agreeing and disagree, and each student has an individual style of linguistic replying to that post. Nevertheless, we have chosen the post that uploaded on the 7th of April 2020 via the HCT account as it gains approximately 717 comments.

On the other hand, UOS has announced the continuous of using its distance learning technology on its official Instagram account on the 30th of March 2020 because of spreading Coronavirus. However, more than 100 students put comments and opinions regards this new decision whether to accept or reject. Usually, university students have using many linguistic styles to express their views.

4.3 Coding

Four main linguistic styles show similar in both accounts, which means the linguistic style of HCT students is identical to UOS students. Usually, the students whether in HCT or UOS, are using professional Arabic, UAE local linguistic, English, and Emojis linguistic. Besides the new decisions issued in both universities regarding continuous distance learning technology and the new grading system. There are a lot of complaints that came from students of these universities, so it was easy to observe their linguistic culture.

4.3.1 Emojis and symbols:

In this case of the university, students have shown their interaction and involvement by using emojis. We observed the repetitive of using similar emojis when they want to express their emotions. Using a happy face, clapping hands, Dancing, and hearts Emojis, all of them consider as an indication of approval. On the other hand, the crying, and angry emojis reflects that students disagree and did not accept the new regulations and decisions. Comparing between HCT and UOS Instagram accounts, we noted that there is a similarity of using Emojis types.

For example, every post, especially that regards to new decisions and regulations; we observe that students depend on similar Emojis. Sometimes they do a combination between comments and symbols, as they consider the Emojis as support to their opinions and expressions. However, the study selected two subjects, one from UOS and the other from HCT, both of them are talking about social learning distance and new grading system policies. We found that students used repetitive Emojis in both universities, such as hearts, happy faces, and clumping for accepting the new regulations and policies. Otherwise, some students in the same posts show the rejection and unaccepted that decisions, so they left the most common Emojis like breaking hearts, angry face, and crying emoji.

Figure 1 and 2 will clarify how the students using the Emojis to express their acceptance between two universities. Also, it shows the similarity of Emojis that have used by students:

Comments:

 

Figure2: represents UOS
Figure1: HCT

 

 4.3.2Comments

The current research study shows the involvement of students with the decisions of university authority. According to the objective of this study, comments and emojis are important to understand the nature of decision and response. Comments discuss the common language used by students on Instagram and prevailing trends.Some students show liking and some disliking, based on the fact that coronavirus needs to adopt distance learning approach, it was not appreciated by many. Each social platform specially Instagram uses its own kind of language and emojis as sufficient communication. The study has identified regional dialects that are popular on Instagram because every region is common to use prevalent language with minimal variations.In comments, students’ best explain the expression they can.For example, students commented, ‘how classes can be stopped’, or ‘online learning is no easier’ etc. besides, this part will introduce the comments that have used via students in the posts that shared by UOS and HCT regards the news politics and decisions

  • Complaints and Criticisms

Many students see Instagram as a way of sending complaints, suggestions, and public discussions.  For instance, both universities have students do not communicate with management directly; they are sharing their problems on Instagram and publicly. Although the management of both universities replies to their complaints, still they insisting on creating controversially. For example, some comments were about the new policies of the final exam it shows the students are afraid. The common comment was, ” how will we deal with the online final exam?”. However, both of these universities students show the same expressions about the new policies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Mockery and Irony

The purpose of irony in literature is to stop the audience and let them think about what they are doing. In this way, a criticism mockery is developed to achieve the objective. The objective of study is to find out the impact of youth language through Instagram while social media is a common way to estimate the way by which students behave. It is common among youth and students have shown their decisions in this way. For example, the comments included spoof words regards social distance learning and about their student’s life, and they are missing the parking traffic and university’s crowded.It is a common part of new media that aims at opinion meaning or shows sentiments.On the other hand, there are some students lifting comedian and irony comments on both universities’ decisions. Also, some students thanks to Corona Virus, because it let the universities to cancel the classes and attendance.

Figure5: represents comedian comments

 

  • Students discussions:

Also, Instagram allows the interaction of individuals through sharing, sending, posting, and uploading statuses. Students of these universities like and enjoy social media because of its trend in UAE. The common posts used for this paper are two posts from official Instagram accounts of Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) and the University of Sharjah (UOS). Students commented on these posts and reflected their expressions.

For example, students in both universities, reply to each other under the posts regarding the new decisions. Although the universities were clarifying in-depth the details about the new regulations, some students still depend on their colleagues for discussions and questions. Another example, some students put predictable news and analysis the new decisions as they like, such as “they say that everybody will pass this course” or “the final exam will be difficult.” Sometimes the replies on one student’s comments reach to approximately 30.

 

Figure6: represents discussion comments on student’s reply

4.3.3 languages:

Also, there are a group of students left comments that clarify the reasons for acceptance or rejection of the new decisions. Besides the feedback, we noticed that UOS and HCT students using English, original Arabic, and UAE local linguistic to reply to the posts.for example, it is found out that language practice differs in Arab, Emirati, and international students, specifically at the University of Sharjah. The inference is drawn from the experiment to discuss an element of diversity due to multiple nationalities in this sample. The findings suggest that specialization has a significant role in determining language, such as Arab specializations that have shown students who were inclined to the Arabic writers.

The English language is found as a primary mode of communication because international students with majors preferred the English language. In Higher College of Technology, Emirati language is preferred by Emirati nationality holders, while the English language is also preferred because it is a primary language by college teachers.  There are three main linguistics elements that used by both university students which consists of:

 

  • UAE local Dialect:

We observed that local students preferred using the local language to express their opinions and feelings according to the new decisions and regulations that changed based on the Covid-19 crisis. There are a lot of comments that lifted by Emirates students, whether complaints or suggestions. Comparing UOS and HCT, we saw that HCT has students using the local language as all of them are citizens. on the other hand, UOS has a mixture of nationalities which shows some different local languages Egyptian.

Figure8: represents HCT language
Figure7: represents HCT language

 

 

  • Original Arabic Dialect:

Both universities have students who are depending on original Arabic for many reasons. When they communicate or sending questions to the university, they are using the Arabic language because it will become official participation. Another example, UOS consider as an umbrella of civilizations, so they using Arabic as an understandable way of communicating. Besides new decisions, many students lift a significant Arabic sentence to express if they accept or reject it. most probably they are writing and show more when they disagree as it considers the best method to suggest or sending opinions.

Figure9: represents original Arabic language

 

 

 

  • English Language

The English Language considers as the second primary language in UAE and, it is an essential language in most of the universities. According to UOS and HCT, when they posted about new rules and policies. Some students participated in English, especially foreigners. Both universities are teaching English, so usually, their students will depend on the English language, whether in classes or on social media. Moreover, there are many UAE citizens, and from the Arab region who is witting an English. Also, they are using this language to communicate with their universities or friends.

Figure10 & 11: represents English language by HCT students

 

 

 

5.0 Discussion and Conclusion

The issue of distance learning due to Covid-19 is discussed in this paper, under hundreds of comments by students of official Instagram accounts of the University of Sharjah and Higher College Technology. A random sampling technique is used to know results. After studying different comments, the use of emojis, and texts were written by students, and perception is examined. The content analysis provided a grading system, diversity of feedback, and their opinion about agree and disagree. This structure is analyzed under the linguistic style because it was most familiar with students to show their expression.

Research findings are drawn on theoretical framework under significant terms. Trait model for linguistic behavior analyzes the plethora of words and phrases used by social media. The Language identification technology like Artificial Intelligence Code-mixed text are important to understand the comments. In addition, emojis put psyco-emotional impact on behavior and expression. Emoji is also used frequently because it takes less time and effort to show the likeness. Linguistic diversity represents ideological meanings. It is clear from the study that diversity of language is common among students. The regionalization results linguistic variations such as different dialects.

The current research study discussed the impact of youth language on Instagram with specific reference to the UAE. Common words, phrases, emojis and symbols are popular with youth on social media. Through emojis, a higher proportion of the student’s reflected that they agree and disagree. Research has used different languages common with youth that they frequently used on Instagram.New media theory has added in this research by looking at the relation between the Instagram users’ online personas and their real lives and, most importantly, the relationship between the language they use online and the language they use offline.In UAE, different youth groups are engaged in youthful language, English, Arabic, and Arabize, a mixture of both English and Arabic. Research study has answered the research questions that English, Arabic and using emojis are the common languages used by youth in UAE for Instagram.Arabize is a combination of two languages, and none of such language was acquired that represent dual characters, so it is preferable to say it is an ancient language.

Also, the paper answered how emojis contribute to the delivery of the messageand youth using it. The situation presents that young people need a quick solution, so they preferred quick response through a short emoji expression. Current study has added value to existing literature by focusing on the linguistic behaviors and structural significance through prevailing social media methods.Instagram also raises the linguistic trend on them by using special comments, discussing the case and posts between each other, and taking answers by comments and replying.Content analysis has illustrated the scope of language and students’ perception due to social media and how effectively they describe.

6.0 Bibliography

 

  • Giraud, E. (2018). New Media Theory. Retrieved 3 27, 2020
  • Bookman, S., & Hall, T. (2019). Global Brands, Youth, and Cosmopolitan Consumption: Instagram Performances of Branded Moral Cosmopolitanism. Youth And Globalization, 1(1), 107-137. doi: 10.1163/25895745-00101006
  • Aeid, N. (2015). The Evolution of The Language Used In Social Media. Retrieved from Grin : https://www.grin.com/document/356371
  • Khateeb, A. (2019). Do social media contribute to the weak level of the Arabic language among young? . Retrieved from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/arabic/middleeast-50839907
  • Mousa, N. A. (2012). Arabizi technology kills Arabic technology . Retrieved from Albayan : https://www.albayan.ae/paths/life/2012-04-15-1.1630986
  • Kulkarni, V., Kern, M., Stillwell, D., Kosinski, M., Matz, S., Ungar, L., Skiena, S., Schwatz, H., (2018).Latent human traits in the language of social media: An open-vocabulary approach, PLoS ONE 13(11):e0201703. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201703
  • Shekhar, S., Sharma, D., Beg, M., (2019).An effective cybernated word embedding system for analysis and language identification in code-mixed social media text, International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems
  • Zareen, N., Kareem, N., Khan, U., (2016).Psyco-emotional Impact Of Social Media Emojis, Isra Medical Journal
  • Dovchin, S., (2015).Language, multiple authenticities and social media: The online language practices of university students in Mongolia. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
  • Eisenstein, J., (2014).Identifying regional dialects in online social media
  • Allen, ,(2014). Tweeting, Texting, and Facebook Postings: Stirring the Pot with Social Media to Make Drama – Case Study and Participant Observation, The Qualitative Report.
  • Ge, J. (2018). Emoji rhetoric: a social media influencer perspective. Journal of Marketing Management, 1272-1295.
  • Ghosh, S. (2017). Sentiment Identification in Code-Mixed Social Media Text. Cornell University, 1-10.
  • Georgakopoulou, A. (2015). The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication.
  • Huang, Y. (2016). Understanding US regional linguistic variation with Twitter data analysis. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 244-255.
  • Jeknic, O. (2014). New media or new interfaces: The concept of interface in Lev Manovich’s’ theory of new media. Kultura, (145), 188-197. doi: 10.5937/kultura1445188j
  • Kim, T., &Phua, J. (2020). Effects of Brand Name versus Empowerment Advertising Campaign Hashtags in Branded Instagram Posts of Luxury versus Mass-Market Brands. Journal Of Interactive Advertising, 1-16. doi: 10.1080/15252019.2020.1734120
  • O’Meara, V. (2019). Weapons of the Chic: Instagram Influencer Engagement Pods as Practices of Resistance to Instagram Platform Labor. Social Media + Society, 5(4), 205630511987967. doi: 10.1177/2056305119879671
  • Park, G. (2015). Automatic personality assessment through social media language. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 934-952.
  • Piller, I. (2011). Linguistic diversity and social inclusion. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 371-381.
  • Soukup, C. (2000). Building a Theory of Multi-Media CMC. New Media & Society, 2(4), 407 doi: 10.1177/1461444800002004002
  • Shekhar, S., Sharma, D., Beg, M., (2019).An effective cybernated word embedding system for analysis and language identification in code-mixed social media text, International          Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems no. 3, pp. 167-179

 

 

 

“Believe” Album Analysis 

Pages:6

Album Review

The Believe album by Justin Bieber was released in 2012 and sold 374000[1] copies in the first week and made its way to the Billboards no.1 album on the Billboard 200 chart. The studio album contains 13 songs, while the deluxe version of the album has three extra songs.

 

The album is a recognized quality music album that showcases novelty in the artistic platform of the singer as it is somewhat different from the previous albums of the singer. Many Beliebers, Justin Bieber fans, celebrated the album while the album also endeavoured to attract more fans in the Belieber basket. Although the lyrics of some songs might not resonate with the vast majority, the tunes, rhyme, and rhythms emphasize on the maturing stages of Justin Bieber’s music career. The album’s essence is similar to that of Justin Timberlake’s early 2000s style with appealing, catchy and compelling songs that have been hit as club beats such as the songs “Boyfriend” and “As Long As You Love Me.”

 

“It is a very enjoyable, dance-leaning pop record, but it is not the new Justin Timberlake album,” suggests Billboard’s critic Jason Lipshutz. “And why should it be? Bieber is still just 18 years old and trying to find his musical lane while grappling with an unprecedented amount of attention. Because his growth in front of the camera has occurred so quickly and steadfastly, his music has been (unfairly) expected to do the same.”

 

The song Maria has its basis in the electronic tones and its context lies in the name of the song in itself. Mariah Yeater[2] was an obsessive Justin Bieber fan, and things got out of control when she went on to claim that Justin Bieber fathered his child and filed a suit against him. The paternity suit was soon dropped off when Justin took the DNA test and filed a lawsuit against Mariah for misusing the law. This incident resonates with Michael Jackson’s famous hit, Billie Jean, and is intended to allude back to draw a comparison between the similar events that occurred. It has been recognized as the modern version of Billie Jean.

The song starts with a collection of audio recordings that set the context of the song, and they provide a fade-in effect that marks the beginning of catchy period beats. The song has a very dramatic sound that mirrors the intensity of the incident that is conveyed through the lyrics. The tonal highs and lows also add to the dramatic effect, and the electronic beats give the song a modern sound while at the same time incorporating pop sounds to retain the song’s link with the Michael Jackson hit.

The drum beats are also periodically synchronized throughout the song that gives the song a funk side. These, along with the tonal waves from the singer’s voice, provide a diversified rhythm to the song that is indicative of the scale of the impact this incident had on the singer as he is reported to have said that he might have left his music career behind because of the toxicity that accompanied this event. Hence this autobiographical song with its lyrics and music reflects the impact it had on the singer and is an attempt to convey the mentioned distress to his fans, also known as “Beliebers.”

Moreover, this song does not have just one instrument in the background, as mentioned before, but contains a mixture of many. This quality is again perhaps indicative of the singer’s plethora of feelings.

Lastly, the song ends on a very definitive and charged note as the singer cries “She’s not my girl” to finish the song that draws parallelism with Michael Jackson’s lyrics from Billie Jean and the singer has tried to mimic the shrillness and tonal rhythm of the iconic hit song.

The song Beauty and the Beat is another rich song from the album that features the renowned Nicki Minaj, and the German-Russian DJ Zedd has made the music composition. The song is party music and fully endorses the pop music sounds, and the catchy phrases like “party like 3012” add to the overall casual tone of the song. This particular lyric also pays homage to Prince[3]. The rhythmic beats of the music go well with the pop music of the song.

The song starts by giving the listeners a good time with the jovial beats of the song with an energetic interjection by Nicki Minaj, who raps in the latter part of the song. Nicki says her catchphrase “Young Money” and continues to say her and Justin’s name in the same tonal energy that is found in the rest of the song, and hence, this serves as a sort of preliminary introduction to the song.

This song encompasses the electro-pop genre. The combination of electronic tones and pop music makes the overall sound incredibly catchy. The unique quality of this song is the expansive time dedicated solely to beats that also strengthens the song in general as it complements the title Beauty and the “Beat.” The beats are a mixture of the 1980s synth-pop and the modern Electronic Dance Music (EDM). This fusion mixes the old with the new, the fast with medium-paced, and the lyric with the music and allows all of these to sync in with each other to create this popular song.

One of the significant, highlighting factors of this song is its rap part that features the famous Nicki Minaj. The song already has a very upbeat sound to it, and adding Nicki’s rap takes the song to another level of excitement. Although the main musical sounds of the song remain intact while the featuring part of Nicki, the rap adds a novel element of funk in the song. Nicki’s role is given a short amount of time, but this is strategically beneficial for the sounds of the song as a little spice adds to the baked flare. Her rap lyrics also add a bit more fire to the already fierce song as she sings, “…I gotta keep an eye out for Selenur…” This reference is made to the then Justin Bieber girlfriend Selena Gomez, and their relationship was recognized as relationship goals by many. So combining something wanted in the rap makes the beats even more interesting to listen to.

The next song is Fall and has a very slow and calming beat that serves as a fitting romanticization of young love between two best friends. Once again, this song is autobiographical to an extent. The lyrics describe the relationship between “Jelena,” Justin Bieber, and Selena Gomez, and the romantic essence is further developed by the slow-paced highs and low found in the music.

Additionally, the singer’s manager, Scooter Braun, reported that the song was also inspired by the epic romance “A Walk to Remember.” The layered vocals of the singer evoke a melodramatic tone in the song that pays tribute to the romantic side of the song. His voice immerses in sorrow as the singer hits low notes, but soon the singer uplifts the mood by hitting high notes that summarize the meaning of the song, which is also said in the lyrics “you can’t fly unless you let yourself fall.”

The instruments used in this song include drums and guitar chords majorly. The combination of these two is enough to invoke a serene tone that goes well when combined with the singer’s voice. The song is made poppy and catchy because of its instrumental sound. It, along with carrying a sad undertone as depicted by the slow and calming chords, also carries a positive feeling that seems to override the melancholy found in the music. This concoction is similar to another song found in the album, called Catching Feelings.

Moreover, the sound of the song comes as extremely simple and soft that is in contrast with the rest of the loud sounds, including rap, electronic, pop, and EDM. This song evokes a sweet sound, and that is because of its slow-paced beats and rhythm. Overall, this song does recognize and present itself as a love song that is well sung and well-composed. The critic Lipshutz mentions about the song that it allows the fans to see the singer’s artistic potential and says it “scratches the surface of truly affecting songwriting.”

All in all, this album makes its mark in the listener’s ears because of its musical genius. The lyrics, as some critics have argued, could have been a little better, but considering that this is an album coming from an 18-year-old, this aspect can be conceded. This album does not offer any thought-provoking philosophical moments but is instead a fun album.

The mentioned records, Maria, Beauty and the Beat and Fall, are brilliant songs in their rights. Their tones, instrumentals, beats, and genres, in conjunction with the pretext to the songs, make them unique. The combination of different genres is visible in these songs, and the singer’s voice complements the highs and the lows found in the music that makes these songs timeless.

References

Nationalpost.com, (2012) “Justin Bieber wrote a song about Mariah Yeater’s Paternity Suit”

The Hollywood Reporter, (2012) “Justin Bieber’s “Believe” Album: What the Critics Are Saying”

 

[1] Billboard official statistics from billboard.com

[2] Information extracted from nationalpost.com

[3] American singer and songwriter

Impact of Language on Advertisement

Pages:7

Introduction

Sociolinguisticconsiderations discuss the different attitude of language between nations. Different countries thrive with different languages for example, Spanish and Hispanics differ on the basis of positive attitude to own languages. Hispanics prefer Spanish than Englishwhile Spanish feel that for advertising, English language is the bestone. Language matters most in communication and helps buyer to make decisions(Chung Han & Soo Ahn, 2013). The language of communication in advertisement is important to know consumer decision. Global brands use English language without any hesitation because English can better provoke customers to purchase and it is the most used language over globe. This research paper will discuss the role and impact of language on advertisement.

Impact of Language

As humankind makes development and progression, the conversational competency flourishes, and its roots are going more extensive. When we have a command of the language we can convey our thoughts to others, and push our ideas to outsiders, or can change its content, and can convey a message through communications, these skills impact marketing to attract the customers, influence the faith to purchase the products of related brands.

Placing and positioning of the product is the only purpose behind the numerous campaigns of the world. It can create tremendous forces on the retailer series, which is establishing around the globe. For advertisement and marketing, the graphics, content, verbal and descriptive conversation are necessary to build a report and provide guidance to consume the product, and resources proposed by the brand who invests his money to persuade the consumers(Dobson &Poels, 2020).

Language is an essential conversational means that help humans in the way of interaction. Language helps to create certainty and afterward systemizes it. The language supports invisible things and displays the presence. It also portrays the knowledge of someone. The language emphasizes experience, and experience relies on incidents, manners, targets, thoughts, character, nature, status, and cultural relationship(Chung Han & Soo Ahn, 2013). Language is not a symbolic system that creates a human culture that might be in written or oral communication. It also discusses social aspects based on cultural values, for example, garments, foods, customs, and traditions to form a society.

The discussion that is made on electronic media also represents language appearance. This discussion follows the powerful and intense conversational methods to protect the human culture and their defensive existence(hooft, Meurs&Schellekens, 2020). It also practiced giving information to others, providing truth, analyzing the behavior and opinion of others. The language also draws a craft on assets, advantages, and explains the flavor of an object. It also presents a view of experiences. Thus, the language follows its circumstances(Bishop &Lambie, 2007). The language affected social, educational, cultural values. Although social values and linguistic values are the same in society. An established society occupies developed linguistic values. Language is a powerful tool to express his ideas and emotions to others, and also a self-reflecting agent. It has a variety of uses, like writing, talking. The language also assists in developing cultural values. It plays a vital role in current cultural values in other communities. It also provides an identity to its speaker(Rinard, 2008).

In terms of broadcasting, language plays a vital role. It considers an essential tool for advertisement. The language also used in an advertisement for the transaction language that encourages the communication level. It also discusses the interaction of thoughts, that preferred the addressed and addressee relationship. The writer wants to describe the impact of language on electronic media, and measure the effect of scholar, audience, and listeners. It plays a dominant role and is sharper than a knife. When a person uses any ethical language through action, it is difficult to determine(Woloshin, 2009). Communication is also a graphical sound character. This act pushes a person to collapse and then towards the suicides. Language is a mysterious strength that is known as conversation. The language leads the world to supreme power, and we can measure its power by advertisement, who is competent to influence the people.

Concept of meaning 

The language signifies the confusing term. It is also applicable to evaluations, diagnosis, exposure, and presentation methods. Human behavior and action also affected language subjects and intersubjective. To recognize the human activities, we should know basic motives, by placing himself at the position of the speaker(Bishop &Lambie, 2007). When the pronunciation purpose required, the essays and reviews need to pay consideration to follow the covered meaning of discourse. When a person listens to something, the audience listens and understands it and answers according to it. The conversational sense describes the discourse context should be shorter and easy to understand and must be creating a relationship between the body and object, and referent to understand.

The word ‘house’ provides a sense of appearance; House is a combination of door, roof, window, and some other objects that all form residence for a person. There is a deep relationship between expression and referent, which also produces its further meaning and recommendations. This meaning and evidence of house, focus on the effect that creates a relation on its formation and nonlinguistic experience that are serving as nature. There are different meanings, and opinions are available to find out the correct definition, it follows three concepts of applications: 1) referential purpose, it shows the symbolic and referential relationship. 2) Meaning: It shows the meaning of a symbol, and the term will provide a sense if they are associated with another, time which is called ‘legally.’ 3) Intention: It wholly depends on the speaker’s wording or meaning of conversation that is being performed on symbols(Alonso García, Chelminski& González Hernández, 2013).

Media

Media holds an essential position in the world. Media has become a platform for many different ideological representations. Media can develop into a tool to create traditional and prevailing ideology for the interest of the leading class, at the same time it can develop into the instrument of struggle for the oppressed group of the society to create ideology and cultural competition, as media is described as the battlefield for the competing ideologies(Alonso García, Chelminski& González Hernández, 2013). As a source of communication in presenting news, analysis, or common view about anything, media has a significant part as an institution that develops public opinion as media can also shape into the imagery or pressure group that is placed into the life perspective more analytically. Media can present positive or negative influences. Certainly, this standardizing character is very relative, relies upon the provided interest dimension. People can learn to be familiarized with their atmosphere with the help of the media. Media has to turn out to be an instrument to deliver a message to the general public.

When mass media has used a language, then, in fact, their responsibility has increased toward the influence propagation, certain stereotype, and prejudice. Thus, the selection of words that are used by the journalists or creators of advertisements has to be significant because it can influence the choice of people in enhancing their knowledge.

In human culture, language is a global symbol system. Language meaning is not only limited to oral language, written language, but it also includes all social trends of extensive culture in society, for example, clothes, rituals, food menu, and others. In such a case, advertisement communication in all media forms is also taken as one of the phenomena of language. In the start, the system of language is an instrument of communication, to create combined social understanding in the general public. Language is not limited to its meaning of representing cultural realities, but having the power to develop or to build cultural realities(Bishop &Lambie, 2007). According to a study that there are fewer people who think that language has a major impact on their point of view or observation about something. In language development, it is not the only source of communication or code system against the norms that reflect the monolithic meaning of reality. Generally, language is continuously developed in a certain social system.

As the demonstration of different social connections, language always develops strategies, subjects, and different communication themes. Language is the visual mode in the shape of a symbol, or visual picture has the influence to develop a different ideology that will also change and outline our awareness and subjectivity. Sign language can also be as effective as oral language or written language. Language has a part to reflect the true nature of the use of significance of the advertisements to service or product goods that are advertised. Language is also used as a medium to advertise capitalistic commercialism beliefs to the community. The language power that has carried the colonization of human civilizing symbolic in the advertisement, in fact, is one evidence that the hostility of language show one influence that can poison the civilization’s existence today and in the future. As a study told that though the utilization of words can be mistreated and the struggle for respect may sometimes be observed helpless, we should never back-down the right to use them only in the truth service. One should aim to mean what they talk and talk about what they mean. The truth is that advertisements are used to persuade to purchase. But it is important to understand that in advising people to purchase a product, it needs to select the delivery well.

There are two important terms, high customer involvement, and low customer involvement. The first reflects the products that normally are higher in price and are bought comparatively barely; the second reflects the products that are lower in price and are purchased more often. Scholars gave a further detailed classification, that is, convenience products, shopping products, and specialty products. The former is the same as low customer involvement, whereas higher customer involvement goods are further divided into shopping products and specialty products. Specialty products are enormously more costly than shopping products such as marriage dresses(hooft, Meurs&Schellekens, 2020). The analysis of data in this study consists of all three kinds of products. Third, concerning techniques, there is a difference between tickle advertising and reason advertising. Reason advertising is simple and direct, whereas tickle advertising is in direct and needs viewers to exercise more efforts to understand them. And last, in view of the consumer-ship, advertisements may be classified by customers’ socio-economic class, lifestyle, age, gender, etc.

Conclusion

Bilingual advertising is important to know because it is increasingly used in communication. In US, advertisers are using many kinds of communication methods for advertisement. Ads with English and Spanish language are getting more recognition. Words, phrases and meaning in a language are linked to the socio-cultural values of a nation. Different languages work differently with advertisement and make consumers’ mind to buy. Impact of language on advertisement cannot be ignored.

 

 

 

References

Alonso García, N., Chelminski, P., & González Hernández, E. (2013). The Effects of Language on Attitudes Toward Advertisements and Brands Trust in Mexico. Journal Of Current Issues & Research In Advertising, 34(1), 77-92. doi: 10.1080/10641734.2013.754711

Chung Han, M., & Soo Ahn, B. (2013). A Study on the Effects of Motivations on Attitudes toward Advertisements : A Focus on Sina Weibo. The E-Business Studies, 14(3), 155-174. doi: 10.15719/geba.14.3.201308.155

Dobson, D., &Poels, K. (2020). Combined framing effects on attitudes and behavioral intentions toward mortgage advertisements. International Journal Of Bank Marketing, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). doi: 10.1108/ijbm-07-2019-0277

hooft, A., &Meurs, F. (2017). The same or different? Spanish-speaking consumers’ response to the use of English or Spanish in product advertisements. Conference Paper ·, 6(2), 1-8.

Luján-García, C. (2011). ‘English invasion’ in Spain: an analysis of toys leaflets addressed to young children. English Today, 27(1), 3-9. doi: 10.1017/s026607841100006x

Woloshin, S. (2009). Does Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising Do More Harm Than Good?. Annals Of Internal Medicine, 151(11), 824. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-151-11-200912010-00021

 

 

Victorian age or era in Britain

Pages:13

Executive Summary

In this paper, we will be looking at the history of democracy and its emergence in the Victorian era of Britain. The paper aims to analyze the all-time famous conception that religion is the enemy of freedom. We make use of multiple secondary sources and one primary source to reach our conclusion. Our research mostly negates the famous statement, and instead, the main driver of the transitioning process seems to be the economic change that happened in Britain after the industrial revolution. The new working classes wanted autonomy, political power, and civil rights, and this is what drove to the transition and automatically decreased the influence of the Church.

Introduction

The Victorian age or era in Britain is defined to be the period of the rule of Queen Victoria, which ended till 1901. During this, a lot of political and social change came to Britain. In the early 1800s, Britain was still ruled by the higher upper class. Later on, however, Britain transitioned into democracy. In this paper, we will look at how that transition took place, and the role religion played in it. We will do a comparative analysis through some primary sources to make our conclusions aided by secondary sources as well. It is widely understood that religion has been an obstacle in the path of democracy. The objective of this paper is to analyze how much truth that statement holds by looking at the transition of Great Britain into Democracy while previously being highly influenced by order of the Church.

Impact of Working Classes

Victorian Britain had always been conservative when it came to politics. Unlike its neighbors, such as France, the upper and middle class in Britain despised the idea of a violent revolution. They believed in bringing about political reforms without a revolution. Until 1832 the first political reform passed. Before that, in what is also called the Georgian period, majority men and women had no voting rights except only a handful of the upper class could vote that too in a disproportionately represented parliament, which relied on violence and bribery. Even after the first reform act got passed, women were not allowed to vote until much later. Despite people not having voting rights, the public has strong political opinions, which they expressed through different mediums such as the print. Political figures often got ridiculed and joked upon in newspapers, and books et cetera (White, 2009)[1].

Similarly, violent riots were also a prominent example of strong political sentiments by the locals. White (2009)[2] also narrates an incident as proof to the above statement: “In 1780, after the government had passed legislation giving more political rights to Catholics, thousands of people rioted for a week in London in protest.” That led bloodbaths in which many Catholics got killed and the army had to restore order. This example shows the general public was not happy with the religious institutions dominating them, and this sentiment further played an essential role in the transition to democracy in Britain. Despite these riots here and there, the country still never succumbed to a long-lasting rebellion which would result in a revolution(White, 2009)[3].

In another important secondary source Trygve R. Tholfsen (1961)[4]The author has described the transition to democracy in Britain. According to the author, the need for reform in Britain was very crucial in the 1800s as riots had started in the 1830s and 1840s. There was a lot of class conflict, as well. This need was felt explicitly in England, which was predominantly undemocratic. Unlike White (2009)[5] above, Tholfsen (1961)[6] Writes that it is a misconception that the transition to democracy happened in a continuous flow. Instead, the process that followed the development was a lot more “complex.” The main issue was the working class ever since the industrial revolution had started. They had worked towards agreeing with their social and political statuses. For the most part, this implied that the working class had accepted being ruled by the middle class as a way of cooperation, which allowed them to progress in their current status and power. These political formations of class relations initiated the transitioning to democracy.

According to Tholfsen (1961)[7]There were three distinctive ways in which the transition to democracy got influenced. Firstly, the relations building between the working class and the middle class also obliterated some barriers in the path. Secondly, there was unease and agitation for parliamentary reforms in the locals. And thirdly, the increasingly changing attitudes of the local people triggered the process of democracy as well. As industrial towns established in Britain, more and more people started embracing liberalism and accepting the rule of the middle class. Up till now, only the higher upper level had ruled. However, all this didn’t just happen automatically. The changes in cultural patterns for the working class played a vital role in the transition (Tholfsen, 1961)[8].

Analysis of the Primary Source

There are conflicting ideas and perspectives when one looks at the primary literature present concerning religion and the spread of democracy. One such primary source is the sermon given by Charles Latimer Marson back in 1890 on Church and Democracy; it is now saved as a piece of text. In this text, Marson (1890)[9]  It gives off the idea that Christianity and the code of the Church itself are very “democratic” of the sort that people expect from the notion of democracy. He says that the literal definition of democracy given by Pluto is a phenomenon that no one wants. He says that democracy implies “negation of law” in all its sense, and there is no rule that people abide by. That basically, democracy means anarchy. He says that the modern democratic mindset does not wish for that. If democracy were to be implemented in its purest form, everyone and anyone would be allowed to rule and do as they wish. Parliaments would have no order and would be dominated by the “idlest, noisiest, and rowdiest,” which is why Marson endorses that the Church believes in the application of laws despite being criticized by modern democratic.

He says that the goal civic political reforms want to achieve in the name of democracy are essentially two. Firstly, the government should work for the general good of the masses and secondly, the ones governing should be chosen (or elected) by the ones who will be governed. He says that looking at recent history it has been made clear that those in power are never concerned for the common good of other but rather their own selfish desires. Any form of rule, inevitably, becomes tyranny, and this is why the Church stands against “autocracy, and oligarchy,” as it believes that it will be the ultimate result of democracy as well (Marson, 1890)[10].

Marson (1890)[11] talks about how peace and unity are also challenged and taking the turn for the worst with this shift in the social paradigm. Everyone is concerned about themselves only, and each acts its own master. “there is no friendship between the executive and the man in the street,” and all issues are left for the police to resolve. Police are now considered to be protectors of property instead of God or the “king of glory.”  Marson makes an important point here, stating that the religion of Christianity itself is a religion of peace and unity. It promotes friendship amongst all classes and gives people good sense so that they can follow the “Divine plan as laid down by our Lord His Church.” Necessarily implying that the need for democracy is redundant as all are servants of God even if they govern, and they are chosen by Him as well. According to him, this satisfies the second condition for the goal of democracy that a new democratic want. Everybody is governed by God and his principles, which will not be eradicated from any aspect of human life.

Marson (1890)[12] says that the early Church in itself was very democratic in nature and working. He mentions that in the early Church, the bishop who was chosen to lead was no extraordinary individual in the sense of status and class. He was nobody famous or noble. Instead, he used to be from amongst the common folk who did manual labour. And he was not given his position by way of bribe and was instead elected by the entire body of the Church, which comprised of abiding “baptized” Christians. Even a layperson could lead if no one from the clergy seemed fit. The man chosen would be someone who was known to be sinless and a good man who was accepted by everyone unanimously whereas in the democratic procedure no such guarantee could be given. However, the author also admits the present Church and bishops of that time were no good and had destroyed that original image and purpose of the Church. From the analysis of the above primary source, we can grasp the idea that religion was still here to stay for many, even if the change was expected.

More on the Relationship Between Religion and Democracy 

In another secondary source which is an article by Pierpaolo Donati (2002)[13] We get to see further the relationship between religion and democracy and why the two did not go hand in hand. Even though history offers us many examples of democracies around the world till our present day, and there have been many governments which have claimed to be a “religious democracy” where the religion was any such as Islam or Christianity, it has also given us enough evidence that despite the simple term, religion and democracy have always been at odds with each other. The truth is that democracy is a type of governance that separates itself from religious principles. Hence, the conflict between them is inevitable since religion itself claims to play the role of defining social institutions and boundaries. The author further tries to answer the question, which asks whether religion is an obstacle to democracy or a prerequisite. There have been many democracies that were influenced by religions, but it depends on the nature of the religion how it would affect the success of democracy. The author cites Collins (1992)[14] who claims through his research that it is wrong to say that democracy came about in Europe as a result of opposition to religion and was instead, profoundly impacted by Christian notions. This also further confirms what Marson (1890)[15] talked about in his sermon in the primary source discussed above. Moreover, if anything, religion prompted the emergence of democracy. The civil society in the West was already by defined the Church very profoundly, and so religion had the power to influence the political system via the public.

Religion is believed to have a positive influence on democracy in the sense of making it more moral and humanitarian, but lately, this role of religion has ceased. Modern democracy also considers a lot of religious content to be dogmatic and hence, unfit to have any relation with it. Donati (2002)[16] says democracy is understood by many to be an escape from religion. These are very conflicting perspectives and seems difficult to reach to any one conclusion. The main difference between the two is the idea of rationality. While religion dictates that one has faith, which is not rational, and follows a certain set of values and ethics, while democracy endorses individuality, rationality, and neutrality in decision making. It negates the idea of relying on a given set of instructions to make the right decision. Both, however, want to be a system of good.

The economic and political entities in the new industrial Europe were the prominent source for the divide between church and the state (Donati, 2002)[17]. They triggered the transitioning to democracy as the modern economy, which is highly capitalist, requires individualistic freedom to make choices that were hindered by religion. So, this is one point that seems to be the most important up till now in the transition to democracy. It also relates to the paper by Tholfsen (1961)[18] discussed above, which also emphasized that working classes stimulated the transitioning process. Slowly but gradually, religion has become more of a private matter rather than a public one in Western societies. That implies that it no longer plays any significant role in the public sphere. Since democracy is also not equipped to pick any one religion that would be favorable to it, it rejects all of them by not choosing at all. Hence, it depends on the society to be civil on its own, and the “public” factor is slowly becoming obsolete. This is because a democratic government ensures that one can make individual decisions which do not concern with the good or bad of anyone else, nor their sentiments, given that they do not cause any disturbance to others. Everything is depersonalized, and everybody is to be given equal opportunity, so there is “common good.” Many religious spheres have to accepted by democracy.

Overall, Donati (2002)[19] gathered from his research that given different historical contexts, the relationship between religion and democracy fluctuates. For some, religion acted as an obstacle in the transition to democracy, and for others, it did not and was instead a “prerequisite.” Religion does undoubtedly play a vital role in society, and the economy as well since people from a particular religion follow particular traditions and lifestyles. Even non-believers conform to certain notions to be for all the public. Together, people can agree on a lot of matters for the common good of society. The definition of freedom has become very relative and subjective and not only limited to freedom from religion, which was the earlier European model for converting to democracy.

Ziblatt (2006)[20] also talks about how Europe democratized in the nineteenth century. He once again emphasizes the point that we have explored in quite a lot of detail above. That democracy emerged as a result of industrialization and the working classes. Also, Britain did not want a violent revolution, so it brought political reforms to comparatively peacefully, unlike other nations such as France. Economic changes and class differences also fuelled the emergence of democracy as people wanted to become liberal. Ziblatt also mentions that every country whose political system became democratic transitioned in a different sequence. Such as the way the United States transitioned to democracy than Europe’s. However, the need to become liberal, and having civil and political rights was the same everywhere and is what led to the transition.

Conclusion

Conclusively, we can say, after looking at the primary and secondary sources, that the transition to democracy was not particularly hindered by religion. Instead, the literature suggests that this notion of religion being the enemy of democracy is open for debate, and everyone has a different perspective on it. The main stimulators from the information we gathered and presented here seem to be the emergence of working classes and their need to have more power rights, whether it be socially or politically. This economic change drove towards an inevitable transition to democracy. The fact that religion did not allow those civil rights further triggered the transition, if nothing else. So, it is wrong to believe that religion is the enemy of democracy bluntly. It has played a different role in different historical contexts. However, it is correct to say that religion and democracy have no direct relationship, and the main principles of both differ and cannot be integrated.

References

Primary source:

Marson, L. Charles. “The Church and Democracy: A sermon.” LSE Selected Pamphlets (1890). Contributed by the LSE library. https://www.jstor.org/stable/60215137

Secondary sources:  

White, Mathew. “Popular politics in the 18th century.” British Library (2009). https://www.bl.uk/georgian-britain/articles/popular-politics-in-the-18th-century

Tholfsen, Trygve R. “The transition to democracy in Victorian England.” International Review of Social History 6, no. 2 (1961): 226-248.

DONATI, PIERPAOLO. “Religion and democracy: The challenge of a” religiously qualified” public sphere.” Polish sociological review (2002): 147-172.

Collins, R. “The Rise and Fall of Modernism in Politics and Religion.” /Icta Sociologica , vol. 35, n. 3, (1992), dd. 171-186

Ziblatt, Daniel. “How did Europe democratize?.” World Politics 58, no. 2 (2006): 311-338.

 

 

 

[1]White, Mathew. “Popular politics in the 18th century.” British Library (2009). https://www.bl.uk/georgian-britain/articles/popular-politics-in-the-18th-century

[2]Ibid

[3]Ibid

[4]Tholfsen, Trygve R. “The transition to democracy in Victorian England.” International Review of Social History 6, no. 2 (1961): 226-248.

[5]White, Mathew. “Popular politics in the 18th century.” British Library (2009). https://www.bl.uk/georgian-britain/articles/popular-politics-in-the-18th-century

[6]Tholfsen, Trygve R. “The transition to democracy in Victorian England.” International Review of Social History 6, no. 2 (1961): 226-248.

 

[7], Tholfsen, Trygve R. “The transition to democracy in Victorian England.” International Review of Social History 6, no. 2 (1961): 226-248.

[8]Ibid

[9]Marson, L. Charles. “The Church and Democracy: A sermon.” LSE Selected Pamphlets (1890). Contributed by the LSE library. https://www.jstor.org/stable/60215137

 

[10]Marson, L. Charles. “The Church and Democracy: A sermon.” LSE Selected Pamphlets (1890). Contributed by the LSE library. https://www.jstor.org/stable/60215137

[11]Ibid

[12]Marson, L. Charles. “The Church and Democracy: A sermon.” LSE Selected Pamphlets (1890). Contributed by the LSE library. https://www.jstor.org/stable/60215137

[13]DONATI, PIERPAOLO. “Religion and democracy: The challenge of a” religiously qualified” public sphere.” Polish sociological review (2002): 147-172.

 

[14]Collins, R. 1992. “The Rise and Fall of Modernism in Politics and Religion.” /Icta Sociologica , vol. 35, n. 3, 1992, dd. 171-186

[15]Marson, L. Charles. “The Church and Democracy: A sermon.” LSE Selected Pamphlets (1890). Contributed by the LSE library. https://www.jstor.org/stable/60215137

[16]DONATI, PIERPAOLO. “Religion and democracy: The challenge of a” religiously qualified” public sphere.” Polish sociological review (2002): 147-172.

 

[17]DONATI, PIERPAOLO. “Religion and democracy: The challenge of a” religiously qualified” public sphere.” Polish sociological review (2002): 147-172.

[18]Tholfsen, Trygve R. “The transition to democracy in Victorian England.” International Review of Social History 6, no. 2 (1961): 226-248.

[19]DONATI, PIERPAOLO. “Religion and democracy: The challenge of a” religiously qualified” public sphere.” Polish sociological review (2002): 147-172.

[20]Ziblatt, Daniel. “How did Europe democratize?.” World Politics 58, no. 2 (2006): 311-338.

Developing academic Skills

Pages:15

 Annotated Bibliography

 

Camacho, M., & Palmieri, G. (2019). Do economic recessions cause inequality to rise? Journal

Of Applied Economics, 22(1), 304-320. doi:10.1080/15140326.2019.1620982

This study applies the local projection approach to analyse the economic recession’s impact on income inequality. It elaborates the difference created by the economic depression between the rich and the poor. This is also a major concern of most interviewees regarding how it can impact the overall wellbeing of the people in a society. The economic recession in the long run negatively impacts the lives of the people and it widens this divide amongst the rich and the poor. This study will help in understanding the reasons of rise in inequality due to recession. It will also point out towards the steps that need to be taken in order to minimize the damage of economic recession in terms of economic inequality.

THE, A. P. (2009, Sep 29). Recession widens gap between rich, poor. Charleston Daily

Mail Retrieved from https://search-proquest.com.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/docview/332318078?accountid=16285

This study elaborates how the widening of the gap amongst the wealthy and the poor affects the society on a larger scale. This paper explains the effect upon the US middle-income households due to the economic gap that keep on growing. How the Household incomes have fallen across all income groups. It elaborates how some cities, were affected less as those cities are different in nature. Hence the gap varies from city to city. Big cities like Atlanta, New York, San Francisco Washington, Miami and Chicago were the ones with the most inequality. This article will help understand how there is more and less economic differences between these cities. Hence it elaborates how the economic recessions keep growing in some cities while not applicable in some other cities.

 

 

 

Burgard, S. A., & Kalousova, L. (2015). Effects of the great recession: Health and wellbeing. Annual Review of Sociology, 41(1), 181-201. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112204

This study elaborates a gap as per the latest evidences linking recession to population’s health and wellbeing. Unemployment is one of the major problems brought on by the global crisis. This article is showing that employment losses since the recession are worse and how economic hardships and joblessness also contribute to poor health. Suicide rates have also increased in many parts of the country. Some studies indicate that people who undergo the issues in labor markets, housing that proliferate in the time of recession suffers adverse health effects. On the other handsome studies show that mortality rate declined soon as the economic predicament worsens. In the light of new results, this analysis synthesizes the evidence from distinct research and traditions.

Zorn, M. L., Norman, P. M. (2017). Cure or curse: Does downsizing increase the likelihood of bankruptcy? Journal of Business Research, 76, 24-33. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.03.006

Downsizing is a growing global practice, but researches done on the downsizing effects have generated mixed findings. To add to this discussion, they point out regarding corporate reforms in order to examine how the large-scale changes involved in downsizing have adverse effects on businesses. These effects are hard to reverse and eventually raise the risk of bankruptcy. Businesses are cutting jobs to cut costs. The approach will reduce the company’s chance of bankruptcy. Downsizing also raises the risk of losing the job. But downsizing may not be the right way to do it. The article notes that unemployment will also boost a company’s risk of bankruptcy.

Wei. (2019). International talent inflow and R&D investment: Firm-level evidence from China.

Economic Modelling.

Companies adopt the practice of Downsizing to reduce the impact of recession. Companies will rely on benchmarks for talent. This literature will reinforce my idea regarding the impact of hiring new talent for making the predicament better. Highly qualified workers with bilingual backgrounds may be able to improve productivity. Adding to that it plays a significant role in the process of specializing on cross-border knowledge.

Evidence for: The government should control economic development.

Camacho, M., & Palmieri, G. (2019). Do economic recessions cause inequality to rise? Journal of Applied Economics, 22(1), 304-320. doi:10.1080/15140326.2019.1620982

  1. Camacho conducted a systematic survey of 43 countries from 1960 through 2016; they used a local prediction method to examine the impact of economic recessions. Even though they recognize both the business-cycle and the growth-cycle recessions, yet once controls are applied to the model, yet fail to find evidence of substantial impact of recession on income distribution. The Great Recession sparked a renewed interest in the possible actions of inequality in the business cycle. Atkinson and Morelli, among others, realized that banking crises appeared to end up with increases in income inequality. The economic recession in the long run negatively impacts the lives of the people, and it widens this divide amongst the rich and the poor. The unequal distribution of income, regardless of the efforts made by anyone, disrupts society. This study will help in understanding the reasons for the rise in inequality due to recession. It will also point out the steps that need to be taken to minimize the damage to the economic downturn in terms of economic inequality. (Camacho, 2019) Hence the government should correctly control the economic development and make efforts to reduce the financial problems caused by economic inequality. The predicament can’t suddenly become perfect for everyone yet fact of the matter is, governments need to take control over the economic policies.

THE, A. P. (2009, Sep 29). Recession widens gap between rich, poor. Charleston Daily

Mail Retrieved from https://search-proquest-

com.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/docview/332318078?accountid=16285

 

Associated Press conducted a study that elaborates on how the widening of the gap amongst the wealthy and the poor affects the society on a larger scale. The recession has hit particularly the middle-income groups and those that are low-income families the hardest. It widens the economic divide between the wealthiest and poorest Americans as an immense amount of cuts have ravaged the household finances. Hence the economic downturns keep growing in some cities while not applicable in some other cities. The wealthiest American’s are just 10% of the economy. The ratio increased to 11.4 from 11.2%, which depicts the fact that the recession makes the more prosperous wealthy. The Median of incomes as compared to the previous years for middle-income groups also decreased from 52,163 USD to 50,303 USD. This negatively impacts the overall predicament and hit the bottom level back in 1997. Findings also depicted that people earning over 180,000 USD showed an increase of 3.58 the median income of the middle-income groups that was higher as compared to the other parts of the country. (A.P, 2009) These findings lead to the federal government making new rules for executive pays leading to the higher number of taxes to be implemented on these high-end income sources in health care. If government across the globe make reforms and the tax system is rectified, these issues can be reduced from occurring. The economic imbalance can be reduced from where it is now. This economic instability in the long-run negatively impacts the whole society.

Evidence of:  Business Failures

Zorn, M. L., Norman, P. M. (2017). Cure or curse: Does downsizing increase the likelihood of bankruptcy? Journal of Business Research, 76, 24-33.

doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.03.006

M Zorn in this article elaborates that Downsizing is a growing global practice. Researches done on the impact of downsizing have generated mixed findings. To add to this discussion, these searchers did a viewpoint regarding corporate reforms in order to examine how the large-scale changes involved in downsizing have adverse effects on businesses. These effects are hard to reverse and eventually raise the risk of bankruptcy. Businesses are cutting jobs to cut costs. The approach will reduce the company’s chance of bankruptcy. Downsizing also raises the risk of losing the job. But downsizing may not be the right way to do it. The researchers also investigated what factors, if any, could minimize the probability. To do so, they build a resource-based view to imply that valuable resources will minimize the risk of bankruptcy triggered by downsizing. We consider support over a selection of publicly traded companies for our theorizing. With the unemployment rising, companies won’t be able to sustain as skilled workers will be leaving companies and this would end up making the whole predicament. As per the results of the study, downsizing companies are much more likely to declare bankruptcy than companies that are not engaged in downsizing, and that intangible resources are helping to minimize that possibility. The physical and financial capital is also very important in finding out the outcomes of the predicament yet there was no solid evidence found regarding these that aid in helping sort the predicament.

Evidence of:  Combating recession by hiring new talent

HaoWei. (2019). International talent inflow and R&D investment: Firm-level evidence from China.

Economic Modelling.

HaoWi in a study discusses the companies adopt the practice of downsizing with an aim to reduce the impact of recession. These companies rely on talent as their benchmarks. Highly qualified workers that have bilingual backgrounds may be able to improve productivity. Hence, the research found evidence that supports the idea of breaking barriers across the globe. These results stem from two mechanisms: getting talent from across the world & improving the development of human capital. It is also an integral to create a diversified labor force. Furthermore, the impact of promoting R&D is greater if companies are based in Eastern China rather than in other areas, that where there are small and medium-sized companies. The suggestion was regarding the inclusion of international talent that can aid in introducing innovation and creativity. (HaoWei, 2019) Immersive ideas will be generated that will ultimately impact the whole predicament in the long-run. Another element highlighted is the inclusion of R&D department. This department can aid in creating breakthroughs towards strategizing to generate maximum output from minimum budget. More and more skilled individuals can be introduced that aim to create a difference with their idea. This will not only help in fight predicaments such as recession by creating new jobs but also stop the overall system from collapsing.

Burgard, S. A., & Kalousova, L. (2015). Effects of the great recession: Health and wellbeing. Annual

Review of Sociology, 41(1), 181-201. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112204

 

  1. Burgard, in its study, elaborates on the impact of the great recession: on the health and wellbeing of the people. Unemployment is the cause of stress and depression that negatively impacts the overall wellbeing of the general population of the country. Some studies have assessed the correlation between recessions and health by analyzing how the various patterns in measures of the economic cycle follow changing mortality or sickness levels. Reviews from the 1920s revealed the very counter-intuitive silver lining with lower average death rates during the times of recessions. Until then, a trend has been observed in the United States — through which the death rate rises through expansions and decreases in recessions. Unemployment is one of the major problems brought on by the global crisis. Suicide rates have also increased in many parts of the country. Hence serious measures need to be taken to control the overall predicament from worsening. Another element is that the economic downturns also affect government and local revenues, increasing pressure to curb budget deficits and reducing borrowing. Hence unemployment should be controlled by hiring new talent that can make a positive impact on the overall economic predicament. (Burgard, 2015) Unemployment should be controlled by hiring new talent that can make a positive impact on the overall economy.

 Introduction

Economic recession stands as one of the most devastating issues across the globe. The recession has many consequences that lead to overall economic instability in the country. It broadens the divide within society between the wealthy and the poor. The great recession that occurred in the 1930s had an overall impact on the economies across the world. The crises cost millions of people their jobs, and they lost their whole life savings. There was a decline in economic growth to an extent where people became bankrupt. Companies cut staff off to lower the expenditures. This approach will ease a financial problem for the client, yet this is a temporary solution, and leads are significant consequences of overall economic growth. The recent recession that started in the US from December 2007 had an adverse impact on the global economy. The unemployment rate has increased by 10%. (mlr, 2018) and many financial institutions also go bankrupt due to income disparities. The biggest problem with this crisis is unemployment & fresh students find it challenging to get a job. Employment pressures continue to rise that reduce the impact of the recession. Young talent that gradates is uncertain about the economic predicament and how it will impact their future. This study will explore how to reduce financial instability, the gap between rich and poor, and suggest solutions to counter unemployment.

Working thesis

Economic depression is inevitable in the course of economic development. Economic inequality, corporate financial crisis, and employment difficulties come side by side with economic depression wherever it occurs across the world. To minimize the challenge of business growth induced by the economic crisis, the government should be active in economic development activity, the university should allow the students to take internships in advance, and the organization should promote and use talent.

Discussion

As per the findings, recession creates a difference between the rich and the poor. The research done by Atkinson and Morelli depicts the realization that the financial crisis appeared to end with increasing income inequality. In the long run, the economic crisis has a negative effect on people’s lives, and this divide among rich and poor is widened. The uneven distribution of wealth, regardless of anyone’s efforts, destabilizes the whole society. This research helps to explain why inequality is soaring, and it also points out the steps that need to be taken to minimize the damage due to the economic downturn in terms of economic inequality. The role of the governments should be to focus on improving the life quality of the masses. There is a need to control the economic development for only a few numbers of people. The distribution of wealth needs to be equal. The governments need to make efforts to reduce the financial problems being faced by the masses due to this economic inequality.

The recession has struck Middle-income groups and low-income families. It has widened the economic gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans, as a large number of layoffs devastated household finances. Hence the economic downturns in some cities tend to rise while in some other cities they are not relevant. The wealthiest Americans are just 10 percent of the population.  The percentage rose from 11.2 percent to 11.4, which reflects the fact that the crisis is making the wealthy affluent. Compared to previous years, the median of income for middle-class classes also dropped from USD 52,163 to USD 50,303. This has a devastating impact on the prevailing situation and reached the lowest stage back in 1997. Hence recession helps in making the lives of rich people better. This is a point that needs to be addressed that the economic system should be made to strengthen the financial predicaments of the non-privileged as compared to the ones that already have a considerable amount of resources available.

Highly skilled new talent with bilingual experience can turn out to be a perfect addition to the economy. The impact of promoting R&D is more significant if companies are based in Eastern China rather than in other areas, that where there are small and medium-sized companies. The suggestion was regarding the inclusion of international talent that can aid in introducing innovation and creativity. With the inclusion of new and creative minds, the overall production quality can increase. Immersive ideas will be generated that will ultimately impact the whole predicament in the long-run. More and more talented young talented individuals that wish to make a difference with their concepts need to be hired. This would counter the issues such as unemployment and help generate new jobs but also deter the deterioration of the economy.

Unemployment is the cause of stress and depression, which adversely affects the overall health of the country’s general population. Any researchers have examined the link between unemployment and wellbeing by reviewing whether the changing trends of economic cycle indicators match increasing rates of death or illness. In the United States, a pattern has been identified so far — in which mortality rates increase across increases and decreases in recessions. Unemployment is one of the significant issues that the financial economy is producing. In other parts of the world, too, suicide rates have risen. Therefore drastic steps need to be taken to mitigate the aggravation of the overall situation. Another factor is that economic downturns can affect national and municipal budgets, rising pressure to reduce budget deficits. Unemployment also has an adverse impact on the health of the people that leads to psychological and other health issues as well.

In the long run, the global crisis has a negative effect on people’s lives. It is also adversely affected by the unfair distribution of income, irrespective of any effort made by everyone. There tends to be a rise in inequality due to recession. The disparity between rich and poor creates by the economic downturn is leather. It may affect the overall health of people within a community. The financial recession has a devastating impact on the lives of people in the long run. It is also adversely affected by the unequal distribution of profits, irrespective of any effort made by all. Despite the recession, inequality continues to increase. Hence steps need to be taken to make the overall economic predicament better.

Entrepreneurs need to fill in with their ideas and how the overall world economic predicament can be made better. The number of billionaires has increased over the years, yet so has the percentage of low-income groups. Adding to that, talent management is the key in order to make the best use of their skills. If talent is not hired and appointed for the skills that they are best at, that can also go to waste. Universities need to play a role in making it happen and send the students for internships to learn the business and make the best use of the knowledge they gain at schools to be applied to their jobs. The need to emphasize on shaping their minds as creative entrepreneurs that can end up generating new employment opportunities for others.

Conclusion

It can be concluded on the fact that the difference created by the economic depression between the rich and the poor is leather. It can impact the overall wellbeing of the people in a society. The economic recession in the long run negatively impacts the lives of the people. The unequal distribution of income, regardless of the efforts made by anyone, also affects it adversely. There tends to be a rise in inequality due to recession. Taxes need to be imposed in order to impact the whole economy. Unemployment is one of the significant issues that the financial economy is producing. In other parts of the world, too, suicide rates have risen. Therefore unemployment can be managed by hiring new talent who can come up with entrepreneurial ideas. It will also point out the steps that need to be taken to minimize the damage to the economic downturn in terms of economic inequality.

Furthermore, the widening of the gap amongst the wealthy and the poor affects the society on a larger scale—the US middle-income households due to the economic weakness that keeps on growing. The R & D department needs to be formed, fully incorporated, and their role should be designed in alliance with the skills of the team. This will help in maximizing the value of the team’s efforts. Yet the gap varies from city to city. Hence the economic recessions keep growing in some towns while not useful in a similar fashion in some other cities. Therefore extreme steps need to be taken to mitigate the aggravation of the situation caused by the recession.  Another factor is that economic downturns can have an effect on national and municipal budgets, rising pressure to reduce budget deficits. New talent needs to be incorporated in order to cater to the challenges, and entrepreneurship needs to be promoted in order to face and counter this predicament. This divide needs to stop; otherwise, it will keep creating a significant amount of unrest in the society.

 

References

 

A.P, T. (2009). Recession widens gap between rich, poor. Retrieved from jcu.edu.au: https://search-proquest-com.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/docview/332318078?accountid=16285

Burgard. (2015). Effects of the great recession: Health and well-being. Annual Review of Sociology, 181-201.

Camacho. (2019). Do economic recessions cause inequality to rise? Journal of Applied Economics, 304-320.

HaoWei. (2019). International talent inflow and R&D investment: Firm-level evidence from China. Economic Modelling.

mlr. (2018, 4). Great Recession, great recovery? Trends from the Current Population Survey. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/article/great-recession-great-recovery.htm

Zorn, M. (2017). M. S. (2017). Cure or curse: Does downsizing increase the likelihood of bankruptcy? Journal of Business Research, 76, 24-33.

 

 

Performance Management System at Google Inc.

Pages:7

Situation Description

Google Inc. is a company that reigns supreme across the web and has acquired unprecedented success within the previous decade. The company was nothing more than a research project back in 1996 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page; however, they managed to turn the idea into a multinational high-tech business. (Schmidt, 2017). Throughout the years, one aspect of the company that has remained consistent happens to be its commitment to employee engagement and satisfaction.

In his book, “How Google Works,” the executive Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt writes that a team of professionals known as “Smart Creatives” bring about business and technical expertise while catering to the needs of their employees. The author states that hiring the right employees is a skill, but retaining these employees is a tough job because of which Google has created a reliable performance management system as well as an inclusive and unique workplace culture (Bock, 2015).

Performance Management System Diagnosis

Annual Performance Review Cycle

The performance review for Google consists of two cycles annually. The first phase is the “preview” phase in which a complete peer review is done that correlates with the 360-degree feedback collection process of the company. Two main aspects are taken into account: the accomplishment of the employee and how the employee obtained the results.

·         Self-Evaluation

Self-evaluation centers around the advent of the annual performance review in which the employee has to evaluate herself/himself based on five criteria ranging from “always demonstrates” to “never demonstrates.”

·         360-degree Feedback

The holistic approach of providing managers with a thorough picture of their performance is done at Google in which the review centers upon the employee and the manager. The employee offers suggestions for improvements which are discussed with the manager in which peers participate as well.

·         Peer Reviews

Performance reviews tend to be customized at Google so that the team of smart creatives can track the performance of the employees. Lazlo Bock, the Vice President of People Operations, at Google, states in the book “Work Rules” that employees are Google first take into account identification of peer reviews. Each employee’s performance is taken into account through peer reviews, which also include reports from employees who might be junior.

The numerical rating system was abolished at Google back in April 2014, which means that employees at Google are now subjected to the new performance management system, which includes a five-point scale that ranges from “superb” to needs improvement.” This five-point scale peer review is carried out semiannually, and the reviewers are asked what improvement or one thing should the reviewee improve or do in a different way. After the peer review cycle is completed, the managers take a look at the peer reviews. The main aim of this process is to eliminate any form of bias, as the reviewers are asked to justify their decisions.

·         Calibration

After collection of the data through numerous channels in the form of peer reviews as well as self-reviews, the results are sorted out as the managers give rating the employee on the following scale:

  • Consistently meets expectations
  • Needs more improvements
  • Constantly exceeding expectations
  • Highly exceeds expectations
  • Excellent

The process of calibration in annual performance reviews is considered a go-to for the top-notch companies such as Goldman Sachs, AB InBev, GE, and Kraft Heinz. After the calibration meetings, each employee’s performance is reviewed, and Feedback is given while taking into account the impression of managers and peer reviews.

Evaluation of Performance Management System at Google

The ultimate goal of any performance management system must be to retain a maximum number of employees, and to enhance their productivity. A vital part of the performance management system is transparency, and the company does this well by keeping the data of each employee visible to ensure that there is credibility. When it comes to 360-degree Feedback, some employees tend to be good at painting a rosy picture of what they contributed towards the company while others do their job without promoting themselves. This often leads to limited impressions and biased impact of reports.

The main strength of Google’s 360-degree feedback review is that it provides a holistic approach to reviewing and a thorough assessment to direct managers. This is because employees crave good Feedback, and 360-degree Feedback provides employees with a chance to obtain more Feedback. The peer reviews are good for establishing the validity of the feedback process and for ensuring that goal-oriented as well as productive Feedback is done.

Business’s need for Change

360-degree Feedback is not utterly perfect despite the raving reviews because it can be used to generate a negative culture within the organization. This is because if the Feedback received comes out negative, it can generate resentment within the teams where the receiver of the Feedback might not be content with it. The managers who apply the 360-degree Feedback might also emphasize the negative aspects of the employee more rather than on the positive aspects (Kuzulu, 2016). A study on The Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index reveals that the 360-degree feedback reviews reduce the shareholder value of the company by 10.6 percent (Hornstein, 2002).

The main issue with 360-degree Feedback is that it takes place annually. However, meaningful Feedback should be given more often (Kuzulu, 2016). For Feedback to be accurate, it is imperative that it is done within six months so that the qualitative behavior, as well as quantifiable behavior, is noted. In 360-degree Feedback, the ratings of the reviewer might be influenced by the most recent interaction with the employee. Thus there are chances that the multi-rater or peer review system can be biased.

Improvement Options

·         Critical Incident

Critical Incident is a performance management tool in which an employer keeps not only track of negative incidents but also positive behavior or milestones achieved as well. The best aspect of this technique is that it is done every six months, which means that the subordinates are able to keep track of their performance, and the employer is able to take into account the qualitative aspects of the employee’s behavior (Fenwick, 1996). Critical incidents provide information regarding the abstract constructs of an employee, such as employee motivation, company culture, etc. which cannot be obtained through other methods.

·         Management by Objectives

The management by objectives method is the most results-oriented technique for performance appraisal. This method examines the performance of the employee through work objectives that have been predetermined. The objectives are established either by the manager or the employees themselves. Once the objective is agreed upon, the employees take it upon themselves to self-evaluate and identify skills that are most suitable for achieving the specific objective.

·         Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales

BARS, also known as. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales is a technique that came out in the advent of 1960s and allowed the employees to measure their performance according to specific behavioral patterns. This technique enables the identification of both qualitative as well as quantitative data. This method combines the benefits of other performance appraisal methods such as quantified ratings, critical incidents, and narratives.

Evaluation Criteria

The alternative that will be chosen for the company will be based on the following evaluation criteria:

  1. The chosen alternative should be similar to the existing method so that the company can switch to the method easily.
  2. The chosen alternative must ensure an unbiased evaluation.
  3. The chosen alternative must take into consideration quantifiable as well as qualitative behavior to ensure thorough Feedback.

Recommendation

The best option for Google is the Critical Incident technique for performance management as it fits all three criteria perfectly. The critical incident method is the closest alternative to 360-degree feedback as it takes it allows self- evaluation by taking the perspective of the employee into account. This method helps to identify any form of events that might be missed in 360-degree Feedback.

The critical Incident method is done semiannually, which means that it will ensure maximum output by keeping track of all the achievements of the employee within the time span. The technique is also cost effective which means that the company will not have to use extra expenditure for this technique. This technique is specifically useful in structuring job description and job specification.

The Critical Incident technique requires first reviewing as well as determining the specific incidents that have taken place within the time span of six months. Then the process of fact finding behind in which the data is collected regarding how much work each individual did and what outcome it brought for the company (Serrat, Knowledge Solutions).

The third step involves analyzing the qualitative behavioral data as well as quantifiable data. The fourth step is a face to face meeting with the manager and the employee. The fifth steps involve appraisal in which either the root cause of the problem is identified or the employee is appraised for good work.

 

Implementation Plan

Steps Timing Resources Needed Stakeholders
Reviewing as well as determining the specific incidents that have taken place. 6th month of the year. Incident Reports

Manager’s report

Self-evaluation report

 Employee

Parties involved within the incident, i.e. peers, managers, clients etc.
Evaluate the non-quantifiable behavior of the employee.

Examine what was good or bad regarding the incident

 2nd week Self-evaluation report Manager

Employee
Analyzing the qualitative behavioral data as well as quantifiable data. 3rd week-4th week    
Action Plan- what the employee will do if faced with similar situation. 5th week Manager’s report

 

 Employee

 

References

Bock, L. (2015). Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead. Twelve.

Fenwick, M. (1996). Building an Integrated Approach to Performance Management Using Critical Incident Technique. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 20.

Hornstein, H. A. (2002). The Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index and Company Performance: A definite impact on shareholder wealth. International Management Conference, Society for Advancement of Management, 33-45.

Kuzulu, E. (2016). Is 360 Degree Feedback Appraisal an Effective Way of Performance Evaluation? International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 172-188.

Schmidt, E. (2017). How Google Works. Grand Central Publishing.

Serrat, O. (Knowledge Solutions). The Critical Incident Technique. Knowledge Solutions, 1077-1080.

 

 

Arcor: Global Strategy and Local Turbulence

Pages:3

Summary

The paper begins with an overview of the confectionery industry and its substantial competitiveness among other industries in the market and states that Western Europe and North America contributed to two-thirds of its sales. Consumers of this industry comprised mostly of teens and adults, who bought chocolates and candy products in very high quantities. Among chocolate and candy, statistics show that 86 percent of overall consumption is due to chocolate, whereas 17 percent is due to candy, which shows significant profit to be belonging to chocolates. According to statistical details obtained, the leading confectionary producers and exporters were renowned chocolate companies like Nestle, Kraft, Hershey, and in this list, Arcor ranked 13th. Amongst the confectionary market, companies have varying categories of chocolate and candy based on their quality, shelf-life and taste (in turn depending on the way cocoa beans were picked and mixed.). The production process was complex, and due to transportation constraints, firms chose to be located near the suppliers for efficiency of time and capital and convenience of employees. Channels for distributing these confectionary goods were mostly supermarkets and self-supporting retailers. But distribution could be a frenzied task, as competition existed therein and creating awareness regarding the product’s reimbursement was necessary. Marketing was mainly via television advertisements. The article then pointed out Arcor and its origin and its journey of success under the sovereignty of Luis Pagani and the 300 percent rise in sales was proof of his efforts. The company’s goal was affordability in terms of prices, popular products in variety, and uncompromised quality of confectionary, and the company strived for these and achieved their desired goals to a huge extent. This brought Arcor corporation, the market, popularity and success it deserved and it spread as far as Brazil and Latin America and moving further overseas. Arcor was smart and diligent enough to develop supply chains of its own and preserved effective production facilities by spending adequate capital on improved technology for production. However, for Argentina, 2003 was the year of disaster. It suffered devaluation of currency, esteemed corporations shutting down and a massive financial crisis. In these times, the Arcor Group, which was one of the more fortunate enterprises to remain financially stable, underwent a change of plans. Arcor planned to put into operation a novel international strategy that would globalize the corporation with respect to distribution networks and facilitation in products. But for Arcor’s produce to spread far and wide across the world, it was primarily necessary for the corporation to have a firm ground at its country of origin, Argentina. Arcor being a stable corporation during the times, contributed in eradicating the adverse effects by increasing worker wages and giving out food necessities. They attempted to build symbiotic relationship with government as an attempt to develop transnational strategy which will act as a tradeoff. They reduced prices of their most popular products by altering the ratios of ingredients, in an attempt to keep sales continued and worked to bring in more revenue from exports by cost effective process of production. Arcor’s plans for globalization included expansion upto countries such as Latin America, North America, Europe, and Asia.

This article is an amalgamation of quite important lessons with respect to business because with its help, I could learn crisis management which is essential in business because there are ups and downs all the time, sometimes within the firm, and sometimes in the world outside too and for businesses to flourish, employees and enterprise owners need to be prepared to face anything. We also get the lesson that the key to important decision making in the face of uncertain times is dependent on the analysis of pros and cons and a long term thought process of the consequences of the decisions. Moreover, the article provides an insight into globalization practices and how to formulate effective strategies to accomplish those for the success of the enterprise.

Colonialism in Heart of Darkness

Pages:4

European colonists called themselves civilized people, whose purpose of colonizing Africa was to make “barbaric” Africans became civilized. But if there is no difference between the behavior of “civilized” European colonists and “barbarians”, can they still be called civilized colonists? The essay would indicate three aspects of the scene which are the natural environment，the word “incomprehensible” and Marlow’s words“he called them enemies!” how to associated with colonialism.

The muzzles of the long six-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives—he called them enemies!— hidden out of sight somewhere.(20)

Samet Guven indicated a viewpoint that is “Conrad also shows how a civilized man turns into a savage when the profits are taken into consideration. His novel reflects the realities of the world in the 19th century, that is, the Europeans regard Africans as primitive and immature to colonize them.”Heart of Darkness shows that the European colonizers used the high ideals of colonization as a cover to help them to viciously  plunder wealth and casually kill Africans.

Marlow sees a warship firing randomly into the continent where maybe there is nobody. The malevolent faces of the European colonists are exposed through Marlow’s account of this incredible attack. “In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent.” Marlow sees the natural environment which has the sky, the water, and the earth are silent that contrast with gunfire. And the gunfire is discordant sound which breaks what was supposed to be the quiet home of the African. Furthermore，“low hull,” “thin masts” contrast with the empty immensity of the surrounding environment to show European colonizers who are just a small part of nature not only casually kill Africans but also break the silence of environment. European colonizers pretend to be colonialists who had lofty colonial ideals but they are doing what barbarians do。

“Incomprehensible”is used by Conrad to indicate the ridiculous things of the European colonialist. The word does not explain the practical facts or opinions that Marlow sees , but rather indicates that Marlow cannot explain the phenomena what he sees. In other words, Marlow’s idea of colonialists is that they are civilized people, who are mainly for their own interests, but they will bring civilization to the African colonies. At least Marlow does not think that the colonists are also barbarians. So he is shocked by the barbarism of the European colonists after he saw these what is called “civilized” people firing randomly into the continent. Conrad explained that the European colonists not only robbed the African’s property, but also destroyed their lives and revealed the dark hearts of the colonists through Marlow’s narration。Meanwhile, Conrad points out that the absurd behavior of the colonists is an act of destroying the nature by comparing the description of the ships and guns of the European colonists with the huge natural environment.

Furthermore, at the end of the passage, Marlow says“ it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives—he called them enemies!— hidden out of sight somewhere.” Marlow cannot understand why the men on the ship are firing into the continent , which seemed to be deserted. He asked almost everyone on the ship， and no one can explain to him. This scene reflects that when the European colonists are shooting, they had no clear target or idea, but they just attacked tentatively. It also reflects the aimlessness even bewilderment of European colonial life in Africa, as they have been swallowed up by the power of the jungle. Thus, the European colonists, who has been swallowed up by the power of the jungle had become barbarians, which only wanted to plunder the wealth with the power of barbarism. They do not care about the value of life, as their nature of civilization has been replaced by greed.

In summary, Conrad reveals that the Europeans pretended to be colonialists not only pillaging the land and wealth of Africans, but also killing them with violence and cruelty. At the same time, Conrad also writes about the cruel human nature of the colonialists, the hope that the great greed will eventually be defeated by the mysterious forces of nature. Europeans claimed to want to “civilize” the African continent, their actions spoke otherwise: they were interested solely in gaining wealth and did not care how they did it, or who was killed. The European colonists are no longer “civilized” because their own civilization had been defeated by the power of the jungle, which means greed. They pretend to be colonists but  treated Africans cruelly, so they were not real colonists but “savage” people completely occupied by desire.

 

References：

1.Post-Colonial Analysis of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darknesskutaksam.karabuk.edu.tr ›

 

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