Friday, January 31, 2020

Music and Brain Development Essay Example for Free

Music and Brain Development Essay There are three major perspectives on the positive impact of music education to the core curricula in school. The study on how music shares value to brain development has opened new views for all educators. According to the study of Neurological Research in February 1997, music develops abstract reasoning skills needed for the learning process of children in math and science. It was proven that training in music is more efficient than computer learning for teaching math and science skills (Peretz and Zatorre, 2005).   It was reported that music training could be more effective than computer instruction for teaching these skills. The findings were the result of a two year experiment with preschoolers by Rauscher et. Al. Wriht et al in 1997, compared the effects of musical and non-musical training on intellectual development as a follow-up to their studies on music can enhance spatial-reasoning. They concluded that music enhanced brain functions that were required for learning mathematics, science and engineering (Brust, 2003). Several studies have suggested that beginning music training early corresponds to greater growth in certain areas of the brain (Schlang et al, 2003). For example, researchers in Germany identified the planum temporale, a part of the left hemisphere as the region of the brain responsible for the perfect pitch and speech. This term used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the planun temporale in non-musicians and professional musicians, some with perfect pitch and some without it. They discovered that the planum temporale in those with perfect pitch was twice as large as the other groups. Also with perfect pitch has started a music lesson before age seven. Rauscher et al. (1997) found that musicians had thicker nerve fibers in the corpus callosum, the part of the brain that carries signals between the two hemispheres, if they started keyboard training before the age of seven. Babo (2001) discussed, researchers, work at the University of Konstanz in Germany which focused that exposure to music helped to rewire neural circuits. They concluded that the brains of pianists were more efficient at making skilled movements than the brains of others. These findings suggested that musical training could enhance brain function (Trainor and Schmidt, 2003). Schlaug et al. (1995) used MRI to discover that musicians who started studying music before the age of 7 had regions in their brains (the corpus callosum and the right motor cortex) that were larger than corresponding regions in both non-musicians and musicians whose training began at a later age. However, in response to questions about his study, Schlaug et al preferred not to recommend when music should be taught, since some very skilled musicians began performing in their twenties or thirties. Schlaug et al. also reported that most musicians who have perfect pitch started music lessons before the age of seven. However, according to Diamond and Hopson (1998), early music training is associated with more growth in this one particular brain region. if training starts later or is absent altogether, perfect pitch rarely shows up (p. 4). Zatorre (2003) reported evidence that infants are born with nervous systems devoted exclusively to music. Studies are showing that early and ongoing musical training can help organize and develop children’s brains. In a study to determine the effect of systematic prenatal musical stimulation by observing musical behaviors exhibited between birth and 6, Fujioka et al (2006) found that infants who received systematic prenatal musical stimulation exhibited â€Å"remarkable attention behaviors.   Those infants could imitate accurately sounds made by adults (including non-family members), and appear to structure vocalization much earlier than infants who did not have prenatal musical training (p. 21).   Only quite the researches focused on the prenatal musical training of the fetus. Personal Reflection I believe that musicians have more active contribution to brain development because they are required to perform in more complex sequences of finger movements. Musicians are regularly adapting to decisions on tempo, tone, style, rhythm, phrasing and feeling-training the brain to become incredibly good at organizing and performing a lot of activities all at the same time. Musicians in my point of view, exercise orchestration that have better payoff for lifelong attention skills, intelligence and skills in self-knowledge and self-expression. In my own opinion, there is a significant relationship between music and brain development. There is an interrelationship between music and education because of the eight basic intelligences:   linguistic; logical-mathematical; spatial; bodily-kinesthetic; musical; interpersonal; intrapersonal; and naturalist. Although, these intelligences are different from musical intelligences:emotional, spiritual and cultural than the other kinds of intelligences. Most importantly, he assumed that music could help some organize the way they think and work by helping them develop in other areas, such as math, language, and spatial reasoning. Gardner criticized school districts that sacrificed music in children’s education, calling them â€Å"arrogant and ignorant about the value of music education† (p. 142). Essay 2-The Mozart Effect Rauscher et al. (1993) used the term Mozart effect to describe the results of their study on the relationship between music and spatial task performance. It is based on the ears role in the development of movement, balance, language and pre-verbal communication as well as the integration of neurological responses stimulated by music The Mozart effect also refers to the way music is used to enhance the quality of life. For example, music helps children in obtaining good health, education, and creativity (Cjabris, 1999).   Rauscher et al. (1997) gave a group of college students three 10-minute-long sets of standard IQ spatial reasoning tasks: listening to a Mozart sonata for two pianos, listening to a relaxation tape, and sitting through silence. The results showed that the individuals who listened to Mozart had a distinct advantage in spatial task performance. Steele et al (1999) noted that students performed better on the abstract/spatial reasoning tests after listening to Mozart than after listening to either the relaxation tape or to nothing† (p. 2). Although conditions differed significantly between music, silence, and relaxation, Shaw and his colleagues were careful to qualify the study results. Although spatial reasoning test scores rose as a result of listening to Mozarts piano sonata in D major (K488), the effects were temporary. Jenkins (2001) noted that the enhancing effect of the music condition is temporary, and does not extend beyond the 10-15 minute period during which subjects were engaged in each spatial task (Rauscher et al., 1993, p. 2). The authors posed several questions for further research: â€Å"Could varying the amount of listening time optimize the Mozart effect? Could listening to Mozart also enhance other intelligence measures such as short-term memory, verbal reasoning, and quantitative reasoning? Would other kinds of music have an effect on IQ performance† (p. 2)? Though the answers to these questions were unclear, the authors concluded that music lacking in complexity failed to enhance performance. They also concluded that the complexity of Mozarts music was responsible for its enhancing effect. Rauscher et al. replicated and extended these findings in 1995. They used the same tasks used in their first experiment but extended the types of listening examples used. College students were divided into 3 groups: those exposed to silence, the same Mozart music used in the 1993 study, and a piece by Philip Glass. As before, the Mozart group showed a significant increase in spatial IQ scores. Tomatis, a French physician, psychologist, and educator, researched the connection between early childhood development in the 1960s and the music of Mozart (Jenkins, 2001). College students listened to a Mozart sonata, then performed complicated visual tasks involving cutting and folding paper. However, there was no difference in the way these tasks were performed by either the students who listened to the sonata or the control groups who just relaxed before taking the test or listened to other kinds of music. Schellenberg (2006) pointed out that the studies on music instruction insubstantial overall because researchers only tried to repeat and extend their findings. For example, no one knew exactly which kind of musical training produced results and which kinds did not, who benefited most from it, and how long any intellectual gains resulting from music training lasted. In another study, Chabris (1999) reviewed previous studies and compared the effects of the Mozart recordings. Results revealed a statistically insignificant increase in the ability of individuals to complete tasks requiring spatial visualization skills and abstract reasoning. Chabris noted that if listening to Mozart improves cognitive performance at all, its by improving overall cognitive arousal and concentration. It shouldnt be viewed as an intellectual miracle drug (p. 1). Steele (2001) agreed with Chabris, by stating that â€Å"there is a problem with the concept of classical music as Gatorade for the brain† (p. 1). A number of other researchers (Crncec et al, 2006) supported the belief that classical music does not increase basic intelligence. Rauscher, et l (1995) noted that because many researchers only measured the effect on general intelligence instead of on spatial-temporal abilities, they failed when they tried to repeat the original experiment. In 1995, Rauscher et al. replicated this study and again found that spatial-temporal reasoning improved after listening to the Mozart Sonata. Though daily exposure to Mozart’s music produced daily increases in scores, this effect did not apply to all styles of music or to all areas of intelligence. For example, Phillip Glass’ minimalist music did not enhance spatial-temporal reasoning. Further, the students’ scores did not improve when they performed a short-term memory task after listening to Mozart. Rauscher et al. (1999) concluded that â€Å"although the Mozart effect is intriguing and holds great promise for further explorations into the transfer of musical processing to other domains of reasoning, merely listening to music probably does not lead to lasting enhancement of spatial-temporal intelligence. Listening to music is a passive experience for most people, and does not require the involvement that actively creating music does† (p. 2).   This observation led researchers to suspect that actively creating music has greater benefits for spatial temporal intelligence than simply listening to it. Combining separate elements of an object into a whole or arranging them in a specific order are spatial-temporal operations. They require successive steps, which are dependent upon previous steps. Spatial-logical operations also require recognition of similarities or differences among objects and are generally one-step processes. For example, a child who is asked to classify objects according to their color or shape would be performing a spatial-logical operation. The Rauscher et al. (1999) model predicted that music training may increase spatial-temporal task scores, but not necessarily spatial-logical tasks. These studies did suggest casual relationships between music and spatial task performance. The authors concluded that music education was helpful for maximum cognitive development by demonstrating that music could improve the intellectual functioning of children. Personal Reflection In my own opinion, the study in Mozart effect is a new proof of music’s education and its importance. Since it is believed to development a child’s IQ, schools must offer music programs to help their students in a very substantial way. Music educators should work towards the inclusion of music education in the curriculum of public education. Also, the publics perception of music education must be altered so that policymakers in education are forced to provide for conditions where music education may thrive. Many educators and researchers posit that music should be a more central part of   the school curriculum in light of studies that demonstrate a relationship between music and intellectual growth. Also, tentative research findings in support of music education have shown that people believe that there is an essential value to learning about music. Diamond (1998) argued that learning to play an instrument could increase a childs capacity for voluntary attention (p. 7), while Porter (1998) concluded that music can teach â€Å"discipline, care, concentration, and perseverance† (p. 7). Music Learning and Memory for Music When memory for a sequence of visually presented letters is tested, the marked recency effect that characterizes studies of the PAS system is absent. Nonetheless, clear evidence of phonological coding is found in the form of a marked effect of phonological similarity ( Schlkind et al, 2003). auditory input. Further evidence for the interaction between self-generated phonological codes and auditory input is, of course, offered by the irrelevant speech effect. Performance is impaired by unwanted spoken material, with the crucial feature of the material being its phonological rather than its semantic characteristics, again suggesting that the interaction is occurring at a common phonological level ( Dowling, 1994). It should be pointed out at this stage, however, that the nature of the irrelevant sound is crucial. While speech in a foreign language is quite disruptive to performance, white noise is not, even when the intensity of the noise is pulsed so as to resemble the intensity envelope of the speech signal that has been shown to disrupt memory ( Dowling et al, 1995). The fact that memory is more disrupted by vocal than by nonvocal music might seem to suggest that the system is essentially speech based. It is possible, however, that the greater disruption by speech reflects the nature of the primary task, namely remembering digits, a task that is likely to operate principally in terms of the spoken names of the digits. It is entirely conceivable that a different primary task would lead to a different degree of disruption. One possibility then might be to look at studies investigating memory for environmental sounds. Unfortunately, the evidence in this area seems to be relatively sparse. Deutsch (2004) showed that their patient was better at remembering environmental sounds than spoken digits, but, unfortunately, it is possible that the task was done by first identifying the sounds and then remembering them semantically. Personal Reflection . Thinking of music memory as schematic is probably accurate for many of the interactions that both trained and untrained people have with music. However, recently I have become interested in the nature of representation when memory for music is essentially perfect. Whereas it appears that the majority of work in music cognition has examined short-term memory, I would like to examine longterm memory. By this I mean that I am interested in the way well-learned music is represented. People are able to remember a large repertory of music and retain it for many years. What kinds of codes make this retention possible? Clearly, proposing verbal codes in the traditional sense is impractical when trying to understand memory for melody (as opposed to the lyrics in vocal music). Even if we assume that a small minority of musicians can encode tunes in terms of musical structure, motor commands, or musical notation, the successful retention of music by untrained people suggests the existence of other types of durable codes. The explication of those codes has been the goal of my current program of research References    Blood, A., Zatorre, R. (2001). Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,98, 11818-11823. Brust, J. (2003). Music and the neurologist: A historical perspective. In I.Peretz, R. Zatorre (Eds.) The cognitive neuroscience of music (pp. 181-191). New York: Oxford University Press. Chabris, C (1999). Prelude or requiem for the ‘Mozart effect’? Nature, 400, 6747, 826-7. Crncec, R., Wilson, S., Prior, M. (2006). No evidence for the Mozart effect in children. Music Perception, 23(4), 305- 317. Deutsch, D. (2004). The octave illusion revisited again. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 30 (2), 355-364. This article can be downloaded from Psych Info and from the author’s web page. Dowling, W. J. (1994). Melodic contour in hearing and remembering melodies. In R. Aiello (Ed.) Musical perceptions, (pp. 173-190 ). New York: Oxford University Press. Dowling, W. J. , Kwak, S., Andrews, M. ( 1995). The time course of recognition of novel melodies. Perception Psychophysics, 57(2), 136-49. Fujioka, T., Ross, B., Kakigi, R., Pantev, C., Trainor, L. (2006). One year of musical training affects development of auditory cortical-evoked fields in young children. Brain, 129, 2593-2608. This article can be downloaded. Jenkins, J.S. (2001). The Mozart effect. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine,   94,170-172. Patel, A. (2003). Language, music, syntax and the brain. Nature Neuroscience, 6(7), 674-681. This article can be downloaded. discuss it from the neuroscientific perspective. Peretz, I., Zatorre, R. (2005). Brain organization for music processing. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 89-114. This article can be downloaded. This is an excellent review. Rauschecker, J. (2003). Functional organization and plasticity of auditory cortex. In Peretz, I., Zatorre, R. (Eds.) The cognitive neuroscience of music (pp. (357-365). New York: Oxford University Press. Rauscher, F. (1999). Reply to Prelude or requiem for the â€Å"Mozart effect’? Nature, 400, 6747, 827-8. Schellenberg, E. G.(2005). Music and cognitive abilities. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14 (6), 317-320. This article can be downloaded. Schellenberg, E.G. (2006). Long-term positive association between music lessons and IQ. Journal of Education Psychology, 98 (2), 457-468. This article can be downloaded. Schlaug, G. ( 2003). The brain of musicians. In Peretz, I., Zatorre, R. (Eds.) The cognitive neuroscience of music (pp. (366-381). New York: Oxford University Press. Schulkind, A., Posner, R., Rubin, D. (2003). Musical features that facilitate melody identification: How do you know it’s â€Å"your† song when they finally play it? Music Perception, 21, (2), 217-249. Steele, K., Dalla Bella, S., Peretz, I., Dunlop, T., Dawe, L., Humphrey, K., Shannon, R., Kirby, J. Jr., Olmstead, C. (1999). Prelude or requiem for the ‘Mozart effect’? Nature, 400, 6747,826-7. Trainor, L., Schmidt, L. (2003). Processing emotions induced by music. In I. Peretz, R. Zatorre (Eds.) The cognitive neuroscience of music (pp. 310-324). New York: Oxford University Press. Zatorre, R. (2003). Absolute pitch: A model for understanding the influence of genes and development on neural and cognitive function. Nature Neuroscience, 6 (7), pp. 692-695.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

The Mystery of Sleep Essays -- Essays Papers

The Mystery of Sleep ~ Rest for the body, Activity for the brain ~ Everyone sleeps. While humans sleep, they do not procreate, protect, or nurture their young, gather food, earn money, write papers, etc. Surely, at least once, most people have wondered why they sleep in spite of these disadvantages. According to Greier (48), it is hard for scientists to answer the seemingly simple question of what, exactly, sleep is good for. Sleep occupies one-third of humans' lives, which seems like a waste of precious time; however, no one can survive without sleep. According to Shelton (5), sleepy drivers in the U.S. cause approximately 56,000 car accidents every year. Also, Wolfson and Carskadon (875) report interestingly that the students who achieve good grades sleep longer than the students who are struggling or failing in school. Furthermore, the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, the near meltdown at Three Mile Island, the environmentally disastrous oil spill by the Exxon Valdez, and the loss of the space shuttle Challenger were all caused by people who made m istakes because of too little sleep (Coren 1). Sleep deprivation seems to cause detrimental effects to humans' daily lives. Sleep is a state marked by reduced consciousness, diminished activity of the skeletal muscles, and depressed metabolism. Humans normally experience sleep in patterns that follow five observable, progressive stages (stages 0~ 4) of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and a separate pattern of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (Coren 31). An electrical encephalogram (EEG), devised by Hans Berger in 1919, is used to measure electrical activities of neurons during the stages: Stage 0 is not real sleep, but going to bed and preparing for sleep. During stage 1, th... ... (1997): 48-50. Hobson, Allan J. {Sleep}. New York: Scientific American Library, 1995. Meddis, Ray. {The Sleep Instinct}. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977. Moreno, Anne. "Why We Sleep? Getting a Good Night's Sleep Is Important to Your Health and Also to Your Success in Life." {Current Health 2} 25.2 (1998): 6-13. Rechtschaffen, Allan. "Current Perspectives on the Function of Sleep." {Perspectives in Biology and Medicine} 41.3 (1998): 359-90. Shelton, Deborah L. "Sleep-Deprived Drivers Linked to Highway 'Carnage'" {American Medical News} 38.26 (1995): 5-6. Stampi, Claudio, ed. {Why We Nap: Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep}. By Jurgan Arnoff. Boston: Birkhauser, 1992. Wolfson, Amy R., and Mary A. Carskadon. "Sleep Schedules and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents." {Child Development} 69.4 (1998): 875-89.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Hofstede Cutlural Dimensions

Hofstede Electronic Submission Coversheet TO BE COMPLETED BY STUDENT By electronically submitting this work, I certify that: †¢ This assignment is my own work †¢ It has not previously been submitted for assessment †¢ Where material from other sources has been used it has been acknowledged properly †¢ This work meets the requirement of the University’s ethics policy Student Name: nidi kumar Student Number : 9048219 Faculty: FBSE Level of study: level 6 Course title: International business management Unit title: Cross-cultural ManagementAssignment title: Airbus and GLOBE Assignment tutor: Peter Jordan Word count: 500 Learner request for feedback: TO BE COMPLETED BY STAFF Tutor feedback: Areas of Strength: Areas for Improvement: Grade mark: Submitted on time (Y/N): Tutor signature: Date: Identify the key cross-cultural issues faced by the Airbus consortium and relate these to the Globe’s projects clusters of business cultures. Critically evaluate the us efulness of this research in understanding the issues involved and in devising viable solutions.What lessons can be learned for companies embarking on international projects? Introduction Cross-cultural management describes â€Å"organisational behaviour within countries and cultures† (Adler and Gundersen, 2008, p 13) as a result it compares the organisational behaviour across various countries and cultures and most importantly it seeks to comprehend and advance the â€Å"interaction of co-workers, managers, executives, clients, suppliers, and alliance partners from countries and cultures around the world. † (Adler and Gundersen, 2008, p 13).A company that has experience of cross-cultural management and thus has its roots in several European countries is Airbus SAS. (Browaeys and Price, 2011). Outlined on the company’s website they express their desire to overcome â€Å"national divides, sharing development costs, collaborating in the interest of a greater mark et share, and even agreeing a common set of measurements and a common language† (Airbus. com cited in Browaeys and Price, 2011, p 67). However, as time progressed evidence suggests that this has not occurred as demonstrated in key cross-cultural issues experienced by the organisation. Introduction not yet complete (Try to make a generic view of CrossCultural Management beyond companies ie consider how CC management is dealt with across industry sectors ( most prevalent in telecoms organizations) also what are the â€Å"roots† of CC management and how does it address new global challenges/provide new solutions)) Method of Research By comparison of 2 companies ie Airbus / Globe highlighting key CC management approaches, issues and solutions (Risk of systemic flaws in approach/repeatable failures)YOU should compare apples with apples ie list all significant issues, select an issue eg Economic Patriotism and evaluate the approach taken by both parties / im arguing for creat ing A table to do this we can talk†¦ Key Cross-Cultural Issues faced by Airbus (Related to Globe’s Cross-Cultural Approach) Problems Faced by Airbus (enumerate and modify in your own words) Socio-cultural & technical problems. †¢ The workforce at the aircraft manufacturer is geographically distributed in proportion to national ownership stakes.In an instance of economic nationalism, government distort private transactions among economic actors by discriminating against foreigners in the name of national interest. This lead to the decrease in the productive efficiency. It is because of the various differences of management styles and way of communication. For e. g. : comparing with the French people, the Germans prefer collective decision making, whereas the French prefer centralised decision. At the same time the Spanish are flexible but have inferiority complex, so they have tendency to be vague and unreliable due to which they respond very less. Ian Stokes, 2006). †¢ The main problem is when EADS company of Airbus was created, two chief executives German and French headed it. It was maintained even due to knowing the fact of the crisis caused by problems in development in A380 began. Looking from the Hofstedes cultural dimensions the French likes high power distance whereas the Germans prefer low power distance. So while making decisions Germans tend to interfere in the conversations while it is being dislike by France people. So this unintentionally hurt the ego's of the French people and creates a conflict between them. Hofstede. G, 1991) 1 †¢ Due to the government involvement respective countries, cost cutting measures were delayed as state aid comes to rescue their respective partner first. From this situation it seems that power id distributed unequally. The government is being self centred and looking after its own motives. Even no action id being undertaken by the group members of the company in order to tackle this issue. I t is in this area that a culture shows the extent to which it ‘tolerates and fosters pecking orders, and how actively members try to reduce them'. Mead, 1994; 66) 1 †¢ One of the main causes in delay of the launch of Airbus A380 for two years was owing to the fact of having a complex wiring design system for it. †¢ There were 1,200 functions to control the plane that takes 98,000 wires & 40,000 connectors. The system has 500,000 models, which needs to be kept in sync from different countries. It was complicated and very much time consuming due the fact of the engineers being at different locations. †¢ Even the aircraft parts were built at different locations.For example: nose sections are built in France, fuselages in Germany, wings in Great Britain and tails in Spain. And the final assembly were done in Toulouse (France). It unnecessarily increased the transportation cost, communication problems and foremost aspect time consumption. †¢ There was a problem with regards to software and knowledge as well. The engineers in Germany and Spain used the older version V4 of the CAD program in order to design the wiring system, while the engineers in France and England used the newer version V5.This created trouble and delay while transferring the data because the some data was lost while transferring files from one system to another. †¢ With regards to knowledge, French were familiar with the software while the Germans were not inexperienced compared to French. According to Hofstedes1 it seem that the French are more of individualistic in nature because they were least concerned about the training of its partner company's. Due to the lack of integration in engineering it resulted failure in execution. When the HRM team was most needed to train the employees ; communicate between them regarding the software problems, they were very busy with responding to the new legislation- such as those concerned with labour working hours and the Frenc h directive on rights of individuals to choose their own training. As the French are more type of individualism because of the preference towards centralised executive, they tend to first sort out their problems that made them busy in doing things which was not important compared to training problem. Ian Stokes, 2006) 1; (Trompenaars, 1993; 8-11) 1 †¢ The top managers were busy struggling for the senior position in the consortium and lobbying for influence. These lead political goals get in the way of project goals. From this it seems that that the top managers were very much individualistic in nature. They were more interested in getting the name an enjoy being superior in the organization. They seemed to be self-achievement oriented and least concerned about the problems going on in the company.This dispersed the decision making power which was most needed in problems like this. (Hofstede, 1991) 1 All this problems lead to the delay in launch of Airbus A380 for two years that was scheduled to launch in 2006. Delay in delivery forced some airlines to cancel their orders. This gave them loss of euro 2 billion due that they had to make drastic cuts in the size of its workforce and closure of some plants, which in turn dented their image in the market. Efforts taken by Airbus to tackle the issues. In order to tackle the design of the wiring system and the software problems, Airbus made special investment to train its employees with the help of the software supplier. †¢ They even tried to set up intercultural sessions to inspire a warm feeling of mutual understanding, but it failed to address adequately the fundamentals of co-operation. †¢ The EADS managers most of the times tried to draw attention to the common areas and similarities, rather than differences in order to tackle the cross-cultural differences with regards to perceptions and doing things. They have distributed their workforce in proportion to the ownership stakes geographically becau se they thought that this would increase their productive efficiency. Put Table A in here Critical Evaluation of Research (based on analysis of table) Economic Patriotism: Many organisations are forced to develop and expand themselves into new markets overseas due to the increasing maturation of domestic markets and foreign competitors. In order to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors they are recognising their identity that can help them to sustain.The main motive behind this step is that by enlightening the only one of its kind personality or character of an organisation or group, all the way through symbols, communications and behaviours, it will help them to create favourable corporate image in the minds of these groups. Such differentiation will help them to create an image based on the uniqueness of its own identity, as well as creating a tendency in the minds of the people or groups as a basis for developing long-term profitable relationships. (Van, 1992) 2. Ec onomic patriotism is most of similarly related on these theories.Economic patriotism means, â€Å"supporting one's country†. Economic patriotism is the coordinated and the promoted behaviour of consumers or companies (both private and public) that consists of favouring the good or services produced in their country or in their group of countries (wikipedia) 3. According to me economic patriotism means favouring the people and practices done in ones own country, right or wrong. The main motive of the people living in their own country is to promote its thoughts, beliefs, way of doing business, etc. this is automatically done because they had been under the influence of such practices since their childhood.It's like expressing that they love their country and ready to sacrifice for it. Economics patriotism can be done with the help of many activities for e. g. : imposing tariffs on imports, quota system, or encouraging consumers to purchase own domestic services and products. N ow a days a new type of economic patriotism has came up that does not allows foreign investors to develop or acquire companies in one's country. For e. g. : Arcelor acquired by Mittal (Largest steel industry). Government and political bodies are playing the main role to promote economic patriotism.Even in the Airbus case study economic patriotism has played a significant role in problems created by government of different countries. The workforce at the company is geographically distributed in proportion to national ownership stakes. So this makes the workforce far from each other. According to the company it may help them to increase productive efficiency. But in an instance of economic nationalism (whereby the people support their respective rights and countries), the government of respective countries changed private transactions according to their thoughts and practices in order to protect the local economic interests.They discriminated foreigners in the name of national interes t. So political bodies came into role in order to support the local people. Their economic motives include the preservation of employment or attraction of economic activity to a certain area. And the company's strategic motives were to include national security in order to capture rents abroad in monopolistic market. But the patriotic approach of the company proved ineffective because it conflicts with the economic efficiency, which derives from the protection of the interests of the local lobbies. pic] The company tried to integrate all its employees and create a sense of togetherness but the â€Å"economic patriotism† practiced by the people and government in respective countries failed the company's objectives. The politicians want to win the votes from people by supporting their interest. The damaged caused by economic nationalism indirectly created inefficiency and poor performance of corporate governance. Due to this damage Airbus reputation was dented. The government d id not supported because it conflicted with the ideas and thoughts of the government.The cost cutting measures were delayed because the state aid first comes to rescue the government-supported company. The competition increased because government supported companies had privileged access to infrastructure and procurement contracts. This delayed all the process in the company and unnecessarily increased the loss and the cost of production. Indirectly the Airbus suffered from takeover threats from the more efficient organisations. Finally, the national efforts to support one's interest proved to be self-defeating as other countries react in kind, neutralising the initial attempt to gain competitive advantage.Reflection of the way the company was organised. One of the causes of the delay was the complex wiring system and the software compatibility. The digital system has 500,000 models that need to be kept in sync. Despite of the fact that even a single mistake can create problems the company operated from different regions further complicating the wiring system. The seems to be communication gap between the employees because engineers in Germany and Spain used the older V4 version of the CAD program to design the wiring whereas engineers in France and England used the newer V5 version.Although it has been said by the software developer that both the version were compatible but the company should not have taken risks of going with different versions. Although there was claim by developer regarding compatibility the data was lost while transferring files from one system to another. The suppliers were also not involved in a collaborative effort to anticipate problems. There was lack of training and communication among the engineers as well. It can be seen because the engineers in France were familiar with the software while the Germans did not have much experience with it.This shows that there is centralised decision in the company that made other engineers lack of knowledge. They built the different parts in different region, which further complicated the assembling system due to the lack of communication related to knowledge and software problems. Author Hellemans notes that ‘what happened in Germany was not just technical problems related to software but it was an execution failure due to lack of efficient knowledge'. (Davis, 2007) 1 From the problems that Airbus faced, the company was not properly organised because it seems that relied mostly on the software developer regarding the solutions.There was even lack of training, communication and transparency within the organisation. It seems that mostly the decision were made in headquarters only, not with the consent of other people. The merger of the national components in 2001 only integrated themselves officially but mentally they were far away from each other. It even seems to be inequality from lack of technological development equally because when France & England upgraded themse lves to V5 version, the German and Spain were still on the V4 versions. Lessons Learned. what are the lessons learnt from this specific research ie outcomes from analysis of the table/also comment on the quality of the research / ie selection of evaluation â€Å"parameters† to compare, what if scenarios / heuristics / deductions / further research) In the real world there is not any specific best way to integrate diverse cultures within an international joint venture. It solely depends upon the situation and the kind of cultures involves. But I am trying to be closer to individual's perception and actions that may lead to a common ground where everyone accept each other.Research: Proper research needs to done before setting up such a culturally diversified company. Research should be on the basis of the cultural dimension of Hofstedes1 i. e. power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculine vs. feminine, short-term vs. long-term orientation, what they like and what they don't. It helps them to integrate all their activities on the common grounds and come up with a solution that maybe acceptable to everyone. Collectivist's approach: As we don't have any idea about what people's want and desires are, a collectivists approach will explore the ideas and perceptions about each other.It will gradually help to know each other's ideas and beliefs that can be helpful to achieve the desired goals and objectives. Initially it may create problems but at the later stage when everybody has been known to each other it help people or employees to understand regarding what to do and what not to do. Diffuse relationships: The company employees need to be considered as members of a group or an organization. They should be involved decision-making process. It helps the employees to build rapport between themselves that in turn explore each other's ideas and beliefs.Their relationships with each other helps us to find how efficient the organization is and what steps need to be taken in order to tackle the cross-cultural issues. Teambuilding session should be conducted in order to create a feeling of oneness, which can increase the efficiency of a company. (Trompenaars, 1993; 8-11) 1. Equality: If we integrate diverse cultures within international joint venture equality should be always there in term development, technological advancement, knowledge, etc. n the Airbus it failed because Germany ; Spain had V4 version of the Cad programme whereas France ; England had the latest V5 version. So always proper standardisation should be adopted within the whole organization at a specific time. Global knowledge, local understanding: the approach should be to indulge diverse cultures but the process should be local. It means any activity done should be on the basis of the activity carries out in the home country of any organisation. Proper training should be given to its employees from the engineers at headquarters because they know it better than anyone else.Th is helps them to consume less time and achieve perfection, stabilisation, which is considered to be vital in any industry in order to achieve goals and objectives. Training can even be of language, way of doing things, actions, etc. Due to lack of proper training the Germans were not familiar with the software, it more delayed the project while executing the fuselages. Time focus (polychromic): Initially the top managers need to be polychromic in time i. e. the top managers need to focus on several tasks ; should be less dependent on detailed information hile doing these tasks. Their main focus should be on involvement with people. This helps the employees or the partners in business to be much more expressive and approach the management whenever they feel to do so. (Hall ; hall, 1990). References. 1. Marie-Joelle Browaeys and Roger Price – Understanding Cross-Cultural Management, 2008. 2. Marlo Thomas; Helene Hill, International Marketing Review, Vol16, Number: 4/5, Year: 19 99, pp: 376-390. 3. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Economic_nationalism. Read more: http://www. ukessays. om/essays/cultural-studies/airbus-case-study. php#ixzz2BNsfYQjM Economic Patriotism A key cross-cultural issue which has been highlighted is the considerable damage caused by economic patriotism to Airbus. An example of this economic patriotism which caused difficulties was the issue of German and Spanish engineers using the older V4 version of the CAD program; whereas the UK and France used the new V5 version. A significant reason for the rejection of the new system has been emphasized by Williams (cited in Clark, 2006) as a matter of national pride.The Germans felt the French were imposing the new system upon them, causing them to reject it. In relation to the GLOBE theory, this act can be identified as an action of assertiveness from German employees, due to the fact that they would rather emphasis on results rather than relationships. Furthermore, Webber (cited in Clark, 200 6) expressed this when he explained that â€Å"changing over to new software is costly and time consuming. As a result, German employees faced French imposition with confrontation. German and French governments also had extensive involvement causing increased economic patriotism. Will add government issues here and relate to individualism from Hofstede Reorganisation of company Airbus required a reorganisation of the company in order to improve â€Å"co-ordination, reduce the costs of production and the time between conception of planes and their introduction into service. † (Browaeys and Price, 2011, p 67), however this was not planned efficiently, due to the fact that culture differences would arise. A significant issue Airbus faced was the problem of having two CEO’s, one from Germany, the other from France.This caused significant concerns because they had to compromise over key decisions due to each country having different cultural approaches to business. †¢ This part will be related to power distance, uncertainty avoidance, collectivism (institutional)(no consideration for others) , future and performance orientation(very little performance as they are not achieving anything) †¢ Will include evidence that relates to the Airbus and globe †¢ Decentralized management †¢ Loss profits †¢ Common language didn’t go as planned Gender egalitarianism I will discuss gender egalitarianism as it’s a key issue because in the case study evidence suggests it’s a male dominated job Critically evaluate In this part of the essay I will evaluate the usefulness of the theory including issues such as: †¢ Data collected from 2004 (therefore not up-to-date) †¢ Quantitative research rather than qualitative Lessons learned †¢ Equality †¢ Rapport between employees †¢ More intensive research needs to be done †¢ Diffuse relationships †¢ Integrate activities on common ground Reference page ADLER, N. , and A. GUNDERSEN, 2008.International Dimensions of Organisational Behaviour. 5th ed. USA: Thomson Higher Education BROWAEYS, M. , and R. PRICE, 2011. Understanding cross cultural management. 2nd ed. England: Pearson Education Limited CLARK, N. , 2006. The airbus saga: crossed wired and a multibillion-euro delay- Business-International Herald Tribune [online] [viewed 25 October 2012]. Available from: http://www. nytimes. com/2006/12/11/business/worldbusiness/11iht-airbus. 3860198. html? pagewanted=all ———————– Important – choose one of the following statements (DELETE TWO THAT DO NOT APPLY): Intermediate submission

Monday, January 6, 2020

A Study On The Sustainability Cluster Essay - 1271 Words

At one point in life, one must decide on what one would like to do in their future. My studies would focus on detail studies in the sustainability cluster. Nowadays, sustainability is a topic which research is still maturing and design relative new. My research would emphasize in ruralization of current urban cities that would help increase innovative design presented in urban environment in Japan. Many major cities in the US and around the world have developed such that much of the land has been converted into urbanized areas. With an estimated 3 million people and greater living in those urban areas, people have exhausted the land usage and have no choice but to rely on high-rise buildings. Many modern architects and landscape architects focus their careers on trying to create sustainable cities, but are still limited by the maximum space they can work with. Others emphasize in the incorporation of biophilic medium to solve the problem. As land-space in some countries are limited a nd most are reaching its capacities, architecture should focus on innovating designs that can create an environment that would allow the people to benefit from its agricultural and urban function. Many cities have become overpopulated, leading to people to live in high-rise complexes. Minimal spacious rooms are designed to accommodate single families that reside in many urban cities. Families of three or four members settle to dwell in rooms where the size is compared to those of a single livingShow MoreRelatedAgri Udaan Essay966 Words   |  4 Pagesinto clusters to make them competitive and provide support for their long term sustainability by way of enhancing the marketability of products, improving the skills of artisans, making provision for common facilities and strengthening the cluster governance systems. ï‚ § ïÆ'Ëœ The Scheme guidelines of SFURTI have been revamped in 2015 and the Scheme has taken giant strides in 2015. 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