International Terrorism - the Worlds Greatest Challenge...

International Terrorism – The World’s Greatest Challenge Today Today the threat of terrorism is becoming more and more serious. Terrorism is considered the greatest threat against the safety of the world, and especially the USA, today. The extent of the terrorism has increased significantly over the last couple of years, since the terrorist attacks against the US on the 11th of September 2001. After these attacks former president of the US, George Bush declared a war against terrorism. There are various opinions about what can be defined as terrorism. Because there are so many situations that can be defined as terrorism, it is be very difficult to find an exact definition. Many countries have different definitions, and the†¦show more content†¦Two of them were flown into the two main buildings of the World Trade centre in New York. One airplane was crashed into the Pentagon, and the last airplane crash-landed in a field in Pennsylvania. After these attacks the USA decided to attack Afghanistan. The leader of Al-Qaida is Osama Bin Laden who has been hiding from the US troops ever since the war started. The reasons for Al-Qaida’s actions are based on the Islamic â€Å"Sharia† – laws. They want to fight the states they consider a threat against Islam, and especially the USA and Israel. The Al-Qaida leaders encourage all Muslims to kill American citizens, both military and civilians. We can separate the terrorist actions into two main groups; local and international terrorism. Local terrorism consists of actions such as suicide missions, car bombings and so on. International terrorism is actions where the citizens and/or territory of several countries are affected. There are many situations that can lead to the use of terrorism. Terrorism can occur in both poor as well as wealthy countries, and in both democracies and states under different kinds of dictatorship. However, terrorism is most likely to occur in countries that are characterized by poverty and oppression. People in poor countries might feel like they are subjected to an unfair distribution of the world’s wealth. Poverty is claimed to be an underlying part of all the causes of terrorism. Terrorism is a global issue that hasShow MoreRelatedThe Fundamentals Of Globalization On The National Security Strategy 20151632 Words   |  7 Pagescritical aspects in which, global economic malaise and violet extremism can adversely affect two of the four interests. Those two interests are the security of US citizens and allies, and a strong and prosperous international economy. Violet extremism is by far the greatest challenge of the two. Globalization is an appealing concept that has many various interpretations and definitions. Globalization is the expanding connectivity and interconnectedness between diverse geographic nations to increaseRead MoreTerrorism : Terrorism And Terrorism1586 Words   |  7 Pagesand writers are writing about the biggest threats of the world. Several reports are also made to understand the recent global threats. In order to write something about the recent global threats, one word comes to our mind that is terrorism. Terrorism is related extremism, as terrorist people are extremists in their belief. Biggest terrorist group like ISIS is also an Islamic extremist group. In these years we have observed shameful actions in the name of religion. Conflicts between religiousRead MoreInternational Order : The United States1381 Words   |  6 Pages To start with, what is international order? International order can be defined as an order in which countries are ranked internationally. 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Assessment of Debates on Media Effects - 2199 Words

Assessment of Debates on Media Effects A long history lies behind question about how communication affects or influences people. Greeks developed sophisticated hypothesis about how to impress listeners through the spoken word and Aristotle was concerned with theorizing the art of speaking. Even nowadays in face-to-face conversations each of us mobilizes theories about how to influence our listeners. For instance, we wish to make others understand how we feel or what we think. Today, mass communication studies have developed as a discipline with a focus on television and newspapers and, to a lesser extent, cinema and radio. Thanks to mass communication technologies a programme can now be viewed†¦show more content†¦In short, if researchers had not showed some of the materials about which they were asking the respondents to comment on, they would not normally have viewed them. Therefore, as Barker and Petley (2001:4) conclude after a research focused on women’s responses to four very different kinds of progr amme, ‘the issue is not whether depictions of violence increase the likelihood of similar violence among potential perpetrators, but the feelings and reactions that it creates among those who are the actual or potential victims of violence’. The important point is not so much violent representations can be the cause of world violence, as what people feel while they are watching some kind of violent depictions. We can also note that the media depictions of ‘violence’ which the ‘effects model’ typically condemns are limited to fictional productions. As Gauntlett (1998:125) says ‘there is no obvious reason why the antisocial activities which are always in the news, and which frequently do not have such apparent consequences for their agents, should not have similar effects’. Most of the studies about media effects almost always separate their discussions of entertainment from news. Turow (1999) believes that people have been taught to expect more fromShow MoreRelatedHealth Assessment Essay1005 Words   |  5 Pagesthe health assessment sector as it pertains to obtaining insurance is what will happen to the ACA; unfortunately, as not even experts know what will happen to the ACA, it is impossible to accurately predict the market growth for health assessments at this time. Overview Hello! Thanks for your question about the probable growth of the US health assessment market. The short version is that after searching extensively through industry reports, government reports, and news from trusted media sources,Read MoreModern Political Campaigns1854 Words   |  7 Pagesknown to not be the only external influence on both public opinion and candidate support during presidential elections in the United States. 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At the same time, plenty of people have called the current batch of congressional representativesRead MoreSex-Drive Reducing Medications of Sex Offenders1556 Words   |  7 PagesReview of the following articles: Force Administration of Sex-Drive Reducing Medications of Sex Offenders: Treatment or Punishment? And Ethics, Prisoner Interrogation, National Security and The Media Force Administration of Sex-Drive Reducing Medications of Sex Offenders: Treatment or Punishment? The first article I chose was whether or not it is considered a treatment or a punishment to sex offenders if they are forced, by court order, to

Modern Tragedy free essay sample

Arthur miller :- Tragedy and the common man:- This essay is a view on the tragedy and the common man, primarily circling around Death of a Salesman and All my Sons. Its divided into three parts. First well talk about Arthur Miller and his life and what could have motivated to write these plays, the second will be an analytical view of his plays. And the third part will give detailed idea on why it can be called a tragedy. The structure of tragedy has been altered time to time to suit the timeline of the society. The time when Arthur Miller writes the ocial scenario is rational and more psychoanalytical, hence the subject of the tragic hero also changes, from being a conventional tragic hero from a high status. Arthur Millers plays have a common man as the tragic hero. This paper will elaborate on the views of Arthur Miller and his idea of a tragic hero. We will keep in mind the timeline and the scenario of the society and the country of the time Miller wrote his plays to understand the idea behind the plays. Basic theme in both his plays Death of a Salesman and All my sons is related to the almighty illusion of American dream. The ream which plays a major role in downfall of both tragic fgures, Willy Loman and Joe Keller. LIFE OF ARTHUR MILLER Arthur Miller was born on October 17, 1915 in New York and died on February 10, 2005 in Connecticut, United States. He is a very well-known playwright and essayist; he got immensely popular during late 1940s to early 1960s. Arthur Millers family was a victim of the Economic fall, he belonged to a very wealthy family, his father owned a womens clothing manufacturing company and had around 400 employees, they had all the wealth , a summer house etc. But because of the Market Crash they ost almost everything and Miller had to deliver bread before attending school in order to help his family, and had to do several menial Jobs to pay up for his college tuition fees. What is a traged According to the dictionary tragedy is A play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character. Tragedy is basically the downfall of the hero, for the actions he has taken in the past, or some fallacy in him, causing him his misfortune. According to Aristotle in poetics; Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action of high importance, complete and of some mplitude; in language enhanced by distinct and varying beauties; acted not narrated; by means of pity and fear effectuating its purgation of these emotions. However, the definition of tragic hero has changed from the Ancients and the Elizabethan times to now. Both these times[ Elizabethan and the Greeks] potrays the tragic hero as a man of rank and high stature, a king or a noble man, on whom the entire nation depended, but in modern times the hero of the tragic fall especially in Miller plays is the common man, under the pressure of society, illus ions, and liar to imself and the society. The notable differences between the three timeline is that the ancients had a religious aspect playing a major role in it, and the fate of the gods did matter a lot, the Elizabethan or especially Shakespearean tragedies were self- inflicted, because of the tragic heros one quality that makes him powerful and weak. Modern times the tragedy surely is self-inflicted, but it is more society oriented, and man thinking in term of keeping his status in the society. The hero in both Greeks and Elizabethan period are the same, coming from high ranks, but the in the modern ragedy it has drastically changed, portraying the hero from a common class. I am only keeping Arthur Miller in picture and not everyone in the modern times to Justify the characteristics of the tragic hero as the common man. Ultimately tragedy what in general is that which depicts the down fall of the protagonist after a lengthy suffering of him, provoking the emotions of pity and fear in the audience. Arthur Millers idea of tragedy In Arthur Millers essay, Tragedy and the Common Man, he outlines his ideas on what a tragedy and tragic hero are today. He says that the tragic hero does not have o be a king or of a noble background, but instead, the common man can be considered a tragic hero. Miller makes the point that the tragic flaw is the idea that the tragic hero is unable to accept anything that may affect their status or self-image. Miller also states that tragedy is not supposed to be pessimistic, but rather an optimistic display of human qualities. l believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were. -Arthur Miller Man Tragedy and the Common In his tlrst argument, Miller states that the tragic hero does not need to be royal or oble, for the common man can fit the role as aptly. Miller explains that this is now obvious through the concepts such as the Oedipus complex, which were originally enacted by royal beings, but which apply to everyone in similar situations. He believes that if tragedy were to only apply to kings, then it would be impossible for everyone else to cherish and comprehend it. The most crucial characteristic of a tragic hero according to Arthur Miller is that of the character possessing a sense of personal dignity. This is his notion of having a tragic hero not from high stature or rank. He is modifying the characteristics of tragic hero from the ones in Ancients and Elizabethans. l think the tragic feeling is invoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing his sense of personal dignity. -Arthur Miller, Tragedy and the Common Man Arthur Miller believes that if tragedy were to only apply to kings, then it would be impossible for everyone else to comprehend with it. The only quality needed for a character to be a tragic hero, according to Miller, is the readiness to lay down his ife, if need be, to secure one thing-his sense of personal dignity This concept of the average man being a tragic hero is evident in The Crucible, through John Proctor, a local farmer. The play is about witchcraft practices in a small town, and towards the end John Proctor gets trapped in the wrong accusation that he forced his maid to sign the devils book.

Sami Keijonen Interview - Front-End Engineer at 10up and Web Accessibility Supporter

Hey folks, I know that WordCamp Europe 2018 is already in the history books, but we still have some more great interviews from the event to share with you.  Today, its Sami  Keijonens turn. Hes a member of the WordPress accessibility team, a front-end engineer at 10up, plus a whole lot more!If you missed our previous interviews, you can see them all in their dedicated category. Our last interview featured Raelene Morey discussing WordPress and writing.Now, were back to Sami!  Ã°Å¸â„¢â€šSami  Keijonen is a devout supporter of web accessibility and hes doing his best to make WordPress friendly to people that really need it. He believes that the internet should be a place where everybody can feel welcomed, no matter what.He was also the host of a workshop in Belgrade, showing people how to test the accessibility of a WordPress site and what tools you need  to do it.Recently, Sami accepted a job as a front-end engineer at the popular WordPress agency,  10up. He also has his o wn theme and plugin shop  with some beautifully designed offerings. Right now hes focused on getting fully involved in the WordPress community.To learn more about Samis thoughts on WordPress and web accessibility, you can read the text version below or watch the video to the right (or both!). #WCEU interview with our new friend @samikeijonen on #WordPress and #a11y.Thanks for your time Sami and good luck with your new job @10up 🙂Question 1: How did you get started with WordPress? pic.twitter.com/VyoygyqL26 ThemeIsle (@ThemeIsle) June 18, 2018Sami Keijonen Interview Front-End Engineer at 10up and Web Accessibility SupporterHow did you get started with WordPress?Sami Keijonen:Its a long story, I started 10 years ago with WordPress.com. I was in a workshop and we needed to create a short movie, and for that movie we also needed a website. I was the one responsible for doing the website. We went to the WordPress.com and we had the site up in one day. After that, I kind of re alized that I cant probably hack the themes that much in WordPress.com and I started using WordPress.org. From that point on, I began doing more and more of my own stuff as well. This is the short story on how I stumbled upon WordPress environment.You have your own theme shop, how do you manage to do all the work?Sami Keijonen:Yeah, I have my own theme shop. I started out by building public themes, I didnt have any client work at that point, so I was building themes for the public at first. That was also a way to learn more about WordPress, in general. Now, I do mostly client work. At the moment Im kind of shifting because recently I started a new job in a company called 10up, but if we talk about what happened previously, what Ive done was to teach.I am actually a teacher, this is my occupation. Ive been teaching for about 18 years and, as a side project, I was doing web development. Ive been freelancing for other companies in Finland that have hired me to have all their work check ed. So thats most of the WordPress-related work that Ive done for four years now. But newly things changed because now Im working as a front-end engineer at 10up. Which changed a little bit what Im working and how.No more teaching?Sami Keijonen:Not so much, I am still going to teach a couple of courses next semester. I cant totally quit this, but right now I dont have so much time for that anymore.How did you get started with accessibility and how do you test it?Sami Keijonen:Accessibility is my favorite topic in the sense that Ive been on the Accessibility Team on WordPress.org for about four years and thats an area that Ive been really interested in. It started out for me when I had a student with a really low vision. She wasnt actually blind, but she really struggled to use a website, a book, and stuff like that. She had a so-called magnifier thing that helped her see the text, and that was the turning point for me when I realized that there are different ways of using the web an d that my role as a developer was to make things easier for pretty much everybody. This is how I started learning more about accessibility.As a front-end developer, it came as a natural thing of building things anyway, so its kind of a mindset at the same time. People might ask, for example, if you need an extra budget for accessibility. But usually my answer is no, its built-in already, thats how I do the things anyway. Its not an extra cost to clients. Of course, if they want really, really custom stuff, there might be an actual cost for them too, but normally that should be a basic thing that you do anyway.Are you using any tools in the testing process?Sami Keijonen:Yeah, I had a workshop yesterday (that is, the  first day of WCEU 2018) with  Rian Rietveld, and there we used the tools for that. The workshop itself was about how to test accessibility. We showed the participants the resources that we use when we do the testing. The main question that the workshop was trying to answer was Is there a way to help as a developer, designer, content creator when creating a site?The bad news is that there is no such tool that can cover all the accessibility issues out there. Theres a 30-40% of accessibility issues that cant be fixed with tools and require manual user testing. So its kind of a mix of both. There are tools that can help you, but you have to know yourself what you want to do and how to use them properly.Heres the list of the tools that we tested during the workshop:  Tools for the WCEU Workshop accessibility testingWhat would you do if you couldnt WordPress?Sami Keijonen:I would like to be a rockstar! Or a sports star, whatever. But I cant play anything, so my options are pretty narrow. Before we finish up, it might be of interest for you to know that, soon after our talk, Sami has made all the themes and plugins that he had built for his shop available for free  so that  he can focus on new career opportunities. Like being a rockstar on the WordPress accessibility stage.If you have any questions for Sami, please leave them in the comments section. Also, if you have any suggestions for who we should talk to next, feel free to give us some names, too!Free guide5 Essential Tips to Speed Up Your WordPress SiteReduce your loading time by even 50-80% just by following simple tips.

Contrast Essays

Aladdin/the Little Mermaid Compare/Contrast Essays Aladdin/the Little Mermaid Compare/Contrast Paper Aladdin/the Little Mermaid Compare/Contrast Paper Thao Xiong English 130-02 Dr. Lynn Houston 11/14/10 Aladdin/The Little Mermaid. In all of the movies that we had watched in class, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid has the best relationship between comparing and contrasting. In both of the movies, there is one daughter in each movie who rebelled to find their true love. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel rebelled and went to the surface to search for her prince, but in Aladdin, Jasmine rebelled the law by not accepting the prince who came to see if shes the right girl for them. Not only the daughters whom rebelled, but, the main villain in each of the movies also share a similarity for how they hunger for power. Although the villain may grew into a giant monster, they were too obsessed with their power that they didnt realize what kind situation they were in. One of the similarity in both of the movie is rebellion. Rebellion is defined as a resistance to or defiance of any authority, control, or tradition(Dictionary). In the movie Aladdin, Jasmine rebelled her father by not accepting the princes who came to her fathers castle who came see if shes good enough to be a wife. She rejects the princes who came to her fathers castle because she wants to marry somebody that she loves instead of arrange marriage. In the other movie, The Little Mermaid, Ariel rebelled her father because of her selfishness. She is deceived by the human world and fell in love with a human. She rebels her father by disrespecting her fathers love that she doesnt see and risks her freedom, her royal identity and her life in exchange for the slim chance at fulfilling her desires(kbonikowsky, 2008). She sacrifices her voice to change her fins into human legs so that shell get a chance to walk in the human world and find her love. The difference in their rebellion is that Jasmine is defying authority, control and tradition. The Authoritarian are the one who makes the law. Her father is the one who is controlling her and in her tradition, every princess must be married to a prince. But in The Little Mermaid, Ariel is only defying her fathers control. But her fathers control was meant to protect her which she doesnt see it like any other peoples strict parents. The major difference in their rebellion is that Ariel is the one who is looking for her love other than Jasmine who sits around in her fathers castle waiting for a prince. Another similarity in both of the movies is power. Power is what the main villain desires. The main villain in Aladdin is Jafar. Jafar is the sinister grand Vizier to Agrabahs Sultan who desires power over Agrabah and lusts the Sultans beautiful daughter, Princess Jasmine(Wikia, n. d. ). The other villain in The Little Mermaid is Ursula. Ursula is a sea witch octopus who is also obsess with power and willing to help people who are in need while achieving her own goals. In the movie Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, both Jafar and Ursula grew into a giant monster after getting the power they wanted. Jafar was being careless that he failed to use his power properly and made the wrong decision of transforming himself into a Genie. Ursula on the other hand, was too obsess with her new power and she failed to kill Ariel also because of her carelessness. In result of watching both Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, I noticed that rebellion and power plays a role in these movies. Although both jasmine and Ariel were rebelling, they were different from how Ariel rebels to go find her love unlike Jasmine who stays in her fathers castle to wait for a prince. On the other hand, power also plays a role in each of the movie. But, thanks to Jafar and Ursulas obsessive need of power, it made them careless after it have been obtained.

Tips on Writing a Good MBA Application Essay

Tips on Writing a Good MBA Application Essay Tips on Writing a Good MBA Application Essay Are you going to apply to a higher educational institution? If you have an admissions essay to write soon and want to learn how to write a good MBA application essay, this website is the right place to find the professional assistance you need to handle the process. We offer you some essential tips on admission essay writing as well as high-quality example admission essays at affordable prices. All you need is to let the expert staff know what is needed and get a custom-written paper sample that will guide you through the entire application process. Define the Institution It might sound quite tricky, but to define the institution one is going to apply to is a challenging stage for most school-leavers. Though one could think that one essay template can suit all the chosen colleges, it is not really so. Each school requires different points to be mentioned in the application writing. Thus, as soon as you have decided on the institution, you must make all possible efforts to mine the information that will help you effortlessly get ready for the admissions essay writing as well as cover all the required questions. Mastermind the Ideas When you need to write an admissions essay, you should begin by thinking about your aspirations, strengths, and weaknesses when examining yourself objectively and contemplating your future studies at a business school. You should also think about your goals in life and your intentions to achieve these particular goals. Considering the above-mentioned issues, do not forget to write them down for you may need to include these details in your application essay. With all that done, you can begin writing the essay, but be sure to accomplish the task properly by following the complete instructions for application essay writing. Be Aware of the Smallest Requirements Many students do not follow instructions and fail by default. Always ensure that you have read the instructions over and over again until you understand what is being asked of you before you begin relating the information about yourself to the demands. As you plan what you are going to include in your essay when answering the topic question, you should mind what the admissions team really wants to see in your piece. As you write the paper, dwell upon previous accomplishments, skills, experience, and education to warrant the admissions that you worth accepting you into their institution. They will also be interested in your essay writing ability and will pay the particular attention to the content of your essay to learn more about you. Remain Yourself While the other parts of your application paper for an MBA course shed light on your professional and academic qualifications, the essay reveals your true character and, therefore, illustrates to the admissions team the individual who is behind the accomplishments. When writing essays, most students concentrate on writing what they think the reader wants to see, but this should not be the case with application essays. Following this route, you will prevent the reader from knowing who you really are as well as what you hope to accomplish. Thus, you make it quite challenging for the admissions to take a decision whether you should be admitted into the course you have applied. Stay Laconic Application writing usually requires an applicant to write two personal essays which should be no longer than one page each. These essays should describe who you really are as well as what you aspire to in life. Therefore, before you begin, always ensure that you think about your passions, values, dreams, and hopes so you can write the essay appropriately. The common question application essays require an answer to is what matters most to the applicant and the reason why. To answer this question, a student would need to do some self-examination as well as genuinely and vividly share insights and lessons that have influenced him or her the most. If you are still not confident about your writing skills, enjoy professional MBA essay help from experts at !

Impact of Technology on Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Impact of Technology on Education - Essay Example The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in US lays an added emphasis1 on the use of technology for the betterment of the sector. Information Technology is the all important offspring of Technology having its footprints on the way education is imparted or educational material is prepared or education is accepted by the intended audience. Taking care of this fact, the Campus Computing Project (CCP) happens to be one of the largest continuing study programme about the role of IT in American higher education. As internet is gradually maturing and presenting a paradigm shift in its very ideation, the infrastructure has acquired a business character, a transcontinental personality and a vending framework of wide-ranging, business, educational, scientific and personal data. Now the use of internet covers real-time computer conferencing, audio broadcasting, video broadcasting, real time telephony and of course real-time business. Education too takes a leaf out of such applications and has been able to make good use of internet and related technologies. There is increasing participation of private and public sector together with government in making technology available to different aspects of educational needs. Apple Inc. a leading company using technology and computing for its business objectives, for example has partnered in many education related schemes like; Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT), North Central Regional Education Laboratory (NCREL), International Data Corporation (IDC) etc . which helped not only in encouraging the use of technology in education, but also made fullest use of technology in promoting the cause of education. In his famous taxonomy, Bloom (1964) identified the domains within which learning takes place. He labelled them as cognitive, affective and psychomotor. Traditionally, the concentration has been on the cognitive domain with comprehension, facts and figures acquiring the centre stage. But with technology making its impact, information society made it almost compulsory for the education providers to bring into effect, adequate amendments in their approach so that the learning process becomes far more interactive and effective. In this new approach role of student as well as the means of education became more important. In fact this theory too has been in practice for quite a while now, as is evident from what Rogers (1961) said about the learning process. Rogers (1961) stated that the only learning that significantly influences human behavior happens to be self-discovered. The IT era has helped in making the learning process more interactive, and more relevant to the fast pace developm ent of the day. Education for sustainable development therefore focuses more on how people live, work and make decisions. The learning process in general involves; Learning values and cultures: Such an education is imparted by the parents and the society in general. How the parents behave, what are the means of communication used by the parents, how effectively the parents are able to manage their time and efforts towards the children, and what kind of social upbringing is the child subjected to, are some of the major contributors towards the value education. The ethics and cultures too are picked by the students from his/ her

The Global Reporting Initiative Has a Mission to Develop Global Essay

The Global Reporting Initiative Has a Mission to Develop Global Sustainability Reporting Guidelines for Voluntary Use by Organis - Essay Example The specific Initiative has been proved particularly valuable leading to the increase of the power of sustainability as related to organizational reporting. At this point, the following issue has appeared: which can be the actual value of the information provided through the reporting rules used in the context of GRI. The specific issue is examined and evaluated in this paper. Emphasis is given on the value of the above information for the firms’ shareholders. Reference is made, as an example, to four firms listed in FTSE 100, aiming to show that GRI can be highly valued by a firm’s shareholders, even if there is no previous involvement of a particular organization in similar initiatives. It is made clear that firms are urged to produce the specific type of information under the pressure to respond to the demands of different parties; the adoption of GRI rules by competitors can also lead firms to participate in the specific scheme. 2. Global Reporting Initiative 2.1 Ke y points of the Initiative As noted above, the key aim of the Global Reporting Initiative is to urge organizations to use sustainability-reporting rules (Global Reporting Initiative 2012). GRI is ‘a non-profit voluntary organization’ (Global Reporting Initiative 2012) that produces such rules. These rules are voluntary, meaning that organizations are not obliged to adopt them. However, it has been proved that these rules can help organizations to improve their relationship with their shareholders who seem to value the relevant information, as incorporated in each organization’s annual reports. In order to understand the increasing pressure on companies for adopting the reporting guidelines of GRI, it would be necessary to refer to sustainability reporting, as an activity related to the operations of organizations in different industries. According to GRI, sustainability reporting is ‘the practice of measuring, disclosing, and being accountable to internal a nd external stakeholders for organizational performance towards the goal of sustainable development’ (GRI rules, p.3). The framework of sustainability reporting, as promoting by GRI, is presented below in Figure 1. It is clear that for GRI there are two key parts of sustainability reporting: the rules on which the reporting will be based and the content of the report (GRI rules, p.3). Figure 1 – Sustainability Reporting under GRI (source: GRI rules, p.3) Using the protocols and principles suggested by GRI an organization should incorporate in its annual report, three different types of disclosures, entitled as ‘standard disclosures’ (GRI rules, p.4) in Figure 1 above. These disclosures include: ‘strategy and profile, management approach and performance indicators’ (GRI rules, p.5). These disclosures could be further analysed as follows: a) the strategy and profile disclosures showing the firm’s key strategies and profile, as related to the organizational performance, b) the key managerial decisions for handling various organizational issues can be also used for understanding organizational performance; this idea is promoted through the management approach disclosures; c) the ‘economic, social and environmental performance of each organization’ (GRI rules, p.5) need to be also presented to the stakeholders; the relevant information is provided through the third type of disclosures, the performance indicators disclosures. For responding to the needs of these disclosures, organizations need to produce

Incremental profit Essay Example for Free

Incremental profit Essay Distinguish between the following: a) Industry demand and Firm (Company) demand, b) Short-run demand and Long run demand, and c) Durable goods’ demand and Non-durable goods demand. 2 . What are the problems faced in determining the demand for a durable good? Illustrate with example of demand for households refrigerator or television set. 3 . Analyze the method by which a firm can allocate the given advertising budget between different media of advertisement. 4 . What kind of relationship would you postulate between short-run and long-run average cost curves when these are not U-shaped as suggested by the modern theories? 5 . How do demand forecasting methods for new products vary from those for established products? 6 . What are the different methods of measuring national income? Which methods have been followed in India? 7 . What do you understand by the investment multiplier? In what way does it defend the policy of public works on the part of the state during business depression? 8 . Discuss the various phases of business cycle: a. Are cyclical fluctuations necessary for economic growth? b. Suggest appropriate fiscal and monetary policies for depression Assignment B: all Case Study Electron Control, Inc., sells voltage regulators to other manufacturers, who then customize and distribute the products to quality assurance labs for their sensitive test equipment. The yearly volume of output is 15,000 units. The selling price and cost per unit are shown below:Â  Selling price $200 Costs: Direct material $35 Direct labor 50 Variable overhead 25 Variable selling expenses 25 Fixed selling expenses 15 150 Unit profit before tax $ 50 Management is evaluating the alternative of performing the necessary customizing to allow Electron Control to sell its output directly to Q/A labs for $275 per unit. Although no added investment is required in productive facilities, additional processing costs are estimated as: Direct labor $25 per unit Variable overhead $15 per unit Variable selling expenses $10 per unit Fixed selling expenses $100,000 per year Calculate the incremental profit Electron Control would earn by customizing its instruments and marketing directly to end users.

Cathedral Analysis Paper: Milan Cathedral -- Architecture Churches

All over the world, people still come to admire the beauty of European cathedrals. Many of the cathedrals are fragile due to age, neglect, pollution, and insufficient funds available to restore these historical and magnificent buildings. Nevertheless, visitors to these architectural masterpieces are fascinated by the design and structure of these churches. The cathedral builders using their own ingenuity, expertise, and limited resources were able to defy the laws of gravity and time. (Icher 30) There were two main types of architecture during the middle ages, the Romanesque style and the Gothic style. The Romanesque period took place approximately between 1096 and 1270 (the eleventh and twelfth centuries) and the Gothic period took place approximately between 1150 and 1450 (the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries) (Bersson 383). Evidence of both styles of architecture emerged throughout Europe. The political landscape had changed and the Christian church provided a measure of unity throughout the centuries of this medieval era (Stalley 13). The Romanesque period was a time when the interest in religion intensified. The church was a place that all people could belong to regardless of their status. It was during these times that big churches called cathedrals began to emerge. The age of the Crusades took place emphasizing the need for places of worship and a place for the community to gather together. People sought the churches not only to see the relics housed in the church brought back from the Holy Lands by the Crusades, but also to seek redemption as well. This influx of seekers brought in money to help the community pay for the churches. This allowed for the emergence of new towns in addition to increased exchange ... ...brams, 1998. Print. "Italian Gothic." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. . Keyes, Zachariah. Personal Interview. Denise Keyes. 21 Nov. 2010. "Middle Ages." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. Web. 26 Nov. 2010. . Stalley, Roger. Early Medieval Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print. Tyler, Ellen. "Milan Cathedral - Symbolizing the Gothic Structure." 14 May 2010. Ezine Articles. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. . Wilson, Christopher. The Gothic Cathedral: The Architecture of the Great Church. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1990. Print.

Six Steps to Learning How to Overcome Challenges in Your Life

There are six steps to learning how to overcome challenges in your life. Each of these steps identifying the challenge or problem, defining the challenge or problem, analyzing the cause of the challenge or problem, exploring solutions to the challenge or problem, deciding to solve the challenge or problem, and taking action to overcome the challenge or problem will require your total involvement (Pokras, 1989). While no one is an expert on your particular challenge, there are strategies that can be used as tools to help you overcome these challenges. The first tool involves identifying the challenge. Successfully overcoming challenges require knowing exactly what the challenge involves. Many times when we first encounter a challenge we feel threatened and react defensively before knowing what we are up against. When we step back from the problem or challenge and take time to examine it we find the problem has other contributing factors that were not clearly in focus in the outset. During this phase take time to collect data about your problem or challenge such as when it began, what were the symptoms that a problem existed, and how long has this been going on (Pokras, 1989). Upon identifying the factors or underlying causes of the problem you can then move onto step two defining the challenge. In this step it is a good idea to write down the possible causes for the challenge that you are now facing. This will require analyzing the data you have collected, thinking about what this data means, deciding what it is you want and what you do not want, and narrowing down the challenge or problem to single points of causation (Pokras, 1989). Once you have narrowed the scope of the challenge or problem down to a manageable level you are now ready for step three-analyzing the cause of the problem. Really what takes place in step three is taking the time to analyze actions that were taken that resulted in there being a challenge or problem that you are now facing. This is can be accomplished by doing some type of cause and effect diagram that will give you the ability to visually comprehend what happened. Usually when we can clearly see where we went wrong we have that aha moment. Now that you have identified, defined, and analyzed the challenge or problem, what do you do now? Here is where the real work begins because many people can tell you what their problem is but they have a hard time doing something to change their situation. Step four requires you to make a decision to do something by exploring possible solutions to the challenge. Niven (2005) suggest developing a strategy or plan that allows you to decide what you need to change to overcome the challenge or the problem. This step is an important step because it takes a desire to succeed to overcome the challenge or problem and no one can instill in you the desire to change. This desire must come from within but will not happen until you make up in your mind what you want out of life, how you want your life to be, what you need to survive, and what it is you need to change to overcome your challenge or problem. Making the decision that you must change and that you have the power to make that change is difficult but can be the most rewarding thing you can do. In step five you will discover that after the decision is made that you want to change you can now actually decide to solve your problem. This step will require deciding on your criteria for success, deciding what your goals will be, establishing priorities, defining objectives, and taking responsibility for improving your own life (Cohen, Jacobs, Quintessenza, Chai, and Ungerleider, 2007). The most important tool in this step is writing an action plan including the aforementioned elements along with your vision for your life, your mission in life, and your personal philosophy or strategy for living your life (Niven, 2005). This plan must be written in a manner that allows you to measure your progress toward overcoming your challenge or problem. Part of your plan, for example, may involve getting a mentor, a person to serve as a role model, or setting up a support system (Cohen et al, 2007) by a certain date to fully implement your plan. Once you have established your plan you are ready to move onto the final step. The last step to overcoming challenges involves taking action . Implementation of your action plan will be the most critical part of you being successful in overcoming your challenge. This will require your total commitment, dedication, involvement and perseverance to achieve success. You ust remember that the best laid plans will not solve your problems if you do not do something to put them into motion, prepare yourself to deal with the unexpected, and be ready to make the little changes necessary to your plan to reach your goals. If you carry out the six steps of identifying the challenge or problem, defining the problem, analyzing the cause of the problem, exploring solutions to the problem, deciding to solve the problem, and taking action to overcome the problem (Pokras, 1989) you will begin to make progress to overcoming your challenges.

Investigating the empirical link between task-based interaction and acquisition

IntroductionThere are three chief parts of this essay. The first portion explains the basic thought or sum-up of the chapter, titled as â€Å"Investigating the empirical nexus between undertaking based interaction and acquisition† ( chapter 3 from the emended volume of Norris and Ortega 2006 ) . The 2nd portion of the chapter relates to, the analysis of some primary surveies, used in the above chapter or experimental surveies analyzed and discussed in the chapter. The 3rd portion of this essay explains task-based interaction ( theory discussed in the chapter ) and the practical deduction of Task based interaction for non-native linguistic communication scholars.Summary of the ChapterWhile some probes illustrate that, undertaking based interactions can ease acquisition of some lingual features, other 1s back up no such relationship. This chapter explains the primary aggregation of work on look intoing the nexus between task-based interaction and 2nd linguistic communication acq uisition. Long ( 1980 ) , for the first clip introduced, interaction hypothesis, by explicating the position that interaction between N S ( Native talker ) and N N S ( Non Native talker ) can be utile from assorted facets. Early research indicated three facets in which interaction can he helpful. First, interaction provides chances to negociate for comprehension, which enhances scholars input, ( Doughty & A ; Pica 1986 ; Gass & A ; Varonis 1985 ; Long 1983 ; Pica 1988 ; Pica and Doughty 1985 ) . Second, it helps learner to gauge the spread between their native linguistic communication and mark linguistic communication ( Schmidt 1990 ) . As mentioned above that, interaction helps in doing input comprehendible. This statement was farther supported by two major Surveies by ( Gas and Veronis 1994 ; Picca, immature and Doughty 1987 ) , they concluded that interactionally modified input ( input in which scholar are allowed to negociate for comprehension ) facilitate scholars in comparing with pre modified input ( input given in simplified manner ) . Long ( 1983 ) suggested that there could be at least â€Å"indirect insouciant relationship† between interaction and acquisition. Probe from Pica ( 1993 ) concluded that, two types of Tasks were extremely effectual, saber saw and information spread, because it involves all the scholars to interact. Surveies conducted by ( Ellis, Tanaka and Yamazaki 1995 ) , ( Mackey 1995 ) , ( Pica 1992 ) , ( Gas and Veronis 1994 ) , ( Young and Doughty 1987 ) exhaustively analyzed the relationship between interaction and 2nd linguistic communication acquisition. The consequences of their surveies were rather satisfactory in presuming the being of empirical nexus between task-based interaction and 2nd linguistic communication. This chapter exhaustively observed 14 relevant experimental surveies based on input interaction. All the surveies were selected from about 100 identified surveies during literature search.The basic factors considered for the choice of these surveies were clip of surveies ( 1980-2003 ) , age of participant in surveies ( 15-44 ) , surveies incorporating effectual Communication undertaking and surveies which contained undertakings that surrogate acquisition of specific grammatical and lexical characteristics. Entire figure of surveies analyzed were, ( n =14 ) , out of which, ( n =7 ) surveies were of English linguistic communication, ( n =4 ) surveies were of Spanish linguistic communication and ( n =3 ) surveies were of Nipponese linguistic communication. Majority of acquisition, ( 71 % ) took topographic point in university context. After analyzing the above surveies exhaustively, It was concluded that empirical nexus do be between undertaking based interaction and acquisition, farther research in this field was besides recommended at the terminal of the chapter. This is a good chapter, because it adds a batch to knowledge in applied linguistics. The contents in this chapter are the basic replies to empirical inquiries about 2nd linguistic communication acquisition and learning while nailing inquiry for future research ( Brown, 2002 ) . â€Å"Overall, the writers have managed to collocate a really good structures chapter on a subject of import to farther subject of applied linguistics† Ute Knoch, University of Auckland, New Zealand, on Linguist List 17.3578, 2006.PrimarySourcesfromChapterInteractionist theoretician considers linguistic communication acquisition as a outstanding facet of discourse or linguistic communication is learned through discourse. The survey of colloquial interaction and its relation to 2nd linguistic communication acquisition has been cardinal to research workers. Since 1980, a batch of research has been carried out in order to explore the being of phenomenal bond between undertaking based interaction and 2nd linguistic communication acquisition ( Gass ; Mackey and Pica: 1998 ) . Interaction hypothesis is derived from ( Hatch: 1978 ) , on the importance of conversation for the development of grammar. Long in 1980 revealed the importance of interaction in his celebrated hypothesis called â€Å"interaction hypothesis† . Since so many research workers have tried to research the connexion between interaction and 2nd linguistic communication acquisition.Interaction hypothesis in based on two major claims,Comprehensible input is necessary for 2nd linguistic communication acquisition.Negotiation in communicating brought alteration in the construction of interaction, which helps in doing input comprehendible.Rod Ellis ( 1999:3 ) explained interaction as, â€Å"the impersonal activity that arises during face to confront communication† . Interaction plays an of import function in linguistic communicatio n acquisition. It facilitates learner, to grok lingual characteristics of a linguistic communication and provides scholars to take the considerable sum of input harmonizing to their demand ( Long 1996 ) . In footings of input, as argued by ( Kreshan: 1985 ) that, comprehendible input plays an of import function in 2nd linguistic communication acquisition. However ( Gass: Meckey and Picca 1998 ) reported that ( Long 1985 ) himself pointed out that comprehendible input, in itself, was necessary but non sufficient to advance the acquisition procedure. Similarly, ( Swain 1985 ) , claims that, through the resulting interaction, scholars have chances to understand and utilize the linguistic communication that was non apprehensible ( comprehendible end product ) . Additionally, they may have more or different input and have more chances for end product. Since in early 1980 and subsequently on in 1996 Long`s account of â€Å"interaction hypothesis† , claimed that, common connexion between acquisition and interaction is widely accepted ( Gass, Mackey and Picca 1998 ) . Similarly, ( Gass 1997 ) examines the relationship of mechanism between communicating and acquisition. As was proposed by ( Long 1996:414 ) , â€Å"It is proposed that environmental parts to acquisition are meditated byselective attending and the scholars developing L2 processing capacity, and that these resources are brought together most usefully, although non entirely, during dialogue for meaning† . It indicates that Long`s chiefly accent is on interactive input ( input that is derived and comprehend through interaction ) . Long clarified that conversation between more competent scholar ( native talkers ) and less competent scholar ( non native talkers ) . The interaction which takes topographic point between less competent and more competent involves elucidation for significance, verification of message significance and comprehension cheques. Pica ( 1994 ) strengthened the importance of interaction hypothesis, by lucubrating the importance of â€Å"negotiated input† in three rule ways. First importance of negotiated input is that, it helps learner to have comprehendible input, which takes topographic point through alteration of address. Learner ‘s procedure input easilywhen breakdown in dialogue takes topographic point. Second Pica suggested that, during dialogue between less competent talker ( N N Ss ) and more competent talker ( N Ss ) , direct feedback to less competent talker is provided. Last Pica argued that dialogue aid scholars to modify their ain end product, in instance of any break down during dialogue procedure. On the contrary, experiment conducted by ( Gass & A ; Varonis ; 1994 ) with the aid of 16 scholars derived the consequences that sometimes dialogue for significance does non assist N Ss to grok N N Ss. Task based interaction has an everlasting deduction on linguistic communication acquisition. It provides scholar with input harmonizing to their demand. Learners interact and simplify significance for them with the aid of dialogue for better comprehension. Comprehension depends upon the scheme adopted by N N Ss in order to carry through the mark of dialogue. Since, in Task based interaction, chiefly the interaction takes topographic point through a â€Å"life like† undertaking, so task seems to be cardinal here. Similarly Bygate ; Skehan and Swain ( 2001 ) explains undertaking as â€Å"A undertaking is an activity which requires scholars to utilize linguistic communication, with accent on significance, to achieve an objective† . Research workers have explored two major inquiries in order to place the effectivity of undertakings.The affect of undertaking on linguistic communication comprehension.The consequence of undertaking on linguistic communication acquisition.Get downing with the survey conducted by, ( Mackey 1999 ) , which is based on the probe of two inquiries. The first inquiry considered, in this survey was ; whether interaction is straight related to acquisition? The 2nd inquiry was about the nature of conversation and degree of engagement in conversation. There exists a direct relation between larning and active engagement of scholars in assorted undertakings, the claim made by ( Mackey 1999 ) . Learners ‘ inactive engagement in interaction makes them unable to accomplish proficiency in 2nd linguistic communication as comparison to learner who participated actively. These two inquiries were analyzed profoundly in this survey. Undertakings used in this analysis were based on a specific standard, that isUndertaking required major and active engagement were used.Task provides contexts for the targeted constructions to happen.The interactive undertaking were chiefly, â€Å"story completion† , â€Å"picture sequencing† , â€Å"picture drawing† and â€Å"spotting out image differences† . These undertakings were designed with the aid of six, native talke rs. Native talkers were trained in the usage of â€Å"pre test† and â€Å"post test† stuff. The consequences clearly confirmed the anticipation that ; active engagement did ease development of 2nd linguistic communication. The ground was that of the cogency of the above undertakings used in interaction, which confirmed considerable development in linguistic communication acquisition. The undertaking based interaction seemed to hold high influence in 2nd linguistic communication acquisition. Similarly, the survey of ( Garcia and Asencion: 2001 ) analyzed two groups of pupils, comprised of 39 participants. This survey studies, the relationship between group interactions and inter linguistic communication development. Specifically, its relation to listening comprehension and the grammar signifiers production in mark linguistic communication. First the scholars took notes on a mini talk and so completed a text Reconstruction and listening comprehension trial. The two experimental groups were made as 18 and 21. The first group, ( experimental group n=18 ) interactively shared notes for five proceedingss in little groups while the 2nd one, ( control group n= 21 ) , did non interact, although pupils were allowed to analyze their notes for five proceedingss. While analysing the consequence, experimental group scored clearly higher than control group on the listening comprehension undertaking. There was important difference between two groups in footings of interaction, sum and types of L2 words used in joint building of cognition. This survey shows that interaction may hold an consequence on listening comprehension. Input was considered to be of two types ; pre modified input and interactionally modified input as is considered in following two surveies. Survey by ( Mackey & A ; Plilp 1998 ) examines the consequence of negotiated input on the production and development of inquiry signifiers in English as a 2nd linguistic communication. The survey was based on ( Long 1996 ) , claim in updated version of Interaction hypothesis sing negative feedback. Long suggested that expressed negative feedback, which occurs through interaction, may be one manner through which interaction can hold positive consequence. The survey explored the nexus between short term linguistic communication development and recast in linguistic communication conversation. The entire figure of participants in this survey were ( n=35 ) , along with ( n=5 ) native talkers. The participants were from novice and intermediate degree selected from intensive English linguistic communication categories. The native talkers were trained to transport out â€Å"role play† and were provided with reading, composing direction in footings of different undertakings. The survey was successful in footings of its premise. It was derived that recast truly assist in production of developmentally beforehand constructions. Comprehension seems, to be one of the of import factors in interaction. Learners without comprehension can non continue with the interaction. Two different sorts of linguistics environment are suggested by ( Pica ; immature and Doughty: 1987 ) . First, the input that has been modified or simplified, simplification may affect, repeat, limitation of common vocabulary or vocabulary with common or familiar points and so on. Second, doing contributing environment, or environment in which ample of chances for interaction between N Ss and N N Ss are appreciated. In such type of interaction both N Ss and N N Ss modify and reconstitute their interaction and derive significance based on common apprehension. The survey reported by ( Pica ; Young and Doughty: 1987 ) , included a type of undertaking ( listen to make undertaking ) in which scholars performed assorted actions on the footing of comprehension. This undertaking provided pupils with close apprehension, and new lingual characteristics can be easy adjusted with this undertaking. The N N Ss were supposed, to listen to native talkers and execute the action consequently. The native talkers gave description of everything and N N Ss performed the action as directed by N Ss. The chief action was the arrangement of specific points on a little board. This undertaking measured the degree of comprehension, by figure of points, which non native talkers selected and placed right. Two groups were made and first group was provided with pre modified input ( the NS was giving them waies and interaction or communicating was non allowed in this undertaking ) . The 2nd group were placed under status two. They performed the same undertaking but were allowed to interact or pass on in instance of any disagreement in comprehension. Through interaction, they seek verbal aid from the N Ss, whenever they felt any trouble during the arrangement of points on the board. Consequences of this survey provided empirical grounds for the fact that, interaction for dialogue of message between N S and N N S plays an of import function in comprehension. The consequences clearly indicated that interactionally adjusted input surpassed pre modified input ( 88 % vs 69 % ) . The ground is that, it involves interaction in signifier of communicating in conformity to common apprehension between N S and N N S. Listen to make undertakings are really helpful in supplying chances for comprehension and acquisition, Ellis ( 2003 ) . Similarly the experimental analysis of Ellis, Tanaka, and Yamazaki ( 1994 ) has employed the same technique and supported that, interaction facilitates acquisition of certain grammatical and lexical characteristics. The major probe in this survey was that of, the differential effects of â€Å"pre modified input† , â€Å"interactionally modified input† and â€Å"baseline input† on undertaking public presentation. In this survey multi factorial design and two dependent variables, that is, ( listening comprehension and vocabulary acquisition ) and two independent variables, that is, ( pre modified input and negotiated input ) were employed.Results derived from this survey clearly indicated that undertaking based interaction facilitates acquisition of specific grammatical characteristics. â€Å"The merely published survey to prove the consequence of negotiated interaction on comprehension is by Pica et al 1987 ) † . A listening undertaking was assigned to two groups of non native talkers: in one group the non-native talkers negotiated interaction with their native-speakers middlemans ; in the other group, non-native talkers could merely listen. Non-native talkers in the interaction status scored significantly higher on the hearing undertaking, therefore back uping the claim that accommodations, in the signifier of negotiated interaction facilitate comprehension. However the survey of ( Pica et al 1987 ) seems to supply assorted support between interaction and acquisition. An advantage seems to rule pre- modified input on negotiated interaction ( Loschky 1994 ) . The survey done by ( Loschky 1994 ) is based on, Longs suggestion, about the demand of â€Å"clear and direct test† of the accommodation to interaction hypothesis. This survey based on, or is the coalesced version of two major hypothesis, the first 1 is the celebrated input hypothesis ( one + 1 ) by ( Kreshan 1985 ) and 2nd one is related to Longs ‘ interaction hypothesis. Three of import inquiries were observed, with the aid of ( n=41 ) get downing flat scholars of Nipponese as a foreign Language. The of import points analyzed in this survey were ; what does precisely ease 2nd linguistic communication comprehension?Negotiated interaction or non interaction ( pre modified input ) ?Pre modified input or unmodified input/ interaction?If the figure of comprehension ( comprehendible input ) is greater, does it bespeak that the figure of acquisition will be greater?Grammatical characteristics were analysed through the aid of a thorough survey. Acquisition mark was made of Nip ponese vocabulary points and some sentence construction, that is, ( dual noun locative sentence constructions with station positional atoms ) . With the aid of pre trial the existing degree of the scholars were concluded, in the same manner station trial derived the grade of alteration in at that place larning. After a figure of experimental surveies consequences were derived. The experimental consequences derived from this experiment strengthened the research consequences derived by ( Pica et al 1987 ) and ( Gass and Varonis 1994 ) . Consequences indicated that, the degree of comprehension in â€Å"negotiated interaction group† was highest in comparing with the other two groups ( â€Å"Baseline input group† and â€Å"Pre modified input group† ) . The consequences besides suggested that ; â€Å"there is no correlativity between differences in minute to minute comprehension and additions in vocabulary acknowledgment & A ; acquisition of structures† . On th e footing of this experimental survey Loschky ( 1994 ) , suggested that undertaking based interaction does non ease grammatical characteristics in linguistic communication. Output hypothesis claims that â€Å" sometimes, under some conditions, end product facilitates 2nd linguistic communication acquisition in ways that are different signifier, or enhance, those of input † ( Swain and Lapkin, 1995, p. 371 ) . During the interaction between native and non native talker, â€Å"speakers made their inter linguistic communication vocalizations comprehendible when the native talker indicated trouble in understanding them† ( Pica 1988 ) . Apart from the importance of comprehendible input it is presumed that â€Å"comprehensible input† is non sufficient for 2nd linguistic communication acquisition, but that chances for the N N Sto achieve more mark like end product is besides necessary ( Swain, 1985 ) . During interaction native talkers ask for verification, elucidation and repeat of non comprehendible lingual characteristics. These patterns during interaction compel not native talkers to modify their end product, in order to do it comprehendible for native talker. Swain called such sort of end product as â€Å"pushed output† . The experimental analysis of ( Pica 1988 ) investigated, Swains` claim, labelled as â€Å"comprehensible output† . Interaction between a native talker and ten non native talkers of English were examined, in order to deduce, that how the non native talkers made their linguistic communication or vocalizations apprehensible, when the native talker show his or her inability to grok not native talker message. The basic concern of this probe is: whether non native talkers would merely reiterate or modify the produced vocalizations on petition of Native talkers. In this probe, there was less of grounds to corroborate the possibility of Swain` claim. Out of 87 possible cases of comprehendible end product in which native talkers requested verification, elucidation, or repeat of the non native talkers utterance merely 44 instances were found in which the non-native talker modified his or her end product and merely 13, grammatical alteration were involved. Pica 1988 expressed that non native talkers are non that much rich in colloquial context of mark linguistic communication to use native like alteration in their address. On other manus it was derived that native talkers modify the produced end product in order to clear up the significance for non native talkers. Similarly, ( Pica, Holliday, Lewis, and Morgenhaller 1989 ) , in another survey, observed the same phenomenon of comprehendible end product. Activities designed in this survey extremely needed interaction, that is, native and non native talker interaction. The consequences derived by this survey were same as of old one. Non native talker produced â€Å"comprehensible output† merely in response to six per centum of the native talker vocalizations. It can be concluded from the above treatment that there is a direct relation between undertaking based interaction and 2nd linguistic communication acquisition. Research workers such as Pica ( 1994 ) etc, have investigated interaction and acquisition link rather exhaustively. They concluded this phenomenon by analyzing and puting scholars of different educational background. They successfully derive the consequence that there exist a nexus between interaction and 2nd linguistic communication acquisition.Presents deductions for non native English linguistic communication learning methodological analysis.As mentioned earlier in the above portion, that â€Å"Interaction hypothesis is based on two of import premises. First, ( Kreshan 1980 ) â€Å"input hypothesis† which provinces that, subconscious procedure of acquisition is possible, when scholars are focused on significance and they obtain â€Å"comprehensible input† . Second, Hatch ( 1977 ) attack of â€Å"Discourse analysis† , which is about realistic discourse, or interaction between native kid and grownup scholar. The importance of interaction in linguistic communication acquisition can be exempted from the claim made by Allwright ( 1984 ) . He stated that, face to confront interaction in category room is the â€Å"fundamental fact of pedagogy† , and farther strengthened his claim by adding, that, â€Å"Everything that happens in the category room happens through face to confront interaction† . Undertakings are the primary instructional tools used in schoolroom room for interaction ( Dave and Jane Wiilis 2007 ) . Undertaking as defined by Ellis ( 2003 ) , involves any four accomplishments of the linguistic communication activities. Wholly, Receptive ( listening and reading ) and Productive ( talking and composing ) activities should be involved in undertakings. Interaction in linguistic communication schoolroom is really of import and disputing from assorted positions. It indirectly and someway straight involves instructor in most of the activities. In order to keep conversation in category pupils, instructor should set a batch of attempts in eliciting the involvement of pupils ( Dave and Jane Wiilis 2007 ) . Linguistic resources are the basic thing which learners deficiency at the initial phases while larning linguistic communication, in such state of affairs keeping conversation is really effortful on the portion of instructor ( Ellis 2003 ) . Teachers` function in undertaking based linguistic communication instruction is the same as of a manager. The two types of attack, that is, â€Å"focus on meaning† and â€Å"focus on form† are every bit of import in linguistic communication instruction. One is related to the right construction in linguistic communication, while the other one is related with the significance of the expressed sentences. Since undertaking based interaction is fundamentally linked communicating, it major focal point should be on significance. Interrupting communicating disturbs the natural flow of scholars. Assorted undertakings are recommended by many research workers in order to do larning affectional in schoolroom. Dave and Jane ( 2007 ) argued that Prediction undertakings ( foretelling future state of affairs in narrative or image ) are of import in order to assist scholars expect about an event with the aid of antecedently learned vocabulary. Pica ( 1994 ) emphasized on all those undertakings for linguistic communication scholars, which are extremely effectual in footings of engagement, that is, Jigsaw and information spread. Similarly Pica and Doughty ( 1986 ) favored the thought of information spread. Negotiation of intending dramas an of import function ; pupil should be encouraged to negociate for intending where they feel any trouble in comprehension. This phenomenon was observed by the survey of ( Mackey & A ; Plilp 1998 ) . Negotiation of significance occurs where most peculiar information is required for comprehension, or the scholars feel the demand of understanding the state of affairs right. Rost and Ross ( 1991 ) suggested three types of schemes for schoolroom interaction, that is, â€Å"Global questioning† , â€Å"Local questioning† and â€Å"Inferential strategies† , for elucidation of significance. Communicative competency is based on Yule ( 1996 ) which deals with the learner`s public presentation. It stated that Learners perform good, when they understand the undertaking. It should me mainly the duty of instructor to help pupil understanding undertaking about their public presentation. Wright ( 1987 ) emphasized on two basic things which should be included in undertaking, â€Å"Instructional questions† and â€Å"input data† . Communicative linguistic communication instruction is a learning methodological analysis which fundamentally aimed for the intent of communicating. Howatt ( 1984: 279 ) accent on the deduction of communicative attack by reasoning that â€Å"language is acquired through communicating. Freeman ( 1986: 123 ) explains that â€Å"when we communicate, we use the linguistic communication to carry through some maps, such as controversy, carrying, or assuring. Furthermore we carry out these maps within a societal context. Freeman ( 1986 ; 125 ) explains the experience of pupils within the context of communicative attack. Task like storytelling, vocals, dramatisation, function drama, image description, narrative narrating, games etc, were included in schoolroom in order to indulge scholars in communicating. As was suggested by Long ( 1994 ) â€Å"Life like† activities are conspicuously the portion of communicative linguistic communication instruction.

Apability as a Source of the Heterogeneit Essay Example

Apability as a Source of the Heterogeneit Essay Example Apability as a Source of the Heterogeneit Paper Apability as a Source of the Heterogeneit Paper The objective of this paper is to incorporate the entrepreneurial view point into the framework of the resource-based view of strategic management. We firstly attempt to make a brief survey of the conceptual framework of the RBV, and formulize it in a static sense by contrasting it with the competitive forces approach.Secondly, we conduct a critical assessment of the RBV from a dynamic point of view. The concept of entrepreneur’s ability is distilled by this assessment, and the objective of corporate strategy is clarified as well. Finally, we suggest a new perspective of the RBV by amending it from an entrepreneurial viewpoint. Keywords: resource-based view, entrepreneurship, disequilibrium, capability, strategic management RITSUMEIKAN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Vol. 3, pp. 125-150 (2005). * Associate Professor, Faculty of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University 126 RITSUMEIKAN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRSVol. 3 INTRODUCTION The pivot on which everything turns. (J. A. Schumpeter) Although the resource-based view (RBV) has emerged as one of the substantial theories of strategic management, it is said that it has overlooked the role of entrepreneurial strategies and entrepreneurial abilities as one of the crucial sources of the competitive advantage of a firm. Even today, when entrepreneurship research is in demand, most economic research, and consequently much of strategic management research, views entrepreneurship as the specter which haunts economic model. Baumol, 1997: 17) The main objective of this paper is to amend the RBV of strategic management from a dynamic point of view, in order to make up its insufficiency. Many scholars have attempted to investigate into the mechanism of sustainable competitive advantage of a firm through the RBV with original concepts such as core competence’ (e. g. , Hamel Praharad, 1994), dynamic capability’ (e. g. , Teece, Pisano Shuen, 1997) VRIO framework’ (Barney, 2002), capability lifecycle’ (Helfat Peteraf, 2003), and routine and skills’ (e. g. Nelson Winter, 1982), however, little work in RBV has been made to grasp the role of entrepreneurship as the crucial source of competitive advantage, despite the abilities of the entrepreneur are undoubtedly the principal human resource possessed by a firm (see Alvarez Barney, 2000 for an exception). This paper attempts to incorporate the theory of entrepreneurship into the RBV of strategic management, while critically dealing with the RBV from an entrepreneurial viewpoint. The paper is divided into three parts. First, a brief survey is given of the conceptual framework of the RBV.It is helpful for us to grasp the characteristics of its framework by contrasting it with the competitive forces approach (CFA) presented by Porter (1980) because it is said that the CFA explores the source of sustainable competitive advantage in the external environment of the firm (i. e. , attractiveness of industry where they are located), while the RBV pays attention to the internal resources of the firm (i. e. , the heterogeneous resources that a firm possesses). Second, we clarify the objectives of corporate strategy through a critical 2005The Critical Assessment of the Resource-Based View of Strategic Management TOKUDA 127 assessment of the RBV from both a static and a dynamic point of view. Barney’s fundamental concept of the RBV is examined. Third, we suggest a new perspective of the RBV by amending it from an entrepreneurial viewpoint. . STRATEGY AND EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT OF A FIRM Traditional research on strategic management suggests that firms need to seek a strategic fit between the external environment, for example opportunities and threats, and internal resources, for example strengths and weaknesses (e. . , Andrews, 1967; Itami, 1987). However, considerable emphasis has usually been given to a firm’s competitive environment and its competitive position (Das Teng, 2000). Considering the source of sustainable competitive advantage of a firm, it is widely accepted that the dominant viewpoint in the strategic management theory throughout the 1980s was the CFA presented by Porter (1980). His conceptual framework was mainly based on the structure-conduct-performance paradigm of the theory of industrial organization (Bain, 1959; Mason, 1949).It is no exaggeration to say that Porter (1980) specifically brings a concept of competition’ for the first time in strategic management theory. 1) The most innovative part of his work in this field is that he constructs a consistent framework for thought so as to examine concrete questions like how will a firm able to get a competitive advantage over its competitors? In the CFA, the industrial structure strongly influences the rules of competition, as well as the stra tegies potentially available to the firms belonging to that industry.Therefore the strategic issue for a firm seems to concern their competitive positioning in the industry. They seek a favor1) Broadly speaking, the strategic management theory before 1980s (pre-Porter period), which used to be called business policy’, had not been a body of theory with a consistent viewpoint yet. Its object was mainly to argue the management of the diversified firm. Hence, it was generally dealing with such an argument like, to which business should we give the priority to allocate our resources? or from which business should we withdraw our resources? In this stage, the strategy was no more than the citing list of procedures’ because the object of strategy went no further than merely arguing the analytical technique: growth matrix, effect of experience curve, product portfolio management, policy decision tree and so on, and the flowchart of its application which is needed when the st rategy has been drawing up. For instance, Hoffer and Schendel (1978), gave a comprehensive survey of past studies on the subject.They compile variety of analytical techniques and the flowchart of its application is indicated in their work. It is not thoroughly explained, however, why the process ought to be followed by such a flowchart. 128 RITSUMEIKAN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Vol. 3 able position in order to gain a monopoly rent (Teece, 1984), while avoiding involvement in competition or moderating competitive pressures by influencing industry structure and their competitors’ behavior.To help the firm find such a positioning in the industry, Porter (1980) advanced a fiveforce model’. This consists of five industry-level forces: i. e. , entry barriers, threat of substitution, bargaining power of supplier, bargaining power of buyer and rivalry among industry incumbents, which determine the inherent profit potential of an industry or sub-segment of it. However, a series of empirical surveys have failed to support the link between industrial structure and the performance of a firm.Some studies show the variance in firm performance between industries is substantially less than that within industries (e. g. , Jacobson, 1988; Hansen Wernerfelt, 1989; Rumelt, 1991). Others also identify systematic and significant performance differences among firms which belong to the same strategic group within an industry (Cool Schendel, 1988). Research has suggested that the internal resources of a firm rather than the external environment around the firm are possibly the primary source of performance differences among firms.This result is bringing a growing number of researchers to the RBV of strategic management to explain the differences by focusing their attention on resource heterogeneity in an industry and the source of sustainable competitive advantage of the firms. 2) . STRATEGY AND INTERNAL RESOURCES OF A FIRM Since the mid 1980s, the RBV has emerged as one o f the substantial theories of strategic management (Barney, 1986a; Rumelt, 1984; 2) According to Teece, et al. 1997: 514), an entry decision process of the CFA looks roughly as follows: (1) pick an industry (based on its structural attractiveness’); (2) choose an entry strategy based on conjectures about competitors’ rational strategies; (3) if not already possessed, acquire or otherwise obtain the requisite assets to compete in the market. From this perspective the process of identifying and developing the requisite assets is not particularly problematic. The process involves nothing more than choosing rationally among a well-defined set of investment alternatives.If assets are not already owned, they can be bought. On the contrary, the RBV assumes resource endorsement of a firm cannot equibrate through factor input markets. The entry decision process of the RBV is as follows: (1) identify your firm’s unique resources; (2) decide in which markets those resourc es can earn the highest rents; and (3) decide whether the rents from those assets and most effectively utilized by (a) integrating into related market(s), (b) selling the relevant intermediate output to related firms, or (c) selling the assets themselves to a firm in related businesses. 005 The Critical Assessment of the Resource-Based View of Strategic Management TOKUDA 129 Wernerfelt, 1984), even though it is said that the RBV does not presently appear to meet the empirical content criterion required of a theoretical system (Bacharach, 1989; Hunt, 1991; McKelvey, 1997; Priem Butler, 2001a,b). The increased attention to firms’ resources by researchers has seemed to be beneficial in helping to clarify the potential contributions of resources to competitive advantage, as well as to introduce strategy scholars to a number of useful descriptive theories from industrial rganization economics (e. g. , Alchian Demsetz, 1972, on teamwork’ production, or DeVany Saving, 198 3, on price as a signal of quality), and furthermore to alleviate a previous analytical overemphasis on the opportunities and threats that arise from the product side (Priem Butler, 2001a). The RBV suggests that the resources possessed by a firm are the primary determinants of its performance, and these may contribute to a sustainable competitive advantage of the firm (e. g. Hoffer Schendel, 1978; Wenerfelt, 1984). According to Barney (1991), the concept of resources includes all assets, capabilities, organizational processes, firm attributes, information, knowledge, etc. controlled by a firm that enable the firm to conceive of and implement strategies that improve its efficiency and effectiveness (Barney, 1991; Daft, 1983). In the early stage of the RBV, the main concern was to identify the characteristics of resources that are not subject to imitation by competitors.If the resources possessed by a firm can easily be replicated by competitors, even though the resources are the so urce of competitive advantage of the firm, then the advantage will not last long. Dierickx Cool (1989a) describe how the sustainability of a firm’s asset position hinges on how easily its resources can be substituted or imitated, and imitability is linked to the characteristics of the asset accumulation process: i. e. time compression diseconomies, asset mass efficiencies, inter-connectedness, asset erosion and casual ambiguity. In the same way, several other characteristics have been explored such as unique historical conditions, causal ambiguity (Reed DeFillippi, 1990), social complexity, isolating mechanism and so on (Barney, 1991; Lippman Rumelt, 1982; Rumelt, 1984). . CAPABILITY AS A SOURCE OF THE HETEROGENEITY Let us develop the concept of resources a little further.For instance, Grant (1991) notes the distinction between resources and capability as follows: 130 RITSUMEIKAN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Vol. 3 Resources are inputs into the production process†¦[they] inc lude items of capital equipment, skills of individual employees, patents, brand names, finance, and so on. But, on their own, few resources are productive. Productive activity requires the cooperation and coordination of teams of resources. A capability is the capacity for a team of resources to perform some task or activity. Grant, 1991: 118-19) In the same manner, Amit Schoemaker (1993) define resources as stocks of available factors that are owned or controlled by the firm, which are converted into final products or services. Capabilities, in contrast, refer to a firm’s capacity to deploy resources, usually in combination, using organizational processes, to produce a desired effect. 3) Hence, the presence of capability enables resources to begin to be utilized, and the potential for the creation of output arises.While resources are the source of a firm’s capabilities, capabilities are the main source of its competitive advantage (Grant, 1991). The important point o f this approach compared to the early stage of RBV is that, for the sake of gaining a sustainable competitive advantage, capability is regarded as more important than resources per se, and this implies that the firm-specific way of cooperation and coordination of resources causes the heterogeneity among firms in an industry. ) This thought can be theoretically traced back to Penrose’s (1959) work. According to her work, firm development is an evolutionary and cumulative process of resource learning, in which increased knowledge of the firm resources both helps create options for further expansion and increase absorptive capacity. Therefore, a major focus of her work lies in the application of resources. She regards a firm as more than an administrative unit, it is also a collection of productive resources which including both physical and 3) Stalk, et al. 1992) draw a distinction between a capability and a competence as follows: competencies and capabilities represent two dif ferent but complementary dimensions of an emerging paradigm for corporate strategy. Both concepts emphasize behavioral’ aspects of strategy in contrast to the traditional structural model. But whereas core competence emphasizes technological and production expertises at specific points along the value chain, capabilities are more broadly based, encompassing the entire value chain. Inthis respect, capabilities are visible to the customer in a way that core competencies rarely are (Stalk, et. al. , 1992: 66). ) To deepen the concept of capability, Grant (1991) invokes the concept of organizational routine’ from evolutionary theory (e. g. , Nelson, 1991). He views capability as a routine or a number of interacting routines, and organization as a huge network of routines. 2005 The Critical Assessment of the Resource-Based View of Strategic Management TOKUDA 131 human resources. According to Penrose, it is never resources’ per se that are the inputs’ in the pr oduction process, but only the services’ that the resource can render, that is: The services yielded by resources are a function of the way in which they are used? xactly the same resources when used for different purposes or in different ways and in combination with different types of or amounts of other resources provide a different service or set of services. The important distinction between resources and services is not their relative durability; rather it lies in the fact that resources consists of a bundle of potential services and can, for the most part, be define independently of their use, while services cannot be so defined, the very word service’ implying a function, an activity†¦it is largely in this distinction that we find the source of the uniqueness of each individual firm (1959: 25). ) The result of this is that the concept of capability’ is the capacity of a firm to convert resources they possess into the service’. The good service s might be produced by either good resources’ or average capability’/ average resources’ or good capability’, if capability were a type of score’ of capability, particular to each firm (e. g. , good firms have a high capability score’). The difference, or possibly the uniqueness, of a firm largely comes from these capabilities. . VULNERABILITY OF THE RBV After having made a brief survey of the conceptual framework of the RBV by ontrasting it with the CFA, we now attempt to clarify the objective of corporate strategy through a critical assessment of the RBV. Barney’s (1991) conceptual framework of the RBV has been used6), because 5) Foss (2005) notes that while the RBV is Penrosian in its emphasis on firm-level heterogeneity, most of Penrose’s basic themes ? flexibility in an uncertain world, organizational learning as an evolutionary discovery process, path-dependency, the vision of the management team, entrepreneurship, firm d ifferences being traceable to the efficiency with which resources are applied rather than to resources themselves, etc. seem to lie outside the orbit of the RBV, at least as its conceptual framework is clearly related to Demsetz’s (1973) competitive equilibrium model. 6) Referring to the SWOT framework, Barney defines resources as being valuable when they help seizing an opportunity in the firm’s environment or when they help neutralizing some threat in that environment, or at least shielding the firm against the threat. By resources 132 RITSUMEIKAN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Vol. 3 as Priem Butler (2001a) remark, many RBV proponents either paraphrase his statements or simply cite his articles (i. . , Barney, 1991), without an augmented definition (e. g. , Bates Flynn, 1995; Brush Artz, 1999; Lits, 1996; Powel, 1992a, b; Rindova Fombrun, 1999; Yeoh Roth, 1999), and operate under his framework in their conceptual and empirical work. 7) Barney’s (1991) remarks on the conditions that a firm produces competitive advantage8) may be paraphrased as follows: (a) resources must be valuable. (b) resources must be rare. Two points should be noted here regarding to the attributes of the competitive advantage of a firm.Firstly, Barney’s concept of valuable’ is an ambiguous criterion to measure the competitive advantage of a firm. Whether the resource is valuable or not should be measured by its profitability, and thus it ought to take the form of an economic asset regardless of how tangible or intangible it is. The value of any resource should be measured by the discounted value of the expected future income stream that can be attributed to it. 9) In the RBV the valuable attribute of a firm is taken as given. The being rare, Barney seems to have a simple counting sense (as distinct from an economic sense) in mind.Firms that control valuable and rare resources possess a competitive advantage and will be able to obtain a competitive advabta ge. If furthermore the relevant resources are non-imitable and non-substitutable a sustainable competitive advantage may be obtained. The non-imitability (or more correctly: costly-to-imitate) condition directs attention to whether (or, at which cost) competitor firms can acquire or accumulate resources with attributes and levels of attributes similar to some desired resource which produces a competitive advantage.The non-substitutability (or, costly-to-substitute) condition directs attention to whether (or, at which cost) competitor firms can access (different) resources that will allow them to implement the same strategies as some successful firm. According to Foss (2005), it is also these two criteria that allows Barney to define sustainable competitive advantage in terms of situations in which all attempts by competitor firms at imitating or substituting a successful firm have ceased. Thus, he notes that sustainable competitive advantage is a property of an equilibrium. ) Priem and Butler investigate whether the RBV arguments regarding competitive advantage meet the generally accepted criteria for classifying a set of statements as a theory, See Priem Butler (2001a, b) and also Barney’s counter-argument (Barney, 2001). 8) With regard to the sustainability, he notes the resource must be imperfectly imitable, and cannot be strategically equivalent substitutes for this resource. 9) This kind of argument has been well discussed in the theory of multinational corporations (i. e. an argumentation between OLI paradigm theorists and Internalization theorists regarding the handling of ownership advantage of a firm). See, e. g. , Casson (1987). 2005 The Critical Assessment of the Resource-Based View of Strategic Management TOKUDA 133 planning and investment necessary to build up such resources are exogenous in this framework. 10) This means there is the fear that the RBV will overstate the profitability of firms exploiting these resources, because they ignor e the cost of acquisition and accumulation.Therefore it is impossible for the RBV to explain why firms invest in such a valuable resource rather than in other type of resources (i. e. , Barney is conducting a cross sectional analysis of what the firms currently has, he is not discussing what they would need to do to obtain more or different resources in the future. Barney focuses here on content while other RBV authors have focused on process. He is not trying to explain why firms invest, he is trying to explain what firms have accumulated as of a specific point in time.However, other RBV researchers have considered why and how). In addition, if the firms want to realize their competitive advantage or maximize their profit from the resources they possess, they have to take into account of the demand-side characteristics that influence on the final price of their output. The values of resources are determined by demandside characteristics, and those are also exogenous to the RBV mode l (Priem Butler, 2001a, b).We never have a priori information on the competitive advantage among firms that will result in super-normal profit, on the contrary, we know a posteriori the existence of the competitive advantage by virtue of the existence of super-normal profit. After all, the emphasis is on how to sustain such a valuable resource over the long term without adequate appreciation of its economic value. Therefore it is open to criticism that the RBV contains a theory of sustainability but not a theory of competitive advantage (Priem Butler, 2001b).Secondly, the concept of a rare’ resource does not necessarily ensure the competitive advantage of the firm, even if that resource generates a large rent’ due to its relative scarcity. Rents are the prices of services yielded by resources (Lewin Phelan, 2002). In this phase rent is noth10) According to Petaraf (1993: 180), Firms with superior resources will earn rents†¦ It may be understood most clearly by assuming that firms with superior firms with superior resources have low average costs than other firms. We understand that superior resources may earn Ricardian type of rents, however in order to analyze the source of firm ustainable competitive advantage over rivalry, we should put not a rent’ but a profitability’ in question. And we cannot understand her ground why superior resources’ go to a low cost position’ (1993: 180). Superior resources must have accompanied a lot of investment until then due to its superiority, even though which is such an intangible assets as organizational culture (i. e. , Barney, 1986b), thus we cannot necessarily to say firms with superior firms with superior resources have low average costs than other firms’. 134RITSUMEIKAN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Vol. 3 ing more than the rental price of the service of the resource whether it is rare or not. After remunerating all the factors of production, no profit has been left to t he firm (Demsetz, 1973; Barney, 1986a; Rumelt, 1987). If there is a firm gaining profit from the resource, it is simply that the firm squeezes some part of the rent from the owner of the resources. Many RBV researchers identify the concept of rent’ (e. g. , Mahoney Pandian, 1992; Petaraf, 1993; Rumelt, 1987), that is expressed in various forms, i. e. Ricardian rent, Marshallian rent, Paretian rent, and quasirent, as those, which accrue from the relative differentiation of resources a firm control (We have to bear in mind the fact that rent will be paid even though all of land is homogeneous or even if the land is not fertile. Rent is not paid due to the relative difference of the land’s fertility but by the fact that land is merely scarce (Lewin Phelan, 2002). The difference in fertility reflects in the difference in rental rates, however, the rental rate is nothing to do with the profitability of a firm.The owner of any resources just asks for the rents: i. e. , wag e, rent, and interest, according to its rate). They consider the concept of competition’ as the states that firms compete in factors of production markets over the relative advantage of the resources they acquire or accumulate, rather than compete in final-product markets over the price of their products and services. However, from the static point of view, all of the relative advantages of these resources ought to be compensated for their owner. And the source of competitive advantage of the firm remains only by their monopoly rent.In this case alone, a firm would be able to gain super-normal profit at the cost of social welfare. It follows from what has been said, that the RBV contains the conditions of sustainability, but it does not fulfill the conditions for acquiring and realizing a competitive advantage. 11) 11) According to Foss (2005), Barney (1991) singles out two necessary primitives that must obtain for SCA to exist, namely heterogeneity and immobility, however, t he relation between these two primitives and the four other conditions of sustainable competitive advantage (i. e. resources being rare, valuable, costly to imitate and costly to substitute) is not made clear. The implication of Barney’s discussion is that the four latter are collectively sufficient for SCA, and if they (all) obtain, heterogeneity and immobility also obtain. However, the four conditions are not all necessary, whereas immobility and heterogeneity are. In other words, possessing resources that are rare, valuable, costly to imitate and costly to substitute is not the only way to gain and sustain competitive advantages, as long as the relevant ways conform to the criteria of resources being immobile and heterogeneous.This, however, is not clarified in Barney’s paper. 2005 The Critical Assessment of the Resource-Based View of Strategic Management TOKUDA 135 . THE RBV’S FORTE Given that the RBV is nothing more than an indication of the condition for c ompetitive firms to sustain their advantage, how can we investigate the academic value in the RBV in terms of explaining the source of the competitive advantage of a firm? By examining Barney’s (1986a, 2001) esearch, we see that he might recognize the existence of super-normal profit and the source of competitive advantage besides valuable and rare resources. The strategic factor market imperfection’ is the key concept for finding the academic value in the RBV. The strategic factor markets are developed when a firm requires the acquisition of resources in order to implement its strategy (Barney, 1986a). These markets are where firms buy and sell the resources necessary to implement their strategies (Barney, 1986a; Hirshleifer, 1980).Hence the economic performance of the firms depends not only on the returns from their strategies but also on the cost of buying the resources from these markets to implement those strategies. And the costs of those resources are determined by the characteristics of the factor markets. It is leading us that valuable and rare resources are not the source of competitive advantage or above normal return if the cost of acquiring or developing these resources equals the value they create when used to conceive of and implement a strategy.However, there is an implied possibility that the competitive advantage may come from the imperfections in strategic factor markets. Different firms in these markets will have different expectations about the future value of a strategy, which creates this imperfection (Barney, 1986a), and the owners of the firm also have different expectations about the future return of their resources (Barney, 2001). Therefore, different expectations toward the resources produce the possibility of a competitive advantage for a firm.This kind of competitive advantage, named economic rents’ by Barney, reflect the creative and entrepreneurial ability of firms to discover how to generate value with thei r resources in ways that other firms and outside owners cannot anticipate (Barney, 1986a, 2001). Firms which intend to obtain a competitive advantage must be consistently better informed concerning the future value of these resources than other firms. 12) 12) Peteraf (1993) argues that ex ante limits to competition is a condition for the existence and endurance of competitive advantage. Because of ex ante uncertainty about the future 36 RITSUMEIKAN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Vol. 3 Examining the Barney’s concept of strategic factor market imperfection’, we are able to interpret that the characteristics of competition’ are not in the world of static states (equilibrium), but in the world of dynamic processes of change (disequilibrium). As mentioned above, no rents emerge in the world of static states. If the price of any resource reflects the discounted value of its expected future earnings, and if everyone shares the same correct expectations, then that price include s all correctly anticipated value components.It is nothing to say that ex ante values will turn out to be equal to ex post values. There will be no room for super-normal profit. Unless there is a difference between the ex post value of a venture and the ex ante cost of acquiring the necessary resources, the entrepreneurial rents are zero (Rumelt, 1987; Peteraf, 1993). In a dynamic sense, such a situation cannot exist because a price of any resource does not reflect the discounted value of its expected future earnings, so everyone does not share the same correct expectations towards it and the price includes all correctly anticipated value components.The possibility of profit comes from ex ante uncertainty of the resource’s certain (real) value, the probability of profit comes from ex post realization of its certain value. In this sense, the size of super-normal profit, thus the competitive advantage of a firm, depends on the difference between the ex ante cost of resources an d the ex post value of them. This suggests that to acquire a competitive advantage is no more and no less than to obtain the entrepreneurial rents. The CA depends on how to exploit the factor markets disequilibrium, i. e. the firm’s skill (accuracy) at perceiving the future value of resources. We may say that the academic values can be found in the RBV when we view it in a dynamic context. value of the resources to be bought or developed today, only firms with entrepreneurial insight or luck make the right investment decisions and are rewarded by entrepreneurial rents (Barney, 1986; Wernerfelt Montgomery, 1986). Also, ex post limits to competition (i. e. , isolating mechanisms) protects the strategic assets and capabilities from being imitated. Isolating mechanisms allow a firm to sustain its competitive dvantage. Isolating mechanisms Rumelt (1984: 568) such as casual ambiguity, specialized assets, switching and search costs, team-bodied skills, reputation and image and lega l restrictions on entry are the reasons why markets fail. In the absence of isolating mechanisms and market imperfections, resources would be mobile, and no firm could achieve competitive advantage and positive returns (like in perfect competition). By pointing these mechanisms out, Rumelt (1984) highlights why firms exist’ and then concentrates on why firms are heterogeneous’. 2005The Critical Assessment of the Resource-Based View of Strategic Management TOKUDA 137 . ABILITY OF ENTREPRENEUR AS A SOURCE OF THE HETEROGENEITY In the dynamic world, the heterogeneous perceptions are more important than the heterogeneous resources per se (Lewin, 2005; Lewin Phelan, 2002). As a matter of course, such perception originates in the asymmetric information among firms. This drives us, logically, to the situation that the entrepreneurship’ and also the ability to perceive market imperfection of information have to be incorporated into the RBV.How to best evade the market i mperfection or how to make good use of that imperfection is very strategic decision made by a firm to gain a super-normal profit. 13) And of course, the one who will be in charge of this strategic task is an entrepreneur. 14) As an aside, even if it is logical to represent the entrepreneurship in t