Managing Cultral Diversity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Managing Cultral Diversity - Essay Example Employing a diverse workforce helps the organization to deal with diverse groups of clients. However, these companies will need to have effective diversity and inclusion strategies in order to retain their diverse workforce. This paper will seek to analyze how Nike, Adidas, and Puma handle diversity through a review of information on their websites. The company with the best diversity policy would be the best to work in for most people on the job market. For Nike, their mission has to do with the athletes and innovation, as well as inspiration that they give these athletes. Additionally, the company has various guiding principles that they expect their staff to adhere to, including that their main goal is innovation and that they should maintain Nike’s brand image (Nikeinc.com 1). When it comes to diversity, Nike’s website has a lot of information on their policy for inclusivity. According to their website, Nike relies on a diverse workforce in order to diversify their perspective, background, and opinion. They also harness their diversity to inspire ideas and innovation. From their website, it is clear that innovation is a central theme. In fact, Nike has a Diversity and Inclusion team whose responsibilities include sharing the essential nature of diversity and inclusion with the aim of building understanding and awareness, the utilization of diversity and inclusion in order to create inspiration for new ideas, and to encourage connections between players in their supply chain and within the organization (Nikeinc.com 1). According to the website, Nike also develops Nike Networks that seek to aid Nike in making increased strides towards diversity (Nikeinc.com 1). For example, in the United States, there are six networks for employees that are designed to focus on important communities working for the company. Each of the network’s intended purpose is to improve work performance, professional development, assist the company to recruit divers e skilled employees, and improve interaction and teamwork across their various work groups. These networks are central to the company given their prominence on their website, and they include the Native American employee network, the Latino employee network, the African American employee network, Asia-Pacific employee network, and the LGBT employee network (Nikeinc.com 1). The next website of the study was that belonging to Adidas, which also dealt with the issue of diversity, albeit not as prominently as Nike. The Adidas group, like Nike, aims to become the global leader in the industry by creating brands that have a passion for sports and the accompanying lifestyle (Adidas-group.com 1). Information on the website says that they are committed to the continuous strengthening of their products and brands to improve their competitiveness, that they are leaders in design and innovations seeking to aid athletes in reaching their highest skill levels with each product, and that they are focused on their clients with continuous improvements in quality (Adidas-group.com 1). In addition, the company is also a global entity with increased focus on environmental and social responsibility, which seeks to embrace diversity and creativity, whereas also being financially rewarding to shareholders, as well as employees. According to Adidas’

The civil war Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

The civil war - Essay Example Then the South used slave labor as a mode of production. The invention of the cotton gin made cotton farming more profitable, making the South more reliant on slave labor and thereby further drawing a wedge between itself and the North. The North on the other hand gradually made a dereliction on agriculture and the countryside because of the Industrial Revolution. Factory work became more popular as New York, New Haven and Boston emerged as industrialized cities and thereby leading to mercantilism in the North’s economy. This economy was heavily reliant on the shipping industry and was more diverse, ethnically. This spurred technological advancements and emergence of new ideas, onwards. Constitutional convention At the time of the Revolution, two camps had emerged: those in favor of the federal government; and those in favor of the rights of the state. The US government had also been organized under the Articles of Confederation, after the American Revolution. As political and legal problems arose, the weakness of this type of government compelled leaders to assemble at the Constitutional Convention to secretly create the US Constitution. This development produced strong opposition from proponents of state rights like Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, since they were absent in the meeting. Thomas Jefferson and his group felt that the new constitution undermined the right of the state to act independently, yet states should have the prerogatives of deciding the acceptance of certain federal acts. This development led to nullification, a legal provision whereby states would have to declare federal acts unconstitutional. The federal government denied these states these rights. Other proponents like John Calhoun fought relentlessly for nullification. When the clamor for nullification failed, some states felt that they were disrespected, and moved towards secession. This further created the rift between the North and South (Tindall and Shi, 72). Constitutio nal compromises Slavery as an institution was entrenched in America and its constitution, thereby bringing about critical problems to the 19th century US. Spates of compromises were made in the US Congress to stave off these problems, to hold the Union together, though every compromise4 brought about different problems. Free labor vs. slave labor While free labor solely depended on the will or consent of the slave to work, slave labor compelled the slave to work. Despite the responsibility that slave owner would take over the slave, there would be no guarantee that the slave would work for him in free labor settlement. For slave labor, there would be no reason for the slave not to work except sickness. Failure to work would readily invite punitive measures such as whipping and even death. The only alternatives for one providing slave labor would be escaping and/ or being set free. The issue of free labor vs. slave labor also threatened to split the South and North in that while the North supported free labor, the South supported slave labor. This disparity led to the emergence of Free and Slave states. 1820 Missouri Compromise The ideological rivalry over slavery between the North and South culminated into attempts at compromises. Particularly, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 became another way the North and Sou

Managing Cultral Diversity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Managing Cultral Diversity - Essay Example Employing a diverse workforce helps the organization to deal with diverse groups of clients. However, these companies will need to have effective diversity and inclusion strategies in order to retain their diverse workforce. This paper will seek to analyze how Nike, Adidas, and Puma handle diversity through a review of information on their websites. The company with the best diversity policy would be the best to work in for most people on the job market. For Nike, their mission has to do with the athletes and innovation, as well as inspiration that they give these athletes. Additionally, the company has various guiding principles that they expect their staff to adhere to, including that their main goal is innovation and that they should maintain Nike’s brand image (Nikeinc.com 1). When it comes to diversity, Nike’s website has a lot of information on their policy for inclusivity. According to their website, Nike relies on a diverse workforce in order to diversify their perspective, background, and opinion. They also harness their diversity to inspire ideas and innovation. From their website, it is clear that innovation is a central theme. In fact, Nike has a Diversity and Inclusion team whose responsibilities include sharing the essential nature of diversity and inclusion with the aim of building understanding and awareness, the utilization of diversity and inclusion in order to create inspiration for new ideas, and to encourage connections between players in their supply chain and within the organization (Nikeinc.com 1). According to the website, Nike also develops Nike Networks that seek to aid Nike in making increased strides towards diversity (Nikeinc.com 1). For example, in the United States, there are six networks for employees that are designed to focus on important communities working for the company. Each of the network’s intended purpose is to improve work performance, professional development, assist the company to recruit divers e skilled employees, and improve interaction and teamwork across their various work groups. These networks are central to the company given their prominence on their website, and they include the Native American employee network, the Latino employee network, the African American employee network, Asia-Pacific employee network, and the LGBT employee network (Nikeinc.com 1). The next website of the study was that belonging to Adidas, which also dealt with the issue of diversity, albeit not as prominently as Nike. The Adidas group, like Nike, aims to become the global leader in the industry by creating brands that have a passion for sports and the accompanying lifestyle (Adidas-group.com 1). Information on the website says that they are committed to the continuous strengthening of their products and brands to improve their competitiveness, that they are leaders in design and innovations seeking to aid athletes in reaching their highest skill levels with each product, and that they are focused on their clients with continuous improvements in quality (Adidas-group.com 1). In addition, the company is also a global entity with increased focus on environmental and social responsibility, which seeks to embrace diversity and creativity, whereas also being financially rewarding to shareholders, as well as employees. According to Adidas’

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett - Essay Example Waiting for Godot stands alone among the rest of thirty-two dramatic works produced by the author. Outstanding value of this longest ever written by Beckett play was officially recognized by the Swedish Academy in 1969, when the author was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Waiting for Godot is arguably the most controversial and complex for understanding piece of playwriting produced during the last century. Actually, the whole plot and action of the play is reflected by the title - waiting for Godot. Two homeless and jobless males named Estragon (Gogo) and Vladimir (Didi) are waiting for someone named Godot on the country road. While waiting for this person, the two tramps talk to each other, discuss different things and meet two other characters of the play: Pozzo and Lucky, the master and servant. This couple and a boy whom informs Gogo and Didi that Godot will not come to meet them are the only characters of the play. The play is far from being intensive at all. The characters discuss various topics, tell jokes and do absolutely meaningless things, but the reader can feel a sort of laziness in absolutely all discussions and actions. As for Godot who is supposed to be the main character of the play, the reader never knows whom he is, what he is and why he has to meet the tramps. Despite countless interpretations ... Consequently, Beckett and other writers of that epoch tended to put their literary characters in paradoxical and absurd circumstances. From this perspective, Waiting for Godot is a typical absurdist play in which the author reveals isolation of individuals in contemporary world, absence of hopes, absurdity of life and many other universal problems of human existence. MAIN DISCUSSION In order to understand what makes Waiting for Godot an absurdist play and if it is an absurdist play we must reveal the meaning of the term 'absurdist'. The term 'theatre of the absurd' was coined in 1962 by Martin Esslin whom applied it to a group of post-war plays written by different authors. Esslin believed that the philosophical meaning underlying all those plays was common and relied upon the philosophy of Albert Camus (Esslin, 1969:18). Camus' theory of absurd is perfectly illustrated in his well-known work The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a mythological king of the Greek city of Corinth. The gods did not like his cruelty and invented a torture for Sisyphus to suffer until the end of time. He had to roll a heavy stone up a huge hill in the kingdom of Hades, but he never reached the peak: each time Sisyphus was on the verge of rolling the stone over the top, the resistance became overwhelming and the stone rolled downhill, and Sisyphus had to start his toil over and over again (Camus, 1955). Camus thinks that the human life has much in common with the toil of Sisyphus. Men and women of the modern world are doing nearly the same the mythological king did. They try to find some universal meaning and purpose of human existence despite the fact that no universal meaning or purpose really exists. Human life is irrational and absurd, and any

Relationships between men and women Essay Example for Free

Relationships between men and women Essay It is a fact that household chores have always and still are mainly the womens job in the family. Washing and ironing are definitely thought of as more of womens role because only 18% of couples share this task equally. Men take more of a part in preparing dinner now with 35% claiming it is done equally but still 32% of couples still think it is the woman more. The most even chores among partners is looking after sick family members (45%) and food shopping (52%). 49% of men still do most of the repairs around the house. Relationships have changed and have become a lot more equal between men and women have become a lot more equal than the traditional patriarchal relationship. Men and women are sometimes thought to have very different roles around the house. For example because women are supposed to have a nurturing and kind personality it is thought that they should look after the children, but the man is thought to have a more practical mind and strong so he does DIY and is the main breadwinner. These are called segregated roles. Role conflict is when two or more of a person roles collide to make it impossible to fulfil them properly. For example, a woman could have three separate roles at one time as a mother, a friend and an employee. If she has to spend extra time at work and then has to look after a friend who is upset she may find it hard to find enough time for her family. When men and women stick to their gender segregated roles but make sure they both contribute equally, it is called joint conjugal roles. Young and Wilmott (1973) suggested that the main family form in Britain was the symmetrical family. This is a family that works on joint conjual roles. Their relationship was more democratic or equal Compared with past gender roles decision making and leisure activities were shared more. The family would become a lot more home centred as the men helped out more. This gave them things in common, which caused relationships between spouses to be warmer and more caring. Feminists do not agree with this symmetrical family theory. Feminists claim that it is not truly symmetrical because even if a man helps more, it is still only help and the main responsibility is still the womans. They also think that men will pick and choose their jobs and leave the women with the worst ones. Oakly (1974) is critical of this theory and does not think that the evidence is convincing. A husband that washes up at least once a week is regarded as helpful in the home to Young and Wilmott. She also argues that men that iron a piece of their own clothing, they are a good husband. Oakly thinks that there is no evidence of symmetry in the home even if the woman is employed she still does more housework. Jan Pahl (1989), in her study of money and power in marriages argues that they are still patriarchal. She found that men are more likely to make most decisions when she interviewed 120 married couples in Kent. Although she found that they share more decisions on what to spend the household income on compared to 30 years ago but however she points out that the man is still in charge of the finances and the wifes access to money. This could sometimes leave women and children living in poverty even when the man has a good income. There are a number of factors that have contributed to equality between the sexes including changes to laws such as the sex discrimination act and equal pay rights. These laws ensure equality in the workplace, which changes the way people think and makes women believe that they deserve the same rights at home. Now girls are getting the same standard of education as boys and the same opportunities which means that women are getting good careers that are equal to mens. Also thins like media with soaps and celebrities promoting equality in the home and cost of living makes both partners work contributes to the changing attitudes. Another way of measuring equality instead of domestic labour is through things like decision-making, finance and power in the home.

Entrepreneurial Action Is Creative Action Commerce Essay

Entrepreneurial Action Is Creative Action Commerce Essay Entrepreneurs are the talk of the business town at this very moment. But, who exactly is an entrepreneur and more importantly, what is it about him that makes him so famous in the world today? Let us take a closer look at an entrepreneur and his world! An entrepreneur actually is a person who makes life easier for the world community at large. Schumpeter (1965) defined entrepreneurs as individuals, who exploit market opportunity through technical and/or organizational innovation. He sees an opportunity which others do not fully recognize, in order to meet an unsatisfied demand or to radically improve the performance of an existing business. It began when an entrepreneur empathized with a problem faced by an individual which could be addressed by introducing a particular product or service. The earliest companies in the world were started by entrepreneurs who saw this need and created a vision for fulfilling that need. Next, they took the risks associated with starting a company and then finally producing and releasing a product to solve that particular problem of the individual. Eventually, in the long run, companies established by entrepreneurs add to the competitive spirit of the economy. In doing so, they force the existing firms to compete with the ideas and methods of newer firms and to come up with efficient business strategies. Thus, having stated how an entrepreneur was brought into existence, it can now be established that not only are entrepreneurs the people who possess the vision to introduce innovative products, but also the ones who ensure that the market is updated at all times, at times also creating new markets along the process. In a way they form an interlink between the masses and the business world. This makes them the core element of the business sector. This work performed by an entrepreneur is together clubbed as entrepreneurship. It can be defined in terms of value creation by identifying opportunities for new products and services and realizing them through new firm formation, then it is the process of transforming identification to realization of opportunities that forms part of the entrepreneurs learning experience. Reference Mitra (2011) The natural course of this essay takes us to an interesting point where we know that an entrepreneur introduces a product based on a need. However, there are two vital aspects of this task. Firstly, there is no empirical result which can ascertain his decision to introduce a product which has never before been released. In effect, this makes entrepreneurship an intuitive task. The decision to go ahead with a particular product is to a large extent backed by his instinct that the product will indeed be accepted in the market. The entrepreneur thus, makes an uncertain but intuitive decision of giving a product the green signal. Secondly, the probability of the product being accepted in the market is very high when the product is creativity personified, that is, it is a product which hasnt yet found a place in market. It could be a modification of an existing product or better still, a whole new product created by the entrepreneur. So it is visible now that uncertainty and creativity ar e two primary elements of entrepreneurship. Frank Knight, threw some light on the uncertainty aspect of entrepreneurship. His theory states that uncertainty is distinguishable from risk. He says that risk is measureable, whereas, uncertainty is not calculable as it relies on probability which cannot be measured. It is uncertainty that is distinguished from risk that provides a return to the entrepreneur. In other words, an entrepreneurs income (residual income) i.e. profits, is a product of uncertainty and not risk. This implies that if an entrepreneur wants to earn a profit it is a given that he needs to willingly bear uncertainty. Thus entrepreneurs are distinguished between non entrepreneurs in their willingness to bear uncertainty in order to gain profit. Milliken went ahead and gave three types of uncertainty. His three types of uncertainty can be simplified into three questions asked by a prospective actor about his or her relationship to the environment: (1) Whats happening out there? (state uncertainty), (2) How will it impact me? (effect uncertainty), and (3) What am I going to do about it? (response uncertainty). Let us consider an example of a product introduced under uncertainty. Apple introduced iPod at a time when nothing like it was ever heard of. There were some Mp3 players and portable CD players in the market at the time. But, IPod was entirely a different product. The probable success or failure of iPod could not be calculated. With thick clouds of uncertainty, Apple released iPod! Lo and behold! After the first few months of gradual acceptance, iPod hit a golden run. It revolutionised the market for audio players and electronic goods at large. However, it must be noted that the decision to introduce iPod was indeed an uncertain one which eventually garnered great profits for the company and gave it a niche status. Thus knights theory stands true that it was uncertainty that reaped profits for late Steve Jobs. The evaluation of Knights theory of uncertainty reveals that it has some loopholes as well. His theory explicitly arises out of partial knowledge. . The essence of the situation is action according to opinion, of greater or less foundation and value, neither entire ignorance nor complete and perfect information, but partial knowledge[p. 1991. This can be viewed negatively as partial knowledge backfires. Also, it appears as though Knight has paid too much attention to uncertainty and neglected other functions of the entrepreneur which are also instrumental in him earning profits. He has also not accounted for differences and asymmetries that emerge between different companies. It is not rational for an entrepreneur to release his product under strict uncertainty. Surely, he does undertake a considerable market research prior to taking a decision about introducing the product. However, the presence of uncertainty is definitely a hard hitting aspect of an entrepreneurs job. In contrast to Knights theory about the willingness to bear uncertainty, Joseph Schumpeter in his theory argues that entrepreneurs function lies in an innovative act of creating a new combination. Believing that the potential for new combination is abundant and at times obvious, Schumpeter delineates entrepreneur from non-entrepreneur not by difference in knowledge or perception but by performance of innovative act itself. The history of entrepreneurship reflects its uncertain nature. Several examples such as introduction of Nano Car by TATA Motors in India, Mc Maharaja which is a burger introduced by McDonalds in the Indian market, HD TV show that all these products began from an atmosphere of uncertainty. Nothing is certain, surely not the performance of a new product or service in todays volatile markets. In the past, uncertainty would rise from the fact that the market were rigid and unwilling to open up. Today, the same uncertainty exists, but with a different nature. The uncertainty phenomenon today arises from the ever changing tastes and preferences of the public. This puts in added pressure on the product performance. Thus, uncertainty can indeed not be separated from entrepreneurship. In fact, it is practically engrained in it. As established above, the second aspect of entrepreneurship deals with creativity. Being creative is seeing the same thing as the world, but thinking of something differently. Creativity refers to the ability or power to create or to bring something new into existence, to invest into a new form and to produce using imaginative skill. Some theoretical work on creativity gives insight into understanding the concept. According to Weisberg (1999), knowledge and creativity are two competing positions that are positively related. Creativity is in a way an application of knowledge. As opposed to this, the person theory of creativity suggests that creativity is a reflection of an individuals personality. Some traits are culturally determined while other traits are more emotionally determined. These different traits serve as an inspiration for creativity. On account of this, individual personality differences result in a heterogeneous mix of creativity. Stress also plays a very important role in creativity. A person with low arousal has high creativity and person with high arousal tends to have low creativity. The more we define our creativity by identifying with specific sets of values, meanings, beliefs and symbols, the more our creativity will be focused and limited; the more we define our creativity by focusing on how values, meanings, beliefs and symbols are formed, the greater the chance that our creativity will become less restricted. Normally highly creative people tend to be highly focused. But too much knowledge also sometimes restricts creativity. Planning improves a persons genic idea, a person with futuristic thinking, is seen to be more creative. Entrepreneurship would have been non -existent if it werent for creativity, to the extent that creativity is often used as the middle name for entrepreneurship. The main aim of an entrepreneurs job is to create new products and thereby discover new opportunities. An entrepreneur ought to have a creative product or service in order to be successful. In the early days of entrepreneurship, creativity was grossly ignored. It wasnt believed to be a requisite quality for an entrepreneur. That notion was corrected eventually. It was then accepted that creativity is an essential ingredient for an entrepreneur to make a fortune. Entrepreneurship creativity has been known as the generation and implementation of novel appropriate ideas to acquire new ventures (Amabile 1997). Intuition can also been viewed as more business competency which influences the ability of creativity.Also for an entrepreneur to understand creativity he must think of personal attributes like person , place or product. Talking of creativity, probably the most creative idea to have come up in the last decade is that of facebook! Truly, Mark Zuckerberg came with the brainwave of the century when he thought of starting The Facebook. The creative genius that he was, he thought there was a way to socially and virtually connect people across the world. The idea of facebook is not as much inspired by need as it is inspired by creativity. It is indeed a shining illustration and reinstates what creativity can do to an entrepreneur. Needless to mention, that Mark is now a millionaire. Intuition can be viewed as a core business competency which is influenced by the ability to be creative. There are also a number of other contributing internal and external factors that impact creativity: entrepreneurial creativity requires a combination of intrinsic motivation and certain kinds of extrinsic motivation a motivational synergy that results when strong levels of personal interest and involvement are combined with the promise of rewards that confirm competence, support skill development, and enable future achievement (Amabile 1997:18). Entrepreneurship has played a major role in fostering economic growth and also in generating employment. Along this process, the impact of creativity has been substantial. Entrepreneurial creativity, however, exists before, during and after the lifetime of a particular business since it is shaped in part by the social world and by the individual decision maker (Fillis and Rentschler 2006). Uncertainty and creativity are in effect interlinked. Both together define an entrepreneur. The relationship between the two can be expressed in the following manner. An entrepreneur introduces a new product with creativity and then releases it under some uncertainty. The idea thus begins with creativity and then gets linked with uncertainty. Creativity can be used to deal with the ambiguity and uncertainty in decision-making by matching the nonlinear responses of the entrepreneur to that of the business world. Uncertainty has not tended to be modelled in investigations of creativity and social networks, although it is very much part of an entrepreneurs environment (Perry-Smith and Shalley 2003). However, within new product development processes, it does receive attention in terms of moves to reduce it in order to secure the desired commercial effects. Creativity can also contribute to dealing with ambiguity. While uncertainty refers to a lack of information, ambiguity refers to the existence of multiple and conflicting interpretations regarding an organisational situation (Kijkuit and van den Ende 2007): Creativity when practiced by the entrepreneur is called creative action. It is impossible for an entrepreneur to sustain his position in the market if his product is just like many others in the market. There is only room for the product which is different. Consumers today, are not willing to buy anything that is outdated. Thus an entrepreneur has to ensure that his product satisfies the need appropriately and also is up to date. It is this challenge that necessitates creative action. For instance, Apple had launched iPhone 2G. Then, they upgraded it to iPhone 3G, then to 3GS, then 4G , then 4GS and finally 5 as they know they need to change with time. This shows Apples persistent creative action in keeping up with the latest technology as the company is aware that if it fails to keep up with the world, it will lose its control over the market. Having entered a particular market, for an entrepreneur to maintain the position of his enterprise, he ought to keep up his creative action. It is widely said and people are made to believe that opportunities dont come knocking to your doorstep and more so if you are an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur has to seize an opportunity before some other entrepreneur finds it. Once again for this as well, he needs to put at work his creative talent. Also such kind of creativity normally comes out of a person when there is a problem being considered and due to which the entrepreneurs keep getting solutions for the problem and then idea is being generated related to the problem and finally creativity then plays a major role and it gives an opportunity to an entrepreneur. But its not always when a problem is being seen an entrepreneur finds the solution for it is not always certain as many times the entrepreneurial action leads to failure. As said by Schumpeter that innovation is a necessity as people demand different products as the time changes hence creativity and opportunity plays a major role during that time and creative becomes necessity for an entrepreneur without which he would not be successful. Creativity, problem solving and intuition interact in order to produce an appropriate strategic vision for the entrepreneurially led organisation (Markley 1988). Mainly entrepreneurial learning is the process by which an entrepreneur acquires knowledge related to the business by exploiting opportunities This learning of Entrepreneur is socially embedded and provides the entrepreneur with human and social knowledge resources. The main reason for entrepreneurial learning is constructing the ambiguous and individualised realistic ideas for an entrepreneur.it is also a way by which entrepreneur develop knowledge and skills and make a business model .Hence forth for entrepreneurship learning is very essential for all the entrepreneurs as without which uncertainty might be created instantly. Also entrepreneurial learning is a key mechanism for innovation, as through which new opportunities would be discovered. After having discussed the concepts of uncertainty, creativity and their interlink and relationship with entrepreneurship, it will also be insightful to discuss the economic theories of entrepreneurship. Economic theories overall tell us that entrepreneurship takes a birds eye view of human action. These theories explicitly tell us how an entrepreneur should allocate his resources in order to maximise his output. These all points are essential for an entrepreneur. Also there are mainly two kinds of historical theories which have been used they are the Classical and Neo Classical theories. And then later new modern economic theories were introduced regarding innovation as the key aspect. As an economic system, in his book The Wealth of Nations in 1776, Adam Smith perceived capitalists as owner-managers who combined the basic resources of land, labour, and capital into successful enterprises. The classical capitalistic economic system, based on the concept of private ownership of property, assumed the creation and distribution of wealth through the exchange of goods and services through open, uncontrolled markets open to all buyers and sellers. In the late 19th Century, Leon Walras (1874) and Alfred Marshall (1890), separately, developed similar models of capitalist economics that incorporated a logical framework capable of mathematical analysis (Kirchhoff, 1997). The key concept of the new models was that markets consist of many buyers and many sellers who interact so as to ensure that supply equals demand. This Neoclassical theory was designed to show that capitalism characterized by perfect markets and unfettered by outside interference distributes wealth among bu yers and sellers and creates wealth in the process. Joseph Schumpeter (1934), one of its early critics, saw innovation as the key for creating new demand for goods and services and entrepreneurs as owner-managers who started new, independent businesses to exploit innovation. To Schumpeter, an entrepreneur was a person who destroyed existing economic order by introducing new products and services, by creating new forms of organization, or by exploiting new raw materials. A classic example of all that is discussed above in the essay would be to consider the introduction of automatic cars by General Motors back in 1940s. It was a time when cars were not even seen world over but inspite of that, General Motors possessed the creative vision to innovate and develop the first ever automatic car of the world. As this was a new concept, it was a big risk on the part of General Motors to launch a car of such a high standard. Very obviously then, the uncertainty surrounding this newly made automatic car was enormous. However, their creative action proved fruitful and their vision was rewarded as today, the entire western world is seen zooming around in automatic cars. If this is not enough, to remain ahead of their rivals, the big car companies of BMW, Mercedes Benz are continuously introducing new features through creative action to maintain their position among the top bracket for car buyers. Entrepreneurs are evidently the most dynamic members of an economy. As we have seen, they are the ones who bring exciting new products and services to the market, create new demand which facilitates further supply and thereby further production and better returns to factors of production. All this in turn keeps the economy on its toes. Further, the less productive firms of the economy are induced to enhance their productivity and performance and thereby improve the quality of products in the market. All this, the entrepreneur does under strict uncertainty with heavy dependence on his instinct.

The Character of Yolanda Garcia in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Acce

The Character of Yolanda Garcia in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and !Yo!  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   Julia Alvarez develops the character of Yolanda Garcia in some different and similar ways in her two books How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and its sequel !Yo!. The reasons for the differences in the two characterizations of Yolanda is that there is almost no continuity concerning her character in the two books-meaning that all the specific details of Yolanda's life given to the reader in the first book are different (not continued nor elaborated upon) in the sequel. It was almost like reading about two different characters that just happened to have the same family and happen to have immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic. For example, in the first book Yolanda goes to graduate school, becomes a teacher, and only shows interest in writing poetry. She also marries a man named John after having fallen in love with a young man named Rudy in college. In the second book Yolanda does not go to graduate school, in fact, she almost does not get her b achelor's degree because she elopes with a young man named Darryl Dubois. She does become a teacher, but she publishes mainly prose-short stories and novels-not poetry. Whereas, the similarity in the two different characterizations of Yolanda is that she is definitely assimilated to American culture, yet her Old World values and lifestyle also influence her.    In both books it is clear that Yolanda has successfully assimilated to American culture. Unlike her parents-first generation immigrants-who never gain a complete mastery of the English language, Yolanda masters the language and excels in school. In the second book, one of her college professors has the f... ...Old World roots and that its traditional values still have a significant impact on her. Yolanda must continually reconnect with her Old World roots to fulfill her destiny of passing on her family's heritage/story to future generations.    Works Cited Primary Sources Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. New York: Plume, 1991. - - - . !Yo!. New York: Plume, 1997. Secondary Sources Alvarez, Julia. Something to Declare: Essays. New York: Plume, 1998. Barak, Julie. "'Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre': A Second Coming into Language in Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents," MELUS Spring (1998), http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2278/1_23/53501904/print.jhtml. Accessed 04/07/2001. The Author Project. "Julia Alvarez." http://ahs.aps.edu/authorproject/juliaalvarez.html. Accessed 04/07/2001.