The New Yorker July 21, 2008 Cover: Satire or Racist?

On the fourth week of July 2008, people were astonished as The New Yorker Magazine graced the stands. The cover page showed Barry Blitt’s illustration depicting Barrack Obama wearing a traditional Muslim outfit with a white cap or taqiyah, a white robe or thawb in light brown overtones covering a pair of black pants and brown sandals. Obama’s taqiyah covered a turban that showed his ear prominently unlike Middle Eastern Arab turbans that cover their ears. Moreover, his thawb length is midway between the knee and the ankle which reflects an orthodox Muslim dress code. Obama is also shown doing a knuckle greeting with his wife Michelle that â€Å"Fox News’ E. D. Hill calls a ‘terrorist fist jab’†¦ [that is] †¦usually seen used by other prominent terrorists†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (The Acropolis). Meanwhile, Michelle Obama was shown in an afro hairstyle, a black blouse, camouflage pants and combat shoes. She also has a bandolier and a grayish-greenish, banana-type assault rifle slung at her back. The rifle looked much like an AK47 variant without the AK’s trademark brown, wooden stock. Barrack and Michelle stood at the oval office in a happy demeanor. Barrack was portrayed with his usual serious, but smiling face while Michelle’s smile was more obvious that revealed her prominent cheekbones in a blush. Michelle stood by the left side while Barrack stood by the right side. At Barrack’s back is a golden framed half-faced portrait of Osama Bin Laden in pure white cap and robe and just below the portrait is a fireplace showing the American flag with flames but not yet burnt. The New Yorker’s cover page certainly had shock value yet after careful thought and research, the illustration was really a satire rather than a racist statement. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, a satire is â€Å"a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn; and trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly† (â€Å"satire†). The Encyclopedia Britannica further elaborates that a satire is an â€Å"artistic form, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform† (â€Å"satire†). Racism, on the other hand, is â€Å"a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race; and racial prejudice or discrimination† according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (â€Å"racism†). Racism is further elaborated as â€Å"any action, practice, or belief that [says]†¦that humans are divided into separate and exclusive biological entities†¦[and that]†¦a causal link between inherited physical traits,†¦personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural behavioral features†¦[make]†¦some races†¦innately superior† than others by the Encyclopedia Britannica (â€Å"racism†). As a satire, the illustration has a meaning behind it and should not be taken literally as what it is shown. However, some people will easily take the meaning of the illustration as a racist statement and think that the artist, Barry Blitt, thinks Barrack Obama and Michelle are not worthy to lead this country. The New Yorker Magazine has been published since February 21, 1925 and is sold nationwide. Its format deals with political commentary and cartoon covers that are somewhat ‘unreal’ yet funny. It is also quite proud of its Cartoon Bank and â€Å"sells prints of†¦cartoons and covers†¦Ã¢â‚¬  A quick view on the contents of its July 20, 2009 issue show some topics as follows: a) Hendrik Hertzberg on Sarah Palin; b) John Colapinto on Senator Al Franken; and c) Elizabeth Colbert on America’s obesity problem, to name a few. The Obama cartoon was published on July 21, 2008 right at the heat of the US Presidential Election campaigns. Various rumors during that time have circulated accusing Barrack Obama as a â€Å"‘radical Muslim’ who ‘will not recite the pledge of allegiance’† (Snopes. om, â€Å"Barrack Obama†) and have sworn in on the Quran as Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison did (The Acropolis) (Snopes. com, â€Å"Who is Barrack Obama†). Issues also included President Barrack Hussein Obama Junior’s middle name ‘Hussein’ which was associated with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (Snopes. com, â€Å"Who is Barrack Obama†). Moreover, Obama’s wife, Michelle, was not spared from close public scrutiny. Her undergraduate thesis at the Princeton University in 1985 with the statement â€Å"blacks must join in solidarity to combat a white oppressor† has been quoted out of context (Snopes. om, â€Å"Michelle Obama’s Thesis†) and detractors have associated such statement with Black Panther Party for Self Defense political activist, Angela Yvonne Davis (Davis). The State of California charged Davis as an accomplice to conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide for the shotgun registered to her name that killed Judge Harold Haley in an escape attempt of the ‘Soledad Brothers’ that the Black Panthers supported (Davis). Davis has been acquitted then she temporarily re located to Cuba before going back to the United States and ran as a candidate for the Communist Party USA (Davis). With these rumors, the Blitt cartoon cover for the New Yorker can now be more easily understood. Obama has been dressed as an orthodox Muslim to depict rumors about him as an Islamic radical. In addition, since Obama has been educated in Indonesia as a kid, his Muslim attire closely resembled Indonesian Muslim dress codes rather than the Middle Eastern Muslims’. Accusations against Obama for his ‘unpatriotic behavior’ have also been symbolized by the American flag thrown into the flames of the Oval Office’s fireplace. Michelle has also been portrayed in an Afro hairstyle that was synonymous to Angela Davis. Moreover, since Davis had ties to Cuba, Michelle was dressed as a Revolutionary in camouflage pants with an assault rifle at her back that looked like an AK47—a popular symbol among Communist revolutionaries. It can now also be easily discerned why Osama Bin Laden’s portrait was in the backdrop. First, Obama sounded like Osama. Second, Obama’s middle name ‘Hussein’ is the same as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s. These two world figures tied Obama to the rumors that Barrack was a Muslim extremist. As John Aravosis of Weblog described the cartoon: â€Å"†¦New Yorker thinks it’s funny to make Mrs. Obama some radical black panther, Barrack Obama basically a terrorist†¦and they’re even burning the American flag in the Oval Office†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Stirland). The New Yorker cover on Barrack and Michelle Obama is a satire for the following reasons: a) the magazine has a reputation for satirical cartoons portraying political issues and personalities; b) the artist, Barry Blitt, is a known satirist and has made statements on the issues and rumors surrounding Obama; and c) the cartoon or artwork itself is full of symbolisms that convey irony and sarcasm. Following the same track, Blitt’s illustration is really not a racist statement against Barrack Obama because the New Yorker is a liberal, cosmopolitan publication and the symbolisms of the cartoon show otherwise. A quick look into the New Yorker archives show that the magazine has been consistent since 1925 on its satire, focus on American politics, and political humor. It has developed its reputation along these lines. In a pro-Obama blog entry in The Acropolis, Dylan the blogger has this to say: â€Å"Obviously, the New Yorker cover was satirical. It also elaborates that: â€Å"Even faithful Fox News watchers will have to see the cover and hear anchors admit that it is a satire—that the images it depicts are making fun of rumors that are not true. † Likewise, in an anti-Obama blog entry in the ‘Old Atlantic Lighthouse’ notes: â€Å"The New Yorker Magazine†¦is now in full retreat mode to say it was simply mocking Christianity, Israel, America, the West, white people, the Constitution, self rule, and the resistance to Islam. Most of all, New Yorker editor, David Remnick, explained the controversial cover: â€Å"The idea is to attack the lies and misconceptions and distortions about the Obama’s and their background and their politics† (Stirland). Also, Barry Blitt is a known satirist. He has nine illustrations in the New Yorker with the title â€Å"The Politics of Satire. † He has also made statements about the cover like: â€Å"I think the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic in certain sectors is preposterous,† and â€Å"It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is. Most of all, his illustration is titled:  "The Politics of Fear. † The title alone that Blitt has coined on his work conveys a message that certain politicians are playing on people’s fear that Obama was black, a Muslim, a terrorist and unpatriotic. Most importantly, the illustration was a satire because the artwork itself is full of symbolisms that convey irony and sarcasm. One, the Obamas were smiling. Two, Barrack’s thawb is not pure white unlike Osama Bin Laden’s pure white cap and robe at the backdrop portrait. A pure white cloth has unique symbolisms in the Islamic faith. Three, Michelle crossed her legs while standing up as if crossing her fingers in wishful thinking. Four, the assault rifle’s color did not really feel like the real AK47 with a brown, wooden stock and wooden barrel encasement. Finally, although the American flag was in the fireplace with flames, the flag was not in flames and is not burning. The flag stayed whole and was not even partially consumed by fire. Nevertheless, some people disagree and contend that the cover was an insult and racist. Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake observed: â€Å"†¦Most people who see this cover are just going to see the image of Obama in a turban. It reinforces a critical piece of misinformation that right wing propagandists have advanced in order to poison the political climate in this country and make it that much more difficult for a person of color to be elected president†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Stirland). Roger Simon noted: †It probably doesn’t encourage people to vote for him in America today. (Stirland). Likewise, John Aravosis of Weblog said: â€Å"†¦Is the New Yorker so out of touch that they don’t realize that much of America, or at least too much of America, harbors these very concerns about Obama and his wife? † (Stirland). Finally, Matt of The Acropolis, sarcastically observed: â€Å"†¦I’ve heard so many students at MSU tell me, ‘Aw, come on, man. Ever yone knows that guy’s a freaking Muslim. ’ Ok, maybe it was only, like two students, but I’ve heard even more adults say the same thing. It’s truly insane. † In conclusion, Blitt’s cartoon cover of The New Yorker magazine is a satire. The magazine is widely known for its criticisms and satires and literary views on social and political issues. This cartoon is not the first satire that The New Yorker had published or Blitt created. The magazine had no bad intentions for Obama’s political career or his personal life. The New Yorker was just trying to make business and doing what they were known for. Perhaps people should look more closely before making a judgment when they see something out of the ordinary.

Mother and Honesty

Shu Kitamura Mr Bell AP Lang 14 March 2013 Escaping The Pain I believe in honesty. I believe that a man should never lie; any human being, regardless of what situation he or she is in, should never lie. Honesty is the core of trust. Without being honest, one cannot be trusted. Because of the corruption that lies within our souls, there is not a single person in this world who has never lied. Honesty is the noble act in which one must be truthful to his or her actions when the moment calls for it.Most people will find it hard to distinguish the moment, but being honest should be the priority. Honesty is an action that is free from all kinds of evil motives. There are times when parents lie to their children. I remember growing up believing that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and all those other imaginary things were real. Lies like that are hard to confess to, especially to little children who dream about what they are getting for Christmas. That innocence does not allow us to confess to these fantasies. But there needs to be a time when a parent must be honest.I remember when my father told me that the tooth fairy did not exist. He sat down with me and said â€Å"Shu, the Tooth Fairy isn’t real. Your Mum has been the fairy. † The rest of the day I was in shock. The many dollars that accumulated have all been my mother’s money. It was not until after a few years did I realise why my father told me. It was so that I could grow from a baby to a boy. My whole life of fantasies was a lie. But it was to protect me. I realised that it was only a matter of time before I knew that Santa Claus was not real.My father took responsibility and told me the truth. That is honesty. There are exceptions to when people have to lie to protect other people like children. It was to preserve a sense of innocence that would eventually die out. But in a sense, it was a lie. In addition to these little situations, there are many more problems out there. For example I shmael Beah was lied to so he could join the army and fight against the Rebels. The generals took advantage of the fear and innocence that he had and turned him into a killing machine.As his life progresses, he becomes more and more brainwashed as the generals feed him with fallacies and hatred. Once he was retired from the battlefield, he attended a rehabilitation centre for the war- torn children. Soon he was fed the truth and he was rescued. He could now see the world through his very own eyes. He believed that every child was lied to and that it was his mission to save others from these lies. Beah and I were both lied to yet the outcome was the same as we both lived in a fantasy. And once the truth was exposed, he was saved and I matured.Honesty and the truth is the same thing, as both words intertwine in meaning and value. It is a valuable virtue that should be present among all people. When everyone in this world is honest, the world becomes honest and it becomes the â€Å"id eal† or â€Å"perfect† society. And so, people should practice honesty everyday whenever possible, so that an honest world can be built for ourselves and for future generations. I believe that one day, the world will unite as a whole with no pain and suffering. I believe in honesty.

Auto Industry in Canada

To fully understand why Canada is one the wealthiest nations in the world, we need to pay particular attention to Canada’s economic history. The economic history of our country has been marked by many important events that have paved the way for a successful economic future. A brief economic history of Canada would pay particular attention to important events such as the economic boom of the 1920s, the dark times of the 1930s; the Second World War during the 1940s and to also not forget the important trade agreements such as the auto pact and the NAFTA.Despite the above mentioned important events, Canadian economy has also been greatly influenced by its own economic sectors. Our economy has undergone through major changes during the past 3 decades. One of the factors that had an enormous impact on the economy of Canada has been that of the automotive industry. The automotive industry was born in the early years of the 20th century and it has since then, expanded very quickly. (White, 2007, p. 3) The expansion has proved to be economically profitable and also unsuccessful at times.This essay will examine the economical and political impacts of the auto industry in Canada during the past years, by paying special attention to the economic regional imbalance, the auto pact, the North American Free Trade Agreement and also the shift in the Canadian auto market, from American automakers to the Japanese automakers during the past three decades. The automotive industry expanded Canada’s economy by increasing the employment levels, the improvement of roads and contributed to an increase in revenues due to licences and gasoline fees.It also strengthened the economical relationship with our neighbours to the south and has also improved the economy of the southern provinces as it is heavily concentrated in the province of Ontario with major assembly plants in Windsor and Oshawa. The first car was produced in 1888 by Karl Benz in Germany, where as in Canada â €Å"commercial production did not being until after 1900† (White,2007, p. 5) Many Canadian automakers tried their luck but only some succeeded, as the automobile market in Canada was overtaken by the United States in the early stages of its production.It is very important to understand that the beginning of the automobile industry is closely connected to that of the United States. Many people link the creation of the automobile industry in Canada with the American automaker Ford. The design of the American automakers is entirely different from that of the Europeans and this was set early in the history of the car production. The Germans and the French build quality and modern cars which could only be afforded by the rich, where as the Americans were faced by an economic dilemma therefore they build cars that the public at large could afford, at a cheaper quality than the Europeans.As White states in the 1920s the industry hit its stride, expanding such that Canada became the second-largest producer of automobiles in the world. † (2007, p. v) The automobile changed many aspects of the lives of Canadians. The car gave Canadians the leisure they didn’t have before the 1920s. Now they were able to travel long distances comfortably, to find jobs far away from home as now it was easier to get to work. The automobile also allowed for the construction of the hard surface roads. Norrie at al states that by the 1928, there were 8600 km of concrete or macadamized roads in the province (2008, pg. 89) As the number of cars per person increased so did the number of licensed vehicles in Canada. Norrie et al states that by 1923 the number of automobiles in Canada had risen to nearly 1. 2 million (2008, p. 288) Employment rates were steadily rising with the rise in the number of manufactured cars in Canada. The opening of big plants throughout Canada in cities such as Windsor and Oshawa closely contributed to higher employment rates. In 1920 the average num ber of employees in the automobile manufacturing industry was 8,281 where as 6 years later it increased to 11,905. The sun life assurance company, 1956, p. 3 table 1) Even to this day almost 90 years later, these cities are heavily depended on the employment by the automakers. The increase in employment contributed to an increase in the lifestyles of Canadians. Also government revenues increased with the expansion of the automobile industry. They had to find a way to maintain the roads therefore licensing and gas fees were introduced. The automakers did not only increase the lifestyle of the people in the southern provinces but they had a big impact on the western provinces also.Agriculture was one of the many industrial sectors that benefited from the automakers. With cars being built it was now easier for the farmers to sell their products in the market. They now had a more comfortable way to travel and this made their jobs easier. Also the introduction of the farm tractors was a big help in the agriculture industry. The farm tractors increased crop quantities and livestock volume. The tractor was a great invention as it was more efficient and less time consuming. One of the negative impacts of the automobile industry in Canada is that of the regional economic imbalances between the provinces.With the manufacturing being heavily concentrated in Ontario, the other provinces of Canada do not get the same economic output as Ontario does. â€Å"Ontario is considered by far the wealthiest province. The province generates almost 50 percent of Canada’s GDP which translates into a staggering 675 billion dollars. Many analysts describe Ontario as the powerhouse of Canada and a serious contender in North America as well as globally† (Ohmae, 73) The manufacturing plants are situated in the southern province so they could be closer to their parent American companies. The export of the manufactured cars has also increased the GDP of the country.This also sh ows that with the most jobs being in Ontario, Canada’s population is heavily concentrated in Ontario as the province offers more employment opportunities. â€Å"Between the years of 1981 to 1995, Ontario’s exports, primarily in the United States, almost quadrupled from $38 billion to $140 billion. Exports to the other provinces doubled but when we compare exports to the rest of the world in contrast to the rest of Canada the exports dropped from 28 per cent to less than 20 per cent â€Å"(Courchene, 278). The above figures show that Ontario is exporting more to the rest of the world than the other provinces.When it comes to exporting to other countries, Ontario exports more to the United States than any other country in the world. Ontario is better off economically because other important industries are located in the provinces. Industries such as the telecommunication industry are also located in Ontario. Therefore with this being said, Ontario is mostly depended on the United States rather than on the other provinces. The auto industry expanded during the 1920s as already mentioned in this essay. A good reason for this was the fact that Canadians themselves were buying cars, since they were a hot commodity during those years.The auto industry was always dominated by the United States and never by the Canadians and this is why many people wonder if the auto industry in Canada is actually Canadian. The second economic boom for the auto makers were the years after the Second World War. After the war production increased as demand was able to meet supply. The industry moved into a period of growth and prosperity after the war. White states: the number of passenger cars produced rose from almost none at the end of the war to 193, 000 in 1949. (2007, p. 71) However during the 1950s the European auto makers ook the upper hand as they had established good production technology. With this technology they were able to produce cheaper and smaller cars, therefore demand for the American auto market started going down. Anything that affected the United States, affected Canada as we were their biggest car manufacture. If the American auto market was to go down, the Canadian economy would crash with them. To better the economic situation and to help the auto industry at home and to save jobs and the live hood of many Canadians, Canada and the United States signed the auto pact in 1968.The Automotive Products Trade Agreement was not based on free trade but it did however remove tariffs on cars and automotive parts between Canada and the United States. It made exports between the two countries cheaper, therefore by raising Canadian exports into the United States. The auto pact helped both countries in dealing with the economic situation at the time. Analysts say that Canada reaped the most benefits from the auto pact as the big 3 ford, general motors and Chrysler ensured that auto production remained and expanded in Canada.Employment in creased in Canada during the years that the auto pact was still in power. Wallace states that the auto pact was phased out in 2001 as its provision were ruled to contravene WTO regulations by favouring particular corporations (2002, p. 114) The auto pact is also one of the best examples that shows the government’s intervention in the market place. The auto pact shows that it was necessary for the government to intervene in helping the economy out and making sure that employment levels did not go down.The economy also expanded because of the North American Free Trade Agreement signed in 1994 between USA Canada and Mexico. The North American Free Trade Agreement opened the doors to free trade between the 3 countries to ensure economic prosperity for North America. Considering that the United States is our biggest exporter and we export 80 % of our goods to our neighbours in the south, it was economically wise to make such an important step. The country’s GDP has steadily grown wince the implementation of the trade agreement.According to the organization for economic co-operation and development Canada’s Gross domestic product has steadily increased at a rate of 3. 42 percent annually. (OECD, 2010) Since Canada has joined the North American Free Trade Agreement and has eliminated tariffs on auto parts used for manufacturing purposes in Canada, our automotive surplus and sales have increased and so have the employment rates. According to Industry Canada employment growth has been highest in the auto parts manufacturing sector, as output rose to supply North American vehicle production.Also Canada is integrated in the North American Market with annual sales of 20 million vehicles and has an overall automotive trade surplus of $ 4. 6 billion on flows totalling % 159. 1 billion. (Industry Canada, 2009). As we can see Canada has economically benefited from free trade with the United States, this however does not go without saying that throughout t he years, the North American Free Trade agreement has intervened on our political matters and disputes between Canada and the United States have increased throughout the years.A good example of one of the biggest disputes would be that of the Softwood lumber. However, despite all the negative impacts of the North American Free Trade agreement we can generally say that Canada has greatly benefited from this agreement. The auto industry has gone through major changes since the auto pact in 1965 and the implementation of the North American Free Trade agreement in 1994. The American auto makers had a financial downturn in 2009 and the big 3 was very close to filing for bankruptcy if the Canadian and American government would have not bailed them out.Many blame the American financial crisis for the financial meltdown of the automotive industry, where as others blame their profit driven practices. The automakers asked the government for loans and also went through restructuring plans and downsized their plants. They let go a lot of employees and shut down many plants across North America but not in Canada. They went through a process of restructuring as it was necessary for their survival. The Bush government implemented a set of conditions for the automakers, if they were to receive loans from the United States government.These conditions were geared towards the employees as they would be the ones to suffer the most. The global financial meltdown crisis did not only affect the American automakers but also European and Asian automakers. It is generally known that the only way to get out of the recession is to spend, but people cannot afford to spend in times of crisis. Many were laid off and had a hard time surviving the economy as they had no means of support. Once again government intervention was necessary from the Canadians.Considering that the economy in the southern Canadian provinces would go down in ruins, if they American plants decided to show down, the Ha rper government announced that they would offer $3. 5 billion to the automakers. With the help from the Canadian and American government, the big 3 seem to have recuperated from the melt down as they want to rehire their employees in Canada. General Motors announced that they will be rehiring people in Oshawa for the production of cars in 2011.Jones states that Friday’s recall announcement is in addition to another 600 workers GM said will be back at work to produce the Buick Regal. Approximately 1200 GM workers are now on lay off† (2010, p. 1). Many were against the bail out of the American automakers from the Canadian government as they said it would be a waste, where as others were concerned about the live hood of thousands of Canadians. The above quote clearly shows that the Canadian government took the right economic decision to benefit its people in the future. As we can see the big American auto makers are recuperating from the financial meltdown.What they have t o worry about now is competition from the Asian automakers, as they have been taking the lead in the automotive industry since the 1980s. There has been a shift in the Canadian auto market from the Americans to the Japanese auto makers. The Americans still manufacture cars in Canada but the Japanese automakers seem to be dominating the automotive market in the recent years. The Japanese made vehicles are leading the automotive market because of various reasons. The first reason is attributed to the increase in oil prices in the begging of the 1980s.With oil prices going up, people could not afford American made cars anymore as they are known to spend a lot of gas, thus making them economically inefficient. That being one of the main reasons, people turned to Japanese made cars as they are smaller and have fuel efficient engines. White states that the share of the Canadian market supplied by Japanese imports jumped from 6. 6 percent in 1979, the lowest it had been in a decade, to 22. 9 percent in 1982. (2007, p. 89) As we can see the Japanese auto makers were taking big steps in the automotive industry.The recession of the 1980s and the increase in oil prices is what mainly contributed for the turn of events in the favour of the Japanese auto makers. The Canadian government ready to protect the country from the recession of the 1980s put in place policies that required â€Å"motor vehicle manufactures selling significant numbers of vehicles in Canada to invest in Canadian production facilities. † (White, 2007, p. 90). The Japanese auto makers responded to the call of the Canadian government and invested in creating auto plants in Canada.Once again the southern part of Canada profited from this as the plants were located around south central Ontario. The Japanese auto makers had other advantages that the American auto makers did not have at the time. The Japanese had a non unionized work force which worked for lower wages and tougher conditions. More than half of the workforce was made up of young people therefore they did not ask for much other than to be able to support their families. With the share of the Japanese auto makers rising, the American automakers market started dropping rapidly.Another good reason for the Japanese to invest in Canada was the desire to gain free access to the American auto market through the creation of the FTA. Another very important reason why the Japanese cars have a high market share in Canada is because they are responding to the concerns of the general public and especially those of environmental issues. The Japanese auto makers pay attention to the new trends and the problems that face the public at large. They are very flexible and are able to respond to public concerns quickly. They have shown this by producing eco friendly cars such as the Toyota pirus and the hybrid camrys.Lately environmental concerns have become a major issue and these concerns are related to the use of cars as the toxins that they release pollute the air that we breathe. Most environmental damage is caused by driving, therefore big auto makers are asked to change their production practices and produce environmentally friendly cars. Japanese auto makers such as Toyota have answered this call and they have come out with the Toyota hybrid car. A good example of an environmentally friendly car that has swept the market is the Toyota prius that is gasoline electric hybrid.These types of cars use two types of energy sources, gasoline and electricity. The hybrid is a dream come true for the environmentalists as it is as fast as any other car out there and it does not pollute the environment. The automobile technology has changed and as we are shifting towards eco friendly cars the American auto makers are trying to keep up. â€Å"GM cancelled production on its Hummer H1 and ford cancelled production on its Excursion SUV† (Automobile Industry Introduction, 2010) They are also trying to outperform the Japanese auto makers and move towards newer trends such as the plug in rechargeable cars. GM is working towards a gasoline- powered generator capable of charging up the batteries for those occasions when it is not convenient to plug in†. (Automobile Industry Introduction, 2010) As we can see the auto industry has come a long way since the 1920s and it is moving towards newer better trends. It is my personal opinion that the leading auto makers will be those companies that are able to understand and respond to the public’s needs and concerns.In conclusion to this essay it is important to note that the automotive industry in has had an enormous economic impact in Canada and especially on the southern provinces. Created by the big American auto makers, the assembly plants in Canada have raised employment levels and have kept a steady lively hood for Canadians. They have also contributed to a change in Canadian industries such as the agriculture industry, by making farming easier and more efficient. The auto industry in Canada did however create a regional economic imbalance between the provinces in Canada.Ontario is the southern province that has enormously benefited from the auto industry as it is located closer to the parent companies. The location makes manufacturing and exporting of the auto parts easier for both countries. Trade agreements such as the auto pact and the North American Free Trade agreement implemented in 1994 between the United States, Mexico and Canada have also increased employment levels in Canada and maintained a steady economic balance by removing tariffs on importing and exporting goods between the three countries.During the 1980s we saw a major shift from the American auto makers to the Japanese producers of cars. This shift was mainly due to increasing oil prices and the ability of the Japanese to provide more affordable and fuel efficient cars. The global economic meltdown also contributed to the downturn of the American auto makers. With the Americans not being able to meet consumer needs, the general public turned towards the Asian auto makers. The Japanese saw a great opportunity and benefited from this shift.They were able to respond to public concerns regarding eco friendly cars and put in place the production of hybrid cars. These cars have swept the general North American market as they seem to be the perfect solutions for people that cannot afford to spend a lot on fuel and also at the same time want to be environmentally friendly. The Canadian auto industry has had its ups and downs but in general it can be said that it has been a great contribution to the Canadian economy by changing the lives of Canadians and by keeping a steady employment rate.

Exectutive Coaching Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Exectutive Coaching - Essay Example And Terry Larsen wants to turn the bully nature style of management environment into caring and more open cooperate culture which is made up of mutual trust, teamwork, spirit and respect. In the time of Yvette Hyater-Adams and Terry Larsen, they both aimed on these issues and arranged and conducted workshops and training conferences related to diverse cultural, gender discrimination and diversity. The main issues which CoreStates was going through were also the same. There were these inside politics which were eating the environment of organization like termite. So the main issues which a company was going through were culture issues, lack of respect, openness towards diversity, mutual learning, lack of teamwork and trust. Hyater Adams and Terry Larsen though both were from different background believed in same vision and wanted to bring discipline and mentor the people of organization. So they aimed to improve the cultural relation of workers in Corestate. OCCURANCE OF ISSUES: When Hyater Adams joined the Corestate, she being a black woman has always faced hard difficulties. She wanted to apply her broad vision of culture and diversity to the people of Corestate. Being a vice president she had a position to bring and apply her vision which was not an idea leading to personal betterment but to the organization. Tarry Larsen and Hyater Adams

The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock - Essay Example Perhaps that’s why it’s effective, because you do not know what’s going on. The tension is quite evident as the film starts and it never ends until you press stop in your player. I think it is a metaphor for new relationships. The movie Birds is about how jealousy can bring havoc to people’s lives. I personally think fear is a product of ignorance and mistrust, for that matter. And Hitchcock, as a master observer of the human condition, perfectly captures this idea. The story of the movie is loosely based on a novella written by Daphne Du Maurier which has a similar title. However, only the concept and the title were used. The setting, characters, milieu and other elements of the story were dropped. The story is centered on two characters: Melanie and Mitch, who began their relationship at the start of the movie. They met in a pet shop and they quarreled over love birds. Melanie â€Å"lost† the fight and bought the lovebirds and delivered it to Mitc h’s house secretly. This act leads the audience to encounter more female characters: Mitch’s mother (Lydia), Mitch’s sister (Cathy) and Mitch’s ex-girlfriend (Annie). Then when Melanie stays over for a night in Mitch’s house, a bird killed itself (yes, like suicide) because it hit the front door. Then another bird attacks in Cathy’s party, then more attacks come, until the climax came when Lydia discovers her friend lying dead in his bathroom. Many theories started to go about in the town. Talk about the apocalypse was the most popular theory. A tourist cried not to talk such things because it’s scaring her children while an amateur ornithologist claims that those are not bird attacks since birds do not attack. Then a gasoline station explodes, invariably caused by a bird. Then more deaths ensue, and more violence is caused by birds. For some reason, the tourist blames Melanie for the attacks, and then the next big scene we see is tha t Annie is lying dead, with Cathy crying over her. The couple, together with Cathy and Lydia, takes refuge in an abandoned home and they boarded it up. Throughout the night, they hear bird noises on the roof, scratching and trying to break into the house. Now Melanie did some investigation when everybody was asleep late in the night. She discovered that the birds have infiltrated the attic! The birds attacked her, and Mitch comes to save her. The movie ends while the family boards the car as they try to bring Melanie to the hospital, and the birds look at them menacingly, although they did not attack them. The theme of this movie is fear, and our reactions to fear, especially when it comes to personal relationships. Many people have different analyses over the film, and the most convincing take on it is that it’s about the birds symbolizing the women. Look at it this way: the movie’s main characters are Mitch and Melanie. The whole avian ordeal began when they picked u p the fight in the pet shop. Perhaps, you know, the tourist was right in saying that Melanie was indeed the cause of the bird attacks, but of course, we do not know that, and that gap in knowledge provides the necessary tension in the movie. Anyway, Mitch and Melanie are the main characters. Then the movie shows different women characters: Lydia, Cathy and Annie. They’re all basically birds (chicks) and they all vie for the attention of one man, Mitch. This is all about women (birds) being territorial. It is

EPISODIC and Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

EPISODIC and Analysis - Essay Example He is also complaining of shortness in breath, stuff nose and persistence of cough. On the other hand, T.M. denied smoking cigarettes, taking prohibited drugs and drinking alcoholic beverages. He has no allergic reactions to any food, any drug or medication, or any environmental factors. As a patient, he had not complained of pains or of any past hospitalizations. But he is sexually active and had undergone AIDS test. His two other brothers also tested negative of the AIDS test last year. He has had vaccination for milestones completed. He had no previous medications taken or OTC drugs. His parents are positive for hypertension. This seventeen (17) years old African American male was a mesomorph. His physique could be characterized to be predominantly muscular. He was alert being very much aware of his surroundings when he was oriented three times. He had low grade fever at 990F. This was way below the margin of 100.40F or 380C. He was positive for adenopathy for some swelling on the perineal area because of the yellow perineal discharge present. However, he does not have inflamed eyes. He had also no visible wounds, not even rectal rashes. His lungs were clear. This means his respiration was normal. His heart rate was normal at P: 58; RR: 18; T: 99.1 and BP is 139/91. Finally, his nose drainage was clear, but, his voice was hoarse (+). Subsequently, the following plan was designed and suggested for an assessment of the patient after consulting with school clinic: 1) Gonorrhea/ Chlamydia Test – for Urethral Infection – a Non-culture detection of N. gonorrhea – b. Culture positive for N. gonorrhea, with or without confirmation tests; 2.) Test for Rectal/Pharyngeal Infection; 3.) Test for HIV from the patient’s blood collected sample; 4.) DNA probe test must be done to rule out Chlamydia; 5.) Immunodiagnostic test must be done for the antigen-antibody reaction (Engelkirk and Burton, 2007); 6.) For medication, the patient must take: Rocephin 125mg

AFA 201 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

AFA 201 - Essay Example Even worse, some philosophers and historians argue that not all regions and people have a history to consider. In this regard, African history has been deemed to be relatively new especially after obscure remarks were made by some philosophers. From the onset of the nineteenth century, a German philosopher gave a seminar in which he declared that Africa is not a historical part of the world. He emphasized that it had no development or movement to exhibit to the rest of the world. A hundred years later, a Harvard professor Hugh Trevor-Roper shared Hegel’s sentiments and declared that the only history that Africa can share is Europeans in Africa. He further stated that the rest is largely darkness and that darkness is not a history subject. Such sentiments indicate a racist worldview and high ignorance of African achievements. However, besides racism, statements refuting that Africa holds a history are founded on crucial conception of historical sources that are valid. It was believed that development towards progress and changes in societies was to be written at the particular time of occurrence. This insistence on written materials depicted Africa’s past invisible to some historians and to the wider public. Most of the African societies had not developed writing systems prior to the nineteenth ant twentieth century (Taiwo 118). This reveals that there was a paucity of documented records that could be used by historians in the study of Africa’s history. The few documented details stemmed from observers from outside such as European travelers and merchants. Due to this inconsistency, it was widely held that there was no history in Africa. It was however discovered much later that indeed Africa had a rich past confined to Africa’s colonial history. After all, the missionaries, businessmen, and European colonial administrators kept detailed accounts of observations and activities on the continent of Africa (Oladale 319).

User Frustration Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

User Frustration - Assignment Example Errors occur when users get the perception that something in the computing system is not working right making the user unable to reach their task goals. The error might be from either the hardware or the software failure, e.g. a crash. Alternatively, the error might result from actions of users, for example, using wrong commands, or using the correct commands but entering them wrongly, such as a mode error. The situation gets worse if the user is new and is, therefore, unable to troubleshoot the errors. Such users may end up performing actions that only increase the intensity of the error. The error messages given might be too complicated for the user to understand, leave alone responding (Lazar, Jones, Hackley, & Shneiderman, 2006). Users, especially experts, would prefer computer applications that respond promptly. This would save them time and prove to be convenient. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes an application such as web browser may take so long to respond. This inhibits the user from completing the task within the desired time. The time delays occur mostly when users are requesting content from the web. In the end when the user finally gets the requested content, he may not find it that interesting. Long time delays make it harder for users to remember their goals, or even the related context in which the request was made. Web pages that take excessively long to respond make the user believe that an error has occurred, making him frustrated (Lazar et al., 2006). The amount of time spent in running a particular application may cause mood disturbances and discomfort when performing the task. Computer systems that take long response time increase user stress. Emotions play a role in the end-user experience with information technology. Applications complexities and poorly-crafted interfaces result in emotions such as failure, confusion and frustration (Lazar et al., 2006). Frustration originating from errors can be reduced by using bug

The Spitfire Grill Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Spitfire Grill - Essay Example All the characters in this movie are offered a second chance to establish a turning point in their lives through a reinventing that could change their way of life. In that case, residents of town of Gilead, who are characters in the movie The Spitfire Grill (1996), are offered a second chance. However, this is not taken to be a chance for reviving their difficult lives; in fact, they are expected to reinvent themselves from detestable setting, though they take them as a chance of making excuses for procrastination. One of the characters is Nahum, who is portrayed to be antagonistic in the movie due to the conflicts raised between them and Percy, which leads to Percy’s death. Therefore, Nahum gets a possibility to have a manifestation of his life; in fact, Nahum is portrayed as antagonistic person suffering from mid-age crisis. In fact, he lacks confidence due to his failure in life other than ascendancy, and he is egotistical, sexist who evades taking responsibility of his fai lure not managing his real estate company appropriately. Nonetheless, he is offered a chance to take a self-reflection in the entire movie, but he avoids taking chances of avoiding mistakes. The other character is Aomame considered to be among the three main characters; in fact, he helps The Dowager to terminate the male sexists, who bring mischief to women. She holds a notion that peoples alter their memory instinctively, while others alter their history in a way that alleviates their blunders. In contrast, Murakami maintain that people may be acquainted with their faults in an erroneous way. Furthermore, other groups of people who have consistent behaviors of preventing their mistakes, though this happens if they are not offered a second chance. Nonetheless, through his character, it is evident that only one chance and people how are failures deny themselves a chance to cancel their failure. Analysis of these characters indicates that chances are available to achievers, though the re is no absolute causality between achievement and chances, others depicted to be striving for accomplishment other than waiting for chances. During my high school learning, I had high inspirations of becoming the one of the best performing students; in fact, my parents wished the same. Therefore, this led a decision to wait for a chance and attain this objective. However, there were situations when chances would emerge and I took these chances by getting a better score such as during a test, though there were other instances when I could complain that I did not meet my expectations. In this case, this applies to the situation with Estragon and Vladimir in the absurdist play, who were waiting for a Godot by Samuel Beckett; for instance, Estragon and Vladimir were waiting for a chance to meet with Godot. Ironically, Estragon offers a significant motive underneath the notion that waiting for Godot would be meaningless; in fact, there are chances that Godot will offer them a great opp ortunity, though both Estragon and Vladimir had not met Godot; in fact, this chance had no attribute of bringing achievements, instead it would lead to mischief. In conclusion, this paper focuses on analyzing characters in the movie The Spitfire Grill, who had second chance to reinvent their lives. It is apparent that some took this chance to decline other concentration and evade their mistakes; in fact, others

English and Spanglish Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

English and Spanglish - Personal Statement Example Both Spanish and English occupy an important place in my life helping me to communicate and understand other people. In my life, language diversity begins with effective quality education, and whenever we will seek to create multifaceted cultural strategies in schools, they will be readily reflected in my social environments, for these are also shaped by those who graduate from schools and who are actively involved into various types of cultural initiatives that are closely aligned with the major goals in education. Effective communication is not possible without learning and demonstrating good communication skills. My impression is that the general attitude to this language group is hostility that is showed from the side of the white population. Amy Tan writes: "people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her" (Amy Tan). The combination of t hese skills is very important for facilitating effective communication. As for good communication practices, these practices are important for ensuring that my needs and interests are being heard and addressed. What is fundamental for effective communication is "active" listening. Traditionally, good listening entails listening to the content of the dialogue. In the major part of the cases the context of the dialogue is comprised of the tone and physical gestures. These are used by people to express the interests of the group. My English differs from other Englishes so I use many Spanish words and phrases which help me to express my emotions and feelings. Usually, I use these phrases at home and with my friends who understand them correctly. So, I try to avoid Spanishisms while communicate with other people. At present, I belong to Spanish language community. The major specific feature of this community is that the people show a specific kind of attitude to the Spanish spoken population of the island. Similar to Amy Tan, I experience that "there are other Asian-American students whose English spoken in the home might also be described as "broken" or "limited." And perhaps they also have teachers who are steering them away from writing and into math and science, which is what happened to me" (Amy Tan). This fact is very important since it can push language bearers to survive under the effect of many factors. The survival of the Spanish language is the thing that closely depends on the activities of the whol e group. The person that took an active role in the activities of the organization was projected to make a number of rather negative evaluations. Even now the group of rather negative evaluations still continues to be placed on Patois. Language use of these nations continues to be one of the things that still matters. Traditionally, this thing requires people to make little effort to provoke comments. My own experience in working with Spanish group indicates that the remnants of this accent still exist in our society. The main reason for that is the uniqueness of the Spanish language. Even now the language continues to be spoken in the U.S. This tendency remains to be supported by many U.S. residents. The main reason why U still use Spanish often can be simply described as "enjoyment". Once, I was also in the situation close to making a significant linguistic misstep. The situation

Junior Seminar class Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Junior Seminar class - Essay Example l Wild Animals made up 58.3% of the animals featured, Real Domesticated Animals made up of 8.3% of the animals featured, Fantasy Wild Animals made up of the animals featured, and Fantasy Domesticated Animals made up 25.0% of the animals featured. The magazine was made up of 62 pages which means that there was an animal featured for every 5 magazine pages. It is also interesting to note that except for the bird, no other animal was featured twice in the magazine. Other animals featured include the Marine Iguana, Wild Tortoise, Ocelot, Crab, Sea Lion, Elephant, Shark, Monkey, Crocodile, Water Buffalo, and the Horse. Given the nature of the statistics taken from these data, it can be inferred that the publication places a focus on nature and its elements because of the high rate of animals featured in it. The society may also be expected to be a nature loving one because of the emphasis placed on exotic creatures. It may also be noted that a great degree of importance is placed on the animals because of the advertisements and articles made that feature

De-Scalers Essay Example for Free

De-Scalers Essay When water is heated limescale deposits can form, especially in machines such as fully automatic coffee makers, espresso machines and all hot water units. In this context you often hear about hard and soft water. The hardness of the water indicates the proportion of limescale. Your water supply company will provide more information about hardness of your water. If your groundwater flows through calcareous rock layers, eroded magnesium and calcium carbonate will cause limescale deposits in your water. Why do I need to remove limescale? In addition to loss of coffee flavor limescale deposits can severely damage your machine and shorten its lifespan significantly. Limescale deposits in your machine lead to: Longer scalding time with higher electricity charges Lower water temperatures causing inferior coffee flavor Blocked machines pipe Corrosion of metal parts and sealing gaskets Expensive repairs Only regular and timely descaling with a high-quality descaler, such as ceragol ultra Premium Descaler, ensures a long lifespan and optimal coffee flavor. Your coffee maker is a high-tech machine which needs regular, gentle care. What do you expect from your descaler? Limescale deposits are removed by acids in the descaler. Only the right mixture of effective acids and gentle additives for the metal parts and sealing gaskets allows for optimal results during descaling. The quick reaction time and immediate reusability of the machine after rinsing are basic demands on a premium descaler. Why amidosulfonic acid? Descaling with citric or acetic acids The big problem when descaling with citric or acetic acids are the released flavor additives which cause an obtrusive smell during descaling. The plastic parts of your fully automated coffee maker tend to taken on these smells and influence the smell and taste of your coffee negatively. Plastic parts and sealing gaskets of your unit can be attacked by the vinegar or acetic acid. Citric acid tends to flake during descaling. This can block the valves and water pipes and lead to high repair charges. An additional problem is that the limescale is actually sealed in by an indissoluble layer which occurs repeatedly when using descalers based on citric acids. Descaling with vinegar, acetic acid or citric acid takes significantly longer than descaling with ceragol ultra Premium Descaler. Descaling with amidosulfonic acid Descaling with amidosulfonic acid, the active ingredient of our ceragol ultra Premium Descaler, does not require any reaction time. During the descaling program the limescale is dissolved and flushed away. This process is completely odorless and neutral in taste. After thorough rinsing your machine is once again food-safe. The additives in ceragol ultra Premium Descaler guard and protect the metal and plastic components of your fully automatic coffee maker. The right time to descale Automatic coffee machine w. auto descaling indicator Please ask your water supply company about the hardness of your water and set the water hardness according to the operating instructions of your manufacturer. Your machine will indicate when descaling is needed. Automatic coffee machine w/o descaling indicator Descaling becomes necessary as soon as you notice a delay in operation or irregularities during coffee preparation. Another telltale sign is the reduction of the amount of foam produced on the coffee. The machine must be descaled periodically and in due time.

Impact Of Government Intervention In India

Impact Of Government Intervention In India In this study the impact of government intervention toward governance and performance of Indonesian state-owned enterprises was investigated, using 114 of total 141 enterprises from year 2006 to 2009 (456 observations) as sample. The study is cross-sectional to estimate how issues of intellectual property assignment, soft budget constraint and political embeddedness affect the economic performance of enterprises. Form of SOEs, number of ownership, government loan, capital injection, number of government officer seat in board of commissioners, as well as government assignment are assigned as government intervention proxies. On the other hand the firm performance is represented by ROA and ROE. The result shows that government ownership, government loan and government assignment have adverse impact to SOEs performance, on the other hand number of government officer on Board of Commissioner is the only intervention with favorable impact. The impact from the rest of government actions are unclear and need to be tested further. Finally, the paper concludes that the government intervention could be either good or bad depend on some other factors. The possibilities of the reasons are discussed Keywords: Government Intervention, Performance, Indonesia, State-Owned Enterprises 1.Introduction The importance of government intervention to the economy has become endless debate among the economist. In fact there is no single nation, even the most extreme among the pros and cons, pursues the pure economy with full or without government intervention. The difference is just the degree. The role of government in transition economies is undeniably critical, which is one of the common ways is through state owned enterprises (SOEs). It is widely known that SOEs throughout the globe have been suspected as ill-governed business entities signified by such as high level of corruption, lack of transparency, as well as severe inefficient. Many market based economist believe that the main reason of such weaknesses is government intervention. Therefore they actively promote liberalization trough privatization of SOEs. In many cases, it can be one of requirements stipulated by the donor institution such as IMF or World Bank in granting financial help to troubling developing countries. However, it may be not true for all cases. Some countries, such as Singapore and china, are example where government intervention doesnt mean harm SOEs performance. Manageable government intervention toward SOEs can lead to excellent performance. This paper aims to: 1) investigate the level of government intervention in Indonesian SOEs; 2) examine the relationship between the level of government intervention and the performance of state owned enterprises. The paper unfolds as follows. In Section 2 description of government intervention in Indonesian SOEs are presented. In Section 3 the theoretical review are described. Variables and hypothesis will be discussed in section 4, meanwhile section 5 will describe data and methodology. Section 6 contains a discussion of result and findings, and final section will conclude the paper. 2. Literature Review in Government Intervention In developing countries government play three roles simultaneously; first, as an economic player that supply and demand for particular services and good [1], secondly as regulator that posses the sole role to produce, to enact, as well as to enforce regulations [2], and last but not least act as the owner of state-controlled enterprises that produce some goods and services.. Previous studies have identified some benefits of possessing connection to state such as improving the legitimacy of firm [2], getting access to government controlled resources [3], being able to affect regulation formulation [4]. Some other advantages are having opportunity over privileged treatment [5][6], and from favor of having asymmetric information state policies [7]. There are three main issue of government intervention are elaborated in this paper. They are intellectual property aspect through control and ownership, budget constraint aspect, and political embeddedness issue. Each aspect is elaborated in the following paragraphs. 2.1. Intellectual Property Aspect First, In broader scope, some ownership-related issues have been addressed by previous researcher. Those issues are state-private, dispersed-concentrated, and domestic-foreign. Those previous researches mainly investigated the relationship between ownership structures with the performance. Nonetheless, most of those researches have been conducted to test hypothesis in private-owned firms. SOEs are a business institution belongs to a society as whole therefore the benefits of it should bring benefits to the society. The problem is if everyone owns it that means no one actually own as a result no one has incentive to utilize the resources effectively and efficiently. Therefore many economists suggest assigning property right by lowering the government control and ownership [8]. The problem believed related to ownership is principle-agent problem that arises when managers act not on shareholders interest. The deviating management goal often hinders the shareholders goal in maximizing their share value. Previous study reveals that efficient information and structure of incentive as a result of the existence of private ownership is believed to able to reduce agency problem [9]. Also argued in [10] that another reason why full private or semi private enterprises are said to have less agency problem is because those firms have better both external and internal governance mechanisms. External mechanisms include market for labor/manager and capital along with all regulation and their discipline and enforcement on them. In the other hand, internal governance mechanism consists of managerial ownership, reward system, and board composition. Meanwhile both mechanism are not exist for the case of SOEs [8]. Furthermore, agency problem in the SOEs sector is worse than th eir peer in the private sector since there are two agency relationships as a breakdown of owner manager, they are owners-to-politicians and politicians-to-managers [12]. However if the portion of share owned by public is dispersed big number of individual of investors and or there is no adequate provisions of protection toward minority shareholders case of partial privatized in the SOEs may not make significant difference [13]. 2.2. Budget Constraint The template is used Another government involvement in economic activity especially in the context of SOEs is in the issue of soft budget constraint. As described in [14]: The softening of the budget constraint appears when the strict relationship between expenditure and earnings has been relaxed, because excess expenditures over earnings will be paid by some other institution, typically by the state. A further condition of softening is that the decision maker expects such external financial assistance with high probability and this probability is built into his behavior. It is also pointed out in that government in transition economies often exploit SOEs to produce public goods and services n financing the resulting social burdens on SOEs through subsidies and loan policy [15]. From several previous research, causes of soft budget constraint can be categorized into some, such as decentralized [16], paternalism [14], and public ownership in socialist economies [17], monopolistic market [18], policy burden [19]. In the context of Indonesian SOEs, two latter causes are relevant. Some particular industries have been still monopolized by one or more SOEs not because of the real competitiveness but just because the government has not liberalized the market yet, for instance seaport, airport, and defense industry. Monopoly also can rise when the industry is not lucrative enough to attract investment from private player. Normally those sectors do not give normal profit to be sustainable in the industry. Consequently, it is related to third causes, when the government wants to execute some economy or political program that may not be done unless having to involve SOE, in this case the SOEs have to shoulder political burden. It is said in [20] soft budget constraint will cause the firm become less responsive to price, technological changes, and unfavorable external condition. They all are root causes of organizational slack. In addition, another consequence of soft budget constraints is that SOEs may not efficient in utilizing their finance resources since capital market cannot discipline SOEs. to format your paper and style the text. All margins, column widths, line spaces, and text fonts are prescribed; please do not alter them. You may note peculiarities. For example, the head margin in this template measures proportionately more than is customary. This measurement and others are deliberate, using specifications that anticipate your paper as one part of the entire proceedings, and not as an independent document. Please do not revise any of the current designations. 2.3 Political Embeddedness As mentioned earlier the relationship between the state and the SOEs is more than just ownership matter. Its position as the regulator in the same time causes the situation, so-called political embeddedness that refers to technical, bureaucratic, or emotional ties to the state and its actors. It includes wide-ranging and intricate association; official and unofficial, personal and organizational ties to the state [21]. Given existence of principle-agent problem mentioned earlier, one way utilized by the shareholder to ensure the management work on owner-based interest is through supervisory board. However, it has been quiet common for the case of SOEs that the members of supervisory board mostly have been selected among bureaucrats from any departments or politicians from any political parties. As stated previously, the presence more official or politician may just deteriorates the existing agency problem because in many circumstances actually there is nothing wrong with the policy, instead the politician misbehavior. In another word, SOEs might be ideal place of rent seeking activities from the member of board of commissioner. From positive side, existence of supervisory member that represent any associated department can become an effective tool to pursue check and balance in managerial process in the company [22]. However, in the transition economy amid the absence of law enforcement toward misbehavior, the existence of more supervisory member will exacerbate the agency problem because of self-interested maximizing politicians or bureaucrats. 3. Government Intervention in Indonesian State-Owned Enterprises Established with a strong legal base, namely, on the article 33 of the countys constitution SOEs have been playing a considerably important role in Indonesian economic development reign. Operating in almost all fields of business, ranging from finance, banking, mining, transportation, high-tech technology to agro-industry, the enterprises have been contributing in several ways. More than 800 thousands workers have been employed across the SOEs. It accounted for % of employment. Then, more than IDR 150 billions of taxes and IDR 28,6 billions of dividend, both combined represented 3,8 % of Indonesian GDP, were paid to the state budget in year 2009. This amount has not been included community development fund allocated from firms profit for alleviating the poverty. However, mentioned contributions do not mean that the ISOEs are in sound governance and performance. Even though Indonesian SOEs is big in term of size, they are mostly weak in term of competitiveness. By employing more than IDR 2.000 billion total assets and IDR 525 billion total equity in year 2009, Indonesian SOEs proceeded only IDR 78 billion net income. It means SOEs accounted for less than 4% of ROA and 15 % of ROE. Compared to their competitors in each industry sector, SOEs has been outperformed. Further inquiry found that 20 SOEs accounted dominantly for almost 90% of the total in term of both net income and total assets. In addition, among those SOEs there are dozens of SOE suffering with huge loss in their financial statement. Revealed facts strengthen public stereotype toward SOEs as inefficient, bureaucratic, less responsive, lack of skillful management, lack of transparency institution. Even though all firms are regarded as state-owned firm, the degree of government involvement to the firms is different one with another. It can be seen from the types and the level of government actions imposed to each firm. Assuming that the form of enterprises and number of state ownership can be used to measure the level of government intervention, in year 2009 Indonesian SOEs comprises 14 government agencies, 111 limited company, 16 listing company. Meanwhile in term of ownership Indonesian SOEs consist of 112 wholly owned, 29 partially owned (not including 19 firms with state ownership less than 50% excluded from this study). Looking at the trend, the number of listing company has been increasing from 12 firms in year 2006 to 16 firms in year 2009. Even the number is supposed to be higher if privatization program was done well for during period of time. For many reason, there are many SOEs ended up with financial difficulties but at the same time unable or unwilling to find external financial resources. At such condition, government usually comes to rescue the troubling enterprises by endowing with capital injection or low-soft government loan. Government steadily poured the almost-bankrupt SOEs with additional capital injection in cash as much as IDR 1,9 trillions per year on average since 2005 to 2010 (accumulatively IDR 9.9 trillion at the end of year 2010). Some SOEs obtained non-cash capital injection, for instance in form of fixed assets transferred from associated ministries that purchased it by using annual the state budget. The latter case is not always advantageous to receiving SOEs, even it is frequently harmful since the transferred assets may be either not needed or not fit. Moreover, to meet SOEs need on working capital and capital expenditure, government also has been providing soft loan in the sense at very low rate and less rigid requirement in comparison with commercial credit rate. In the context of Indonesian SOEs, loan mainly consists of Investment Fund and Subsidiary Loan Agreement (SLA). The two types of loan principally are two step loan; foreign donor to government and then government to SOEs. The outstanding balance at the end of year 2008 is approximately IDR 49.8 trillion to 85 SOEs. Part of that amount, which is around IDR 15.5 trillion or 31%, (31 SOEs) was default at that time. Another type of government intervention is to assign some government programs to SOEs. The program is so called public service obligation (PSO). Around 10 SOEs has been involved to execute government assignment in availing food, fertilizer, energy, and transportation. In turn government transfer hundreds trillions as compensation to the SOEs which is including in it is cost of the program (acknowledge as subsidy for society) plus some percentage of margin for the SOEs. For instance in year 2009 government allocated almost IDR 180 trillion for delivering public service obligation program (PSO) with SOEs as the executor. *Identify applicable sponsor(s) here. (dispensable)4. Variables and Hypothesis To address the issue of intellectual property assignment/ownership control, two variables are employed. They are form of SOEs (FORM) and number of government ownership (OWNERSHIP). In term of form, SOEs are categorized into three groups of enterprises. Those are public agency, company limited, and listing company limited. The main difference among them is the primary goal and form of ownership. Public agency is the firm which its ownership has not been divided into a number of shares. Its main activity is to avail public goods or services as a part of government program. The second form of SOEs form is company limited which is the ownership of the firm has been divided into a number of shares. Although there is still possibility that the firms will become vehicle of government program, however, the main goals of firms are profit maximization. The only different with the last form of SOEs is the shares have been tradeable in capital market. In another hand, the way of strengthening pr operty right also can be done through releasing state ownership and control. It is conducted by inviting other parties such as employee, management, local government, or even public to posses SOEss share. It has been elaborated by some economist that a source of inefficiencies is state control over the firms. It is said that the government is more likely to distract the resources of the firm to attain its own political or socio-economic goals [23]. In addition, government control over enterprises is also suspected to have association with the absence of incentive and lack of monitoring for managers to perform better [24]. Moreover, different forms of state ownership are also associated with the level of government officials involvement in the process of corporate governance and it is likely to have different performance [25]. Form transformation and privatization can be regarded as one way of defining property right. Property right theory suggests that the clearer (more direct and unattenuated) the property rights to be defined, the better the way of utilizing the assets (governance) will be [26]. Hypothesis 1a : Form transformation from public agency to company limited and listing company limited will provide negative impact toward SOEs performance; Hypothesis 1b : Form transformation from public agency to company limited and listing company limited will provide positive impact toward SOEs performance; Hypothesis 2a : Decreasing number of state-ownership on SOEs will give negative impact toward SOEs performance; Hypothesis 2b : Decreasing number of state-ownership on SOEs will give positive impact toward SOEs performance; With regard to soft budget constraint aspect, this study employed two independent variable, namely capital injection (CAPITAL) and government debt (GOVLOAN). In most cases, if SOEs are facing severe financial hardship the state will interfere either by providing loan or capital injection as last resort sources. In contrast to the case commercial bank loan that requires some rigid requirement in obtaining credit and of course with market rate, the government frequently releases many requirements so that the SOEs will be easier to get loan at subsidized interest rate. This government loan present financial benefit to SOEs, mainly because of lower interest rate, no collateral required and lower transaction cost. In case of capital injection the advantages enjoyed by SOEs are even bigger than government loan. Nonetheless, both types of government actions can creates disincentive for managers to govern the firm properly and efficiently including in finding needed financial resources. This may also hinder sound development of capital or financial market. Therefore following hypotheses are set: Hypothesis 3a : Government intervention to SOEs in form of government loan will give negative impact toward SOEs performance; Hypothesis 3b : Government intervention to SOEs in form of government loan will give positive impact toward SOEs performance; Hypothesis 4a : Government intervention to SOEs in form of capital injection will provide negative impact toward SOEs performance; Hypothesis 4b : Government intervention to SOEs in form of capital injection will provide positive impact toward SOEs performance; In this paper, the issue of political embeddedness is examined by employing two variables; involvement of SOEs in executing public service obligation (PSO) and number of government officers seating in the board of commissioner (OFFICERS). PSO is government program to avail the basic need of the people such as electricity, food, medicine, fuel, transportation and soon. Doing so will provide SOEs both benefit as well as cost. The appointed SOEs will financially benefit from captive revenue plus certain percentage of profit given over each particular government assignment. Nevertheless, it also implicitly grants some cost SOEs. SOEs that heavily rely on government assignment as the main source of revenue will be more likely to have unproven competitiveness compared to their private owned peers. In the long run, it also will harm financially. Moreover, too much business transaction with government and its bureaucrats may induce political rent seeking activities that undermine SOEs compet itiveness. With regard to composition of board of commissioner, most of Indonesian SOEs have active or retired officers as well politicians from ruling political parties. It also derives both benefit and cost to SOEs simultaneously. The presence official on the board can be source of legitimacy and facilitator in passing government policy to SOEs and in delivering message from SOEs in effort of influencing the policymakers that ultimately benefit SOEs [4]. Even more, this also can provide SOEs access to resources (such as government project) controlled by department or ministry which is the officials work. On the other hand, Public choice theory states that politician will maximize their interest in gaining more votes so that the firm with less political intervention will be more likely in increasing search for better governance [27]. In addition, as representative of the government, acting officials usually will act on the basis of government interest that is probably not in line with firm objective. Additionally, as argued in [28] the presences of politician exacerbate the agency problem. This means that the presence of officials on the BOC may be perceived with significant costs for the firm. The summation of benefit wrapped and cost burdened will be net impact of political embeddedness. Hypothesis 5a: Public service obligation will give negative impact toward SOEs Hypothesis 5b: Public service obligation will give positive impact toward SOEs Hypothesis 6a: Number of active or retired officers as well as politician on BOC will result negative impact toward SOEs Hypothesis 6b: Number of active or retired officers as well as politician on BOC will result positive impact toward SOEs As dependent variable, this study employs Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) as performance measures. Thanks to its simplicity in calculating as well as its explanatory power both measures were used in previous numerous researches, including for Indonesian SOEs [29]. For control variable, equity is selected as the only variable to represent the size of SOEs. 4. Data and Methodology Financial data were collected from annual report of 114 SOEs (of total 141 SOEs) for year 2006-2009 (456 observations). This sample covers almost 97% of population both in term of assets and sales. The way in giving score for independent variable as follows: SOEs is scored 1, 2, and 3 if their form is public agency, company limited, and listed company limited consecutively; Ownership (OWNERS) is represented in percentage of state ownership, range from 0 to 1; Capital injection (CAPINJ) and government loan (GOVLOAN) are dummy variables. If the SOE did NOT get additional injection in form of cash or noncash capital as well as debt to capital conversion (including debt haircut) within last five years score 0 is given and 1 otherwise for CAPINJ. Meanwhile if there is NO government long term loan balance in the SOEs balance sheet score 0 is provided and 1 otherwise for GOVLOAN; Number of officers or politician (OFFBOC) who seat on board of commissioners is expressed in the number as it is; PSO is also dummy variable which is SOEs that conduct government assignment is valued 1 and 0 otherwise; Equity value has been transformed into ln value to reduce the possibility of multicoliniarity problem; Type of industry which the SOEs operate is also valued using dummy variable, 0 for good production/manufacture and 1 for service provider. Once all data have been identified and inputted, those independent variables are tested to examine the relationship toward dependent variable using ordinary least square method. The regression equations are written as follows: ROE = ÃŽÂ ±0 + ÃŽÂ ±1FORM + ÃŽÂ ±2GOVLOAN + ÃŽÂ ±3OFFBOC + ÃŽÂ ±4PSO + ÃŽÂ ±5CAPINJ + ÃŽÂ ±6OWNERS + ÃŽÂ ±7log.EQUITY + ÃŽÂ ±8CORE (1) ROA = ÃŽÂ ²0 + ÃŽÂ ²1FORM + ÃŽÂ ²2GOVLOAN + ÃŽÂ ²3OFFBOC + ÃŽÂ ²4PSO + ÃŽÂ ²5CAPINJ + ÃŽÂ ²6OWNERS + ÃŽÂ ²7log.EQUITY + ÃŽÂ ²8CORE (2) 5. Result and Findings Table 1 shows the descriptive statistic and correlation. Average ROE of ISOEs, 0,085, is relatively low compared to their private competitor. Meanwhile, average number of government officer and politician on board of commissioner is 3.32. Furthermore, mean of state ownership on SOEs that is 92%, partly because this study doesnt include SOEs with state-minority ownership, less than 50%, but mainly it shows that majority of SOEs are still wholly-owned by the state. With respect to form, most SOEs are in form of limited corporations. In term of core business which SOEs operate, there were more SOEs doing business in service industry compared to manufacture industry. The rest of variables are dummy variable so that the means just show the relative proportion over the observation. For instance, mean of PSO is 0.12 meaning the percentage of SOE executing special government program is around 12% of population. Table1: Descriptive statistics and correlations for ROE as dependent variable Table 2: From table 2, regression run for testing the relationship between government intervention and ROE shows that using 307 observations (after omitting some outliers) roughly 57% variability of dependent variable, ROE, can be explained by all combined independent variable, this score is acceptably high. Employing Variance In ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å¡ation Factor (VIF) and Tolerance statistic critical scores that may signal problem with multicollinearity has not been approached by both scores [30]. Looking at the significance, except GOVLOAN and CAPINJ, the rest of independent variables have statistically significant effect toward ROE. Although FORM and PSO are not significant at 5% confidential level, however, both variables are quite significant at 10% confidential levels. Therefore, in this paper both variables are still considered as significant. Table 2: cooefficients, t statistic, colinearity for ROE as dependent variable From the second equation, which is the only difference from table 1 is that the former uses ROA as dependent variable instead of ROE. The result displayed on the table 3 shows almost similar figure. The ROA score is considerably low at 3.2%. What makes slightly difference is the number of valid observation after taking out the outliers. With regard to correlation, there is no sharp correlation among variables. It support argument that multicollinearity problem is negligible. Table 3: Descriptive statistics and correlations for ROA as dependent variable The second regression results moderately high r square, 0.450. A couple outliers were identified until reaching valid observation is 270. After considering F score, Tolerance and VIF score the model is judged statistically fit. Among predetermined independent variable only CORE was not significant. Table 3: cooefficients, t statistic, colinearity for ROA as dependent variable From the result of two different equation of regression discussed above, the impact of each aspect of government intervention can be summarized as follows: Table 4: cooefficients, t statistic, colinearity for ROA as dependent variable Independent Variable Dependent Variable ROE ROA FORM Positive Negative OWNERSHIP Negative Negative CAPINJ Negative (insignificant) Positive GOVLOAN Negative (insignificant) Negative OFFBOC Positive Positive PSO Negative Negative Ln EQUITY Positive Positive CORE Positive Negative (insignificant) Overall, comparison of the result from two different tests provide strong support for Hypotheses 2b, 5a, 6a, and reject Hypotheses 2a, 5b, and 6b. However some hypotheses are left with unclear answer due to the mixed up result. 6. Discussions From the finding described earlier form has positive impact over ROE, meaning that reducing the government control signified by transformation of SOEs form is more likely to give good impact of SOEs the performance. However, the opposite result was found for second equation which is ROA as dependent variable. The possible reason is SOEs with less control from the government will have more flexibility in raising capital either through equity capitalization (for instance, through initial public offering) or by leveraging debt. SOEs with less government control seem to finance their project using more debt rather than equity. As a result it will keep their equity low so that it can push their ROE higher. Interestingly, when performance measured by using ROA the opposite result prevails. This paper argue SOEs with less government control become less conservative in selecting project in the way that fund obtained from debt/loan have been invested in the project with low return. Not surprisingly, both equations show consistent results regarding the impact of ownership toward performance. The result show more number of government ownership will lead to poorer performance. The presence of other shareholders other than government is expected to be able to enhance governance of the firm through improvement in monitoring, transparency, responsibility, and so on. This is especially for the case of Indonesian privatized SOEs as finding of previous research [31]. With respect to capital injection, the result is mixed up. This variable is statistically significant in relation to ROA but insignificant in the case of ROE with different direction of impact. This finding need to be further investigated by employing other performance variable or by applying qualitative approach. Similarly, the impact of government loan over performance is also indecisive. It is because only one test, which ROA as dependent variable, demonstrates significant result. However, both tests show the same negative impact of such kind of government interference. It can be conclude that the cost of obtaining and optimizing government loan exceed the financial benefit that may be able to reaped. Even possible financial benefit from low interest and low transaction cost of loan acquirement may be offset by illegal transfer paid to rent seeker in bureaucracy. This finding reinforces the previous research conclusion which is soft budget constraint will create conducive environm ent for spoiled managerial behavior [20]. This managers have no incentive to run the firm efficiently, reluctant to compete fairly which will severely harm the firm competitiveness in the long run. Interestingly, the findings with respect to number of government officers occupy seats on board of commissioner appears to be different from common belief that suspect that the presence of officer on board of commissioners is likely to worsen the situation and pe

Cultural Difficulties of Joint Venture in China

Cultural Difficulties of Joint Venture in China The benefits in Joint Venture: JV gives more resources, greater capacity and increased technical expertise. It acts as a representative for marking the companys entrance to a new market when still it is at its learning stage. The mutual trusted partnership and co-operation will lead to its success. It strengthens the long term relationships or it may also collaborate on short term projects which lead them to access a new market and access to new technologies and they can also learn how to tackle the cultural difficulties if they are successful. The risks in joint venture: partnering with another company in an entirely new market is a bit risky. It takes more time and effort to build the right relationship. the problems will likely arise if the objectives of the JV are not clearly mentioned and explained or communicated. Normally the companies have their own objectives which will be different than the JV objectives. Imbalance in levels of expertise, assets and investments will lead to a poor integration and co-operation. Different culture and management styles will also lead to poor performance and co-operation. If both the companies doesnt provide necessary leadership support in early and developing stage of the JV it will also lead to disaster like dissolution. Cultural difficulties may occur for a global company in JV follows below: Understanding the cultural environments is critical to the success of the organisation or a company. Culture is important and it makes difference in the management. Variable  culture and different management styles will lead to dissolution of the venture.   Cultural differences always influence the way of making decision and solving problems. this also may lead to disaster. Unmanageable complexity, loss of autonomy, information  uncertainty and long term orientation will lead to failure of the venture. Human resource management plays a vital role in the Joint venture. Poor human resource  management will lead to ultimate failure of the venture. The companies on their own have different structural style but in a joint venture there is a  different style. It has been learnt in early days the Chinese use so called shame technique. The Chinese do not regard people as mature until they are at least 40yrs old. Most of the Chinese companies are part owned by the GOVT so the business decisions  making are done or influenced by govt burucracies and this will also consume more time  so this may also lead to impatience of global company. Within the advertising industry in China, advertisements have also not been spared from  controversy and national debate. With a strong influence of multi-ethnic Chinese culture  and history, companies are constantly challenged to convey their messages to potential  consumers effectively, accurately, and yet not appear offensive. While the Chinese  embraces globalization, they are not a least hesitant from voicing their dissatisfaction  when the contents of advertisements threaten their strong Chinese values. Western expatriate managers in JVs could be extraordinary. This could make an  expatriate assignment to JV in China and it will be a very frustrating experience. Presumably, cross-cultural training may be particularly helpful for the adjustment of westerners encountering the frustrating work environment in JV. In comparison, the  adjustment of Western expatriate executives in other types of organisations may not be  facilitated as much by cross-cultural training. Senior managers in China have good technical training, but it is not common for Chinese  managers to have formal management training. Besides, they may have little  international experience or understanding of a free-market economy. Such differences  may create substantial problems for expatriate managers in China. Disparity in education  and background may result in lower affinity on an interpersonal level. Differences in age  and experience may lead to further complications. A negative circle can easily take hold,  creating a considerable amount of stress. Unaware of the finer nuances of the local  cultural and social context, Western expatriates may quickly attribute their inevitable  business difficulties to the ineptness of their Chinese JV partners. This attribution could  be reinforced when they are reminded that they have been invited to China to improve on  the business deficiencies of their Chinese counterparts. To the Chinese, the word  contract means only a commercial agreement, not a legally binding document. Signing  a contract is a formal confirmation that they intend to do business with you, not an  indication of how they are planning to conduct business. It is well known that real  negotiation in China begins only after the contract is signed. Any problems arising  there from are due to the fact that the officials in the negotiation process have limited  authority and also tend to interpret the provision of the contract from their own cultural,  political and economic viewpoint. Also, the government frequently changes the  laws; hence, parties to the contract try to keep the arrangements as open and flexible as  possible. Recommendations to enable a joint venture: China is booming market which has  more than 1.3 billion of consumers and it has retained a considerable attraction for  international business. Initially, the Joint Venture law from 1979 only allowed foreign  companies to invest in joint ventures (JVs), but from 1987 onwards they could also form  wholly foreign-owned enterprises. Although the number of wholly foreign-owned  enterprises are increasing at a faster rate. So if a global company wants to market their  products in the Chinese market pyramid then the best option to attain their goal is to  make a JV and reach their goal in china while still in the developing process. China  is distinctly different from most other countries and would be a challenging destination  for Western business expatriates. Their need for effective cross-cultural skills appears to  be substantial, as they have to adjust to a fundamentally different cultural and social  context than their own. That adjustment may be facilitated by means of cross-cultural  training, there is inconclusive evidence of its effectiveness the impact of such training  may be contingent on circumstances at the host location. Hence, the challenges  facing Western expatriate managers in JV could be extraordinary. This could make an  expatriate assignment to a very frustrating experience. Presumably, cross-cultural  training may be particularly helpful for the adjustment of westerners encountering the  frustrating work environment in JV. In comparison, the adjustment of Western expatriate  executives in other types of organisations may not be facilitated as much by cross-cultural training. In organisational settings totally dominated by the foreign parent,  Western expatriates may encounter a less frustrating internal work environment. It is best that the global and foreign company both should seek due representation in the  top management group. They both should offer enough leadership to provide a better  developing process. Human resource management plays a vital role in joint venture before starting the  process for the joint venture they should go for look see process in which they analyse  the key factors like how they are going to train and employ staffs from china with the  help of the JV company, by studying the cultural advantages and disadvantages and what  are the resources they will be needed from the parent company and from the foreign  company. Next the key task should be picking the right person for the right job and they  should also keep in mind that in china they consider the person is mature when at least  they are 40 yrs old others will be considered as kids, so they should keep the age in mind  when they are appointing key persons in the company. Language training may vary from brief survival language instruction to extensive,  immersion training, aiming for complete spoken and written fluency. Host language  ability may serve several purposes. Besides facilitating communication with locals, it  may also demonstrate an attitude of attempting to learn about the host culture, enabling  one to be polite, and permitting cultural understanding not otherwise possible. They three key dimensions of in-country adjustment: (1) adjustment to work; (2) adjustment to interacting with host nationals; and (3) adjustment to the general non-work environment. For a successful company it should establish a good relation with the partner company to learn the cross culture and what are the key tasks they should concentrate to acquire the required knowledge for implementing the process to form a greater JV company. They should provide training for the people in the organisation to understand basic tenets of Chinese values, norms, and behaviours through cross-cultural training may facilitate the daily work routines of the Western expatriates increasing their work adjustment. In a Joint venture both the companies should learn their foreign languages in order to improve the communication and share information which will lead them to success in the joint venture. Both companies should share their resources, technology and analyse the aims and objectives of the company to succeed in the JV. Marketing is one of the major tasks in the joint venture company are any company. Marketing: Marketing, among all business functions, is most down-to-earth in terms of dealing with customers. As ordinary customers, every one of us already knows about  marketing. After all, it is all around us. Many people may be under the impression  that marketing is only selling and advertising, but it is actually only the tip of the  marketing iceberg. There exists a massive network of people and activities, competing  for customers attention and purchases. In todays marketplace, marketing must be  understood in the new sense of satisfying customer needs. They define marketing as  the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer  relationships in order to capture value from customers in return. The company has to understand the marketplace and customer needs and wants. Therefore, the company needs to research its customers and the market place in order to collect and manage marketing information and customer data. The second step, designing a customer driven marketing strategy, takes place once the market place and customers are fully understood. The company will select which customers to serve through market  segmentation and targeting. A value proposition will also be decided through  differentiation and positioning. After deciding on its overall marketing strategy, in the  third step, the company is ready to construct a marketing programme, which  transforms abstract strategies into real value for customers. The programme is also  known as the marketing mix which consists of 4 elements (the 4Ps)-product, price,  place and promotion. The fourth step, which is actually throughout the whole  marketing process, is to build profitable relationships and create cu stomer delight. To  achieve the goal, the company must establish strong relationships with marketing  partners as well. The fifth step is when the company can finally reap the fruits of its strong customer relationships by capturing value from customers in return. Once the  company has created satisfied and loyal customers, it can capture customer lifetime  value with a result of increased share of market and customer. The marketing mix starts with product strategy. Product covers more than the physical goods the company wants to sell. It is the goods-and-service combination the company offers to the target market. The company has to be aware of the advertisements which they produce this may also incur some problems because within the advertising industry in China, advertisements have also not been spared from controversy and national debate. With a strong influence of multi-ethnic Chinese culture and history, companies are constantly challenged to convey their messages to potential consumers effectively, accurately, and yet not appear offensive. While the Chinese embraces globalization, they are not a least hesitant from voicing their dissatisfaction when the contents of advertisements threaten their strong Chinese values. Chinese culture at the level of national culture, which is best embodied in the values held by its people. A value system is seen as a relatively permanent perceptual framework that influences an individuals behaviour. Chinese cultural value system is so unique that it distinguishes Chinese culture from Western cultures and the other Eastern cultures. Chinese culture is composed of traditional culture, communist ideology. The key to understand the traditional Chinese culture is Confucianism. Having competed with the other schools of thought in history, such as Taoism, Buddhism, etc., Confucianism is undisputedly the most influential thought, which forms the foundation of the Chinese cultural tradition and still provides the basis for the norms of Chinese interpersonal behaviour If the HR department and the operations department are clear with the Chinese culture and able to differentiate between them then it will reduce the risk variable culture organisation. The first key and method to market a product is to adopt cultural approach in marketing. Culture penetrates our inner being subconsciously and at a deep level. World cultures  share many common features. it is highly risky to ignore the potential influences generated by distinctive Chinese culture on marketing outcomes. It can lead to embarrassing mistakes, or more importantly, little rewards after all the efforts on marketing. Strategic management has to be global, whereas marketing management largely needs to be tailored to local contexts; therefore, an intercultural orientation to marketing best serves a global strategic view. Product is the central element in the market offering. localization in China is to appeal to Chinese customers taste. The production department should always keep in mind that brand new designs for a single market may be very effective in terms of delivering customer value for a specific market. Whereas, it cannot be applied to a wide range because the costs shoot up. Price is a significant element of communication and a decisive element in the social interaction between buyer and seller. It endorses their agreement and shapes their relationship, immediately and in the long term. For customers, price is a means of evaluating products in terms of social representations strongly akin to culture. The major priority lies in capturing the most customer value at the lowest cost, which is achieved by sourcing locally. cultures influence on pricing seems a little weak. Pricing is a big problem facing many marketing executives. The rest of the marketing mix must be taken into account while marketers decide how to price. The choice of place or distribution is one of the two elements of the marketing mix, which are essential in pushing the product towards the customer. Due to that reason the distribution forms subtle relationships with consumers by means of direct contact, it also plays a role as a cultural filter. Companys promotion mix also called its marketing communication. Mix consists of the specific blend of advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling and direct-marketing tools. The company uses the set of tools to persuasively communicate customer value and build customer relationships. Ideally if the company carefully coordinate these promotion elements to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message about the organization and its products then it can capture the market. And there are situation like you can only appoint Chinese officials only for certain market strategy and product developing, if the necessary steps had been taken by both of the companies then the JV will lead to great success. And there are necessities to have a relation ship in Chinese govt bureaucracies to have better understanding and learning of laws. Multinational companies or global company face more complicated marketing environments when dealing with customers cultivated in different cultures in the times of globalization. The JV helps in these situations so it is best to become a JV and focus on the market after studying the cultural differences thoroughly. There exist other concerns apart from culture, such as the local marketing environment, the companys long-term strategic plan. The marketing should be culture conscientious, they should perform locally as well as be customer value oriented, holding a global view. The key to success in joint venture is  the global company and the foreign company should have mutual understanding and trust on each other. In organizational communication, people are mainly to express him self through language to express ideas, concepts and facts. Language is the foundation of effective communication So it is best to keep a common language to communicate between the people. To improve cross-cultural communication skills as an effective measure is to develop cross-cultural training programs. These training programs should focus on training efficiency and effectiveness, avoid engaging in forms of training objectives and training should be based on object-choice training content, training content selection based training methods. These methods will help the organisation to run in smoother way. It is true that global companies cannot impose their ways of doing business on China. On the other hand, China actually wants and needs overseas firms to introduce more modern practices as a way of whipping domestic businesses into shape. So there will be success for the joint venture firms if they focus in the right direction at the right time. They should always analyse their aims and objectives it will lead them to success. Even though they are from different cultural backgrounds they should exceed in visualising their goal by communicating each other and passing through to even the lowest grade staffs. This reduces misunderstanding and their performance improvement can be seen. Due to the globalisation even the Chinese also try to keep up with the current trends in the market to survive so this will also help in a matter of fact for the joint venture company.