Inter-cultural and cross-cultural management Essay Example

Inter-cultural and cross-cultural management Paper This paper is about the development of a deep understanding of the concepts of international business and global management by giving a broaden exploration of inter-cultural and cross-cultural management and the idea of doing business across cultures. The paper presents a brief commentary on the broad range of issues facing firms doing business across cultures and, in particular, the obvious differences observed or/and encountered in doing business in United States as opposed to doing business in Europe-including some cross-cultural communication issues, management development issues, interacting with American customers and ethical issues. In fact, this document attempts to compare how business is done in the US to how business is done in Europe. The paper borrows mainly from Elishmawi (2001), Francesco Gold (2005) and from several other sources that are indicated at the end of this document in the List of References. 2. Managing Cross-Cultural Differences in International Business Elishmawi (2001), Czinkota et al (2002), and Mead (2004) claim, separately, that as companies become increasingly global, clashes between managers of different cultures are occurring with greater and greater frequency. Many of these clashes could be avoided if people were simply more aware of how people from other cultures perceive them and how those cultures differ from one another. Two distinct tasks become necessary: First, to understand cultural differences and the ways they manifest themselves, and, second, to determine similarities across cultures and exploit them in strategy formulation. Success in new markets is very much a function of cultural adaptability: patience, flexibility, and appreciation of others beliefs. We will write a custom essay sample on Inter-cultural and cross-cultural management specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Inter-cultural and cross-cultural management specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Inter-cultural and cross-cultural management specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Laroche (1999) and Elishmawi (2001) warn that differences in approaches, values and expectations between customers, suppliers and team members with different cultural backgrounds have lead to many projects failures. Laroche (1999) insists that miscommunication across cultural lines is usually the most important cause of cross-cultural problems in multinational projects. Elements of culture are language (verbal and non-verbal), religion, values and attitudes, manners and customs, material elements, aesthetics, education and social institutions. Different scholars, including Laroche (1999), Elishmawi (2001), Czinkota et al (2002), and Francesco Gold (2005) agree on six fundamental patterns of cultural differences: Different communication styles, different attitudes toward conflict, different approaches to completing tasks, different decision-making styles, different attitudes toward disclosure, and different approaches to knowing. They give some guidelines for inter-cultural success: learn from generalizations about other cultures, but dont use those generalizations to stereotype, write-off, or oversimplify your idea about others. Practice, practice and practice; that is the first rule in order to get a better cross-cultural communication. Dont assume that there is one right way (yours!! ) to communicate or to do business. Dont assume that breakdowns in communication occur because other people are on the wrong track. Listen actively and empathetically. Try to put yourself in the other persons shoes. Use this as an opportunity to develop an understanding from the other point of view. Remember that cultural norms may not apply to the behavior of any particular individual. We are all shaped by many, many different factors. Be aware of possible current power imbalances-and have openness to hearing each others perceptions of those imbalances. It is necessary to understand each other to work together. 2. 1 National Culture, Attribution and Ethics: Gopalan Thompson (2003) assert that cross-cultural management researchers have observed that when presented with similar ethical dilemmas, managers raised in different cultural environments exhibit divergence in their perceptions, interpretations, and eventual solutions. Cross-cultural management scholars have noted that managerial values, beliefs, norms, and attitudes are impacted by national culture causing managers to conceptualize human natures, relationship to natures, work, time, inter-personal relationships, space, and language very differently (Adler 1986, Hofstede 1993, and Francesco Gold 2005). It works as follows: Source: Figure 1: Gopalan Thompson 2003, page: 314 2. 2 What international business managers should do: International business managers should understand that cultural competence must be recognized as a key management skill. Cultural incompetence, or inflexibility, can easily jeopardize millions of Euros or dollars through wasted negotiations, lost purchases, sales, and customers; and poor customer relations. Cultural risk is as real and vital as commercial or/and political risk during expansion and beyond expansion of international firms. Ethical issues are differently perceived from one culture to another. And ethical issues may really affect business and other management aspects. 3. Psychological Contracting and Human-Resource Development. Sparrow 1998 explores the role of human-resource development managers in defining and maintaining employees psychological contracts. This approach has received a great attention, mostly in US and UK, because it was discovered that cross-cultural differences in HRD processes are associated with contracting. Studies of the psychological contract tend to raise as many questions about the dynamics of employee behavior as they answer. And, they provide a good tool for understanding the management of workforce across cultures. Failure to insure internal work cohesion may destroy any firm. Rousseau 1990 defines the psychological contract as the set of expectations held by the individual employee that specifies what the individual and the organization expect to give and receive in the working relationship. Contracts are open-ended agreements concerned with the social and emotional aspects of exchange between employer and employee. They represent a set of unwritten reciprocal expectations. And, they are viewed increasingly as deep drivers of motivational theories because changes in the contract are assumed to have implications for employee behaviors in response to organizational attempts to manage careers, rewards, and commitment. Therefore, the issue for HRD practitioners is no longer just one of managing careers, but one of dealing with breaches in the psychological contract (Rousseau, 1995). 3. 1 . The Psychological Contract in its Broader Social Setting: Rousseau 1995 claims that the impact of national culture and institutions would be normally equated to the notion of social contract. However, even at the individual level, the content of psychological contract and the management frames of reference that create, socialize, sustain, or breach it clearly bear an impact of each societys social contract. 3. 2 . Cross-Cultural Differences: Lachman (1997) demonstrates how culture acts as an explanatory factor. His work gives a proof that Sparrows approach is scientific and that the contracting model and concept deserves our serious attention. And that the same approach can be applied even to any other business management across-cultures. Comparative HRD academics draw attention to some marked social differences in the expected attractiveness of the concept. There are three most distinctive European Management Models: Anglo-Saxon, French and Germanic. To a common perceived threat, the main European national business systems will follow different trajectories of response. Sparrow 1998 asserts that within Europe, the strong and culturally distinctive (homogeneous) management models in France, Germany, and Scandinavia stand opposed to the Anglo-Saxon model. The Anglo-Saxon model would include UK, US and Canada. However, example e in 5. 1 (Kim Samuel Johnson of Canada) demonstrated that we must be careful because there exist differences within the Anglo-Saxon countries, themselves. In fact, as Elishmawi (2001) advises us clearly, there are no two identical business models between two countries. Some brief examples: 1. Scholars, including Elishmawi (2001) and Sparrow (1998) claims that in the US and UK, management is seen as essentially an interpersonal task focusing on getting things done. In rejection of elitism, people are seen as having primary importance as individuals. Personal experience rather than experience codified in the national culture forms the basis of effectiveness and performance. 2. Lawrence (1993) argues that German managers have difficulty with the idea that management is something that can be analyzed and generalized across the whole firm. So, they do not manage in general, but are instead seen to manage something. They like formal authority and value very mach technical competence and functional expertise. 3. Sparrow (1998) sustains that French organizations are staffed by a highly bright cadre of technical experts and are managed by the application of rationality. They apply less charisma, pugnacity, capacity to communicate and motivate. 3. 3 Recommendation to International Managers There are different and distinctive management models within Europe, itself, and between Europe and US. Furthermore, the internal efficiency of Argogen Biotech SA may be weakened if managers and workers in the new markets are not on the same wavelength. The firm should take those differences into consideration when expanding. The French model will never work in US, if unchanged and re-adapted. It would not work in the rest of Europe, England, Japan or Canada, either. 4. Different National Cultures and Diversity Francesco Gold (2005) assert that some countries, such as the United States, have a long history of dealing with people who are different, and as a highly individualistic country, US values these differences. Other countries, such as Japan, have been isolated from other cultures, and today are relatively homogeneous. Elishmawi (2001) notes that doing business with Europeans requires many skills: proper etiquette, a keen business sense, and the ability to read nuances of verbal and nonverbal communications, to name a few. In addition, the diversity of European cultures forces the foreign businessperson to acquire skills they possibly never had before. It might seem for many that dealing with all Europeans is the same. It is definitely not however, as for example, French, German, British, Italian, Swiss, Dutch cultural values are very distinctive. Strangely, for example, Americans, French and Russians highly value self-reliance, while Germans, Swiss and Spanish place high emphasis on reputation! Thus, when dealing with Europeans, it is useful to be aware they are various. 4. 1 Recommendation to International Managers: The firm Leadership needs to know that the perception of diversity in each of its new foreign markets is different. Failing to make required strategic arrangements to utilize diversity as a competitive advantage may end up with considerable losses of money, time and deals for the firm. In the United States, there are fundamental traditions of valuing equality and equal opportunity. And, although relationships among members of different racial and ethnic groups have not been always harmonious-and are not even today-law, social, and corporate policies over 50 years have made numerous attempts to address equity and diversity issues. So, the US legal system has more experience in dealing with racial and ethnic issues than most of European countries. 5. Doing Business with Americans and Expanding into US Market Elishmawi (2001) finds that since the end of the Second World War, US have played an important and influential role in the development of the global economic system. Consequently, American cultural values are prevalent throughout the globe, and countries and cultures that have wanted to do business with or compete against American companies, have sometimes found it necessary to adopt American business culture values and norms. Elishmawi (2001) argues that doing business with Americans, however, or adopting American methods of conducting business, is not always easy. Czinkota et al (2002) assert that the significant importance of the US economy and the subsequent respect for the US economic model has been accompanied by a corresponding fall-off in the efforts by US companies and their managers to understand and respect other ways of conducting business. Misled by the sense that the world is becoming even more American and reassured by the increasingly universal ability of counterparts to speak English, many US managers do not fully comprehend how cultural misunderstandings can sour relationships and sabotage deals.

An Old Woman. Essay Example

An Old Woman. Essay Example An Old Woman. Essay An Old Woman. Essay The poem is highly symbolic and very common placed in its subject matter. The poet was impressed by the temple of Kandoba at Jajori and the poem is thus against this setting. An Old Woman is a graphic picture of a beggar woman. Having lost the promises of her past, she is reduced to her present state. As the speaker views her squarely, he, in a sort of revelation, becomes aware of the decay which has set in her person and which is extended to the decaying tradition symbolized by the hills and the temples. Without using many words, the old woman forces the narrator to look at her from closed quarters. It is then that he realizes the hypocrisy of society and the decadence of the social system that has ruined the old woman to a beggar. he finds that the social fabric is destroyed, architectural features go into ruins. Human values are forgotten. The old womans condition reduces the narrator to a small status when he feels as insignificant as that small coin in her hand. This poem humbles us to remember our responsibility to society. It reveals the callousness, a failure on our part to take care of the elderly, protect our heritage and preserve our values. In the rush of materialism and the desire to achieve, one takes all that one can from society, but giving the same back is largely forgotten. So the cracking hills, crumbling temples, crumbling of social order is directly a result of our negligence, our failure to act responsibly. Somewhere, the materialistic world has made man selfish, trapping him in a race to accumulate. When society has to face this onslaught, cracks appear, but selfish man forgets to repair the cracks, forgets to salvage lost values, thereby creating a dilapidated social fabric.

Facility Planning-Part I Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Facility Planning-Part I - Essay Example d.). 9.1% and 6.2% of the population are persons above 65 years and under 5 years respectively, which are the age groups most susceptible to lifestyle and infectious diseases (‘Lee County, Alabama’, 2012). The community takes pride of its education, with a well-supported K-12 system and a successful Auburn University (‘About Us’, n. d.). In fact, 85.2% of persons above 25 years are high school graduates, and about 30% of this population has college diplomas. It is a very good residential location, as it is close to major markets in Atlanta, Birmingham and Montgomery (‘Lee County Tourbook’, n. d.), although 19.2% of the population are below the poverty line (‘Lee County, Alabama’, 2012). Local businesses also flourish in the area (‘Lee County Tourbook’, n. d.). Meeting more than 100 patients a day and 45, 000 visitors a year (Andrus, 2012), the emergency department of the East Alabama Medical Center needs to meet the varied complaints of its numerous patients. In fact, the number of patients of emergency departments in United States hospitals increased dramatically (26%0 in ten years since 1993 (Versweyveld, 2006). The most common emergency situations involve injuries, cardiac cases, as well as chest and abdominal pain (Otto, 2011). The changes in emergency room implemented most recently were motivated by the desire to hasten the turnover time among hospital departments, to decrease mortality from sepsis and to minimize hospital expenditures (Andrus, 2012). Because of the vast number of patients that visit the emergency room each year, the administration of EAMC wanted to increase the efficiency of health care in the emergency department by decreasing the number of patients that should be attended by a health care provider at any one time. One of the ways that this was done was through the establishment of a remote

Starbucks Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4750 words

Starbucks - Case Study Example The first Starbucks store was established in the 1971 in Seattle by three friends Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl. These three individuals were high school teachers of English and History. They got their inspiration to open their own coffee shop from a Dutch business man named Alfred Peet (Coffee, 2014). The Starbucks as we know today is quite different from what it was during the time of its inception. At first the store only sold raw coffee beans and coffee machines and equipments, which changed over a decade as the company also started to sell coffee drinks. A decade later the company appointed Howard Schultz as the head of retail operations. He was overwhelmed by the idea of espresso bars in Italy and asked the owners to apply the concept of coffee house in Seattle. This experiment was quite successful and it marked the beginning of the famous Starbucks coffee beverages. Howard found a company named Il Giornale, which later on acquired Starbucks (Starbucks, 2011). The acquisition of Starbuck was financially supported by a lot of local investors and the name of the company was officially changed to Starbuck Corporation. The company decided to make geographical diversification and opened up stores in Vancouver and Chicago. By 1987, the total number of Starbucks outlet was 17, which increased to 55 by 1989 and 84 in the next year. In the year 1992, the company went public and it was able to expand its business from the $27 million gathered from the stock prices (Grant, 2013).

Prisoner of War Camps in United States during World War 2 Essay

Prisoner of War Camps in United States during World War 2 - Essay Example Describing the typical disorientation and vulnerability of these German prisoners, historian Ron Robin writes, "Captivity destroyed all remnants of their predictable routine and hurled the surrendering troops into a maelstrom of disorder, uncertainty, and disgrace. . . . At every stage of the arduous journey from the temporary stockades in Europe and Africa to POW camps in the United States, the prisoners were systematically deprived of all remaining symbols of their past, pride, and identity." (Ron Robin, 1995) American and German prisoners experienced vastly different traveling conditions en route to their permanent camps. American captives were either marched on foot or jammed into "40-and-8" railroad box cars. Prisoners were sometimes locked in these cars for days, without food, water, or any kind of sanitary facilities. The result, according to ex-POW Kenneth Simmons, was "a trip that would turn men into swine." (Simmons, 1960). Compounding the danger was the "friendly" fire of Allied planes that had no way of knowing who was trapped inside their targets. It is no exaggeration to compare this harrowing experience to the notorious "Middle Passage" endured by captive Africans on their way to slavery in the New World. German prisoners initially suffered similar dangers, but once safely on board ship creature comforts greatly improved, although they did face the possibility of being sunk by their own U-boats. Once they had landed safely in the United States, German prisoners were amazed to discover the comfort of a Pullman car. The POW camps in U.S. were all over the country, while largely in Michigan, due to the warm, mild climate. Starting with Michigan, POWs were generally at Fort Custer. They had all these POWs and there must have been 400-500 camped in there. Although in the camps, the POWs' work was to make Gerber baby food. They sowed all the vegetables and after that grounded them into Gerber baby food. They were good workers. Two of such camps were Camp Owosso and Fort Custer in Michigan: Camp Owosso in Michigan: The U.S. Government, during WWII setup a Prisoner of War Camp at the corner of M-21 and Carland Rd. The area was used as a dirt race track, but since it was not used during the war, it served as Camp Owosso. The prisoners were captured on the battlefields of Europe and Africa and after being brought to Owosso, were allowed to work on area farms, the Roach Canning Factory at Owosso or the Aunt Janes Pickle Factory on Easton Rd. near New Lothrup. Under the Emergency Farm Administration Labor Program, most prisoners chose to work and get paid, over staying confined in camp. The prisoners preferred working at the farms, as they given extra food and there had to be one guard for every 3 prisoners. They earned about 80 cents a day. The first prisoners were typical Nazis, but the later ones of 1945 had a different attitude. They preferred farm work if they had a chance. At the Canning Factory, corn, peas and tomatoes were canned there and the prisoners were transferred by truck to and from the plant each day. As they rode through town, they would sing and holler and wave to anyone they saw. They apparently enjoyed being prisoners, far from

Concepts and Theories of Supply, Demand and Price

Concepts and Theories of Supply, Demand and Price Economics Coursework Paper Introduction This essay looks at the fundamental elements of economics. Economics covers the area of human activity that deals with how people provide for their material wellbeing. It looks at the complex sets of transactions that take place around the world every day. These transactions decide on the global allocation of raw materials and capital. It also looks at the decisions individuals make when they decide how to prioritise their needs and wants and how to spend their money. It can vary in scale from how one person or family will organise its activities to how nations and societies should or can be organised. Economics therefore deals with an enormous subject matter; it offers a way of understanding practically all human activity at any level of detail. The way in which it can do all this, and still remain united as a single science, is to adopt various principles which will apply to a school child buying his lunch, multinational companies merging on the stock market, or nations competing f or trade. In this paper I will look at some of these principles and how they relate to various examples.[1] Supply, Demand and Price You would be correct to assume that economics is interested in the price of things. While this is the main issue for most economic actors such as individual consumers, companies or countries, for economists, this is neither where the story begins nor ends. It is in fact just one of many details that will fit in to an overall economic picture. It is a well known fact that house prices usually rise. It is just as well known that computer prices keep falling. Economics explains these price movements by looking at and understanding their respective markets. The methods used to analyse a market are; understanding the motivations of the various participants in the market; the factors that control how much the consumers in the market wish to buy; the factors that control how much sellers wish to sell; how the price is set; and the institutional structures that also influence the price. When looking at markets in this way, the various actors in the market, or agents, are assumed to be rational, that is that they want to maximise their gains or get the best deal possible. This is known as ‘maximizing utility’ in economics. When speaking of demand, we are not concerned with how much of a product is actually bought, but of how much the consumers in the market would like to buy. The amount demanded is expressed as a flow, which means we look at how much of a product is demanded over a particular period, and at a particular price. For example, if milk costs  £1 per litre, there is a demand for 1 litre of milk per day, or 365 litres of milk per year. In basic demand theory, there are a number of factors that can go into increasing or decreasing the amount demanded. For example, if you advertise the health benefits of milk, the consumer may decide to drink more. Also if there was a shortage of orange juice, consumers might drink more milk to make up for the difficulty of getting orange juice. Making milk cheaper will also increase the demand for it. Therefore, demand is something that can altered and, to an extent, controlled by the seller. One of the key functions of economics is to narrow down and explain the various factors that will effect demand, supply and price. Economists wish to be able to measure exactly how these three variables will interact. If they can do this effectively, they will be able to manipulate the three so as to arrive at a level of supply, and a price, that will maximise the profit, or utility, for the producer. And the reason they can do this is because of the one certainty of economics, which is that the consumer will also be seeking to maximise his utility under the options available to him. Demand and Price While it may be impossible to know exactly when and how much a given consumer will feel like drinking with his breakfast each morning, there are things we can no. One of them is that, in general, the lower the price of a product, the more of that product will be demanded, assuming all other things remain equal. This principle is so dependable it is known as the law of demand. This is because all wants can be satisfied by a number of products. For example, if you are hungry at school, you will have a want, namely lunch. This want can be satisfied by a sandwich, an apple, a bag of crisps, a chocolate bar, etc. Even if you look at the sandwich, you can have ham, cheese, salad etc. The chocolate bar can be a Snickers, Mars, Twix etc. If you suddenly double the price of cheese sandwiches while everything else remains the same, the demand for cheese sandwiches will go down. Some people will still buy the same amount of cheese sandwiches, others will buy less cheese sandwiches and opt for o ther types of sandwiches or maybe and apple or chocolate bar, and some will completely stop buying cheese sandwiches. No one will buy more cheese sandwiches than they did before. Therefore, as price increases, demand will continue to decrease.[2] Economists can demonstrate this using a demand schedule. This shows the demand for a product at various prices. Example of a demand schedule The demand schedule will then be used to plot a graph, or demand curve. The price will appear on the Y-axis and the quantity demanded on the X-axis. This curve will show the complete relationship between demand and price. Example of a demand curve This above schedule and demand curve show how demand for milk will vary according to price. As the price increases from  £0.50 per litre to  £3.00 per litre, the consumer decreases the amount they drink each day from 1.4 litres to just 0.2 litres. This example shows a relatively simple relationship between price and demand. In real life, there are many more factors at work that will dictate the demand for a product. While price is certainly one very important variable, the demand will also depend on the price of other alternative products. So if the price of orange juice for example were suddenly to increase, you would probably notice an increase in demand for milk, even though the price of milk did not change. That is because orange juice is an alternative product to milk. Also, if consumers were to get richer, they would be willing to buy more milk, or pay more for the amount they wanted, and again this would have a significant effect on the demand curve. Similarly, if consumer’s tastes were to change this would effect the demand curve. So if the milk producer was to start advertising the health benefits of milk this might increase demand even though there was no change in price. In practice there are actually an infi nite number of variables that will effect the demand for a product, but this does not mean that the basic law will not always hold. No matter how attitudes to a product, for example milk, change over time, it will always be the case, according to the law of demand, that an increase in price will lead to a decrease in demand and vice versa. Supply Simply finding the demand curve for a product is however not enough. You might expect that it would make good business, as well as common sense, to decide your supply based on current market demand. If consumers want 1 litre of milk per day, and they are willing to pay  £1 per litre, and say there are 1,000 consumers in the market, then why not simply produce 1,000 litres of milk per day. Well first of all, we can see that this tells us nothing about the profits of the producer. If you found out milk costs  £1.50 a litre to produce, would you still recommend that the producer try to sell 1,000 litres at  £1 per litre? Obviously not, therefore our picture is incomplete as it takes no account yet of the suppliers side of the bargain. The economic hypothesis that explains supplier behaviour is that if all other things remain equal, the quantity that they are willing to produce is positively related to the product’s own price, or the higher the price, the more they are willing to produce. This is basically because increasing production costs money, and the more you increase production, the more it costs, so firms will only increase production for as long as the price they can get for the product justifies the increased cost of production. Just like when measuring demand, a supply schedule is used to compare different price levels with different levels of production. Example supply schedule The supply curve shows the different amounts the producer would be willing to supply at different prices. As can be seen, the supply increases as price increases. Example of a supply curve Using these two graphs, economists can find the most efficient price for milk in this market. For example, if milk was priced at  £0.50 per litre, consumers would be willing to drink 1.4 litres per day, but the producer would only be willing to supply 0.41 litres per day. Clearly there is waste at this price. Likewise, if the price was set at  £3.00 per litre, the producer would be happy to supply 4.66 litres to each consumer, however they would only be willing to buy 0.2 litres per day. So a balance must be found somewhere in between. To find this point, economists will plot both the supply and demand curves on the same graph and find the point at which they intersect. This is the most profitable and efficient level at which to set production and price. The graph below shows that in this market, the supply and demand curves intersect at the price of  £1 per litre of milk. This is therefore the level at which the price would settle under normal market conditions. Price Elasticity The value of being able to analyse markets in this way, and understand how the price will settle is not solely theoretical. Businesses want to use this information to maximise profits. Therefore, theories on how to manipulate the above graphs are extremely important. One aspect if this is known as price elasticity. This is the theory that will explain how changes in price affect the quantity demanded. In the above example, the consumers would be willing to drink 1.4 litres of milk per day if it cost  £0.50. Imagine if you could get the same consumers to continue demanding this quantity of milk at a cost of  £3.00 per litre. This would mean a huge difference in profits for the producer. While it may not be possible to affect this change, having a greater understanding of the demand curve will allow detection of greater profit potential. Likewise, if you identify the causes for supply variation with changes in price, you may be able to improve the efficiency of your own business an d move the point of intersection of supply and demand curves to a more profitable position. The change in demand with price is known as price elasticity of demand. The change in supply with price is known as price elasticity of supply. Elasticity cannot simply be judged by looking at the curves on graphs. This is because the shape of the curve depends as much on the scale of the graph as on the responsiveness of the demand or supply to changes in price. Therefore, elasticity is measured by a mathematical ratio. This is the percentage change in quantity demanded divided by the percentage change in price that caused it. If you get a value for price elasticity of demand of zero this means that the quantity demanded does not change at all as the price changes. Such products are known as perfectly inelastic. There are very few products that would give this result. Even products such as bail to get out of jail pending trial will depend on the consumers ability to pay, and taxes, which supposedly offer no choice to the consumer, are also somewhat elastic as tax evasion has been shown to increase as tax rates rise. If the value is a fraction, between zero and 1, the quantity demanded will change but at a lower rate than the price changes. This is known as inelasticity. So if you were to increase the cost of the good by 50%, demand would decrease, but by less than 50%. This is generally observed in products that are deemed vital or necessary to people, but which are supplied without much competition. It is most typical in monopolies. So for example, if there is only one electricity or phone company, an inc rease in prices will lead to less usage, but people cannot wholly stop using such goods and so the usage will only decrease by a small amount. Likewise, goods such as housing, basic foods, or fuel, even though there may be a variety of providers, will generally be of low elasticity because people are forced to buy a certain amount of these products no matter what the price may be. In these situations, it is common to find government regulation to guarantee fairness of the market. If the elasticity is 1, then the demand and supply change at the same rate as price. This is known as unit elasticity. An elastic good will be one where the value will be greater than one. This means that the quantity demanded will change by more than the price changes. So for example, if there were two identical farms selling identical apples, both located next to each other, and both sell apples for 10p each, you might expect that 50% of customers will go to each farm. However, if one of the farmers was t o increase his price to say 12p per apple, the vast majority of customers will now go to the other farmer. He will lose more than 20% of his customers for a 20% rise in price. This is most likely in markets of high competition. If the value for elasticity is infinity, then the product is perfectly elastic. There is only one acceptable price. Purchasers will buy everything you have at one price, but if you increase it by even the tiniest fraction, they will buy none at all. This exists in theory, and in some highly automated and computerised financial markets. Computers will dictate prices according to precise calculations and then will not deviate from this. Market structures The above explanation for elasticity shows the nature, and ultimate difference in the characters of different markets. One way you can classify various markets is by the price elasticity they will give. It may seem surprising that the huge differences between the New York stock exchange and school children spending their pocket money in a sweet shop, or between modern capitalism, Soviet style communism, and primitive barter based trading systems comes down to the issue of price elasticity, but this is one way of classifying markets and judging the degree to which they are similar or dissimilar. A person shopping for bread in the old Soviet Union, and a person waiting to be granted bail by a judge may appear to be in very different circumstances, but according to this market view, their position economically is very similar, they will accept what they are told, with little regard to price. However, future’s traders in global financial centres, spending billions or ever trillion s of dollars every day, are revealed to have a lot in common with children in a sweet shop, weighing the various combinations of price and utility that different choices will provide them. They will ruthlessly abandon a product that doesn’t pull its weight on their cost/ utility calculation. Conclusion Using these few principles that lie at the foundation of economics, and a few simple examples, we can see how economic principles can explain a huge variety of social situations and human interactions. This is why economics claims to be able to offer an understanding of all human activity and why some criticise its growing influence as painting a false or inappropriate picture of humanity. While economic principles can be applied to children making friends, people acting with kindness or religions offering comfort and guidance, the question is not whether economics can provide answers, but whether the answers it provides are appropriate. Bibliography Lipsey Chrystal, Economics, 10th ed. 2004, Oxford University Press Grant, Stanlake’s Introductory Economics, 7th ed. 2003, Longman Footnotes [1] Lipsey Crystal, p. 40 [2] Grant, p. 77

Does Improved Technology Mean Progress? :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

Does Improved Technology Mean Progress? I feel that there is progress happening everywhere in the world today. Not all progress is from new advancements in science and technology but a lot of it is. There is so much knowledge held amongst people to allow such advancements to occur. Having knowledge is a great tool because without it, there would be no progress of any sort. People need to learn that they should study as much as possible so maybe one day they can contribute to making more progress happen. Achieving progress is a helpful way of improving our standard way of living. Even though progress is a good thing, I also feel that it can cause problems too. People just need to realize that in order to produce new and better things we might have to go through some rough times on the way. New advancements will continually be arising in the future and hopefully somebody one day will find away to make it so these new advancements will not contain new problems. Machinery today keeps on getting better and better. New discoveries in technology allow us to improve the quality of our machinery so their performance level is better than some might have expected. These new technologies also make it a lot easier on people in the workforce. New technologies have a huge affect on society. Farmers, for example, have it a lot easier now than they did in the early 1900's. More advanced farm equipment is the reason for this. Aside from all the good things that arise from new machinery, there is also a few down falls. Many people loose their jobs because of all the new high-tech machinery. For this reason, I am sure some believe that progress is not always for the better. What if in the future, machinery started dominating everyone's job, what would we do then? Also at certain times, new advancements are used in the wrong way. For example, it was stated in Leo Marx's article that because of these new technology advancements, "Hiroshima and the nuclear threat; pollution and other kinds of damage inflicted upon the environment by advanced industrial societies; spectacular accidents like B-mile Island, Bhepal, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.