Career Assessment for Life Achievement Assignment

Career Assessment for Life Achievement - Assignment Example The most helpful one was the skills profiler. Its results are based on the inputs given by the respondents on the different categories of skills needed in the workplace. It specifically lists the occupation best suited to your personality and interests. Personally, the least helpful assessment was the interest inventory. The test requires you to choose between two occupations without considering one’s capacity to do it – merely based on whether or not the person wants to do the job or not. I assume there are several people who judge their career path based only on their interests but not on skills. They need to consider that many occasions arise in the workplace when skills play the more vital role than interests. A worker may be asked to do a job outside his specified interests but he needs to do it anyway because it’s part of his job. Significant or not, these tools give us quite accurate assessments regarding our personality, interests, skills, and values. The reports are based on our responses, so we can consider these as a hypothesis, not merely guesses. For instance, in my case, the composite score lists cost estimator and credit analyst as one of my top careers. These are interesting jobs for me because I have never tried them yet. Probably, if given the chance, I might also excel in these fields. Other websites allow us to learn more about how these personalities can aid in choosing the right career. By being an introvert, I understand that my stimulation comes from within myself, not from external sources (â€Å"Information about Personality Types†, personalitypage.com).

Social Factors in Language Learning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Social Factors in Language Learning - Essay Example This paper declares that nowadays the English language undergoes several variations due to different factors. Among them people can distinguish regional, social, personal and even gender variations. The most widespread and obvious one is regional variation of the English language. This discussion explores that thanks to the popularity of American media and British culture the speakers of both models adopt certain vocabulary and pronunciation from each other. This process is commonly called accommodation. Apart from two main models of English regional variety of this language includes several dialectal variations. There are regional dialects of English both, in the USA and Great Britain. Dialects vary mostly in vocabulary and these differences are quite large and numerous. Unfortunately, this contrast between speakers sometimes leads to conflicts and bulling because one dialect is considered to be more privileged than the other. However, people should abandon this prejudice and treat everyone equally. Depending on people’s social identities, they use different types of language. There are many factors which predetermine the usage of certain constructions, words and intonation. They include the level of education, sex, occupying job and age. In some count ries with English speaking population social variation of the language does not play a huge role.

Pizza Hut Market Analysis

Pizza Hut Market Analysis SWOT Analysis of Pizza Hut (S)trengths 1. Pizza Hut is a welcomed fast food brand in the UK. In a survey, Pizza Huts ranked No.4 in the Most loved list of eating out in UK (Marketing Online 2008). 2. Pizza Hut already uses the online ordering service successfully. Among the Unique audience ranking of Pizza Brand Site, Pizza Hut took the No.1, 515,000, which exceeded Dominos 365,000 (Luan, 2009) (W)eaknesses 1. Fault management decision. Pizza Huts rebranding of some of its outlets as Pasta Hut has generated consumer discussion, but it is a stunt that is unlikely to produce long-term growth for the brand'(Schrezenmaier 2008). (O)pportunities 1. Nutritional food. Restaurant chain Pizza Hut has confirmed that it will become one of the first foodservice operators in the UK to offer nutritional information on its menus as part of new voluntary initiative.'(Market Watch: Global Round-up online 2009). 2. ATM activity. Pizza Hut is launching an advertising campaign using cash machines to promote the launch of its fixed-price Happy Hour menu (Marketing Online 2009). (T)hreats 1. Dominos Price. Dominos has always priced its pizzas at a premium compared with those of Pizza Huts delivery service and independent rivals (Marketing online 2008). 2. Fat Concern. Pizza Hut listed its Mediterranean Deluxe cheesy bites pizza contends 4.392 calories. It keeps you going far about two days-daily intake should be 2,500 for men and 2.000 for women (Director online 2009). Pizza Huts Current Communication Mix 1) Sales promotion One of Pizza Huts more recent sales promotions is its Happy Hour menu. The Happy Hour menu provides consumers the choice not only pizza, but also pasta, salad and plus garlic bread and a drink. Pizza Hut promoted this menu at a  £4 fixed price. Pizza Hut premiered this promotion using an ATM advertising campaign. The purpose of this campaign is to hopefully increase visits by customers to Pizza and was cleverly timed to premier around pay-day for most of the working public. 2) Sponsorship Pizza Hut possesses a wide sponsorship in different and variety areas from past until now. For instance, the notable sponsorship of Pizza Hut is as a part of PepsiCos. There has also been partnerships with Formula one, Euro 96 and was a sponsor of the Newcastle Vipers ice hockey team from 2007/08 EIHL season. Nowadays, Pizza Hut is proud to sponsor National Family Week. This is the biggest official celebration of families and Pizza Hut is a gold sponsor of such an exciting new initiative backed by the largest coalition of family in the UK. (The Greenwich Gazette, 2009) Therefore due to the association with such reputable brands, sponsorship is a very useful method of marketing for Pizza Hut and has helped communicate the image of Pizza Hut to its target audience. 3) E-marketing The internet communication of Pizza Hut plays an important role for customers. Pizza Hut also has used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to create E-marketing. Facebook users can join a Pizza Hut group and receive information of any promotions. This new form of marketing is Pizza Hut adapting to new technology and understanding there are a lucrative options for marketing this way. The target audience that use social networking sites most profoundly Generation X and this creates a parallel to a large proportion of Pizza Huts target audience. 4) Branding In 2008 Pizza Hut rebranded its UK business to Pasta Hut. The expenditure of this rebranding cost  £100M (Marketing Week, 2008) as it refurbished many restaurants and also created new outlets. The change of the brands name could be seen as a trial exercise to promote and test the markets acceptability of the new name. It has been noted however that most of people still prefer the previous name Pizza Hut and found the rebranding of Pasta Hut stale and uninteresting. Objectives Objective 1: To introduce a healthy alternative within the pizza market. A motivational conflict arises for many people when thinking of going to Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut is seen by many people as a fast food restaurant and fast food restaurants are associated with unhealthy food and therefore obesity. This consciousness has become more apparent especially after such documentaries as Super Size Me in which Morgan Spurlock carries out a task in which for a whole 30 days he cant eat or drink anything that isnt on McDonalds menu (IMDB, 2009) This is why Pizza Hut needs to be more aware of looking after its customers health and to give a healthier option for the more diet conscious customers. Therefore the proposal is a selection of pizzas in which you get one of your five a day, these pizzas will also use low fat and low salt. There will also be an option to have wholemeal pizza base to help increase customers fibre content. Pizza Hut has already reduced their salt content in there pizzas; in some cases by as much as 30% (InfoFrancise, 2009), in the last 3 months and since 2007 removed hydrogenated vegetable oils from all its food items, but it is viewed that there is limited awareness of this option for consumers. Objective 2: To ensure that Pizza hut has a healthy alternative in their main product to react to competitors healthy versions. Although Pizza Hut has options of salad and healthy pastas, to compete with competitors there must be a healthy and interesting alternative for more health conscious people. This can be seen in fast food alternatives such as Subway in which there are 12 low fat options all under 6 grams of fat. Dominos, a main competitor of Pizza Hut have an option of reduced fat cheese in which it states 100% great taste, 33% less fat. Therefore to compete effectively with competitors such as Dominos, Pizza Hut needs to produce a campaign that offers a healthy range and then communicate this to their customers. One of the main customer bases are parents either looking for more sophisticated and healthier options for themselves when taking their children to Pizza Hut or for the health conscious parents who are worried about their children eating fast food, this campaign needs to party be aimed at them. Objective 3: To create a new image of Pizza Hut as a restaurant chain that cares and wants to keep its customers healthy. The image of Pizza Hut such as many other fast food restaurants to much of the public is associated with food that has high contents of fat and salt. As the rate of adult obesity is 23%, almost twice the level in France (The Daily Mail, 2009) and also by far the worst rate in Europe, much focus by the government has been put on campaigns to bring attention to this worrying statistic and assist the public with information on how to keep healthy. Therefore Pizza Hut has decided to bring out a new campaign and also through this, a new image of a restaurant that understands the growing issue of obesity and wants to provide and encourage its customers to choose healthy options when visiting Pizza Hut. Hopefully also this campaign should encourage a new customer base of customers due to becoming more health conscious have not visited Pizza Hut as frequently. It is also aimed to encourage existing customers to visit more frequently by relinquishing the guilt of eating food with a high calorific count. Marketing Strategy Pull strategy The healthy eating campaign is directed at end user customers in order to generate increased level of awareness, change and/or reinforce attitudes, reduce risk, encourage involvement and ultimately provoke a motivation within the target group. The campaign hopes to create a motivation for the consumer to therefore stimulate action within the target audience. The consumer expects the offer to be available to them when they decide to enquire, experiment or make a repeat purchase (Fill, 2009). The pull strategy requires the brand to allocate a large proportion of funds to advertising, this is especially so when using mass media and sales promotion. Pizza Hut aims at attaining the objectives of the pull strategy by using television and internet advertising. These advertising forms are seen as very credible examples of mass media as they have the ability for mass penetration which in turn reduces the unit cost of the advertising. This above-the-line communication is accentuated by the use of sales promotions which is a below-the-line communication. Sales promotion which is another aspect of the pull strategy, its aimed at creating a demand for the product in the consumers psyche, this creation of a want/need increases the likelihood of a purchase. The Marketing Communications Mix To ensure that our message manages to reach as much of the target audience as possible we have chosen to use the following communication approach. This approach uses a combination of advertising using two media forms, the internet and television. In accordance with the advertising, sales promotions and public relations will be carried out to hopefully guarantee the success of the campaign. Television The creation of television provided a new opportunity for widespread effective advertising. When viewing advertisements the public assesses what the advert conveys and how it conveys this message. This causes the public to evaluate aspects such as presentation, creative appeal as well as of course the message. Therefore due to impact that this powerful audio-visual tool can have on the audience, it is imperative that much consideration is given to the impression that is portrayed. One major benefit of television advertising is that it has a very high level of penetration. Statistics have shown that in the United Kingdom on average the public watches television for 28 hours per person per week (Nationmaster, 2009). This therefore provides a lucrative possibility for many corporations. Due to the audio-visual possibilities that television advertising provides it gives the advertisers an opportunity to utilize the creative potential and fully portray the message desired which consequently helps the brand to achieve its aspired goals. For the television advertisement, a brand such as Pizza Hut should produce adverts that are creative and entertaining but also ensures that the core message is clearly communicated. The advertisement must be appealing to keep the attention of the audience to hopefully limit the effect that surrounding noise and distractions may have. There is a tendency of many consumers to directly link the credibility of a brand with the credibility of the medium, and television advertising is perceived as a highly credible source to most audiences. Therefore the credibility of the Pizza Hut campaign has high chances of being enhanced if it associated with TV adverts. The television advertisement for the new campaign needs to be positively engaging on the emotional and psychological grounds. Our basic aim is to implement the pull strategy to create a demand for this new product category via the mass media. The target audience for the pizza hut campaign is the health conscious segment, but health consciousness is reflected in varied shades for different individuals, and this consideration is depicted in the television advertisement. The advertisement shows an ordinary British family consisting of a mother, a father and two teenagers; a son and a daughter. They are discussing what to have for dinner at the dining table. One option that is discussed is pizza, and it shows the four different perspectives of having pizza for dinner. The mothers standpoint is that pizza wouldnt be suitable as it is unhealthy and lacks proper nutrients for the family, while the daughters perspective is that she would have motivational conflicts due to the high calorie count and the diet she has been carrying out, the son also may have a similar negative perspective due an extensive work-out schedule that he has been keeping to and doesnt want to ruin and that father may be worried about blood pressure and cho lesterol that are common with his age and therefore the consensus is not to order a pizza even though everyone would enjoy the experience. A pizza base appears magically on their table and tops itself up with all the healthy ingredients like vegetables/grilled lean whit meat/low fat cheese etc, which adds to the health quotient of a pizza. The advert now describes the complete new range of healthy Pizzas from Pizza Hut. This advertisement aims to appeal to its audiences through an emotional stance. Understanding a mothers basic instinct to ensure the family keeps healthy, understanding many teenagers insecurities as well as understanding the worries about health for the majority of the aging population. The psychological perspective of this advert would be that people are enjoying a pizza without experiencing cognitive dissonance. The advert would have a strong visual appeal to create the sense that it would be delicious and full of flavour, this would be carried out with visually appealing colours of the topping as well as the surrounding background of the advert. The slogan used for this advert is Pizzas Just Got Healthier. This is a clear, strong slogan and it also communicates the core idea of the whole advertising campaign in lucid, simple language which is easily retained by consumers. The slogan also is able to depict an image of the brand which cares about its customers health through an product innovation. The sales promotion that is integrated into the campaign will be shown at the end of the advert with a change in the tonal quality of the speaker, this is aimed at getting the audience to pay attention at the moment when the majority of the information is relayed. Refer to Appendix A for story board. The last but not the least the advert would be following the Association Guideline within C4S Golden Guidelines; the television advertisement will be aired throughout a entertainment/comedy section, throughout the time period of 6pm to 8 pm. This time period would be a high reach period as it after school and work when more members of the family are at home. It would be most viable to relate the advert to the shared territory and common targeting aspect of the Association Guidelines. Internet Advertising The internet is described by many as a one of the most important inventions of the century. It has been a part of a major revolution in technological development worldwide. With the advent of web based advertising in 1994, it has become an extremely convenient method for many brands to reach to the greater masses at a relatively lower cost in comparison to traditional media. The current generation is highly dependent on the internet, and therefore advertising online in the form of banner ads, button ads, pop ups are the smart and viable options for many reputed brands. Potter (1994) estimates that web based marketing results in ten times the units sold at one tenth of the advertising budget, and thats one of the most important reasons to opt for an online advert. An added bonus also is that consumers have the option of watching the advert as many times as they wish and so are able to obtain all the information that the advert provides. The new Pizza Hut campaign focuses mainly on giving healthier alternatives when visiting Pizza Hut, mainly in the forms Healthy Pizzas. This should be highlighted clearly to the audience as this should create an interest that may cause possible customers to acquire more information about the campaign. Another rationale for using web based advertising is the higher chance of an instantaneous purchase, as long as there is a option of purchasing the product or service. This impulse purchase effect will occur especially with food producers such as Pizza Hut, as it satisfies a physiological need in Maslows hierarchy of needs. To hopefully ensure a purchase it would be advisable for Pizza Hut to have an option of Order Now and a link to the website. Public Relations Harris (1998) indicates the purpose of marketing PR is to gain awareness, stimulate sales, facilitate communication, and build relationships between consumers and companies and brands. This opportunity is an interesting prospect for Pizza Hut and alongside advertising may enable the campaign to reach more of the target audience. Pizza Hut can use its public relations agency to promote its products, services as well as its corporate identity. This is especially useful as the campaign is aiming for an image change, public relations will help communicate this change to many different groups of stakeholders. Corporate public relations is responsible for establishing understanding and trust with individuals who have a potential or actual interest in the organisation, (Kitchen, 1997). According to Gruning (1992), corporate PR is the management of communication between an organisation and its publics. These may include health organisations, local businesses, local education authorities and potential customers along with many more groups. Pizza Hut can use and associate the high credibility attached to this form of communication. (Fill et al, 2005) to create credibility and maintain the credibility of the brand. In order for Pizza Hut to be effective when carrying out its public relations, it will introduce newsletters informing the previously mentioned groups of what they are trying to do in its new health campaign. Pizza Hut could also evaluate the effectiveness of its public relations by offering readers the chance to comment on the company and any articles through the feedback form at the back of the newsletter. Pizza Hut has decided to put together an article with a major newspaper publisher about obesity levels and the new Pizza Hut healthy campaign. Public relations are often important at more of a corporate level and without this option Pizza Hut would struggle to be seen as a major food outlet. This can be seen as a form of publicity. Pizza Hut should also conduct a certain amount of public relations to its internal stakeholders such as staff and external stakeholders. Internally the employee magazine should be used and these cues should develop images and perceptions (Fill, 2005) in the mind of the stakeholders, internally as well as externally. Therefore the ability for public relations to reach a medium size audience and also portray a credible image indicates that Pizza Hut should be using PR as one of its communication tools. It must not be ignored however that public relations is more effective when integrated with other communication tools. By combining such tools as advertising with public relations it is possible to gain full national coverage something that would not necessarily be possible with other communication tools. Sales Promotions The institute of sales promotion (2004) defines sales promotion as a planned and implemented activity that both enhances product or service appeal and changes customer behaviour positively in return for an additional benefit for purchase or participation. (Yeshin, 2006) According to Yeshin (2006) sales promotion can function on three levels by communicating, catching the customers attention at the point of purchase'(Yeshin, 2006) as well as providing extra information that may influence the purchase decision. Sales promotions can also provide an incentive by offering some form of direct inducement, either immediate or delayed, which changed the perceptual base of the purchasing decision. (Yeshin, 2006) Sales promotions can also advance the purchasing decision and invite the consumer to engage in an immediate transaction. (Yeshin, 2006) Therefore there is a strong rationale for using sales promotions in the new Pizza Hut campaign. The ability to create a product trial and sampling is necessary aspect for the success of the campaign. Once attracting customers to try the new healthier pizza range, this hopefully will encourage repeat purchases and create a loyalty to the brand. Through this loyalty there will hopefully be an increase in frequency of purchase as well as different usage. The sales promotions that Pizza Hut are planning on integrating into the campaign are such as a grouping with Innocent Smoothies. Innocent Smoothies is a good association with this campaign as it is a well known smoothie brand which is related heavily with being healthy and prides itself on only using 100% natural, healthy renewable ingredients. (Innocent Drinks, 2009) have also already had success with the health conscious target audience already and so will create added value in the mind of this audience. The promotion that Pizza Hut is running is a Meal Deal in which a choice of healthy pizzas accompanied with either an innocent smoothie or a side salad. This Meal Deal will be set at  £4.99. Through these promotions there will hopefully be an increase in market share due to brand switching. A pull strategy will occur in which consumer decides to choose Pizza Hut over competing brands. Unlike some other tools of marketing communication, which work over a longer term, sales promotion produces rapid results and return on investment is often substantial. However it will be used along side with other marketing communication tools for this campaign so as to bring about an integrated marketing communication approach. Scheduling and Implementation All the creatives for the campaign will be carried out via an agency used by Pizza Hut on previous successful campaigns. As commented on the agencies website regarding the results of one of their campaigns. The following year Pizza Hut UK reported their best-ever financial results and achieved the goals in their five-year plan a year early (Cchange, 2009) Media Planning essentially means the process of establishing the exact media vehicles to be used for advertising. (Entrepreneur, 2009) After having defined our specific target group which is the Health Conscious customers, and using a pull strategy, the media planning would automatically be done for the mass media, and TV and web based advertising have been chosen based on their wider reach at a relatively lower cost. The media planning has been done keeping in mind the following aspects:- Reach. Shown as a percentage, reach is the number of individuals (or homes) the product is aimed to be exposed to through specific media scheduled over a given period of time. (Entrepreneur, 2009) Frequency. Using specific media, on average how many times an audience be exposed to the advertising message? It takes an average of three or more exposures to an advertising message before consumers take action. (Entrepreneur, 2009) Cost per point. Whats the cost of buying one rating point for the target audience; which equals one percent of target audience, its a method used in comparing broadcast media. Impact. Does the medium used create opportunities when appealing to the senses, such as sight and hearing, in its design and production? Selectivity. To what extent can the message be limited to the people who are known to be the most realistic prospects. The distribution in this case is direct B2C as the pull strategy is used extensively which aims at minimizing the distribution channels. Both the TV and web adverts will be aired January to August, and this timescale is chosen to synergize the idea of healthy pizzas with people trying to be on a diet and lose weight during the summer when the public is more inclined to exposing themselves to d summer sun, and a fit body is an added advantage to that. Resources Budgeting The below table indicates the budget used during the previous years and hence the marketing campaigns will be based around these figures. Leading pizza restaurants and takeaway chains have increased their spend over the past few years. (Mintel, 2009). Therefore as this will be Pizza Huts biggest campaign of 2010 a sizable budget will be assigned. This will be set at between 15-20% of their annual marketing spend assigned to this new healthy pizza campaign. The campaigns will be targeted from January to August. The reasoning behind this is as the New Year is a time when people are beginning to make resolutions about their diet. The lead up to the holiday season summer should also be heavily targeted as many people will want to get in shape for their holidays and gain the perfect body. PR The PR agency will be held by Pizza Hut on a retainer basis of  £2,000 a month. The benefit for Pizza Hut is that most agencies will sacrifice some time recovery for the sake of certainty, so the client will always get better value through paying a regular fixed amount. (B2bm, 2009) TV TV adverts cost have been calculated on the following basis. In general TV adverts are bought on a cost per thousand viewer basis, most channels offer discounts on ITVs standard price of  £5.69* per thousand viewers. (TV Advertising, 2009) Since the advertisements will be carried out during peak evening and afternoon times when the family are together a higher rating will be achieved as a result a high budget has been set for this. As commented by where on the earth group the average budget for producing a 30 second commercial in the UK is around  £140,000 (Ehereontheearthgroup, 2009). Hence this is the budget set for the creative of the TV advert. On-Line Advertising. The banner advertising budget will be based on the fact that a banner ad on Yahoo! would cost you anywhere between $2,000 to $5,000 per month. (Benchmark communications, 2009). In pounds that is roughly 1,500- 3500 a month. As other companies such as MSN will be used a sizable budget will be used every month. Pop up ads will be budgeted in a similar manner to this. The micro site development costs will be based up the design of the site and hosting by an agency including having SEO developed within the site. Sales promotions The main cost associated with these will be creative and done by the agency with the main cost be associated with printing of the sales promotion materials such as leaflets and inserts into the menus. As this is to be done nationwide the costs are expectedly high. Evaluation and Control Evaluation is important for two reasons. Firstly, as marketing becomes more important to management, performance of these campaigns increasingly affect remuneration. (Les Binet, 2005) Secondly, what you measure influences what you do. If you evaluate things correctly, then you are able to increase profits by ensuring marketing funds are spent sensibly. If you evaluate things inaccurately there is a risk you marketing priorities will be distorted and funds assigned incorrectly. (Les Binet, 2005) This campaign will be evaluated using the measuring techniques below: Recall and recognition:-In order to check the awareness level the target audience have about the advert the recall test will be used to check how many times viewers spontaneously remember the advert and how well they are able to recognised it when taken away and brought back Sales- The level of sales generated during this campaign will be compared to previous sales, this will help when evaluating the impact of the sales promotion and advertising on the target audience. Web site tracking: There will also be a comparison of traffic on the website before and after the campaign. Online advertising: The click through rate that is the percentage of viewers who click on a banner advert would also be tracked. References De Avila, J. (2008). Home Family Shopping Around / Healthier Pizzas. Wall Street Journal. D.2. Potter,E. (1994). Commercialization of the World Wide Web. Well Topic in the Internet Conference on Well. Fill, C (2005). Marketing strategies and concepts engagements, strategies and practice. 4th ed. Pearsons Education Ltd. p36 793. Gruning, J (1992). Excellence in Public Relations and Communications Management. New Jearsy: Lawrence Erlbaum. P18 307 Hackley, C (2005). Advertising and promotion communicating brands. Sage Publications. p25 209. Harris, T (1998). Value Added Public Relations. Chicargo: Business Book. p 14 199. Kitchen, P (1997). Relations Principles and Practice. London: Thomson Business. p22 178. B2BM (2009). Agency remuneration revisited. Available: http://www.b2bm.biz/features/?groupId=13225articleId=24367. Last accessed on 4th December 2009. Benchmark communications. (2009). Available: http://www.bmcommunications.com/int_ad.htm. Last accessed 4th December 2009. CChange. (2005). How We Help. Available: http://www.cchange.co.uk/. Last accessed 1st December 2009. Director. (2009). 10 THINGS we discovered last month. Available: http://0-search.ebscohost.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=truedb=buhAN=39349129site=bsi-live). Last accessed 30 November 2009 Entrepreneur. (2009). Media Planning. Available: http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/term/82454.html. Last accessed 1st December 2009. Greenwich Gazzette. (2009). Pizza Hut is proud to sponsor National Family Week the biggest offcial celebration of families. Available: http://thegreenwichgazette.blogspot.com/2009/05/pizza-hut-is-proud-to-sponsor-national.html. Last accessed 2th December 2009. IMDb. (2004). Plot Summary for Super Size Me. Available: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/plotsummary. Last accessed 5th December 2009. Info Franchise. (2008). New healthy menus at Pizza Huts. Available: http://www.infofranchise.co.uk/detail.cfm?IdNotizia=11136IdSezione=3strKey=en. Last accessed 4th December 2009. Innocent. (2009). Keeping things natural. Available: http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/us/ethics/keeping_natural/. Last accessed 29th November 2009. Jack, L. (2008). Pizza Hut rebrands to Pasta Hut . Available: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/in-depth-analysis/pizza-hut-rebrands-to-pasta-hut/2062734.article. Last accessed 4th December 2009. Luan, G. (2009). Pizza Hut claims boom in sales over Christmas places it top of online food chain. New Media Age. Available: http://0-search.ebscohost.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=truedb=buhAN=36560617site=bsi-live Last accessed 2nd December 2009. Martin, D. (2009). Britain sickest country in Europe with worst rates of obesity and teenage pregnancy. Available: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1129964/Britain-sickest-country-Europe-worst-rates-obesity-teenage-pregnancy.html. Last accessed 27th November 2009. Marketing. (2008). Dominos breaks menu price vow. Marketing. Available: http://0-search.ebscohost.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=truedb=buhAN=32135052site=bsi-live . Last accessed 30th November 2009. Marketing. (2008). Eating out. Marketing. Available: http://0-search.ebscohost.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=truedb=buhAN=32135123site=bsi-live. Last Accessed 2nd December 2009. Marketing. (2009). Pizza Hut in ATM activity. Marketing. Available: http://0-search.ebscohost.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=truedb=buhAN=36441379site=bsi-live). Last accessed 2nd December 2009. Market Watch. (2009). Pizza Hut: nutrition on the menu Food. Market Watch: Global Round-up. Available: http://0search.ebscohost.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=truedb=buhAN=36888427site=bsi-live. Last accessed 2nd December 2009. Mintel. (2009). Pizza-UK 2009. Available: ht

Shoplifting: A Hard Habit to Break Essay example -- Dialogue Essays

Shoplifting: A Hard Habit to Break Erik* walks up to me outside of the Diesel store on Newbury Street. â€Å"I needed new jeans,† he said. A little further away from the store he shows me the pants that cost about $150 in he store, he shoplifted or as he says "scooped" two pairs. Inside the bag with the pants are a few shirts and the shoes he is wearing he tells me he switched with shoes he had on. Erik is 22, he does it because he says he is feeding an addiction. His name has been changed for anonymity. â€Å"No drugs, I don’t drink, I’m in shape, but every day if I come home after work without something I have to go back out and get it,† he said. â€Å"I take things because I can’t stop,† he says. â€Å"A lot of it I end up giving away because I move a lot and I don’t need it.† Erik has lived in Boston, Washington, California, Georgia, and Florida in the last year. He’s either touring with bands or just traveling. â€Å"Right now I have a shopping list for over $300 in Banana Republic,† said Erik. â€Å"I get stuff for other people and they give me half of what it costs, I really don’t even need a real job.† According to the National Retail Security Survey and reported on retailindustry.com â€Å"total inventory shrinkage cost U.S. retailers $32.3 billion last year, up from $29 billion the year before.† $10 billion of this was attributed to shoplifting. â€Å"Most of my friends shoplift or at least they have in the past,† said Erik. â€Å"Some people ‘work for eBay’, they steal expensive things that are really random from a lot of stores. Like my friend Matt takes these boxes of drawing pens that are worth either $60 or $200 and sold them on eBay. Almost every state he’s lived in has made the transition of having them out in normal art stores to underneath Ple... ...op when she wants to. Erik has not been caught, but he knows the consequences of shoplifting. â€Å"You can go to jail for a long time if they want to put you away that bad, it’s also a federal offense so every time I’d apply for a job I’d have to say what I did.† Erik already has many misdemeanor charges in various states due to fighting. â€Å"I want to stop [shoplifting] but I can’t, most people don’t though, want to stop.† Although Jason Lane said most of the thefts are found out later on surveillance cameras retailindustry.com quotes Hayes, president of Loss Prevention Specialists, as saying that â€Å"technology is critical to maintaining low loss levels.† In their article he said, â€Å"Because shoplifters are largely targeting small, highly desirable merchandise, these retailers have increasingly turned to electronic article surveillance devices to protect their merchandise.†

Dialogue as Empathic Conversation

Organizational communication : balancing creativity and constraint / Eric M. Eisenberg, H. L. Goodall, Jr. , Angela Trethewey. Boston : Bedford/St. Martin's, c2010. ISBN: 9780312574864 ; Pages: 26-52 M IMIII;WJI D efining Organizational Communication As stated in the last chapter, as long as t here have been humans, there has been organizing, and with organizing comes a concern about how to do better, whether the task is hunting, coaching a sports team, o r r unning a multinational corporation . Unfortunately, those with practical interest in improving organizational communication have n ot always adopted the same definitions and assumptions.F or example, when engineers speak o f t he importance o f communication, they often (but not always) refer t o its role in promoting clarity and consensus. I n contrast, a group o f clergy ca lling for improved communication would likely focus o n the evocative and emotional power o f discourse. I n this chapter, we describe some common approach es t o organizational communication, including models o f commtmication as information transfer, transactional process, strategic control, and a balance o f creativity and constraint. W e conclude with a model o f communication as mindful dialogue as well as a discussion o f integrity and ethics.  §J APPROAC HE S T O O RGANIZATIONAL C OMMUNICATION O f the various conceptions o f organizational communication, four have attracted the greatest number o f adherents: ( l) communication as information transfer, (2) communication as transactional process, (3) communication as strategic control, and (4) communication as a balance o f creativity and constraint. 26 Chapter 2: Defining Org:mizarion in many people's u nderstanding o f o rganizational c ommunicar:ion. F or example, the general m anager o f a large aerospace company hired several pilots ro fly over his manufacturing p lant and d rop h undreds o f Hyers with the message: â€Å"S

Policeman Essay

When we see the police in our neighborhoods, we are secured in the knowledge that we are in safe hands. The police evoke a sense of being safe when they are around knowing that they have the capacity to enforce the law and keep criminal elements at bay. We can take our children to the park and watch them play, secure in the presence of neighborhood beat police patrolling the streets. It is a safe place with the police around. But are they always welcome? Ever since the fall of the other world superpower, the Soviet Union, the United States has been the sole keeper of that title (Weiner). Historians predicted that soon, democracy and freedom will be the norm around the world (Weiner). But some say that the United States has been remiss in its duties as the global law enforcer (Weiner). Thus, the question is posed, should the world expect the United States to start policing the global â€Å"neighborhood† (Weiner)? The question better posed would be is, can the United States be capable of being the policeman (Utley)? Many Neo-conservatives in the Republican party give a glimpse of the infirmities that are inherent to the desire of some to see the United States patrolling the world’s hotspots (Utley). The United States, being the only legitimate superpower left, is incapable of launching any sort of campaign that will make it an empire, or at least, make a significant impact in enforcing the law in other parts of the world (Utley). This is the argument of right-wing â€Å"isolationists† being criticized by the left-wing of the party in dissuading the United States from making an attempt in launching an imperialist wave (Utley). For any imperialist wave to succeed, the power in government must be one that has a strong centralist orientation, as was the case of Great Britain and the old Roman empire (Utley). In Britain’s case, the center of that power lay in the hand of some of the elites in the society, give or take a few votes from the populace (Utley). This elite mainly consisted of those who owned tracts of land and a fraction of the population (Utley). In Rome, the Roman Senate dictated foreign policy in the state (Utley). But in the case of the United States, the practice is quite the opposite. The Constitution is very clear in the tenet of preservation of freedom, not curtailing it (Utley). This fundamental framework of the prservation of freedom is enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution (Utley). In the American scheme of things, the strength of the political structure is not in concentration, but in dispersal of that power (Utley). This is done to curtail any initiative in undertaking foreign military adventurism (Utley). The history of the United States foreign policy manoeuverings has also been riddled with being inclined to serve the interests of certain sectors, especially businesses (Utley). There were times that â€Å"Big Business† was the preeminent factor in determining American foreign policy (Utley). This premise has given way to local pressure organizations and television coverage of foreign incidents (Utley). In understanding the central role of television, it must be construed that televsison selects the unwilling â€Å"sitting duck† (Utley). As the news groups broadcast, this is picked up by the authorities, causing a stir of American support and good will to be poured out on the place or region (Utley). Unfortunately, this upheaval of support will often cause more hardship and havoc (Utley). It is here that the United States, finding things in disarray, tends to reach out and aids the country or region find a semblance of balance (Utley). Examples are not hard to find for the case at hand. In the U. S. -led invasion of Kuwait to liberate the country from the Iraqi invaders, a story, untrue and unverrfied, ran about 20 Kuwaiti babies being hurled out of their incubators by the Iraqi raiders (Utley). This happened before the war (Utley). The story generated a groundswell of indignation and spurred the United States to move in with their military might (Utley). The end result of this carnage was far from the desired outcome. At the onset of the conflict, the United States decimated vital installations in the course of its military intervention (Utley). This left utilities in shambles; sanititation, electrical generation and food producing facilities were completely destroyed, leaving half a million children dead in its wake (Utley). The embargo on imports on even chlorine and materials for rebuilding the nation left it with unsafe drinking water (Utley). To follow the mindset of the generals, they are not schooled in the consideration of the consequences of their actions. All they want is how to quash the enemy and win the war (Utley). Haiti would be another prime piece of evidence on the failure of American interventionist policy. Before entering into its â€Å"war games† mentality, the United States first reduced the nation’s, and people’s, means of living by slapping an economic interdiction against the island nation (Utley). Then when the war mongers in the Federal government did not see the embargo working towards the desired goal, it went ahead and invaded the nation (Utley). As a result of the American military intervention, the people of Haiti are now in a far worse lot than they began with (Utley). Now, instead of becoming economically stable, the people of Haiti are now more dependent on imports from the United States (Utley). The pattern of American â€Å" police† strategy is sometimes is quite disturbing. When the American televison industry wearies of one subject, more often than not the American government forgets about it too (Utley). Simply put, it justs walks from the subject, leaving their posts when its no longer news, as in the cases of Haiti, Somalia or Panama (Utley). Or it just goes about imposing blockades to leave the people in hardship,like what is happening now in Iraq and Serbia (Utley). This practice of some God-given mission is not the lone and sole property of the United States, nor did it start with them. The concept was derived from the â€Å"Divine Right of Kings† practised in England (Neoperspectives). This was the practice in many European monarchies at the time of the founding of the United States (Neoperspectives). The King could just wave his hand or snap his fingers together and someone could lose his life (Neoperspectives). The United States†¦ World Police? So the actions of the United States leaves us with the question, should the United States take up the cudgels for policing the world, or, was there an offer in the first place? Most would point to the administration of former U. S. President Bill Clinton for the dilemma that the United States is facing (RateItAll). As the earlier statement mentioned, the fall of the Soviet Union left the United States as the only legitimate superpower on the planet (Weiner). But again the question is raised, did the world ask for it? The question is somewhat answered by formere Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Colin Powell (RateItAll). Albright avers that since they have one of the strongest fighting forces at their disposal, then why not utilize them (RateItAll)? Was the thinking of Albright correct? According to University of Texas profeesor and author Robert Jensen, its not. The United States is not acting at all as the world police; instead it is bullying the world into submission (Jensen).