ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Executive Strategy Within the past year China has eclipsed Japan to become the second largest economy in the world making it a potential high yield market for Foot Locker’s expansion into new international markets. Various studies examining the market in China have shown that the Chinese have developed a certain “hunger” for international brands with fashions and food being among the most highly sought after items in the Chinese market today. Other U.S. based companies such as Wal-Mart Inc. have actually successfully opened up various branches in China with great success. In fact recent industry data shows that the branches of Wal-Mart located in China are among the highest earners of the company’s international ventures with various high priced retail items quickly being bought as a result of a greatly enriched Chinese economy. It is based on this that it can be seen that in roads into the Chinese market is a viable step for the company, one which would help to raise company revenues in light of the deteriorating sales in U.S. based markets as a result of the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting deterioration of the U.S. economy as of late. The primary market objective of this plan is to properly establish the Foot Locker brand in the Chinese market as a retailer of top of line, high quality and original footwear. The primary financial objective of this plan is to reach sales of at least $2.2 million to $3 million during the first year of operations of a single Foot Locker branch in the local Beijing market. Current Marketing Situation Foot Locker is one of the world’s largest retailers of foot wear in the world with branches located in 20 countries and with a yearly revenue of roughly $4.85 billion dollars. Right now Foot Locker is about to enter into the lucrative Chinese market where the appetite for foreign brands makes it an ideal location for subsequent company expansion as seen by the successes of other foreign brands that have attempted forays into the Chinese market. Unfortunately, one of the inherent problems with selling brand name items in China is the fact that most retailers face stiff competition from counterfeit brand name goods that are ubiquitous throughout China’s various shopping centers and markets. In fact China is the source of the majority of fake brand name sneakers that are being sold in various global markets that actually undermines the business models of our stores in those areas. Selling within China presents itself with its own risks due to the fact that not only would Foot Locker have to compete with other brand retailers in the area the company would need to convince its customer base that buying original brand name sneakers is comparatively better compared to buying cheap knock offs. Market Description Foot Locker’s market in China consists of consumers in the middle and upper tier of Chinese society, namely the new class of Chinese “elite” that have emerged as a re
Introduction: Description of products or services for Disney Company The quality of products of a company determines whether clients will buy from it. The study focuses on Disney Company whose high-quality products have attracted the attention of many clients as evidenced by its high-sale volume. Every department has its functions and products. The first division is the studio entertainment. The products of this department include films, theatre works, and recording of labels. These products are targeted at fulfilling the need for therapeutic relief and entertaining viewers (Cruz 8). The other department is the parks and resort that harbors products such as parks and Disney cruise line. The parks fulfill the need for leisure in customers. The third department is Disney consumer products, which has products such as clothing and toys. The department fulfils the basic need for clothing. The other department is the Media networks. According to Woodruff, the media department is divided into the television segment, which produces media programs, and the interactive media group, which produces products like social media contents, mobile contents, computer games, virtual worlds, and internet contents (104). The media department aims at fulfilling the need for information, entertainment, and education while the interactive media provides socialization needs. The Walt Disney Company produces excellent products that are targeted at meeting specific customer needs. For example, its film department is the largest studio in Hollywood. It is also the best studio in the world in product rating. According to Woodruff, the Mickey Mouse cartoon network that is adored across the world is a product of Disney Company (105). One can therefore infer that products from this company are above average. Customers that want excellent products should narrow down their search to Disney Company. Disney Company Market Research The Walt Disney Company conducts market research through questionnaires and focused group discussions. When using questionnaires, both closed-ended and open-ended questions are used to help the company to get information about the particular perception held by customers about the company and its products. Open-ended questions enable customers to express their divergent opinions about the company and or its products. Disney Company also makes use of focused group discussions. In these discussions, a group that consumes a certain product from the company, for example a film produced by Disney films department, is given a topic to discuss. The researcher stays aside to listen and makes observations. Focused group discussions enable the research to gain a view about the various perspectives held by the audience. An example of the findings of such a research is the result of a research conducted on a five-scale rating of the Disneyland program on the ABC television in 1954. The research was conducted on a sample of 500 viewers. T
Introduction Bill Clinton is one of the most famous politicians in the History of the United States of America. He served as the governor of Arkansas and later on became the president of the United States of America serving between 1993 and 2001 (Mas 325). It is during his reign as the president that USA exhibited the concept of effective leadership. This was achieved through the leadership of President Bill Clinton. This essay shall therefore focus on Bill Clintons leadership qualities, styles and the success that he achieved as president. To achieve this, the essay shall focus on the qualities that Clinton had and the impacts of his administration during the two terms that he served as president. Leadership of Bill Clinton For an individual to be an effective leader, he/she needs to possess several qualities. Such an individual needs to be visionary, understanding, rational, conscious of the culture, team player, ambitious, reliable, possess communication and social skills, humble, able to influence masses and be knowledgeable (Cohen 8). Bill Clinton possessed most of these qualities. This may have contributed greatly into developing him into a successful and effective leader. In the process of his leadership, Bill Clinton experienced ups and downs. An example is his demise was his scandal with Monica Lewinsky. It should be noted that during the time when Clinton was facing this scandal, he remained confident and charismatic. He was not destructed and performed his duty as the president of the United States to the best. This showed that he had empathy; a factor that enabled him to maintain a positive public figure. Giving the United States priority at this time proved that Clinton was an effective leader (Mas 327). USA, like many other nations all around the world has always been striving for social, political and economic sustainability. Despite the fact that the nation has always been regarded as one of the best in terms of socio-political and economic sustainability, it is during the reign of Bill Clinton that USA experienced much of its economic growth. Through his leadership practices and policies, USA experienced a tremendous growth in its economy from 1993-2001. An effective leader is one who keeps the promises that he has made to his people. During his presidential campaign, Bill Clinton made several promises to the people. He vowed
Women have fought for their rights for century and it seemed that they could achieve a lot by the 20 th century. Nonetheless, in the middle of the twentieth century, women still faced issues associated with discrimination. For instance, only two per cent of sport budgets of educational establishments were assigned to women and “athletic scholarships for women were nonexistent” (“The Battle for Gender Equity” 1). At that, male students could get numerous scholarships and get involved in a variety of extracurricular activities. Funding of these spheres was significant. It is possible to assume that Americans were still unwilling to accept the truth that females had the right to participate in such spheres of social life as education and sport. Lots of sports were for men only and females who wanted to pursue their athletic inclinations were discriminated. Interestingly, Title IX was not aimed at athletics and expanding of sport scholarships. It was enacted in 1972. Two Democrats from Oregon, Mink and Edith Green, introduced this law (Winslow n.p.). It was aimed at diminishing sex discrimination in federally funded schools. Later there were a number of amendments which were concerned with athletics and women’s participation in sport activities. It was supposed to increase funding of a variety of sport activities where female athletes were involved. Clearly, the law was not easily enacted as it faced a lot of opposition. Notably, the law also was subjected to several amendments which addressed different issues. When it was enacted, institutions which were recipients of the federal funding had to ‘pass’ a three part test. In other words, these educational establishments had to prove they complied with three major concepts. First of all, they should offer equal opportunities for both genders to participate in various activities (“The Battle for Gender Equity” 1). Furthermore, these establishments should allocate funds proportionately. Finally, educators have to treat both males and females equally in all situations. As has been mentioned above, the law was not accepted favorably and, hence, there were problems with its implementation. Thus, educators and officials were afraid that certain quotas could be introduced. Officials were reluctant to allocate funds in accordance with the law and tried to decrease general funding sport events. Irrespective of these complications, Title X had a great impact on the development of female athletics. For instance, in 1971, around 295,000 females were involved in school athletic activities, which acc
Executive summary In many organizations, it is the responsibility of the managers to ensure that good employee selection and assessment is observed. When these processes are done poorly, an organization is likely to face significant challenges that can affect its operations. There are different methods of selecting and assessing people needed for various jobs. For instance, an organization may decide to use methods like funneling approach or the assessment center method to identify appropriate applicants in terms of their levels of performance. In analyzing these methods, I will focus on the selection and assessment method used at my organization and the method used by AT&T. These organizations use a funneling approach and assessment center methods respectively to select and evaluate the performance of employees. In my organization, the company specializes mainly in providing technology services. The company enjoys a broad portfolio in different areas like communication and financial services. On the other hand, AT&T is also a global organization whose main objective is to provide customers and businesses with new solutions through innovation in the entertainment and communication industry. The paper also examines the reliability and validity of the selection and assessment methods used by these organizations. Ethical and legal issues that may arise as a result of using a given approach are identified and possible solutions discussed. Other issues discussed in the paper include the relative strengths of each of the method and also the ability of programs to adhere to the recommended practices for appraisal programs. Such practices include adequate training of employees to reduce or eliminate frequent errors associated with poor training. Methods used to select people for jobs in my organization My organizatio
It is not a rare occurrence when literary characters are painted as highly exaggerated versions of their real-life prototypes, which are usually much more intricate and complicated in character than fictional characters. However, as evident from the further comparison and speculations about a dialogue between Hemingway’s Schwartz, Langston Hughes’ Roger and Francisco Jimenez’ Panchito, all of three exhibit unusual and almost tangible humanness. Part of it stems from the situations that the authors are putting their protagonists in – they do, indeed, feel extremely real – because the authors are writing from personal experience. By making the heroes so down-to-earth, it becomes possible to envision them interacting with each other – that is what is attempted with the current work. Both the boys in Hemingway’s and Hughes’ stories exhibit strength of character somewhat unusual for their age. Schatz, a Hemingway’s character, in spite of being only nine years old, finds the expression of this strength of spirit in the form of stoic attitude that he adopts in face of hardship – in this case, influenza. Hughes’ Roger, is slightly different in that sense, demonstrating less of the characteristics of an adult, which is something Schwartz does more successfully, but the unifying trait that they both have is honesty. Roger, despite of being terrified by Mrs. Jones at first, speedily admitted his true intentions – “I wanted a pair of blue suede shoes” (Hughes, p. 56). This kind of demeanor is atypical to a young thief and is somewhat reminiscent of Dickenson’s characters. Above both boys being truly sincere and honest, they are similar in another way as well – Schwartz and Roger seem more reserved and not very talkative. This introversive quality potentially comes from their inclination of self-analysis, which could be the root of their pronounced wisdom, so rare for their young age. In spite of their similarities on the matter of being extremely stoic, the lifestyles of the two boys, Hemingway’s and Jimenez’ differ enormously. Schatz, coming from a financially stable German family, apparently lives in a big country house in proximity to a picturesque creek. His family is easily able to afford a doctor visiting a boy, which starts to sound luxurious when compared to Panchito’s situation. From the insights of Panchito’s feelings and thoughts that Jimenez gives to the reader, it becomes clear that the boy can only dream of a life in a house, away from any worry. His family and himself are “braceros” – hired farm-laborers from Mexico that come to US to help the local farmers harvest their seasonal crops (Jimenez, p. 407). Due to the nature of such work, Panchito’s family is constantly moving
Introduction Levy (2006) indicates that in recent decades, the emergence of public concern with regards to how medical practitioners handle their patients has been on the rise. This is attributed to the fact that the public has increased awareness with regards to medical law and they can clearly understand injuries and deaths that are caused by shear negligence or medical failure on the part of the medical practitioners. Monico , Kulkarni, Calise & Calabro (2007) define a negligent action as “a tort which is a result of an individual carelessness in the sense that the individual fails to meet the requirements of performing their duty as a care giver to the patient and thus their actions result to the injury or death of the patient” (p.1). In this case, the practitioner does not neglect their duties intentionally and neither do they anticipate to cause any harm to the patient under their care. Therefore, negligence can be termed as a deviation from the norm. On the other hand, gross negligence can be defined as the reckless disregard by a medical practitioner. This involves a situation whereby, the nurse or doctor is well aware of the consequences of his deliberate negligence but goes ahead to ignore the likely implications on the health status of the patient under their care. This type of medical failure is different from negligence to the extent of the intentional act regardless of the anticipated consequences. Therefore, if a patient sues a nurse or a doctor for gross negligence and proves their acts beyond reasonable doubt, such a patient is entitled to compensation. Malprac
In the 15 th century, Europe had a number of reasons for the exploration of the Atlantic. During that period of time, Europe was broken into different states that had to deal with the existed Islamic worlds and their power over people and political, economic, and social segments. Though the necessity to defeat the supporters of the Islamic culture and find allies that could be used against the Muslim powers was the goal of the European exploration, it was not the only one. Europeans wanted to get access to a larger world of economy and find more people, who could be converted to Christianity. In fact, there were different forces that drove European countries onto the Atlantic that touched upon the existing economic, political, and social elements, and, as a result, the most important global transformations took place in those fields making Europe think about its strong and weak aspects in regards to the Islamic world and its power. The year 1453 was a crucial period for all European countries because it was the time when Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II “decisively conquered the great Christian city of Constantinople, bringing the thousand-year history of Byzantium to an inglorious end” (Strayer 601). As soon as the religious aspects were broken in Europe, many people were eager to put their lives on risk to conquer the Atlantic Ocean and find new lands. However, the travelers did not have enough money and tried to get sponsorship from their kings and monarchs. Ordinary Europeans wanted to promote their religion, and kings wanted to believe that new lands could bring new powers and opportunities to become wealthy. Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, and the Netherlands were the countries that decided to begin their expeditions in a short period (Strayer 618). During the three centuries, from 1450 to 1750, the creation of empires by different European states turned into a serious global process. One of the main transformations that took place globally was connected with the possibility to create a link between different continents. Besides, the industrial changes occurred as people wanted to conquer the Atlantic with fewer losses and costs. Finally, the demographic explosion was observed that required certain changes in education, urbanization, and commercialization. The world had nothing to do but follow the transformations caused by the rise of Europe, and the resistance was one of the possible methods to cope with the challenges and concerns. At the same time, the relations that were developed by the Europeans around the whole world were impressive indeed because all continents were related. From an economic point of view, Europeans won a lot using the opportunity to get access to such products as grain, sugar, meat that could create a powerful base to support the expansion of European economy (Strayer 621). Native Americans and other regions where the penetration of Europeans was inevitable faced both, negative and positive, outcomes. It was possible to sell their products as unique for Europeans and earn good money. Still, many Americans and other nations had nothing to offer to Europe
Introduction The concept of globalization can increase market competition among businesses. The current financial crisis affecting most world economies today can complicate market globalization for organizations. Organizations may shift their focus to productivity maximization by developing means of improving their quality of products and services. Productivity maximization can be achieved through human resource management (HRM) practices. HRM is based on the idea that the success or failure of an organization depends on how the employees are managed. Human resource practices are vital elements in organizations and their impact on the performance of organizations is crucial. Most HR practices like compensation determine the level of performance of an organization. HR practices like recruitment, training and compensation influence organizational performance (Githrie, 2001). High performance work systems (HPWS) can be developed in the process of creation of efficient HR practices that may improve the performance of organizations. HPWS suggests that certain HR practices can be more effective if implemented in “bundles” rather than separately. High performance work practices are HR practices that improve the performance of employees and those of the organizations. A number of Fortune 1000 companies that implement HPWPs register improvements in their organizational performances (kling, 2005). Many organizations implement HPWPs in order to enhance their performance. However, not all organizations can implement HPWPs. I disagree with the idea that HPWPs can be implemented in any organization. This paper puts into perspective the theory or model of HPWPs which is referred to as the AMO model. The model explains how HPWPs work when implemented in “bundles”. Afterwards, the paper will discuss the reasons why HPWPs cannot be implemented in any organization. This aspect forms the basis of my thesis. The implementation of HPWPs is not common in small organizations. This fact is because of the cost and the size of the organizations. The implementation can be expensive and not many small organizations may be willing to incur the costs. Certain organizations like the Japanese Construction Company for which I work employs workers on a contractual basis for a short term and may not be willing to commit its limited resources on the workers. My organization can be used as a case study to justify why HPWPs cannot be implemented in every organization. Small organizations use simple structures that may not necessitate complex management systems like the large organizations. The nature of the organization also determines whether HPWPs may be needed. Studies indicate that organizations in