ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Introduction Alliances have become an integral part of 21 st century corporations. Alliances range from minority equity holdings, informal alliances, to outright mergers and acquisitions. It is believed that developing strong business alliances is the key to gaining competitive advantage (Dyer, Kale & Singh 2001; Das & Teng 2002). The reasons for alliances offered by corporates are numerous and varied. Alliances create value to the company by improving knowledge management, remove accountability problems, provide internal coordination, and increases external visibility (MacAvoy et al. 1998; Koza & Lewin 2000). Strategic alliances, therefore, are believed to posses many advantages when rightly utilised. Google Inc. has entered into numerous alliance and acquisition processes with varied and disconnected business interest. This paper discusses two such alliances of Google – first with automotive companies since 2013 and then with Luxottica in 2014 – in order to understand the logic behind these two different alliances. This paper will try to enumerate the plausible reasons behind these two unlikely alliances. Theory Alliances are formed due to various reasons. Some believe, due to the market structure, alliances become inevitable, and the type of market determine the reason for the alliance (Koza & Lewin 2000). According to Koza and Lewin (2000), strategic alliances are of three types – learning alliances, business alliances, and hybrid alliances. Learning alliances are created with the pure intent to collaborate with no clandestine intention to exploit (Koza & Lewin 2000). Business alliances are formed with strong objective to exploit and little or no intent to explore (Koza & Lewin 2000). Hybrid alliances are formed with both the intent of exploitation and exploration (Koza & Lewin 2000). Studying the competitive environment of the alliances, both internal and external, helps to understand the reason behind such collaborations. This paper utilises SWOT analysis, porter’s five forces competitive environment analysis, and value chain analysis to understand the reason behind the alliances. Evidence Alliance with Automotive Companies The alliance of Google with automotive companies was to capture an untapped market of cloud based operating system for vehicles. In this respect, Google faces stiff competition not only from its competitors like, Apple and Microsoft, but also from its partners (Souppouris 2014). The main offerings of Google to its automotive partners are Google Map and Places in the cars’ telematics system (Yoo-chul 2014; Vance 2014). The automotive partners of Google are Hyundai, Chevrolet, GM, Honda, Kia, etc. (Yoo-chul 2014). The analysis of the product should be based on the competitive environment of Google (see figure 2). The figure demonstrates that the product faces high threat from various areas such as direct competitors, application developers, and substitutes. The en
Introduction Nutriset is currently the dominant global supplier for Plumpynut (Fisher, 2013). The company boasts of a market monopoly and global dominance in the industry hence enjoying substantial benefits. It is recorded that by the end of the year 2008, Nutriset was in a position to satisfy the rising demand for Plumpynut (Fisher, 2013). In addition to that, the worldwide demand is anticipated to go up indefinitely and for this reason, the company needs to plan for a double production (Fisher, 2013). However, the company cannot do it on its own. It requires the help of other companies, such as American firms, to meet its orders (Fisher, 2013). There are a number of impediments standing in the way such as patent protection of Plumpynut as a product (Fisher, 2013). Its manufacturing procedures are must also be protected. Fact summary Nutriset was founded in 1986 after ten years of examining the field of humanitarian nourishment (Fisher, 2013). The founder of the company was an established agricultural engineer known as Michael Lescanne (Kersh, Stroup, & Taylor, 2011). The company began exploring and manufacturing curative milk to treat stern starvation. In 1996, the company designed and produced its first Plumpy’Nut product (Kersh, Stroup, & Taylor, 2011). This was the first ready-to-eat nutritional nut paste and its aim was to rehabilitate starved individuals (Kersh, Stroup, & Taylor, 2011). Nutriset spends its yearly proceeds in community services to sustain consortia study to attain the purpose of dietary self-sufficiency. This is an important undertaking by the company because it keeps the management apprised of the current and new technological developments. This further allows the company to remain focused and relevant with regard to its production. From this point of view, Nutriset has designed a structure of online conformity. Through this program, local NGOs and producers in developing nations are allowed to use Nutriset’s exclusive rights (Kersh, Stroup, & Taylor, 2011). These contracts help to make dietary self-sufficiency more achievable. As compensation for the free exclusive rights, the companies are required to give a donation of 1% of their sales to be rewarded to the French IRD (Kersh, Stroup, & Taylor, 2011). The French IRD co-owns these exclusive rights. Nutriset currently offers a broad variety of ready-to-use curative foods and it works together with the World Health Organization (Kersh, Stroup, & Taylor, 2011). The two collaborate in researching and adapting foodstuffs to reduce food crises. The company has set a system of local corporations that take action as contracted entities. These companies create jobs for locals leading to economic growth and development in the local areas where they are located (Kersh, Stroup, & Taylor, 2011). Ethical dilemma Nutriset desires to pursue its primary and solitary objective, which is to give food to children. However, to help a larger number of children, the company requires capital to finance their measures and improvement. Therefore, they make money and plow it back into R&D (Fisher, 2013). Furthermore, the Plumpy’nut exclusive rights are obtainable for a characteristic price.
Introduction Snow Patrol’s song “You are all I have” can be thought of as a reflection of post-industrial individual’s existential mode, who thinks of love as such that closely relates to the concept of comfort (“Under your skin feels like home”), rather than to an irrational passion, as it used to be the case in comparatively recent times. Given the fact that nowadays men are taught to be ashamed of their masculinity, it comes as no surprise that “You are all I have” contains motifs that are destructive to men’s ego, as the singer clearly associates happiness with the process of being deprived of its individuality, by the mean of becoming one with the object of his love: “There is a darkness deep in you A frightening magic I cling to.” Main body There are two types of men: those who derive pleasure out of “spreading the seed”, as the process that has value in itself, and those who derive masochistic pleasure from ceasing to exist, as a sovereign individual, after being fully domesticated. The members of Snow Patrol clearly belong to the second type of men, as their song “You are all I have” declare their intention to “hold on” to the object of their love, despite the counter-productive properties of such love: “You’re cinematic razor sharp A welcome arrow through the heart.” Just as a male spider, who gets to be eaten by a female spider, after having performed an “act of love” to her, the singer fully realizes the dangers, associated with romancing the subject of his affection: “I’ve got to see you one last night Before the lions take their share Leave us in pieces, scattered everywhere.” Yet, he does not mind them. In fact, he welcomes these dangers, as his subconscious feeling of its own worthlessness causes him to seek the meaning of his existence in the sheer intensity of his life experiences. It appears that being close to the object of his affection deprives the singer of his ability to understand the full spectrum of possible consequences, associated with it: “It’s so clear now that you are all that I have I have no fear cos you are all that I have.” Apparently, there are good reasons for the singer to have these “fears” in the first place. However, he prefers not to notice them, probably due to the fact that he is simply incapable of addressing them in the way they deserve to be addressed. In its turn, this can be explained by the singer’s clear affiliation with Generation X, representatives of which are being largely deprived of an understanding of what such concepts as intellectual integrity, physical beauty, and willpower stand for. This is the reason why the part: “Give me a chance to hold on Give me a chance to hold on Give me a chance to hold on Just give me something to hold onto.” Is being repeated three times, throughout the song, while sounding like some sort of irrational prayer. The singer does not understand the simple fact that something “given” has no value, especially
Introduction Social groups are formations or a collection of two or more people who interrelate and work cooperatively towards accomplishing common set and internalized goals. In the pursuit of these set targets, each member is assigned obligations, responsibilities and roles. A social group is distinct from other groups or collections of people in that there is a shared culture, ideology and identity that form the binding forces holding the group together. Social groups are classified in to either primary or secondary. The primary ones are characteristic with intimate relations, small size and long life. Secondary social groups on the other hand are larger, institutionalized and have formal relations. Both the primary and secondary groups either break or live long depending on the management, interrelationships and success towards the common set goals. (Schaefer, 2006) The social groups I have been part of include my high school as a secondary social group that had the common goal of imparting secondary education. It also sought to give students the social maturity that can only be attained from high school, develop a comprehensive sense of understanding about oneself and the people they live together with and the knowledge on development that majorly takes place within the high school age. The goals of these groups also form the role it plays in the society. The social function played by the high school includes development of the sense of cooperative work and community. The other social function of this group is to nurture leadership and other talents and skills of students as these abilities show during the development period covered by high school education. High school also plays the social function of nurturing the students to maturity in the social and physical aspects of individuals. (Schaefer, 2006) I have also been a member of a team which is a secondary social group. Our team was meant to help us achieve the highly complex tasks that also needed cooperative work so as to succeed having members with complementary skills to help strengthen the weak points of the members and further develop the strengths. Being a member of this high school football team the common goal and role was to achieve physical fitness, win in high school football matches to get the promotional rewards that were given to the winners like sporting equipment and to further develop the football skills that can also form a lifelong profession. The social function of the football team was that it developed us socially, was a source of physical and mental health development and it developed our football career. (Schaefer, 2006) Currently I am a member of a franchise which generally speaking is a group of workers who operate in different regions using the rights granted to them by the franchiser to market and distribute his products. The marketing work is paid on
Introduction Today, the greatest security threat all over the world is that of terrorist using nuclear weapons. However, the probability of such an event occurring remains low but with the advancement in technology we can never be sure of what will happen tomorrow. If it does occur, the consequences would be detrimental and world altering. Keeping such a weapon out of reach of terrorist should be given the utmost priority in all the agendas of the 21st century. It includes the key facts of global security. Leaders all over the world (especially those from the White House), the congress and in the community have realized the need of fighting against the use of nuclear weapons by terrorists. For instance, it is estimated that, if a ten Kiloton nuclear weapon is used on any of the biggest cities in the world; it would kill thousands of people instantly. This would not only lead to lose of life, but it would result in economic depression with the weakest economies being damaged the most. It would interfere with the global level of investing and spending (which has gone up) and it would take decades to recover. These effects would even be adverse if there is threat of a second weapon being used in the same country or in another. However, optimists argue that, nuclear weapons can be used to deter the chances of war between two nations. This paper will elucidate this view as it tries to explain how the use of nuclear weapons by India can deter Pakistan from engaging in nuclear war. Nuclear war between India and Pakistan The explosions that occurred in 1998 between Indian and Pakistani reopened the debate on the probability of nuclear weapons being used by terrorists. This was the first violent war to occur after the cold war. Propagation optimists argue that nuclear weapons have an alleviating effect in international and regional relations because they prevent predictable wars while pessimists challenge that claim. Pragmatist scholars elucidate the nuclear tests of May 1998 in security terms. The standard pragmatist elucidation is that India needs nuclear weapons to dissuade the conventional and nuclear military threat coming from China and the nuclear threat from Pakistan, provoked by Chinese assistance to the Paki
There is a wide range of quality standards that entrepreneurs are supposed to act by, and they are believed to be important for any company that pays increased attention to its social image. Nowadays, ISO 9000 Quality Management System remains one of the most famous sets of standards used all over the world, and it is important to study the way that it can influence customer satisfaction. A few studies chosen for the given review indicate that there is an obvious link between the implementation of ISO 9000 standards and the level of customer satisfaction in different spheres of business. The topic of ISO 9000 implementation and the changing performance of companies was studied by Phan et al. (2016) who have conducted a study to compare the situation and performance indicators before and after implementation of the discussed standards. As it is clear from their research which was based on the example of more than one hundred organizations operating in Vietnam, there is a wide range of factors that seem to change due to the implementation of this set of standards. In general, as stated by the authors of the article, the use of ISO 9000 standards helps to improve the performance of a company in different spheres. Having analyzed the results of a survey that was conducted five years ago, the authors concluded that ISO implementation could bring both external and internal benefits. Customer satisfaction belongs to the number of external factors that can be improved by companies that decide to implement ISO 9000 principles as the authors state that all concepts touched upon the ISO standards have a positive relationship with customer satisfaction. The ISO 9000 standards and their role in improving customer satisfaction have also been studied by Sleilati and Aubert (2016). Having conducted a study focusing on the B2B industry, the authors concluded that the implementation of ISO 9000 standards was beneficial for organizations of any size. More than that, the authors found the link between the use of these standards and customer satisfaction which seemed to increase in those firms using ISO 9000. About the particular improvements related to customers’ perceptions, the authors state that customer satisfaction increases due to significant quality improvements
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (also often shortened to MMPI) focuses on the person’s psychopathology and can be utilized to assess the traits of a personality. The key objective of MMPI is to help psychology professionals identify those individuals who are exposed to either mental or clinical health issues. Even though it was not intended to be used to assess non-clinical populations, it is recurrently applied to evaluate mental health in the workplace as well. There are two main variations of this test that are currently applied by the administrators – MMPI-2 and MMPI-2-RF while the only difference between them is the number of questions included in the test (567 and 338 respectively) (Ganellen, 2015). The new test was found to be taking less time (30-40 minutes) than its older version, but MMPI-2 is way more renowned among psychology specialists. There is also another revision of the test that was designed solely for teenagers and is called MMPI-A. The most interesting thing is that the test cannot be found online because it has to be administered only by a psychologist that is aware of how to use this protected psychological instrument. It is also critical to mention that even though it is conducted with the help of a computer, the majority of psychological testing procedures are coming before a clinical interview. It is safe to say that no direct specialized involvement is necessary nowadays, but a real-life survey preceding the test is obligatory (Friedman, Levak, Nichols, & Webb, 2014). The results of the testing are always interpreted based on the person’s background and other factors that may be connected to the existing psychological concerns. Overall, the test consists of ten quantifiable scales that are interconnected with ten categories of behavior that can be conveyed by humans. These types of behavior are authenticated using four validity scales that can be used to identify if the person is honest and completely sincere while answering the questions from the MMPI-2 survey. The general attitude toward the test is also important when drawing the line and making conclusions regarding the mental health of a certain person (Ganellen, 2015). It is a rather common situation when the persons taking the test may either exaggerate or deny the behaviors to which they are exposed throughout the test. The ultimate results of the test are always aligned with the peculiarities of the person’s character and background. Commonly, MMPI-2 is used in combination with other psychological tests to either validate or refute the existing hypothesis.
Introduction There are different ways in which a company can stimulate growth either internally or internally. External growth as defined by Block, Hirst and Danielson is the growth of firms through amalgamation, mergers or takeovers/acquisitions. The authors define a merger as being ‘the agreed amalgamation between two firms.’ There are different types of mergers namely vertical, horizontal and conglomerate merger (Block et al, 2008). History of the relationships of the two companies leading up to the final merger in 2009 Volkswagen and Porsche are two firms that are well recognized and established in the automotive industry. Based in Germany, both companies were founded by Ferdinand Porsche in the 1930s and have remained in the Porsche and Piech families to date. There has been contention and rivalry, some fuelled by family differences between the two firms; in 2005, Porsche, the smaller of the two companies, began a takeover bid that included buying Volkswagen stock. This plan might have worked had Porsche not fallen into financial constraint (Anon, 2009). Volkswagen had to step in with a merger proposal which Porsche fought off fiercely but finally had to give in to because it would mean an infusion of much needed cash into the latter firm’s fried up coffers. The merger between the two companies, which hit a couple of snags, was finally ironed out in late 2009 (Kingsbury & Dauer, 2009). A brief description of the firms Volkswagen and Porsche and the automobile industry The automotive industry is feeling the pinch of the global economic recession. The two auto makers are not the only companies to go the way of the merger. There are other acquisitions that have take
Discussing the issues of race and racial discrimination, it is crucial to have a full understanding of the exact notion of race. As it is pointed out, people polemicizing over biological and non-biological features of race and drawing stereotypic conclusions rarely reflect on what precisely race is (Fish 114). The authors under consideration (Oliver Cromwell Cox; Aníbal Quijano and Immanuel Wallerstein; Margaret Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins) study the notions of race, ethnicity, and discrimination. All three works try to define the origins of the notion of race from diverse viewpoints, referring to different recourses and drawing varied inferences from the subject. Oliver Cox overviews the notion of racism from the historical point of view. Discussing the notion of ethnicity, the author states that different ethnic groups are either constantly opposing each other, or assimilating with each other, or inventing ways to dominate each other (Cox 319). The author states that the desire to dominate and exploit takes root from racial antagonism and prejudice of white colonizers (Cox 322). The notion of prejudice is not within Cox’s focus; however, in his analysis of the backgrounds of racial conflicts, prejudice supposedly means “negative attitude based on faulty generalizations about members of specific racial, ethnic, or other groups,” as defined by sociologists (Kendall 283). Indeed, the white colonizers’ attitude toward the lifestyles of the peoples they tried to “civilize” has only emotional grounding. They tended to make improper conclusions about the other peoples’ social and political systems. Noting that their states were mainly agricultural, the white people thought the ethnic people were good at nothing but manual labor, and thus were easy to exploit. Furthermore, the white people’s weapons were more advanced, which gave them the idea of their superiority (Cox 322-345). Continuing his research, the author classifies and describes modern racial and ethnic relationships, supporting his statements with examples (Cox 355-376). The image of white female as a means of reaching significant social status is also described, but only briefly (Cox 386-390). In conclusion, the author suggests that the possible solution to the problem of racial conflicts is the amalgamation of different races and ethnics (Cox 390). Aníbal Quijano and Immanuel Wallerstein discuss the phenomenon of racism in relation to the concept of Americanity, which, in collective subconscious, is deeply diffused into the concept of modernity or newness. This idea consists in coloniality, ethnicity, racism, and the newness itself (Quijano and Wallerstein 24). The authors give an account of the USA history in the 19th century, emphasizin