Essay about recent hate crimes and statistic Essay

Lifeless bodies with slashed throats were found in the mountains of Virginia nearly six years ago. This is quite a disturbing image; the unfortunate result of a hate crime. What exactly is a hate crime? The American Psychological Association defines hate crimes as â€Å"violent acts against people, property, or organizations because of the group to which they belong or identify with† (1). The different groups usually involved include homosexuals, ethnic groups, and religion affiliations. Dr. Jack McDevitt, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, said hate crimes are forms of messages the offender wants to send to members of certain groups letting them know they are unwelcome in that neighborhood, community, school or workplace (APA, 1). According to CNN.com, Darrell David Rice of Columbia, Maryland, was found guilty of committing the 1996 slayings of hikers Julianne Marie Williams and Laura â€Å"Lollie† Winans, who were the girls in the opening disturbing image. Rice is serving an 11-year sentence in federal prison in Petersburg, Virginia, for attempting to abduct and kill a female bicyclist in the same park in 1997. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft called the killings of Williams and Winans â€Å"hate crimes† and said Rice could also receive the death penalty, in addition to the present sentence (Frieden, 1). Examples of hate crimes provided by Stephen Wessler’s â€Å"Addressing Hate Crimes: Six Initiatives† include (3):  ·the dragging death of African-American James Byrd, Jr., in Jasper, Texas  ·the deadly attack on Matthew Sheppard, a gay student in Laramie, Wyoming  ·the shooting rampage targeting minority citizens in Chicago  ·the shootings of children at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles  ·the murder of Joseph Santos Ileto, a Filipino-American mail carrier A report done by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states that 7,947 hate crime incidents were reported. In 1995, a comparison of states showed that California was at the top of the charts with 1,751 incidents reported, and Florida stood with 164 incidents (2). The total number of hate crimes only decreased by less than a hundred between 1995 and 1999. While these numbers may seem relatively small, the Southern Poverty Law Center has posted more dramatic statistics: every hour someone commits a hate crime, every day eight blacks, three whites, three gays, three Jews and one Latino become hate crime victims, and every week a cross is burned (1). In order to prevent the hate crimes from occurring, different things are being done in order to prevent and deal with the hate crimes. In schools, the Anti-Defamation League websites suggests planning ahead by doing the following (1): 1.Work with your school administration to establish a plan for responding promptly to hate incidents and hate crimes. 2.Educate school staff on how to recognize hate-motivated incidents and hate crimes. 3.Establish procedures for reporting hate-motivated incidents/crimes. 4.Establish school policies which clearly indicate that hate-motivated behavior will not be tolerated. On a wider scale, since the 1980s research on hate crimes has increased, especially from those in the fields of criminology and law enforcement. There focus is primarily on reporting the frequency of the problem and preparing criminal justice responses to it. While many hate motivated crimes go unreported, the number of reported incidents is up. However, with special training, people are prepared to deal with the situations. According to Wessler, the first professionals to respond to the scene of a hate crime are police officers. How they act in the situation will affect  the outcome of the incident. Wessler stated, â€Å"law enforcement agencies have a pivotal role in responding to, investigating, prosecuting, and preventing hate crimes.† Training is given to the police officers in order to carry out their role. Wessler said the training includes how to â€Å"recognize and investigate potential hate crimes, have clear protocols on how to respond to hate violence, and develop innovative programs for preventing the hate crimes.† Along with the professional training of police personnel, laws against hate crimes have been enforced in some states. As of 1999, there are only eleven states that do not have hate crime laws: South Carolina, Hawaii, Wyoming, New York, Kentucky, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Kansas, Arkansas, Georgia and Indiana. The anti-hate laws may not be well known but there are some out there. For example, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act â€Å"provides assistance to state and local law enforcement agencies and amend federal law to streamline the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes.† This bill will change the already existing law, adding crimes against sexual orientation, gender, and disability. This law also allows authority to respond to all crimes covered by the existing law, meaning crimes based on race, color, national origin, and religion (1). The number of hate crimes is slowly being decreased and the number of laws against hate crimes is slowly being increased, but the truth is, they are still out there. It may seem impossible to eliminate all the hate crimes that are occuring, but with more research, training, and handling each situation as they arise more seriously, America is slowly on it’s way to eliminating the problem of hate crimes. Works Cited American Psychological Association. 1998. Anti-Defamation League. 1999. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Uniform Crime Reports. 1995. Frieden, Terry. 10 Apr. 2002. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. NGLTF Communications Department. 25 Sep. 2002. Southern Poverty Law Center. Wessler, Stephen. Addressing Hate Crimes: Six Initiatives That Are Enhancing the Efforts of Criminal Justice Practitioners. Feb. 2000.

Shangri-La Hotel and Resort

[pic] Prepared By: Yee Shan (Sarah) CHUNG, Yan Sin (Jessy) LI, Kim Sang (Anson) HO, Kit Yat (Donald) TAI Table of Contents 1. Introduction3 2. Summary of Macro Environment4 3. Summary of Industry Analysis8 4. Summary of Internal Analysis12 5. Gap Analysis14 6. Recommendations22 7. Appendices26 8. References52 1. Introduction Since the parent company, the Kuok Group, is established in 1949 and until 1979 the home-grown Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, was opened its doors in 1971 and it was opened under the management of Western International Hotels.However, Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd was founded in 1982 and from that time until now, Shangri- La endeavoured through countless challenged from the Asian financial crisis to the outbreak of SARS in 2003 and a lot of other challenges, Shangri- La Hotels and Resorts (SLHR) recently was announced and located its properties premier city addresses and some of the world's most exotic destinations across Asia, Middle East, North Am erica and Europe. As of 2006, SLHR was the largest Asian – based deluxe hotel group in Southeast Asia.The company managed a total of 50 hotels under three brands: the five-star Shangri-La, the four-star Traders and Kerry – with total inventory of over 23000 rooms across 39 locations. Furthermore, SLHR also join the stock market of Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand. As of SLHR’ mission statement â€Å"To delight our guests every time by creating engaging experiences straight from our heart†, SLHR also produce new product differentiation such as Chinese theory spas which named the â€Å"Chi† in most of its organization.The success of SLHR does not stop there expanding its market or increase their inventory, but the management always concern its competitors who can bring the better product and service base on SLHR’s ones. SLHR management also requires having strategies for long term running the organization. The aim of this strategic analysis re port is to create vision for organization in future; by identifying and analysing the major macro-environmental trends which believe the major issues affect to the future growth of SLHR.The report also quickly examines the five forces within the industry analysis to rough idea the current effectiveness of the industry and also based on evidences to expect the future profitability of SLHR. Besides, to create the advantage competitive of SLHR, all of internal operations in term of resources and capabilities could inspect. Moreover, to have an overall the difference between the desired situation and the actual situation of SLHR, a gap analysis will be point out for bringing all analysis together and base on this analysis gap, organization will have an overall difference.Lastly, it is definitely not absent in this report will be a list of recommendations which help formulating for SLHR in relation to achieve to greater its position in all markets in the future. 2. Summary of Macro Envir onment Macro environment or PESTE analysis is the first step in creating the Environmental Analysis. The macro environment examines the general business climate as it relates to the organisation, but the organisation has nothing to do with it. It has an impact to influence Shangri-La Hotels by four different factors, such as Political or Legal, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technology and Environmental.These four factors had been analysed in the Appendix 1, which is based on the Shangri-La over the world. The Global economic has more negative factors that impact the Hotels, Global Financial Crisis nowadays is one of the big issues for most of the industries around the world, as it leads recession which will affect the finance of the countries or industries. Because of the Global Financial Crisis, the unemployment rate of some countries is still increasing in the beginning of 2012, such as Euro Area increased to 11%, Italy increased to 10. 0%, Spain and Greece has increased over 20%, but some of the countries are decreasing such as Japan, Thailand, Turkey and Hong Kong(Trade Economic, 2012). The unemployment rate is increasing because of the cost of labour is increasing as well which the current financial situation is not good enough to support. People are more concern on price or become price sensitive now because of global financial crisis, as they will think the product is worth with the listed price or not.Some of the countries had announced Carbon Tax scheme which will affect the hotels, as every organisations need to pay a certain amount for the carbon that they produced. These negative factors may leads the guests rarely go travel and stay in hotels because they have less income, as the net income of Shangri-La Hotels Group had decreased to $253. 0 million (Bloomberg Business Week, 2012). However, the Gross Domestic Product around the world is increasing while the inflation is decreasing in most of the countries. Same as the Economic factors, the Political a lso has more negative factors impact the hotels.Over 90% of the countries had established a legislation of minimum wages, the legislation is to prevent the employers when there is the intense market competition and they in order to save costs, at the same time the wages of the employees are unable to meet their basic needs. On the recent years, there are some conflict occurs between nations, for example, there was two attackers rammed a border post with a rubbish truck and threw two grenades, and then attacked policemen with knives in Kashgar, Beijing; and a roadside bomb explosion in Diwaniyah.The most recent hotel bombing is the Marriott Jakarta bombing in 2009 because of terrorism which leads at least 9 people killed and 50 people injured. For a hotel chain as Shangri-La, the properties are everywhere in the world, they need to prevent and consider about the location’s political issues before or after they take over or establish a new Shangri-La. On the other hand, some na tions have a legislation to control the people own arms or guns. But when the numbers of arms holding increase, the country and properties need to increase the insecurity as well (Shah, 2011).By having legislation of arms controlling is good for Shangri-La. As in 21st Century, everything is being high technology which means there are lots of new technology products invested and announced into the market such as 3D televisions and surrounding audio systems. When those products had announced to public, the guests may expect the hotels will have one of these products in house. Most of the technology factors are neither positive nor negative impact for Shangri-La, as the number of the internet users is increasing rapidly every year, nearly everyone will have at least one computer and smartphone.When most people have at least one technology product, some of the companies will start produce some up-to-date communication softwares and some new applications will announce to the sociality. B y the time when the number of internet users is increasing rapidly, Shangri-La can take advantages from that, as they can do marketing via internet, especially the social networks (e. g. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace). The guests can book a room via their official website or some travel agents website, and Shangri-La can announce the latest news on their official website and social networks for the guests to read.For the industry, the socio-cultural has average impact. As the population in the world is increasing which is good for all the industries, there are more consumers to consume their products. But at the same time, the fluctuating death rate is increasing which is the age population is increasing as well, because the medical technology has been improving year by year, the people will have longer life than the past. Most of the people will expect a better quality of life, such as for living and for travelling, they would like to have good experience on everything, especially on travelling and accommodation.Multi-cultural is a good for the business as well, because Shangri-La can adopt the culture and develops a different experience for the guests, for example, in India, Shangri-La can design an Indian style hotel to cater and adopt the environment to attract the guests to stay in. However, because of different culture and the religion of the culture, they need to understand and get known about these before they establish the hotel in a country or city. In addition, there are several environmental issues that affect the industry, for example, natural disasters will occur in some countries such as Earthquakes, Floods, Tsunamis and Hurricanes.Nowadays, natural disasters had become more serious and more often, because of the climate change within a decade and global warming, ozone depletion are caused primarily by increases in â€Å"greenhouse† gases as Carbon Dioxide. Due to the natural disasters and the global warming, the lands will be destroyed and lead land shortage. Land shortage will influence Shangri-La as there is no enough land for it to build new hotels, it can make them could not expand their business.While they building new hotels or running existed hotels, pollutions will be produced, for example, building new hotels will produce lots of dust and the lighting of running existed hotels as the light will open 24hours 7days. On the other hand, 3Rs policy has been announced as Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, the government encourages people to reuse and recycle the products that they used. According to Lincoln (2007) Shangri-La have a wide of environmentally friendly measures such as fitting all guestrooms with water saving device in taps and showers as well as using energy-saving lamps in more than half of the group’s guestrooms.For saving energy and resources, Shangri-La has variety of methods, as by rainwater harvesting, hot water production using solar panels or heat pumps and improvements in building envelope desi gn to reduce heat loss or heat gain as well as air filtration. Shangri-La also has several methods to reduce the greenhouse gases, such as through existing systems and processes, the use of new technologies and alternative energy sources and by building more efficient buildings. In summary, the luxury hotel industry has opportunities and threats associated with the macro environment. There is variety of positive, balanced and negative trends.There are still opportunities for reasonable growth in this industry despite the threats. 3. Summary of Industry Analysis Industry environment has a more direct effect on the firm’s strategic competitiveness and ability to earn above-average return as compare to the general environment (Misangyl et. al, 2006). Hitt et. al (2011, p. 51) mention â€Å"Industry analysis will be using the five forces model of competition such as the threats posed by new entrants, the power of suppliers, the power of buyers, product substitutes, and the inten sity of rivalry among competitors to understand the profitability potential within the industry†.The strength and interaction of the five competitive forces are what influence profit potential. This section will discuss about the industry analysis of hotel industry and a more detailed analysis can be seen in Appendix2. The threat of entrants in the hotel industry is not significant which leads to high industry profitability. New entrants need to have sufficient amount of budget in order to build and run the hotel such as require substantial upfront investment in building, specialized equipment, infrastructure and staffs.Products and services are easy to replicate in hotel industry, therefore, brand identity is the differentiator in the hotels. It is difficult for new entrants to gain access to the capital requirements needed to develop and build hotel. The industry’s incumbents have established relationships and experience, which enables them to achieve significant cost savings. In addition to brand loyalty and costs the new entrants must also contend with the probability of retaliation from the established hotels. The xisting businesses in the industry have a high degree of absolute cost advantages as they have built good relationship and trust between the suppliers and customers. The number of suppliers to the hotel industry is extremely high. The types of suppliers for hotels include construction suppliers, monopoly suppliers such as electricity, gas and water, furniture suppliers, linen and bedding suppliers, food suppliers, decor suppliers, appliance suppliers, uniform suppliers and most importantly then staffs. The suppliers have medium bargaining power which will affect the attractiveness and profitability of the industry.There is high concentration of suppliers. However, the majority of hotels have regional contracts with suppliers. This locks the hotel companies into using certain suppliers and creates switching costs. The volume being so ld to the industry is important to the raw materials sources suppliers and equipment manufacturers because hotels will purchase in bulk to operate the business. Contracted suppliers costs and employees’ costs are high because they are needed to work for the operation of the business. These suppliers have high bargaining power.However, they are unable to bargain and will make close to their best offer at the first opportunity in order to gain profit for their business. Differentiation of outputs from suppliers is necessary to deliver performance in order to be more profitable in the industry. Hotels and resorts are part of the accommodation in the lodging industry. Rooms are highly perishable products. There are other options to stay when the customers are away from home such as apartments, condos, cabins and town houses. Buyers have high bargaining power in choosing the accommodation that they would like to stay.Hotels can create differentiation strategy to add value to attra ct customers such as dealing with the pricing strategy, good customer services and provide up-to-date technology in the hotels. However, there is high concentration of buyers relative to the industry. There is very little threat of backward integration from the consumer due to the high costs of start up in the hotel industry. Hence, when the buyers have medium to high bargaining power, then the industry profitability will be low. Substitutes to the hotel industry have a high level of power which leads to low industry profitability.There are a lot of substitutes in the industry. Leisure customers have more alternatives when they travel overseas as well as business customers, they can plan whether to fly to a city in order to have meetings. Nowadays due to the advance technology invented, Internet helps the business people a lot. Business man can do video-conferencing in their own country without flying to other country. This helps the business to save a lot of money. In regards to le isure customers, they have more choices to choose such as staying in boutique hotels, motels, apartments, camping, cruise ships and even caravan.Substitutes gave greater power. The substitutes can provide similar services and products and providing better value for money which make economic sense for buyers to switch. The intensity of rivalry in the industry is medium to high which leads to low industry profitability. Hotel industry is in mature stage, there is no industry growth. With the increase of competitors such as the expansion of luxury Asian brand – Mandarin Oriental, it makes it difficult for the hotels in the industry to maximize its profit by strengthening its occupancy rates.The high cost of building, furnishing and servicing the hotels in the industry create high fixed costs and high exit barriers. This increases rivalry as they need to maximise profits to have significant returns on investment. It makes it difficult to withdraw from the industry and has to comp ete with other existing rivals. The level of diversity among the companies is medium because the majority of the hotels provide similar types of high quality service. Due to this reason, it is easy for buyers to switch from one competitor’s product to another.While there is great rivalry in this industry, there are opportunities for expansion into national and international markets. Moreover, there are many stakeholders involved and large dollar investments, thus, it involves high commitment from every members in the organisation. Overall, analysis of the five forces in hotel industry found out that hotel industry’s attractiveness is rated as medium-low in terms of the potential to earn adequate or superior returns.It is considered as a partly unattractive industry because it has low entry barriers, medium to strong bargaining position of suppliers and buyers, strong competitive threats from product substitutes and intense rivalry among competitors. 4. Summary of Inter nal Analysis Internal analysis is an analysis about the organisation itself, it finds out organisation resources and capabilities to create value to customers and identify area of weaknesses to be addressed by future strategic and evaluate core competencies (Evans, Campbell and Stonehouse, 2003).Acknowledging those resources and capabilities can understand company position and competitive advantage to achieve superior performance and profitability by strategic (Hill and Jones, 2012). Resources Tangible Shangri-la group comprises 110 hotels and resorts throughout Asia Pacific, North America, the Middle East and Europe. In future development more than 20 hotels and resorts will be built in variety countries. Revenue has growing up nearly a quarter from 2009 to 2010, US $1,729 million to US 2,145 million.But, Share of profit of associates of hotel operation total is 15. 0, and property rentals total is 47. 7. Intangible Shangri-la group has great reputation in public, goodwill value is US $84,504,000 in 2010, because create green image to public, ‘Sustainability’ is umbrella brand which has several action to reduce energy consumption, waste water and carbon dioxide emission. It shows the low turnover rate, this is because company pays respects, cares and aware their employee and provide work-life balance program to motivate staffs to work productively and efficiently.Capabilities It has strong human resource capabilities which is compare to others hotel property, the staff turnover rate is low, Shangri-la provide a series training to staff ensure reach service consistency that ensure meet the expectation of service quality, so this is the competitive advantage. The distribution channels are strongly developed, it has several internet distribution channels, e-commerce is the best way to deliver and receive information nowadays.However, the product differentiation, marketing and management are not strong enough to be core competencies. 5. Gap Analysis Macro-environment Business Strategy Gaps |Trend |Date of Impact |Business Strategy match or Mismatch | |Economic Growth in Asia |1-5 years |Match – Currently Shangri-La group is focusing on developing the | |(especially in China) | |market in China. |Euro economic crisis |1-5 years |Match – Europe is not an essential market segment for the Shangri-La | | | |group and does not have big influence on the hotel financial | | | |performance | |Increasing value of Chinese |Now and ongoing |Mismatch – As the exchange rate of RMB is getting higher, tourists | |RMB’s | |prefer going to other Asian countries while China is the main market | | | |for Shangri-La | |Green Awareness |Now and ongoing |Match – Shangri-La really makes an effort on sustainability, creating | | | |a green organisation image to the public and gaining goodwill from | | | |that. | |Use of Technology |Now and ongoing |Match – Shangri-La spends significant resources on network pro moting, | | | |for example customer can book a room through Shangri-La’s Facebook | |Diminishing Target Demographic |3-5 years |Mismatch – Even Shangri-La group has other brands like Traders and | |Segment | |Kerry, but the target market is also focusing on up-scale market. | Industry Environment Business Strategy Gaps Industry Environment Element |Opportunity of Threat |Effect on Industry Profitability |Business Strategy Consistency or | | | | |Inconsistency | |Suppliers |Natural |Average |Consistent | |Buyers |Threat |High |Consistent | |Threats of New Entrants |Opportunity |High |Limited Consistency | |Substitutes |Threat |High |Limited Consistency | |Rivalry |Threat |High |Consistent | |Government |Opportunity and threat |Various by Location |Some Consistency | |Complementors |Opportunity |Low |Limited Consistency | Key Competitor Business Strategy Gaps |Competitor | |Physical | |Brands | |Decision Making | |Values | | | ECONOMIC FACTOR |Recession |Negative | | | Global Finance Crisis, spend money discreetly (Shah, 2010). | | | | | | | |Good & Service Tax, spend more money in good (Kalia, 2010). |Negative | | | | | | |Some of the countries had announced Carbon Tax which increase | | | |expense (World News Australia, 2012). Negative | | | | | | |Gross Domestic Product is increasing which stimulate people spend | | | |in hospitality (The Economist Online, 2011). |Positive | | | | | | |People are more concern on price due to Global Financial Crisis | | | | |Negative | | |High Labour cost, especially in China grow up rapidly fast. | | | | | | |The inflation in most of the countries are decreasing , | | | |China still growing so fast (Global-Rates. com, 2012) |Negative | | | | | | |The unemployment rate in most of the countries are decreasing | | | |(Trading Economics, 2012) |Positive | | | | | | |Negative | | | |(China) | | | | | | | |Positive | |Overall Negative | |POLITICAL/LEGAL FACTOR |Around 90% of countries had established a l egislation of minimum |Negative | | |wages that increase labour cost extremely (Herr and Kazandziska, | | | |2011). | | | | | | |Conflict between nations, it is not safety for travelling that |Negative | | |influence hospitality industry (Global Conflict Map. com, 2011)( The | | | |World Bank, 2011). | | | | | | | |Arms control in some nations, limit import and export goods (Shah |Positive | | |2012).For instance, North Korea has strict control rules in | | | |hospitality industry. | | |Overall Negative | |TECHNOLOGICAL FACTOR |Growth of Internet with fast broadband can assists consumers to |Positive | | |search for rooms available via websites. They can make | | | |reservations easily which help the costs of industry’s marketing | | | |activities. | | | | | | |Communication software or technology improved every year such as |Positive | | |Facebook and Twitter are Social Medias for marketing. | | | | | | | |Many new technology products announced into the market, energy | Positive | | |saving light reduce pollution. For example, the installation of | | | |solar energy system in hotels which can help saving the budget of | | | |the company. | |Overall Positive | |SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTOR |Fluctuating Death Rate which mean age Population is increasing |Negative | | |(Population Reference Bureau, 2011). | | | | | | | |Expectations of service quality. Consumers now expect to get | | | |intangible experience and want to be recognized by the employees. Negative | | |As long as the industry keep up the standards with what the | | | |customers are expecting then it will bring positive effect to the | | | |industry. | | | | | | | |The number of population is increasing over the world; it | | | |increases the workforce and potential customer (Rosenberg, 2011). Positive | | | | | | |Multi-culture around the world, allow knowledge and technique | | | |exchange. | | | | |Positive | |Overall Balance | |ENVIRONMENTAL FACTOR |Greater awareness in global warming i ssues is a concern.Energy |Negative | | |consumption needs to be considered to reduce greenhouse gas. The | | | |most cost-effective greenhouse gas reductions can be made by using| | | |existing low technology in building insulation, lighting, | | | |air-conditioning and water heating systems and electricity standby| | | |(Enkvist et. al, 2007), (Fenger and Tjell, 2009). | | | | | | |Climate change (Shah, 2012) & Global Warming (National Geographic,| | | |2012). For example, mountainous areas reduce snow cover and winter| | | |tourism; southern areas decrease summer tourism period. |Negative | | | | | | |Water use management, reduce water use is a long-term strategic. | | |(Queensland Government, 2012) | | | | | | | |Waste disposal management, Use filters in deep fryers to extend | | | |the life of | | | |cooking oil or sale to driver(Lincoln, 2007) | | | |Indoor air quality, more countries forbid smoking in indoor than |Positive | | |last decade(Lincoln, 2007) | | | | | | | |3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) reduce waste cost in daily operation. | | | |For instance, use mugs to instead of disposable cups (USA |Positive | | |Recycling Facility Service, 2012) | | | | | | | |Some countries may need to face the natural disasters, e. g. | | | |Earthquake, Tsunami, and Hurricane (Shah, 2011). Negative | | | | | | |Land Shortage in nations, less land available, so the cost of land| | | |is become expensive. For example, rise around 9% of the total |Positive | | |property price, since 2001 in Australia (Hopkins, 2012),(Asia for | | | |Educators, 2009), (Your Investment Property, 2012). | | | | | | | |Negative | | | | | | | | | | | |Negative | |Overall Negative | 2. Industry Analysis |Forces |Issues |Impact | |Threats of new |Economies of scale |Medium | |entrants |New entrants need to have a certain large-scale production and huge finance because | | | |hotel industry requires substantial upfront investment in building, specialized | | | |equipment, infrastruc ture and staffs. | | |Small lodges will find it difficult to enter to the industry and compete with | | | |Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts because it requires large investment, however, the other| | | |well-known brands hotels such as Marriot International, Hyatt and Hilton might find it| | | |easier to build new hotels. | | | |Proprietary product differences |Medium | | |Product differentiation in hotel industry is low. It is relatively easy to replicate | | | |differentiation such as the products and services. Every hotels and resort can provide| | | |rooms that meet the demands of the customers and also train their staffs well to | | | |provide personalized service. | | |However, Shangri-La Hotels and Resort have built good brand and reputation; thus, it | | | |is the differentiator to compete with other new competitors. | | | |Brand identity |Low | | |Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts have built a good brand image in the mind of customers. | | | |Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts is alrea dy the leader in Asia (Dogan, 2010). They have | | | |established high product differentiation and brand loyalty.Other new brand hotels | | | |that want to come into the industry, they have to spend lots of costs to attract the | | | |customers to be competitive advantage. | | | |Buyer/customer switching costs |Medium | | |It is simple and easy for customers to switch costs. Customers can be easily attracted| | | |to different hotels that offer more value for money, or affordable prices. Due to the | | | |presence of Internet, customers will search and compare the hotel’s price via | | | |websites. Loyalty program can prevent the guests from switching costs. | | |Capital requirements |Low | | |High capital requirement is required for new entrants even though the competitors plan| | | |to do franchise, merger and acquisition, there is still high investment costs involved| | | |such as costs of inventories, high risk and law return situation and marketing | | | |activities. H ubbard & Beamish (2011, p. 76) state â€Å"New entrants with good ideas but | | | |without finance are unable to break into the industry†. | | |Access to distribution |Low | | |New entrants may have limited sources to access such as raw materials and distribution| | | |channels, as existing hotels have regular customers and partners. | | | |Absolute cost advantages |Low | | |The existing businesses in the industry have a high degree of absolute cost | | | |advantages.They have built good relationship and trust between each others; already | | | |establish hotel’s experience, favourable raw materials, advertisement expenses and | | | |favourable location. Thus, it is hard for new entrants to enter into the industry | | | |because there is low level of trust and familiarity with the suppliers. | | | |Government policy |High | | |Depends on the country’s regulations, government has the opportunity to set many | | | |restraints in the industry or encourage and facil itate the development of hotels. | | |Expected retaliation |High | | |Retaliation is expected as existing hotels will low down price and promotes some | | | |packages to attract customers. Unique and differentiated products by diversifying it | | | |can therefore persist the retaliation. | | |OVERALL RATING: LOW – MEDIUM | |Bargaining power of |Differentiation of inputs |Medium | |supplier |Supplier’s input is crucial to the final product. Good quality of the products and | | | |services provided by the suppliers will create a good outcome.Hence, it will have to | | | |boost the economy of the business. Hotels in the industry are the buyers and the | | | |producers of inputs that are the suppliers (Buffett & Munger, n. d). There are many | | | |suppliers involve in hotel industry such as: | | | |The construction companies tend to have a particular strong position when it comes to | | | |the hotel owner who would like to build a hotel. Thus, it strengthens the power o f | | | |being a supplier. | | |Monopoly suppliers who control electricity, gas and water supplies have high | | | |bargaining power. | | | |Hotels need to spend lots of money in the operational costs. Hotels need to buy | | | |Property Management System and Point of Sales to help the effectiveness of business | | | |operation. Hotels also need to buy amenities products, chemical products and raw | | | |materials for catering. Moreover, it needs to spend money on maintenance and servicing| | | |the equipments.If the hotels are locked into a contract, then the power of suppliers | | | |will be lower, they cannot increase the prices when they want to. | | | |Hotels are in the service industry. Hence, it needs people to provide exceptional | | | |services to the customers. High education and good experience employees will have | | | |higher bargaining power. They may negotiate the wages that they would like to receive | | | |and they think is reasonable before working with the hotels. | | | |Hotel customers are fragmented. Hence, as a supplier to the customers, the argaining | | | |power is low because there are substitutes that the customers can choose such as | | | |Marriott International Hotels and Hilton Hotels. | | | |Switching costs of suppliers and firms in the industry |Medium | | |Suppliers have power if there are few firms supplying the product or if there is no | | | |reasonable substitute for it (VBulletin Solutions, 2012). However in large hotel | | | |chains, many things are done by signing contract legally. Legal costs may increase if | | | |one party is not working as per contract listed. Thus, the switching cost is low. | | |Supplier concentration relative to industry concentration |Medium | | |There are high concentration of suppliers to choose from for Shangri-La Hotels and | | | |Resorts. Therefore, the suppliers have lesser power. | | | |Importance of volume to suppliers |Low | | |The volume being sold to the industry is important to the raw materials sources | | | |suppliers and equipment manufacturers because Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts will | | | |purchase in bulk to operate the business.Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts have a great | | | |deal of power over the suppliers when purchasing raw materials sources and equipments. | | | |Cost relative to total purchases in the industry |High | | |Supplier cost is a huge part of the total cost. Contracted suppliers costs and | | | |employees’ costs are high because they are needed to work for the operation of the | | | |business. Suppliers retain the power. | | | |Information about supplier’s product |Medium | |Hotels are highly aware of the quality of the products they purchase such as raw | | | |materials, equipments and even labour sources. Hotels will not take the risks to | | | |change the suppliers before they did research and compare the market price among the | | | |supplier’s industries. | | | |Supplier profitability |Low | | |Hotel industry ha s higher profitability as compare to the supplier industry.Suppliers| | | |will be unable to bargain and they will make close to their best offer at the first | | | |opportunity in order to gain profit for their business. | | | |Decision makers’ incentives |Medium | | |Hotels need to motivate their employees by giving incentives in order for them to | | | |provide good service to the customers. | | | |Hotels will do promotional packages when it is in low season to attract more customers| | | |to stay in the hotel. | | |Threat of forward integration |High | | |Suppliers can sell their products via Internet and even to the supermarkets. They have| | | |the power to enter the industry (Hubbard & Beamish, 2011). | | |OVERALL RATING: MEDIUM | |Bargaining power of |Differentiation of outputs |High | |buyers |Customers determine the profitability of the hotel’s business by choosing which one | | | |they would like to stay with, they have high bargaining power to choose.Hotel s create| | | |differentiation strategy to add value to attract customers such as: | | | |Customers place products and pricing strategy at first. For instance, the hotels | | | |should plan for low price strategy during low season or include complimentary goods | | | |for customers. | | | |Staffs provide good quality of service. | | | |Good geographic location which convenience the guests. | | | |Good atmosphere of the rooms and restaurants. | | |Give service for disable such as have disabled rooms in the hotels which located in | | | |the first floor to convenient the handicapped people. | | | |Switching costs of buyers |High | | |Shangri-La Hotel and Resorts have created a loyalty program named â€Å"Golden Circle† to | | | |attract existing customers by earning points and then the customers can redeemed for | | | |hotel stays, dining or spa experiences at any  Shangri-La hotel, resort, Traders hotel | | | |or Kerry hotel (Shangri-La International Hotel Management, 2012) .Thus, this group of | | | |customers will most likely be repeat customers and choose to experience services from | | | |Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts. There are low switching costs for customers. | | | |Presence of substitute outputs |High | | |There is an important level of the industry’s output has to the buyer. Hotels and | | | |resorts are part of the accommodation in the lodging industry. There are other options| | | |to stay when the customers are away from home such as apartments, condos, cabins and | | | |town houses (CarrHallCastle, 2012). | | |Industry concentration relative to buyer concentration |Medium – Low | | |Tourism industry is growing rapidly and the demand of hotels for customers increased. | | | |Travellers are highly concentrated relative to the industry, thus, the buyers do not | | | |have lots of bargaining power. | | | |Importance of volume to buyers |High | | |Large volumes of customers are expected to stay in the hotels because they are th e | | | |main source of income for hotels to generate profit.For example, tour operators, who | | | |book thousands of customers into hotels, have a strong bargaining position and can | | | |demand lower prices from hotels. Rooms are perishable, thus, hotels must try to meet | | | |the occupancy level. Buyers have more bargaining power. | | | |Cost relative to total buyer purchases |Medium | | |Corporate customers might invest large amount of money into the hotels when there is | | | |conference happens. They will reserve lots of rooms and meeting rooms. Therefore, they| | | |have more bargaining power. | | |Buyer information about the industry output |High | | |Customers can survey on the best firms that offer great services. They can have | | | |assistance from the travel agents, corporate travel consultants, internet and words of| | | |mouth to determine where they can get the services that they would like to experience. | | | |Positive words of mouth will build good reputation a nd image to the hotel whereas bad | | | |words of mouth will badly impact the business of the hotel. | | |Buyer Profitability |High | | |Customers have the freedom to choose which property they would like to stay in and | | | |dine for. They will gain ‘profit’ when they receive more services as compare to what | | | |they expected. They are still holding high bargaining power. | | | |Decision makers’ incentives |Low | | |When there is a large group coming to stay in the hotel, hotel will provide a discount| | | |price. | | |Threat of backward integration |Low | | |It is impossible for individual customer to enter the hotel industry due to large | | | |investment required. | | |OVERALL RATING: MEDIUM – HIGH | |Power of substitutes |Relative price/performance of substitutes |High | | |Hotelmule (2008) states â€Å"Continual developments in technology keep changing the | | | |potential threat from substitute products†.Technological advancements in th e internet| | | |make the overall market to be more efficient and at the same time expanding the size | | | |of the potential market and create new substitution threats. For example, | | | |video-conferencing has been used instead of holding a conference in hotel. Business | | | |customers tend to travel lesser. | | | |The substitutes for lodging such as camping, hostels and motels, the invention of | | | |cruise ships and trains causes travellers to have alternative choice when travelling | | | |to another country. | | |Switching costs |High | | |It is easy for buyers to switch costs, thus, the substitutes have greater power. | | | |Buyer propensity to substitute |High | | |Substitute products or services will be a threat. Capon (2008, p. 63) states â€Å"This can | | | |be achieved by the substitute being equally good and cheaper, or by it being equal on | | | |price, but offering a better product or more added value†.When other lodges such as | | | |apartments, condos, ca bins and town houses providing similar or equally good function | | | |and providing better value for money, it may make economic sense for the buyers to | | | |switch. | | |OVERALL RATING: HIGH | |Intensity of industry |Industry growth rate |High | |rivalry |There is no industry growth. The hotel industry is in mature stage. Severe industry | | | |rivalry occurs. | | |High fixed costs |High | | |The high cost of building, furnishing and servicing the hotels in the industry create | | | |high fixed costs. This increases rivalry as they need to maximise profits to have | | | |significant returns on investment. Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts must sell more rooms | | | |to cover those costs and increase hotel market competition. Hence, it makes it | | | |difficult to withdraw from the industry and has to compete with other existing rivals. | | |Intermittent overcapacity |Medium | | |Due to there are a lot of competitors in the market, there might be a lot of rooms | | | |that are av ailable and cannot be sold out. | | | |Product differences |High | | |There are no product differences because majority of hotels provide similar types of | | | |high quality service. Products and services in hotels are easy to imitate.It is | | | |difficult to reduce the rivalry through the differentiation of the products and | | | |services. | | | |Brand identity |Medium-High | | |Brand is important because through branding, a business can stand out of the crowd. | | | |People remember the organization and will choose to go to the well-known hotels as it | | | |can heighten the level of self esteem and be part of the social group. Shangri-La | | | |Hotels and Resorts have developed their brand name and are well known in worldwide. | | |However, other hotel groups such as Marriott International and Starwood have great | | | |brand identity as well. | | | |Switching costs |High | | |It is easy for buyers to switch from one competitor’s product to another; industry | | | |riva lry will be increased (Hubbard & Beamish, 2011). Thus, Shangri-La Hotels and | | | |Resorts create a loyalty program named Golden Circle to retain their customers. | | |Informational complexity |Medium-High | | |Consumers can look at rooms available in different hotels and compare prices online. | | | |Internet will have information about the price and service differences. Furthermore, | | | |some hotel websites provide virtual tours which introduce the guests about the real | | | |experience spending time in the hotels. There are also lots of travel websites such as| | | |trip advisor which provide guest’s review about the hotels. Information is readily | | | |available on the Internet. Thus, industry rivalry is enhanced. | | |Concentration and balance |High | | |Cline (n. d) mentions â€Å"Hospitality customers increasingly seek predictable services | | | |that support their ability to move quickly and easily around the world†. International| | | |hotel chains are e xpanding their business to meet the demand of the customers and to | | | |determine the way to be ‘happy’ with their position in the industry. Hence, rivalry | | | |will be significant. | | |Diversity of competitors |Medium | | |The level of diversity among hotels is medium because majority of the hotels provide | | | |similar types of high quality service. However, some hotels like Marriott | | | |International; it diversifies its business into planning and organizing wedding events| | | |for the couple who would like to marry. Marriott provides free assistance from | | | |certified wedding planners and help with everything from selecting centrepieces to |

Loan Management System Essay

The Traditional way of maintaining details of a user in a bank was to enter the details and record them. Every time the user need to perform some transactions he has to go to bank and perform the necessary actions, which may not be so feasible all the time. It may be a hard-hitting task for the users and the bankers too. The project gives real life understanding of Online Banking System and activities performed by various roles in the supply chain. Here, we provide an automation for banking system through Internet. Online Banking System project captures activities performed by different roles in real life banking which provides enhanced techniques for maintaining the required information upto-date, which results in efficiency. The project gives real life understanding of Online Banking System and activities performed by various roles in the supply chain. Scope of the Project This Project investigates the entry threshold for providing a new transaction service channel via the real options approach, where the entry threshold is established by using an Internet banking system designed for the use of normal users(individuals), Industrialists, Entrepreneurs, Educational Institutions(Financial sections), Organizations and Academicians under transaction rate uncertainty. Customer must have a valid User Id and password to login to the system If a wrong password is given thrice in succession, that account will be locked and the customer will not be able to use it. When an invalid password is entered a warning is given to the user that his account is going to get locked. After the valid user logs in he is shown the list of accounts he has with the bank. On selecting the desired account he is taken to a page which shows the present balance in that particular account number. User can request for the details of the last ‘n’ number of transactions that he has performed. A report can also be taken of this. User can make a funds transfer to another account in the same bank. User is provided with a transaction password which is different from the login password. User can transfer funds from his account to any other account with this bank. If the transaction is successful a notification should appear to the customer, in case it is unsuccessful, a proper message should be given to the customer as to why it failed. User can request for cheque book/change of address/stop payment of cheque’s User can view his monthly as well as annual statements. He can also take print out of the same. Generate reports at every section Administrator can take a back up of the database for every instance that is happening, periodically. All users are authenticated to avail the services FAQ section is also included for end users benefit.

Musical Theaters Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Musical Theaters - Assignment Example The first factor that made musical theater leap from â€Å"Oklahoma† to â€Å"Rent† is attributed to the uniqueness of the performances in theaters. (Everett & Laired, 2009). Theaters became revolutionized in that performances included singing, acting and dancing. The actions of; singing, acting and dancing instilled new life in the theaters, and eradicated the old fashion theaters, which only involved acting. In essence, the musical, â€Å"Oh what a beautiful morning† portrayed both aspects of signing and acting. The theme of the musical contained lyrics, which inspired a great number of people, and this made the musical very appealing (Everett & Laired, 2009). The second factor that made musical theaters leap from â€Å"Oklahoma† to â€Å"Rent† is related to the society. The musical â€Å"I will† by Jonathan Larson is performed by individuals from impoverished societies faced with negative issues such as poverty and AIDS. Through this, the theater became appealing since many individuals found relevance while in the theaters. Individuals in American societies and around the world, mostly the youths, found themselves on the negative side. Musicals such as â€Å"Oh what a beautiful morning† flourished as it touched a great number of individuals. The inspiring nature of the two musicals â€Å"Oh what a beautiful morning† and â€Å"I will† added with the drama and music definitely appeals (Everett & Laired, 2009).

Organisations, Competition and Environment - Assignment for Higher Essay

Organisations, Competition and Environment - Assignment for Higher National Diploma in Business and Management - Essay Example Recently, the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries were admitted into the European Union. I hypothesise that the entry of the Czech Republic has significant positive effects for companies in the European Union given that tariffs between the Czech Republic and other EU countries in general and the United Kingdom in particular have been eliminated. The aim of this paper is to prepare an article for a UK company that has operations in the Czech Republic describing the effects on the company of the Czech Republic’s admission into the Union. The rest of the paper is organised as follows: Section 2 describes the European Union how the admission of the Czech Republic into the Union has affected our chosen company, Section 3 presents a syllabus of the main points to be included in the article and Section 4 is a presentation of the article as it will be published in the companies periodicals. The European Union was formally established in 1992 by the Maastricht Treaty (Palmowski, 2003). The Maastricht treaty brought together the 3 pillars including: the European Community (EC) whose decisions were governed by the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament and guarded by the European Court of Justice; the Common Foreign and Security Policy, which is determined on the basis of intergovernmental cooperation in the European Council alone; Justice and Home Affairs. (Palmowski, 2003). The European Union was formed as a continuation of the process to promote an economic and political Union in Europe which began with the formation of the European Community after the Second World War. (Palmowski, 2003). In addition, in the 1980s, Europe became more concern about the internationalisation and globalisation of trade and politics in which small European States could only have an influential voice if they acted in coordination with each other. (Palmowski, 2003). The

Music and the society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Music and the society - Essay Example The lyrics therefore fuses with the instruments to resulting a holistic peace that does not only entertain but also communicates the basic aspects of the society. Set in the society and targeting the same society for audience, musical compositions limit their creativity to the similar attributes of the society. This implies that the themes in the songs and the musical instruments used in the songs must come from the societies in which either the composers or the audience belong. Songs therefore portray the social, political, economic and cultural aspects of the society. In doing these, the draw lyrics from the specific features of the above elements that affect the society daily (Chris, Gerald and Allen 44). Through time, societies develop their technologies and cultural behaviors alongside other pertinent attributes. Songs and other works of art should therefore communicate the constant change in their presentation. This includes the type of instruments they use and the level of cre ativity in composing the songs. Songs must therefore reflect the changes through time. This implies that songs produced in different times should portray the difference in the features of society. The difference should be easily evident in the lyrical composition of the songs and even the instruments used. The technological changes often result in improvements in the instruments and other technological aspects of the composition. Songs should therefore always have better quality owing to the fact that they subsequent song productions employ better technologies. Due to the modern telecommunication developments, the world has eventually become a global village denoting that people easily trade cultural products key among which are songs and other works of arts. With such developments, any work of art that targets the global audience must address issues that are familiar to the global market. This compels detailed researches to identify the prominent aspects of the global society. Song s determine the trends in the global popular culture, composers of songs and other global works of art therefore have increased responsibility of regulating their cultural products to limit their compositions to uphold the values and virtues in the wider global society. From the above discussion, it is obvious that comparing to musical compositions is synonymous to comparing the different times of production for the two or more songs. Through the themes in the songs, the instruments used and the composition styles, the social, economic, political and technological state of the times become evident. Two of such songs composed and produced at different times in history but are still classical master pieces are The Four Seasons by Antonio Vilvadi in 1723 and Music for the Funeral of Queen Marry written by Henry Purcell in 1965. The time differences between the two songs is more than three centuries a time within which the society changed its structure. Political, social, economic, cult ural and even technological factors all changed thereby creating a big difference in the nature of the songs. They both have a representation of each of the five aspects of the society and the nature of representation in the two communicate the difference in the time lines. As its name suggests, The Four Seasons describe the seasons in the year and the activities in them. In his composition, Vilvadi composes and produces four concertos to represent he four seasons. Published for the first time in 1925, the four were part of the twelve concerti named the contest between harmony and invention. Each of the four concerti has unique composition structure and uses different instruments to create the difference in the tempo and therefore the general composition. The first two represent the warm seasons of

Three characters in history Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Three characters in history - Essay Example Hannibal Barca was Carthaginian forces’ historical leaders, which fought besides Rome in the time of Second Punic War. People considered Hannibal as being the greatest Rome’s enemy. After his early successes in Spain, he led his military forces across the Alps, and entered Italy where they achieved several military victories (Fronda, 2010). Perhaps, Hannibal’s greatest success happened at the Cannae battle in 216 BC. Lastly, remembered in North Africa because of defending the Rome city, he lost the fight of Zama during 202 BC. After the completion of the Second Punic War, Hannibal migrated from North Africa to Asia when he sustained his lifelong battle against Rome by being the leader of the eastern armies. However, the Roman people pursued him persistently, and rather than being arrested alive, he committed suicide by drinking poison (Fronda, 2010). Washington’s leadership can be accredited considering the way in which he ensured three essential responsibilities during the establishment and historical years of the United States. First, he was the Continental army commander, secondly, as the Constitutional Convention’s president, and lastly as the former president of his country (Greenstein, 2011). On June 1775, people unanimously elected Washington to be the commander of all forces to the Continental Congress. Washington established the Continental Force; his administrative and organizational skills, accompanied by his solders’ trusty, assisted George to train them into a battling force, which was able to win against the British (Greenstein, 2011). Without Washington, a large number of soldiers would have resigned from the military army as it was during the Trenton Battle. As a Constitutional Convention president, Washington applied similar leadership skills he used during the battle times. It is with no do ubt that, Washington’s ideas- a strong union,

ASC 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

ASC 2 - Essay Example ipal supplier earns the entire revenue from the sale transaction and should therefore report the gross earnings, while the agent earns a commission on the transaction and should report the net earnings. The guidelines specify eight tests to ascertain whether a particular entity is acting in the capacity of a principal. Satisfaction of many of these conditions would normally indicate that the entity is acting in the capacity of principal and should record thee gross revenue. The eight tests specified by ASC are: 2. Risk for Inventory: The party that has unmitigated general inventory risk would be acting in the capacity of a principal. Such party would maintain an inventory of products before sale with accompanying inventory risk and will take ownership if the product is returned by the customer. 5. Supplier selection: A party that has the discretion to select a particular supplier, from several suppliers who can provide the product, for fulfilling a particular order to a customer would be acting in the capacity of principal. 7. Physical loss inventory risk: If the entity assumes risk of the product until transfer to the customer or gets the title back if the product is returned, it is most probably acting in the capacity of a principal. Amazon.Com has included three of the eight conditions specified under the ASC. Conditions such as carrying out product changes, determination of product specifications, and assumption of credit risk have not been included by Amazon. Some of these are specified as providing weaker evidence. However, when a number of factors are being considered and judgment is made on the basis of several of these factors, it would have been more appropriate to include all of them, which Amazon has not done. Thus while Amazon’s stated practice is in conformance with the ASC guidelines, it does not include all the conditions. Overstock.Com specifically states that it follows the ASC guidelines on Principal Agent Considerations while determining

Environmental issues and management processes introduced to deal with Essay

Environmental issues and management processes introduced to deal with such issues - Essay Example One of the most recognised environmental effects brought about by the automotive industry is pollution. Basically, pollution can be said to occur when the introduction of chemicals, gases, fumes or even odor is released to the atmosphere (Tyler and Scott 2009). These causes harm and discomfort to both humans and other living things. It also causes damage to both natural and man-made environments. It is through activities brought about by an automotive industry that the issue of global warming comes in. Therefore, this paper is going to assess some of these issues. 1.2 Background of the Study The automotive industry has seen an outstanding change on its structure and management in the late 1990s. Lately, the new approaches have continued to weaken the customary structure of the industry (Law 1991). This includes ways in which the industry can be structured in order to be environmental friendly. Production process has been witnessed which encourages invention of electric vehicles which are friendlier to the environment (Law 1991). Globally, the automotive industry has witnessed a tremendous growth particularly in China (Law 1991). Nevertheless, the industry is faced by much challenges ranging from organization matter to its effects on the environment. In order to have a clear attention to detail of such issues, the present paper carried out investigate on currently literatures on automotive industry and its effects on the environment as discussed in chapter two. 1.3 Statement of the Problem In the last two decades, the automotive industry has been linked to unfavorable environmental harms. One of the key concerns involves globalization. Globalisation is referred as â€Å"the process through which regional economies and societies became integrated... From this research it is clear that the automotive industry has seen an outstanding change on its structure and management in the late 1990s. Lately, the new approaches have continued to weaken the customary structure of the industry. This includes ways in which the industry can be structured in order to be environmental friendly. Production process has been witnessed which encourages invention of electric vehicles which are friendlier to the environment. Globally, the automotive industry has witnessed a tremendous growth particularly in China. Nevertheless, the industry is faced by much challenges ranging from organization matter to its effects on the environment. In order to have a clear attention to detail of such issues, the present paper carried out investigate on currently literatures on automotive industry and its effects on the environment as discussed in chapter two. In the last two decades, the automotive industry has been linked to unfavorable environmental harms. One of t he key concerns involves globalization. Globalisation is referred as â€Å"the process through which regional economies and societies became integrated into a common network that has universal coverage†. Contemporary globalisation comprises incorporation of political thoughts through communication, transportation and trade. Thus the automotive industry plays a crucial role in this situation. In China, similar to other leading players in the automotive industries, globalisation has seen economic growth while the adverse environmental effects increase day by day.

Paper three Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Paper three - Essay Example However, as a means of comforting themselves, mourners frequently purchase silk linings, pillows, mattresses and other ‘comfort’ items that the non-living corpse will never enjoy, appreciate or even notice. These are the last gifts the living can ever bestow upon their loved one and allows the survivors to feel they haven't simply disposed of the body without ceremony or proper human respect. Although there would seem to be comfort in the belief in the body as merely a shell for the spirit, this idea simply does not offer the sort of comfort it should. As Lynch relates in his book, one woman mourning the death of her teenage daughter following a battle with leukemia reacted violently to the suggestion that the body before her was simple a ‘shell’, claiming "that is my daughter until I tell you otherwise" (85). Mourners continue to feel that their loved one is present somehow and families spend thousands of dollars on burial rites which would be unwarranted i f the body was just the shell. The increased mystery and horror associated with the corpse through children’s stories and zombie media outlets continues to suggest some element of the individual remains. As a result, the corpse retains a sense of power all its own, earning legal protections and capable of conveying more truths about the individual than the ‘shell’ theory would acknowledge. Much of the expense families suffer as a part of the funeral process is spent trying to preserve the body for eternity. Funeral homes make tremendous profit by selling mourners on the promise that the body will be preserved forever with embalming or high quality sealed caskets. Aiken (2001) points out families in California regularly pay as much as $5000 for a funeral in spite of much lower priced options opening the field to widespread corruption. Journalist investigations have revealed funeral home practices intentionally designed to inflate expenses while clergy members have openly admitted accepting a ten percent commission from funeral homes for their recommendations paid at a later date (Winner, 1999). Despite the promises, the only way to prevent the body from dissolving is to cremate the remains, both the cheaper of the available options and the one which automatically eliminates any hope of preserving the body as it was when living. In so many ways, modern society has continued to distance itself from death in ways that take some of the significance out of the event and make instead a frightening mystery. â€Å"Before the turn of the century, Americans may have been more in touch with death and as a result less fearful of the corpse. Farm accidents and childbirth complications caused many deaths in a more agrarian and pre-medically advanced society. Traditionally, Americans used to keep the deceased in their homes until everyone had a chance to view a body† (Emerick 43). By personally preparing the body for display in the front room and ho lding visitation within the home itself, people were more comfortable working with and around a corpse. As a result of this closer association with the dead body, they were also more comfortable with the related concepts of death and dealing with what was left behind. Children, witnessing these events, grew up without the same sorts of aversions to the dead that children today

Business Technology Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Business Technology Management - Essay Example Other RFID applications include animals and vehicles tracking, wrist and ankle band to provide security for the infants. Many RFID applications are yet to be discovered. In the future, RFID will benefit most industries and government agencies (Hunt et.al, 2007) RFID is the most efficient technology in which many industries have benefited from. It is cost effective, and Wal-mart and Department of Defense has incorporated it into their supply chains. The reason why it is used variedly is due to motivation from shipping, receiving and stocking efficiency, which is increasing. RFID decrease cost of labor and storage. It also reduces the product loss that can be offered by pallet level inventory of visibility. RFID is beneficial though a number of issues have hindered its growth. Failure to organize the RIFD into common standard of technology, lack of hard schedule rollout and economy of scale for RIFD tags has hindered the growth in the industry RFID was perceived very expensive. However, an increase in usage has made it effective in terms of cost. RFID have several advantages, which benefit most companies. It can code every individual RIFD uniquely. Adding data is possible. It also possesses reading possibilities, which are advanced. The companies should use RFID since it can increase distribution and sale productivity. RFID can reduce out of stock, counterfeiting, shrinkage, errors in supply chain. It improves promotional execution and management of inventories. It helps in tracking and managing capital asset and make receiving of accounts very efficient. RFID increase visibility and information sharing within the company and among members of supply of supply chain. It also increases access to real time information, which facilitates fast growth in the companies (Botha et.al, 2008) There is a need for companies to use the RFID. It yields very many benefits though companies might face some disadvantages. Continuous

Study Habits Essay Example for Free

Study Habits Essay Do you have a friend that never studies for tests, yet he always seems to do well and aces them? It’s probably because he has good study habits. To improve your study habits you must first realize what your distractions are and eliminate them. Second, you must choose a good, quiet place to study without interruptions. Lastly, you should write down the material several times as it is a strategy proven to help memorize and learn the material. These steps will help you do better in school and have great opportunities in the future. The first step to having better study habits is probably the hardest one for most people: Acceptance. People refuse to think that talking on the phone while you study or having the radio on with songs that you know and love jeopardizes your material retention. The first step consists of you eliminating all of those negative factors so you can concentrate on your study session. Turning off your phone, logging out of your Facebook, Twitter and any other social media accounts, and concentrating on your goal are ways that you can use to be more efficient in your learning. These are usually the things that distract us the most so it’s important that you deal with them in order to focus and eventually succeed academically. But personal distractions aren’t always the things that keep us from our studies. The second step will teach you how to cancel out any outside interference. To ensure that you don’t get constantly interrupted with noise, questions and conversation with friends or family, you must choose a place where you can study quietly and alone. When you’re at home, family members usually don’t know what you’re doing and are unaware that they are interrupting your study time. In order to avoid this you can go to your room or the house office and study quietly and isolated. Chores and tasks around the house must come second in your list of priorities after studying. This will help you focus more and finish faster. The fewer interruptions you have, the quicker you study and go back to doing the things you want to do. This takes us to the final step necessary to improve your study habits. A technique that helps you retain information better and faster. The third step is a strategy that people use when they are short on time or when the material seems to be too overwhelming. Writing the material down several times has been proved to work better than reading a page over and over when memorizing. But in order for this method to work you must follow the first two steps. This way, not only are you writing it over and over but you are also focused on what you are writing which makes learning and absorbing the material way easier and faster. With this study tool you can be certain that you’ll remember every detail and vocabulary words and terms in the test and assignments. It doesn’t stop here. There are a million ways to study and have success in your academic life. Every person reacts a different way and everybody retains information a different way too. These steps are pretty generic; useful for any kind of learning. They work together as a unit. The first two steps cover the types of distractions and how to get rid of them, while the third step is a tool that you can use to make the most of that free time. Following these steps will guarantee a silent and study-friendly environment necessary for your academic development. So, next time you see your friend acing that test without putting up any effort or work into it, you can have the satisfaction that you reached that point of success by working hard, fast and efficiently. All by just following three simple steps.

Probity, Resilience, and Conscientiousness in Medical Career

Probity, Resilience, and Conscientiousness in Medical Career Research suggests that the attitudes and behaviours that medical students show, or develop at  Medical school, are reasonable predictors of behaviour later in their professional careers. Bearing this in mind, explain the following concepts and outline what relevance they have to you  as a medical student and as a future doctor: Probity, Resilience, and Conscientiousness. The population often have a set of traits in mind when it comes to defining the ideal doctor. [1] The GMC have also defined what is expected of doctors in their publication â€Å"Good medical practice†. [2] In this essay I will explain the concepts of Probity, Resilience and Conscientiousness to allow me to launch into how they are relevant to me as a medical student and a future doctor. Probity is defined by the GMC as being â€Å"honest, trustworthy and acting with integrity†. [3] The importance of Probity is echoed internationally as the National University of Singapore conducted a study, the results of which showed that doctors regarded being honest and trustworthy as the two most important characteristics of medical practitioners. [4] Medical students must demonstrate probity in a variety of ways but I believe a medical student’s probity will most likely be shown by producing original academic work, not plagiarising and flagging up any concerns regarding their clinical work [3] since these, in my opinion, are some of the pits where some students will most likely fall. I personally believe I demonstrated probity during my community based medicine placement when a patient, in a one on one interview, asked me to give him medical advice, which I was in no position to do and so I told him to speak to his doctor about it along with letting him know that I’m not a doctor, but a medical student. A lack of probity in this case will have resulted in the patient receiving advice that might have harmed them regardless of any good intention behind it. Moreover, plagiarism was flagged up by an article where the BMJ suggest that research might show that students don’t have a complete understanding about referencing properly. [5] While this lack of understanding might not mean that the student is dishonest, the aforementioned article highlighted that 56% of students had already or would consider copying text and only listing it as a reference which is clearly plagiarism and so a show of dishonesty. This is relevant to me because research has shown that doctors who have been sanctioned by governmental bodies were three times more likely to have been unprofessional as a medical student than control students. [6] A show of probity is, as such, important from day one in medical school. An example of a situation where a doctorâ€⠄¢s lack of probity caused preventable consequences to a member of the public in addition to likely tarnishing the profession’s reputation in the public eye is the striking case of Doctor Derek Keilloh who maintained a dishonest account of his treatment of an inmate. [7]Another case was that of Dr Holloway who claimed pay for sick leave while pursuing a career in sports commentary. [8] In my opinion, the latter case ties in with and verifies the GMC’s earlier guidance on how students must be honest when working with allocated funds. [2] These two cases demonstrate to me how important it is to show and develop probity as a medical student and maintain it throughout my career or the consequences on patients and staff at the work place can be dire. Conscientiousness is defined as â€Å"wishing to do one’s work or duty well and thoroughly† [9]. Patient interviews highlighted that being â€Å"thorough and persistent† [1] was a trait the ideal doctor possessed. This was echoed by Sister Donna Keenan, Northern Ireland’s nurse of the year 2010. [10] Not performing one’s duty thoroughly is not a new issue amongst the medical profession: A newspaper article from 1952 summarised the case of a surgeon who had left forceps inside a patient causing unnecessary suffering. [14] Looking more recently, the notorious case of the Mid-Staffordshire scandal [11] can be used, in my opinion, to demonstrate a lack of conscientiousness on the part of the guilty staff involved. I think the rise in mortality rates was likely preventable if the staff involved had demonstrated thorough care to their patients. It could also be argued that the lack of whistleblowing in this case was yet another show of medical staff not p erforming their duty persistently and thoroughly since whistleblowing is part of a doctor’s duty, even as a medical student. [3, 11] I believe even the smallest show of conscientiousness can improve a patient’s experience such as when I relayed a patient’s complain regarding his bed-side television malfunctioning to my supervisor during voluntary work: The following week, the patient said that my â€Å"persistence† had allowed him to occupy himself and hence take his mind off his illness to relieve himself. The importance of this trait was highlighted in my mind even further upon reviewing the case of Jesica Santillan who received organs of the wrong blood type, resulting in her death. [12] This case also shows me that such careless practice can impact others as well the patient involved: In Jesica’s case, the organs could have saved another life but they went to waste. Reflecting on all three cases, it is clear that it’s critical for medica l students to develop a sense of conscientiousness if they are to become effective doctors or if they are to, in fact, even pass their examinations in medical school. However, it is worth taking note that research suggests conscientiousness (as measured by the conscientiousness index-CI) did not differ significantly between the first and second years of medical school and so showing it is a trait unaffected by â€Å"teaching and clinical exposure†. [13] This is relevant to me as a student because I believe it highlights that simply going through the first year of medical school will not be sufficient to develop a sense of conscientiousness; while some students might already have a strong sense of conscientiousness, those who don’t will need to seek/be offered support as it is an important characteristic. [13] Resilience is defined as â€Å"the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness†. [15] A report commissioned for the GMC highlighted that a significant proportion of medical students continue to suffer from mental health issues: it was described as endemic. [16] This is backed up by Swedish research showing that depressive symptoms were much more prevalent amongst medical students than the general population, at 12.9%. [17] A more shocking statistic is that, in the same study, 2.7% of students had attempted suicide. [17] The fact that this study was conducted in Sweden demonstrates that stress and depression associated with medical school is widespread around the globe and it would be wise to devise ways to deal with it. Another issue regarding the stress we face, as medical students, is that we often dismiss our deteriorating health as a normal part of life as a medical student. [18] To complicate things further, the stress we face can stem from a variety of reaso ns from performing mediocrely in an exam when we have always been at the top of our peer group to traumatic experiences related to clinical attachments such as patient death. [18, 22] I believe this variety makes the stress much more difficult to deal with. In the light of said stress, it is clear that being resilient will allow students to deal much better with their day to day life as a medical student and future doctor. [19] Not only is this important for the student/doctor themselves, it is also critical as it affects the quality of treatment the patient receives. [20] Students can burnout and this can be modelled conceptually where the â€Å"coping reserve† is positively and negatively affected by several factors which will either lead to burnout or a more resilient individual. [21] As a result, it is clear that devising mechanisms and ways of raising one’s morale and knowing when to seek support is very important in developing the resilience needed. Personally, I ’ve found that speaking to my colleagues and being able to relate to them very stress relieving alongside with phoning my close family to seek advice and generally vent out my concerns. However, I think the main component of my resilience is my active involvement in the sport of boxing which keeps me physically healthy, allows me to de-stress regularly and induces a sense of achievement within me to allow me to focus on my medical life so I can deal with the copious demands of studying Medicine. [23] In conclusion, Probity, Conscientiousness and Resilience are essential qualities medical students and doctors must develop. Probity allows patients to place their trust in the doctors and ensure it’s not abused while allowing the practitioners themselves to feel satisfied with their honest work. Being persistent and thorough with one’s practice will ensure any set tasks/treatment plans are done to an adequate standard. Finally, resilience will ensure that the individual can cope with the demands and challenges posed while still being able to give their best to the tasks at hand and their patients. Consequently, it is vital all three qualities amongst other qualities not covered in this essay are developed throughout one’s professional life. Reference list Miranda Hitti. 7 Key Traits of the Ideal Doctor. [Internet] Available at: http://www.webmd.com/news/20060309/7-key-traits-of-ideal-doctor (accessed 16/11/2014). General Medical Council (GMC). Good Medical Practice, 2013. GMC and Medical Schools Council (MSC). Medical students: professional values and fitness to practise, 2009. Fones CS, Kua EH, Goh LG. What makes a good doctor?views of the medical profession and the public in setting priorities for medical education. Singapore Medical Journal 1998; 39(12): 537-542. [Internet] Available at: http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/10067397 (accessed 16/11/2014). S.C.Rennie, J.R.Crosby. Are â€Å"tomorrows doctors† honest? Questionnaire study exploring medical students attitudes and reported behaviour on academic misconduct. British Medical Journal 2001. [Internet] Available at: http://www.bmj.com/content/322/7281/274 (accessed 16/11/2014). Maxine A. Papadakis, M.D., Arianne Teherani, Ph.D., Mary A. Banach, Ph.D., M.P.H., Timothy R. Knettler, M.B.A., Susan L. Rattner, M.D., David T. Stern, M.D., Ph.D., J. Jon Veloski, M.S., and Carol S. Hodgson, Ph.D. Disciplinary Action by Medical Boards and Prior Behaviour in Medical School. The New England Journal of Medicine 2005. [Internet] Available at: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa052596#t=abstract (accessed 16/11/2014). Clare Dyer. ‘Doctor who denied he saw Iraqi detainee’s injuries is struck off medical register, British Medical Journal. 21 December 2012. [Internet] Available at: http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e8686 (accessed 16/11/2014). Clare Dyer. ‘Doctor who claimed sick leave while working as sports commentator is struck off, British Medical Journal. 27 October 2014. [Internet] Available at: http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g6455 (accessed 16/11/2014). Oxford University Press. Definition of conscientious in English (accessed 23/11/2014) [Internet] Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/conscientious GMC. What makes a good doctor? [Internet ] Available at: http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/10058.asp (accessed 23/11/2014) Isobel Weinberg. The Mid Staffs scandal. Student BMJ 2013.[Internet] Available at: http://student.bmj.com/student/view-article.html?id=sbmj.f941#What did the report recommend? (BMJ 2013;346:f847) (Accessed 23/11/2014). Joel D. Howell. ‘A Death Retold: Jesica Santillan, the Bungled Transplant, and Paradoxes of Medical Citizenship (review)’. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 2008; 82(2): 498-499. [Internet] Available at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/bhm/summary/v082/82.2.howell.html (accessed 23/11/2014). Andrew T Chaytor, Jacqueline Spence, Ann Armstrong and John C McLachlan. ‘Do students learn to be more conscientious at medical school?’ BMC Medical Education 2012, volume 12. [Internet] Available at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/12/54 (accessed 23/11/2014) The Advertiser. ‘Doctor Found Negligent In Forceps Case.’ 21 June 1952 [Internet] Available at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47411162 (accessed 23/11/2014) Oxford University Press. Definition of resilience in English (accessed 23/11/2014) [Internet] Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/resilience Andrew Grant, Andrew Rix, Karen Mattick, Debbie Jones, Peter Winter. ‘Identifying good practice among medical schools in the support of students with mental health concerns’ GMC July 2013. Marie Dahlin, Nils Joneborg and Bo Runeson. ‘Stress and depression among medical students: a cross-sectional study’. Medical Education 2005; 39(6): 594-604. [Internet] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2929.2005.02176.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=userIsAuthenticated=false (accessed 23/11/2014). Julie M. Rosenthal, and Susan Okie, M.D. ‘White Coat, Mood Indigo — Depression in Medical School’. The New England Journal of Medicine 2005 [Internet] Available at: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp058183 (accessed 23/11/2014). Amanda Howe, Anna Smajdor and Andrea Stà ¶ckl. ‘Towards an understanding of resilience and its relevance to medical training’. Medical education 2012; 46(4): 349-356. [Internet] Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2011.04188.x/full (accessed 23/11/2014). Fabiana Hirata, Monica Lima, Veralice de Bruin, Paulo Nobrega, Germano Wenceslau and Pedro de Bruin. ‘Depression in Medical School: The Influence of Morningness-Eveningness’. Department of Medicine, Federal University of Ceara 2007; 24(5): 939-946. [Internet] Available at: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07420520701657730 (accessed 23/11/2014). Dr. Laura B. Dunn M.D., Dr. Alana Iglewicz M.D., Christine Moutier M.D. ‘A Conceptual Model of Medical Student Well-Being: Promoting Resilience and Preventing Burnout’. Academic Psychiatry 2014; 32(1): 44-53. [Internet] Available at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1176/appi.ap.32.1.44 (accessed 23/11/2014). Haglund, Margaret E.M. MD; aan het Rot, Marije PhD; Cooper, Nicole S. PhD; Nestadt, Paul S.; Muller, David MD; Southwick, Steven M. MD; Charney, Dennis S. MD. ‘Resilience in the Third Year of Medical School: A Prospective Study of the Associations between Stressful Events Occurring During Clinical Rotations and Student Well-Being’. Academic Medicine 2009; 84(2): 258-268. [Internet] Available at: http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Abstract/2009/02000/Resilience_in_the_Third_Year_of_Medical_School__A.38.aspx (accessed 23/11/2014). Mental Health Foundation. ‘Exercise and Mental Health’. [Internet] Available at: http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/E/exercise-mental-health/ (accessed 23/11/2014).

English Based Idioms English Language Essay

English Based Idioms English Language Essay Introduction Language is a major feature of a nation. English language has developed hundreds of thousands of idioms. It has been estimated that about 7,000 idioms are used by a native speakers per week (Cooper, 1999, p. 249). At the same time, grasping idioms can be a great asset to learners in acquiring a new language (Celce-Murcia Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p.36). Idioms are extraordinarily difficult for their flexible structures and figurative meanings (Liu, 2003, p.675). For example, the meaning of high horse has nothing to do with high and horse but means an arrogant people. According to the surface meaning, second language learners can hardly tell its meanings. Also, Language is the most important communication tool. People use language to preserve and transmit human civilization, that is, language conveys the culture. Sapir (1921) observed that culture can be defined as what a human community does and thinks. The function of language is to explain what a thought is. Therefore, language does not exist alone. It is rooted in national culture and reflects national institutions. If culture is regarded as the cradle of language, animal idioms can be seen as the crystallization of culture. Animal idioms are plentiful in English. They prominently reflect English culture. For a long period, studies on animal idioms mainly focus on translation, cross-cultural comparison, literature, etc., such as On the Validity of the Communicative Translation in Idiom Translation from a Cultural Perspective (Wang, 2006), On the Untranslatability in English-Chinese Idiom Translation (Zhao, 2010). However, there are few studies on English animal idioms acquisition linking to British culture. For example, On the Integrated Teaching of Language and Culture in the British and American Literature Courses (Chen, 2009). Animal idioms, like a mirror, can clearly reflect the characteristics of a national culture. Generally speaking, culture is divided into three levels by anthropologists: high culture, popular culture, deep culture. High culture includes philosophy, literature, art and religion. Popular culture refers to customs, etiquette and the interpersonal aspects of life. Deep culture conta ins the meaning of beauty and ugliness, time orientation, problem-solving methods. They believe that these three levels of culture are closely linked. High culture and popular culture are rooted in the deep culture, while deep culture reflects the popular culture by a kind of custom or life style and reflects the high culture by certain forms of art or literary theme. Growing up in a culture has naturally inherited its deep culture and popular culture (Yin Han, 2007). High culture and popular culture belong to low context culture; deep culture belongs to high context culture. In this thesis, the key point is to investigate whether the Chinese English learners can understand the low context culture by examining the command of animal idioms. High context culture is out of the scope of this project. Literature Review Culture and Language There are a large number of definitions in culture, but a few of them can be reviewed. The most classical definition of culture is made by Edward B. Tylor, the father of cultural anthropology. The definition describes the culture as a center of society, which is regarded as the first important anthropological theory about culture. Tylor(1873, p.10) provided that culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of a society. He believed that culture is shared by all humankind, all community. Then, following the definitions of sociologists, they believe that culture refers to human attitudes, institutions, and beliefs etc. Reflecting the life of a human community is the key point in culture. Samovar et al (2000) observe that culture is a group (which may be a nation, corporate or family) to form thought, behavior, custom, etc. within certain amount of time and cultural consciousne ss is radiated from all activities. They think that culture describes the ways of a person or a group of peoples existence. The society, country and nationality are an important platform for peoples existence in generations. That is to say, culture explains the way of thinking, speaking, communicating during the existence. Also, Deng and Liu (2007) point out that culture illustrates the ways of a people, that is to say, culture refers to the entire way of life of a society. The language stems from certain social life and production and is the carrier of certain culture which contains peoples daily life. It inevitably reflects this nationalitys social reality and receives the constraint of this nationalitys custom, thinking mode, moral rule, value orientation, and political idea (Yang, 2007). Each language is a living fossil to a nation. Language as the main material has the most direct and close contact to build a culture. Furthermore, language is used for communication. It is impossible to use a language without awareness of its culture. That is to say, language can be a signal to identify different cultures. When language used by particular speakers, it conveys certain context which is how words be chosen, why to choose it, what meaning can be expressed. Language cannot exist without carrying culture meaning. Given the arguments above, the relationship between language and culture can be described as follows: language come from culture and culture embodies the entire way of life of a society. Using language can promotes cultural spread and culture can promote language development. Language and culture work closely and influence each other. Expressing facts, ideas, or events and reflecting the peoples attitudes, beliefs etc. are the most important function of a language. Language exchange actually is cultural communication. Learning a language well must be aware of its culture. Studies on Idioms Makkais Idiom Structure in English, an extended version of his doctorial thesis (1965), identifies two major types of idioms: one is encoding; another is decoding. Makkai finds a rationale to explain this division. The headword listed in the (OED) (1970) is sense 3a, which also appears in an identical form in the OED (1989): A form of expression grammatical construction, phrase etc., peculiar to a language; a peculiarity of phraseology approved by the usage of a language, and often having significance other than its grammatical or logical one (quoted from Fernando C., 1996, p.3-4). According to Moon (1998, p.4), narrower uses restrict idiom to a particular kind of unit: one is fixed and semantically opaque or metaphorical, for examples, as white as a sheet or cold shoulder. In broader uses, idiom is a general term for many kinds of multiword item, no matter semantically opaque or not. For animal idioms, the form is usually loose, and it mainly focuses on figurative meanings rather than literal meaning, for examples, put the cart before the horse, or straight from the horses mouth. According to Nunberg et al. (1994, p.498), idioms may differ along three orthogonal semantic dimensions: compositionality, conventionality, and transparency. Compositionality refers to the degree to which the phrasal meaning, once known, can be analyzed in terms of the contributions of the idioms parts; conventionality refers to the degree to which idiomatic meanings are not predictable based upon knowledge of the word components in isolation, and knowledge of the conventions of a particular language environment; finally, transparency refers to the degree to which the original motivation of these phrases is immediately accessible (see Titone and Conine, 1999:1663-1664). Wang (2010) mentions in English idioms feature and pragmatics that English idioms with the strong feature of rhetoric are formed from long-tem use and their structures are unique and have fixed expression. It contains proverbs, sayings, slangs, and allusions, etc. There are two important characteristics of idioms: one is semantic unity, that is, the overall meaning cannot be tracked from each word. For example, dog doesnt eat dog. It means that people of same profession, school, etc. never make trouble for one another instead of the surface meaning. Another is the structure of fixity, that is, its structure cannot be altered arbitrarily, for example, kick the bucket. It cannot say kick the pail or be used in the passive voice- the bucket is kicked. Animal idioms and British culture There is a close relationship between animals and peoples lives. On the one hand, animal is the main source of food and clothing for human; the other hand, kinds of animals represent certain images which people pay homage to them. These animals reflect human thought and contain certain national culture. Liao (2000) has defined that there are three bases to make animal vocabularies to cause cultural meanings. First, derive from animals appearances, physical structure, mentality, behavior. Second, come from cultural content such as fables, legends, religions, physical geography, and customs. Third, be created by association, that is to say, animals are associated with another things which relate to potential cultural psychology. In the perspective of linguistics, animal images used in idioms have figurative meaning. Idioms linked to animals usually contain metaphors. Animals denote and connote supposed qualities. These qualities are applied to people and human situations. There is a ph enomenon that no idiom database contains animal or insect, although many contain hyponyms such as cat, dog, or horse. The reason may be that general words such as animal are too neutral to cause these kinds of institutionalized metaphors, despite the fact that both animal and insect are used in other contexts with metaphorical meanings (Moon, R., 1998, p.196). In the meantime, the formation of animal idioms relies on culture. According to the arguments mentioned above, culture refers to all aspects of a people such as geographical situation, the style of production, and literature etc. In the history, Great Britain was the overlord in the sea. Despite the Europe, other continents were the British colonies. Therefore, British nation could contact with many animal species. Britain is surrounded by islands. Due to the abundant resources from physical geography, animal idioms flourished in the early years of that century. Thereby, English idioms have close contact with sea and fishing, for example, hook ones fish. Comparing with China, Great Britain is filled with small mountains and strait lands. In ancient Britain, horses are main tillable force. The function of horses is above all. Thus, there is particularly large number of horse-related idioms, such as horse of another color, an iron horse, or horse sense etc. In ancient China, the cattle played a significant role. That is why so many idioms related to cattle in China, for examples, niu qi chong tian  ¼Ã…’feng ma niu bu xiang ji etc. These cattle and horses have been portrayed by cultural connotation. In addition, some animal images come from Greek and Roman mythology or Bible, like serpent which means Satan in Bible (Zhao, 2010). Animal idioms related studies In the second language learning, correctly using idioms has always been regarded as a tough problem. A learner must recognize the fix structures and given meaning, not only the literal meaning but also the figurative meaning. Figurative meaning refers to metaphors which have close relationship with culture. Whats more, animal idioms are more flexible and oral orientation. It is not easy for second language learners to breach the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic barriers in idiom learning. Blasko and Connine (2002) made an experiment in comparing Malay and English to investigate second language figurative proficiency. They found two results as follows: First, figurative expressions with an equivalent conceptual basis and linguistic form are the easiest; Second, figurative expressions with an equivalent linguistic form but a different conceptual basis are the most difficult. Lin Weiyan (2003) designed a project to investigate English idiom learning in different cultural background. H e observes that English idioms with same figurative meaning as Chinese are easy to understand comparing with different figurative meaning as Chinese. That is to say, if the English idioms are similar to Chinese ones in expression and meaning, mother tongue will make effectively transfer; if not, mother tongue will make negative transfer. Wu Xudong and Chen Bin (2006) quickly came to the conclusion that the process of conceptual and cultural transfer is the process of comprehending English animal idioms, and Chinese English learners has low capability to comprehend English animal idioms with different metaphors. From the presented studies above, it can be concluded that commanding idioms, especially animal idioms is one of the big obstacles in second language learning. Chinese English learners have the advantage and disadvantage of understanding animal idioms, because there are some similar figurative meanings. But due to the learning environment, Chinese English learners have low capabilities to command animal idioms. Research Question Can the command of English animal idioms greatly influence Chinese English Learners to understand British culture? Hypothesis Due to the relationship with language, animal idioms and culture, command of English animal idioms can greatly influence Chinese English Learners to understand British culture.