Using Research Evidence. (paper subject - Health and social care) Essay

Using Research Evidence. (paper subject - Health and social care) - Essay Example However, the definition that really caught my attention was the one that defined research as a systematic, planned, investigation of a stated problem with a pre-established or decided outcome, which will contribute to understanding the issue in question (Carnwell, 2015). In all the above definitions, there is the element of systematic, and planned even if not directly but may synonymously be implied by the used words. In other words, research must be systematic and planned. This is a research that basically depends on collection and gathering of quantifiable or measurable data. It may be defined as a method that involves collecting numerical data under controllable conditions and the subsequent statistical analysis of information generated afterwards (Burns & Grove, 2001). In summary, it has the following characteristics that make it distinct from qualitative research: Under this research, there is a single objective that defines the study plus, the report must be based on statistics. Correlations and other measures of central tendencies are calculated and reported (Johnson & Christensen, 2008). This research involves collecting and analyzing systematically materials, using personal feelings through procedures in which there tends to be a minimum of researcher control to minimize bias of the researcher (Polit & Hungler, 1993). In this type, there is mostly personal feelings involved and most of the findings are not quantifiable. Evidence can be said to be either valid, relevant, reliable or valid and relevant or valid and reliable. When it comes to evidence based practice, there is need to use the best evidence for decision-making. For this reason, the evidence needs to be one that can be reliably be depended upon since life is at stake. They would want o use the best evidence available from the previous research. Evidence may be valid with regards to a particular case or person, but may fail the relevancy test for which

Spring And Autumn Essay Example for Free

Spring And Autumn Essay Natural events In spring, the axis of the Earth is increasing its tilt toward the Sun and the length of daylight rapidly increases for the relevant hemisphere. The hemisphere begins to warm significantly causing new plant growth to spring forth, giving the season its name. Snow, if a normal part of winter, begins to melt, and streams swell with runoff. Frosts, if a normal part of winter, become less severe. In climates that have no snow and rare frosts, the air and ground temperature increases more rapidly. Many flowering plants bloom this time of year, in a long succession sometimes beginning even if snow is still on the ground, continuing into early summer. In normally snowless areas spring may begin as early as February (Northern Hemisphere) heralded by the blooming of deciduous magnolias, cherries, and quince, or August (Southern Hemisphere) in the same way. Subtropical and tropical areas have climates better described in terms of other seasons, e.g. dry or wet, or monsoonal, or cyclonic. Often the cultures have locally defined names for seasons which have little equivalence to the terms originating in Europe. Many temperate areas have a dry spring, and wet autumn (fall), which brings about flowering in this season more consistent with the need for water as well as warmth. Subarctic areas may not experience spring at all until May or even June, or December in the outer Antarctic. While spring is a result of the warmth caused by the turning of the Earths axis, the weather in many parts of the world is overlain by events which appear very erratic taken on a year-to-year basis. The rainfall in spring (or any season) follows trends more related to longer cycles or events created by ocean currents and ocean temperatures. Good and well-researched examples are the El Nià ±o effect and the Southern Oscillation Index. Unstable weather may more often occur during spring, when warm air begins on occasions to invade from lower latitudes, while cold air is still pushing on occasions from the Polar regions. Flooding is also most common in and near mountainous areas during this time of year because of s nowmelt, accelerated by warm rains. In the United States, Tornado Alley is most active this time of year, especially since the Rocky Mountains prevent the surging hot and cold air masses from spreading eastward and instead force them into direct conflict. Besides tornadoes, supercell thunderstorms can also produce dangerously large hail and very high winds, for which a severe thunderstorm warning or tornado warning is usually issued. Even more so than in winter, the jet streams play an important role in unstable and severe weather in the springtime in the Northern Hemisphere. In recent decades season creep has been observed, which means that many phenological signs of spring are occurring earlier in many regions by a couple of days per decade. Spring is seen as a time of growth, renewal, of new life (both plant and animal) being born. The term is also used more generally as a metaphor for the start of better times, as in the Prague Spring. Spring in the Southern Hemisphere is different in several significant ways to that of the Northern Hemisphere. This is because: there is no land bridge between Southern Hemisphere countries and the Antarcticzone capable of bringing in cold air without the temperature-mitigating effects of extensive tracts of water; the vastly greater amount of ocean in the Southern Hemisphere at all latitudes; at this time in Earths geologic history the Earth has an orbit which brings it in closer to the Southern Hemisphere for its warmer seasons; there is a circumpolar flow of air (the roaring 40s and 50s) uninterrupted by large land masses; no equivalent jet streams; and the peculiarities of the reversing ocean currents in the Pacific. AUTUMN SEASON Autumn is when all these colors transition into different levels of reds and browns and become crisp, falling off for children to sweep or collect. If the leaves in spring are bright green, the leaves in autumn are a magnificent red. Spring is the signal that winter has already ended, and autumn is the signal that summer is finally over and done with. For many people, spring lets them look towards summery days and vacations ahead ‘â€Å" while autumn signifies the reality of going back to school and the routines of the most part of the year. Colorful plants and green leaves versus brilliant reds and browns and falling leaves ‘â€Å"an awakening from the cold, and the end of the hot summer heat. The eager anticipation of sunny days and breezy nights, and the stark reality of a vacation ended on a high note. These are usually the things that come to mind when you try to differentiate between the two seasons of spring and autumn.

How Do Financially Distressed Companies Overcome Decline Economics Essay

How Do Financially Distressed Companies Overcome Decline Economics Essay The present paper analyzes the recovery process of 526 US firms facing an initial financial distress situation in order to determine the variables of influence on their final survival status. The proposed model of this recovery process implies that severity and reaction capability should be understood as initial conditions that will impose restrictions in the selection of strategies which will drive the performance during recovery, thus, determining the final resolution of long term financial distress process. We found that these variables have an impact on i) the ability of a company to overcome decline; ii) the efficiency of the selected strategies and iii) the results of these strategies on post-distress fit position. Keywords: Recovery process, financial distress, severity, Data Envelopment Analysis Introduction Every organization is inevitably exposed to ups and downs during its lifecycle (Krueger and Willard, 1991; Burbank, 2005) and failure is not a sudden event (Agarwal and Taffler, 2008). The ecological theory of organizations states that in a continuous process of firms, those who survive are better capable to compete. Kahl (2001) defines fittest firms as the ones that have greater chance to survive. In this way, the financial distress process should be understood as a selection mechanism by means of which good performers survive and bad performers do not. In this same line, Sheppard and Chowdhury (2005) consider that failure is a firms misalignment with its environment. Failure is a reversible process and not necessarily degenerative if the company is able to detect signs of underperformance and to achieve an effort in its economic performance. Firms facing a distressed financial situation usually share a series of common patterns which make it difficult to estimate a possible outcome of this situation (Barniv et al., 2002). Among the distressed firms, there are little divergences in the financial weakness indicators in the different failure processes (Ooghe and Prijcker, 2008). The dissimilarities between the failure stages and the turnaround effectiveness as well, become evident on the how quickly the indicators evolve and on the ability of the management to react when distress signals are detected. Ignoring these alert signals may lead to a continuous decline process which may end up in failure without even trying any recovery strategy (Burbank, 2005). Managing a crisis situation is a fundamental issue as it is not a spontaneous process. Moulton and Thomas (1993) affirm that the reorganizations during a financial distress situation are not a simple matter and the probability of a successful exit is very low. However, the percentage of firms that succeed in getting through decline cannot be disregarded. Barniv et al. (2002) found that 50% of the sample firms which filed bankruptcy from the Office of the General Council of SEC resolved their situation as emerged firms. One third of the financially distressed firms in Kahls (2001) study survived as independent companies. Moreover, Gonzà ¡lez-Bravo and Mecaj (2011) found that 22.5% of sample firms presenting a strong crisis situation were still active in the market 10 years later. Yet, we should consider that the exit from a difficult condition, as Moulton and Thomas (1993) sustain, is only the beginning of the story. Not all the successfully exiting firms manage to keep the new situa tion stable. For some firms, operating in a crisis situation constitutes their normal state of environment with crisis periods that can attenuate or loose up. Anyway, being able to maintain this kind of condition is also a manner to survive. In this sense, Kahl (2002) states that the financial distress should be considered a long term process that makes firms end up debilitated even after having recovered from decline. This weakness is observed in poor performance that inevitably may again drag the firms to a new financial distress situation. Hotchkiss (1995) attested that during the first five years after exiting a bankruptcy, 35 to 40% of firms show negative operating income and up to one third of the firms that manage to ease their distress through debt restructuring re-enter a financial distress situation a few years later. Several studies have shown that different factors may determine the exit from a crisis situation. These factors may have a direct influence on the recovery process or on the capacity of the company to develop appropriate redirection strategies. The initial severity degree is considered an important hurdle in implementing successful actions. In this line, Smith and Graves (2005) found that, among all variables of the study, severity and firm size were the only variables significantly important during a turnaround process. Other authors (Robbins and Pearce, 1992; Pearce and Robins, 1993; Harker and Harker, 1998) state that strategies oriented towards cost reduction and efficiency improvement were safe bets for a favorable outcome. However, Castrogiovani and Bruton (2000), Sudarsanam and Lai (2001) or Smith and Graves (2005) affirm that no positive relation could be found between certain strategies and successful outcome. These results indicate that severity, through its influence on th e selected strategy, could be an indirect factor in the turnaround process (Robbins and Pearce, 1992). More consensual results were obtained when stating that the performance in-distress is fundamental for the outcome of the difficult situation. In particular, it is observed that successful companies show better returns when compared to unsuccessful firms (Routledge and Gadene, 2000; Pearce and Doh, 2002; Kahl, 2001). The present paper analyzes the recovery process of 526 US firms facing an initial financial distress situation in order to determine the variables of influence on their final survival status. The proposed model of this recovery process states that severity and reaction capability should be understood as initial conditions that will impose restrictions in the selection of strategies which will drive the performance during recovery, thus, determining the final resolution of long term financial distress process. These variables have an impact on i) the ability of a company to overcome the difficult situation; ii) the efficiency of the selected strategies and iii) the results of these strategies on post-distress healthy position. The proposed model considers that final survival status measures the welfare quality of a firm based on its risk to re-enter in distress, so it discriminates well performers and best performers during the management of a crisis process. Overcoming a financial distress: Determinant factors Even though some weak crisis situations tend to show a natural evolution throughout the exit and may be solved by simply making routine decisions (Gonzà ¡lez-Bravo and Mecaj, 2011), recovery process is not a spontaneous event. The distressed firms will face a long term scenario involving a continuous effort of adaptation to the diverse situations through which a firm passes during the upturn. The effort invested in this process will allow the reestablishment of stakeholders trust, while the variables related to solvency and profitability gain stability (Burbank, 2005). Companies that do not have a long term orientation and just adopt patch strategies do not usually reach successful exits (Pretorius, 2008). However, certain initial conditions may affect the reaction capacity as well as the effectiveness of the measures taken by managers. Severity Similar to a disease process, the gravity of the initial crisis position not only conditions the measures to take but also their success possibilities. Firms that face worse starting situation need to make greater efforts. In this sense, Robbins and Pearce (1992) affirm that there exists a relationship between retrenchment strategies and performance in firms having a severe starting situation while this relationship is not observed in firms facing a weak crisis state. Although Smith and Graves (2005) indicate that the gravity of the starting situation is strongly associated with the probability of recovery, Kahl (2002) sustains that the financial distress diagnosis is an imperfect indicator of the economic feasibility of a firm. In the same line, Gonzà ¡lez-Bravo and Mecaj (2011) affirm that the severity of the initial situation, observed in widely accepted indicators, does not have to be a crucial factor in the outcome of the crisis. Perhaps, following Moulton and Thomas (1993), th e initial gravity status has an influence over the process of recovery more than on the final resolution. Thus, severity determines the rate of recuperation, so that the harder the severity, the greater the effort to react and the slower the process of healing the levels of solvency and profitability. This effort during the process, and not the starting situation, may be the main determinant of the final outcome. Moreover, solvency and profitability indicators such as continuous negative results, inability to generate income by means of operating activity, continuous solvency and/or liquidity problems or incapacity to generate cash flow which reflect problems in the health of the company, are widely accepted as measures of severity degree (Mutchler and Williams, 1990; Gilbert, Menon and Schwarz, 1990; Ponemon and Shick, 1991; Poston, Harmon and Gramlich, 1994; Geiger, Raghunandan and Rama, 1995; Raghunandan and Rama, 1995; Davydenko, 2007). Reaction capability The possible effect of severity on the initial state may be mitigated if the firm counts on appropriate resources which increase the probability of a successful recovery. The structural reaction capability may ease the recovery process to a safe position cushioning the possible actions to implement. The capacity to obtain additional funds or generate additional incomes to implement treatment strategies can soothe the prior pressure imposed by a deteriorated financial distress position. In this sense, Barker and Duhaime (1997) associate successful turnaround processes with increases in sales that make companies have more options to undertake change strategies. Similarly, Pearce and Doh (2002) affirm that firms in distress that used debt and supported their sales to improve profitability successfully solved their difficult situation. They also state that changes in activity and in leverage level are associated with different phases of a turnaround process. In turn, Jostarndt (2006) ide ntifies three factors which could be helpful to measure the risk of becoming financially troubled. An excessive leverage level, a poor firm performance, and an industry downturn may inhibit firms from obtaining the right amount of cash flow to operate normally. Firm operating performance trend dominates as the reason causing financial distress showing that a firm may fail but not only for financial reasons. This allows the author to consider an association between financial distress and economic distress. These results are comparable to the patterns evidenced by Gonzà ¡lez-Bravo and Mecaj (2011) when distressed firms with remarkable financial reaction capacity and/or a solid financial structure evolve mainly toward a healthy zone. However, concerning debt structure Kahl (2001) did not find evidence on if the debt level or the debt structure of a firm influences the final outcome of a crisis situation. Severity Status and Reaction Capability, as initial restrictions, could be moderated by firm size when considering the exit from a crisis situation (Moulton and Thomas, 1993; Barniv et al., 2002; Schutjens, 2002). Altman and Hotchkiss (2006) found that one of the most obvious factor that discriminates between firms that successfully restructure and those that liquidate, after being classified inside Chapter 11, was the firms size. Nevertheless, other works observe that this variable did not present any clear relation with the survival chance (Kahl, 2001; Ooghe and Prijcker, 2008). Possibly, firms size does not determine the final resolution of a distress situation but it influences the reaction capability to confront it, moderating /strengthening the drawbacks when additional support should be guaranteed and restructuring decision must be made. Performance in-distress Regardless of the initial state restrictions, the adopted strategies and the behavior of companies during a financial crisis are crucial for the exit process (Sun and Li, 2007). An inappropriate diagnosis of the firms weaknesses in order to act and react quickly may lead to a fast deterioration of the financial indicators (Barker and Duhaime, 1997). Beaver (1966) already stated that if a difficult situation was properly detected, measures that lead to an improved position could be taken, avoiding so a state of ultimate failure. A series of strategies and action plans should be implemented aiming to reduce the detected weaknesses of the company (Smith and Graves, 2005; Krueger and Willard, 1991, Robbins and Pearce, 1992; Pearce and Robbins, 1993; Arogyaswamy et al., 1995; Castrogiovanni and Bruton, 2000, Pearce and Doh, 2002 and Pretorius, 2008). The operating performance during the recovery process drives a successful evolutionary route towards a new healthy scenario (Kahl, 2001; Routledge and Gadenne, 2000). Improving efficiency through some actions like cost cutting and/or asset reduction is crucial in this sense, having a positive impact on firms performance despite the underlying weaknesses (Robbins and Pearce, 1992; Pearce and Robbins, 1993; Harker and Harker, 1998). Firms facing a distress situation and carrying out a retrenchment strategy are more likely to survive, even though the performance was statistically not greater than that of not retrenched firms (Castrogiovanni and Bruton, 2000). In this sense, Sudarsanam and Lai (2001) showed that the strategies applied by firms successfully recovering were not that different from the strategies applied by firms that did not recover. So, the implementation efficacy was the cause of these differences, even though more intensive restructuration was done by firms that could n ot redirect their situation. The effectiveness of efficiency oriented strategies is supported by the results showing that firms resolving a situation of financial distress are statistically more profitable than those who did not settle (Campbell, 1996; Routledge and Gadenne, 2000; Pearce and Doh, 2002). These authors found that operating efficiency was the only variable used in distinguishing successful turnarounds from unsuccessful ones that significantly persisted during the recovery process. Kahl (2001) also stated that, in-distress, operating performance has a strong positive relation with the survival prospect. In particular, the author shows that an improvement in the standard deviation of ROA during a crisis period can increase the survival probability up to 0.62. In the same line, Gonzà ¡lez-Bravo and Mecaj (2011) found evidence that the companies positioned in a safety zone, starting from a situation of failure status, are characterized by a strong managerial action measured by ROA ratio, generating fu rthermore higher operating cash flow. However, other authors such as Barniv et al. (2002) or Laitinen (1993) found that the ROA coefficients were statistically not significant in predicting the outcome of a crisis situation. The post-distress status The main objective of a firm facing a distress situation is to heal the crisis state. Some researches, oriented to modeling the variables that influence a recovery process, identify the final stage of this process when a firm objectively exits a failure situation emerging as an independent firm, leaving Chapter 11 classification or keeping a defined period of positive income (Smith and Graves, 2006; Barniv et al., 2002; Altman and Hotchkiss, 2006; Kahl, 2001). However, the accomplishment of this objective should have one necessary quality condition. The new post-failure position should be achieved in suitable conditions that would permit an appropriate and continuous growth and performance rate. A financial distress process could place a firm in a weak position, even if it had managed to solve its difficulties, inciting a poor performance that inevitably makes it enter again in an emergency situation (Kahl, 2002). If a firm does not emerge profitably in the restructuring phase, in order to achieve a long term success, the probability of a successful exit process is very low (Burbank, 2005). In this sense, Hotchkiss (1995) showed that up to one third of the firms that relieve their conditions by means of debt restructuring tend to go into a financial distress situation few years afterwards. With regard to post-distress position, Robbins and Pearce (1992) affirm that industry indicator variations should be considered in order to better identify the good performers or the exceptional good performers during turnaround. Despite of the assessment of Altman and Hotchkiss (2006) stating that the firms overcoming a Chapter 11 situation perform below firms of the same industry that di d not pass through that same situation, Kahl (2001) found that the post-distress operating performance of firms getting through a crisis situation is similar to the industry performance. The model of recovery When a firm is facing a distress situation and considering all the above analyzed dimensions, severity and reaction capability should be understood as initial conditions that will impose restrictions in selecting the strategies which will drive the performance during recovery, thus, determining the final resolution of long term financial distress process as shown in Figure 1. (Figure 1 here) The left side of the diagram gathers the initial determining factors to initiate the recovery process, outlining the firms ability to improve its future and overcome the difficult situation. Severity Status offers valuable information about the initial degree of gravity of a firms situation. This degree will condition the actions to be taken in a deteriorated situation and the possible outcome as well. Reaction Capability measures the firms capacity to apply such actions through: i) the possibility to obtain further resources without worsening its position, ii) the capacity of debt negotiation or iii) the ability to generate additional incomes which may facilitate the application of strategy changes. The right side of the above Figure 1 defines the final subsequent status of firms, once specific actions have been taken. Post-distress Status shows the effectiveness of the management effort in a crisis situation, not only because the firm solves the initial state, but also since the new position is reached evidencing a well performance to set a suitable continuity in the new balanced situation. Accordingly, Post-distress status assesses the quality of firms welfare accounting for the risk to re-entry into distress discriminating well performers and best performers in a crisis management process. In a distress context, a well-performer just achieves the objective (i.e. exiting the crisis situation) while best-performers are located in a new healthy scenario minimizing the likelihood to reenter in distress. Hence, considering the above model, the following hypotheses will be tested: H1: Severity degree of financially distressed firms is likely associated with the post distress status. H2: Reaction Capability of distressed firms is positively related to a fit final position after recovery process. H3: Performance in-distress is positively related with the welfare of the post distress status. H4: Retrenchment strategies have a positive influence on the outcome of a distressed situation. H5: Size of financially distressed companies is associated with the final position after recovery process. Methodology, sample and variables To test the hypothesis we use the financial data of US firms derived from the Compustat Database in an eight year period: 1993-2000 which is considered to be economically appropriate for the analysis. Smith and Graves (2005) affirm that in an economic expansion context distressed firms could easily perform a successful turnaround. Particularly, the US economy experienced an economic expansion during the analyzed period. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (2001), a peak in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in March 2001. A peak marks the end of an expansion and the beginning of a recession  [1]  . So, the year 2001 was marked by events like the Dot-Com Bubble, Stock Market Crash, the loss of investors confidence in the Stock Market or the emergence of corporate fraud and corporate governance. The September 11, 2001 attacks also, may have been an important factor in turning this decline in the economy into a recession. The financial data for the year s after 2000 would be, to a greater or lesser extent, influenced by all these external factors. From a total of 1721 companies that offer complete data in their financial statements during all years, only the ones that presented a crisis situation in the first year of analysis, 1993, were selected. We consider a crisis status as a variety of enterprise adversity situations that threaten the future viability of the company (Turetsky and Mcwewn, 2001; Graveline and Kikalari, 2008), which show some incapacity to generate resources and/or to fulfill the payment of debts in time. This incapacity can be transitory and of a major or minor gravity and it can be observed through a series of symptoms alerting that the health and the future of the company are at risk. Considering this general approach and following Gonzà ¡lez-Bravo and Mecaj (2011), we classify a firm as financially distressed if, in the first year of our analysis, it presented one or more of the following criteria: Negative Net Income, Negative Operating Income, Negative Retained Earnings, Negative Working Capital, Negative Cash Flow, Negative Operating Cash Flow and Negative Shareholders Equity. In agreement with Gilbert, Menon and Schwartz (1990), to prevent the selection of firms that only had a poor performance in t he starting year firms presenting merely a Negative Net Income for the year 1993 were not selected. This criterion made possible that poor performers were selected only when they also showed a continued instable situation such as losses in previous years or solvency problems. As a result, our study is performed on a total of 526 companies that satisfied all the previous conditions. Table 1 shows the principal features of the analyzed sample. (Table 1 here) The number of observed symptoms permits an objective a priori classification based on the gravity of the starting situation. A firm would experience a weak crisis if it presents three or less criteria and, on the contrary, a strong crisis if it shows 4 or more. Following this further, in the first year of the analysis 77.38% of the firms encounter a weak crisis while 22.62% are facing a situation of strong crisis. Variables Severity Status, Reaction Capability and Fitness Status, as representative indicators of post-distress position, in the above proposed model (Figure 1) are built by gathering information given by some individual variable-indicators according to the features evaluated. The complete picture integrating the model and variables is showed in Figure 2. (Figure 2 here) Severity status (SEV_STAT) should be understood as an index assessing the degree of severity distress by seven financial ratios. These ratios correspond to the 7 symptom-indicators used to classify a firm as being in financial distress previously described, all divided by Total Assets in order to eliminate the size effect. Ratios such as: Net Income/Total Assets, EBIT/Total Assets and Retained Earnings/Total assets, representatives of the economic performance, are also commonly used to determine the existence of a decline phase in turnaround and recovery research (Pearce and Robins, 1993; Arogyaswamy et al., 1995; Smith and Graves, 2005). Negative Operating Cash Flow is also an indicator of liquidity deterioration and of financial distress probability (Anandarajan et al. 2001; Bell and Tabor, 1991; John, 1993). These seven indicators should be considered in a negative direction with respect to financial distress. That is, the lower value of the indicators, the worse the starting situ ation of the firm. In the same way, the more the number of negative indicators in a firm, the higher the crisis severity degree will be. Reaction capability is evaluated through three indicators: Sales/Total Assets (TURNOV), Shareholders Equity/Total Liabilities (FIN_AUT) and Current Assets/Current Liabilities (SOLV). The first one reflects the capacity of the company to enhance profitability while the other two indicators are linked to the financial structure of a firm and enable us to value its self-sufficiency and solvency. Together, these three variables measure the capacity of a firm to obtain external and additional funds or to reorganize its debts, the short term response capacity and the ability to generate resources. Fitness status (FIT_STAT) is defined as an index measuring the final health position on an objective and on a quality base as well, by means of 4 variables. Final Position is a categorical variable which indicates the existence or not of a crisis situation, when the firm still presents any symptom of distress. This variable takes value 0 if the firm exits successfully and doesnt present distress signals or value 1 otherwise. Additionally, to measure the health quality of this position, we follow the approach of Jostarndt (2006) when he identifies three factors that could cause financial distress: excessive leverage, a poor firm-specific operating performance and an industry downturn. These factors could be interpreted as indicators of the incapacity of a firm to generate cash flow which may influence a continuous economic and financial deterioration. The variables are defined as follows: (For further details on all variables calculation refer to Appendix B): Debt payment level: it permits the evaluation of the effects that a higher debt level of a firm has on cash flow generation, with respect to the industry where it operates. It indicates the level of interest payment the firm is paying compared to the median of the sector. If the level is above the median, the firm is paying more than other firms, so it should reduce it. Firm Performance: It measures the effects that a poor performance, lower than the median of the industry, has on cash flow generation. It measures the operating income of a firm compared to the median of the sector. It indicates if the firm is performing above or below the median of the sector. Sector performance: it allows analyzing to what extent the trend of the performance of the sector where the firm operates influences its capacity to generate cash flow if it behaved as the industry average. This item measures the improvement or the deterioration of a sectors performance, compared to its performance the year before. These three variables measure the risk of distress which could be the consequence of leverage problems or economic issues, including the downturn of the industry. The former three defined ratio-indicators should be understood in a negative sense, thus, the higher the three ratios are, the worse the quality position of the firm and the greater the probability of financial distress. Therefore, Fitness Status variable measures the position of a firm t years after the financial distress has been detected, allowing to evaluate the performance in managing a difficult situation. Severity Status and Fitness Status indexes could be interpreted as two composite indicators gathering the information of 7 and 3 individual ratios, respectively. To overcome some of the drawbacks of aggregated indexes, such as the degree of subjectivity in attribution of weights to each individual component (Munda, 2005; Messer et al., 2006; Munda and Nardo, 2009; Ramzan et al., 2008), we decided to use Data Envelopment analysis to summarize the complex information in just one index (Nardo et al., 2005a; Cherchye et al. 2008; Dyckhoff and Allen, 2001). DEA is a non-parametric performance measurement technique, based on a productivity approach, widely used to evaluate the relative efficiency of Decision Making Units (Cooper et al., 1999; Seiford, 1997; Gattoufi et al. 2004; Sherman and Zhu, 2006). However, this methodology has also been used to create indexes combining different components by means of an optimization process, when the structure of weights of these components is not kn own, and without making any assumption concerning the internal operations of a DMU (Cherchye et al., 2006; Zhu, 2000 and 2001; Puig-Junoy, 1998; Sexton and Lewis, 2003). Thus, both Severity Status and Fitness Status scores are obtained applying a DEA model without explicit inputs, called DEA-WEI models by Liu et al. (2011). This formulation, discussed by Lovell and Pastor (1999), considering a model with only outputs and a single constant input, has been used by Chen (2002) and Cooper et al. (2009), and it is similar to other approaches as DEA-R (Despic et al., 2007) or DEA-Index composite (Cherchye et al. 2008). Fitness Status use as DEA variables a series of indicators that measure negative features of a firm and they are also linked to the possibility of presenting a marked financial distress situation. This consideration is in agreement with the called pessimistic DEA approach, where the efficiency frontier contains, using Azizi and Ajirlu (2011) terminology, the worst-practisers as efficient in being poor-performers. In this way, DMUs scoring unity or close to unity levels will be the ones with higher degree of severity in their financial distressed situation. Furthermore, Fitness Score DEA manages a categorical variable Final Status indicating the existence or not of distress symptoms. In this sense we follow the approach of Banker and Morey (1986) concerning the treatment of exogenously fixed data. To measure the strategies and the behavior of firms during distress, profitability and downsizing actions have been included in the analysis. With regard to profitability, we use ROA in the last year of the analysis (ROA) and the average of its variations in the previous years (ROA_AVG) to measure the impact of efficiency oriented strategies to the final post-distress position. Concerning downsizing actions, variations in total assets during previous year are included to measure the impact of retrenchment strategies (RET_STG) Finally, to control the size effect (SIZE), natural logarithm of sales [ln(sales)] is included in the analysis in order to assess the influence of size on the possibility to return on a healthy scenario. Methodology The DEA score Fitness Status will be treated as a dependent variable in order to analyze to what extent post-failure position could be explained by issues such as severity, reaction capability or certain strategies implemented by the firms. Many different approaches can be found in the literature when a DEA score is used as a dependent variable of a regression to relate efficiency to the factors and study their influence on the former. The consideration of the DEA score as a censored variable (showing values between zero and unity) has been the argument for using regression censored models such as Tobit. On the other hand, Mancebà ³n and Molinero (2000) do not share this opinion and affirm that efficiency takes natural limits of zero and one and they estimate a model of the log type to explain inefficiency. In the same line, Puig-Junoy (1998) considers that DEA scores do not fit the theory of sampling censoring for Tobit models explaining inefficiency by a multiplicativ

A Reflection of Fashion

A Reflection of Fashion A Reflection of Fashion â€Å"We live not according to reasons, but according to fashion.† Without fashion, people live without the light of humanity. Fashion creates different color and style through clothes, pants, jewelries, shoes, bags, and other goods. It definitely makes life meaningful, brighter, more emotional, and more beautiful. In addition, fashion is not just clothes but it is the most fragile art and can form pop culture. The world has been changing through the fashion trends since the 1950s until nowadays, the popularity of fashion magazines and eco-fashion, and the interactions among fashion, music and sports. Due to the baby boom in the 1950s, there was a high demand of clothing for children and women. First let me talk about the real meaning of â€Å"Baby Boom.† A baby boomer is a person who was born during the Post-World War II. A group, they were believed to be the healthiest and wealthiest generation during that time, and among the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. One of the unique features of boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as â€Å"a special generation,† very different from those that had come before. In the 1960s, as the relatively large numbers of young people created a very specific rhetoric around their group. This rhetoric had an important impact in the self perceptions of the boomers, as well as their tendency to define the world in terms of generations, which was a relatively new phenomenon. Seventy-six million American babies were born between 1946 and 1960, representing followers that would be significan t on account of its size alone. This cohort shared characteristics like higher rates of participation in higher education than previous generations and an assumption of lifelong prosperity and entitlement developed during their childhood in the 1950s. The age wave theory suggests to an economic slowdown when the boomers start retiring during 2007-2009. Boomers were coming of age and influenced many people at the same time across the world. For instance, Britain was undergoing Beatlemania while people in the United States were driving over to Woodstock, organizing against the Vietnam War, or fighting and dying in the same war; boomers in Italy were dressing in mod clothes and buying the world a Coke; boomers in India were seeking new philosophical discoveries; American boomers in Canada had just found a new home and escaped the draft. Also, the boomers found that their music, most notably rock and roll, was another expression of their generational identity. Transistor radios were personal devices that allowed teenagers to listen to â€Å"The Beatles† and â€Å"The Motown Sound.† Those group musicians inspired their listener to follow their step include fashion and behavior. For example, young girls wore dresses and young boys wore jeans and t-shirts. The Beatles musical innovations, as well as their commercial success, inspired musicians worldwide (Big Star: The Story of Rocks Forgotten Band). A large number of artists have acknowledged â€Å"The Beatles† as an influence or have had chart successes with â€Å"covers of Beatles songs.† On radio, the arrival of The Beatles marked the beginning of a new era; program directors like Rick Sklar of New Yorks WABC went as far as forbidding DJs from playing any pre-Beatles music (Fisher, Marc, 2007). The â€Å"Shea Stadium† which they op ened their â€Å"1965 North American Tour† attracted what was then the largest audience in concert history and is seen as a landmark event in the growth of the rock crowd. Emulation of their clothing and especially their hairstyles, which became a mark of rebellion, had a global impact on fashion (Gould, Jonathan, 2008). More broadly, The Beatles changed the way people listened to popular music and experienced its role in their lives. From what began as the Beatle mania fad, the group grew to be perceived by their young fans across the industrialized world as the representatives, even the personification, of ideals associated with cultural transformation. As icons of the 1960s counterculture, they became a channel for bohemianism and activism in various social and political arenas, fueling such movements as womens liberation, gay liberation and environmentalism. After the World War II, women craved for femininity, glamour, sexiness style and the use of synthetic material.Dior fulfilled all the dreams of the feminine woman in the early 50s. In 1947, Christian Dior presented a fashion look of material was a bold and shocking stroke.His style used yards of fabric.Approximately ten yards was used for early styles.Later Dior used up to eighty yards for newer refinements that eliminated bulk at the waist. The New Look and new approach to fashion was a major post war turning point in Fashion History. Diors timing made his name in fashion history. After the war women longed for lightheartedness in dress and desired feminine clothes that did not look like a civilian version of a military uniform (fiftiesweb.com). Life magazine called Dior as the New Look in 1947.Evening versions of the New Look were very glamorous and consisted of strapless boned tops with full skirts and were ultra feminine. Diors New Look dominated the fashion world for about ten years, but was not the only silhouette of the era.In 1956 was the year that introduced visible changes that separate the early fifties from the late fifties. It places that fashion era firmly alongside the stuffy formality of the forties, while putting the post 1956 period firmly into the start of the lively live style, anything goes sixties fashion period, often dominated by the young of the day. There were those in the 1950s that rebelled against the perfect groomed look, so often associated with Grace Kelly elegance. Leslie Caron and Audrey Hepburn both often wore simple black sweaters, flat shoes and gold hoop earrings coupled with short haircuts. They gave a continental alternative often described as chic and had many fashion followers seeking to embrace the modern. As a new, more open-minded society evolved, women moved to more relaxed clothes instead of wore dress rules that were associated with formality for decades. Marilyn Monroe appeared in the 1950s and became a fashion legend. Marilyn Monroe personified Hollywood glamour with an unparalleled glow and energy that charmed the world. Her swaying hips made her more attractive and seductive, which increased her sexual appeal. Her natural hourglass body was perfect for the 1950s where womanly curves were the desirable body image of the fashion era that made her as a 50s sex goddess. Her apparent vulnerability and innocence, in combination with a natural sensuality, has endeared her to the global consciousness. She dominated the age of movie stars to become, without question, the most famous woman of the 20th Century. Her ideal body would be considered too heavy by todays beauty standards. However, her image is still popular in the 20th century. At the beginning of 1960s, the fashion style was similar to 1950s. Jacqueline Kennedy became the â€Å"lady like† trendsetter for the first half of sixties where there were clean suits, sleeveless A-line dresses, pillbox hat, and also gloves (Drake.Marin.k12.ca.us). She was the wife of the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. During her husbands presidency, Jacqueline Kennedy became a symbol of fashion for women all over the world. She hired French-born American fashion designer and Kennedy family friend, Oleg Cassini, in the fall of 1960 to create an original wardrobe for her as First Lady. From 1961 to late 1963, Cassini dressed her in many of her most iconic fashion, including her Inauguration Day fawn coat and Inaugural gala gown as well as many outfits for her visits to Europe, India and Pakistan. Her clean suits, sleeveless A-line dresses and famous pillbox hats we re an overnight success around the world and became known as the Jackie look. Although Cassini was her primary designer, she also wore ensembles by French fashion legends such as Chanel, Givenchy, and Dior. More than any other First Lady her style was copied by commercial manufacturers and a large segment of young women (firstladies.org). In the years after the White House, her style changed dramatically. Gone were the modest campaign wife clothes. Wide-leg pantsuits, large lapel jackets, silk Hermes head scarves and large, round, dark sunglasses were her new look. She often chose to wear brighter colors and patterns and even began wearing jeans in public. (Jackie Kennedy: Post-Camelot Style). She also experimented with different styles, often wearing a large amount of jewelry, hoop earrings with her hair pulled back, and gypsy skirts. In the 1959, the U.S. government declared the war on Vietnam. This became the turning point for youth culture to reject this idea of war because it was a sign of rebellion to kill many innocent people. The idea encouraged youths to be involved in demonstrating the theme of â€Å"freedom† toward songs and the most important was the fashion styles. The style was called the â€Å"hippie† or â€Å"flower children† in which both genders wore similar clothing such as tight Levis bell-bottoms that flared wide at the knee, and were covered with decorated patches (Fiftiesweb.com). Men and women wore their individual garments such as leather vests over bare chests or tee shirts and dressy loose blouses (Fiftiesweb.com). Tune In, Turn On, and Drop Out was the motto of the hippie movement, a significant countercultural phenomenon in the 1960s and early 1970s that grew partially out of young Americas growing disillusionment with U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Hippies w ere mainly white teenagers and young adults who shared a hatred and distrust towards traditional middle-class values and authority. They rejected political and social orthodoxies but embraced aspects of Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism. Many hippies also saw hallucinogenic drugs, such as marijuana and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), as the key to escaping the ties of society and expanding their individual consciousness. The immediate precursor to the hippies was the so-called Beat Generation of the late 1950s, including the poet Allen Ginsberg, who became a hippie hero. But where the coolly intellectual, black-clad beats tended to keep a low profile and stay out of politics, the hippies were known as much for their political outspokenness as for their long hair and colorful psychedelic clothing. To express their protests, and to â€Å"turn on† others, the hippies used art, street theater and particularly music. Folk music and psychedelic rock-the Beatles album Serge ant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was a prime example for both crucial aspect of hippie culture. This culture reached its peak in the summer of 1967, when a concert in San Fransiscos Golden Gate Park kicked off the start of the so-called â€Å"Summer of Love.† The event introduced the music and culture of the hippies to a wider audience and inspired thousands of young people around the country. In 1969, more than 500,000 people attended the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in New York, and event that symbolized the best aspect of the hippie movement. There was also a dark side to the hippie culture. A time magazine reported from San Fransiscos public health director saying that the city was paying $35,000 per month for treatment for drug abuse for 10,000 hippies (history.com). Therefore, the â€Å"hippies† style clothes was much more popular among teenagers because both sexes could express the similar idea and fashion compared to â€Å"lady-like† trend in which it only concentrated on female with showing good-manner lifestyle. The theme of â€Å"freedom† continued to be the most important fashion statement in the 1970s where it promoted disco and punk style. Many teenagers during this time period came to clubs to socialize with other teenagers. The outfits that they wore included gold lame, leopard skin, stretch halter jumpsuits, and white clothes that glowed in ultra violet light to capture the 70s disco fashion perfectly (Fashion-Era.com). To counter social stylish fashion, another theme appeared for the â€Å"rebellious† adolescent called the â€Å"punk† style, which was known as an anti-fashion. Punk clothes suited the lifestyle of lower class, and communicated through ripped jeans, torn t-shirts, and random haircut (Fashion-Era.com). When compared, one seemed respectable and wholesome, while the other made the wearer seem like a homeless person. In 1980s â€Å"Glamorous† became the main theme as the television show â€Å"Dynasty† appeared and inspired over 250 million viewers around the world. This show influenced especially female audiences to dress lavishly and use both fine and costume jewelry (Ultimatedynasty.net). This idea portrait was to spend a large amount of money in order to show off ones economics status. Moreover, most women wore shoulder pads with such ornaments as diamond, pearl, and gold chain. Dynasty the 1980s television fantasy soap series promoted fashions which enlarged the shoulder. One of the main characters was played by the naturally broad shouldered film star Linda Evans. Nolan Miller, the Dynasty film set costume designer decided to go with her big shoulders and gave slight emphasized to them. Every other actor had to be shoulder padded, but with more depth to match her shoulder. Many who watched did so for a look at the 80s fashions which were always over the top and frankly camp. 1 980s fashion favored applied decoration on suits and T-shirts and beadwork on clothing which all pandered to the ideals of a time of conspicuous consumption.The 1980s was a time of greed and individuals living a lie that they had everything whether it be fashion, champagne or property. Many fell into debt as the only way to acquire an 80s lifestyle for many was via the credit card. Lavish used of both fine and costume jewelers was worn day and night on the show and it drifted into mainstream fashion. Big, almost huge gilt fashion earrings several centimeters across drew attention to faces drowning in shoulder pads. Stones could be fake or real. Diamante, pearls and gold chains were intended to tell the rest of the world you had arrived. The women in Dynasty wore all the trimmings of jewellery along with a wide range of lavish covetable underwear and lingerie (fashionera.com). Similiarly, the concept inspired the male fashion style. For instance, Michael Jackson in The Thriller was the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. The album was released on November 30, 1982 by Epic Records as the followed-up to Jacksons critically and commercially successful 1979 album Off the Wall. Thriller explored similar genres to those of Off the Wall, including funk, disco, soul, RB, and pop. Thrillers lyrics dealed with themes included paranoia and the supernatural. With a production budget of $750,000, recording sessions took place between April and November 1982 at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California (thelakestudio.com). Assisted by producer Quincy Jones, Jackson wrote four of Thrillers nine tracks. In just over a year, Thriller became—and currently remains—the best-selling album of all time, with estimated sales between 70-110 million copies worldwide, as well as the best-selling album in the United States (thel akestudio.com). Thriller ranked number 20 on Rolling Stone magazines 500Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2003, and was listed by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers at number three in its Definitive200Albums of All Time. Thriller was preserved by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry, as it was deemed culturally significant. Such clothing that Jackson wore red, black leather pants and jackets, one glove, and sunglasses influenced male to follow Jacksons style (Fashion-Era.com). Moreover, The Miami Vice also inspired gentleman to wear colorful shirts with expensive suits. Miami Vice was an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The show became noted for its heavy integration of music and visual effects to tell a story. The series starred by Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984-1989. Unlike standard police procedurals, the show drew heavily upon 1980s New Wave culture and music. It is recognized as one of the most influential television series of all time. People magazine stated that Miami Vice was the first show to look really new and different since color TV was invented† (nbc.com). The clothes worn on Miami Vice had a significant influence on mens fashion. They popularized, if not invented, the T-shirt under Armani jacket-style, and popularized Italian mens fashion in the United States. Don Johnsons typical lin eup of Italian sport coat, T-shirt, white linen pants, and slip-on sockless loafers became a hit. Even Crocketts unshaven appearance sparked a minor fashion trend, inspiring men to wear a small amount of beard stubble, also known as a five oclock shadow (or designer stubble) at all times (New York Times). On an average episode, Crockett and Tubbs wore five to eight outfits, appearing in shades of pink, blue, green, peach, fuchsia and the shows other approved colors. Designers such as Vittorio Ricci, Gianni Versace, and Hugo Boss were consulted in keeping the male looking trendy. Costume designer Bambi Breakstone, who traveled to Milan, Paris, and London in search of new clothes, testified that, The concept of the show is to be on top of all the latest fashion trends in Europe.† Jodi Tillen, the costume designer for the first season, along with Michael Mann set the style. The abundance of pastel colors on the show reflected Miamis Art-deco architecture. During its five-year run , consumer demanded for unconstructed blazers, shiny fabric jackets, and lighter pastels increased. After Six formal wore even created a line of Miami Vice dinner jackets, Kenneth Cole introduced Crockett and Tubbs shoes, and Macys opened a Miami Vice section in its young mens department. Crockett also boosted Ray Bans popularity by wearing a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer (Model L2052, Mock Tortoise), which increased sales of Ray Bans to 720,000 units in 1984. Many of the styles popularized by the TV show, such as the t-shirt under pastel suits, no socks, rolled up sleeves, and Ray-Ban sunglasses, have today become the standard image of 1980s culture. The influence of Miami Vices fashions continued into the early 1990s, and to some extent still persists today. Therefore, those trends imitated the audience to dress like the famous movie stars on screen. As the result â€Å"glamour† trend for female and male was the most principal fashion in nineties to show the more expensive stuff people put on their dress to be look alike famous icon celebrities the more stylish they will be. Similarly to â€Å"freedom† fashion style in the sixties and seventies, the term â€Å"expression† became the slogan of the nineties. The mood of society in the final decade of the last millennium was more defining than what was actually worn. So much more was on offer globally, and many people lost interest in fashion as necessary and important to their lives when business rules for dressing relaxed. Working from home became common. By the edge of the 21st century dressing down in every aspect of life became an acceptable norm. Ordinary retail clothing sales, textile manufacturing industries and stores all declined from a less active more casual marketplace. The range of fashion goods available was huge in the 1990s, but no one knows the real answer why retail sales were often slow-moving. The main driving force of fashion was the striving to achieve individuality. Fashion increased as fast as it could be relayed by the media and Internet and only by styling oneself r ather than slavishly following a particular designers fashion look, could individuality be achieved. Rapid distribution of information and a more relaxed attitude to clothes has led to a certain inevitable uniformity in cities thousands of miles apart. The consuming years of the 1980s less became more in the 1990s. Not everyone adopted minimalism, but many did as they sought to blend and fit with an increasingly aggressive urban society. For instance, the silhouette became neater as shoulder pads finally died and jewellery became non existent or chic in its fineness and barely there quality. People ensured that designers of today are likely to be influenced by street fashion. But all too frequently they pick up an idea at the street level source. They have an eye to global commercial profits from effect on their ready to wear ranges. This makes for a lack of creativity as clothes develop homogenized uniformity. In a market saturated with retail outlets, clothing sales have been falling. The consumer simply has too many shopping places to choose from, so spending power gets spread very thinly between all the outlets or directed to specific branded goods. Moreover, the view towards millennium or dressing down became widely known when many people lost interest in fashion. However, this situation made people come up with a trend called the minimalist style such as mini skirt, or tank top. Moreover, there appeared punk or gothic style in which both females and males wore black clothing, used make up, spiky hair, black pants, and color hair. The variety of colors was also popular during this time period as a way to express peoples feelings. For example, people wore red t-shirts to show happiness, and wore blue for relaxation. Thus, the idea to express themselves and to present their feeling toward colors became the most important style during the 1990s. Fashions today is still affected by the trends from 1950s-1990s. It becomes the primary role for peoples lives because in essence, it reflects who people really are. Fashion has become a most important component to pop culture in every country. Individual values and social issues are often portrayed in the types and styles of clothing people wear. Susan Kaieser, a professor at University of California, stated that historically fashion has been influenced by subcultures and racial/ethnic communities (Worldandi.com). Fashion is marketed to appeal to the consumers and to create a desire to purchase new trends, despite the reality that there is not actual need for new clothing. Environmentalists have recognized the excess spending on clothing ‘needs. People have sought to purchase the trend in order to stay in style for generations. Environmentalists have begun placing responsibility on society. This enlightenment makes consumers and industries pay more special attention to the env ironmental danger and over indulgence that clothing might create. In order to be a part of resolving environmental problems, ideas have stimulated a new way of manufacturing and purchasing a product. This trend has brought attention to the way industries should be marketed a product in an environmentally healthy way. This development is labeled eco-fashion (Beard, 449). Eco-fashion, thoughtful to the way a product was generated, despite the environmental or human expenses, became more of a social issue. Now, manufactures feel the need to assemble a product that is trendy of good quality, yet not exploiting to any natural or human resource. Concentration on developing a great product required more than just a focus on the end result. Natalie Domeisen (2006) reports that the United Nations is promoting products that committed to using organic cotton, minimum labor standards, and using recycled materials to manufacture a new product (13). Even though the materials are altered, the sophistication of the product is not. To complete the sophisticated shopping look, some industries have created accessories that are re-usable shopping bags (Beard, 449). Thus, the new concept was to repl ace the non environmental throw away plastic bags. All of those new industry changes reflect trends popular to eco-fashion. Purchasing a product that is considered to represent eco-fashion allows the consumer to become a part of solving the global environmental issues. Clothing made with organic cotton and minimum labor standards create job opportunities that would change economic issues in other countries. The 1980s brought huge attention to the development on the conditions it took to provide a product to the consumer (Beard, 450-1). Companies that modify the production techniques by avoiding sweatshops and animal experimentation discover that their product is more marketable to the consumer. Another newer tradition that has been practiced by many cultures is shopping at vintage and second hand shops. In previous decades, the idea of purchasing second-hand clothing was considered mostly by low-income families or students on a fixed budget (Beard, 457). The current trend has become the thrill of discovering a brand name piece of clothing, still in good condition, for an extremely discounted price. The negative aspect is that the selection is usually limited; however, this creates opportunities to add unique pieces to ones wardrobe. What once was considered embarrassing, shopping at a second hand store, has now become socially acceptable. Choosing to purchase vintage and second had clothing has become more than a new fashion trend. It has become influential to the society of the culture. Fashion trends consist of more than just where a consumer shops. Trends are shaped by how the consumer shops. A new shopping development has become popular and it has become a new twist on an old concept: using magazines. Sogo, Metro, Matahari and other popular retail stores have provided catalogs that allow products to be bought without ever having to leave the convenience of home. Now fashion magazines such as Oriflame, Sophie Martin, and others have begun to adapt to this same idea. Fashions magazines are beginning to be created for basic shopping knowledge to the consumer without all of the extra articles. The traditional fashion magazines provided opportunities to browse and to dream what they would look like wearing the fashion that was most current and popular. However, these magazines did little to provide consumers with the knowledge of where to purchase the product. Today, professional women do not have the time to browse, and they are more concerned with where they can pu rchase the product at the best deal, instead of the traditional mall browsing (Aster, 22). Magazine editors have recognized the need for convenience. The new trend in fashion magazines is seen in the publication of Lucky and Fashion Shop. The focus of these magazines of concentrated on consumers that have income of $50,000 or more. These magazines are high quality and more about the product and very effective (Aster, 22). Fashion promotions printed in these magazines have proven to be very expensive. The cost for an advertiser to place a one page ad can vary from $4000 to $61000 (Aster, 22). However, the effectiveness and concentration on a specific demographic of consumers, outweighs the expense. Magazines created to promote fashion are publicized around the world. The trends from different cultures are absorbed into foreign cultures. Information on new fashion styles and products send the idea that this new trend is very important. It is seen in the Russian society that the model of what was traditional has changed. A famous Russian magazine, Kresti ‘Yanka (â€Å"Peasant Woman†), in the past had published knitting patterns, recipes and family life advice; now the magazine includes articles on weight loss, skin care, love advice, and fashion styles (Merridale, 32). Ten years ago, Russian consumers would not have been able to purchase products easily from around the world. The emphasis on popular trends was not as bold. In todays culture, the fashion style influences most areas of daily life (Merridale, 32). Russian women and teenage girls desire to imitate the fashions that are most popular. Personal choices of style to women have become common. No longer do the desires of the old exist. Although narrow minded from the older generation and poverty within the country are still present in Russia, the consumers are entering the 20th century embracing new trends in fashion. Poverty and fashion do not seem to be two words that should be included in the same sentence. However, it is seen how the evolution of both are transforming the world. Aside from poverty and fashion, the world is also affected by the interaction among music, sports and fashion. With modern forms of media such as internet, cable televisions, and DVDs, fashion really spreads its influences into every country around the world. Fashion and music are two important factors that enrich pop culture. Music influences fashion, and fashion trends define each type of music. Fashion helps musicians express their personalities and their unique style. Standing out from the others is the most important things to the musicians since being different always impresses the audience. For example, Elvis Presleys out of ordinary style dominated fashion trend in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s with tight jump, wildly colorful suits whipped around, and long fit jeans. Elviss style is considered one of the most remarkable influences of music to fashion. Everybody loved not only his music, but also his unique fashion sense. Also, in Sonya Rehmans writing about the interaction between music and fashion Tracing Trends of Fashion through Music, Elton John is famous for the suits, crazy hats, dark glasses and rings. The Beatles get up reflected their music- with their bowl-shaped, identical haircuts, and their suits bobbing their heads in unison. Black lipsticks, colored contact lens with freak get-ups are Marilyn Mansons fashion style. Kiss defined the fashion trend of super hero-ish costumes, black and white bat-inspired make-up and glittery go-go boots. Also, Poison, Whitesnake, and Gun n Roses, men with razor- cut fringes, long hair, leather pants, makeup and bling was st andard. (Sonya Rehman 2007). In conclusion, fashion has made an impact on music, no matter how small or large, it creates the connection between music and style. Therefore, fashion and music are inseparable. Not only does music affect fashion trends, but fashion also influences music, especially hip-hop which has seemed to go hand in hand with fashion. In her writing about hip-hop generation Rap and Race: Its Got a Nice Beat, But what About the Message?, Rachel Sullivan wrote, â€Å" Seventy-eight percent of adolescent said that baggy clothes were in, 76% said pro sports apparel was in, and 69% said hooded sweatshirts were in.† (Sullivan 241). Moreover, people can find a variety of famous labels in hip-hop songs such as Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis, Ralph Lauren, Prada, Chanel, or Adidas. For instance, in the song Lil Kim and Notorious B.I.G sing in the song Drug, â€Å"My flows first class and yours is Coach like the bag, the Prada mama, my girls rock Chanel and smoke marijuana, admiring my shoes by Gucci,† (Kitty Ryan). Since hip-hop is becoming more and more popular in pop culture, it is definitely one of the best tools to advertise fashion. That famous fashion brands appe ar more often in hip-hop proves how popular and important fashion is. Undoubtedly, fashion and music are irreplaceable factors since they interact with each other to become a voice to speak to the world of pop culture. Besides music, fashion has dramatic influences on sports. In fact, sportswear has a greater global impact than high fashion since sports is one of the most important areas in pop culture. Fashion not only makes people more comfortable and confident when playing sports, but also makes sports it more stylish and trendy. Back in the early 1920s, sports fashion became popular, especially in golf and tennis. By 1917 Vogue urged women to put their overskirts in a shoulder bag once on a mountain slope. In his writing about the sports fashion C20th Sports Costume and Sports Dress Fashion History to 1960, P

The Essence Of Pop Culture Essay -- essays research papers fc

â€Å"Talk about Pop Music, Talk about Pop Music†¦Ã¢â‚¬  was one of the most catchy phrases of the 1980’s. Just as in the 80’s, today we see many characteristics of â€Å"pop culture† effecting our lives. But, what is â€Å"pop culture?† I spent some time online trying to answer my question and time after time I was led to the same direction: pop culture is what we see, hear, speak, and are otherwise exposed to on a daily basis. The infomercials we see late on television, the billboards we see on the side of the road, the junk mail we receive, the links on the web pages we visit, and the radio commercials we hear all tie together to form this idea of pop culture. These, plus many other aspects, form our minds and teach us how to be culturally smart. To be culturally smart is to understand and know pop culture. For example, if someone were to say â€Å"BUD!† it is automatically assumed that they would get a â€Å"WIES† in reply. If a person were to say â€Å"Just Do It!† Nike would be directly thought of. What elements define â€Å"Pop Culture?† Television stars, such as Drew Carey; musicians, such as Santana; public figures, such as Monica Lewinski; politicians, such as Bill Clinton; athletes, such as Michael Jordan; large corporations with their slogans; and movies are all, but not limited to, pop culture. In a Journal I found online of a study of pop culture, it compared the link of religion and a pop culture icon, Star Wars. The study was conducted with people and it read: â€Å"The comparisons and shared philos...

Effects of Industrialization and the Conditions of the Working Class in

Effects of Industrialization and the Conditions of the Working Class in England In the middle of the 19th century the industrial revolution was flourishing in England. With all of the advancements in machinery there would be new opportunities and drawbacks for citizens. Many would leave their lives on the farms and work in factories with unsafe settings. Karl Marx felt that the new advancements in society were able to support the fourth stage of human development, Communism. Along with these new advancements the people would have to learn how to self-govern themselves in the workplace and understand their new responsibilities. England possessed the right settings for the autonomous operation of the economic forces that generated industrialization. Before the industrial revolution England was mainly an agrarian society. Then there was a radical change that moved the citizens from farms and into cities. With the large rise in England’s population there was also a larger demand for goods. There was a necessity for quicker and more efficient methods of producing those goods. During the beginning of the 19th century there was a large push of inventions to help create a more mechanical society. By 1848, when the "Communist Manifesto" was written, machinery had already been assimilated into society.1 The industrial revolution made transportation, commerce, and communication more accessible to the masses. Britain already had many navigable rivers and also utilized the inventions from the revolution to improve even more.2 One of the biggest contributions to those was that of the steam engine. Thi s invention was the first automatic machine that allowed people to work uninterrupted for longer periods of time, ... ...k : Longman, 1985),3,32. 2. Kevin Kitano and Anthony Morejon, "Essay on the Industrial Revolution," 2 November 1997, <http://members.aol.com/mhirotsu/essay.htm> (23 October 2001). 3. Sidney Pollard, Peaceful conquest : the industrialization of Europe, 1760-1970 (New York : Oxford University Press, 1981),22. 4. Donald L. Donham, Studies in Marxism and Social Theology: History, Power, Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 60-61. 5. Kevin Kitano and Anthony Morejon. 6. Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party. 7. Pollard,27. 8. Kemp,5. 9. Kevin Kitano and Anthony Morejon. Links: http://www.neo-tech.com/businessmen/part6.html http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/2/81.02.06.x.html http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ENLIGHT/INDUSTRY.HTM http://members.aol.com/mhirotsu/kevin/trip2.html

British Telecommunications and the Drivers of Globalization

Globalization is a phenomenon most often discussed among economists. Most of us have often heard that business is no longer restrained by political or cultural boundaries. Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) expand with little regards of geographical or cultural distance among their target markets. All decisions within a company are made with the additional consideration of how the international world will affect the results of that decision, a factor that most businesses ignored in some earlier decades.As indicated above, discussions about globalization are mostly about its effects toward the business environment, rather than its causes. Companies are more interested toward how a phenomenon will affect their financial conditions rather than where or what the phenomenon is actually coming form. Within this paper however, I will discuss several drivers of globalization. The drivers will be taken from various perspectives about globalization. To provide more connection to the internationa l business environment, we will use the British Telecom, one of the most successful MNEs in the global communication industry, as a reference to help define and justify the drivers of globalization.Furthermore, this paper will discuss the view of whether MNEs are actually competing globally or only regionally. There are arguments among scholars that the global economy do not actually existed. Globalization has taken us through national boundaries but it stopped in regional limits. In other terms, MNEs are not actually operating with global factors within their considerations, but rather regional factors. This view will be examined as we discuss the development of British Telecom.I. Literature ReviewII.1Corporations as Principle DriversAccording to Ron Blackwell (2002), corporations are the principle drivers of globalization. In the process of increasing their market share, corporations found that they need to expand further that their national boundaries allowed. While rapidly inter nationalizing their operations, most corporations fundamentally altered their structure and strategies, boosting the change of their national economy into a more globalize economy.This phenomena might not be observable in the US or European soil, because the process of corporations breaking through national boundaries have occurred several decades ago. However, the phenomenons are still happening today within the Asian and other developing economies. Economist have long predicted that Asia will be the center of massive economic growth in the near future, and the prophecy is fulfilled as China and India are increasingly integrated to the global economy.II.2Political, Technological and Social ConditionsIII.2.1 Market Oriented-PoliciesBeside the principle factor mentioned above, many arguments brought forward other causes of globalization. One of the popular ones is the influence of market-oriented policies. In China for example, the change of governmental policies regarding foreign in vestment and trade was the greatest factor that supported growth of the economy. Several decades ago, China was a country considered to have a ‘closed economy’. Today, the country is the largest recipient of the world’s Foreign Direct Investment and recognized as the most potential market in Asia (Diaz, 2001).III.2.2 Communication and Transportation TechnologyTechnological changes have also contributed to the process of turning the world into a single global economy. The internet spawned the e-commerce, which displayed a tremendous increase in its role in business and trade. As people in modern countries crave the ease of trade provided by the internet, the growth of e-commerce is predicted to last indefinitely. Furthermore, advanced transportation equipment also has a significant role in accelerating the globalization process.II.2.3  Ã‚   Global PhenomenaSocial conditions that supported globalization process consist of several important phenomena. One of those phenomena is the end of the cold war. The reduction of conflicts causes competitive environment for business development and population growth. It was recorded that the number of people on the planet is more than doubled since the 1960’s (Kohl, 2000). Both the reduction of conflicts and the increasing population created more economic, social and environmental linkages, which in the end, spawned globalization. Further analysis and identification of the drivers of globalization will be performed using the British Telecom plc.II. British TelecommunicationsIII.1  Ã‚  Ã‚   Corporate BackgroundBritish Telecommunication Plc is responsible for approximately 25 million telephone lines in the United Kingdom. The company is an international corporation which own and runs most of the telephone exchanges, trunk network and local loop connections for the vast majority of British fixed line telephones. The company, British Telecom is formed in 1981 and has developed itself into five larg e business divisions today, they are: BT Retail, BT Wholesale, Openreach, BT Global Services, BT Exact/One IT. The divisions provide communication services ranging from retailing telecoms to consumers to research & development and consultancy.There are several reasons why the observation on British Telecom is connected to the study of globalization and considered interesting by many. First, the UK telecommunication market was among the first telecommunication market that was deregulated in the early 1980’s. Several of the most influential regulatory innovations, like the price cap regulation was also developed and first implemented in UK telecommunications. Second, the British telecom was the first communication company in the world that was privatized in the early 1980’s. Third, because the UK telecommunication market was the first to be exposed to public interference, communication within the industry is ten years ahead of other European countries.III.2 Corporate Int ernationalizationIII.2.1 Role of Government PolicyAccording to the theories mentioned in the second chapter, there are several drivers of globalization with different emphasize on their significance. Generally, economists acknowledge that companies are the strongest driver of globalization and its processes. Despite the fact that this statement might be true for most MNE’s, regarding the British Telecom, I found that governmental policies are the most influential factor comparatively.Before its privatization in 1984, the British Telecom was granted the right for a monopoly over the fixed line network operations. This boosted the development of the company long enough to provide itself with strong infrastructure to face competitions. Having a major early start at the game, since its privatization, the company has been known as one of the strongest companies in UK. Government monopoly policies which then followed by the market oriented policies helped brought the company to its current position as a market leader in communication (Summanen, 2002).II.2.2  Ã‚   The Role of Corporate ExpansionThe second largest factor, which I believe was the effort within the corporation itself, came in some time after the company was privatized. In 1993, the company announced a joint global alliance through a new joint venture company. This new company is considered as the bridge which leads British Telecom into leading the global telecommunications operator. In order to expand the business by obtaining multinational clients, BT formed and acquired stakes of several joint venture companies overseas. Some of them were Albacom in Italy, Viag Interkom in Germany, Telenordia in Sweden, Dacom in Korea, etc. All of this was performed after there is a leadership change from Sir George Jefferson to Sir Iain Vallance as chairman of the group. This displayed the tremendous role of managerial decisions in the process of BT’s internationalization (Summanen, 2002).II.2.3  Ã‚   Role of Technology and Social FactorsThe changing culture and the increasingly rapid growth of the economy boosted telecommunication business. The 2001residential fixed telephone volumes were recorded to double as much as it was in 1996. Within the same period, local call volumes decreased and national and international call volumes increased. Furthermore, the role of technology in the development of British Telecom can be observed through the statistics also. From 1997 to 2001, calls to mobiles have been recorder to increase tremendously. This increase continues until today (Summanen, 2002).II.2.4  Ã‚   Competing GloballyIn terms of strategic market share, the British Telecom displayed a global approach throughout its lines of business. BT’s overseas activity targets were set to various markets in the world, divided into three segments: the North America market, the Mainland Europe market and the Asia-Pacific region. In North America, the company partnered with MCI to s upport growth. The largest focus is still in its home market and the mainland Europe using its core brands and the market Asia-Pacific region is still being developed (Sumanen, 2002).BibliographyBlackwell, Ron. 2005. ‘Hearing before the US-China Economi ad Security Review Commission Regarding Corporate Globalization Strategies China and the Future of Globalization’.Diaz-Bonilla, E and S Robinson eds. 2001. ‘Shaping Globalization for Poverty Alleviation and Food Security’. 2020 Vision Focus * Washington, D.CKohl, R and K, Orourke. 2000. ‘Whats new About Globalization: Implications for Income Inequality in Developing Countries’ Paper for Organizations for Economic Cooperation and Development Conference on’ Poverty and Income Inequality in Developing Countries’ Paris.Summanen, Tuamo. 2002. ‘British Telecom: Searching for a Winning Strategy’. Available at: msl1.mit.edu/CMI/furd_2002_a/btcase.pdf