Parental Investment Theory Essay -- Gender Roles, Sex

The socio-biological theory suggests gender appropriate behaviour has evolved to allow humanity to survive. There is supporting evidence in the composition of the human body; men have a larger lung capacity and greater physical strength than women in order to better equip them for protecting their family. In contrast, women are born with child-bearing capacities and are therefore biologically predetermined to care for their children, thus ensuring the human race survives. In 1994 Kenrick introduced â€Å"Parental Investment Theory†. He claimed society is organised so that women are protected and remain faithful, ensuring men are able to impart their genes to future generations. This also allows for women to be selective to ensure their partner provides food, shelter and other basic human necessities. Kenrick’s ideas are supported by Buss’ 1994 experiment. Buss surveyed men and women in thirty seven countries to investigate important qualities in the opposite sex. The findings showed that women preferred resourcefulness and dependability whereas men valued chastity and youth. This study appears to support Kenrick’s â€Å"Parental Investment Theory† as Buss argues that men evolved to provide for their partners and are attracted to fertile women. Oestrogen receptors in the brain are believed to cause gender-appropriate behaviour. Oestrogen, a hormone found in the female genital tissue, acts as a ligand and, by activating the oestrogen receptors found on the surfaces of brain cells, causes notable changes in behaviour. Professors at Yale University have studied the effects of oestrogen and found the hormone increases neural connectivity in the brain resulting in a more accurate memory. Turnham et al (2002) supports this as upon investigation... ...o carry out a perfect experiment and consequently all evidence will be flawed. It is necessary to focus upon evaluating the severity of such flaws. One could argue that the biosocial theory is more convincing as the many strengths of the socio-biological and social learning theories are combined providing a credible explanation. This also means the scientific facts in the socio-biological theory are no longer undermined but indeed strengthened by evidence to support learnt gender-appropriate behaviours. The biosocial theory allows for both schools of thought to be equally considered. Overall the Hegelian dialectic mechanism can be applied; the hypothesis, in this case the socio-biological explanation, and the antithesis, the social learning paradigm, must co-exist to produce the resulting synthesis, gender-appropriate behaviours. Thus girls are both born and made.

Vagal Nerve Stimulation and Epilepsy :: Biology Essays Research Papers

Vagal Nerve Stimulation and Epilepsy Epilepsy is a brain disorder characterized by seizures which occur when neurons fire uncontrollably and chaotically. The four most common categories of seizures are: simple partial, complex partial, secondary generalized tonic-clonic, and generalized tonic-clonic. A partial seizure is one in which epileptic activity stays in a focused area of the brain. During a simple partial seizure, the patient maintains full consciousness and experiences hallucinations, illusions and/or muscle jerking. A patient experiencing a complex partial seizure has impaired consciousness and often makes automated movements. A generalized tonic-clonic (GTC) seizure is characterized by complete loss of consciousness, rhythmic jerking, and a period of unresponsiveness. A secondary generalized tonic-clonic (SGTC) seizure is one in which the epileptic activity of a partial seizure spreads to the entire brain, resulting in a generalized seizure.(3). Epilepsy has a variety of different pathologies. These include genetic factors, poisoning, and brain injury. High levels of excitatory neurotransmitters, low levels of inhibitory neurotransmitters, and abnormal wiring are all thought to be causes of seizures. Possibly, abnormalities in the cell membrane play a part in causing seizures. (3). This makes sense since the cell membrane essentially controls the polarization of the cell, which in turn controls the activation of signaling between cells. Often, seizures are caused by a deficiency of GABA, a neurotransmitter which inhibits the passing of information from one neuron to another. (1). Seizures which are caused by lack of inhibitor could, in a way, be likened to the example of a chicken which runs around for some time after its head is cut off. The spastic wild activity of the chicken is due to the fact that the inhibitory neurons are all in the head, which was removed. There is nothing to control the excitatory neurons. Similarly, without enough inhibiting GABA, many neurons send signals all at once, and there is nothing to stop them. One of the more recent forms of treatment for epilepsy is called Vagal Nerve Stimulation (VNS). The first VNS device was implanted into a human in 1988. ((2).) The vagus nerve is a cranial nerve controlling muscles involved with swallowing, speaking and coughing. The nerve is also involved with receiving input from and sending information about the heart, stomach and lungs to the brain. (6). The Vagus Nerve Stimulator is a small generator which sends electrical activity to the brain to prevent seizures. (5).

Shadow And Custodial President Essay examples -- essays research paper

Shadow and Custodial Presidents Grant (1868) – Cleveland (1892)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Throughout the history of the world there have been many people remembered for their actions and a great deal more forgotten for no real reason. This does not exempt more recent history. After the American Civil War, six lesser-known Presidents, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, and Harrison, have been given titles of either shadow or custodial presidents. A shadow, is a section of darkness, or a part that follows behind. Some of the Presidents seem to have fallen into the shadows of other events, people, and issues. Others put themselves there, just stepping out long enough to take care of a few urgent tasks then sink back into the unknown. â€Å"Custodial Presidents† a term implying that the man is there only to fix problems already out of hand. He does not create policies or change the course of the nation, just keeps it on its way. Truthfully, some of these men are deserving of these titles. Others may not be. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant 1868-1876   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Towards the end of President Johnson’s term in office, Johnson and Grant began to have public disagreements about the state of the Union. Due to these quarrels Grant aligned himself with the Radical Republican political party. Grant was already well known for his triumphs during the Civil War and was thus, the popular choice for Presidential Nominee.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner. He was educated at West Point, where he graduated 21st out of 39. Grant fought in both the Mexican and Civil Wars. In 1864 President Abraham Lincoln appointed Grant to the Position of General in Chief.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As President, grant had difficulty in making wise judgements. He was a man who tried, in most ways; to be honest, but still found himself in association to dishonest acts.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Grant was known to accept a considerable amount of gifts from political admirers. He was also seen with the speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk. Two men, who were planning to corner the market in gold. Grant did realize their plan, and he tried to put an abrupt halt to it. However his action caused a tremendous amount of fiduciary turmoil. Grant in no way curbed Radical Reconstruction, in the South. At times he aided it with military force.   &... ... of Presidency Harrison focused on was foreign policy. In 1889 the Pan American Congress met in Washington to establish an information center. Harrison also tried to annex Hawaii.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Within the country Harrison expanded the navy, made subsidies for steamships lines available, and signed bills for internal improvements. He also wanted to protect the American consumer from monopolies, so he signed the Sherman Anti-Trust act.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Harrison had great problem, the tariff, facing him. He tried to make revisions in the tariff. These revisions made it so the Treasury surplus was nonexistent before the end of his term in office. Along with the surplus went the prosperity of most of the working class.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Harrison mostly focused, in his presidency, on issues that were important at the moment, but not so important as to be memorable. His time as President has fallen into the shadows. No great travesties or victories occurred during his time and so he will remain a shadow president.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After is retirement in Indianapolis and marriage in 1869, Benjamin Harrison died in1901, a respected man.

Classical Model of Decision Making

International Journal of Business and Management June, 2008 The Classical Model of Decision Making Has Been Accepted as not providing an Accurate Account of How People Typically Make Decisions Bin Li Foreign Languages Department, Guang Dong University of Finance Guangzhou, 510521, China E-mail: [email  protected] com Abstract Decision making is an accepted part of everyday human life. People all make varying importance decisions every day, thus the idea that decision making can be a rather difficult action may seem so strange and unbelievable. However, a large number of empirical studies have shown that most people in organizations are much poorer at decision making. Therefore, people began to pay more attention to understand hot to make a suitable decision. Keywords: Decision making, Rational decision-making, Demonstrate classical decision making 1. Introduction Decision making is one of the most central processes in organizations and a basic task of management at all levels. According to Cole (2004:151), decision making is â€Å"a process of identifying a problem, evaluating alternatives, and selecting one alternative. During the whole process, people are making the best choice from among several option based on the current situation. Additionally, Rollinson (2002) considered that decision making is the process of producing a solution to a recognized problem. There are three basic activities involved in decision making: intelligence activity, design activity and choice activity. Although all the decisions are made based on these three main activities, not all decisions are the same (www. bized. ac. uk). Some are relatively simple and others involve a more complex range of considerations. Consequently, people need an approach to understand decisions making. Good decision making is an essential skill for career success generally, and effective leadership particularly. 2. The classical decision making model The traditional approach to understanding individual decision making is based upon classical decision making theory or the rational economic model (Huczynski & Buchanan, 2001). The classical view of decision making has always integrated the concept of rationality and rational decisions within the whole process of discussions and prescriptions. Obviously, a rational decision-making process is often suggested as the way in which decisions should be made trough those three activities, and it involves the following strictly defined sequential process shown in Chart 1 (Heracleous, 1994). It begins with seeking to ask the right questions, continues by discovering creative answers and finishes by making sure that the chosen solution is valuable and useful. According to Hucaynski & Buchanan (2002:740), â€Å"rationality is equated with scientific reasoning, empiricism and positivism and with the use of decision criteria of evidence, logical argument and reasoning†. And the rational decisions are decisions which are based on the rationality. The advantage of the classical model is to indicate a rational approach that can be applied to the business of reaching decisions in organizations. On the other hand, Lee et, al. (1999:18) considered that â€Å"classical decision theory views the decision maker as acting in a world of complete certainty. † It assumes that â€Å"decision makers are objective, have complete information and consider all possible alternatives and their consequences before selecting the optimal solution. (Huczynski 2001:738) Based on the definition above, it is clear that classical decision making theory is derived from several assumptions. However, all those assumptions are not reality within this modern information age. Herbert (1981) agreed that this process is underlain by certain assumptions and characteristics, which are highly unrealistic in practice and are widely argued among managerial field. In the managerial f ield, how to make a suitable decision is very important. Faulty strategic and operational decisions can and must seriously weaken companies’ competitiveness. It is possible misleading to a completely wrong developing direction. According to the research by Robbins (2003), he considered that classical model of decision making could not fully represent how people make decisions in organizations, because people do not know how accurate the data is used to make decisions, how reliable are the estimates of the probabilities and how useful the data is related to the event. 151 Vol. 3, No. 6 International Journal of Business and Management Besides all above reasons, there are others evidence to challenge classical assumptions, which to demonstrate classical decision making model is not providing an accurate account of how people typically make decisions. In general, based on the research by Robbins (2003), he summarized all the assumptions of classical decision making model illustrated in Chart 2. Robbins (2003) considered that all these assumptions are subjective and can not represent the real situation in the practice. Cole (2004) also agreed with that all these assumptions would be correct as people in a completely perfect world where does not exist. Moreover, all these assumptions would be disadvantages as people could not discover this model entirely relies on the accuracy of the data used and must require qualitative input to give complete picture. Based on the disadvantages of classical model of decision making, in the following section, it is going to stick to the sequence of classical model of decision making to challenge its assumptions in details one by one. 3. Further analysis in the decision making model In the first step of classical model of decision making, people have to identify what problem they face or deal with. And the model assumes that all the problems are easy to be defined and discovered. In fact, there are two types of problem. One is bounded problems, which means that â€Å"problems that can be more easily defined and treated as separate from the context in which they exist† (Rollinson, 2002:254). Under this situation, people can easily define the problem, because the problem is usually small, less important and is not complex without limitation by time or cost. Obviously, these kinds of problems will have actual solutions in practical experience; people have enough knowledge to define the nature of the problem, such as an organization makes a decision to purchase a new machine to replace the old one, which is an easy decision to make without more limitation by others factors. Thus people can continue to make decisions through the classical model. However, there is another kind of problem which is unbounded problems. In general, these kinds of problem are much more complex then ounded problems in terms of scale, implications or time of problem. It is necessary to recognize the nature of the problem before identification. Rollinson (2002) defined that unbounded problems are â€Å"ambiguous problems that are harder to define and which cannot easily be separated from the context in which they exist† (Rollinson, 2002:254). Therefore, in the first step of the classical decision making process, people are hard to clearly define the nature o f every problem, so that there is a trap within the first step, because there are many unknown factors surrounding the problem. People in any organizations who make decisions have to be care about the real nature of the problem and various factors which influence the development of the whole problem before defining. Moreover, unbounded problems may be new problems which people do not have any kinds of knowledge and solutions. Under this situation, people are lacking knowledge to handle the problem leading to making wrong decisions. To illustrate an unbounded problem in organization, Koran electric giant Samsung Electronics has some worries about its ageing product line in the early stage of its development. This scale of the problem is much larger and has potentially serious implications for the whole organization, which has strong influence in the future. However, although Samsung has noticed about the age of its products, there is little clarity about whether a problem actually exists or what its nature might be. Also, management team did not find out a clear solution at that time, hence a replacement range of products cannot be selected, because the cost, sales and production implications are not known. In the case of this example, it is proved that the nature of problem is quite different. Only under the situation, which people can easily define the actual nature of the problem, people can apply the first step of classical decision making. Through discussing the bounded problem and unbounded problem, it is clear that the nature of each of those problems is different. It is not just the size of the issue that is significant. Consequently, the first assumption of classical model, which problem is clear and unambiguous, did not come into existence. As to the third stage of the classical model, that comprehensive search for alternative courses of action and their consequences is feasible and is carried out is completely wrong. It assumes that the decision maker have entire information about the consequences of alternatives. This assumption is the most serious mistake in decision making theory. To illustrate its mistake, there are several aspects to challenge decision makers’ abilities and awareness. One is that some alternatives will not have occurred to the decision maker, since there are too many. Cole (2004) suggested that everything in the world is changed all the time. Decision makers can not catch all the information by his or her ability. When decision makers intend to legitimize their chosen courses of action, by the appearance of rationality, â€Å"empirical studies show that memory search is the initial tactic followed, and only if the problem persists is a more extensive search undertaken†(Heracleous1994:18). This statement indicated that most people making decision depend on their brain. And this kind of search for possible solutions and their consequences is largely informal, qualitative and conditioned by the organizational nature and regulations. 152 International Journal of Business and Management June, 2008 However, the brain is not a stable and mature tool to process all the information. In fact, it is totally out of ability to process information that is related to decision maker. Morse (2006:42) indicated that â€Å"the primitive, emotional parts of people’s brains have a power influence on the choices people make†. Decision makers are not rational beings, because individuals are lacking of the mental capacity to store and process all the information related to the decision (Huczynski & Buchanan, 2001). Additionally, personal background will drive decision maker from clear objective to confused objective due to their desire, because they do not know how to deal with personal preference when it has conflict with decision. On the other hand, every decision is made within a decision environment, which is defined as a sequence of collecting information, alternatives, values, and preferences available within the time of the decision (Daft 2001). However, both the development of alternatives and the selection of an optimum solution will be limited by organizational objective and polices, and by the attitudes of managers and other employees, even by the external environment. This statement indicated that fail to bring the right approach to collect information leading to overlooking information hey are not expecting and obeying others regulations. 4. Conclusion In short, in terms of people’s abilities, it is impractical to collect all the information due to many external and internal factors around the organizations (Huczynski & Buchanan, 2001). As to people’s awareness, it still has limitations. The emotional parts of people’s brain still have strong influence on decision makers’ behaviour and choices (http://cogsci. uwaterloo. ca). Thus making a practical decision is not just collect as much as information which is impractical to estimate many of the consequences considered. It is considered that most people are not aware that the approaches they used are limited within their awareness. References (2008). http://cogsci. uwaterloo. ca/Articles/Pages/Emot. Decis. htm [Accessed 27 January 2008] Bazerman. M. H. (2006). Judgment in Managerial Decision Making; 6th ed. , New York; Chichester: Wiley. Belmonte, Joe. Circuits Assembly. (2006). What Do We Control? Vol. 17 Issue 4, p20-21, 2p Cole, G. A. (2004). Management Theory and Practice 6th ed. , London: Thomson Corbett. J. M. (1994). Critical Cases in Organisational Behaviour; Basingstoke: Macmillan Daft . R. L. (2001). Organization Theory and Design; 7th ed. , Cincinnati, Ohio: South-Western College Publishing Heracleous. L. T. (1994). Management Development Review, Vol. 7. No. 4. p 15-17 MBC University Press Herbert. T. T. (1981). Dimensions of Organizational Behaviour; 2nd ed. , London; New York: Macmillan: Collier Macmillan Huczynski, A & David Buchanan. (2001). Organizational Behaviour: An Introductory Text. 4th ed. , Financial Times, Prentice Hall Lee, D. ; Philip, Newman. ; and Robert, Price. 1999). Decision Making In Organizations; Financial Times, Prentice Hall Luthans. F. (1995). Organizational Behaviour. 7th ed. , London; New York: McGraw-Hill Morse. K. l. (2006). Introduce Organizational behaviour. 5th ed. , London: Thomson Robbins, S. P (2003). Management 7th ed. N. J. : Prentice-Hall Simon, H. A. (1978). The New Science of Management Decision; Revised ed. , London (etc. ); Englewood Cliffs: Prentice -Hall, 153 Vol. 3, No. 6 International Journal of Business and Management Figure 1. Classical decision model Figure 2. Classical model of decision making 154

Paying Less for Fashion Essay

Payless ShoeSource, Inc. is the largest footwear retailer in the United States. The company operates about 4,700 stores in all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, Central America, the Caribbean, Ecuador, and Japan. It also sells footwear via the Internet at www.payless.com. Payless has built its success by offering a large selection of shoes at very low prices, most selling for less than $15 as of 2004. The company has been able to maintain its affordable prices by sticking exclusively to a self-service format, keeping a tight rein on cost structure, and insisting on efficient sourcing and inventory controls. Payless ShoeSource targets as its main customers women from 18 to 44 years of age with household incomes of less than $75,000, and it estimates that in any given year, 40 percent of the women in this target group buy at least one pair of footwear at a Payless store. The company remained a May subsidiary until 1996, when it was spun off to May shareholders as an independent, publicly traded firm. Payless ShoeSource founded in Topeka, Kansas in 1956 by brothers Louis and Shaol Pozez that is owned by Collective Brands, Inc, on a revolutionary idea – selling shoes in a self-select environment. In 1961, it became a public company as the Volume Shoe Corporation which merged with the May Department Stores Company in 1979. More than 50 years later, Payless continues the self-select model combined with leading customer service to provide a fun and engaging shopping experience for our customers. Today, Payless serves millions of consumers through its powerful global network of stores in all 50 U.S. states, as well as in Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, Central America, the Caribbean and South America. The company also has an expanding presence in the Eastern Hemisphere through franchising arrangements. UPDATING 1956: Pay-Less National is founded in Topeka, Kansas, by two cousins, Louis and Shaol Pozez, to open self-service stores selling budget footwear. 1962: The Company goes public as Volume Distributors. 1967: The company is renamed Volume Shoe Corporation; an accelerated expansion program is launched. 1978: The Payless ShoeSource name is adopted for the bulk of the company’s retail outlets. 1979: Volume Shoe is acquired by the May Department Stores Company. 1991: The company name is changed to Payless ShoeSource, Inc. 1996: May spins Payless off to shareholders, making it once again an independent, publicly traded firm. 1997: The mid-priced shoe chain Parade of Shoes is acquired from J. Baker, Inc.; the first Canadian Payless stores open. 1999: The firm launches e-commerce at payless.com. 2000: Payless enters into a joint venture to expand into the Central American region. 2004: As part of a major restructuring, Payless announces that it will close down the Parade chain and close hundreds of Payless ShoeSource outlets. PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED Matt Rubel: Nowadays he is Senior Advisor at TPG Capital, L.P. and TPG Growth and served as the Chief Executive Officer and President at Collective Brands. He served as the Chief Executive Officer and President at Payless Shoesource Inc., a subsidiary of Collective Brands. He served as the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cole Haan, Inc from February 1999 to July 2005, where he transformed it into a global lifestyle brand celebrating American luxury. Prior to joining Cole Haan, Mr. Rubel served as an Executive Vice President of J. Crew Group. He is responsible for the success of Payless, Cole Haan and J. Crew. His involvement in this case is vital to these brands. http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=23134722&privcapId=23307 Cole Haan, J. Crew: specialty retailers throughout the United States. Matt Rubel is the one responsible for the success of this two brands. They are competitors of Payless, but they also sell clothing. Carrie Bradshaw: fictional character and lead character of the HBO romantic sitcom Sex and the City, portrayed by actress Sarah Jessica Parker. This character was the icon of the decade and every woman wanted to look like her and dress like her. She was a fashionista and the sitcom revolved around fashion and clothing. Payless understood this trend and tried to approach women who wanted to look just like her, without spending that much money. Kenneth Cole, Michael Kors: top designers who were hired to fulfill their places in the Payless Design Team. They both had their own clothing lines, but Payless created an alliance strategy with their names and brands, so women would buy their shoes. This was a smart move by Matt Rubel. Lela Rose, Stacey Bendet, Christian Siriano: Haute Coture up-and-coming designers from New York City. One of them actually won a competition show named Project Runway. Payless asked them to take over their collections, aiming for haute couture, in other words, avant garde designs. They intended to sell cheaper shoes, but with great innovative designs. The typical fashionista was in for it. Mardi Larson: principal, owner and chief Marketing & Communications consultant at Mardi Larson Communications and has served a range of clients with consulting services and as a contract associate for more than a decade. Also included in her roster of clients are footwear brands like Sperry Top-Sider, Keds and Stride Rite, among others. She was the head of public relations of Payless, and developed the target marker for them. Maxine Clark: Maxine Clark was born on March 6 of 1949 in Florida, had her degree in law from St. Louis University. In 1996, Maxine Clark found â€Å"Build-a-bear workshop†. Prior to founding Build-A-Bear Workshop in 1997, Ms. Clark served as the President and Chief Merchandising Officer at Payless Shoesource Inc. from November 1992 to January 1996. Recognized the strategy of Payless, as to sell cheap and chic. Marian Salzman: American advertising and public relations executive. She is currently president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR North America and a member of the holding company, Euro RSCG Worldwide’s Executive Committee, with brand reputation oversight for the company and key executives globally. She forecasted this trend that made Payless grow. Tiffany, Gucci, Armani: top brands that can be found in New York’s Fifth Avenue. They are the ones to set trends and women look forward to dress in their clothes. They are very expensive, and the middle class woman cannot buy them. This is where Payless supplies their demand of high fashion and affordable prices. Isaac Mizrahi: American fashion designer and TV presenter, best known for eponymous fashion lines. First big fashion designer to make an alliance with Payless. This made other brands and designers to focus on the company. They also wanted to work with Payless in a long-lasting alliance, with great benefits for both of the parts. Walmart, Kohl’s, Target: American retailers that were seen as great discount one-stop shops that had become the vendors of choice for tight budgets for buying shoes. Payless was competing with this major retailers and they needed something to differentiate from them. Their cheap and chic strategy was the solution to overcome this competitors. Elle, Vogue, W: fashion magazines that set the trends and state what is IN and what it’s not. Payless ran full-page ads featuring their new tagline â€Å"Look Again†. This was a strategy directed to fashionistas and frequent buyers of this magazines. They intended to show them that their shoes were so good that they were featured by this great magazines. Sophia Bush, Brittany Snow: both are actresses and fashion icons. Every teenager and young woman wanted to look like them. They were invited into the backstage of Lela Rose’s fashion show in New York Fashion Week, and were spotted wearing Payless shoes. They featured this Payless shoes and wore them proudly, announcing the fashion world that it was okay to wear something affordable and chic. Karl Lagerfeld & H&M, Vera Wang & Kohl’s, Ralph Lauren & JC Penney, Todd Oldham & Old Navy: this are examples of strategic alliances between great and recognized fashion designers and big retailers. This process of benchmarking made Payless realize that they also needed to make alliances with some big designers and brands. This is where Isaac Mizrahi decided to take the plunge with them, and design a whole collection of couture shoes. MAIN PROBLEM The main problem this company, Payless Shoesource, was facing was that in 2005 Payless was losing market share and began to close some stores. The retail landscape had changed and giant discount shops like Walmart, Target and Kohl’s had become the vendors of choice for budget conscious shopper’s buying shoes. With thrift as its positioning point, the company had lost its edge; they were producing the same shoes year after year hoping that price will bring customers to their doors. As we see the problem here was that Payless wasn’t innovating, they were pretending that the same styles would attract the same people to its stores because of the affordable price. STRATEGY When they noticed they have this problem Payless had to engineer a new strategy, it began with the new CEO Matt Rubel, he was hired because of its extensive experience with high-end brands, he knew that the company would have to design shoes that exclusive people would wear with prices that they could afford. Their new job was in charge of changing its image from the dusty cheap footwear into the fun, hip merchant of fashion. Rubel’s objective of their new strategy was not only give the brand image makeover but also position the company in such a way that the price increasing would seem like a bargain. Been more specific Rubel’s strategy plan was based on four major components. 1) Expanding the Brand Portfolio; this stage consisted in implementing what he calls â€Å"House of Brands† strategy instead of one product line create a well-known national brands. In terms to organize the new corporate structure and keep track of all its brands, he created a collective Brand. 2) The Payless Design Team; they want to develop products that would enter to the customers minds, that would resonate better with consumers, they were making emphasis on fashion, they Payless Design Team dedicated itself to develop original footwear and accessory designs to keep new styles on target with changing fashion trends. 3) Designer Collections; Payless created a strong relationship with some designers for the past, they have forged these three top New York based designers, so their homework was creating strong bonds with these designers, this benefits of this alliances are plentiful, because Payless gets brand cachà ©, making consumers get runway styles they can afford. 4) Fun Inspiring Store Formats; Payless redesigned its logo to reflect the new image and communicate change to consumers, they make some store formats, creating a new atmosphere, making a drastic improvement, stores more open, light and airy with a more satisfying consumer experience built around style and design rather than price. This new strategy implemented by the CEO Rubel will energize the old customers who they lost and also attract new ones. This trendy new image is perfect for existing customers. Payless has truck a formula for value that customers love. It remains confident that this strategy to democratize fashion will produce great results, regardless of future economic conditions. Furthermore of the implementation of the new strategy created by the CEO Rubel, Payless since its inception began with low prices or affordable prices, making a competitive advantage for the company, providing good profits. In 2008 when the global recession happened Payless took a hit, while other retailers were suffering because of its huge losses, Payless stores fared much better. Whereas the other retailers had loss many money in 2008, Payless gain a net profit of 88 million in 2009. To conclude, as well as the company manage two strategies to stay in the market and be competitive it would be great that for strengthen its strategy they can work in one of its four P ´s of the marketing mix, promotion, to attract more consumers, making more publicity of its brand and new designers that are part of the company, probably and we pretty sure they will bring more customers. If people know that those famous designers’ works for Payless, people are going to be more enthusiastic for buying good quality, good design for an affordable price. 1- Which of the different product mix pricing strategies discussed in the text applies best to Payless’s new strategy? From my point of view they are using a mix of different strategies. Firstly, skimming pricing. This is about selling a product at a high price, sacrificing high sales to gain a high profit, therefore ‘skimming’ the market. They have invested a lot of money to hire top notch designers, rebranding effort like remodeling stores etc. There needs to be some mechanism (read, strategy) to recover this cost. For some items they have even employed premium pricing. Interestingly, Payless came up with some really good product like Lela Rose, Abaete etc. On the other hand, they have products which are low as $12. As best strategy that they are employing; I would say that they are going for Product Line Pricing. They want their customers to get attracted by the big brands in their portfolio. In that way, other products will gain due importance too. So to customers, overall portfolio will look very attractive. The strategy for setting a product’s price often has to be changed when the product is part of a product mix. Companies usually develop product lines rather than single product. Product mix means in the same companies have many type product with they are brands it sold. Product mix pricing strategies consist of five elements which is product line pricing, product bundle pricing, by-product pricing, captive product pricing and optional-product pricing. In this case, the product mix pricing strategy Payless use is product line pricing. Product line pricing is setting the price steps between various products in the product line based on cost differences between the products, customer evaluations of different features and competitor’s prices. Payless has strategy product line, from one comprised almost entirely of store brands to one dominated by well-known national brands. Payless now sells shoes under numerous brand names that it either owns or licenses, including Airwalk, Champion, Spalding, Dexter, Shaquille O’Neal-endorsed Dunkman, and various Disney brands. Customer can buy many types of products with different prices by looking at size, width, color and design. For example, for boys’ shoes, they have many shapes, size, color, design, and numerous brands which they can get with difference price from $ 12.99 until $26.99. For girls, there are shoes in differences brand like Fioni, Amerian, Eagle, Dexter, Lela Rose, and Smartfit from $14.99 until $24.99. Most products Payless offers are under $50. Other than that, Payless has relationship with top New-York based designers Laura Poretzky, Lela Rose, Stacey Bendet and Patricia Field. The four are designing everything from pumps to boots to handbags for Payless. Payless sets most of the stores product line below $15. The company’s CEO, Matt Rubel also has suggested that in many cases, price increases may be as little as 50 cent per pair of shoes. But the expansion of its brand portfolio to include famous labels will certainly give payless greater pricing flexibility. 2- How do concepts such as psychological pricing and reference pricing apply to the Payless strategy? In what ways does Payless’s strategy deviate from these concepts? By definition, psychological pricing on the theory that certain prices has a psychological impact. The retail prices are often expressed as â€Å"odd prices†: a little less than a round number, e.g. $19.99 or  £2.98. There is no explicit reference given in the case where we see that they are using this strategy. As a matter of fact, we see that though Payless is increasing the price of their products. So, sudden upward movement of price may come as a shock to customers. This strategy of Psychological pricing can be employed in this scenario. Payless actually did not pay a heed to that and did not come up with any proper plan towards psychological pricing. In what ways does Payless’s strategy deviate from these concepts? By definition, psychological pricing is a pricing approach that considers the psychology of prices and not simply the economics. The price is used to say something about the product. Psychological pricing occurs when sellers consider the psychology of prices and not simply the economics. In the other hand, reference pricing is prices that buyers carry in their minds and refer to when they look at a given product. Consumers usually perceive higher-priced products as having higher quality. But what happen in Payless is, they did not increase the price of their product to gain higher quality product perception, but changed the image from dusty dungeon of cheap footwear into the fun, hip, merchant of fashion. In addition, Payless even re-designed their logo for the first time in 20 years. They then launched new â€Å"Fashion Lab and â€Å"Hot Zone† store format. It was a drastic improvement. As the result, Payless store now have more open, light, and airy thus creating a more satisfying consumer experience. Payless is now looking forward into style and design rather than price. This is where Payless’s strategy deviate from psychological pricing concept. Payless focuses more towards style and design of their product rather than price. They even upgrade their store environment into more comfortable places which then create customer satisfaction. With the new store environment, it makes the $12 shoe looks like a $20 shoe. However, Payless’s manipulating the reference pricing by implementing a drastic improvement in their store. They launched a new â€Å"Fashion Lab† and â€Å"Hot Zone† store format to create more open, light, and airy with a more satisfying consumer experience built around style and design rather than price. The new format not only attracts more customers, but they even make the customer willing to pay a little bit more than they have in the past. All new Payless stores now have one of the two new formats and old stores are being progressively remodeled. 3- Discuss the benefits and risks of the new strategy for both Payless and the designers with whom its partners. Which of these two stands to lose the most? Benefits of the new strategy would be for both, for the designers and for the company, those designers when working for Payless are going to be more recognized for most of the people, they are going to become more famous, they are going to outstand from the others, also people who really knows this designers would buy more frequently shoes on this store making this company richer. Now talking of the risks of the new strategy would be that for the designers maybe they are not well-paid for their work and also they lose status for working to a shoe retailer. Some people might not like these designers anymore because they are working on that company, so they lose credibility. A risk for the company would probably that maybe making these relationships with those designers they have more costs so it would not be sustainable for the company. We think that designers would go to lose more, because as we mentioned before they would lose credibility and consequently they are going to lose loyal customers. 4- Consider the scale on which Payless operates. How much of a price increase does Payless need to achieve to make this venture worthwhile? Payless was looking to move its average price point up a notch or two, due to the expansion of its brand portfolio to include famous labels that will certainly give Payless greater pricing flexibility. What they can do it’s a price adjustment strategy, looking for some variables they can apply to that specific company. For example they can use segmented pricing, they can segment their market. Psychological pricing, buyers have a reference of its price in their minds, also they can use geographical pricing; they can design different types of shoes for a different country depends on the fashion and the weather and also international pricing, analyzing some specific factors of the country, like laws and regulations, economic conditions. Looking all this price adjustments strategies they can achieve a good price depending on the place and making this venture worthwhile for the company and for the customers.

Zappos faces Competitive Advantages Essay

Zappos faces Competitive Advantages Chapter 1 6/9/13 Zappos is an online retailer that has found its business on 10 core values that help successfully run their business. The company is known for their culture. They feel that culture evaluate how the employees will perform their job functions. The questions below will define what challenges they will face when competitive challenges intervene. 1. Zappos seems to be well-positioned to have a competitive advantage over other online retailers. What challenges discussed in Chapter 1 pose the biggest threat to Zappo’s ability to maintain and enhance its competitive position? How can human resource management practices help Zappos meet these challenges? Although Zappos is well-positioned to have a competitive advantage over other online retailers one of the biggest threats in my opinion that they will face is globalization. I say this because from the reading; Zappos use competitive pricing. However, in international markets products have a cheaper price and their shipping rates vary. Therefore, Zappos wouldn’t be able to offer their free shipping if they were to relocate into international markets. Another challenge they are likely to have pose on their business if they enter into international markets is sustainability. Sustainability basically goes hand in hand with globalization because they would have to be able to adapt to the change when entering into these markets. For example, the economy is changing everyday throughout the United States and internationally with how businesses run. With the pricing in these markets going international is going to also affect how their business will successfully run. Human resource practices can help meet these challenges by helping recruit the right employees to still promote the vision that Zappos currently hold. They can do this by interviewing through assessment testing to make sure they have the skills and requirements for the position of which they apply. Also, these practices if performed correctly can help them in  evaluating the environment in which they choose to locate internally as well as externally so that their business practices are performed. 2. Do you think that employees of Zappos have high levels of engagement? Why? I believe that Zappos demonstrates a well engaged employee relationship within the company. I say this because any company that takes the time to have outside lunches with the staff in order to hear the different ideas that they have come up with, believes in a satisfied worker and work environment. Many companies in today’s society only listen when a complaint is made over their 1800 hotline. Zappos actually take the time out and listen to every complaint of their employees individually. 3. Which of Zappos’ 10 core values do you believe that human resource practices can influence the most? The least? Why? For each of the core values, identify the HR practices that are related to it. Explain how each of the HR practice(s) you identified is related to the core values. I believe that human resource practices could influence the most is Zappos customer service. Customer service is needed throughou Core Values: 1. Deliver Wow through service— Sustainability 2. Embrace and drive change— 3. Create fun and a little weirdness—Sustainability 4. Be adventurous, creative, and open minded—Sustainability 5. Pursue growth and learning—- 6. Build open and honest relationships with communication—Sustainability 7. Build a positive team and family spirit—Technology 8. Do more with less—Sustainability 9. Be passionate and determined—Sustainability 10. Be humble—Sustainability

Historical Reference Essay

â€Å"A favorite theory of mine to wit, that no occurrence is sole and solitary, but is merely a repetition of a thing which has happened before, and perhaps often†(Twain). This quote from a famous writer, Mark Twain, talks about how he believes that history can and does repeat itself. Mark is saying that everything takes place for a reason and has occurred sometime before in history. This idea of history repeating itself is present throughout the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The book is about a dystopian society where firemen actually light fires to burn precious books. In this society, the majority of the people believe that books are worthless and that every book should be burnt to ashes. The people of this society do not think for themselves and in many cases hardly think at all. Throughout Fahrenheit 451 many events occur that have also occurred sometime in our society, which parallels the theme of history repeating itself between the book and our society. While book burning is usually associated with Nazi Germany, its roots actually extend far back into the ancient times. For example in 212 BC, the Chinese emperor Shih Huang Ti burned all the books in his kingdom so that history might begin with him (Freedom to Read). In 460 AD Omar the caliph ordered for over 200,000 volumes in the library of Alexandria to be burnt in a vast bonfire (Mullins). Then in 1933 in Nazi Germany, enormous bonfires spread across Berlin burning thousands of books (Schwartz). â€Å"Do you ever read any of the books you burn?† He laughed. That’s against the law! Oh. Of course† (Bradbury 8). This quote from Fahrenheit 451 shows that in this society books are never in any circumstances read. These illustrations indicate how book burning is not a onetime thing and that it first started with government restriction. Likewise in Fahrenheit 451 before the books are burned to ashes, the leaders in the government restrict or censor certain material, which is also shown throughout many instances in history. Nowadays many popular books are deemed unhealthy for children to read that adults in the past read various times (Freedom to Read). Books like Huckleberry Fin and Harry Potter are banned in schools libraries (Mullins). In Fahrenheit 451 the government bands books to try and make everyone of every race pleased. â€Å"We read the books and then burn them afraid they would be found† (Bradbury 152). In medieval France the King never allowed for books to be read, unless he said that they could (Mullins). Also in 1720 the Church of England banned Robinson Crusoe and discouraged its members from reading it (Mullins). These examples show that throughout many times in history, restriction on books existed and may have lead to other actions such as war. Besides book banning and burning, Fahrenheit 451 also shows that war can and does repeat itself over and over again. In the BC time period Plato the famous philosopher said, â€Å"Only the dead have seen the end of the war† (Plato), which justifies that war, was present thousands of years ago. â€Å"And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over again† (Bradbury163). War in our country started with The French and Indian War, the American Revolution, then the Civil War, then the World Wars, and many more (Moore). In fact nowadays we cannot stop seeming to try and fight in wars in other countries, which leads to unnecessary deaths of our soldiers. A war is always going on somewhere because humans can never seem to just get along (Moore). Over and over again, war attempts to solve problems throughout history and that is why war can be considered a historical recurrence. It is very apparent that historic recurrence is going to happen through war, book banning, and book burning. History proves over and over again that we can hardly solve any problems without war. Book banning and burnings have happened since early times when leaders like kings and popes want control over their followers. History is bound to repeat itself and we as humans may not recognize it, but regardless it will happen. As a famous quote says â€Å"Smart people learn from their mistakes, but the real sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others† (Mull). History can repeat itself in many ways seen, and unseen to people. It is what people learn from it that can help us not make the same mistakes again in the future.